Language Trainers Blog

Often people don’t think too much about the commonest words in their own language.  Prepositions and pronouns are just there, do their jobs, and don’t get in our way very much.  I just did this quiz on Sporcle, and sadly only got 65% of the most common English words.  It was surprisingly difficult to think of the words that fit in between all the content words in everyday life.  I’d gotten up to 50 or so before I remembered ‘and’!

Have a go at the test and see if you can do better than me!  I’m sure it won’t be difficult, as I’m a bit embarrassed by my result.  If you are an English learner, it might even be easier for you!  If you are a native English speaker, after you finish the test, see how many of the equivalent words you know in your target language.

Good luck!

Well, the short answer is no.  However, it’s actually possible to learn how to read and pronounce hangul, the Korean written language, in a study session or two.

To the casual observer, hangul appears to be a pictographic script, like Chinese or ancient Egyptian. In actual fact, it’s an alphabetic language with fewer letters than English.  There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels in Korean, and they are grouped together to form written characters that represent single syllables.

There are some great resources out there for learning, and Joophas collected a few of them in this very comprehensive post.  If you go to the end of the post, there are some very useful links, as well as some beautiful script/pronunciation charts.

If you manage to associate each letter with its sound, and become familiar with how they fit together in script, you will be able to read Korean out loud in no time.  Of course, knowing what you’re saying is the next important step! 

Have you got any useful Korean language tips?

Since its beginnings, the Internet has been held mainly in the realm of languages that are able to be written in the English alphabet.  Sure, there are plenty of websites available in every language imaginable, but their domain names (or URLs, URIs) have had to be written in anglicised form.  You may not think that this small part of a site has that much impact on users, but for those who are unused to reading or writing English, even transliterations of their own language can be difficult.  Imagine seeing http://语言培训.com and trying to remember it to put into your browser.

So the big news is that the internet regulatory organisation Icann has approved a proposal to allow people to register domain names in non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.  According to Icann, over half of the 1.6 billion internet users in the world, over half use non-Latin scripts, so this change should have a significant impact on the ease of use of the internet for many people.  It may also mean that there will be many more new users of the internet, as sites become more accessible in their audience’s native languages.

If you are learning a language with a cyrillic or pictorial script, this may represent a new challenge for you!  After International Domain Names (IDNs) are introduced sometime next year, it could make search engine experiences a lot more interesting.  Good luck with finding the information you want in the language you want!

Source: Guardian. Image: aljazeera.net.

One example of text-speak and slang being seen as a completely separate language:

Library | California, USA

(We have an older patron who comes into the library to use the Internet. She’s around 65 and not computer literate, so we help her out whenever she needs us.)

Patron: “Miss, could you help me? I don’t understand what is happening.”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Patron: “I think I had a stroke or something!”

Me: “Oh my God, what do you feel?”

Patron: “Well, I can’t understand the words on the computer. It doesn’t make any sense! I’m so confused!”

(She seems fine, just aggravated, but I call over my co-worker who is in a nursing program.)

Me: “Can you check her out real quick?”

Coworker: “You’re fine. What did you feel?”

Patron: “Well, nothing. But, all of a sudden, I lost my ability to understand writing. I opened an email from my granddaughter and I didn’t understand a word of it!”

(My coworker and I read the email:)

Hey grandma! I’ve been having a gr8 time in Ny with mom and dad. we’ll b back in ca on the 4th. I miss u! c u l8r!”

Coworker: “Um, I think she just wrote in a hurry and didn’t realize that you didn’t understand her shorthand. It’s teenspeak, so it’s a little hard to understand.”

Patron: “Oh, thank God…such a stupid girl! I’m going to tell my son to throw her TV and computer away and make her read some books!”

Me: “Ma’am, you’re preaching to the choir.”

Source: Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes

In a recent language class, I found myself lacking a pocket dictionary, and I have considered several options in the last few months. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet, but I have thought about the following:

Paper dictionaries - The traditional dictionary is still in widespread use, and, if you can find a comprehensive pocket-sized one, can be great for use in lessons and to keep close at hand. The downsides of these are size, and the fact that updating requires buying a whole new dictionary. Some dictionaries (for example, Chinese to English) may also take some getting used to before you know how to look things up quickly.

Electronic dictionaries - These are dedicated dictionary and translation devices, and benefit from convenient size, compatible keyboards, and long-lasting batteries (especially compared to a mobile phone or laptop). These are not usually updated as often as online dictionaries. For a generation that expects their electronic devices to do everything at once, I imagine electronic dictionaries will become obsolete in the near future.

Dictionary applications - For smartphones and other handheld devices, there are a wide range of dictionary applications available for download. Some of them include both keyboard and touch screen inputs, the latter being very convenient for character-based scripts (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean). Most applications have different functions, so look for one that suits your needs. The only real downside of these is that smart devices often have limited battery life, so you may not have the information available when you need it.

Online dictionaries - Online dictionaries are plentiful and usually tell you what you want to know. There are also online translation services available. If you use these on the go, though, you will need a laptop, netbook, smart phone or internet-capable handheld device (e.g. iPod Touch, Nintendo DS), and an internet plan or wireless network. The speed and convenience depend on your connection and device, and it can be time consuming to actually look up entries rather than have a dedicated dictionary application. Best for up-to-date and colloquial information, and best for use on desktop or laptop computers.

I am leaning towards an application, but I do have a soft spot for traditional dictionaries. Do you have any recommendations for a portable dictionary?

Google has once again come through with an extremely useful tool for anyone needing to use or study Chinese, Japanese, or other languages that don’t use a romanised alphabet. The latest update to Google Translate includes a very useful option to show or hide romanisation, which will be great news for people like me who can’t read characters but use a character-based language.

For Chinese, Google Translate provides a result in pinyin, the standardised romanisation system for Mandarin Chinese, which helps with both pronunciation and reading. Previously, I could look up the translation for an English sentence, but only receive the result in simplified Chinese characters. This is fine for writing, of course, but when it came to saying the sentence out loud, I was at a loss.

Now, it is easy to see how the words are pronounced, and as you can show or hide the pinyin, it’s quite a good way to test your knowledge of the characters.

Note: As with any machine translation, this service may not provide completely correct translations, but it’s a good place to start for basic queries or to get the overall idea of a piece of writing.

It’s a widespread (but not entirely correct) notion that British people don’t really bother learning new languages. Of course, there are countries which have worse reputations when it comes to foreign language learning, but I won’t point the finger at anyone.

A recent article has claimed that with British people love to travel to far-flung and exotic destinations, they are very unlikely to pick up any of the local language, and not just that they don’t, but that they refuse to. The survey by travelsupermarket.com revealed that over 10% of respondents said that they don’t believe it’s necessary to learn other languages because everyone else speaks English anyway. Around 45% of respondents said that they had received at least some negative attitude from locals in the places they’d travelled, because of their lack of language ability.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, and some demographics (under 20s, over 60s, and Northern Irish travellers) appear to be the most likely to know or be willing to embrace a local language.

Of course, the audience reached by that particular website is probably not representative of all travellers from the UK, so this should be taken with a grain of salt.

I personally believe that people should at least learn a few of the local pleasantries (greetings and other basic phrases), and in my experience, these and a smile go a long way towards making a holiday that much more enjoyable.

What do you think? Do Britons make enough effort when it comes to learning languages for travel abroad?

One of the leading English language education companies, Pearson, has fully automated International English examinations that overseas students must take before being accepted into university.  While computers have been used to grade multiple choice and short answer questions successfully, many people have doubts about the ability of computers to really grasp long answers and complicated concepts.

From The Guardian:

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said that computers could be useful in many areas of assessment but cautioned against their use in English exams: “I’m very concerned that it would constrain the nature of the questions being asked. You won’t pick up nuances by machine and it will trigger a trend to answering narrower questions. It could be a disaster waiting to happen.”

A Pearson spokesman told the TES that its system produced the accuracy of human markers while eliminating human elements such as tiredness and subjectivity.

Other exam boards said the adoption of computers to mark beyond their current use in multiple choice tests was inevitable. Tim Oates, director of research for Cambridge Assessment, which owns the exam board OCR, said: “It’s extremely unlikely that automated systems will not be deployed extensively in educational assessment. The uncertainty is ‘when’ not ‘if’. But all systems need to meet exacting quality criteria and should definitely not be adopted just to make life easier for testing organisations.

It isn’t mentioned whether or not there will be ongoing human grading for quality control, or whether there will be any kind of appeals process, but I imagine if I were a student wanting to get into a university in the UK, I would definitely want to make sure I was getting the correct grade.  As well as this, effective communication in another language doesn’t solely rely on textbook answers.

In related news, according to existing electronic grading systems already in place in US schools, Winston Churchill (too much repetition), Ernest Hemingway (”lack of care in style of writing and vocabulary”), and William Golding (”inaccurate and erratic sentence structure”) would not have done very well at school.

I came across this digital media blog post about a charity organisation called Literacy Bridge that is using budget technology to try to make a difference to the lives of people in developing countries.

Literacy Bridge is utilising easy-to-use, low-cost voice recorders to help spread information and increase literacy levels in rural Ghana, where knowledge is still primarily spread via word of mouth.  The Talking Books, designed to cost around 10USD each, are already being used to help understaffed schools teach their children, and spread knowledge and news through remote communities.

Talking books can be used to record and store pre-recorded audio, as well as being connected to each other, and to central kiosks, to transfer information, lessons, and news.  The speed can be altered to suit different learning levels, and people can improve their literacy by playing audio at the same time as listening to books.  The devices are so simple that small children can use them as well as adults.

A pilot program was launched early this year, and the organisation has recently received a grant from Amazon.com.  To find out more information, or donate, visit Literacy Bridge.

Many language learners begin studying purely out of interest, but the majority of us have external motivation - relocation, travel, personal reasons.  For those learners who are planning to move to a place where they speak a different language: when is the best time to start?

There are always differing opinions, of course, as with anything.  However, I don’t think many people could disagree with me saying that the earlier you can start learning, the better.  Although it always seems like it will be difficult to fit language lessons into your daily schedule, it is usually a lot more difficult when you’re forced to live a regular life in an unfamiliar environment.  Everyday interactions become a lot more challenging when you don’t have any knowledge of the language.  If you have even a basic knowledge of vocabulary and a survival level of day-to-day language, things will go more smoothly.

It may be said that you learn faster when you are in an immersion environment, but imagine how much faster you would learn in your adopted country if you just started learning a little bit earlier.  You could use the advantage of prior knowledge to develop and perfect your skills, rather than using your time abroad to grasp the vocabulary and basic grammar points.

From personal experience, I can definitely recommend at least getting the basics under your belt before moving into a totally new language.  I took up a last-minute position and didn’t have time to learn any language, and struggled for a quite a long time.  I did manage to improve slightly by being around the language a lot, but I work predominantly in English, which doesn’t help.  I’ve recently (finally) begun language courses, and to have things finally pointed out clearly to me is fantastic.  I feel like I’ve improved immensely in just a few weeks, and it’s a bit upsetting to imagine how good I would have been if I’d just started learning when I got here.

So, if you know you will need a language for a particular date in the future, don’t put it off!  Even if there are no live situations for you to practice in in your current life, take advantage of your tutor, peers, and online resources to get a head start.  You won’t regret it!

For another good opinion on this, as well as some expat advice, check out Expat Tips and Resources.