It’s never too late to learn

By Simon

The University of Wales Lampeter’s Welsh Department runs a number of e-learning courses which can lead to degrees in Welsh or Welsh Studies. The courses are delivered mainly over the web, but students are encouraged to go to summer schools at Lampeter.

Recently a retired telecommunications engineer from Nottingham was awarded the Lampeter’s first e-learning degree in Welsh Studies. He didn’t speak a word of Welsh before he started the course in 2002, but got interested in the language when his son married a Welsh-speaker. He now speaks Welsh well and there is a regular Welsh class in Nottingham thanks to his enthusiasm. He graduated in July last year at the tender age of 74.

So don’t let anybody tell you that it’s too late to start learning a language!

I myself was originally planning to study German and Swedish at Lampeter and was offered a place there. Later I decided to study Chinese and Japanese at Leeds instead. I plan to attend the Welsh language summer school at Lampeter in June this year, and am considering having a go at some of their e-learning courses.

Haiku as Gaeilge

By Simon

Here are a few more haiku, in Irish this time, which I found on the Irish Gaelic translation forum. Some of the translations are my own, so may not be entirely correct.

Tá sé in ann dom
Bheith ag foghlaim Gaeilge
Go deireadh an saoil

I have to
be learning Irish
to the end of my days

tá mo shaol go breá
ag foghlaim le mo chairde
aon anam amháin!

my life is so nice
learning with my good friends here
one soul together

An crann úll lasmuigh
lán le torthaí na gréine
M’obair féin romham

The apple tree outside
full of fruit of the sun
My own work is done

céard a réaltacht í
ach titim agus éirí
an bhfuil a fhíos againn?

what’s reality
but falling and then rising
do we know for sure?

Here’s one I just composed in Welsh

cymaint o ieithoedd
yn gwthio am le gwag
yn fy mhen

so many languages
jostling for space
in my head

Word of the day – haiku

By Simon

the word haiku in Japanese kanjiAs I’m sure many of you know, haiku (俳句) are short Japanese poems made of of 17 syllables usually in 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. The only Japanese haiku I can remember is:

古池や　(furu ike ya)
蛙飛びこむ　(kawazu tobikomu)
水の音 (mizu no oto)

An old pond
a frog jumps in
splash!

There are many other English versions of this famous haiku by Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉) here. It’s amazing the number of different ways such a seemingly simple poem can be translated.

Haiku are not only written in Japanese. Non-Japanese haiku don’t always have exactly 17 syllables, but they usually a similar structure to the Japanese ones. Here are a few examples I came across recently in Scots:

Reid cluds lemin
at keek-o-day – refleckit
in the cray glaur

Red clouds glowing
at sunrise – reflected
in the pigsty mud

Hauf-road up the glen
a daurk wee lochan –
a cran tentie

Halfway up the glen
a dark little loch –
a heron watchful

Birlin doon
the rowth o gean blume
taigles a bummer

Swirling down
the plenteous cherry blossom
delays a bee

Do you know of any haiku in other languages? Or have you written any yourself?

DIY phrasebooks

By Simon

At the moment I’m reading Bill Handley’s Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language, which, as the title suggests, has lots of useful tips about learning languages.

One suggestion I particularly like is to compile a list of words and phrases you want to say and think will be useful to you, then to get translations of them in the language(s) you’re learning, and audio recordings as well, if possible. This will give you a personalised phrasebook that you can continue to expand and improve as you learn more of the language.

I suppose the phrases section on Omniglot could be thought of as my personalised phrasebooks for various languages. It’s something that started as a small collection of ‘useful’ phrases and has grown quite a bit since. I’ve just added a new page with Italian phrases, by the way.

Another good suggestion is that you use several textbooks: one textbook might not explain all the grammar or pronunciation very well, while another one might explain some of it more clearly. Each textbook will also contain different vocabulary and cultural information.

Exercise and language learning

By Simon

I came across an interesting article today, via this blog, about the connection between physical and mental fitness. According to a study undertaken by Charles Hillman at the University of Illinois, students who are physically fit and who take regular aerobic exercise, tend to do better academically then those who are unfit. Physical exercise increases the flow of blood to all parts of the body, including the brain, the blood brings oxygen and various proteins with it, which help brain cells to function more effectively.

Quite often I listen to my language lessons while juggling, skating, or doing some other form of exercise. I wonder if any studies have been done about the benefits of simultaneous physical and mental exercise.

Learning lesser-studied languages

By Simon

If you want to learn a language that not many people study, it can be difficult to find language courses and other materials. Moreover, courses for regional languages and dialects are often only available in the dominant language of the country in which they are spoken. For example, resources for learning Italian dialects are mostly in Italian, and courses for the regional languages of France, such as Breton, Occitan and Alsatian, are mainly in French.

Recently I’ve had some questions about where to find materials for learning Luxembourgish, and also about Shanghainese, Hakka and a number of other languages of China. I found quite a good collection of links to Luxembourgish materials, and some reviews of Shanghainese courses on Sinosplice. Can anybody suggest other resources for learning these languages?

Are you studying any regional or lesser-studied languages? How do speakers of these languages react when you talk to them in their own language?

Tuning into Czech

By Simon

Last Saturday I went out with some Czech and Slovak friends, and was pleased to discover that I could get the gist of what they were talking about in Czech and Slovak. Although I could only catch the odd word and phrase, this was enough to get a basic idea of the subjects under discussion.

Before I started studying Czech, it just sounded like a continuous stream of meaningless sound. Now I can distinguish individual words in that stream and even know what some of them mean. My brain is gradually tuning into the language, a process that will take quite a while. I’m in no hurry though.

First blog anniversary

By Simon

I started this blog exactly a year ago, so today is its first anniversary. It currently contains 319 posts and 3,213 comments, and is visited by around 300 people a day. Unfortunately it also attracts a huge amount of spam posts – over 30,000 to date – fortunately the spam filters catch most of these.

When I took my first tentative steps into the blogsphere, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to find enough things to write about, but so far I’ve managed to write posts almost every day, and enjoy writing them as well. While perhaps not every post is a perfectly honed gem, I do try my best to make them interesting and informative.

I decided to give the blog a new theme today – hope you like it.