Word of the day – uśmiechnięta

By Simon

Today’s word, uśmiechnięta, means ‘smiling’ in Polish, and appears in the Polish version of Silent Night:

Cicha noc, święta noc,
pokój niesie ludziom wszem,
A u żłóbka Matka święta
czuwa sama uśmiechnięta,
Nad Dzieciątka snem.
Nad Dzieciątka snem.

The singing group I go to at the Hammersmith Irish Centre in London will be performing (for charity) at Hammersmith tube station a week next Monday. One of the things we’ll be singing will be Silent Night and we’ve decided to try to sing it in Polish and Irish, as well as in English.

We can cope with the Irish version as there are at least five Irish speakers, including myself, in the group, but the Polish version is proving more of a challenge. This week a Polish friend of one of the group members came along to help us with the pronunciation, so we now have a rough idea of what it sounds like. I also found a recording of the Polish version on YouTube.

We’ll probably just sing the first and last lines of the Polish and the rest in English as we’re not sufficiently confident to sing the whole of it.

I found translations of Silent Night in many different languages here, and plan to put some of them on Omniglot in my songs section. Do you have any suggestions for other multilingual songs I could include?

Concentration

By Simon

When studying a language, or anything else in fact, it’s easy to get distracted as there are often so many other things vying for your attention. If your mind isn’t focused on your studies, you don’t tend to take as much in or to remember it later.

In this interview, Tim Ferriss explains how he does his best studying while on long journeys when there is still else to do. He also suggests that you try to recreate a similar environment at home, or wherever else you study. This could be achieved be switching off televisions, radios, computers and phones, and removing/hiding anything else that you might be tempted to fiddle with or peruse.

On long journeys I tend to take a novel or two in languages I’m studying and/or textbooks for those languages. As I doubt my fellow passengers would appreciate me reading aloud from the novels or textbooks, or repeating the dialogues on the accompanying recordings, I remain silent, which I find less than ideal. I suppose I could pretend to be talking on my phone though. Reading foreign novels without dictionaries, which I don’t usually have with me on such journeys, is a good test of my understanding of the languages, and my powers of determining the meanings of words from the context, and is something I enjoy more then studying.

Do you have any ways for ignoring distractions and maintaining your concentration when studying?

Lingro

By Simon

The other day the editor of Lingro contacted me asking for comments on his site, which describes as a multilingual online dictionary and language learning site.

The dictionary part can be used to look up words in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Polish. You can also open a webpage, Word doc, PDF or text file within the dictionary and look up any of the words by clicking on them. This brings up a pop up with translations of the words, and definitions in some cases. Here’s an example of one of Omniglot’s pages in the English-Spanish dictionary – you can change the language combination at the bottom of the screen.

You can save the words you look up in a personal wordlist, which you can peruse later to check if you remember them. There are some virtual flashcards you can use to help you with this in the games section. You can also edit words and add definitions.

Swyddfa newydd

By Simon

Dydd Gwener yr wythnos hon, symudon ni, yr Adran Busnes Rhyngrwyd, i ein canolfan newydd – symudodd y myfyrwyr a’r athrawon ar ôl gwyliau hanner tymor y mis diwethaf, a symudan yr adrannau eraill yn ystod yr wythnosau nesa. Cyn hynny, roedd y coleg, yr ysgol saesneg fel iaith estron, y lletyau ar gyfer y myfyrwyr, a’r swyddfa gweinyddiaeth mewn mannau gwahanol. Bellach, mae popeth yn yr un man mewn adeilad newydd sbon ger orsaf rheilffordd Brighton yng nghalon y ddinas.

Dyma llun o’r canolfan newydd:

Llun o'r canolfan astudio newydd

Mae’r canolfan newydd yn teimlo yn fwy eang na’r hen swyddfa, ac mae’r golygfeydd yn wych. Mae e’n fwy golau hefyd.

Oifig nua

Dé hAoine an seachtain seo, d’aistrigh muid, an Roinn Gnó Idirlín, i ár ionad nua – d’aistrigh na mic léinn agus an múinteoirí i ndiaidh lár téarma an mhí seo caite, agus aistreoidh na roinne eile i rith na seachtaine seo caite. Roimhe seo, bhí an coláiste, an scoil Béarla mar teanga eachtracha, na hallaí cónaithe ar son na mic léinn, agus an oifig riaracháin in áiteanna éagsúla. Anois, tá gach rud san áit ceanna i bhfoirgneamh úrnua in aice leis an stáisiún traenach Brighton i lár na cathrach.

New office

On Friday of this week, we, the Internet Business Department, moved to our new centre – the students and teachers moved there after half term last month, and the other departments will move there during the next few weeks. Before now, the college, English language school, student residences and administrative office were all in different places. Now everything is in the same place in a brand new building near Brighton railway station and the centre of town.

30,000 words a day

By Simon

According to a study undertaken by Infoture, children who at least 30,000 words a day from their parents and other people around are likely to excel academically as they grow up.

The study found that children who heard at least 33 million words (30,000 a day) from birth the age of 3 tend to have higher IQs at the age of 10 than those who hear fewer words. The study also found that television viewing tends to significantly decrease the amount of conversation in a home, which negatively effects children’s language and academic development.

Infoture has developed a system called LENA (Language ENvironment Analysis system) which provides parents with information about their children’s language environment such as the number of words spoken by parents and children.

Word of the day – twmpath

By Simon

Today’s word, twmpath (/tʊmpaθ/), is the Welsh word for a tump, hump, hummock, tussock or mound. It is also refers to a type of barn dance, which is sort of the Welsh equivalent of an Irish ceili.

The English word tump (a mound or hillock) might come from twmpath, though the dictionaries I’ve checked give it’s origin as unknown.

According to this site, there was a tradition in Wales for people gather on the twmpath chwarae (lit. “tump for playing”) or village green in the evenings to dance and play various sports, usually starting on May Day. A fiddler or harpist would sit and play on a mound in the middle of the green and people would dance around them.

Other uses of this word include twmpath gwadd, mole hill, and twmpath cyflymder or speed bump, a traffic calming measure sometimes called a ‘sleeping policeman’ in English. What are such things called in your language?

Deconstructing languages

By Simon

In a recent post on his blog, Tim Ferriss explains how he deconstructs languages in order to get an idea of their structure, grammar, sound system and writing system. This gives him an idea how long it will take and how difficult it will be to learn each language and helps him to decide whether or not to do so.

His method is the find native speakers, ask them to translate a number of sentences into their language, writing them in their native writing system, if one exists, and in transliteration. The translations of the sentences give him an overview of verb conjugates, word order, whether or not noun cases and/or auxiliary verbs are used. If possible, he also asks the native speakers to give examples of words for each consonant and vowel.

Some of the sentences he uses include:

The apple is red.
It is John’s apple.
I give John the apple.
We give him the apple.
He gives it to John.
She gives it to him.
I must give it to him.
I want to give it to her.

He suggests that before you take the plunge into learning a language, it’s worth your while finding out just what you’re letting yourself in for. He compares it to a return on investment – with some languages you will get a much better return, i.e. you will learn them more rapidly, than with others.

I also found an interview with Tim Ferris in which he discusses some of his techniques for learning languages.