Language Trainers Blog

The Chinese government has been reported to have plans to release a list of about 8,000 characters that they recommend be used for everyday purposes, including textbooks, documents, and names for newborn babies.  Limitations in updating technology to recognise all of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters in existence means that it is very difficult for the government to implement nationwide electronic ID cards, as well as digitisation of texts.  Their solution, rather than adding thousands of characters that most people will never use, is to restrict new baby names, as well as require people with very unusual names to change them.

Everyday Chinese involves about 3,500 characters, and the recommended 8,000 simplified characters are reportedly enough to convey “almost any concept in any field”.  This doesn’t bode well for the some 60 million Chinese people with obscure names, who may have to choose simpler names in order to receive the mandatory ID cards.

Government officials suggest that names have gotten out of hand, with too many parents picking the most obscure characters they can find or even making up characters, like linguistic fashion accessories. But many Chinese couples take pride in searching the rich archives of classical Chinese to find a distinctive, pleasing name, partly to help their children stand out in a society with strikingly few surnames.

By some estimates, 100 surnames cover 85 percent of China’s citizens. Laobaixing, or “old hundred names,” is a colloquial term for the masses. By contrast, 70,000 surnames cover 90 percent of Americans.

At last count, China’s Wangs were leading with more than 92 million, followed by 91 million Lis and 86 million Zhangs. To refer to an unidentified person — the equivalent of “just anybody” in English — one Chinese saying can be loosely translated this way: “some Zhang, some Li.”

While I don’t agree with people having to change their names for the sake of convenience for the government, cultures that have an alphabet-based written language can’t compare to this situation.  In English, we have our standard 26 letters, along with numbers, and various punctuation marks.  We occasionally adopt accent marks when we borrow from other languages.  In Chinese, the computer systems must recognise thousands upon thousands of characters.  Many countries also forbid parents to name their children potentially offensive or damaging names, and names with numerals in them have been denied (such as baby 4Real, who was later named Superman).

I think it would also be quite frustrating not being able to input one’s own name on a computer, or have to describe it to someone who had never even seen the character before, but then again, both my English and Chinese names are pretty common.

Full article from NYTimes.com.

The last couple of posts I’ve written have been about translation, both in the healthcare industry, and via free, public, online services.  Translation services by machine are still far from perfect, although the SignTranslate system is specifically targeted at the interactions between doctor and patient, so would hopefully be more accurate.

I suppose I just wanted to make a note about the fact that online translators like Google Translate and Yahoo! Babel Fish, among others, are not infallible.  On the occasions that I do use them, I try to do more than one translation, or a reverse translation back into English, to somewhat ensure I’m getting something close to what I want.  I definitely don’t want to end up with something like this:

Also of note is the fact that perhaps sometimes it isn’t the biggest and most widely-spoken languages that necessarily need translations.  The array of languages offered by SignTranslate for use in doctors’offices (including Punjabi, Somali, Urdu, and Polish) may well reflect the populations who actually need the service.  Some patients may not even be literate, let alone able to speak a second language, so it makes much more sense than having translations for languages like German or Dutch, where speakers are very likely to have learned some English at some point.

Although I think it’s wonderful for people to be able to communicate in their native tongue, I think it’s more pressing that people who have no other choice are able to communicate at all.

From a recent article (Google translates into Welsh as ‘No’):

IT’S just the latest in a long line of tools designed by one of the world’s best-known internet companies to make our lives that little bit easier.

But users of Google Translate – which has followed in the footsteps of the firm’s maps, images and news functions – have spotted one significant flaw: it won’t translate into Welsh.

Well, I use Google Translate via (Mozilla add-on) Ubiquity all the time, but I’d never noticed the lack of Welsh, to be honest.

Bethan Williams, chair of the Language Act Group – Cymdeithas yr Iaith, said: “For a multi-national company like Google failing to consider the Welsh language with translating tools is disgraceful.

“They offer translation services in Arabic, Hindi, Maltese and a host of other languages so why not Welsh?

Google Translate is currently available to work between 42 languages, and the Google search page is already available in Welsh.  Now, before any angry Welsh language speakers email me about my insensitivity, I’d just like to point out that not only would it take an awful lot of man hours to add more languages to an already quite comprehensive and free translation service, but that other languages may have a more pressing need.

According to a 2004 survey, there are approximately 600,000 Welsh speakers living in Wales, while another survey indicated about 130,000 living in England.  Very, very few of these speakers are monoglots (only speak one language, i.e. Welsh).  Therefore, any translation services would likely only be needed by non-Welsh speakers, and not the other way around.

By comparison, over half a billion people speak Arabic, which has multiple dialects and a completely different script to English, and even Galician, which I’d never heard of, has over 3 million speakers in Spain and Portugal.

Now, I’m not telling Welsh language campaigners to get over it, but maybe just to be patient.  Who’s to say which of the thousands of languages spoken in the world gets priority over any of the other ones?

Having recently been through a harrowing experience at a hospital where I couldn’t communicate with the medical staff, I completely support the introduction of a free sign language translation service available to GPs in the UK.

The SignTranslate website uses pre-recorded video of the sign language translations for 300 medical questions commonly asked by doctors, and, for more difficult consultations, also offers the option of live interpreters via webcam.  It should go a long way towards making deaf patients and their GPs more comfortable, and increase communication during appointments.

As well as British Sign Language, the program also offers spoken and written translation of 12 other languages, and even a free text message-based appointment reminder service for patients.  Translations are available in both text and audio, and generally require yes/no answers or pointing to a diagram or themselves, so the patient does not need to be literate in order to communicate with the doctor.  The foreign languages supported are Arabic, Bengali, French, Gujarati, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

The service is being provided free until 31 July 2009, but the managing director of SignTranslate indicates that it’s likely that Sign Health, the charity currently funding the service, will continue to do so after July.

Full article from E-Health Insider Primary Care.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee, or ‘The Bee’, as it’s known to many, has long been a tradition in the United States.  Its popularity has grown to such proportions that it is broadcast on national television every year, and has inspired, among other things, an episode of a murder-mystery sitcom, a documentary, and a film starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Basset.

Despite the dedication, and sometimes obsession, of many Americans, a recent study has shown that, overall, Americans fare worse than their British counterparts when it comes to basic spelling tests. This reflects results returned 20 years ago, from a 1989 international spelling bee.

This is not to say that the British people tested performed well.  Both sides gave poor results, with 62% of Americans being unable to spell the word ‘embarrassed’, compared to 54% of Britons.

The Times has initiated a national spelling bee in the UK this year, which may help to raise interest in spelling and literacy.  They have some great games which can be used for practice, to test yourself, or just as a break-time distraction.

An excellent quote from James Harding, editor of The Times:

“Spelling is many things, but rarely fun. It can be frustrating, surprising and illogical. It is also important. English is the country’s gift to the world and its home-grown headache. We hope the Spelling Bee will help young people to learn while enjoying a great team-based competition. All the best of luck.”

*My deepest apologies for this pun.

I’ve already mentioned how confusing business-speak can be, both to the language learner and the native speaker.  How often have you heard someone give a presentation and had no idea what they were actually talking about?

The Business Sentence Generator is a fun little application that uses a standard sentence structure and combines it with business-speak phrases and buzzwords to randomly create sentences worthy of the flashiest, most content-free business presentation in the world.

Here are the first four sentences it gave me.   It’s a little disconcerting how genuinely corporate they sound.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen…

From a historical point of view, the recent re-engineering necessitates supply chain integration.

Although…

In pursuit of unique opportunities, our burn rate is further compounded by considering a novel quality vector.

However…

Given the undue reliance on derivative materials, a transaction-enabled platform stabilises a tangible return.

In conclusion…

To proactively manage profit, our contingency schematic embraces our exceedance of standards.

Thank you for your attention.  Please sign here to allocate funds to my project…

The vocative comma is an important, but often forgotten, piece of punctuation.  Its purpose is to separate the person being addressed from the rest of the conversation, so we know who’s being spoken to.

In spoken English, we use pauses to signal the separation, and these should be reflected with commas when we write.

Consider this snippet I found on talkenglish.com.  It is from a questionable conversation that was under the category ‘Talking About Girls’:

A: “I think she is out of my league.”

B: “Chicken. Somebody is only out of your league if you think so. What do you see in her anyway? She is a little chubby dude.”

She is a little chubby, dude. She’s a little on the heavy side, buddy.

She is a little chubby dude. She’s a small, fat man.

If we listened to this conversation, the meaning would be clear, but in its written form, it’s ambiguous at best.

Another example from Flickr poses the question, is she a vegetarian man, or a vegetarian, man?

A great way for language learners to increase their exposure to a foreign language is to listen to the radio.  With the convenience of internet radio* and podcasting, it’s easy to find a program available in almost any language.  In many cases, you can both listen live, and download audio files to listen to whenever you want to.

Multilingualbooks.com has collected a list of stations in over forty languages, from Indonesian to Slovenian, and is a great place to start looking for the perfect radio station.  Some stations are purely news, some play different genres of music, and some are regional stations which can teach you a little bit more about local culture in foreign countries.

VoA (Voice of America) maintains their news homepage in 45 languages, and has always aimed their content at an international audience.  For English learners, they have a regular newscast in what they call Special English. In their words:

It has a core vocabulary of 1500 words. Most are simple words that describe objects, actions or emotions. Some words are more difficult. They are used for reporting world events and describing discoveries in medicine and science.

Special English writers use short, simple sentences that contain only one idea. They use active voice. They do not use idioms.

Special English broadcasters read at a slower pace, about two-thirds the speed of standard English. This helps people learning English hear each word clearly. It also helps people who are fluent English speakers understand complex subjects.

As well as keeping learners up-to-date on world news, VoA provides scripts to match the audio, so learners can read along, or look up any words they are unsure of.  On their Special English page, they have lots of other resources for learners as well.

Get listening!

*You will need a media player to listen to radio broadcasts online, and they usually recommend RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or an MP3 player like Winamp.

When I was reading about UK councils banning confusing jargon, I came across a discussion board thread which asked readers which terms they would to see “thrown into the linguistic trash can“.

An interesting post noted that the term Third World country was actually a leftover from the Cold War.  I’m not all that familiar with war terms, but this surprised me.

During the Cold War, the world was simplistically divided into three parts.  The First World was made up of NATO allies (the capitalist Western bloc), the Second World comprised the countries aligned with the communist Soviet Eastern bloc, and the Third World was essentially made up of all the rest.  The Third World, or unaligned countries at the time, were generally developing countries, although Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland were notable exceptions.  They remained neutral during the war, but weren’t considered undeveloped.

Here’s a general picture:

These days, the Third World tends to refer strictly to developing countries, no matter what their political leanings.  The First World now refers to highly developed countries with large incomes.  Both terms are difficult to define, and I wonder how useful they really are.  The term Fourth World has also arisen, to describe nomadic or nationless states or groups who are politically powerless.

Note: There is also the theory floating around that the Third World (speaking of Africa, mostly) came about following the terms Old World (Europe), and New World (the Americas).  These were terms used to match the order in which European explorers discovered the world.  It’s not an accurate origin, but it’s still somewhat logical, and probably less politically charged!

Local council leaders in the UK have been issued a list of 200 jargon, or specialist, terms that they think should no longer be used when communicating with the public.

With more and more people unsure about their financial futures, councils have realised that they need to be more transparent with their communities.  This means that they need to let them know exactly what they’re doing, especially with taxpayers’ money.  And they need to let them know in plain English.  If someone is about to find themselves in worklessness (that is, unemployed), they should probably be told in words they understand.

The majority of people will have no idea what predictors of beaconicity, coterminosity, conditionality, or double devolution mean.  And when the people looking after your money and your town are throwing phrases like this around, you begin to wonder what they’re covering up.

If you think you know what seedbed and coterminous, stakeholder engagement mean to jargon-slinging  council types, take the BBC council jargon quiz.  I scored a sad 3 out of 7.  Check the full list of banned terms (unfortunately without translation into simple English) for more bafflement.

source: BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Councils get banned jargon list.