Language Trainers Blog

If you’ve ever had to type a handful of words in a foreign language, but don’t use that foreign language enough to warrant adding it to your computer’s language bar, then TypeIt.org may be what you’re looking for.

It has pages for twelve different languages, including a one that lets you type the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols for English pronunciation. Unfortunately the keyboard shortcuts only work for Internet Explorer, but even without them, it’s a simple type/click, copy, paste scenario.

If you’re worried about getting your diacritics right, and don’t want to bother with using a character map, inserting a symbol, or changing your keyboard input language (and having to remember where the right keys are in the different layout), then check it out. It has character sets for Czech, French, German, Hungarian, IPA (English), Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Being a native speaker of a non-tonal language, it’s sometimes really difficult for me to get my head around the importance of tones in Chinese, and other tonal languages.  I find it difficult to pick up the nuances sometimes. But it’s not like we don’t use tone in English, though, and it must be somewhat difficult for a non-native speaker to get the hang of the fluctuating tones in questions and exclamations as well.

Some accents (e.g. from certain areas of Ireland) sound very ’sing-song’, as every accent may to speakers of different languages.   Do Irish people sound sing-song to themselves?  I’ll try to remember to ask next time.

An American psychologist has recently confirmed an odd phenomenon that occurs when a spoken phrase is repeated (exactly) over and over - it registers in our brains as a song.  Diana Deutsch discovered this in the mid ’90s when she was repeatedly listening to a recording of her own voice.  A certain segment of the recording — ’something behaves so strangely’ — started to sound like a melody after hearing it several times.

She tested this theory by asking singers to repeat what they heard.  When exposed to the phrase once, the subjects spoke it back.  When they heard it several times, they sang it back.  Listen to the recording here, and see if it gets stuck in your head like it did in mine.

It seems that our brains suppress the musical cues in everyday speech, probably so we can more easiily pick out the meaning of words.  Once we know what the phrase is, though, it seems that we unconsciously become more receptive to the changes in pitch and rhythm.   Maybe this is why we hear more of a sing-song quality in languages that we don’t understand, as we know we won’t be able to find meaning from them just by listening.

Incidentally, Diana Deutsch’s voice sounds a lot like the narrator from a children’s story LP that I had when I was younger.  Maybe she already had a sing-song voice to start with.

Full article from New Scientist.

I watched a fair amount of the Tennis Masters Cup this week.  It was held in Shanghai, and the final was this afternoon (Novak Djokovic won, if you’re interested).  I was really interested to see the Chinese transliterations of the players’ names, as well as enjoying the actual tennis.  Foreign names are often translated into a phonetic Chinese version, so that Chinese people can pronounce them easily without having to read the original English (or other language) versions.   Sometimes this works out quite well, and sometimes it can be a little confusing.  Ask a Chinese person if they like Federer, and often they won’t know who you’re talking about.  Ask about Fe-der-ler, though, and you’ll probably get quite an enthusiastic response.

Funnily enough, it was names like Davydenko that were quite accurate (although I’m not sure how similar our pronunciation is to the original Russian), and the French Simon (See-mon) is arguably pronounced better in Chinese than it is in English.  It took me right until the end of the final match to realise that Djokovic was pronounced Dee-yoh-ko-vee-chee.  Radek Stepanek (rhyming names are great) is pronounced Sih-tih-pa-neh-kuh, and Andy Murray’s surname becomes Moo-ray.

So even though they may not be perfect, at least a phonetic spelling means everyone’s on the same page.  A lot of names get pronounced horribly wrong (I met a guy the other day who thought the Irish name ‘Sinead’ (pronounced Shih-nayd) was pronounced Sin-ee-ad), so at least the Chinese can pronounce a standardised approximation.

The fourth of November was historical, not just for the USA, but for large parts of the world.  Many outsiders sat with crossed fingers, willing the message of hope and change to get through to the American voting public.  For far too long, a Republican administration had destroyed international relations and ensured travelling Americans a frosty welcome in many places around the globe.

Barack Obama’s call to action was composed of three of the simplest words in the English language, but somehow conveyed optimism, positivity, community, and hope for the future.

Yes we can.

I have no doubt that his words will go down in history, like those of Kennedy and Lincoln.  I’m not usually one to get political (and it won’t become a habit), but I continue to be fascinated by the fact that three little syllables managed to move millions, spark imagination, and spur action that has already changed the future.  I hope that it continues.

I was recently caught off guard when asked what the difference between ’sometimes’ and ’some times’ is, and when you should use one or the other.  My response was vague at best, so I’m hopefully going to make it a bit clearer here.

Sometimes is an adverb, and should be used to mean ‘occasionally’ or ‘at times’, and can be used in any case where a frequency is neither never nor always.

I sometimes go to the gym on Wednesdays.
Sometimes I have tacos for dinner.

Some times should be used as a noun phrase, that is when using ‘time’ as a noun.

The doctor gave me some times when I could come in for an appointment.
There were some times last week when it rained really hard.

Sometime is used as an adverb, meaning ‘at an indefinite point in time’ (in the future or the past).  It is also occasionally used as an adjective meaning ‘having been once’, or ‘occasional’.

We should meet for coffee sometime.
His flight arrives sometime next week.
He was away a lot, so could only be a sometime boyfriend.  

Some time is used as a noun phrase, describing a period of time with no definite length.

It took some time to finish the project.
Some time ago, I went on holiday to Paris.

As far as pronunciation goes, sometimes and sometime have slightly more emphasis on ’some’, and some times and some time have ‘time’ stressed.