Language Trainers Blog

No doubt you’re still recovering from yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations! One of the worst things about being in a pub on St. Paddy’s Day is listening to the awful, stereotypical impressions that almost everyone thinks they can do after a few pints. Unfortunately some of those people were hired to pretend to be Irish on film. There’s a LOT of examples to choose from, but I think it would be better to show examples of when people get it right.

Daniel Day Lewis in In The Name Of The Father had such a perfect Belfast accent that people thought that the London born actor was Irish. His dad actually was Irish though, so he had a head start!

Cate Blanchett as Veronica Guerin carrried off a Dublin accent very well, with a few hiccups along the way.

My personal favourite is Alan Rickman as Eamon De Valera in Michael Collins. You’ll have to look this film up, as all the videos available online have music playing loudly over the top!

The very best way to mimic an accent is to watch a native’s mouth when they talk. (Probably best with YouTube, it’s a bit creepy in real life!) This is also why I blog about film so much! The sound of each accent comes from the way we move our muscles in and around the mouth and vocal chords. I can’t say my friend’s name (Mairi) properly, for example, as she is Scottish and pronounces the first syllable a lot more softly than I am able to, and can roll her “r”s in a way I just can’t do (YET!)

Another way to learn is to listen to how a foreigner speaks your language. For example, if you want to speak German the way Germans do, just listen to how they speak English, and what they find difficult to say. You will notice that they often pronounce English in an especially “breathy” way, accentuating all the “s” and “z”.

This is a great tutorial for beginning to master any accent.

The Scottish dialect Cromarty fisherfolk has become extinct after the last known speaker, Bobby Hogg, died recently.

Cromarty, named after the fishing village in the Highlands, was a traditional fisherman’s dialect, and was recorded in a booklet compiled of words and phrases by the online archive of the Highland Council in 2009.

Older words such as “thee,” “thine,” and “thou” are characteristic of the dialect, as is the use of the letter “h,” which is used differently to how we know it in English. The word “herring” then becomes “‘erring” and “ears” becomes “hears.”

Bobby Hogg and his brother Gordon, who died last year, were the last two fluent speakers of Cromarty, but certain words and phrases are still in occasional use in the area. You can listen to recordings of the brothers speaking on the Am Baile website. The site also has the aforementioned compilation of words and phrases, which includes phrases such as thee’re no talkin’ licht meaning ‘you are quite right,’ and at now kucka – a friendly greeting.

The US team have been busy making a series of videos ahead of the upcoming Games. The first two concentrate on the Americans trying their hands at a little Cockney rhyming slang. The first phrase they learned is: “If you win a medal, you can go chicken oriental.” Chicken oriental is slang for “mental” or crazy, and isn’t used widely in London! The second video shows the athletes working on saying “Now I’ll stick on the Hansel and Gretel, and make us a nice cup of Rosie Lee.“ The only rhyming slang we use here is Rosie Lee (tea).

Although none of the team have the accent correct at all, it’s nice to see them have a laugh with it and have fun! The videos are a very nice gesture, although I don’t think they’ll need to use either of these phrases whilst here in London!

You can see their channel, ThankYouBritain, on YouTube. More videos will be uploaded as it gets closer to the start of the Games.

Olympic fever is hitting London and there are some pretty condescending articles hitting the web regarding the English – American language “divide.”

Indeed, yes, there are some phrases and words which differ slightly, but we’re all adult enough to either work it out or ask if something is not easily understood. If you’re an American visiting London for the Olympics, you certainly wouldn’t ask for “chips” in a restaurant, and if you see it on a menu, you’d take it to mean “French fries.” English staff in hotels, restaurants and shops in this multi cultural city are well used to hearing a range of accents and requests. If you ask for “pants” in a clothes shop here, in an American accent,  no-one would direct you to the underwear section without checking first!

The Internet, television and cinema imports all present opportunities to understand each other’s linguistic quirks.  There’s no need to patronise people.

More helpfully, an Olympic Translator app has been developed to help with communicating between different languages. Users can speak into the phone and the app will produce the translation. At the moment, 5000 phrases are available for 20 different languages. Developers are working to complete a target of 50-60 languages. The app will be free for the duration of the Olympics and is due to be released within the new few weeks.

To volunteer to help translate, email smalltalkhelp@gmail.com

The British Library has released the first ever audio CD of clips of Shakespeare plays spoken in the original pronunciation. The recording includes some of Shakespeare’s best known speeches, such as the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet’s To Be Or Not To Be, and the Friends, Romans, countrymen… monologue from Julius Caesar.

The “new” pronunciation makes lines which were meant to rhyme actually rhyme, and demonstrates the importance of pronunciation in communications.

You can listen to some of the clips here. I think the accents used sound like a cross between Yorkshire and West Country styles. What do you think?

If you are further interested, the British Library will be holding an event with actors from the recordings. Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation – Live! will be held on Friday 4th May. Tickets are available here and are priced £7.50 / £5.

This morning I read in the local newspaper about the celebrations planned for today – St Piran’s Day. St Piran’s Day, for those not in the know, is the national day of Cornwall, and as I know there are usually Cornish language workshops held around here for children, I wondered if there was anything to support adult learning too.

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you’re in luck. For today only, the Cornish Soundboard app will be free.  The app features Cornish people from across the county saying typical Cornish phrases, so you can be sure to imitate them correctly with the right accent!  Plans are underway to create a sister app for the Cornish language.

Those who want the app after March 5^th can find it in iTunes for 69p.

A new show on BBC channel CBeebies aims to teach pre-school age children about languages and their related cultures.

Eleven minute programme The Lingo Show features an animated bug named Lingo, as the “host” of the show. Lingo then introduces other bugs from other countries who sing little songs about their respective allocated language and culture within a live action set. Episode 1 introduces Wei, a bug which sings in English with Chinese Mandarin words interspersed. Through the use of songs and repetition, we learn that the Mandarin word for hello is nee hao.

The show isn’t especially logical, as it goes on to demonstrate the words for ice cream, banana, and yellow fan, red fan and blue fan, but hey, it’s for kids so I guess needs to keep their interest. It’s literally an introduction, and doesn’t overwhelm with too many words. The series doesn’t look at a different language each episode either, which is great for continuity.

There are other “characters,” each of which will introduce a different language. The languages they represent are Spanish, Somali, French, Punjabi, Welsh, Polish, and Urdu.

You can watch episodes on the BBC iPlayer here.

It’s that time of year when the Oscars are announced. Recently I wrote about using world cinema as a tool for language learning and development.  As some of my favourite films have won the Best Foreign Film award, (Czech film Kolya won in 1996, and Argentinian film El Secreto De Sus Ojos took the title in 2009) I will paying particular attention to the nominees this year.

This years’ ceremony takes place on February 26th, and the shortlisted films are due to be announced next Tuesday. This Wednesday, nine films were chosen to be on the long list out of 63 entries. The following titles, at the time of writing, are currently in the running for Best Foreign Film 2012.

Bullhead (Dutch/French)

SuperClasico (Danish/Spanish)

Pina (German, various)

Monsieur Lazhar (French)

A Separation (Persian) This just won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, and so is tipped to win the Oscar as well.

Footnote (Hebrew)

Omar Killed Me (French)

In Darkness (Polish/Ukrainian)

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Seediq/Japanese)

As a student of Spanish, none particularly appeal to me from a learning point of view. Having said this, I find it’s always good fun to test your aural skills whilst watching films which feature more than one language. If you close your eyes so you can’t see which character is speaking, can you distinguish from two different languages if you speak neither of them? I had trouble with this when watching Kolya, as both Czech, Russian and Slovak are spoken throughout the film. Therefore, personally, I would be most interested to see In Darkness and Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale. The latter features Seediq, an aboriginal language spoken in Taiwan.

Do the Foreign Film awards inspire you to watch other films?

If any readers have seen any films listed here, please let us know!

It seems that native speakers of certain languages are able to roll their ‘r’s more easily than others. For me, as a native English speaker currently learning Spanish, it’s very difficult to pronounce rolled ‘r’s, which is also known as the alveolar trill. For example, trying to convey the name of a Cuban bar (Barrio) was particularly difficult when trying to arrange to meet up with my Spanish friend Eva recently. Pronouncing ‘r’s in an English accent, in the English form, is a huge disadvantage to communication in Spanish.

An Italian friend tells me that some children are taught the word “rabarbaro” (rhubarb) at school to help them pronounce their ‘r’s correctly. This word is not commonly used in the Italian language otherwise. In fact, when I told my Italian flatmate this word, he didn’t know what it meant. It could have been my pronunciation of course, but I wrote it down for him as well!

Having said all of this, one of my best friends, Mairi, is Scottish, and has no problem with rolling her ‘r’s, especially as you need to roll the r in her name to pronounce it correctly. So, is it down to accent?

This led me to try and find a way to learn how to do this properly. It is all in the tongue vibration, apparently. A lot of online help assumes you have an American accent, but I know of a few tips for us Brits.

The short term solution, for emergency use whilst you practice getting your tongue around your ‘r’s, is to pronounce the r as a hard D. You have to say it really fast to get away with it, but it does work! “Barrio” becomes “baDio,” and at least Eva will now know where I want to meet up for cocktails in the near future.

It’s better to try than to risk becoming a tentative speaker, as this is something that can really damage your confidence with speaking new languages.

Of course, in the long term, the only solution is practice, practice, practice. This video tutorial really helped me work out how to position my tongue properly, which is the basic principal to getting your alveolar trill right. If you’re not a visual learner, the WikiHow article is useful too. There are tongue twisters you can use to practice, but assuming that if you’re not confident with your rolled ‘r’s just yet, your level of Spanish isn’t advanced enough for this, so I like to stick to a short list of familiar words to practice with to begin. “Ferrocarril” (railway) is the perfect word to start off.

What works best for you? Does anyone have any other tips?

When you learn a language, do you choose your accent, or does your accent choose you? Perhaps you are learning in a rural place and get used to the local accents because you talk to the locals. In this case, do you insist on training yourself to use a ‘standard’ form of speech? Obviously, regional words and phrases may make you easier to understand for locals and more difficult for others, but if you were as comprehensible as other regional speakers, would you mind having an accent?

When learning Chinese, would you go with southern pronunciation, or the Beijing accent which has pronounced arrrrs, like a pirate? For Spanish, would you learn Mexican Spanish or Catalan? For English, American or British? And would you specify even further?

One of my favourite waiters is a Chinese guy who speaks in a faux Cockney accent. He not only puts on the strong accent, but uses a lot of slang, too. He is very proud of the fact that he has English friends and has a believable accent. He gets better every time I see him, and there’s nothing like having a Chinese guy call you geezer and tell you that the nosh is pukka!

Do you worry about your accent, or do you just focus on knowing the words to use?