Today’s quiz question is a bit different – can you identify the city in the photo below? Which languages would you be likely to hear spoken in this city?
In My Language I am Smart
Today I found an interesting piece about the differences between speaking your own language and speaking a second or foreign language by Dragan Todorovic, a Serbian writer and artist who lives in Canada. He tells us that:
…my biggest problem was the sound of my English. Language is acquired with its sound, and the sounds I had picked from records and movies were harsh, aggressive, and presented me in a very different light from who I was and am. Suddenly I realized that somewhere in the process of acquiring the tone of modern English I had lost my identity. It was painful to realize that in my language I was smart, but I sounded stupid in English.
Have you had similar experiences? Do you think you’re a different person when you speak a foreign language?
Word of the day – wilfing
According to an article in the Guardian, the new national obsession in the UK is wilfing, or surfing the web without any particular purpose. The word wilf comes from the phrase “what was I looking for?” and in a survey of 2400 British internet users, more than two thirds admitted that they wilf from time to time.
I quite often find myself wilfing. How about you?
Language fossils
There are many interesting ideas about the origins of language being discussed on a blog I discovered recently called Babel’s Dawn. One recent post puts forward the idea that some short expressions we use, such as “What me worry?”, might be fossils of an early stage in the evolution of speech before the development of complex grammar.
Another post suggests that babbling might have developed before speech, perhaps among Homo Habilis, as a way for babies and children to bond with their parents, and this probably increased their chances of surviving into adulthood. In fact parental instincts in humans extend not just to our own offspring and other children, but also to other species. This is not the cases for other apes, or usually for other animals.
Anyway, if you are interested in the origins of speech, I highly recommend this blog.
Rhythm and Memory
Recently I’ve been experimenting with using rhymes to memorise vocabulary. To learn things like days of the weeks, months, numbers, etc, I find that repeating them rhythmically, usually in twos or threes is quite a effective way to memorise them. I also try to make up little rhymes and stories using the words to put them in context. As I say the words, I also visualise what they represent and label my mental pictures with the words.
When learning the words of songs, I learn the words in conjunction with the tune. As a result, the words and tune become strongly linked in my mind and I find that I can’t speak the words on their own easily.
Do you similar methods to learn vocabulary?
Language learning challenge
A number of the denizens of the forum at How to learn any language are conducting an experiment to see how much of a language they can learn in 6 weeks. They’ve chosen languages they haven’t studied before and there has been quite a lot of discussion about learning techniques and how to measure the results.
Are any of you taking part in this challenge, or have you done anything similar before?
I did something similar with Italian a few years ago when I tried to learn as much of the language as possible in 2 months before going on holiday to Italy. When I got to Italy, I was able to have basic conversations and to generally get by, but I was a long way from fluency. Unfortunately I didn’t continue studying Italian after the holiday and have since forgotten much that I learnt.
By the way, it’s my birthday today – dau dwy ar bymtheg ar hugain ydw i.
Name that tune
Here is a recording of part of a song in a mystery language. Can you name the song and work what language it is?
Language quiz
Today’s recording is part of a story in one of the indigenous languages of Alaska. Can you guess or do you know which one?
Počasí (Weather)
Dnes bylo hezky, teplo a slunečno. Šla Šel jsem do na nábřeží. Věřím, že zítra bude taky pĕknĕ.
It’s been a bright, warm sunny day in Brighton today. I spent the afternoon down on the seafront practising my unicycling, juggling and other circus skills. I hope it will be nice again tomorrow.
The chapter of my Czech course that I’m currently working on covers transport, travel and weather. It also introduces the past and future tenses. The topics mentioned in each chapter seem to be fairly random.
Here are a few more weather-related expressions in Czech, with some lovely consonant clusters:
Je mlha – there’s a mist
Je větrno – it’s windy
Prší – it’s raining
Snĕží – it’s snowing
Mrzne – It’s freezing
Slunce svítí – the sun is shining
Word of the day – toponymy
Toponymy is the study of the origins and meanings of place names (toponyms). It comes from the Greek τόπος (topos) – place, and oνομα (ōnoma) – name. It is a branch onomastics, the study of all kinds of names.
The other day I came across an interesting site containing information about the Welsh, Gaelic, Scandinavian and Scots roots of some British places names. Here are a few Scandinavian elements that appear in some British places names, especially in Orkney and Shetland, parts of mainland Scotland, the north west of England and parts of Wales. Do you know of can you guess their meanings?
Beck, fell, fors, garth, gill, holm, noup, ramna, scord and ting.
The place where I grew up, Silverdale, Lancashire in the north west of England, has a name of Scandinavian origin – the dale part comes from the Norse dalr (valley), but nobody is quite sure of the origin of the Silver part. One theory is that it was named after a Viking chief called something like Silr or Selr. Another theory is that the name comes from the large number of silver birch trees that grow in the area.