Hodgepodge

By Simon

Yesterday I came across some interesting discussion on Keith’s Voice on Extreme Language Learning about the hodgepodge approach to learning languages, which he describes as follows:

“It’s a kind of do-it-all approach and can be constructed in various ways. Absolutely no plan whatsoever is needed! Try some technique out and if you don’t like it you can just discard it. Then try something else. When you get bored with that, pick a new activity to go to work on. There’s one caveat though. Results will vary!”

This is pretty much how I learn languages, and the results certainly do vary. I don’t go in for plans or methods very much, and just try to practise all language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – as much and as often as possible. Often I think to myself that perhaps I should be a bit more systematic in my approach, but rarely do anything about it.

Keith goes on to explain why he’s not keen on this approach:

“For a language learner like myself, the hodgepodge method is unacceptable. We do not want varying results. We all want the same thing. The only standard of speaking a language is the native speaker. This is what we want to reach. This is the only acceptable result.”

Achieving a native-like proficiency in a language is certainly worth aiming for, however it may not be for everybody. Some people are happy to acquire a good reading ability in a language, others might be content with an ability to understand it, or to communicate in it at a basic level. It depends why you’re learning the language and what you want to do with it.

Are you a hodgepodger or do you use a particular method to learn languages?

Thie

By Simon

Yn çhaightyn shoh chaie ren mee briwnys kionnaghey tie ayns ynnyd jeh’n arasane ‘syn shenn cabbal. Tie ardane t’ayn lesh shamyr hoie as shamyr aarlee heese-greeishyn, daa çhamyr lhiabbagh as shamyr oonlee heose-greeishyn, as ta garey cooyl ayn myrgeddin. T’eh faggys da’n laaragh Bangor ec kione yn ard-straid, as faggys da’n tie c’raad ta mee cummal nish. Ta feme echey er lhiasaghey ennagh, agh ta enney aym er sleih foddee jannoo shen.

Teach

An seachtain seo caite chinn mé ar theach a cheannach in áit an árasán sa sean séipéal. Teach sraith atá ann leis seomra suí as cistin thíos staighre, dhá seomra leapa as seomra folctha thusa staighre, as gairdín sa chúl. Tá sé in aice leis lár Bangor ar bun na príomhshráide, agus níl sé chomh fada ón teach cá bhfuil mé mo chónaí ar faoi láthair. Tá oibreacha feabhsúcháin de dhíth air, ach tá aithne agam ar daoine atá ábalta sin a dhéanamh.

Tŷ

Yr wythnos diwethaf penderfynais brynu tŷ yn lle’r fflat yn y hen gapel. Tŷ rhes ydy o efo ystafell byw a chegin lawr grisiau, dwy ystafell wely ac ystafell ymolchi lan grisiau, a gardd yn y cefn. Mae o’n ymyl canolfan Bangor ar waelod y Stryd Fawr, a dydy o ddim mor bell o’r tŷ lle dw i’n byw ar hyn o bryd. Mae angen gwaith gwella, ond dw i’n nabod pobl sy’n medru gwneud hynny.

Word of the day – paraphe

By Simon

Example of a signature with a paraph

The word paraphe, which is also spelled parafe, came up last night at the French conversation group – we were looking for how to say initial (letter) in French and found this word, along with initiale.

The word also exists in English – paraph. Definitions include:

  • a flourish made after or below a signature, originally to prevent forgery
  • a flourish after a signature, originally to prevent forgery
  • a flourish or other embellishment made after a signature, either as idiosyncrasy or to protect against forgery

[Source]

It comes from via French from the Medieval Latin paraphus, a variant of paragraphus (paragraph).

Pictish

By Simon

Pictish stone

Using mathematical analysis, scholars at the University of Exeter have discovered that the symbols used in Pictish inscriptions are likely to represent a language, according to this article.

The team compared the Pictish symbols, which date from the 4th-9th centuries AD with more than hundreds of texts in known ancient and modern languages. They compared short and longer sequences of characters and concluded that the Pictish symbols seem to represent a language with a small vocabulary, however the meaning of the texts remains a mystery.

There are plans to apply these techniques to other undeciphered scripts such as the Indus Valley script.


RhinoSpike

By Simon

Last week I came across a useful-looking new site called RhinoSpike, where you can request recordings in a wide variety of languages and make them in your native language.

The way it works is that you submit text in the language you want to be recorded by a native speaker. It goes into a queue for that language. Native speakers see your request, make the recording and upload the audio file, which you can then download.

You can also record texts in your native language for other people, and doing so bumps your own requests forward in the queue, so native speakers will see them faster.

It’s free and the recordings are accessible by anybody.

This is a great idea and I plan make regular use of the site.

Blogversary

By Simon

Today is the fourth anniversary of this blog, and in the past four years no fewer than 988 posts and 9,533 comments have appeared here.

In the same time the number of visitors to Omniglot has doubled from 500,000 a month to over a million, so I must be doing something right.

When I first ventured into the blogosphere back in 2006 I thought it might be difficult to think of things to write about regularly, but so far this hasn’t been the case. I set out to write something here every day, and managed to do so, with only a few breaks, for the first couple of years. Then my posts became slightly less frequent, partly because other things have kept me busy, and also to give you longer to ponder and comment on each post.

Fragile? No, broken glass!

By Simon

Fragile symbol

What does this symbol mean to you?

Probably ‘fragile / handle with care’.

This is not how everyone would interpret it though – apparently staff at port somewhere in Africa saw this symbol on boxes, assumed they were full broken glass and threw them all into the sea. [Source]

Here are a few other symbols that might appear on shipping labels. Do you know what they mean?

International shipping icons