Category: Language learning

Double dutch and lost dragons

By Simon

I’ve been playing with Xtranormal today and have made a couple of new films:

Double Dutch (in Dutch and English)

Where’s my dragon? (In Mandarin and English)

When you use Mandarin the system refuses to accept some of the characters you type in, including some common ones like 谢 (thanks). I tried substituting pinyin for the problematic characters, but found that this only works in some cases. Then I came up with the idea of substituting other characters with the same sounds, and it works well. For example 谢谢 becomes 泄泄 (泄 [xiè = to leak) and 话 (huà) – language, becomes 画 (huà) – picture. It’s not ideal, but it works and I’ve learnt some new characters, or re-learnt ones I should already know.

If I can work out how to add subtitles, I might do so, but it should be possible to work out most of the non-English bits from the English bits.

I’ve also posted these films on YouTube.

Xtranormal

By Simon

Today I came across an interesting-looking site called Xtranormal that use text-to-speech and other clever stuff – they call it ‘text-to-movie’ – to make animated films.

You just choose your characters and setting, and then type in the dialogue. You can also play with the cameras, animate the characters, and add other effects.

What interests me particularly about this program is that you can choose voices in a variety of languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Dutch, and I think this could be a useful language learning and teaching tool.

Here’s a short bilingual (English and Mandarin) film I put together:

[Update] It didn’t accept quite a few of the Chinese characters I tried to use, so you can only use very simple phrases. Here’s another short film in French and English:

Effortlessness

By Simon

When you listen to someone speaking a foreign language, whether it’s yourself of someone else, you may notice that some aspects of the pronunciation and intonation are more exaggerated and seem to be quite effortful, especially if you compare them to a native speaker of the same language.

This struck me particularly when listening to the new recordings of Greenlandic phrases, which were made by a learner of Greenlandic from the Czech Republic, and then listening to a Greenlandic news broadcast on YouTube. The native speaker pronunciation seems to flow effortlessly, while the learner’s pronunciation seems more effortful. Having said that though, the uvular plosive /q/ and doubled consonants of Greenlandic do seem to interrupt the smooth flow somewhat, even in the native speakers.

When I first started learning Mandarin Chinese I was taught to pronounce each syllable clearly and separately with exaggerated tones. About five years later I was more of less fluent and didn’t distinguish the tones as much, except in careful, formal speech, and tended to run syllables together a bit, though perhaps not as much as native speakers.

With a lot of careful listening and practise, you can acquire good pronunciation in a foreign language. It does take time though, unless you’re a very good mimic.

Even in your native language there may be certain sounds that trip you up. For example the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ (as in three) did not exist in my original idiolect – a sort of modified RP with Lancastrian influences – and I didn’t know there was a difference in pronunciation between three and free until I learnt some phonetics at university. These days I tend to use /θ/, though it sometimes still requires conscious effort.

3 Unique Ways to Learn Spanish

By Simon

Today we have a guest post from Ian at Fluently Spanish:

If you’re like most people who want to learn Spanish, you are sick of the boring methods used by old-fashioned school and college lecturers. All that hope, promise and excitement of learning Spanish can only last so long if you are stuck reading books or having conversations in Spanish that you would never use in real life.

This is why so many people give up before they’ve even learned a second language. Hopefully, with the help of this article you will be able to inject some fun into your Spanish learning and start on your journey to becoming conversationally fluent! Below are three unique, fun and interesting ways to learn Spanish without boring yourself to tears or upping sticks and heading to Barçelona or México.

  1. Post It! everything!
    Spanish structure can be learned easily in a book or audio course. What you actually need to learn Spanish and be confident in conversations is words. Label everything in your home with Post It notes and you’ll always be thinking in Spanish. Include sample sentences or phrases using that word every time you use it or look at it. Pick one Post It a day and take it with you to work or school. Use it in conversation with people or freak out the old lady on the bus by spouting off in Spanish. Get out of your comfort zone and start embarrassing yourself. That way, you won’t worry about forgetting words when you are speaking Spanish.

  2. Date a Spanish person
    It doesn’t matter where in the world you live, there will always be someone who speaks Spanish. With Facebook, MeetUp.com and many other sites you can find Spanish speakers in your local area. If you have a partner already, just meet up with people to talk with and learn Spanish over a coffee or four. For the singles out there, it’s a whole lot more fun! By dating Spanish speakers you not only get to try and woo them in Spanish, you get to order meals at Spanish restaurants, flirt with them in Spanish via text message and try to be cool and mysterious in a different language! If nothing else, the challenge will again build your confidence in speaking to people in Spanish.

  3. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
    The above two points also do this, but it’s a point worth making again. The best way to keep Spanish learning fun, interesting and unique is to get as far out of your comfort zone as possible. Go to Spanish or Mexican restaurants, drink cervezas in Spanish bars and order it in Spanish, phone Spanish companies or speak with Spanish people on Skype. Whatever you do, train yourself to not worry about making mistakes. Get used to asking ¿Cómo se dice ‘English word here’ en español?/How do you say ‘word’ in Spanish? If you need to refer to a dictionary for a word or phrase, you can just say Momentito… while you look it up!

One of the worst things you can do when learning Spanish is panic and then revert back to English, saying that you only speak a little. Persevere using unique ways of putting yourself under pressure, get out of the classroom and start learning Spanish the right way and I guarantee you’ll enjoy the process and the journey a heck of a lot more!

What unique way will you discover to learn Spanish?

You can learn more about how to speak Spanish fluently by visiting my website and signing up for my free Spanish online classes.

Preserving immigrant languages

By Simon

I found an interesting article on the BBC News website about Asian languages in the UK which discusses how some UK families of South Asian origin are trying to encourage their children to continue speaking their native languages, such as Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi and Gujarati. The children are taught in English at school, but some also attend complementary and weekend schools run by local communities where they are taught in their native languages. Such schools are run by volunteers and receive no government funding, and are helping to maintain bilingualism among their pupils, and perhaps because of this, those pupils are also achieving good results in their mainstream schools.

It seems to be common among immigrant families that native languages last only two or three generations, unless community efforts are made to maintain their languages. The situation can be similar for minority languages such as Maori and Irish. Another article I came across today is not very hopeful about the future of the Maori language and predicts it will die out in 50 years or so. In spite of initiatives to promote the language, the young generation is increasingly turning to English, even those who attend the Maori-medium schools. In the schools they speak Maori, but elsewhere many speak only English.

Language learning methods

By Simon

Yesterday I came across an interesting article entitled “On the mortality of language learning methods” which discusses how methods for learning foreign languages appear, prosper, disappear, and then reappear.

Over the past century many different methods or approaches have been applied to the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Since the 1960s, for example there has been a shift from approaches that concentrate on learning grammar, vocabulary and on translation, to approaches the emphasise communication, especially speaking. The same thing also happened in the second half of the 19th century.

Much research has been undertaken into language learning and teaching, but as far as I can discover, no single approach or method has been found to work significantly better than any other, in spite of claims to the contrary by the inventors, founders and promoters of particular methods and approaches. Moreover, each new development in technology, whether it be the phonograph, radio, television, computer or internet, is expected to transform the way people learn languages. However this doesn’t necessarily happen.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Word of the day – paldies

By Simon

Yesterday I learnt how to say thank you in Latvian – paldies /pal’dies/ – from the Latvian lads who delivered and installed my new garden shed. Although they didn’t speak much English, we managed to communicate. When I asked where they were from, they didn’t understand the question, then one of them said, “oh, what country?” and they told me Latvia.

In situations like this when I find myself speaking to people whose language I don’t know and who don’t speak much English, I tend to feel frustrated. Not by their limited English, but by the fact that I don’t know any of their language. It also helps to try saying things in various ways until you find one they understand, as the “Where are you from?” example demonstrates.

Looking at the Latvian phrases on Omniglot, it strikes me that hardly any words look familiar, apart from the lab part of labdien (good afternoon) and labvakar (good evening), which resembles the Lithuanian word labas, which is used for hello, and in such phrases as Laba diena (good afternoon) and labas vakaras (good evening), both of which are similar to the Latvian versions. The words dien (day) and vakar (evening) also resemble their equivalents in Slavic languages such as Czech – den and večer,and Russian – день (den’) and вечер (večer).

Are any of you learning Latvian or planning to learn it?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

I’m off to Gleann Cholm Cille in Dongal in the northwest of Ireland later today. I’m going there for the Scoill Shamhraidh i dTeanga agus Cultúr (Language & Culture Summer School) at Oideas Gael, a week of speaking and singing in Irish, seeing old friends and making new ones, listening to and playing music, and enjoying the wonderful scenery of Columba’s magical glen. The craic will be mighty and I’m really looking forward to it.

While I’m there I’ll probably have limited access to the web and email, so posts on this blog might become somewhat sporadic.

મિલ્કમેન

By Simon

An interesting article I found today tells the tale of a milkman in Blackburn (northwest England) who has many customers of Indian and Bangladeshi origin on his round and who has learnt to speak Gujarati fluently, as well as some Bengali and Punjabi, in order to better serve those customers.

He started picking up the languages in the 1950s and 1960s by listening to what his customers were saying, remembering it and repeating it. At first there were only a few Asian families, but as they arrived in increasing numbers, his knowledge of Gujarati continued to improve until he was able to communicate with confidence.

He also helps his customers find things like ghee (clarified butter) and other foods and ingredients not available locally. Not surprisingly he is very popular with the Asian communities in Blackburn and has received many invitations to weddings and other events.

In case you’re wondering, the title of this post is the Gujarati word for milkman.

Conseil de l’Union européenne

By Simon

If you would like to work for the Conseil de l’Union européenne (Council of the European Union, aka Consilium) or other EU institutions, you have to take the entry examinations in a second language. According to an article I came across today, the British government believes this is unfair for Brits and has arranged that from next year the pre-selection tests for EU civil service exams can be taken in the candidate’s first language.

Has anybody considered trying to encourage more Brits to learn foreign languages, or is that just wishful thinking?