Language Trainers Blog

This is not the best way to start the week, but I’ve just read a tragic story of miscommunication in Pennsylvania, USA, and it made me wonder what I would do in a similar situation.

Mamadou Makadji, 22, a student from Mali, was shot and killed after a robbery at gunpoint escalated when the victim and his friends did not understand what the gunman was saying.

Makadji and two friends were sitting on a park bench when a gunman approached and tried to rob them. Makadji did not understand what the man was saying, and he was struck with the pistol and then shot, Clark said. His two friends, also students from West Africa, were not harmed.

Makadji’s uncle stated that cultural differences in the way people regard guns may have had some influence.

“In Mali, no one thinks about a gun for the people. You think about guns for the army. … You carry the gun for the animal,” he said. “If you fight someone, you never think about the gun.”

Mahamadou Sissoko, president of the Malian Association in Philadelphia, said Makadji eventually did understand that he was being robbed.

“He was digging in his pocket for the money when (the gunman) hit him,” Sissoko said. “The guy probably felt ignored.”

The apparently quiet student was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What would you do if approached by an agitated, gun-wielding person speaking a language you didn’t understand?  Not all hand gestures are international, and it’s unlikely that the robber would have stopped to consider that perhaps the victim’s hesitation was because of confusion, not bravado.  In English-speaking countries, a lot of native speakers assume everyone else also speaks English.  Sadly, this assumption can be the decider between armed robbery and murder.

Source: AP/Google News.

It’s not always just people’s foreign language skills that need polishing.  Often, people need a little bit of help with their own language, whether it be improving their overall skill levels, or bringing their literacy up to speed with their oral language capabilities.

I am completely in favour of literacy organisations, and a lot of them do great work within communities all over the world.

I recently stumbled across a literacy site supported by the Verizon Foundation in the US.  It offers a wide range of free resources for teachers and parents, but for some reason, the name bothered me.  The name of the site is Thinkfinity, which appears to be a portmanteau made up of the words think and infinity.  I know that made-up words are used for many things, including business names and newfangled jargon terms, but the use of a non-word to support literacy development scratches at me the wrong way.  It’s not even a particularly good portmanteau.

Don’t get me wrong, though, this won’t make me take support away from their general cause.

I found an A-Z of literacy organisations, and from that list drew a few more gems:

Read On - Write Away! - a Derbyshire organisation who not only have a great pun in their name, but also use the exclamation mark in their acronym, ROWA!

ContinYou - a British community learning organisation.  For some reason, their name doesn’t bug me at all, as it sounds like an actual word, and also directly conveys a feeling of self improvement.

Clinks - an organisation working with NGOs (non-government organisations) and the criminal justice system in the UK.  This may be my favourite one, as it not only incorporates the idea of community links; clink is also a slang term for prison, or jail.

I stumbled across yet another online dictionary service the other day, but this one offers a little bit more than the standard single word definition service.  MyDictionary.net offers dictionaries in twelve different languages, as well as translating words and phrases between these.  It also has a foreign language keyboard display, which is handy, though quite tiny.

My favourite feature has to be the recent search display.  The main page displays the last 20 or 50 searches completed, and I find it fascinating to see what words and phrases people are looking up.

Here are some of the recent searches I’ve seen so far:

The ordinary or predictable:
¡buena suerte! (Spanish) - good luck!/God speed! (English)
mon petit (French) - my little (English)
saladier (French) - bowl (English)

The technical:
βραδυσεισμός (Greek) - bradyseism (English - a geological term)

The oddly specific:
a prueba de humedad (Spanish) - damp-proof (English)
sordid merchant (English) - 市侩 / shi4kuai4(Chinese - according to the two translators I use, this means ‘Philistine’ and ‘money grubber’)

The obscure idiom:
tip (somebody) the wink (English) - информация: давать частную информацию, намекнуть, знак: делать знак украдкой, подмигивать (Russian)

What were the last things you needed translations for?

In my last post, I talked about the usefulness of dictionaries, and how they will inevitably struggle to keep up with changing languages.  No language resource will ever be completely current, as, by their nature, they are describing what has already happened, words that have already been used.

I read a great post on Confessions of a Language Addict, that discussed this very issue, along with giving some interesting advice about dealing with differences between spoken and documented language, whether the language is natural or created.

When you’re learning a language, real or made-up, one of the struggles you’re going to face is that no resource is going to be completely accurate, at least not for the time you’re learning it. Study French and you’ll think that “I don’t know” is je ne sais pas, pronounced “zhuh nuh say pah.” But you’re more likely to hear “shay pas.” Orthography hasn’t caught up to speech - and probably won’t. That’s because of the strange byplay between orthography and speech: People will still say “zhuh nuh say pah” for emphasis because when you’re carefully sounding something out, you sound it out as it is written, not as it is transcribed. Likewise in English, “I’m gonna go ta New York tamara” turns into “I am going to go to New York to-morrow” if you’re asked to repeat yourself. So writing isn’t always great for everyday speech, but it’s marvelous if you want to talk to someone as if he is half deaf.

So what can we do?  Well, if you are determined to use a formal version of your target language, I think you’ll be fine to use written resources as they are.  But what if you want to learn to talk to real people?  To be understood by them and speak, as much as possible, as native speakers do?

Don’t take written material as gospel.  Embrace the fact that there will be differences between what you read and what you hear and experience.  Trust that maybe your ears aren’t deceiving you!

Learning from a native speaker is always a great direction to take.  He or she will be able to answer any questions you have about the differences between textbooks and real speech.  In order to really see language at work, though, you have to be able to hear real people speak to each other.  Beginners will often need slower versions of conversations, or breakdowns of examples.  Podcasts are a great way to go, especially if they have some written material to go along with them.  If you can’t get out into an environment where people speak your native language, try audio books or internet radio.  Repeat what you hear.

Dialects and regional usage mean that nobody will ever speak the imaginary ‘real’ language.  This should encourage you!  Listen, repeat what you hear, speak the language, and revel in the fact that people begin to understand you on their terms.

I love dictionaries.  I like the fact that they contain a world of information between their covers.  They are indispensable when it comes to answering quick questions when learning a new language, and even come in very handy when you’re unsure about your native language. They come in all shapes and sizes, and can give you basic information, or more than you’d need in a lifetime.

I have an English dictionary that sits within easy reach on my desk, in case I have any words that stump me at work.  It tells me parts of speech, gives me usage examples, tells me about any UK/US  differences, and gives me frequency scores (indications of how common the word is in everyday writing and speech).  The corpus used to compile the information has over 250 million words from text and transcribed speech.  So why do I increasingly find myself using online dictionaries, and user-modified sources (wikis and user-rated references)?

With long-established words, I am quite confident that my dictionary will give me an accurate reflection.  When it comes to modern terms, however, I would not trust the frequency scores, or most-common definition.  In fact, with flash-in-the-pan or fleeting sort of terms, I don’t expect the dictionary to contain them at all.  This is where online resources come in very handy, not to mention that a good search will uncover what users of terms think of the current definitions.

So what are the big dictionary companies doing about it?  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) makes revisions every 3 months.  I’m glad to see that in June, they added turducken. As The Global Language Monitor points out, newly-released Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary includes ‘new words’ such as sock puppet, which, at 50 years old, is at least twice as old as this dictionary’s target audience.  Then again, they have 2005’s staycation, which refers to a vacation spent at home or nearby.  Is their update of nearly 100 new and not-so-new words enough to keep up with the language?  It’s unlikely.

With internet-fueled globalisation of popular new terms, will traditional dictionaries survive?  Or will they remain a reminder of the more stable parts of language when terms like pwnd (that’s right, it has no vowels) have gone the way of cowabunga?

This excerpt comes from an article that claims that bicultural people may interpret situations differently, depending on what language is being used at the time.  The methods may need to be polished, but I think it’s an interesting idea.

The article mentions bicultural people specifically, rather than people who are simply bilingual, but I wonder how much difference this makes.  Do people feel more expressive or creative when speaking Italian, compared to German?  I’d love to read people’s comments about this.

Bicultural people may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a US study on bilingual Hispanic women.

It found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on which language they were using at the time.

It is known that people in general can switch between different ways of interpreting events and feelings - a phenomenon known as frame shifting. But the researchers say their work shows that bilingual people that are active in two different cultures do it more readily, and that language is the trigger.

One part of the study got the volunteers to watch TV advertisements showing women in different scenarios. The participants initially saw the ads in one language - English or Spanish - and then six months later in the other.

Researchers David Luna from Baruch College, New York, US, and Torsten Ringberg and Laura Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US, found that women classified themselves and others as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.

“In the Spanish-language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted,” they say.

For example, one person saw the main character in the Spanish version of a commercial as a risk-taking, independent woman, but as hopeless, lonely, and confused in the English version.

Full article from New Scientist.

A new proposal from Qiu He, a provincial committee member in the Kunming, in the Yunnan province of China, has led to the mandatory education of local civil servants over the next year.  Because Kunming is widely known as a ‘bridge’ from China to South and South-East Asia, civil servants will not only have to brush up on their Mandarin and computer skills, they will have to master hundreds of basic phrases in five other languages.

Civil servants will have to attend an intensive schedule of classes after work, three times a week, sometimes until 10pm.

English is not the only language they will learn. “We will also learn Lao, Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese, as well as Mandarin and computer skills,” an official from the publicity department of the CPC Kunming Municipal Committee told reporters.

On-the-job public officials under the age of 50 in Kunming are required to master 700 daily expressions across five foreign languages including 300 English sentences and 100 sentences in Lao, Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese each.

Qiu also set out clear study duration. A report by Xinhua News Agency said that Qiu has required civil servants under the age of 50 in Kunming to master 300 English sentences, 100 sentences in Vietnamese, Burmese and Lao each before National Day this year. The Kunming Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government will organize tests to determine the standard of learning and will regard proficiency in rare languages as a requirement for promotion.

As much as I applaud foreign language learning in the workplace, I can’t help but think that this is a punishing schedule that may be a little too ambitious.  The languages are very different, and none use the same script.  I wonder if the students will be required to read and write these languages as well, or if the training will be predominantly spoken.  I will be interested to see how successful this venture turns out to be.

Full article from People’s Daily Online.

A bus company in the capital city of Taiwan has planned to teach over 800 of its drivers sign language in anticipation of next month’s Deaflympics.

The general manager of the company, Lee Jian-wen said the company is already playing sign language instruction videos at the drivers’ lounges at depots.

The company has also hired Taipei City Department of Labor sign language instructors to teach a set of signs considered practical for communicating with Deaflympics athletes, said the [local news] report.

I think it’s an incredibly forward-thinking and considerate move by Capital Bus Company, and if they do things like this regularly, it makes sense that they have been rated an outstanding bus company since 2000.

Full article from The China Post.

Speaking of swearing, a study published last month has shown that it might actually be good for us.

Although swearing is looked down upon in polite company, researchers have begun to investigate why it’s such a common response to hurting ourselves.  A study that asked college students to hold their hands in icy cold water found that those who were told to repeat an expletive of their choice could withstand the pain longer than those who chanted a neutral word.

One suggested reason for this is that swearing is related to a ‘fight or flight‘ reflex triggered deep in the brain, and may be associated with startling or attempting to intimidate an attacker.

But cursing is more than just aggression, explains Timothy Jay, a psychologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts who has studied our use of profanities for the past 35 years. “It allows us to vent or express anger, joy, surprise, happiness,” he remarks. “It’s like the horn on your car, you can do a lot of things with that, it’s built into you.”

In extreme cases, the hotline to the brain’s emotional system can make swearing harmful, as when road rage escalates into physical violence. But when the hammer slips, some well-chosen swearwords might help dull the pain.

I am quite fond of the car horn analogy.  A personal theory, too, is that we need to get attention when we’re injured.  At the very least, letting people know you’ve just stubbed your toe might get a sympathetic ‘awww’, which always makes you feel a little better.

A caveat mentioned in the article is that the more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone’s pain.

Full article from Scientific American.

According to a recent studies, dogs are able to comprehend human pointing gestures as well as two year olds.  Dogs need very little learning time to associate the gesture and its meaning.

Dogs also seem to recognise the significance of other gestures, including direction of gaze and head-turning, which puts them ahead of non-human primates.  Chimpanzees routinely fail at pointing tests, which involve being able to find food or other rewards by accurately reading human hand signals.

It goes to show that centuries of domestication have influenced the ability of domestic canines to understand human helping gestures.

Both two-year-old children and dogs were able to understand pointing with fingers, elbows, and legs, but didn’t understand knee pointing or when the finger points in a different direction from the rest of the arm (three-year-olds understood all of the gestures tested).  But, to be honest, unless there are extenuating circumstances, who points like that anyway?

So, the advice we can take away from this research?

When gesturing to a dog or child under three, it’s therefore best not to fidget or otherwise move in confusing ways.

Full article from Discovery News.  Image by Rennett Stowe, via the Flickr Creative Commons.