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?

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!

French (along with English) is the official language of the Olympics, yet has been used sparingly in London for these Games. The only usage I’ve noticed is that all the official speeches at the opening Ceremony were given in French first, then English. Certainly all the newly erected official signs on the streets here in London are in English.

Have you ever wondered WHY the official language of the Olympics is French? Shouldn’t it be primarily the language of the host country?

The answer is that the official language is primarily French as it is the language of the International Olympic Committee. The IOC headquarters is in Lausanne, a French speaking city in Switzerland. More specifically, it’s in honour of the founder of the Olympic Committee, Paris born Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is considered the “father” of the Olympic Games.

Other French language Olympic facts:

• 23 nations participating in the Olympics have French as an official language
• French and English are the official languages of the Olympic Charter (the rules which govern the Games) – however in the case of discrepancies, French takes precedence!
• Gilbert Fellim, the IOC’s Olympic Games Executive Director, says that French is always to be used during opening ceremonies and medal presentations.

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

I came across this on Tumblr recently. Although the point being made with regards to English is interesting, it bothered me more that pronounced is spelled incorrectly. Twice!

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?

The people at Hotels.com have been busy conducting surveys recently, and their latest research seems to confirm what we already knew…British people are not renowned for their language skills.

64% of the 2000 Brits surveyed didn’t know a word of any other language. One of the reasons given for this was “expecting hosts to speak English.” (!)

63% of those polled had no idea what the Dutch word “goedemorgen” means. I don’t speak Dutch, but could easily guess that it would be “good morning,” due to the similarities when trying to pronounce it.

1 in 50 respondents claimed to understand everything that was said to them in at least one other language, but could not reply.

I think the results, even from a small sample of the population, are pretty embarrassing. What can we Brits do to turn this stereotype around? Obviously, Language Trainers students are at a huge advantage here!

I had a conversation with two friends regarding learning the other day; one is French, the other Italian. Both agreed that it wasn’t as necessary for native English speakers to learn another language, as English is the one language a lot of people know. They also both started to learn English at a young age, and live in the UK to understand the language better.

Is this where we are going wrong? Is it the education system, or are we simply lazy? What are your thoughts?

In my last post I talked about couples communicating in other languages, and wondered how successful it can be. I’ve also talked about what is sometimes called getting a black-haired dictionary (learning a language from a paramour, in this case a Chinese girlfriend to teach you Chinese). If you have a partner who speaks a different language from you, will it always help you learn that language? Not necessarily.

Depending on your situation, having your partner available to you may be very successful, or not really help you with your language progress at all. Obviously, one of the big factors is the personalities of the people involved. Not everyone is a good teacher, and not everyone is a good student. Some students don’t like being corrected (and some people can’t help correcting others – I’m one of them!), and some teachers find it too frustrating to repeatedly go over the same point. If the teacher already has a good grasp of the student’s native language, it may just seem easier to use that language for communication, and forget about the student learning more.

I know a couple where the husband speaks very little English (but he is currently learning), and the wife speaks very good Chinese. The husband says that his wife is a really bad teacher. I think she may just get frustrated easily and prefers communication to be fast and easy.

Have you been in a relationship where you have been the student or the teacher? How has it worked out?

I was reading a really interesting blog post on Speaking of China, a blog by a western woman who is married to a Chinese man. The post was all about love and language, and people who communicate with their loved one/s in a language that is not native to one or both parties. She was asked whether she had a better relationship with her husband in Chinese or in English. She said that it fluctuated between the two (and may be slightly better in English because of her husband’s studies in the US), but that they have some kind of hybrid Mandarin-English language that they communicate in.

Her English-speaking friend then said that she communicates best with her Chinese husband in a third party language – Japanese. They had met and come to know each other in Japanese, and they both had to try hard to be understood (and understand each other) in that language. I think it says a lot that both people have to compromise and put effort into communicating with each other (instead of it being easy for one person and difficult for another, or frustrating to everyone involved!).

I often wonder how close relationships can be if the language used is a non-native one. On one hand, if you can only say certain things,  you might avoid getting into in depth arguments, but on the other, how can you really get to know each other? I’ve seen plenty of couples where speaking is not necessarily the main goal (if you know what I mean!), but if you want a deep relationship, how good do the language skills have to be?

Everybody has different aims to consider when learning languages. One of them is whether to focus on written or conversational language. Of course, you don’t have to focus entirely on one (and I wouldn’t recommend you to), but it will affect things like the type of texts or materials you study from.

At the moment, I’m studying a reading textbook, which has short essays followed by comprehension questions. My teacher is careful to point out which things are only suitable for written texts (and so I should avoid saying things that way). There are also discussion questions so I can get my fill of speaking practice. This method suits me right now as I am using language mainly for work, where I am communicating a lot by email.

My friend is using a textbook that is made up of conversations about various topics. It includes follow up questions and audio as well. This method is great for beginners and people who need language for everyday situations.

Which method do you prefer? Do you think a distinction needs to be made?