Language Trainers Blog

China isn’t well known for its free speech policies, but occasionally there are big enough issues that the people have to say something.  The most recent uproar in southern China was over language.  Over a thousand outraged protesters came together to oppose a local politician’s push to ban the Cantonese language on a major television network in favour of broadcasting solely in the national language Mandarin.

Cantonese is widely spoken as a first language in Hong Kong, Guangdong province, and in many expat Chinese communities around the world.  Hong Kong’s considerable film and pop music industries are also predominantly in Cantonese.

There have been more than a few controversial incidents where governing bodies have tried to suppress regional dialects within China and surrounding areas, and this is no exception.  News of the protest rally was suppressed on Chinese news networks.  Hopefully this anti-Cantonese proposal will remain just a proposal.

Full article: New York Times.

(Or, Angelina Jolie does it too.)

I don’t usually keep up with tabloids, but I noticed a story about Angelina Jolie’s love for the Russian language, and had to see what was going on.  She’s had to learn the language for upcoming film Salt, and says that while she struggled with getting the difficult pronunciation right, she loves the sound of the language, as well as loving to speak it.  ”I find it a very interesting sound because it can be so hard and strong and also very sensual and very beautiful,” she said.

While some commenters bring up the sort-of-justified point that she’s only learning lines, not how to actually converse, she did have to do some work to get her pronunciation right.  She mentioned constant practice and work with a vocal coach who would record the lines for her to listen to at home (a method I am a big fan of).  Even if you don’t completely understand what you’re saying, listening and pronunciation drills will help your fluency immensely.  So, while she may not actually speak Russian, she is able to speak in Russian.  Good for her.  I haven’t even tried to decipher the alphabet yet!

Source: Us Magazine.

I just read a great story about a deaf couple who are raising their hearing son to communicate in both English and American Sign Language (ASL).  Both parents have very limited hearing, but their 1-year-old son is just starting to speak English.  They can’t hear when he talks to them, and they communicate mostly with hand signals and touch, although as he gets older they will spend more time speaking and signing at the same time.

Usually a child will grow up speaking the same language as its parents, so it’s interesting to see what happens when there is another element introduced, where the child is raised to speak a language that his or her parents do not speak as fluently or easily.  The parents have admitted that it will be a challenge, but they will have lots of outside help.

Full story: York Daily Record.

Though it is finding fewer and fewer students in its native India, the ancient language of Sanskrit is finding young enthusiasts in the UK.

Student enrolment in the Sanskrit program has been increasing at St James Junior School in London.  Teachers are very supportive of the course, which has been running since 1975.  Although the language itself is rarely spoken any more, it has formed the basis for many Indian classical writings, and teachers say that these provide philosophical and inspirational materials for children to learn from.  Speaking the language, even though it may be quite difficult for native English speakers, can give students a linguistic grounding that will help with their English diction as well.

The students appear to be as enthusiastic as the teachers, which is inspiring.  Even though the script and pronunciation might be challenging, they enjoy it because it is different.  They are more than happy to take the opportunity to learn it, because not many people get to these days.

Full article: NDTV.

In the kind of news story that you wouldn’t even believe if it were in a Hollywood film, a woman from Devon started speaking in new accents after complaining of severe migraines.

She initially spoke in a Chinese accent for about a week, and then woke up speaking in a more Eastern-European sounding accent (apparent in the video below).  Unfortunately there’s no evidence of the Chinese accent; I would have been really interested to see what that sounded like.

Clearly she has had some kind of brain episode affecting her speech areas, as she makes some grammatical errors as well as the perceived accent change.  As she mentions in the video, she is unsure how long it will last for.  Apparently some people who suffer this kind of change recover after some time.

It’s nice that her mental capacity seems unchanged, although I think it would frustrate me no end to have people think I was a bit simple because of the way I spoke!

Source: Sky News.

I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that English language programs for school students are being removed or seriously cut down in some places in Inner Mongolia.  The apparent reasoning for this is that the Chinese government doesn’t want kids there to have the opportunity to learn the language.  I can’t find any information to back this up at this point, but the whole concept of removing opportunities from students is just abhorrent to me.  I can understand if there are simply no resources to provide education in certain areas, but to actively remove important programs just seems unnecessary and unjust.

The quality and availability of English language teachers in places like Inner Mongolia is low enough as it is, with many English teachers being local people who can barely communicate in the language themselves.  This is the case in many populous lower-socioeconomic areas, as there is little funding to support native speaking teachers.  Even for locals who are good teachers, other opportunities in richer places are common.  There’s an interesting article about this on the Amity newsletter, and they also outline what they are doing to help the situation.

What would you think if your child was going to a school where an important subject’s program was either very poor or completely non-existent?

On the major Chinese television network, CCTV, newscasters have been told to stop using commonly-understood English acronyms in their broadcasts.  Instead of using short forms like NBA and WHO, TV presenters have been told they must use the full Chinese translations, which are sometimes very long and might in turn be confusing to viewers.  If newscasters accidentally use the abbreviations, they must use the full translation immediately afterwards to establish what they are talking about.

The reasoning behind this move is that government officials do not want the Chinese language to be infiltrated by English and become some sort of mongrel in a few years.  I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but it is somewhat reminiscent of the Académie française’s crusade to keep French pure.

I don’t know if this move will help maintain the grand traditions of the Chinese language, but it definitely won’t be saving the CCTV (err, China Central Television) anchors any time.

Source: CNNGo.

Recently it was announced that the rules of Scrabble were changing, and players would in future be able to use proper nouns in the game, which has never been allowed before.  The change would mean that previously-illegal proper nouns, including celebrity names, brands, and company names would be acceptable.  The justification from game company Mattel was that they wanted to attract players from younger generations, and thought that allowing players to use names would achieve this end.  I was a little bit unsure of how I felt about this, because I’m sure I’ve had occasions where I wanted to play a proper noun as my word, but there’s definitely a difference between playing ‘Vatican‘ and ‘Beyonce‘.

Just after I read this, I read another article that said that the rules would remain the same, and that the news of the rule change was an exaggeration of the truth, which is that Mattel is planning to release an entirely different game called Scrabble Trickster, where anything goes, including proper nouns and words spelled backwards.  I’m not sure if this was just all a big marketing ploy, but I think a sigh of relief may have been heard throughout the Scrabble-playing world.

I’m also not sure if changing rules like this would justify an entirely new game.  Surely you could just play different rules with the same equipment?  Which reminds me of this cartoon, which made me giggle.

Does Scrabble matter to you?

I wrote a recent post about touch screen learning applications, so it’s a little humbling to watch this video.  The BBC has reported on classrooms in Kenya that have to move around frequently and use what little they have as learning resources, even goat droppings.

The Kenyan government has launched a mobile school program that allows children in nomadic herding tribes to be educated, despite not having a permanent place to live.  The children tend to the goats every day, but have a few hours where they learn in the classroom.  The classroom consists of not much more than a blackboard, some books, and the ingenious use of goat droppings to write out numbers and letters on the ground.  When the tribe moves on, the classroom moves with them.

It reminded me of when I was doing teacher training, and we were told not to worry too much about materials, because all we really needed to teach a class was a stick and some dirt to write in.  Just goes to show that we can use whatever resources are around us to help us learn more.

For the video and more information, click here.  The excitement of the children is pretty inspiring, to be honest. Go watch it!

Ever wanted to know what your beloved pet budgie was really trying to tell you?  Now, with the help of an Android-compatible phone, you might be able to find out.

Technology giant Google has finally released what animal lovers everywhere have been waiting for - Google Translate for Animals. Using their huge language database and state of the art technology, Google is able to help everyday people understand their pets, and many other animals they might meet.  Google Translate for Animals is now available in cat, dog, bird, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster, tortoise, horse, chicken, sheep, donkey, and pig.  Unfortunately they are only able to translate to English right now, but other human languages are in the pipeline.

If you’re lucky enough to have an Android phone, you can download the application and start talking to the animals right away!