Language Trainers Blog

I’ve seen my fair share of awful translations into English, which I forgive because most of the time they are hilarious, and I imagine that the people who commissioned them probably don’t have much more than an online translator available to help them.

Sometimes, though, I come across words that look like legitimate English words, but I have no idea what they mean. Sometimes I can glean a fair idea from the context, but there are times when I just have to look up the word to see what they are talking about. I don’t know why, but people seem to pick the most obscure or out-of-date words they can when doing formal translations.

I was editing an English translation of a Chinese document and one of the sentences said that there was no disporting allowed in the office. The word sounds like the opposite of porting, whatever that might mean. Or does it have something to do with sport? Teleporting? Apparently it means “To amuse oneself in a light, frolicsome manner”. Like, to frolic. I guess the sentence wanted to say ‘no jacking around’ or ‘no horseplay’.

I remember once reading a placard in a museum that said that the museum’s city was aiming to be refulgent. This one I had no idea about at the time. There’s something about the F that makes me think it might be a negative word, but the context was completely positive. I had to satisfy my curiosity later and looked it up. It means “to shine brightly”, which I guess is a fine ambition for a city.

Have you found yourself learning new words in your own language through the efforts of non-native speakers?

Recently, I dipped into the Chinese microblogging world, ruled by 微波 (wēi bó). Like Twitter, it can be completely overwhelming to the uninitiated, especially with the millions of users and the Chinese interface. I wasn’t sure how much time or energy I wanted to spend on it, and how much benefit I would end up getting out of it. So here I sit at the edges without throwing myself in.

On one hand, there is a wealth of information out there, and so many people to interact with. I know some non-native speakers who rave about the service, and about how you can say so much more with Chinese characters than with English in the 140 character word limit.

On the other hand, there is a lot of slang and language shortcuts to navigate through, which is very intimidating for the average language learner.

Have you had any luck learning from foreign language blogs or microblogs? Would you recommend one over the other?

With the ease of online translation these days, it is hard for me not to get lazy sometimes and just run text through a translator to get the gist of what it’s saying. Often this is enough for me, but sometimes it’s just so I know what the text is about before looking at it more closely. Usually it also helps with speed (I read and comprehend slowly sometimes).

The other day, I threw some text through a translator, but what it gave me was tantamount to rubbish. The original text was mostly phrases that didn’t have much context, and so the result was even more garbled. I had to struggle to work out exactly what was happening. Then, when I looked at the original text, and looked up a few words, I was better able to work out the intended meaning on my own.

It was a bit of a wake up call for me, both to tell me that my skills were a bit better than I thought, and to tell me that I shouldn’t take the easy way out all the time. No matter how difficult translation may be for learners, it is beneficial as a teaching tool, and may also be the more effective method!

At the beginning of your language learning, trying to learn a lot of vocabulary might not be that helpful or easy. If you can’t actually use this language in real sentences and constructions, it will be even more difficult to remember. But at some point in your language learning career, you are likely to feel that you don’t have enough vocabulary. You will have enough sentence structures to want to fill them in with useful (and/or random) words. This is when the word lists and the flashcards will come in handy.

It may feel like you’re back in primary school, but reviewing flashcards is a good way to get more exposure to your words and help you remember them. If you go the old fashioned route and make them yourself, the actual process of making them will help reinforce the knowledge. Try to keep a pile of flashcards with you at all times, so if you have a few minutes to spare, you can go over them.

If you are doing electronic flashcards, again try to keep them mobile. If you can put them on your mobile or other portable device, all the better. Just remember to keep looking at them!

Supposedly if you see and use a word 9 separate times, you will have no problem remembering it forever. See how much of your spare time you can use adding extra views to your vocabulary lists!

I am fortunate enough to hang around with friends who are all at different levels of learning the same foreign language, and who are all fairly keen to speak it to each other. The people who are at a lower level learn a lot from the people who speak it really well. Me being somewhere in the middle, I am able to both learn and teach and it’s very satisfying. I find that when I listen to a non-native person speaking a foreign language, I understand more readily than when a native speaker is speaking it (provided, of course, that they have a certain level of language knowledge). I think it’s a combination of them speaking slower and more clearly, and being more likely to choose words that I know. Even when foreigners have very good language skills and speak quite quickly, I understand a lot more than when native speakers are talking.

I have a friend who also uses some foreign verbs in English ways (e.g. adding -ing, -ed), which is done in a joking way, but has also helped me learn some new words!

I know that ideally you would be talking to the most native of native speakers, but sometimes speed, accents, contractions, and slang get in the way. Especially for elementary and intermediate students, it might be advantageous to speak with more advanced non-native speakers. It’s a good way to consolidate your existing knowledge, as well as pick up a few new language along the way.

Have you found that speaking to other non-native speakers helps you?

I have a few colleagues and acquaintances who are currently labouring under the impression that my foreign language skills are better than they are (and I don’t really have a problem with that). Why? Because most of our communications are done in text format, and that makes it much easier for me to make sure that I understand them, and that they understand me.

Besides being able to take my time a little bit more, working via instant messages or email allows me to check both directions of communication using an online translator. Obviously, Google Translate won’t give me perfect sentences, but it will help make sure I’m not getting totally the wrong idea.

The downside of this is that whenever I speak to these colleagues in person, I have to get them to slow down or repeat themselves so I can understand. Nevertheless, working partly in another language is a good step towards fluency. Also, I find that if people don’t dumb their language down for me it motivates me to learn faster!

Do you have any people in your life who are overestimating your talents? How does it make you feel?

At a recent TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference, an interesting point was brought up about the learning of English. Dr Peter Waters, from German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech), presented “Sounds: Avenues for Language Learning”, a presentation about English pronunciation. He addressed the common problem of students not being trained to understand just the sounds of English (rather than how words are spelled).

There are far fewer sounds in English than there are ways to spell them, and this inconsistency often brings up problems for English learners. But what if the spelling part took a back seat to the pronunciation? For most people, communication is the first priority, so I think that for people who use mostly spoken English, this focus could be very useful.

There is also the problem that for many learners, the audio content they receive is ’standard’ English. Unfortunately, if you have spent your whole learning career listening to people speak like the Queen of England, you won’t understand when ‘normal’ English speakers talk to you.

Luckily, there are a lot of websites these days that provide a wide range of pronunciations. I think the sooner learners hear more variance in their audio, the better for their chances of successful communication.

Full article: Zawya.com.

One of the many things I find fascinating about living in China is seeing how the foreigners deal with the language. For many people, the only Chinese they know will get them home in a taxi and maybe to a drink at the pub. There are some Chinese words, though, that become part of daily usage for non-native speakers regardless of their language level. Sometimes they are simply Chinese words for things we don’t have in other countries (mostly region-specific foods and dishes). Sometimes they are an interesting reflection of the way life is here.

One of the words in the ‘interesting’ category is 麻烦 (máfan). It basically means trouble. You can also say máfan nǐ, which means ‘Can I trouble you?’ Most foreigners, however, can be heard to say that something is too much máfan, e.g. “I don’t travel in China because it is too much máfan.” There’s something in the Chinese phrase that encapsulates the frustration along with the trouble.

Another common thing to do is to use Chinese verbs in an English way, by adding suffixes like -ing and -ed. The other day, a friend was talking about how Shanghai has been 发展-ing (fāzhǎn-ing) really fast lately. Fāzhǎn means development, or to develop. “There’s been a lot of fāzhǎn around here lately.”

What’s your favourite foreign word that’s made it into your everyday vocabulary?

I was reading a guest blog post the other day about living in a foreign country and not understanding the language very well. One phrase jumped out at me and really made me think. Fiona Reilly of Life on Nanchang Lu dropped the phrase functionally illiterate into a paragraph about whether it’s harder to live obliviously in a foreign place or run an emergency department in a hospital. In her former life, she was an ER doctor, and so not being able to communicate or work in a foreign place is obviously difficult for such an educated person.

In my experience of being in places where you can’t read the language, let alone understand the meaning, I let a lot of things slide by. Often, I can’t read long warning signs, menus without pictures, information that might be important. Of course, this can be an advantage (you can break the rules and claim you didn’t know any better), but in general, I wonder what I am missing. There are times when I could ask people to translate for me, but I choose not bothering them over being enlightened. I spent the weekend on a tour bus only understanding a little bit of what was being said, and wondering whether I would have been equally bored had I understood the piles of information being thrown at me at warp speed.

Not being able to understand announcements and general chatter around me has been both good and bad. I find it easier to block out the conversations of strangers when I can’t understand them, but straining to hear airport announcements about the planes I want to catch can be exhausting.

In the end, I think it’s better to be able to understand. You can take the information and do what you want with it (even if that is to ignore it completely). I suppose it’s just one more reason to practice more and learn faster.