Language Trainers Blog

Acronyms certainly make our lives easier, even if we don’t even realise we’re using them. Lots of “words” used on a day to day basis are actually abbreviated. For example, do you enjoy scuba diving? Would you enjoy explaining to people that you enjoy self contained underwater breathing apparatus diving more? What about sonar? Did you know it’s actually sound navigation and ranging?

With instant messaging and texting, using abbreviations has become more popular, and more importantly time saving. LOL, for example, is an acronym; whereas OMG is an abbreviation. An abbreviation becomes an acronym when you pronounce the initial letters as a word.

Linguistic minefields occur when we’re not really thinking about what we are saying. “Enter your pin number, please” is a phrase you hear daily (if you like shopping, as I do.)  PIN is an acronym, so you’re actually being asked for your personal identification number number! LCD display is liquid crystal display display. These are called redundant acronyms. (Click the link to check you’re not using them!)

Can you think of any not listed?

The BBC have launched the first children’s television series to be translated into Manx Gaelic.

The entire series of Friends and Heroes, which consists of 13 episodes, has been distributed to every school in the Isle of Man as a teaching resource. The animated episodes are 25 minutes long and have English subtitles.

“It sends a message to the children that Manx is for us today, not just something from the past. To have such a high-quality resource as this is brilliant.”

said Julie Matthews, Head teacher of the Isle of Man’s only Manx speaking school, Bunscoill.

Today is World Book Day in the UK. The original World Book Day, held on April 23rd, is a UNESCO initiative to promote reading. Our local version is a charity event specifically to get kids reading. Each child in full time education is given a £1 book voucher. In recent years, a selection of 8 books has been made available for this event. This year’s selection can be found here. If nothing there takes your child’s fancy, the voucher can also be used as £1 off any full priced book at participating bookshops.

Some schools encourage children to dress up as their favourite character from a book. Which character from a kid’s book would you dress up as, if given the chance? My favourite was always Matilda (Roald Dahl)!

Following the news that the original  English-Guernesiais dictionary from 1967 is to be republished due to public demand; it has been announced that a new language commission is to be set up to protect and promote the island’s language.

Guernesiais is a variation of Norman French which is native to the Channel Island. It has been in use on the island for over 1000 years, although today the primary language is English. Up until 1948, it was French. According to the latest figures, only 2% of the island’s population is fluent in Guernesiais.

Culture and Leisure Department member Darren Duquemin explained in a presentation that Jerrais (the local language of Jersey) is much more prevalant in society than Guernesiais and went on to outline how he intends to change that with the new Commission, and preserve a large part of the island’s heritage.

If you’re learning Spanish, Italian or French, then you might like to put one of these on your Christmas list. It’s a handy little desk calendar which gives you a new phrase or word in your chosen language each day. Every little helps! It also comes with an audio CD of basic phrases so would make a great present for a friend who is planning to learn a new language in the New Year. The calendars are available from Play.com.

Youtube has added some more languages to its ‘translate captions’ service. Six European languages will now join the existing English, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. These appear automatically in videos when you click on the “turn on captions” button at the bottom of the video. This doesn’t apply to music videos. The subtitles are generated using Google Voice (voice recognition technology.)

If you discover an error, there are ways to submit corrections. Google are also working on a new feature to translate the subtitles into other languages.

For now, you can use subtitles in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian, which is great if you’re learning any of these languages. Find a video in the language you’re learning and try it out!

Yet another film festival (I did let you know it’s the season!) to remind you about. If you’re learning a Scandinavian language, this one’s for you. The Nordic Film Festival showcases independent films from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland.

The festival runs from Friday November 30th to Wednesday December 5th at 3 independent venues across London – Cine Lumiere in South Kensington, Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, and Riverside Studios in Hammersmith.

A full festival line up and more information can be found here.

This week, I came across a word I hadn’t heard before in the book I was reading. That word was perambulator, which I now know to be more common these days in the diminutive form of pram. Olfactory is another word I’ve come across recently, which I didn’t know previously. Usually when I’m reading a book and come across a word I don’t know, I’ll write it down in my notebook, with the context, and find the meaning later on. It helps with my vocabulary in my native English, of course; I also thought that this might be a nice little tip for language learning. It depends on your reading level: if you’re a beginner you’d get easily frustrated because you would be writing down every other word, but for more advanced readers this may help. When you’re fluent in a language, you don’t necessarily think to learn words you think you might not need again. It seems kind of obvious, but every little helps to remind you when you’re learning.

It’s Film Festival season in London, and here’s a heads up for yet another one! As a student of Latin American Spanish, and a huge Latin film fan, I’m looking forward to getting involved with this one.

The 10 day film fest kicked off on Friday with a performance by Lokandes, followed by a screening of Mexican documentary “And the River Flows On” and a Q&A session with producer Jesus Rodriguez Montes.

Many Latin American countries are represented, with films from Mexico, Honduras, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Brazil due to be screened.

I’m looking forward to seeing Colombian documentary Cocaine Unwrapped; as well as Tiempos Menos Modernos (Not So Modern Times), which has already won awards at international film festivals. The latter promises some stunning Patagonian scenery as well!

You can find more information here. Tickets are available through individual venues.

A recent study has revealed that Bob Marley’s music is the most helpful with teaching students English! The study, conducted by Kaplan International Colleges, asked current students and alumni whether popular pastimes such as playing video games, watching television and movies, and listening to music helped with their English language learning. An overwhelming majority of 80% said that listening to music helps, with Bob Marley being the top choice with 14% of students recommending his music to learn English, followed by Michael Jackson with 11%.

82% of students said watching television helps as well, with American sitcom Friends being the top choice of show. Harry Potter was the top rated film.

Do you use these tools to help you learn your chosen language? If so, recommend us some music, films and television shows in the comments!

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