Gwers gyntaf

My guitar

Nes i fy ngwers gyntaf ar y gitâr ddoe. Gofynnodd yr athro wrtha i llawer o gwestiynau am fy ngwybodaeth am y gitâr ac am gerddoriaeth a dysgais ef i mi dau cord syml ac sut i strymio hefyd. Heddiw prynais i fy ngitâr cyntaf – gitâr acwstig gan Vintage (y V300).

Rinne mé mo chéad cheacht giotár inné. Chuir an múinteoir go leor ceisteanna orm faoi m’eolas faoi an giotár agus an ceoil agus mhúin sé cúpla corda simplí liom agus cad é méaraigh a dhéanamh. Inniu cheannaigh mé mo chéad ghiotár – giotár fuaimiúil le Vintage (an V300).

Rinn mi mo chiad leasan giotar an-dè. Chuir an tidsear móran ceiste rium mu dheidhinn m’aithne mu an giotar is an ceòl agus theagaisg e mi feadhainn còrda simplidh is diasganaich a deanamh. An-duigh cheannaich mi mo chiad giotar.

Maintenance v reactivation

A post on Tim Ferriss’ blog that I came across the other day, via Confessions of a Language Addict, asks an interesting quesion:

How can you possibly maintain fluency in two foreign languages — let alone five or six — if the opportunities to use them are months or years apart?

He then explains how he reactivated his German before visiting Germany recently by watching German films, reading German manga and a German phrasebook, and also using flashcards. He reckons that once you reach an intermediate to advanced level in a language, trying to maintain it at that level could be a real struggle of you don’t have regular opportunities to use it and you may also develop bad habits. Instead he recommends that you spend 1-3 weeks reactivating and reviving your knowledge of the language before you need to use it.

What do you think? Is it better to keep a language ticking over, or to brush it up only when you really need it?

I’m trying to maintain and improve the languages I’m focusing on at the moment (Czech, Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic), while practising my other languages when I get a chance to keep when ticking over.

Word of the day – お任せ (omakase)

omakase in the Japanese script

I came across today’s word on Amazon’s Affiliates site today. They use it as the name of a widget which displays products based on Amazon’s understanding of your site, the visitors to your site and the page you place it on. They say it means “leave it up to us”.

お任せ (omakase) is a Japanese word that means “entrust” or “protect”. It’s used mainly in Japanese restaurants, where customers might say “お任せお願いします” (omakase onegaishimasu), which you could also translate as “Chef, I’m in your hands”. When they say this, they are asking the chef to select and prepare food for them in a manner of his choosing. The chef also decides how much to charge. This usually results in a very good meal at a reasonable price as the chef will feel obliged to create a worthy meal out of the freshest foods he has, to reward and retain a valued customer’s trust in him.

Typo Tour

I received an email today about what is apparently the first Typographic Tour of Italy or Il Grand Tour della tipografia italiana. When I first saw the subject of the email I thought someone was organising a tour of Italy especially for typographers. Then I realised it’s actually a virtual tour via images and text on a website. There are also links to GoogleEarth, which enable you to see maps and images of the sites where the examples of type and lettering are found.

The site contains examples of inscriptions and signs from around Italy in a variety of styles and provides information about the people who designed the typefaces. Most of the information is in Italian, but there is also an explanation of the project in English.

Language learning in the EU

EU language experts would like to encourge European citizens to learn more languages, especially such languages as Arabic, Chinese and Hindi, according to a report I found today. They hope this will ” boost the EU’s global competitiveness”. They would also like language teaching to be more enjoyable and entertaining in order to try to increase enthusiasm for learning languages.

These proposals will presented tomorrow during the European Day of Languages, which is designed “to celebrate the rich heritage of cultures and traditions embodied in all the languages of Europe”.

Does anyone know who these language experts are, what they do, and who to get a job as one?

Word of the day – proprioception

Proprioception [ˈpɹopɹiːoˌsɛpʃən], from Latin proprius (one’s own) and perception = the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body.

I came across the word proprioception while reading Richard Robinson very interesting book, Why the toast always lands butter side down – the Science of Murphy’s Law. Proprioception involves knowing where your limbs are, he explains, vital information that enables us to walk, run and stand upright. Apparently if you proprioception malfunctions, you might believe that one or more of your limbs belongs to someone else rather than you.

The book contains some interesting suggestions about how our brains process information – most of the data we receive from our senses is ignored by our concious minds and we construct our experience of the world largely based on past experience, guess work and emotion. So we generally see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear, and so on.

This suggests to me that one reason we may find the foreign languages difficult to understand is that we’re less able to rely on the past experience and guess work, as we would in our native tongue.

Gitâr / Giotár / Giotàr

Ddoe penderfynais ddechrau dysgu y gitâr o’r diwedd. Dw i’n meddwl amdano ers talwrn, a ddoe meddyliais “Pam lai?” – mae digon o awydd, arian ac amser ‘da fi. Dw i wedi darganfod athro ym Mrighton ar y we, a bydda i’n cysylltu â fe yfory. Yn gynta, bydd rhaid i mi prynu gitâr.

Inné chinn mé ar an giotár a fhoghlaim faoi dheireadh. Tá mé ag smaoineamh air ar feadh tamaill fhada, agus inné smaoinigh mé “Cén fáth nach dhéanaim?” – tá fonn mór, airgead agus am agam. Fuair mé múinteoir i mBrighton san idirlinn agus déanfaidh teagmháil leis amárach. Ar-dtús caithfidh mé giotár a cheannach.

An-dè chuir mi romham an giotàr ag ionnsachadh fa dheòidh. Tha mi a’ smaoineachadh air airson greis mhòr, agus an-dè smaoinich mi “Carson nach ionnsaich mi?” – tha dealas, airgead agus aimsir agam. Fhuair mi tidsear ann an Brighton agus cuiridh mi fios air a-màireach. An toiseach feumaidh mi ceannaich giotàr.