Language Trainers Blog

In honour of the 125th anniversary of the language, students in Stoke-on-Trent have started a campaign to promote Esperanto as the second language of choice.

Esperanto is a language which was devised in 1887 by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof. It is considered to be an easy language to learn, as the grammar has no irregular verbs, and people in almost every country have learned to communicate using it. An estimated 2 million people speak the language worldwide, with almost 1000 of those in the UK.

But why are students in Stoke-on-Trent so interested in Esperanto? Well, the headquarters of the language association is based in the village of Barlaston, just outside Stoke-on-Trent. The offices are based on the campus of Wedgwood Memorial College, which has been teaching courses in Esperanto since 1960. The library there holds over 13,000 books in the language.

Stoke-on-Trent has a road named after the founder of the language, Zamenhof Grove, and there is also an Esperanto pub, The Green Star. It’s even host to the 4 day Esperanto Summer Festival.

More information can be found here.

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!

Does anyone else like to use foreign language films to help build their knowledge? As a world cinema fan, I have quite a few in my collection, and as a Spanish language student, I feel it’s in my best interests to have as many Spanish language films as possible!

Watching a movie in another language is an entirely different experience to a Hollywood blockbuster. One has to concentrate and focus undivided attention on the narrative, not only through the words spoken, but also the subtitles. I love immersing myself in a film this way. The subtitles aren’t always accurate, but it’s a good method to improve your vocabulary and find other ways to say a word or phrase. For pronunciation, it’s great, and just listening to the flow of the words can help too. I’ve heard many people state that they learned English through American and English television shows and films, and I’ve often been able to tell which they watched most of from the accent they use!

My recommendations for Spanish language films:

· Amores Perros (Mexico)

· The Motorcycle Diaries (Argentina)

· Maria Full Of Grace (Colombia)

· Bombon El Perro (Argentina)

· Secuestro Express (Venezuela)

· Live Flesh (Spain)

· Sin Nombre (Mexico)

· The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)

· XXY (Argentina)

· Chico y Rita (Cuba)

Other favourites include:

Kolya (Czech), Bus 174 (Brazilian Portuguese), Run Lola Run (German), Hidden (French), Gainsbourg (French), Lilya 4-Ever (Russian), Initial D (Cantonese), and Goodbye Lenin! (German).

Which films would you recommend to help with your language skills?

Language journal has published a study by three linguists at the University of Lyon, showing that certain languages are more or less equally efficient.

The study compared the efficiency of conveying information in spoken German, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

Researchers took a sample group of 59 people, who each read a sample text in their native language. The recordings were then edited to remove the pauses, and syllables were tallied in order to draw conclusions regarding the density of information communicated in each language.

Japanese was found to be the fastest spoken language, with 7.84 syllables spoken per second. Mandarin Chinese was the slowest, with the average syllabic speech rate at 5.18. However, the researchers note that in ‘faster’ languages, the individual parts of words are shorter, meaning there are more syllables. They concluded that a higher rate of syllables by no means implies that content can be transmitted more quickly.

A more comprehensive study, carried out by University of Klagenfurt linguistics professor Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon in 2010, reached similar conclusions. In this case, 51 different languages were recorded, with Indian language Tegulu found to be the fastest, and Thai the slowest.

The latest study, in more detailed form, can be found here.

Eagle eyed readers may have spotted that the resident Language Trainers blogger has recently changed. I’m Emma, and I’m taking over from Wendy, who has been posting all the latest linguistics news for the past three years. Wendy has travelled all over the world and now lives in Shanghai, where she has the opportunity to practice her Mandarin skills every day. I’ve also travelled extensively, but am not multi-lingual. I am however currently (slowly) learning Latin American Spanish.

A bit about me: I’m British, and as we all know, we Brits are not well renowned for their language skills. I think this is part laziness (“hey, everyone speaks English, right?”) and part schooling (we don’t learn languages as part of the curriculum until secondary school, which is actually quite outrageous). This is, of course, a sweeping generalisation, I’m quite aware that there are some awesome British multi linguists out there.

I wasn’t brought up speaking other languages at home and also wasn’t taught the basics of my own language at school(!), however I pride myself on trying when I’m abroad. ‘Hello,’ ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ go a long way, and if you try even more, people are more willing to help you. This goes both ways – I’ve worked in the West End of London and had to deal with irate tourists with varying levels of English, and it’s infinitely easier to converse when there are some mutual language skills. I also travel a lot, so get to test this out quite a bit. I will of course be bringing you travel/language tales here on this very blog.

So, thanks Wendy, for all your informative language posts. I intend to carry on in Wendy’s footsteps, blogging about the latest language news, hints and tips and anecdotes and stories from my own language learning experiences. Please feel free to correct me, help me out, generally mock my language skills, and post some constructive comments once in a while!

We’ve all read those few phrases in phrasebooks where we think ‘When would I ever use that?’ For me, it’s mostly the pick-up line section, but I guess I’m not the kind of person who will go home with someone I can’t communicate with at all.

After writing about how I didn’t think it was funny to purposely give people the wrong translation for something, I was linked to the Zompist phrasebook by reader Adrian. I hadn’t heard of the site before and so wasn’t really sure what I was expecting. I clicked the link and up came a categorised list of phrases, which appear to be translated correctly from English into French, Spanish, and German (the list is also available in Russian, Italian, Danish, Dutch, and Chinese). It’s not the translations that are funny (although there are a couple of trick ones in there!), but the content of the original phrases. Some of them immediately bring to mind the most awful kind of tourist, but perhaps those tourists might find this list valuable.

Here are some examples:

It’s better in the States.
C’est mieux aux Etats-Unis.
Es mejor en los Estados Unidos.
In den Staaten ist es besser.

How much is that in real money?
C’est combien en monnaie réelle ?
¿Cuánto es en moneda estable?
Wieviel ist das in richtigem Geld?

The bellboy won’t score me any coke.
Le groom refuse de me procurer un petit peu de came.
El mozo se niega a venderme cocaína.
Der Page will mir kein Koks bringen.

Don’t “imperialist pig” me, my good man.
Fichez-moi la paix avec votre “cochon impérialiste”, mon petit bonhomme.
¡Váyase usted al cuerno con su “cerdo imperialista”, hombre!
Nenn du mich nicht “imperialistisches Schwein”, mein Lieber.

My wife fell overboard about ten miles back.
Ma femme est tombée par-dessus bord, il y a quinze kilomètres.
Mi esposa se cayó al agua unos quince kilómetros atrás.
Meine Frau ist vor ungefähr fünfzehn Kilometern über Bord gefallen.

I know I’m naked, could you just tell me how to get back to the hotel?
Je le sais bien que je suis à poil; je veux simplement savoir comment rentrer à l’hôtel.
Ya se que estoy calato; sólo quiero saber cómo volver al hotel.
Ich weiß, dass ich nackt bin; könnten sie mir vielleicht einfach sagen, wie ich wieder zurück zum Hotel komme?

http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html!

I watched an old episode of the sitcom Frasier the other day. In it, Frasier wants to give a speech to his son in Hebrew, but doesn’t know how to because he isn’t Jewish. He enlists a coworker to translate and help him with pronunciation. Later on, the coworker feels slighted, so instead of Hebrew, he translates the speech into Klingon (a fictional alien language from the Star Trek TV show, in case you somehow didn’t know). It all worked out well in the end, but it made me think about similar language tricks.

I’ve met plenty of people who have, as part of their kind language guidance to friends, tried to convince those friends that swear words and insults are merely everyday greetings or useful sentences (”No really, if you say this to that hot girl, they will totally go out with you!”). I’ve never been a fan of this behaviour, but perhaps I’m too sensitive? I don’t think people should be discouraged from learning languages by embarrassing experiences.

What do you think? Have you ever been in one of these situations, either as the trickster or the duped? Is it just a bit of harmless fun, or should people be wholeheartedly supported in their language efforts?

I have been in situations before where two speakers have a reasonable knowledge of each other’s languages, but perhaps are not confident enough to speak them. In some of these cases, both speakers carry out their half of the dialogue in their own language, with a fair amount of success. Sometimes I find it too difficult to explain something in another language, but I know the listener will be able to understand me if I speak English.

While this can be considered a form of listening practice, and successful communication is fantastic, it obviously lacks the speaking element. Conversely, if you may find yourself in the opposite situation, where both speakers are speaking the other’s language.

The latter situation seems to be more beneficial, but it may also restrict understanding, depending on the language skill levels of the speakers.

So, is it better to carry out the dialogue in one language only? Or to speak opposite languages? I guess it all depends on the speakers, but I tend to like the situation where people are speaking each other’s languages. That way they might be as likely to mess up as I am!

The cast of reality TV show Jersey Shore doesn’t really have a reputation for being particularly scholarly, but some of the cast members are ensuring that they will be able to speak some Italian for the upcoming season. The fourth season will be filmed in Florence, where apparently officials aren’t exactly welcoming them with open arms (too much chaos in the first three seasons).

Some of the cast members have Italian backgrounds, but none of them speak the language. In order to be able to “know how to order grilled chicken”, cast members have requested that they be furnished with copies of popular computer course Rosetta Stone for Italian.

No matter what the reason, I do admire these people for really wanting to start learning. It makes them rise in my esteem just a little bit. Now, if any of you are Jersey Shore viewers, you’ll have to let me know how their language skills seem in the next season!

Full article: NY Daily News.

Sometimes it’s difficult to write posts about learning from e-book readers or mobile devices because there are so many different devices, formats, and applications out there to use. What I find useful might not be what you find useful, and in many cases, may not be available to you on the gadgets you prefer. I also want to steer away from promoting any one application or service.

In spite of all of this, I wanted to talk about how my e-reader (a Kindle 3 wifi version, if anyone’s interested) has really helped me with making my learning more portable (along with my MP3 player, of course). Initially, I didn’t think I would use it that much, since I like to scribble notes all over the place, but there are definitely some advantages to the electronic format.

I can send my language texts to the device and make notes on them if I want to. I can carry a whole library of books with me without having to choose before I leave the house, and without having to worry that I’m straining my back to carry it all. I can change the font size to make things more readable (especially handy when reading Chinese!). As long as I am not distracted by all of the other books I want to read, my e-reader is a great way to revise documents, books, pictures, and PDFs.

The only thing I’m really waiting for is a way to install dictionaries besides the native English ones.

What’s your favourite way to revise on the run?