Language Trainers Blog

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.

I’ve been listening to Italians speak to each other for the last couple of days and I love the ups and downs of the language that are the result of putting the stress on specific syllables in the word. In fact, if you don’t put the stress on the correct part of the word, some people may not understand you at all, even if you do get the actual word right. Most of the time, the stress is on the second to last syllable of the word, even with long words, e.g. cappuccino, panino. There’s also a lot of ‘r’ rolling, which may be hard for some people to get used to. It may be especially difficult for speakers of some Asian languages, which don’t really have ‘r’ sounds in the first place.

I think the best way to make yourself understood is to try to sound as much like a stereotypical Italian as possible. You may think it’s silly, or even offensive, but if you spend some time listening to Italians speak to each other, you will see that they are as expressive as they appear in films and on TV. It may mean making your voice go up and down more often than you’re used to, and speaking with your hands (Italians do this a lot), but it will help. Let your voice and hands go a little, and see if you can pronounce this beautiful language like an enthusiastic native!

One of the exercises my teacher likes to do with me is to get me to tell her about my day, or my weekend, or what I want to do in the near future.  It helps me practice speaking and writing (i.e., creating output) about things that are relevant and familiar to me, as well as focusing on useful language and grammar.

Talking about what you did on the weekend helps with past tenses, next week is for future, current habits practice present continuous.  You can use the subjunctive (if… situations) by imagining what you would have done if you had made a different choice or if something else happened (e.g. if I missed the bus this morning, I would have…).

If you don’t have a person to give you feedback, there are plenty of websites where other users will correct your work (e.g. LiveMocha, Lang-8), and you can correct theirs.  Alternatively, you could start a blog of your diary entries and invite readers to give you some advice about improving your writing and/or speaking.  You could also write about your language learning experiences.

What kind of output exercises do you like to do?

One of my Chinese teacher’s favourite things to tell me is that you have to ‘lose your face’ if you want to progress with any kind language learning.  You need to try to express yourself, even if you aren’t 100% sure, and even if there is a chance that someone will correct you (and/or have a pretty good laugh at your expense).

Face is a very important concept in China, more so than in most places in the world.  There are a lot of ways that people can lose it, and a lot of things are done in order to maintain it.  Things which you and I might not find embarrassing could be mortifying for a Chinese person, but yet I find that most Chinese people I meet are willing to try to speak English with me.  I have a great deal of respect for them in this, because I am one of those people who needs to be 100% sure.  It has taken me a long time to just get out there and try to use what I know.

It goes without saying that we will improve more the more we try to speak.  It’s just that sometimes it’s difficult to do so.  I’m not saying that we should aim to embarrass ourselves every time we speak in a foreign language, but we need to try things out, despite any potential embarrassing consequences.

One way to do this is to consider the alternatives - is it worse to try to say a sentence or to have to try to write it down?  Is it more embarrassing to mispronounce a word, or to have to mime entire sentences?  Or you can make it clear that you know your weaknesses by using comical aids such as the iLingual app that I talked about last time.

Do you have a trick to help you speak more often?

Image: Melle_Oh.

I was booking some tickets for a trip to Europe recently when I stumbled across a hilarious yet useful free service provided by the airline Emirates.  Their iLingual iPhone application not only provides you with lots of useful phrases in French, Arabic, and German, but it lets you do it with your own mouth.

Hilariously, the first thing you need to do is take a picture of your own mouth, and calibrate it.  You can choose between male and female voices, and even change the pitch to make it sound higher or lower.  Then, you simply select the phrase you want, and hold your phone in front of your mouth, and iLingual makes it seem like you are speaking in another language.

It’s not just for laughs, either.  The full versions have over 400 travel-related sentences, and the lite versions can be downloaded directly to your iPhone.  That’s a pretty solid phrasebook, if you ask me.

Also, with most electronic phrasebooks (which usually only have a few phrases anyway), you select your phrase, and then you and the listener both have to sort of just stare at your phone and wait for it to make a noise.  With iLingual, you can laugh at yourself a little bit, and show the person you’re speaking to that you are not so arrogant as to expect them to communicate wholly in your native language.  I’d definitely expect a few stares, though!

Has anyone tried this app yet?  What are your thoughts?

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.

Subtitles are a great way to watch foreign films and TV shows and be able to understand them, and using them can help if you need a bit of help with your listening comprehension.  There are a couple of other things you can do with them, besides the standard native language subtitle, though.

Make sure you’re hearing all the words correctly by using subtitles in the same language as the audio.  It will also help if you miss a word here or there, and help towards improving your reading recognition, spelling, and comprehension.  If you are a beginner, or the material is particularly complex, it will help to watch the film a few times using your native language first, and/or pause and review frequently.

Another option, if the film has it, is to listen to it dubbed in your language, with the subtitles in the original language.  This will make sure you understand what is going on, but give you more exposure to the written language.  If you are learning a non-alphabetised language, it will help with your recognition, too.  Obviously, pausing a lot will help here, too.

You can always try watching your favourite shows dubbed or subtitled in your target language, but bear in mind that subtitles (as with many translations) may not be correct.  If something seems a bit wrong to you, it very well might be.  Don’t let this put you off though, as there are a lot of benefits to watching and understanding interesting material.  Note down anything weird or interesting, and show it to your teacher or look it up later.

Have you benefited from watching foreign language material?  How did you do it?

Image: meaduva.

Many people choose a name in their adopted language, in order to communicate more easily with people who are native speakers.  If you decide to choose a new alias, it will show people you are eager to involve yourself in their language and culture.  It also helps conversation move more smoothly, as saying names in foreign languages and accents interrupts the flow of native speech.

I’m sure we’ve all seen a few adopted names that have made us giggle to ourselves.  So how do you choose a name that won’t be old-fashioned, odd, meaningless, or inappropriate?

Choose something similar to your existing name. This is not necessary, and sometimes not possible, but it will help both you and others remember what it is.

Get a second opinion. Talk to a native speaker you trust (more than one, if possible), and who can explain the name to you (or give you some more options).

Ask if your name “sounds right” - that is, it’s not obsolete or weird.  I was listening to a female friend choosing a Chinese name, and a Chinese guy remarked that he would never marry a girl who was called one of the options.  A name may sound fine to you, but it may be for the opposite gender.  Typically, only native speakers know this kind of thing.

Check for other meanings or connotations. Make sure you’re aware of any other meanings, or words that sound similar.  When my father was choosing an English name, he rejected several names because they sounded like unpleasant nouns in English.  In the end he decided not to have an English name at all, which of course he had every right to do.

Go with something you like! Whether it be unconventional or unusual, if it means something special to you, go for it.

Have you had to choose a foreign name?  How did you choose it, and were you happy with your decision?

I’ve spent the last two years working and travelling in Asia, and speaking a mixture of the local language and English to varying levels of success.  I’m now on a long-overdue visit home, and it’s the first time I have been in an English-speaking country in a long time.  I was eased into it as I had a very long journey comprising four different flights and five different cities, and it wasn’t until the fourth city that the flight crew stopped speaking Chinese (Mandarin to Hong Kong, and then Cantonese after that).

It took me a little while to stop the automatic pleasantries popping into my head in Chinese, and for a few days I kept thinking of ways to try to communicate my needs in other languages.  While it’s a bit of a relief to be able to speak plainly and be understood by strangers, it’s also quite encouraging to realise that I do manage to function in my adopted country.

Does anyone else experience a slight delay in language adjustment?  Maybe it’s another result of jet lag.

Good news for Japanese language learners: the Japanese government has sponsored a website that allows transcription of any podcast recorded in Japanese.  Podcastle produces automated transcription of Japanese podcasts into Kanji, and from there, users of the site can correct and modify as necessary.

I’ve already discussed how useful podcasts and radio shows can be for language learning, especially when teamed with transcripts to refer to or read over before or after listening.  Using a lot of audio for learning will help to improve your listening, pronunciation, and speaking fluency.

By all accounts, the transcriptions aren’t perfect, but that’s to be expected.  As technology gets more accurate, and as the site gains more users, transcripts will become much more accurate.  As it stands, they might be better for intermediate and advanced learners of the language, but it is still a worthwhile effort.

For more information and a review of the service, go to Street-Smart Language Learning™.