Language Trainers Blog

I mentioned a while ago an Amazonian tribe who had no words for cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3 …).  Even though they had no words for individual numbers, they fared quite well with matching same-sized groups of objects.

A different study has found that children from two different indigenous communities in outback Australia, who also have no words or gestures for numbers, do as well in basic numeracy tests than English-speaking Aboriginal children living in Melbourne.  The children who don’t have words for numbers still hold quite strong concepts of quantity and spatial awareness, which could easily be built upon, say the researchers.

This backs up the idea that humans have a natural idea of numbers, regardless of culture, language, and training.  This has implications for people who have trouble with basic numeracy skills, in that the root of the problem may lie somewhere other than in failed education.

Full article here.

I’ve always been a strong advocate of raising children bilingually, as it is nothing short of a gift later on in life.  The ability to speak more than one language (no matter which languages are involved) can benefit a person when they least expect it, and young children learn multiple languages much faster and more easily than older children and adults.

Because of this belief, it came as quite a surprise to me to read that a London study has shown that children who are bilingual before the age of 5 (English and a second language spoken at home) seem to be more likely to develop a stutter by the time they start school, and are less likely to successfully overcome the stutter by the age of 12.

Monolingual (single language-speaking) children, and those who learned a second language after the age of five, seem to be able to more successfully overcome their impediments.

There seems to be no difference in academic performance between mono- and bilingual children.  However, the authors of the study have suggested that teaching a child a second language after the age of 5 may reduce the occurrence of stuttering, or increase the chances of early recovery later in childhood.

Full article (including a lot of statistics) here.

We’ve all heard of those Magic Eye pictures that you have to look ‘through’ to see the hidden picture.  I for one have only managed to glimpse one in my life (not through lack of trying), and that may just have been my brain taking pity on me and making something up.  This is beside the point, though.

I’ve discovered that if I’m trying to speak a foreign language, and I can’t think of a word, my brain will automatically avoid the English translation and look for another language.  Typically I cycle through several translations of the word (in different languages) before I come up with the version I want.

When I was living in Turkey, I would frequently get stuck on a Turkish word, and my brain would invariably give me the Cantonese version first.  It happened so often that I realised that I knew far more Cantonese words than I thought I did!

I was speaking to a friend today who has found the same thing.  When she tries to think of a Mandarin word, her brain provides her with the German that she studied at school.

So perhaps when learning a new language, we can also reinforce any others that we already know.  It’s always encouraging to realise that you have more information available to you than you originally thought!

A recent study by a Hong Kong research team has shown that developmental dyslexia affects different parts of children’s brains, depending on whether they read Chinese or English.

When a child learns to read, it is somewhat of a major change in the development of a young brain, which is not surprising, as reading isn’t really a natural skill to learn.  Up until very recently, experts thought that the difference between pictographic languages (e.g. Chinese) and alphabetic languages (e.g. English) was that they used different neural pathways in the brain.  The study by Tan et al (published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) has discovered that not only different neural paths, but entirely different brain structures are the focus for the different styles of writing.

English is a somewhat phonemic language, in that when people learn to read it, they learn which letters correspond to which sounds, and then use these to build up words.  When people learn how to read Chinese, they memorize hundreds, and then thousands, of symbols, which represent both words and sounds.  Becoming a skilled reader changes the brain, and becoming a skilled reader of English seems to change entirely different parts of the brain than does becoming a skilled reader of Chinese.

The implication of the study is that not all methods of therapy will work for all sufferers of dyslexia.  Suggested methods to help Chinese readers involve more memory-focussed exercises, whereas English readers are given more letter-to-sound based activities.

It also means that it is very possible for one person to be dyslexic in one language but perfectly capable in another.

It can also help to explain why it is so difficult for adults to begin learning a language that has a writing style completely different to one’s native language.  If you grew up learning an alphabetic language, mapping out another alphabet probably won’t be too difficult, but getting your head around Chinese characters is a completely different story.  Our brains haven’t had the practise.  Knowing that our brains are still somewhat flexible, though, means that, as usual, we can be successful if we just keep on trying!

I had the great pleasure of trying to place a collect call to Australia from the international airport in Bangkok (fairly impossible), and in the process I managed to stumble upon a curious detail in the automated voice system.  Using that particular phone company, I could place a collect call to the USA, Canada, or the United Kingdom.  The instructions were given for each country, and each set of instructions was given by a different recorded voice.  They had gone to the trouble of finding a Canadian voice, an American voice, and an English voice to repeat very similar information.

The fact that they had gone to the trouble of finding differently-accented voice talents to record their messages (or maybe just the one voice talent, instructed to do three different accents) was both intriguing and annoying.  Had they done any market research? Did it make people more likely to use their service if they heard a familiar accent on the other end of the line? Would people feel less stranded in a foreign country if they could relate better to the disembodied recorded voice?   I would like to see the data.

Meanwhile, I wish that time and effort could have been spent opening up the service to more countries.  Surely people pay enough money for collect calls to make it worthwhile?

I was given a Mandarin phrase book as a leaving gift, which is convenient, as I had completely forgotten about buying one, and I also tend to be quite reluctant when it comes to paying a what is usually ridiculous amount of money for a teeny tiny book. The same goes for travel guide books, except that you have to pay even more money for an inconveniently large book.

I’ve had a bit of a read through my phrase book the last few nights, and I’m beginning to wonder if it is, indeed, actually more valuable than a country guide book. To me, as someone who is going to stay in one place for a while, it is obviously worth more, but to the average traveller?

Obviously a little book with some common usages in it will never replace a full language course, but they are invaluable as introductory material, memory-joggers, and something to point at when the locals have no idea what you’re trying to pronounce. And they’re conveniently pocket-sized.

The downside of guide books is that they often contain out-of-date or irrelevant information, no matter how recent your version is. The publishers often don’t pay the writers enough to double check all the information in new editions, and depending on which countries you’re travelling through, things may change at drastic rates between each publication (prices, businesses, transport, even laws and visa regulations).

A phrase book could definitely never entirely replace a good guide book (and I always bookmark the language sections in mine), but I think that increasing communication with the local populace (and hopefully gleaning some helpful information from them) can never be a bad thing.

When you travel, try to ask real people for information more often, instead of referring to your travel guide every step of the way. You may find some of those hidden local gems that many travellers just dream of!