Gleihagh ooyllagh

Jesarn ren mee gleihagh ooyllagh jeh ooyllyn voish my gharey. Dy jarroo hoshee mee aarlaghey as coagyragh ny hooyllyn as ren mee broie y soo as hug mee eh ayns costraylyn yn laa roish shen. Ren kiare punt dy hooyllyn queig costraylyn dy lieh gleihagh.

Ta mooarane ooyllyn fooillagh aym as ta foym aym jannoo soo ooyllagh as reddyn elley roo.

Weeds

Yesterday I finally started work on my garden, and one of the first things I did was a bit of weeding. The large crop of dandelions and other weeds in my lawn will take quite a while to remove, but in the meantime I thought I’d look at the origins of a few garden-related words.

Weed comes from the Old English word wēod (grass, herb, weed), which is related to the Old High German word wiota (fern), and probably comes from the Proto-Germanic word *weud-. The verb to weed comes from the Late Old English weodian [source].

Words for weed in other languages include: chwynnyn (Welsh), fiaile (Irish), 野草 [yěcǎo – “wild grass”] (Mandarin), mauvaise herbe (French – “bad grass”), 雑草 [zassō – “crude/miscellaneous grass”] (Japanese).

Dandelion comes from the Middle French dent de lion (lit. “lion’s tooth”), a calque translation of the Middle Latin dens leonis – the leaves are shaped a bit like lion’s teeth.

Folk names for dandelion include tell-time, which refers the practice of blowing the seeds – the number of breaths needed supposedly being the hour, and the Middle English and French names piss-a-bed and pissenlit, which refer to its diuretic properties [source].

Désherber

Aujourd’hui j’ai commencé à désherber mon jardin. Enfin j’ai presque tous les outils de jardinage dont j’ai besoin, et il fait beau, donc j’ai décidé de tirer quelques mauvaises herbes, en particulier les pissenlits, dont il y a une récolte abondante. Jusqu’ici j’ai désherbé seulement un petit coin du jardin et il reste beaucoup à faire, mais j’essaie à focaliser sur les résultats – une pelouse sans des mauvaises herbes – et pas sur tous les travail qu’il me faut faire.

Et dans la maison, les décorateurs continuent à peindre – aujourd’hui ils peignent les murs de l’escalier et de la vestibule.

Language learning methods

Yesterday I came across an interesting article entitled “On the mortality of language learning methods” which discusses how methods for learning foreign languages appear, prosper, disappear, and then reappear.

Over the past century many different methods or approaches have been applied to the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Since the 1960s, for example there has been a shift from approaches that concentrate on learning grammar, vocabulary and on translation, to approaches the emphasise communication, especially speaking. The same thing also happened in the second half of the 19th century.

Much research has been undertaken into language learning and teaching, but as far as I can discover, no single approach or method has been found to work significantly better than any other, in spite of claims to the contrary by the inventors, founders and promoters of particular methods and approaches. Moreover, each new development in technology, whether it be the phonograph, radio, television, computer or internet, is expected to transform the way people learn languages. However this doesn’t necessarily happen.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Seicis

Inné thosaigh mé Seicis a fhoghlaim arís eile. D’fhoghlaim mé giota beag cúpla bliana ó shin agus mé i mo chónaí i mBrighton, ach ní raibh a lán dul chun chinn agam ag an am sin. Tá cairde Seiceach agam ansin, agus arlíne, agus sin é an fáth tá suim agam sa teanga sin.

Beidh mé ag éisteach le raidió Seicise le uair nó dhá achan lá, agus ag taiscéal agus ag taisteal tríd mo chúrsa Seiceise. Bhainfidh mé triail as scéalta nuachta as Seicis a leamh chomh maith.

Tŷ newydd

Dw i wedi bod yn fy nhŷ newydd ers tair wythnos, a dw i’n teimlo yn gartrefol erbyn hyn. Mae llawer o waith wedi i wneud ar y tŷ, yn gynnwys ailweirio; gosod carpedi, ffenestri ac ystafell ymolchi newydd; clirio’r ardd; amnewid y sied ardd; a pheintio.

Mae pobl eraill wedi gwneud y gwaith, ac yr unig pethau sy angen i mi gwneud oedd dod â phobl i wneud y gwaith, arolygu a threfnu’r gwaith, a thalu’r biliau, wrth gwrs. A dw i wedi gwario llawer iawn o pres hyd hynny – nid yn unig ar a gwaith, ac hefyd ar pethau ar gyfer y tŷ a’r ardd.

Mae’r gwaith ar y tŷ bron ar ben, heblaw rhyw beintio, a dw i’n meddwl am beth i wneud efo’r ardd. Mae’r lawnt yn llawn chwyn (dant y llew yn bennaf), ac mae’r coeden afal yn llawn afalau hefyd – bob dydd dw i’n casglu afalau cwympo ac mae gen i bocs mawr llawn ohonyn nhw. Dw i’n bwriadu gwneud jam a jeli efo’r afalau, ac hoffwn i plannu blodau, llysiau a llysiau blas yn yr ardd.

Multilingual child

I’ve received the following request from the BBC that maybe you can help with:

The BBC are looking for a multilingual child and their family to participate in a major new BBC 1 science documentary series. Using cutting-edge CGI and amazing stories of human achievement and endeavour, “Human” will explore the physiological and developmental factors that make us the most remarkable species on Earth.

We are looking to spend 1 to 2 days filming a child, aged between 4 and 16, with exceptional multilingual ability. The filming will be observational and is likely to take place in a domestic setting. The final sequence is likely to form 5 minutes of a 60 minute film that will broadcast in Spring 2011. Our deadline for filming is the 5th October, so we are very keen to hear from interested families ASAP. Please contact Alex Hemingway at alex.hemingway@bbc.co.uk.

Haddock and Églefin

Haddock / Églefin

Last night I discovered that the French word for haddock is églefin or aiglefin, but when smoked it’s called haddock, which is also spelled hadock and hadot. Other French names for the unsmoked fish include aigrefin, Âne, Ânon, Bourricot and Saint-Pierre.

The French églefin/aiglefin comes from the Latin aeglefinus, which in made up of aegle from the Greek αἴγλη (light, radiance, glory), and finus.

Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), is apparently also known as offshore hake in English, and the word haddock is thought to come from the Middle English haddok, the Anglio-Norman hadoc and the Old French hadot, the origins of which are uncertain.

Another word I learnt last night was houblon [‘ublɔ̃], which is French for hops (humulus lupulus), and I just like the sound of it.