Language Trainers Blog

Today is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, and the theme for this year is Mother tongues and books – including digital books and textbooks.

UNESCO is promoting the use of books and textbooks in local languages to support education in mother tongues, which promotes linguistic and cultural diversity and serves as the foundation for all social, economic and cultural life.

In the spirit of celebrating the day, can you suggest and recommend some books in your mother tongue to help other language students who are learning your language?

In February 2009, UNESCO declared Manx Gaelic extinct. It was then changed to “critically endangered” following protests from the Isle of Man.

The language has been revived by a community keen to keep their culture alive. If you visit the Isle of Man today, there are signs in both English and Manx.

Image from http://geographicallyyourstoo.blogspot.co.uk

Dr. Brian Stowell presents a show on Manx Radio every Sunday which promotes the language. He is also author of The Vampire Murders, the first novel to be published and written entirely in Manx. The two local newspapers regularly publish articles in the local language.

The Manx Language Society even organises an annual event, the Cooish Inter-Gaelic Festival, which celebrates Manx language and music, and is held in October/November.

Manx has been taught in schools on the island since 1992; but now there is a Manx language primary school, Bunscoill Ghaelgagh in St.Johns, which 69 pupils currently attend, in which all subjects are taught in the language. Manx is also taught in in other schools across the island. The school has won an award for its efforts promoting the preservation of the language.

Last year an app was developed and made available for adults hoping to brush up on their language skills. The free Learn Manx app features 10 learning modules and is available to download on iTunes and GooglePlay.

This week, I came across a word I hadn’t heard before in the book I was reading. That word was perambulator, which I now know to be more common these days in the diminutive form of pram. Olfactory is another word I’ve come across recently, which I didn’t know previously. Usually when I’m reading a book and come across a word I don’t know, I’ll write it down in my notebook, with the context, and find the meaning later on. It helps with my vocabulary in my native English, of course; I also thought that this might be a nice little tip for language learning. It depends on your reading level: if you’re a beginner you’d get easily frustrated because you would be writing down every other word, but for more advanced readers this may help. When you’re fluent in a language, you don’t necessarily think to learn words you think you might not need again. It seems kind of obvious, but every little helps to remind you when you’re learning.

It’s Film Festival season in London, and here’s a heads up for yet another one! As a student of Latin American Spanish, and a huge Latin film fan, I’m looking forward to getting involved with this one.

The 10 day film fest kicked off on Friday with a performance by Lokandes, followed by a screening of Mexican documentary “And the River Flows On” and a Q&A session with producer Jesus Rodriguez Montes.

Many Latin American countries are represented, with films from Mexico, Honduras, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Brazil due to be screened.

I’m looking forward to seeing Colombian documentary Cocaine Unwrapped; as well as Tiempos Menos Modernos (Not So Modern Times), which has already won awards at international film festivals. The latter promises some stunning Patagonian scenery as well!

You can find more information here. Tickets are available through individual venues.

Just wanted to share with you a site I found for language games, which is so much fun! I’ve been using it mostly to learn colours in Finnish(!) but there are a lot of languages to choose from and several games for each. If, like me, you’re interested in a certain language, but want to explore before you commit to a course, this is a great beginners tool. If you’re just starting to learn a new language, you can test your vocabulary for numbers, foods, animals and basic phrases, to name a few. Alternatively, you can use it to learn a bit of lots of languages! There are so many different options on this site – it can teach you the words (reading and listening) before testing your knowledge – there’s really no reason not to try it! Here you go: http://www.digitaldialects.com

The Pope is planning to set up a new pontifical Latin academy in the Vatican to restore the use of the ancient Italic language, the Vatican has said. The new academy, Pontificia Academia Latinitatis, would “promote the knowledge and speaking of Latin, particularly inside the Church.” Until the Second Vatican Council reforms in the 1960s, Vatican documents were only published in Latin. Pope Benedict is keen to increase the popularity of Latin as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church, as he believes that the more people understand Latin, the easier it will be to explain the teachings of the Church.

As a language student, it’s useful to know the basics of Latin as the foundations and roots of words of many other languages stem from Latin. I’m not sure that the Pope’s plans are intended for this purpose, or indeed aimed at everyone, but the news has inspired me, at least, to learn a little more Latin!

Cambridge University have been running an interesting research programme this summer. Both groups of children and groups of adults are being taught the same Polish course by the same tutor. Researchers hope to determine whether a person’s age or mother tongue affects their ability to learn a language.

The lessons contribute to an international project which is also running in France, Germany and the Netherlands, and is a collaboration between France’s Universite Paris 8, Germany’s Universatat Osnabruek, University of York, and Radboud Universiteit in the Netherlands, as well as Cambridge.

Dr Henriëtte Hendriks, from the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at Cambridge University, said:

“The idea is that kids might do something different to adults when they approach language learning. We’ve chosen Polish because it’s an interesting language with a lot of different endings of words. It’s not a very familiar language in any of the countries we’re working in, although there are a lot of Polish people in them all.”

The researchers want to find out what we pay attention to most when learning a new language, whether it is identifying words which are close to our mother tongue, or the order of the words in a sentence.

What do you tend to pick up first, when learning a new language?

A new smartphone app which helps teach sign language has won another award.

Sign4Life was developed by secondary school students from Salesian College in Co. Limerick, as part of their Transition Year project. The app, which is now available on Android; is aimed at friends, family and teachers of the deaf, and is designed to help bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing communities through video technology.

In March, the five students won the regional finals of Junior Achievement Ireland. They followed this up in May by taking the All-Ireland National Junior Achievement title.

Caoimhe O’Neill, Ciara Reidy, Colleen Mullane, Chris O’Brien and Fiona Mangan then competed against teams from 32 countries at the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise  European Final, which was held in Bucharest, Romania. The girls won the prestigious Company of the Year award at this event, after making a presentation and undergoing an in depth interview with the judges.

“We have seen so much, we have learned so much. With some things, you have to make an effort. It isn’t going to come to you,” said team member Caoimhe O’Neill.

In addition, the UK team, Vitamin Boom, won the FedEx Access Award for their Super Froo-Tea tea bags and iced tea products, which contain Baobab.

The Junior Achievement programme is part of a worldwide organisation, and aims to bring enterprise to the education system, and give students hands-on experience of running their own business. The organisation uses mentors from local businesses to help students through the process.

The Language Show Live will be exhibiting again this year at the Olympia in Kensington. The show, which runs from Friday 19 – Sunday 21 October, is free to enter, but you must register your attendance first to obtain tickets.

This year’s show will feature a new addition to the line up – an interactive language technology area where you will be able to try new software and apps. Also new for this year is the inclusion of a Cultural Arena where you can learn and experience different cultures with workshops and performances. A full schedule for this is still to be announced.

There will be free half hour long taster lessons for some languages; these will be free to attend, but tickets will be issued on the day on a first come first served basis!

You can register to attend here.

This week I’ve learned a new trick to help with spelling and memorising whole sentences in Spanish. This will work with whichever language you’re learning, obviously you don’t have to be learning the same language as me to use it!

Write down a sentence you want to learn, maybe a line from a book you’re reading, and put it somewhere away from where you’re working. Pin it on the back of the front door, for example. (Probably best not on the fridge!) Read it over a couple of times and memorise it.

Then go back to where you were working and write it down. Compare it to the original version. If it’s not right, you’ll have to do it again. Trust me, a couple of times of walking back and forth is more than enough motivation to try your best!

This little trick not only fine tunes your spelling but is also a memory improvement technique. Good times all round!