Peculiar names

By Simon

Today I came across a site, presented by Lady Fortune the Absurd of Greater Internetshire, that automatically generates silly aristocratic titles, such as The Very Reverend Omniglot the Random of Midhoop St Giggleswich or Milord Sir Lord Simon the Contrite of Much Moulding upon Carpet.

Some of the names it throws up, such as Piddletrenthide, Barton in the Beans and Giggleswick, are genuine places in the UK, but many of them are made up. Piddletrenthide is a small village on the River Piddle in Dorset, Barton in the Beans is in Leicestershire, and Giggleswick is in North Yorkshire.

There are plenty of other oddly-named places in the UK, including Chipping Sodbury, Ugglebarnby, Steeple Bumpstead, Blubberhouses and Bugthorpe, and this site generates more.

Are there are any oddly-named places near you?

Language learning and music

By Simon

Last week I bought a new Welsh language course – Cadw Sŵn – which uses a combination of classical music and stories to teach you the language. I think it’s based on the suggestopedia system. The course is being offered at half price and I want to brush up my Welsh, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The course consists of 20 stories based in the Welsh village of Aberarthur. The stories appear in Welsh and English in the course book, and are read aloud by the author, Colin Jones, on the accompanying CDs. You first listen to a piece of classical music, and Colin encourages you to relax. Then you listen to the story three times, once with no music, and twice with music in the background. After that you are advised to read and/or listen to the story again the next day, then to do the exercises in the book.

So far I’ve listened to the music and the first story. Later today I’ll read through the story again and do the exercises. I think this course is going to be fun. I like the idea of using stories, and the music is very pleasant to listen to. I don’t know if listening to it improves your memory, but I’m happy to try it.

Do you know of any similar courses for other languages?

Language quiz

By Simon

Today we have a song in a number of different languages. Can you work out what they are?

If you recognise the song, it’s not too difficult to find out the languages, but try to guess them first.

Please note, the audio file is quite large – 3MB – so may take a while to download.

What shall we talk about?

By Simon

Language exchange is a great way to practise languages you’re learning and to learn more. In my experience, it works best if those involved have reached a similar level in the language(s) they’re studying – ideally at least an intermediate level.

Sometimes the conversation flows, other times it limps along like an ostrich trying to walk through treacle. To avoid the treacle, you could agree on topics in advance and prepare them by learning relevant vocabulary. This works quite well, though after a while, thinking up new topics can be quite a challenge.

One topic I thought up today was cultural differences, particularly as they apply to the workplace. For example, the kinds of things people do when they or someone else in the office has a birthday, or when they leave the company.

What do you talk about with your language exchange partners?

Languages online

By Simon

According to Internet World Stats, there’s still a majority of English speakers online – currently 327 million or just under 30% of total web users. The number of Chinese-speaking web users is catching up fast though – there are currently 153 million of them, or 14% of the total, a number that has grown 374% since 2000. If this kind of growth continues, maybe Chinese speakers will one day outnumber English speakers online, as they already do offline. The numbers of Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic speakers on the web have also been increasing rapidly.

Stats like this are perhaps one of the reasons why an increasing number of people are studying Chinese, and also why many companies are having their websites translated into Chinese.

I came across the stats site via the Global Language Monitor, which “documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.” – looks interesting.

Number learning Chinese soars

By Simon

According to an article on the BBC, the number of people outside China learning Mandarin Chinese has soared to 30 million over the past five years. The report mentions that in London the majority of kids learning Mandarin have parents who work in finance industry – they perceive that a knowledge of Mandarin will be very useful for their offspring in the future.

In 1998, 6,000 students were studying Mandarin in the USA; there are now 50,000. The report goes on to claim that “It’s self-evident that children will be much better off economically and in job seeking if Chinese programmes are adopted.” I’m not convinced of this – knowledge of Chinese can be useful but isn’t necessarily sufficient to secure you a good job. Other skills and qualifications are needed as well.

The article speculates that Mandarin may replace English as the global language, and concludes that this probably won’t happen just yet, but could do within 100 years or so.

What do you think – could Mandarin take over from English as the most widely spoken language?

Podcast language courses

By Simon

I came across an interesting article today about using podcasts to learn languages. It lists a number of useful sites for languages such as Spanish, French and Russian, and mentions that numerous similar podcasts are available on iTunes. I just had a search in iTunes and have found quite a few free podcasts for various languages, including Greek, Tibetan, Chinese and French, and I’ve subscribed to some Irish and Scottish Gaelic ones. All I need to do now is find time to listen to them.

There are also links to podcasts in many languages here, and to some language learning podcasts here, where alongside such popular languages as Spanish and Japanese, you can find lessons in Mohawk and Osaka dialect.

Talking for Britain

By Simon

At the moment I’m reading a fascinating book about the English language in the UK called Talking for Britain – A Journey Through the Nation’s Dialects, by Simon Elmes. It draws on the BBC’s Voices survey and shows that regional English is very much alive and well, and constantly changing. Although many of the old rural dialects are disappearing, new urban ones are evolving.

One of the things the book discusses is terms of affection or greeting, which include me ‘ansum (my handsome) in Cornwall; my lover, in Bristol and the West Country (Wess Vinglun); mi duck, loov (love), yowth (youth) or cock in the Midlands; and chuck in Lancashire. These are generally used by anyone to anyone, though can lead to misunderstanding when used to people from other areas.

Other interesting words I’ve come across include tiddy oggy, a potato pie or pasty in Cornwall and Devon; ferniggle, to play truant in the West of England; agger-jaggers, sea mist in Kent; obzocky, unattractive – from Trinidad; mollycrosh, to hit – from Wigan; gennel, snicket or twitchel, an alley in different parts of the Midlands; and skopadiddle/skopadiggle – a mischievous child in Sheffield.

There are more examples here, and there are clips of interviews with people from all over the UK on the Voices site. I found some of the Cornish people most difficult to understand.