Language Trainers Blog

Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds taught us all the important lesson that the wrong hand signal could well get you killed (if you were pretending to be a Nazi in the wrong place and time).  In the film, someone gets gunned down because he uses the wrong hand signal for the number three.

A lot of people use the middle three fingers to denote the number three, though some use other combinations.  In the town in Germany mentioned in Inglourious Basterds, people use the thumb and first two fingers.  In China, many people use the last three fingers (similar to the A-OK hand signal).  I found myself using the latter yesterday when buying three bananas.  It used to feel wholly unnatural to me, but it suddenly doesn’t feel so weird any more.  Strange.

Which signal do you use for three?

*Out of interest, you can also use ‘finger’ as a measure of alcohol.  If you hold your finger horizontally against the bottom of the glass and fill it to the depth of the top of your finger, that’s ‘one finger’.  So, three fingers would be a pretty strong drink!

In the same way that I’m fascinated by westerners getting terrible Asian character tattoos, I am deeply interested in the reasons that Chinese people pick their English names (or anyone who chooses a name in another language, actually).  Of course, not everybody has an English name, but it’s rare that you find a younger person who does not.

Unsurprisingly, young Chinese people take this as an opportunity to express their individuality.  In a country of well over a billion people, there are only a hundred or so popular last names, and similar first names are common.  This means that it’s not uncommon for people to meet, go to school with, or work with someone with exactly the same name (I even met another Wendy Wong recently!).  Choosing an a name that reflects some of their personality can be quite important to some, which leads to some interesting choices.  Adjectives and nouns are also quite common names in Chinese, but they can sound odd to English speakers.

Interestingly, English names can also go back in the other direction, as Chinese people call their friends by a ‘Chinesified’ version of their English name.  I had a colleague called Echo, but everyone called her Ai-ke when speaking in Chinese.

I recently found out that another colleague, Gills, intended to call himself Giggs (after footballer Ryan Giggs), but something went wrong along the way.  I’m not quite sure what.  Some other fantastic names I’ve come across in China and Hong Kong have been Paper, Mars, Forrest Gump, Chocolate, Ocean King, and Person.

For some further reading, check out In China My Name Is by Valerie Blanco and Ellen Feberwee.  It’s a book dedicated entirely to Chinese people and the stories behind their English names.

Oh, and happy Chinese New Year!

Punctuation is important. It can change the meaning of simple phrases, and is especially important these days, when so many more people are communicating via text, whether it be SMS, email, online forums, or blogs.  A famous example is the difference between “a woman without her man is nothing” and “a woman: without her, man is nothing“.

I do have an affection for the combination question and exclamation mark, the interrobang (‽), and I’ve already talked about outdated (but useful) characters like the thorn (Þ).  People are frequently using combinations of punctuation to form emoticons to express the intention of their messages, so maybe there is a need for new symbols to clarify meaning.

So, what would you pay for a revolutionary piece of punctuation?  What is the use of a single punctuation mark worth?  According to the people at SarcMark, it’s worth about 2 US dollars.  They have developed a new mark to indicate sarcasm (see above), and want to charge people to use it.  I can understand that this might actually be useful in this day and age, but the fact that you would then have to explain it to everybody you sent it to, and that they wouldn’t be able to use it until they’d purchased it, makes it seem a little too much effort for not much reward.

I think I may be too skeptical for the SarcMark.  How about you?

Thanks to Dave at Languagetrainers.com for the link.

I recently wrote about enthusiasts of Na’vi, the constructed language (or conlang) from the recent film Avatar.  Today I read a news story that claimed that over 12,000 people are learning the language in Australia alone*.

This made me wonder about the number of people speaking minority languages around the world.  According to Wikipedia, of the 6-7,000 languages spoken in the world, around half of them have less than 3,000 speakers.  It is anticipated that in the next 50-100 years, sadly, most of these languages will become extinct.

So, in a few short months, Na’vi has overtaken over half of the languages in the world in terms of numbers.  It may not share rich history or large vocabulary, but something has to be said for the achievements of its creators.  While some may say that it’s a pity that people are ‘wasting their time’ on learning a made-up language, I think it’s kind of nice that there are language enthusiasts out there, regardless of the ‘validity’ of the language.

*This is based on usage from a single website, though, so this may be a worldwide number.

The immensely popular blockbuster Avatar has garnered both rave and scathing reviews, but what it has produced, besides a lot of money at cinemas, is a large group of language devotees, dedicated to learning the constructed language of ‘the people’, Na’vi.

The language was created especially for the film by Paul Frommer, a professor at USC in California.  There are already over three thousand members posting on the forums on the Learn Na’vi site, and that’s just one fan site.  As with other popular created languages (Klingon, from Star Trek, and Elvish, from J. R. R. Tolkien’s books), Na’vi has bloomed within the sci-fi fan community and there is talk of conventions, Na’vi karaoke, and even tattoos in Na’vi.

So with this much enthusiasm, and fans clamouring for more vocabulary and further explanations of language points, why can’t this excitement be replicated by your average language learner?  Of course, this language at present only has about 500 words, and the average learner of Na’vi is probably a little bit more obsessive about their areas of interest than most people.  Still, Na’vi enthusiasts are arranging meetings, and learning the language so they can communicate with each other and express their appreciation of the language and culture on the fictional planet of Pandora.

In this vein, why don’t you see if you can find a local or online interest group for the language you are learning?  If everyone could be as dedicated as a Na’vi-learning film geek, we might all be progressing that little bit faster.

October is National Poetry Month in the United Kingdom, and it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the beauty that language can create, whether it be in your native tongue or a foreign language.

This month is the perfect time to discover something new in poetry, whether you are an existing enthusiast or not.  These days poetry doesn’t have to be classical, or in rhyming couplets.  It can take the form of non-rhyming prose, haiku, performance art, or poetry jam.  It can be dramatic or serene.

For language learners, poetry can be a great inspiration, and it’s very fulfilling to be able to understand a poet’s original intention.  Try a couple of poems in your target language, and compare them to their translations.  Can you see any difference?  It’s always useful to bear in mind that translations of art need to be somewhat artistic themselves, and fail as poetic translations if they are word-for-word.

What are your favourite foreign language poems?

What is your motivation to learn a language?  For some people, it helps to have a concrete goal like successfully understanding a favourite book in its original language.  Some people choose a famous novel or poem or writer to use as their inspiration for continuing their language study.  As good as translators can be these days, they can never capture exactly the original feeling that the author intended, and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to read and understand the majority of an original piece of writing.

Whether you are learning a language for business or personal reasons, it can be really helpful to have a target like this, especially when it is a book or piece of prose you know you will enjoy.  Of course, for professional reasons you may wish to read material related to your own industry, but the comprehension of this is also rewarding.

If you are new to a language, start with achievable goals, like reading children’s stories, newspaper articles, or simple short stories.  Using a Dostoyevsky epic in its original Russian as your first goal might be a bit ambitious, but you could always use it as a long-term aim.  Also bear in mind that reading classical stories in outdated languages might not help you with your conversational vocabulary.

Some websites and publishers also provide side-by-side translations of books and texts, so you can refer to the translated text whenever you come across something you don’t understand.  Remember that to understand something, you don’t have to know every single word.  Even native speakers stumble on vocabulary sometimes.  Look words up when you need to, but don’t let difficult words interrupt your enjoyment of reading.

I came across an interesting discussion thread about people’s ‘books they’d learn a language for’, which includes suggestions about great books in contributors’ own languages.  Which books do you want to read in their original forms, and which would you recommend to learners of your language?  Have you achieved any of your language goals?

I love dictionaries.  I like the fact that they contain a world of information between their covers.  They are indispensable when it comes to answering quick questions when learning a new language, and even come in very handy when you’re unsure about your native language. They come in all shapes and sizes, and can give you basic information, or more than you’d need in a lifetime.

I have an English dictionary that sits within easy reach on my desk, in case I have any words that stump me at work.  It tells me parts of speech, gives me usage examples, tells me about any UK/US  differences, and gives me frequency scores (indications of how common the word is in everyday writing and speech).  The corpus used to compile the information has over 250 million words from text and transcribed speech.  So why do I increasingly find myself using online dictionaries, and user-modified sources (wikis and user-rated references)?

With long-established words, I am quite confident that my dictionary will give me an accurate reflection.  When it comes to modern terms, however, I would not trust the frequency scores, or most-common definition.  In fact, with flash-in-the-pan or fleeting sort of terms, I don’t expect the dictionary to contain them at all.  This is where online resources come in very handy, not to mention that a good search will uncover what users of terms think of the current definitions.

So what are the big dictionary companies doing about it?  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) makes revisions every 3 months.  I’m glad to see that in June, they added turducken. As The Global Language Monitor points out, newly-released Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary includes ‘new words’ such as sock puppet, which, at 50 years old, is at least twice as old as this dictionary’s target audience.  Then again, they have 2005’s staycation, which refers to a vacation spent at home or nearby.  Is their update of nearly 100 new and not-so-new words enough to keep up with the language?  It’s unlikely.

With internet-fueled globalisation of popular new terms, will traditional dictionaries survive?  Or will they remain a reminder of the more stable parts of language when terms like pwnd (that’s right, it has no vowels) have gone the way of cowabunga?

I found an article on Examiner.com giving some great advice for would-be travellers to non-English speaking countries.  It is obviously aimed at American natives, but pretty much all of the advice can be transferred to English speakers from other places, or speakers of any language going to a country where they speak a different one.  It even works for people who speak the same language, but different regional variations.  For example, I don’t use the term red eye to talk about a late-night flight, either.

If you are travelling in the near future, a lot of this advice would be useful to bear in mind:

* Make every attempt to at least acknowledge the mother language. Learning to say even a few words will indicate that you respect the native tongue.

* Do not use expressions or words that have recently come into the vernacular in the United States. For instance, saying you are “out of the loop” will probably put you there if you use that expression with a colleague in Colombia and letting someone know you are giving him or her a “head’s up” will probably just cause confusion in Korea.

* Watch your references. Certain words Americans say every day in conversation may be too abstract for a foreign audience. Almost all of us who were raised stateside are familiar with taking “a red eye” but there probably isn’t a single soul in Saigon who knows that expression to mean that he or she will be flying during the night.

* Repeat yourself. Being redundant may be the only way to ensure you are getting your message across so keep in mind that restating a concept by choosing other words to offer the same information twice is not only OK, it is almost always a good idea.

* Avoid speaking in a monotone. By raising or lowering your voice to make a point you may be helping to make yourself understood to someone whose command of English isn’t the same as your own.

* Watch your audience for any indication that you have lost them. For instance, if you are confronted by a glazed expression or two, you may want to back up and then slow down to keep communication flowing.

* Don’t continue talking, wondering if you have made yourself perfectly clear. Instead, ask directly if you sense you have lost your thread of communication and don’t take yes for an answer. Instead, dig deep by asking pertinent questions relating to the topic to make sure you are being understood.

+ Don’t be fooled by nods or smiles; these may not be signs that what you are saying has been understood, but rather that you are talking to a polite, if very confused, audience.

The original post also has links to advice for behaving acceptably in specific countries.  Check it out.

Unless you’ve been living under a virtual rock recently, you’ll know about the so-called microblogging service Twitter.  It allows businesses, news media, celebrities, and individuals to broadcast their thoughts in 140 character tweets, as well as keep up with all manner of other people and organisations.  Best of all, you don’t have to be connected to a PC, or even the internet.  Most functions can be accessed by mobile phone (depending on what country you’re in), and communicating is as easy as sending a text message (SMS).

After skimming over Online Colleges’ extensive collection of 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom, I started thinking about practical uses for tweeting in the language classroom (or, more specifically, outside the language classroom).

From the Communication section:

1. Direct Tweet. [Teachers] and students can contact each other through direct Tweets without having to share cell phone numbers.
2. Get to know your classmates. A class Twitter group will help facilitate [teachers] and students getting to know each other, especially if the class is part of a more intimate setting such as a seminar.
3. Collaborate on projects. When working together on projects, set up a group using an app like Tweetworks to facilitate communication between everyone working together.
4. Make announcements. [Teachers] can send out reminders about upcoming tests, project due dates, or any news that needs to be shared via Twitter.
5. Share interesting websites. Both [teachers] and students can post interesting websites that are relevant to their class.
6. Daily learning. Twitter feeds happen much more frequently than the two or three times a day a student is in class, therefore using Twitter in the classroom means there is a daily opportunity for learning.

More specific to language learning:

1. Practice a foreign language. Language classes can take advantage of the opportunity to communicate in the target language of the class by finding native speakers on Twitter.
2. Follow mentors. If [teachers] or other key figures in your field of study are on Twitter, follow them to keep up with their research and activities.
3. Follow an idea, word, or event. Send “track ___” with whatever word, event, or idea you want to follow in the blank, and you will receive Tweets that contain that keyword.

Teachers can set students short assignments that they have to complete in 140 characters or less.  Students can post interesting new words or points they learn, and can learn from peers around the world.  Post interesting news stories or websites about your chosen language.

The length restriction is a bit of a double-edged sword in that what you will see from native speakers will often be informal abbreviations, or internet slang, but at the same time, because communication is key, learners won’t have to worry too much about spelling and grammar.

It could be worth finding out if your language teacher or fellow students uses the service, or look up a few interesting people who tweet in your target language.  There are a lot of possibilities out there for this kind of thing, and I’d be interested to hear about your experiences.