Category: Language learning

This is your captain speaking

By Simon

According to an article I found today, from next March pilots who fly overseas will be required to pass an English language competency test, The Test of English for Aviation. The article suggests that this test will present quite a challange for the many Chinese pilots who speak little or no English.

Some Chinese airlines, China Southern Airlines, are requiring their pilots to take English classes for six days each month.

Apparently there is also a shortage of examiners who speak both English and Mandarin, and who are familiar with civil aviation.

Word of the day – treiglad

By Simon

Today’s word, treiglad (pl. treigladau) is the Welsh word for mutation, the process of changing the initial consonants of words – something we were practising in class today. This is a characteristic of all the Celtic languages and takes quite a bit of getting used to.

The most common mutation in Welsh is the soft mutation or treiglad meddal, which changes t to d, p to b, c to g, and so on. It’s quite hard to keep track of all the occasions when this mutation is needed, but I think I’m getting better at it. I haven’t tried to memorise all the rules because there are so many of them. Instead I notice where mutations are used in the Welsh texts I read and when I hear Welsh spoken. This gives me a good feel for when to use them.

If you practise reading and listening to a language as much as possible, you get a lot of exposure to grammatical patterns like mutations. This helps you to develop instincts for the grammar and seems to me to be the best way to learn it. I think this method works better than trying to memorise all the grammatical rules first. Once you have developed a feel for how a language works, then learning the rules might be helpful and certainly will be easier.

Practical Chinese Reader

By Simon

The other day I found some useful sites: one that contains all from the lessons and other material from Practical Chinese Reader with sound files; another which includes tests from that same textbook; and an online version of the New Practical Chinese Reader (Books 1, 2 and 3).

In my first year at university, the textbook I used was the Practical Chinese Reader, which is quite a good introduction to spoken and written Chinese. A big box of character flashcards is also available to accompany the course and I had them stuck all over my walls at one stage. The textbook follows the adventures of Gǔbō (古波) and Pàlánkǎ (帕兰卡), who are from an unnamed Eastern European country and who go to China to study Chinese. It was first published during the communist era when that sort of thing was more common.

I think using stories in language courses can be quite helpful – it makes them more interesting and can motivate you to continue studying so that you can find out what happens. What do you think?

One idea I have is to write a story which starts in English, then gradually introduces words and phrases in another language until by the end, it’s entirely in the second language. The Power Glide language courses do something like this that they call a ‘diglot weave’.

Radio ga ga

By Simon

I find listening to radio programmes in the languages I’m studying is a good way to tune my ears to the languages, and to learn new vocabulary and grammar. With some languages I only have a vague idea what the radio people are talking about, if I really concentrate. With others, particularly Welsh, I’ve got to the stage where I can understand the majority of what I hear and actually learn new and interesting things from the programmes I listen to. It’s taken many years of regular listening to get to this stage. My Irish and Scottish Gaelic haven’t quite got there yet, but I haven’t been listening to them for as long.

If the language you’re studying isn’t spoken where you live, radio listening provides a sort of virtual immersion. It doesn’t give you opportunities to actually speak and interact with native speakers though, unless you join in radio phone-ins.

Notebooks

By Simon

Here’s a useful tip I came across the other day on a new language-related blog – carry a notebook and pencil with you at all times and make a note of things you’d like to say but don’t know how to. Then find out how to say them later by looking them up or asking friends who speak the language you’re learning.

Another good tip is to ask learners of your target language who are at a more advanced level than you to explain things you don’t understand. People who have studied a language as adults are probably able to explain grammar and usage better than native speakers. If you grow up speaking a language, you develop instincts about how to use words, but cannot necessarily explain to others why you use them in a particular way or order – it just feels right to you.

That second point certainly rings true for me – when friends who are studying English ask me to explain why a particular word is used in one place but not another, or ask questions about grammar, I try to work out the answers, if I don’t know them, but often just tell them that that’s the way we say things, and I don’t know why.

Why learn so many languages?

By Simon

One of the commenters on a recent post posed an interesting question:

what is the point of learning so many languages if one is never going to be able to speak them well or use them all? Are they sea shells which we collect to look at or tools that we use?

This made me think about my motives for learning languages, something I do from time to time when trying to decide whether to continue to working on the languages I’ve already ‘collected’, or to go out and collect some new ones.

I learn languages for a variety of reasons – in preparation for holidays in countries where they’re spoken; because they’ll be useful in my work; because I like some aspect of the culture (usually the music); and/or simply because I like the sound of them. I also enjoy the process of learning languages and seem to have some aptitude for it. I realise that I probably won’t become fluent in all the languages I’m studying, and this doesn’t worry me unduly. I’ve been able to make use of all my languages in a range of situations, though opportunities to use some of them are quite rare.

Are you collecting sea shells or forging tools for practical use? Or a bit of both?

Language maintenance

By Simon

This week I’ve been trying out yet another language learning and maintenance strategy. Instead of spending most of the day listening to online radio in one language or other, as I’ve been doing up to now, I’ve started listening to lots of lessons in the languages I’m focusing on at the moment (Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx and Spanish). At the same time I’m converting the lessons I have on tape to mp3 format. Once I’ve done that, I copy them to my mp3 player.

I bought myself a new mp3 player for my birthday and am filling it with language lessons, podcasts and audiobooks. It can also display images, so I might try to make some virtual flash cards for it. Usually I don’t bother with flashcards as they’re quite cumbersome to carry around. This is no longer an issue.

Language and time travel

By Simon

A recent commenter on my post about learning Latin, Ancient Greek and other ancient/dead languages has suggested an interesting reason for learning such languages – it’s the closest thing we have to time travel. A knowledge of these languages enables you to explore ancient civilisations and gain insights into the thoughts and lives of people who lived thousands of years ago.

If you want to learn an ancient/dead language, do you think it’s better to learn its modern descendants first, or to jump straight in with the ancient language?

I suspect it’s probably easier to learn the modern languages first.

Useful websites

By Simon

Here are a couple of useful language-related websites I came across recently:

Language Podcast Survey
Discussion about and links to podcasts for learning a variety of languages.

Free language
A guide to free online resources for learning languages, such as online lessons, podcasts and so on. Includes details and reviews of resources for learning Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Whoever is behind this site is apparently planing to put any profits they make into a Free Language Foundation which, they hope, “will eventually become wealthy enough to open a physical school and offer scholarships to students from around the world”. Interesting idea. Maybe I could do something similar with Omniglot.

Turkish language in Germany

By Simon

According to an article I came across today in Today’s Zaman, the number of Germans learning Turkish has been increasing recently. A Turkish graduate of a German university who was interviewed for the article mentions that he has been teaching Turkish in German schools for nine years, but that an ad he posted online seven years ago looking for people interested in learning Turkish received no response. He now receives around ten enquiries a month from a similar ad.

At the same time, according to an article in the Spiegel Online, Turkey has criticized a German draft immigration law which stipulates that if spouses wish to join their partners in Germany they have to possess a basic proficiency in the German language.