Language, Language, Language

What a shame!

2011-08-18T16:11:00.004+01:00

Numbers of pupils studying foreign languages are falling in UK year on year according to today's news (it's A Level results day here). The entries for French, German and Spanish combined have dropped another 6% this year (similar figures last year, although Spanish grew then).

People are blaming the changes in the national curriculum made a few years ago that allowed kids to give up their language classes at the ago of 14 whereas, for the previous decade or so (since I left school, more or less), it had been compulsory to study at least one language to GCSE level (age 16). Naturally, this would feed A Level entries (age 18) and, now that GCSE language entries have also nose-dived in recent years there are fewer pupils with the necessary entry qualifications to move onto the more advanced programmes. Add to this the huge rise in university tuition fees, which would stack up even more greatly for those wanting to take language based degree courses (4 years in the UK as opposed to the standard 3 for most subjects), and you can see language studies becoming more the exception than the rule.

Another reason, of course, is that as folk have commented on one of the UK newspaper sites I just looked at to get more details on the stats, learning a foreign language is no easy thing and so folk are avoiding the work involved and falling back on the excuse that 'everyone else is learning English anyway'. Even if that were true, what kind of lazy attitude is that??! Even getting a decent selection of adult education classes in many parts of the country is no mean feat. Here in Sheffield, there are plenty of French and Spanish classes to attend and some basic stuff in German and Italian and, having the Confucius Institute attached to the university here, there are plenty of opportunities to learn Chinese, but there isn't much more on offer than that - and this is the 4th largest city in England! Compare that to the wide variety of languages being taught in the German Volkshochschulen and it makes me almost want to pack my bags and emigrate! Brits are just inveterately lazy linguists. Not that we can't, we just won't.

Sad! Just too sad.

On the good side, a language GCSE is necessary for a pupil to gain the controversial new EBacc certificate (one wonders how long that will last!), so that may cause GCSE entries to rise somewhat. Also, it was of keen interest to me to see that entries for A Level Chinese have risen over 35% on last year's figures.=)

How things go in the world of further and higher education over the next few years will be interesting to watch...

Two quibbles

2011-07-14T13:41:00.002+01:00

I've been doing some looking around at a few fellow language fans' blogs, sites and so on this morning. There are some good tips and experiences out there, but there are also some things I can't really agree with. I would say I took great issue with the two following things, but I have something to add.

Never say 'I speak X fluently'

Unless X is your mother tongue, it is not smart to say that you speak a language 'fluently'. Nobody speaks a language he learned perfectly. 'Fluently' in that context sounds very terminal - you can't know it better. What will happen if the guy sitting next to you is a native speaker of that language and he, too, is pumped with testosterone and wishes to teach you a lesson? Will you be able to have perfect pronunciation, to know every idiom? Chances are you will look like a moron. People might feel that you exagerated your command of that language, and that maybe everything else about you is fraudulent.

The prudent polyglot will say 'I speak X quite well'. Nobody will ever try to expose the gaps in your command of a language if you say that. And people will esteem you for your modesty. They will think perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye.

Now, I have to agree that modesty is always the best policy. There's nothing worse than someone showing off and, frankly, half the things people say aren't true, so I can also see why he would be concerned that someone would try to prove you wrong. I think my issue here is with the assumption that someone 'fluent' in a language speaks it perfectly, or at native speaker level. Is this reasonable?

Well, it's certainly a common viewpoint, but not a correct one. The concept of fluency implies effortlessness and being smooth flowing. Confident and correct use of a foreign language so that your speech is easily understood and is without grasping for words. Well, without it to a reasonable degree. I mean, how often do we stop and search for the right mother tongue word??=) Fluency does NOT require that you have perfect knowledge of the target language. You don't even have perfect knowledge of your native one, so why expect someone to have that of a learned tongue? It's just not reasonable. However, there are many, many people who have a good, working level proficiency in a second language and they can be considered fluent without knowing everything.

I once described fluency to a former student as 'not knowing everything in the language, but using what you do know so well than no-one knows the difference.' To me, that's fluency. So, having a more reasonable understanding of the concept of fluency will help to avoid misjudging one's own abilities and that of others.

The second one I wanted to add a thought or two to is this diatribe against learning two languages at the same time:

Actually, this is a very bad idea. Unless you are a seasoned polyglot, you will waste your energy, study time and will power over several languages and never reach an advanced level in any. It is much better to focus on one and only language until you become fluent, then move on to the next one.

Finish the language you are doing before moving on. This also applies to closely related languages such as Spanish/Portuguese or Italian/French. It’s much easier to build from a strong background in one language rather than trying to build concurrently the foundations of two languages.

Once you reach an advanced level in your target language, you can start a new language, and still work on perfecting the first one.

I think there are some good points here and some I can't agree with. For one, you can never really 'finish the language you are doing' as learning any language (indeed, learning any subject), is a lifelong process.

So, can one learn more than one language from scratch at once? I would say yes, but only under certain conditions:

You have a good aptitude for languages and/or are very keen and/or highly motivated.
You start two very different languages at the same time. Having said that, I can see how learning two very closely related could help, albeit only for someone with the right kind of learning style and abilities, but generally, leave learning another related language until you've got a decent level of the first.
You have a decent amount of time and energy to devote to the pursuit.

I also don't think you need wait until you've reached fluency before you take up a new language, even a related one. I think that reaching about CEFR A2 level (GCSE standard in the UK) would be OK (although I took up German when I was about A1 French and took my GCSEs in both at the same time - getting As for both). When I suggest that level, I don't mean just having covered the material, but actually having the majority of it in long-term memory and that you can use the structures confidently. I don't think I'd recommend, for most people anyway, taking up a new language too quickly - unless of course you're doing it from a point of view of linguistic enquiry, rather than with the aim of communicating to any great degree.

But then, perhaps I qualify as a 'seasoned polyglot' in his opinion??=) I shouldn't think so though and I don't consider myself as one. I could be, if I put the work in, but that's something I would have to see to believe!!!

Anyway, you'll find on the website I pinched these quotes from a lot of interesting info. At least he's now moderated his judgement of Chinese as being the hardest language in the world, an opinion which he formerly confessed to be based almost entirely on the script appearing hard. Chinese writing is a challenge, but one that can be met with sufficient work and someone teaching it well (i.e. showing how it works and de-mystifying it, rather than those folk who like to scare people), and I always feel that those who write Chinese off as virtually impossible solely on the basis of the script have clearly made no serious attempt to learn it and are language learning feather weights!! There are FAR harder languages to learn than Mandarin!

You have to read this post.

2011-06-13T10:53:00.002+01:00

No, not this one that I'm writing, as I'm not going to say much. It's this post you can't miss - esp. if you have a knowledge of one or more of the languages on the menus featured there.

I enjoy Victor Mair's Language Log posts as he does some good stuff on Chinese and I've learned some interesting stuff from his expertise - as well as had a good laugh at times!

Divided by a common language

2011-03-09T12:15:00.003Z

You'd think that, if you were to publish a book in any given language, especially English - the world's number one business and commerce tongue, that you wouldn't need to provide translations, but....

<-This is from a delightful book by the well-known Australian stumpwork embroiderer, Jane Nicholas. Some of these, of course, are the brand names used by leading manufacturers of these items, but some are the name of the item itself. There's a similar list in a New Zealand embroidery book I own.

I once saw a blog entry written by a British lady living in the States in which she'd drawn up a list of the different names given to clothes on either side of the Atlantic. The number of differences actually surprised me when I saw them listed. Now, I understand most of them no problem, ('jumper' for 'jumpsuit' was a new one on me), but it was by no means the first time I've felt sorry for anyone coming to English as a non-native speaker, especially in the earlier stages, who wants to be able to get a grip on global English. There are just SO many options and, whilst American English is dominating the world scene to some extent (a fact that always puzzles me given that the USA is about the only English speaking country that uses it, all the others use British English or local adaptations thereof), other words proliferate!!

Two mad things

2011-01-24T10:00:00.000Z

Check these out:

Yeah, RIGHT! You can learn a whole, complex language in just 7 days! And since when is learning any language effortless?? OK, so you may not have to sit and work through a text with this sort of course (although you're probably going to have to do that sooner or later), but it will still require effort. These marketing gimmicks annoy me as they a) make language learning look like something you could do in your sleep, it's so easy; and b) they foster a false sense of security so that when folk come up against the real work, they may be even more likely to back away from it.

This one cracked me up. It's from the out of print Hugo French for Business and I was quite startled to find English referred to as 'Anglo-Saxon'. I was flicking through another French course book, this time one published in France, and saw again that British things, people and language seem to be commonly referred to as Anglo-Saxon. I can understand wanting to avoid using the French for British as it's very close to words used to describe Brittany, but, really! We haven't used Anglo-Saxon in these isles for close on a thousand years and we're so mixed up race wise that referring to the Brits as Anglo-Saxons is also somewhat out of date! We're part Ancient Briton, part Celt, part Pict, part Roman, part French and, yes, part Angle, part Saxon, part Jute and a number of other invading nationalities from the last couple of millenia!!

So many materials, where do you start?

2011-01-23T17:55:00.001Z

Last time I posted a pic of my bookshelves. Well, here it is again, closer up, better lighting and with 4 new additions.

One thing that's quite good about being so low on funds is that you're really forced to stop getting new things and take a look at all the things you bought before and never really used. What better time to get my money's worth out of them? Trouble is, I've amassed so much over recent years (and, believe it or not, I had a whole load before that I gave away!), that it's hard to know where to start. If I were to start in on Finnish, it would be an easy choice given that I only have one title in that language, but for Chinese (not shown here), French, German and Italian, I have several for each language, ranging from beginners/refreshers courses through more advanced and even business texts to reference. So where do I begin?

Chinese, although I have the most resources on hand for that, oddly enough is quite easy to decide as I know I need a grammar review, so am pressing on with the Schaum Outline book. I've also started to revise the vocab for the book we did during the first half of our recent year in Taiwan. When those two are done, then I have the fun of chosing from several dozen texts of all types...

French I wasn't expecting to take up again, but I've made two French friends (mother and daughter) where we now live and the mum wants to do a language exchange with me. We start tomorrow. She'll help me with French and I'll help her with Chinese, which she's recently started to learn seriously. She's already fluent in English and Spanish at least, so she's no novice to language learning. Should be fun! I decided to review my French more or less from scratch, so will be using the old edition I have of Teach Yourself French and probably backing that up with 'Hugo's French in Three Months'. I don't know that I think you can take in so much language in a mere quarter, but it will be great for revision.

German: I started re-working my former Open University course. When I did that back in about 2004, I got around half way through the materials, but still got a distinction on the whole course!! It is good, but I guess it was mostly just making me use it, clarifying a few language functions and learning new words for me. I could have managed the level 2 course - only that's now over £1000! Anyway, I decided to go through the old Teach Yourself German I've got and do a new grammar workbook on the side instead before I look at the OU course again later on. Being married to a German gives me frequent access to native speaker expertise.=)

I just love Italian, Italy, Italian food and so on, so I just couldn't resist picking up my Italian materials again. I put quite some work into it about 6 years ago before we went to Venice for a few days and I did a night school course when I was 17/18, so some is just revision, but there's a lot of new material in there for me and I'm loving the idea of really learning something new. Chinese, French and German are just revising and developing existing knowledge. So, Teach Yourself Beginners Italian (now called Get Started in Italian) has been pressed back into service. When you compare it to one or two other titles in the same series, there seems to be quite a lot to learn in the Italian one. Once this one's complete, I'll move on to TY Italian and one of the American grammar workbook things I've got.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not really able to get new stuff at the mo, which is owing to us being un/under-employed, but these were only £2 each, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to get my hands on some higher level materials for later on. Not surprisingly for the English speaking world, post-beginners' foreign language self-study courses are rather the exception than the norm! For Mandarin, I'm only aware of 1 course so far (Colloquial Chinese 2).

Recently I considered trying to get funding for an MA in Language Acquisition, followed by a PhD focusing on learning multiple languages. I thought about what I wanted to know and why and came to the conclusion that, I didn't really want to study polyglots, I wanted to BE one, so have dumped that idea for the time being and got the self-study guides back out.

If you're reading this actually on-blog, you can see I've updated the photos of the books I'm working on in the sidebar. There's also one on English language studies, which is another OU course and the part I'm on now is looking at the development of English from it's early beginnings to now.

It's been a while....

2010-12-01T09:04:00.003Z

Wow, is it really over 5 months since my last post here? Disgraceful, no?! Well, I'm still alive and kicking, back in the UK after our almost 13 months away and settling back down.

During our trip to Japan we were grateful for the English menus, photos and plastic models of food (even more so later on in Korea, as our Korean doesn't stretch much further than 'hello', 'goodbye' and 'thank you'!), and we loved this sign in a restaurant window, which proved it's own point.

We loved the willingness of the Japanese and their friendly efforts to help and communicate. We did learn some Japanese before we went, but it was the usual first lessons things such as hirgana and katkana syllabaries, simple greetings, basic grammatical structures (this/that is x, is this x? etc) and a few nouns, so not much help in ordering food. Good old Lonlely Planet phrasebooks were a great help in both countries then, alongisde the pictorial and bi-lingual menus. I always feel ashamed of being unable to communicate properly in the local language, but one has to be balanced really. After all, one can't expect to speak every language and we did make a diligent effort!

Now we're home and are trying to review what we learned at our classes in Taiwan. Sir is going back through our first textbook (which took up half the time we were there), and I'm pressing on with the grammar book I started out there and learning the vocab for the new style HSK 5 exam. There are 2500 items of vocab to be learned and I think I will already know about 2000 of them, so it shouldn't be hard to get the rest under my belt ready for the test itself in May.

I now have my own little study and here are my language books (all except the main Chinese section, which I've had to put in the living room!). No, I don't speak all those languages, but I am interested in them all and know some of many of them. At the mo, I'm really concentrating on the English course you can see on the left hand side of the lower shelf, just left of the sunglasses case. It has a strong element of linguistics and is really interesting. The current section is on the ancient development of English back in the Old English days, when things were written in Runes. Later books deal with learning, using and redesigning English.

Why are Scandinavians better at languages?

2010-06-26T03:45:00.006+01:00

In response to one of my recent postings on constructed languages, someone commented:

Why the Nordic people succeed (at languages and just about everything)is a major interest of mine. I may differ a bit with your comments. In short the answer is free time: 18 months maternity/paternity leave ...... one month vacation for everybody who is employed , 80 paid sick days to care for children-to age 8, free health care, quality free pre-k[indergarten], quality free universities and much more.

So, is this true? Is free time the answer?

It's noteworthy that the gentleman who left this comment is American, where I understand employees only get as little as 2 week's paid leave time from work and it seems that other services are not as good/cost effective to the individual as they are here reported to be in Scandinavia. However, the situation in the UK resembles the Scandinavian one as described above far more than it does what I understand the US one to be, but does that mean that Brits are good at languages? That they use their free time to learn to speak other languages?

In a word: no. We too have 4+ weeks per year paid leave, plus another 1-2 in public holidays (depending on who you work for) and access to maternity/paternity leave programmes. albeit shorter ones. We too have comparatively good and 'free' health care, pre-school provision and so on. We do now have tuition fees for higher education, but this is a relatively new phenomenon and doesn't seem to have affected the average Brit's interest in foreign languages in the least! Most Brits barely know a word of any language, save a few expressions they may remember from school or from the media (a favourite TV show, a popular song etc), and most don't really want or see the need to.

Last term I had a Swedish classmate, a 19/20 year old lad taking a year out from uni to come and improve his Chinese. He spoke excellent English and had also learned German and Spanish in school - from a very early age too! His comments both about what he'd had to learn in school and why, confirmed my belief that foreign languages are stressed as very important in Swedish schools and that kids there are expected to get a grip of as many as they can in order to communicate with non-Swedes. I also seriously doubt that the Scandinavians use their leave time to study languages under the banner of caring for sick children or being on holiday/vacation! They already have the language skills from school.

It isn't a matter of free time, it's a matter of viewpoint - how important is this to me?

Some language peeves

2010-06-25T08:11:00.006+01:00

I follow the Language Log blog and, whilst I can't find the time and umph to read all the postings, there are certain ones that I really enjoy - esp. the ones related to Chinese language issues and pet peeves from mis-use of English. So, I can't resist jumping on the bandwagon and introducing the three things I think I hate most in bad English these days. They're also three things that are becoming increasingly common and are all filtering over from long-term bad habits west of the Atlantic, (er-hum)!!

1. Writing 'alot'. For anyone inclined to join in this trend, please note that there is no such word as 'alot'. There is a verb 'allot', but this is clearly not what is meant when people write the two words 'a lot' as one. An American friend who lives near my Mother-in-Law in southern Germany told me that, nearly 3 decades ago when she was in junior school, her teacher told her class that if they were wanted to write 'a lot' to make sure to write it as two words, not one, so this is a bad habit of at least 30 years standing from the States.

With the proliferation of the internet and so much written contact across the Atlantic, more and more British people are picking up this error and not even realising that it is an error and not either correct or an acceptable alternative. When I was teaching my first session of the year to a new group of students, I always warned them that I marked their Chinese-English translations in all tests and exams that year and so they would be well advised to bear in mind that I would deduct marks for poor English (all sentences should be put into proper English, not jumbled up guff) and especially for writing 'alot' as all one word. Imagine my reaction when one Masters student asked me in wide-eyed amazement, 'Is that wrong?'

I'm delighted to note that the Blogger spellchecker has flagged up every instance of my having typed 'alot' as incorrect!=)

2) Use of 'different than'. Again, something that has become long established in the States and is now getting used more and more in the UK, (although not to the degree of 'alot' I'm glad to say, but I fear it will happen.....). As this isn't an actual spelling mistake or anything like that, I think this is beginning to be accepted as actually correct in the US as I've recently been reading a couple of American books, including one by a lady with a doctorate, both of which make liberal use of 'different than'.

For reference, the correct usage is as follows:
Different from
Similar/dissimilar to
Bigger/smaller/etc-er than

Interestingly, 'different to' has been in use for the best part of two centuries as Charlotte Bronte uses it in her novel 'Shirley', (I didn't notice in the others) alongside using 'different from', but I've noticed that really strict publications with high standards of grammar from the States disallow 'different than' and I think the publishing house I'm thinking of only uses 'different from'. I do wish everyone else would follow suit!

Despite 'different than' having been classed as acceptable usage by some authorities and even used by some 18th century writers etc (which doesn't mean that it's actually correct, just that it was popular at one point), I enjoyed this thread on the subject. Differing opinions and citations exist, but many feel that 'different than' cannot be excused and/or that 'different from' is to be preferred. I especially appreciated the 5th and 6th postings on the thread I link to here as they take the construction to bits to some degree and what they say makes perfect sense.

Prepostions are a nuisance in any language - even the mother tongue! No-one murders a language like it's mother tongue speakers.....

3) 'Can I get..?' Yes, you can get whatever you like, off you go and get it. If, however, you are asking me to to give you something, then you won't succeed unless you say, 'Can I have...?' 'To get' implies an action on your own part, that you personally go and get it. To ask someone serving you over a counter if you can get something, literally means that you want to come around the counter and get it yourself. You could correctly ask them if they could get it for you, that would be fine, but otherwise, ask them if you 'can have' what you want, PLEASE!

Our American cousins have been asking if they 'can get' things for many decades and now, with the increasing of American English media reaching the younger folk in the UK, you'd be hard pushed to find one these days who asks if he 'can have' something.

Why do bad habits spread so much faster than good ones? If one person starts saying something incorrectly in any given group of people, odds are that a fair number will start to mimic him fairly quickly. This doesn't happen the other way around though. If one person begins to introduce the correct form of speech into conversation over a period of time, next to no-one will even notice, never mind begin to correct their own speech. Sigh! I know I'm fighting a totally losing battle for correct usage, but that's not going to stop the likes of me fighting!!!=)

Edit: Following a rather unpleasant comment 'correcting' me in very abrupt terms and insinuating that I go around correcting folk's everyday speech and how rude that is etc etc, I think I should point out that I very rarely ever mention these things when I encounter them or interrupt people to correct their grammar (unless asked to do so, say by a non-native English speaker). This is MY blog and I can express whatever pet peeves I want to in and on my own terms. If you don't like it, don't read it!

Multi-lingual Taipei

2010-05-15T01:43:00.002+01:00

It's early evening and I'm sitting on the MRT (Taipei's mass rapid transport system) going shopping. The station announcements are made in 4 different languages, 3 Chinese ones (Mandarin, Taiwanese (which is Min-nan from the mainland province of Fujian) and Hakka) and English. The young man next to me is reading Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' in English and the young woman opposite me is keenly learning basic French.

A few days later I'm on the bus (with stop announcements in Mandarin and English) and the bus pulled up next to us has adverts in both Chinese and Japanese on it. Our schools student announcements are made in Mandarin, English and Japanese (except the day when the students were holding a collection for the Haiti disaster when the announcement was made in any language a student could be found to make it in!)

Not that the English here is always (or even often) very good, as can be seen from this part of a school announcement concerning classes around the Chinese New Year period:

Constructed Languages - The Key to Unity?

2010-04-13T08:22:00.008+01:00

Over the past couple of days, I've been putting together some info and further thoughts on Esperanto and here they are:

Artificial languages, or ‘constructed languages’ as they are officially entitled, are a great deal more plentiful than one might expect. There have been over 900 created, from the ones you may have actually heard of, such as Esperanto and its offshoots, and Interlingua, to fictional tongues such as Klingon and Vulcan as seen on Star Trek. Some people have actually taken time to build languages that these non-existent aliens speak and, even more stunningly, some others have learned them! About 600 universal languages, some no doubt natural ones, have been proposed in the past in order to improve communication between different cultures and races, and to provide a platform for achieving world peace. Given the increasing world instability, it’s easy to understand why one recent author describes the history of invented languages as ‘the history of failure’. (Okrent, Arika; 2009)

About the best known, most successful and enduring constructed language is Esperanto, creation of which was started around 1878 by L L Zamenhof and instructional material first published in 1887. A total of 10 million people are estimated to have studied the language at some point in its history and the language was recognised by UNESCO in 1954. Numbers of current speakers are not accurately known, but estimates for fluent speakers vary between 30,000 and 300,000 with casual speaker estimates ranging from 100,000 to 2 million. At best, some Esperanto is known by only 0.03% of the current global population. When contrasted with English, which is spoken as a mother or official tongue by an estimated 7-8% of the world’s population and as a foreign language by countless millions more and is still the most in demand foreign language worldwide, it is easy to understand why hopes that Esperanto will take over as the world’s number one language for global communication seem ill founded. Of course, all things are possible, but the likelihood is very low indeed. I was accused of ‘arrogance’ by a passionate supporter of Esperanto as a global lingua franca a few days ago, but practicality and realism, as opposed to arrogance, have led me to these low expectations of the newcomer language.

One of the reasons for the creation of the Esperanto language was to have a lingua franca that was not related to conquest and domination – the way that languages normally take over as the most common medium for communication in any age. This is an understandable desire, but is it really practical? Would it work? The statistics in the last paragraph give reason for doubt. Whilst the reality of language spreading mostly through aggression is undeniable, it has nonetheless happened and it would not be wise to invest much time and effort in challenging it, as the challenger is likely to find himself in an ineffective minority – whether or not he chooses to acknowledge this. English has increased in popularity far beyond the age of British colonial conquest and has now become the world’s first language for business and much popular culture. The chances of any language, let alone a constructed one that everyone would have to actively learn, proving any real competition for English in the foreseeable future are slim to say the very least! Other languages may have linguistic and historical aspects that may make them more palatable to the tastes of some, but the everyday practicalities leave them out of the real life equation.

Keen Esperantists have taught their children the language which has led to a surprising 200 – 2000 estimated native speakers. However, it is highly unlikely that any sole mother tongue Esperanto speakers exist and this would be highly impractical given that no territories have adopted Esperanto as an indigenous or official language. Whilst Esperanto pages appear in plenty on the Internet, a Google portal and search even being available, and the popular encyclopaedia Wikipedia has a substantial Esperanto section, it is not used as an official working language in international organizations such as the United Nations, European Union or, to my knowledge, anywhere else. I rather suspect that the webpages in Esperanto have been created, not to meet any real linguistic need, but by passionate supporters and promoters of the language. One university in San Marino (one of Europe’s tiny countries ‘in’ Italy) is said to use Esperanto as the language of instruction and provide grants into the research and development of the language. Given that university students here in Taiwan have to have a good reading knowledge of English as many textbooks have not been translated into such a major language as Chinese, I rather doubt that even this San Marino university is able to give an education purely in Esperanto! Nor is it likely to have a great impact on the world scene. Should Esperanto departments be set up in really influential institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and so on, then there may be a glimmer of light at the end of a very long tunnel, but, even in those circumstances, it would be a mere glimmer. Another fact I found interesting is that Hodder and Staughton, who publish the highly popular ‘Teach Yourself’ series, including many languages, did not revise and republish their Esperanto title, the last edition appearing to have been 1992 and now out of print. The language does not appear at all in the ‘Colloquial’ series, which frequently has titles covering the languages no-one else does.

Some claim that, as most instruction in modern foreign languages is largely a failure, Esperanto is needed to fill in the gap. Let’s look at this claim realistically. Success in any subject or venture is largely reliant on interest and effort. The truth of the matter is that most learners of languages, especially in schools the world over, are not interested in the majority of their studies and the foreign languages they are required to study are no exception. Frankly, most kids would rather be out playing football or something in that line than learning French verbs! However, when an element of personal commitment and purpose is introduced, then a different story emerges. Certain nations, for example the Nordic lands in Europe, have a reputation for producing excellent English speakers, not because it’s an official language in any of those countries, but because their own languages are so infrequently learned that English, and other languages, are stressed as most important fields of study. The results are impressive! The same could be achieved with native English speakers learning other languages if only enough interest could be generated among the student population as a whole. As soon as a person develops a real interest in a language and has a use for it, the results change from failure to success. A friend of mine studied French as something he had to during school years, but really wasn’t interested in and consequently wasn’t much good at it. Given that, it came as quite a surprise to him and his parents to find that he was able to learn to speak and read quite good Chinese - an allegedly much harder language! This occurred simply as he has a deep interest in the people and in communicating effectively with them and he also really applied himself to learning and practising Chinese.

As the above experience bears out, an interest in people and in the subject makes the best basis for foreign language learning, however this is arrived at. I’ve heard one or two experiences of people who’ve got ‘into’ language learning through the contacts made via a shared interest in Esperanto, or found their interest there enriched their stay in other countries. Well, yes, of course! You meet people, you get interested in them and their culture, and you often want to know their language. Whether it’s a mutual interest group that brings your together, travel to their country or whatever, the general means and the result are the same. Also, when living in a new community, joining in a shared interest with locals and other ex-pats is naturally going to improve the quality of one’s time there! This is by no means unique to Esperantists and is no reason to assume any sort of superiority for that language or those who are interested in it. Plenty of people get the same results from religious, cultural, creative and sporting associations.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York is currently quite probably the organization using the highest number of languages and currently publishes in over 500 - not including Esperanto or any other constructed language. One booklet was translated into Esperanto in 1922 and printed in time to encourage interest in the Bible’s message amongst members of an Esperantist conference, who, being generally interested in achieving world peace, took Bible literature and attended talks given in 12 European cities in Esperanto directing attention to the Bible and God’s Kingdom as the source of peace. Interestingly, at one location, the talk was back-translated into the local language!

The following was published in the international, multi-lingual journal ‘The Watchtower’ in April 1979, regarding the actual beginnings of Esperanto (so somewhat before the first materials were released in 1887):

"Hope for Esperanto Dims

"The “international language” of Esperanto passed its first 100 years of existence last December with very little note. London’s “Daily Telegraph” reports that “there was no celebration, no birthday cards, not even a telephone call from any of the 1,500 members of the British Esperanto Association.” Esperanto’s inventor devised it as a universal language in the hope that it could help to end all war. (The word literally means: “He who hopes.”) The general secretary of the Association admits: “We now accept that he was wrong.”

Certainly a language spoken by all could be a real benefit. However, the hatreds and warfare that exist even among those who speak the same language make it obvious that ideas of well-intentioned humans cannot bring an end to wars. Only our Creator, the One who “is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth” has the power to do what is necessary. This he has promised to do, not by means of any social programs, but, rather, by the judgment and “destruction of the ungodly men” who foment divisions among their fellows.—Ps. 46:9; 2 Pet. 3:7."

It is true that many major religions have expressed some interest in and support for the aims of the Esperantist movement, but those are also the same religious groups that devote a great deal more time, money and effort to war-mongering, greedy business deals, acts of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, child-abuse and homosexuality scandals and a deplorable watering down of long-accepted scriptural moral standards. It is not without just cause that it is often said that religion is behind more trouble than anything else! Any movement interested in genuine peace and human unity would be wise not to rely on the backing of organisations that, by their very record, prove themselves actually opposed to peace! World peace will not be achieved through the promotion of a constructed language anymore than it will be by a raw food diet and it’s not wise to spend too much time with ‘If everyone would just do …., then it would be ….’, because everyone won’t 'just do…'

Whilst the aims of those creating such languages as Esperanto have been laudable, one wonders if the modern passion some have for speaking and promoting this tongue are as much to do with the promulgation of world peace and understanding as they are to do with promoting the medium. I mean that in the same way as whether a vitamin salesman is as genuinely interested in promoting clients’ health as he is in selling his products. Each individual Esperantist, or any other linguist, linguistician or reformer, must examine their own motives and motivations. Are we promoting something worthwhile via the medium of a common language? Or are we just promoting the language? When one says something like ‘Esperanto can take over the world’ (a claim which in itself could be interpreted as aggressive and therefore contrary to Esperanto’s purpose), are we genuinely looking for linguistic unity and global peace, or are we interested in self-justification, the vindication of our ideals or some form of domination? By this I mean that, in the highly unlikely event that Esperanto were to be adopted as the world’s premier language of politics, commerce and so on, who would be in line for the most influential and lucrative positions if not fluent Esperantists?? Is this why some individuals are taking such a determined stand for the language? Is labelling those who take a more realistic view of the world’s linguistic situation as ‘arrogant’ truly demonstrating a loving and peaceful attitude? Are we as individuals and groups being practical and realistic? Or are we being blindly passionate and idealistic? What constitutes the best use of our precious time, chasing a practically impossible dream, or working for realities?

This blog will now revert to language use and study in the real world!=) Anyone who wants to leave a comment on the content of this posting will be answered in the comments section as I'm very unlikely to post any further on this topic.

Note to all potential commenters. Please note that discussion on this post is now closed. Thanks!

Language, natural and artificial

2010-04-11T02:30:00.008+01:00

I had a couple of thought provoking comments left on this blog by an Esperantist the other day. First of all, I'd like to thank him for his interest and compliments. I've left them on as, whilst I don't see Esperanto as being of any genuine use, there's probably no harm in it and his blog is nothing akin to porn spamming anyway!! Anyone interested just needs look at former posts' comments to get the link. Anyway, it got me thinking about natural, as opposed to artificial, languages and why I would learn one and not the other and, at the end of the day, what one learns languages for.

Language is a means of communication and learning another language enables one to communicate with speakers of that other language, be they mother tongue ones or other learners like oneself. Our class situations here are a good example. We all communicate with the teacher in Chinese and tend to talk to Eastern students in Chinese outside of class as well as the best common language. Most Western students tend to speak good English though, so white folk tend to be seen communicating in English outside of class time. Having said that, we're none of us really learning Chinese in order to be able to speak to other Chinese language learners, we're planning on using it with native speakers. And that's why I've never seriously considered learning an artificial language - there are no native speakers of it.

There are also no territories where the language is generally spoken, even as any sort of official tongue. Anyone who uses it to communicate is doing so with another learner and in a non-native environment. Not only would that be totally unconducive to producing fluency, it's also, well, somewhat pointless! Let's face it, Esperanto is never going to take over as the world's lingua franca. Many people have never even heard of it, never mind have years of school classes in it. English, on the other hand.....

So, whilst I see being multi-lingual at any level as being excellent, I don't see any point to adding an artificial language to my repertoire. Whilst there are societies and so forth for these languages, they're little beyond clubs and common interest groups, like philatelists or something like that. It makes no real impacts on society as a whole and, whilst I'm told that many Esperantists are humane vegetarians etc, that kind of interest in others is by no means limited to proponents of artificial languages - there are millions of vegetarians and/or humane people the world over (myself included, I hope!), and I doubt quite severely that Esperanto, or any other artifical language, will make any real contribution to world peace etc. Actually, only God's Kingdom can achieve that, so any human effort of any type is bound to fail, as history only too ably bears out!

'The best way to expand interest in foreign language is Esperanto." So claimed my visitor. I have to disagree - vehemently! The best way to develop interest in other languages is to nuture an interest in people and in communicating with them. The best way to reach the heart is to talk to someone in their mother tongue - the language of their heart. As Esperanto has zero mother tongue speakers, it is consequently at the very bottom of the list for anyone with a real interest in reaching and warming hearts.

And so back to the real language world:

I decided against re-taking the TOP at intermediate level this time around as I just don't feel ready for it and would almost certainly fail and waste NT$1000, (about £20). I'm going to try for it in November instead, just before we leave Taiwan and hope to get a decent pass then.

Classes are a bit harder now as I'm up in Level 6 now doing a course in newspaper reading. Taiwanese newspapers are written in highly formal style, which means learning the formal words for such things as 'and', 'to be', 'to go' and many, many others! It's like having to re-learn the language in many respects! I chose this one as I really wanted to make myself read more as I tend to be very impatient with reading in any other language and skim, skip and wimp out, especially in Chinese - even though I could do quite well if I took the time! Laziness really, but I'm hoping to get over that to some degree by improving the skills and, in turn, the confidence needed to do a better job of it. It's not what I'd been expecting though, as I thought it would be like news reporting anywhere else - more like ordinary speech. I'm glad to have a 3 month introduction to this style of language, but I've changed my mind about going on to do books 2 and 3 afterwards as I see little real use for me when I finish here and go home. Even here, I wouldn't be that likely to read local newspapers, (I get my news from the BBC website and occasionally, the ICRT website - the local English language radio station), and I'm certainly not going to read TW newspapers at home! So, next term, I'm going back to Level 5 and the more general stuff there.=) It's mostly literature, business and finance related stuff and so on from Level 6 on and that's not what I'm here for.

We plan to leave here in late November/early December, when our last term's visas run out. We hope to go back to Europe via a bit of South-East Asia, but we have to see about that later on. After that, and getting re-settled at home, I plan on taking the UK Open University's language courses, first in German (I've already done their intermediate course, which is post GCSE and is meant to finish at CEFR Level B1, which I was delighted to get a distinction in), so I plan to start off with the course that leads to B2 level, even though it's rather pricey at about £1000. I don't actually see why OU language courses are so expensive as there are no more special resources than other courses, but such is life and, if one wants the course, one has to pay for it!

The other downside is that, remembering my last course with them, I felt a bit like I was kind of 'top of the class' and during the oral exam, I found myself doing much of the talking in the group assessment (albeit unwillingly, as I didn't want to look like I was monopolising things) just in order to keep it going! Anyway, I suppose I'd been learning a lot longer than they had and had had much more practise in school classes, with penpals and, now, with husband and in-laws than they had. It's always nice to have a 'worthy foe' in your class though - someone who challenges you to keep up! My current Chinese class is full of them, which leaves me in the position of feeling like I'm near the bottom! I'm not used to that, so it's a bit depressing!!!!=) Last term, my hubby and I were top getting 90+% in tests whilst many of the others (mostly Japanese), were getting 60's and 70's%. Ego trips!!!

Anyway, all that wanting to be top of the class, big-headed and pointless pap aside, I really need to improve my German as a way of developing better and smoother communication with my in-laws and others we know in Germany. It's all too easy to just rely on what I already know and/or on their English skills, but that's just lazy and selfish and besides which, I always encourage those with a foreign marriage partners to make sure and learn that language, no matter how good their partner's English/Chinese/whatever is. It shows an interest in that person and their background, if nothing else. So, whilst I've learned German for a total of about 8 school years and can do OK with it, there is room for improvement and so, I need to put my money where my mouth is and get back to it! Sir and I are also both very interested in Spanish, especially as we may spend some time in Spain helping with Bible teaching in Chinese at some point and so being able to chat with the locals would be make the whole experience much better for everyone.

How much use would Esperanto be in either of the above situations, (ie marriage and sacred service abroad?)? NONE! How much in helping me deal with real-life situations on the streets here in Taiwan? NONE! How much in helping one get work in the real business world? NONE! Good use of time? I'm inclined to think not....

I've been reading the 'Teach Yourself Linguistics' book in fits and starts, but I think I really need to re-read it in order for it to 'stick' better. Next time around, I'll make (or post) notes, which usually aid memory and comprehension, no? I also have 'Becoming a Translator' with me, which is a very interesting book that I hope to work through as well. Although I no longer have any real ambitions in that direction, I remember this book having a lot of info about the translator as learner and so on - things about language use, and that's always interesting.

Certified!

2009-12-06T14:06:00.003Z

No, not certified insane, (although I sometimes wonder.....), but certified as TOP Grade 2, look:

After checking on the TOP site and various other materials, I've worked out that this equates to Level B1 on the CEFR, which also translates to a good AS Level (UK exam at age 17 after at least 3, if not more, years of study) or A2 grades C-E (UK exam at age 18 etc, following directly after AS). OK, I feel better about only being TOP Grade 2 now!! Levels A1 and A2 are 'basic user', B1 and B2 are 'independent user' and the 2 C levels are 'proficient user'.

In May I plan to be at least on Grade 3, preferably Grade 4, which will be CEFR Level B2, equal to a good full A/A2 Level at Grade A or so. Actually, I'm not really sure that B1 equals any grade on full A/A2 Level, but I do know that the grammar required for A Level Chinese is mostly taught during our intensive first year at Leeds Uni. The vocab etc though, I still find rather challenging and specialised when I look through the 'Chinese for A Level' textbook I have. Degree level Chinese and other ab initio languages (ie you start on them fresh at uni) is nothing like degree level languages where you go in at Level B2/good A Level. However, we should have at least another 4 quarters here, if not 5 or 6, so I should get plenty learned and hoist that level right up!

I'm wondering about the Japanese though. I haven't really touched it as yet and I'm beginning to lean more towards Korean after all. You can get good Korean resources here and I did bring the 'Teach Yourself' book you can see in my header photo with me and so few westerners speak Korean compared to even Chinese and Japanese. Also, I'm developing an interest in both Koreas etc, so I think I might go for that one instead and come back to the Japanese later on. We shall see!

Our new teacher this term seems quite determined to get us through this textbook as quickly as possible and have it finished this term. No-one, including her, thinks it's really possible, but we're going to try all the same. We can then easily move onto Level 6 (of 10) classes.

Japanese Books and Oriental Language Proficiency Tests

2009-11-28T11:08:00.004Z

I've decided to have another go at learning Japanese. I did some about 10/11 years ago, (the intensive first year class at Leeds Uni) and did quite well in that - got a first (A) in the first semester and a 2i (B) in the second. Sadly, I now remember very little really and I can't even be certain how to read some of the syllabary characters anymore! So, I first bought a little book for NT$40 (less than £1) to practise reading and writing hiragana and katakana, and then invested in a main text. Of course, both are from Chinese to Japanese, but I can manage that fine at beginners' level. This course has at least 6 books and I can get the first 4 for a discount price at the bookshop at the university we live very close to.=)

A few weeks ago, we took the TOP Huayu, the Test of Mandarin Proficiency, Taiwan version. Despite having learned for many years, well over a decade each, we just took the Basic level, which requires about 1600 words. There is an 800 word Beginners Level as well, but I wasn't about to drop that low!! Anyway, these things are tough! I'd heard that the HSK (the mainland Chinese version) was really hard, and it seems from the passing grade stats on the Wikipedia article about, that the Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a beast and three quarters! Now, I can't comment on a comparison between those and any English language testing system and I haven't yet got to the point of working towards and taking my Zertifikat Deutsch, so I have no real Western comparision, but the TOP Basic seems to require about 77% in order to pass at all and get grade 1, with grade 2 coming at 86%. I just scraped a grade 2 by virtue of having got the overall mark required and got grade 2 standard in 2 of the 3 individual tests. A bit depressing really. I mean, I have a degree in Chinese Studies, which was about 60% language based, plus a postgraduate diploma in translation (Chinese-English) and 7+ years teaching experience with beginners, and I only got grade 2 out of the possible 7. You have to take the Intermediate test (which I plan to do in May and re-sit next November if need be) to get grades 3 or 4 and the Advanced (forget it!!) to get grade 5-7 and comparison chart of TOP and HSK grades says I have the equivalent of HSK 5 - HSK 6 standard being the requirement to join the 2nd language speakers of Chinese organisation, ASCSL, the other benchmark being degree level Chinese. I confess I feel a bit better knowing I have HSK 5 level, sounds a lot better than just TOP 2, but these things are not easy!

The format is really quite quick fire and you have to be concentrating 100% to have a chance. The listening section is played once only, which is considerably tougher than the twice or more you get in the UK for language listening exams, and there's just about enough time to complete the Basic paper. I hear that the Intermediate writing section is pretty quick as well and that you barely have time to think at all! Whew! Thinking about it, I suppose so many people do so badly in the JLPT as they may feel that their Japanese is fine, they can cope OK with life there and have friends etc, so they may go in for exams that are just too high, given the demanding nature of the test procedure. I was thinking it might be fun to have a go at the Japanese one when I've done some self study here - just the bottom level, level 4 test, but I'm not so sure now....

Long time no post!

2009-11-02T04:54:00.002Z

I'm still alive, for anyone who reads this blog and not my other(s)! I'm now in Taiwan on the Huayu (Mandarin) Enrichment Scholarship. I've been here over 2 months now and seem to be making some progress with the language etc. It's nice to be learning actively again and, of course, in a country where the language is (one of those) spoken on the street, you can see what you're learning all around you and use it almost immediately. That's a big plus. We're using a really practical textbook, Far East Everyday Chinese III (a level 5 book), which deals with lots of real life stuff. We also have a terrific teacher and I'm afraid of getting one of a lower standard next term as two of the lads who are also here (and who I taught in beginners' classes back in the UK 4 years ago!) say that their teacher is dreadful. Hope I don't get them next term....

When I eat alone at home I'm reading 'Teach Yourself Linguistics', which is helping me to get a good idea of some of the basic concepts in studying language as a 'science' rather than a real tool for communication. Very interesting and some of the stuff I've come across there is helping me getting a better grip of some of the grammatical terminology I'm getting confuddled by in language classes! I've also got my eye on a book on a linguistic grammar of Chinese. Sounds dreadful to most people, I fear, but I'm looking forward to it, once I'm through with this one.

I plan to go to the National Chengchi University bookshop after I leave here (using the wireless sservice at the Mandarin Training Center just now as we have no net connection at home) and get a beginners' Japanese text. I did learn Japanese for a year or so about a decade ago and have begun to revise the kana sets, but I don't remember very mmuch now and there are so many Japanese friends here, including one whose invited us to vist her once she goes back, so I want to have another go. Of course, the text is from Chinese to Japanese, but I can manage a beginners' level course OK.

Find out more about ex-pat life in Taiwan etc on my Made in Taiwan blog.

Wanted by the Police!

2009-07-28T10:33:00.002+01:00

No, I haven't become a criminal and gone into hiding, and it's not really the police I mean.

We had an interesting experience on Saturday afternoon whilst with some Chinese friends in their home. We were there in our capacity of Bible teachers, when suddenly 4 ladies in uniform from the UK Border Agency (Home Office policing, sort of thing) came in looking for some Chinese chap who seems to have left before our friends arrived. After a couple of exchanges with A-Ming, he turned to us and asked, 'What did she say?' and Martin interpreted a bit for him. The lady who'd been talking to him looked astonished and asked if he could really speak Chinese? A minute or so later, I said something in Mandarin and one of the other ladies then came over, after saying, 'You too?!' , told us they were desperate for Mandarin interpreters all through the West Yorkshire region and gave us the office number to call!!

Well, we're going off to Taiwan for 18 months or more in just over 3 weeks, so we can't follow it up now and, frankly, after looking at the Home Office interpreter requirements, I can see that I wouldn't be anything like good enough at the mo, but maybe when we get back and I can see if I can get some funding for the Leeds Uni interpreting programme. AHRC has a Professional Preparation programme, which I might qualify for (as well as a couple of bursaries that the Uni and the School of Modern Languages offers) as, although I already have related postgrad stuff, interpreting is a very different beast to written translation and, well, if they really are desperate, then it's worth a try! The rates of pay are decent too. We shall see.....

23 days until departure and, yes, I'm way busy and stressed!! (Thus no posting etc)

My husband's been learning Estonian!

2009-05-03T11:57:00.005+01:00

Well, he's put it on the back-burner for now as the work project he was doing it for has, once again, failed to come to anything, but he's planning to get back to it in the autumn.

Here's one of the flashcards he was using. As you can see, it's done from German to Estonian and, on the other side of the card (not shown here) it went the other way around. This isn't my preferred way to make flashcards, but everyone has a system that works well for them and he likes this one (amongst a few others).

He also had a regular, weekly language exchange via Skype with an Estonian chap who speaks 13 languages (enviable, no?) and was delighted to practise his German! He was so sorry that Sir wasn't planning to carry on with Estonian that he more or less convinced him to come back to it in September when we're settled in in Taiwan and he's also got through a busy patch.

Apart from these 2 resources, he was using 'Teach Yourself Estonian' and a website which taught the language from several big lanugages, (so he could learn in English, German etc). He wasn't over-enamoured of the TY book, as much as it's hard to physically keep it open as anything, but resources aren't plentiful for Estonian! He was pleased, when looking at something in Estonian, that he'd got enough of an idea how the language worked to be able to muddle some of it out.=)

He's now fallen in love with Spanish and so I suspect that some sort of learning materials will make up part of his anniversiary present this year and we may even go to Insituto Cervantes lessons when we get back to the UK next autumn. I hope so as I too like Spanish and would like to learn it better. I know quite a bit of the grammar/structure and can read it passably well, but I can't really say much these days.

One Step Beyond!

2009-04-20T20:25:00.002+01:00

Today was, well, not really an eye-opener, but a very interesting and revealing experience. It showed quite graphically the difference between someone who can speak a foreign language really quite well and a professional linguist.

This morning I received a call on my mobile/cell from a desperate member of one of the Schools at Leeds Uni who needed a Mandarin speaking person to interpret a presentation into Chinese for 4 of the audience. Someone mentioned me so off I went after being as frank and honest with the lady as I knew how - ie telling her I knew nothing, including none of the terminology in Mandarin, of that industry and that I was probably far from good enough for the job. I looked through the Powerpoint with the speaker, making note of words I needed to check etc, then went off to prepare. During this time, the other interpreter they'd tracked down, a native Chinese PhD student, arrived and went through the slides as well.

We 'arranged' to do it together, but you really can't have one person butting in to the other's speech - highly unprofessional, so I just left the real thing to her and was glad I did! Had he been really using just the slides, then I could have managed as that was what I'd had chance to prepare, but he did a lot of extemporaneous speaking, using all manner of jargon I couldn't possibly have managed and breaking his speech into enormous segments. Certainly no good for someone working out of their mother tongue. (Translation and interpreting is normally worked into the linguist's mother tongue regardless of how well they speak the other language.) I would have had to stop him and asked him to pause much more often. So, in the end, I did little more than nod when the Chinese lady looked at me in a 'Was that rght?' sort of manner, (as I could understand both languages and comment on level of correspondence etc). She's not a pro either, but she is a native speaker whose lived here long enough to understand English extremely well.

I got a day's pay and a free lunch for the experience and the sure knowledge that what I'd been saying for a while was right - I was teaching beginners as I simply wasn't good enough to work in industry. Well, now I have a chance to make that good with the period of intensive Mandarin training in Taiwan next year. One thing I did get kind of 'confirmation' of this afternoon was that funding does seem to attract funding and that when someone's been considered worth one funding body's money, they tend to stand a better chance with another as well - quite a few people in the know seemed to concur with this impression. So, that bodes well. I would like to do that Interpreter training MA, but can't find £5000 for it.

Now, however, I need to sleep.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

BIG change coming up...

2009-04-11T16:27:00.003+01:00

A letter, of which this is the first sentence, came in the post the other day:

So, we should be going off to Taiwan for a year studying Mandarin (and, hopefully, Taiwanese) from late August. We haven't yet heard how my hubby's application has turned out, but the closing date is not until 17th, followed by a 'phone interview in early May. My application was decided on within a week, so his is a pretty slow business. Anyway, hope he gets it as, although work has started to finally come in again, we don't really want to drain all our savings in order to be able to afford this trip. We shall see. In the meantime, if I ever shake off this everlasting 'Boomerang' 'flu, then I may be able to a) get down to some linguistic preparations (ie get some Chinese studied!!); and b) get some more casual work to help boost the finances.

Plans after that are to try and get AHRC funding to do the MA in Translation Studies with Interpreting, as that would be a viable alternative to English teaching in Taiwan (which I can NOT do - I've trialled teaching 3 times with increasingly disastrous health results), but getting that funding won't be easy. Still, I think there were only about 3 scholarships available for open competition for this year's award and I was one from the 'very high number' of applicants chosen. Could I get my head out of the door afterwards? I think not!

So look out for lots of move and language news coming up....

Multilingual Frankfurt

2009-03-25T17:16:00.003Z

Just back from a short trip to Frankfurt where I began to wonder if there were any Germans resident! I seemed to hear far more other languages spoken than German and we were intrigued to see in our favourite lunch stop, the Kaufhof (for their buffet restaurant), the store guides not only in German and English, but also in Chinese!

Spoke in German, Chinese and Italian whilst I was there. Someone didn't realise I wasn't Italian and let forth at full speed. Well, I could follow the gist of what she was saying, and I haven't much looked at Italian for the best part of 4 years, so I was quite pleased with myself. Didn't make any monumental gaffs in German this time either, but then I tend to give up when I just can't say something!! I couldn't at one point though as Sir had disappeared and I really had to set to and answer the questions as best I could. The other party was a very pleasant and patient young man, so I managed in the end.=)

Language Learning History

2009-03-05T21:15:00.002Z

Miranda asked me about my languages today, so I thought I'd post a bit about my language career. It's not really as impressive as hers - see her comment on my last post, (esp as I'm about twice her age too!), but I've enjoyed most of it, and that's the main thing.=)

Although I often jokingly class the Geordie accent as the first foreign language I learned, the real thing started with French lessons in 2nd year of middle school when I was just 10. That first class, we did 4 expressions for weather and drew matching pictures in our new French exercise books. I can still see that page in my mind... Those who did well in French were able to elect to take up German as well in high school, (those who flunked were also able to do German, but that was to replace French, not as an addition), and I did it mostly as we were told it was an extra subject that would mean missing one session of a practical class, like woodwork, home economics etc and one of games. I took it for the latter reason as I'd always been rubbish at games. So, at the age of 13, nearly 14, I started 6 years of continuous German learning. I also had 6 years of French in total, but I'd had to drop it after compulsory education ended (age 16) as mine was the only chosen combination of A Level subjects that didn't fit in the timetable!

When I was about 17 and in lower sixth form, I began to develop an interest in other languages, principally Spanish, but also Portuguese, Italian and Dutch. I did some evening classes in Spanish and Italian during my upper sixth year, but mostly I kind of taught myself and practised on penpals, of whom I had many dozens in those days. I got a lot of practice in written French, German and Spanish then in my late teens and this continued into my early 20s. Much of this was done by just using a Collins Gem dictionary and the verb tables they contained, as well as guesswork from knowledge of French, but I was able to keep up 2-way correspondences in Spanish this way and also write in Italian and Portuguese.

When I was 24 I started a BA(Hons) programme in Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds, which was pretty intensive in terms of Chinese training. The first year was, as one of the academics there had told us, 'cramming as much Chinese as possible into our heads within 22 weeks'. The year abroad, which I spent in Taiwan, was much the same, only more weeks in class and all in Chinese. During my 2 final years, I also took the intensive Japanese beginners class (same sort of thing as the Chinese I'd done in 1st year, only easier on the script front already having Chinese) in 3rd year and the Cantonese intro course and a beginners Spanish class from the Language Centre in 4th. In fact, with the exception of 2 Mongolian history classes in 1st year and 2 IT skills ones in 3rd, all my options and electives were spent on languages! I did Mongolian in 1st year as well!

Whilst in Taiwan, I met the German chap I've now been married to for almost 10 years, so my German has come in handy with family. It's not that fluent now. Well, it isn't bad fluency-wise as my time in Taiwan give me the confidence to just use whatever language knowledge I had, however small it was, but vocab is limited and grammatical structure can be a bit English or stilted at times. I simply don't use it enough! I did a course with the Open University a few years ago as a refresher, which was helpful and the materials excellent, and also a course at the Language Centre of the other university in Leeds, but I gave up part-way through. I wanted to learn more everyday stuff, not write essays on language change and other social phenomenon....=(

So, now I describe myself (on my CV) as having advanced level Mandarin Chinese, intermediate German and basic French. My French would come back very quickly if I needed it and that did, indeed, happen in France and Luxembourg last summer. I found I could still understand what I needed to and also sentences began to formulate themselves in my mind there. Luxembourg was the most fun as I could try a bit of French, but my hubby could just use his own native German as everyone there is pretty much quatrolingual - Luxembourgish (almost a dialect of German), French, German and probably English as well. As for other languages, I can read a bit when needed and find I can pick up decent amounts if I apply myself, like I did to Italian for the few months before we went there in May 2005. I would say my linguistic ability is more latent than active at the mo and has become more knowing about languages than actually knowing them. I'd like to change that in the future though, starting with improving and re-polishing my Chinese, which we hope to do in Taiwan as soon as we can. Since early 2002, I've been helping out with beginners' teaching at my uni in both my old department, East Asian Studies, and for 13 months from Nov 06 - Dec 07 in the Language Centre, so I'm able to use my Chinese ability professionally there. I have thought of a possibility of creating a role too, but that will have to wait until I know I'm going to be in the area for a while before I even put out feelers.

In addition to the languages mentioned above, I've also taken an interest in Norwegian, Greek, Korean, Vietnamese and Finnish, although have studied/learned very little of any of them. At the moment, I'm reading 'Teach Yourself Linguistics' so as to get an introduction to the theoretical side of language, which has recently become very interesting to me. Half of me would really like to go back to uni and just study as many languages as I could get away with doing, but I somehow doubt the possibility or practicality of that, but one never knows....

Jobs and Careers with Languages?

2009-02-20T19:53:00.004Z

I've been looking into the demand for language ability, both in my home area and nationwide over the past couple of days. I'm not up for a hot shot career, and it really is just as well considering what the state of the market for East Asian languages actually is right now, especially when you compare it to the market for European languages is - the ones that 'everyone learns'.

On the Top Language Jobs site today, 12 positions required Mandarin of which two or three were ones covering every language on the book and thus didn't really count. Most of the others were in translation and examining, with an odd one or two in other office based work. All but one were in London or nearby counties, the other was local to me in Yorkshire. The demand for Japanese is better with 40 positions going, (obviously including the 'across the board' ones), although still in mostly the same industries and same areas, but a better spread. Korean came in with 15 positions, Thai with none in its own right and Indonesian the same. (We teach all those, except Korean, in the university department I work in.)

European languages? 238 wanted French, 345 German, 112 Italian and 129 Spanish! I hadn't the patience to check through all those listings for geographic spread, but I know that there were a couple of dozen in total (from previous investigations) in my home area. So, the indications seem clear - European languages are the ones in demand in the UK and the market for East Asian languages is very limited indeed, Japanese being most in demand. How Slavic and Middle Eastern languages fare, I couldn't say, but it seems that French and German are the ones everyone really wants and having an 'exotic' language on your CV is virtually useless careerwise outside of the areas where those languages are spoken. A few years ago, I had a taxi-driver virtually in tears over the 'piles of money' I could make with a flashy career as someone's PA or something with Mandarin knowledge. Well, seems he was a little misinformed. The department I work in can give me only £1000 of work per year and, outside of this small niche area, my Mandarin has no market value whatsoever!

Worth bearing in mind if choosing a language for business and career purposes. Do some research first as to what's in demand. I didn't do my studies for career progression, although I confess I would like to be able to use my Chinese etc in an admin or secretarial job, (I have some German etc, but nothing good enough to apply for a bilingual position where degree level knowledge of that language is wanted), it wasn't why I did it. I'd be pretty sick now if I had! I heard that none of last year's graduates from Chinese Studies at Leeds went into jobs using their Chinese! True, there are thousands of Euro-languages graduates every year and so the competition for those few hundred jobs will be quite high too, but at least they know there is some use for them. I think that most people who do East Asian languages really do so mostly for interest and cultural reasons than for career development. I wonder how long the burgeoning interest in learning Mandarin will continue given the lack of work-based outlet for it??

Kinda depressing really. Chinese etc is very impressive to most folk (i.e. those who've never made a serious attempt to learn it), but it won't earn you a penny! Slinks off to get German books out......

On a go slow just now...

2009-02-15T09:29:00.003Z

Well, not much linguistically going on at the moment. I'm great at making plans - even detailed ones - and then not getting very far with them! (In which I suspect I'm far from alone!!!) However, as someone has been kind enough to register to follow this blog, it really helped me to see that I should be more loyal to it and post more often. That, of course, means having something worthwhile to post!!!

So, what's new? I haven't done much active language learning, but we are trying to keep to the Chinese Tuesday and German Friday as much as possible. My hubby is really keen on this idea and I think he enjoys the German day especially!!! (He is German, in case you're wondering!!) I haven't done the '5 words a day' bit as yet though.=( I will get to it, I promise, and then I can report back.=)

Recently, I've had a lot of winter bugs and so on, so it's been hard to get much done and I've got behind in household things and also my textiles/embroidery course college work and now a priority is to get stuff cleared up around the home (which I did quite a lot of yesterday - about half, I should think, and it looks much better now=)) and get caught up with my coursework, all of which is assessed. I've decided to devote Mondays and Tuesdays to getting that done until I'm up to date. As I've applied for a job, which would take me out of the home in the mornings from April, I need to give that quite urgent attention. Once that's clear, then I'll feel better about really prioritising some language studies, both in the learning of languages and reading up on various aspects of linguistics.

We're also planning on going back to Taiwan for 6-12 months. If I don't get this job, then we'll be applying for 12 month scholarships to go in late August. If I do get it, then it should give us almost all the £$£ we'll need to go for 6 months self-funded from late Feb next year. I prefer this option as it's more definite - we're reliant on ourselves, not someone else's choice - and 12 months will be too long for me. Either way, we should get to go and attend intensive Mandarin classes for however long at the Mandarin Training Center in Taipei, all being well. They have the widest range of classes going to an advanced level and they also have supplementary classes in Taiwanese and things like interpreting between English and Chinese. I'd like to do both of those. There's only one week off between taught period though (quarters), so it would be very, very tiring and demanding to do it for 4 consecutive quarters. I'm really hoping for the 6 month option after which we'd spend a month looking around some other parts of East Asia and head home.

Something I have done of late is to open Chinese and German blogs! I'll add the links to the sidebar as well. They're highlights from my main blog, Sew in Love and have both attracted some visitors.=) The German one has had quite a lot of visits from people located in Germany! It's good language prac too and I plan to open one in Romance languages in time, with odd bits in any or all of French, Italian, Spanish & Portuguese. Other things must get done first though.

Language Learning Chalet School Style

2008-12-03T15:58:00.003Z

Anyone read the Chalet School series when they were young? Well, despite having about 3 of them when I was a little kid, I really only discovered them in my early 30s, but I'm quite hooked now. The point of relevance here is that the girls were expected to be trilingual - English, French and German.

At the fictional school, Monday and Thursday were German days, on Tuesday and Friday only French was to be spoken and English was for Wednesday and Saturday, with any language on Sunday (some of the girls were Dutch, Hungarian, Norwegian, Italian etc). My hubby and I decided to try this at an easier level, meaning that Tuesday is Chinese day and Friday is German day. I won't say it gets stuck to 100% (or even remembered about all day!), but it does help to make one use those languages. If someone were learning a language 'alone', then why not write a diary entry or keep a blog in that language that day of the week, plus try to think in the new language?

Another good tip from the Chaletians was given by the School Secretary, Miss Rosalie Dene (in the days when all career women were single!!!) herself an Old Girl of the school to a new arrival with next to no knowledge of either language: "Make sure you've learned 5 words of each language before you go to bed each day." If one were to do that with, say, Sunday off to re-cap etc, then one would actually pack away over 1550 words of each language per year! Amazing, no? So, I've decided to do that too. 5 words of Chinese and 5 words of German each day from Monday - Saturday with a break day once a week to go over them all.

An additional thing along the same lines here is to do a small grammar exercise or two in each language each day too. Things like the Schaum's Outline series, or the more recently published Practice Makes Perfect series (with Verb Tenses, Pronouns & Prepositions and full grammar titles) lend themselves marvellously to this kind of thing and make it really possible to learn a couple of new languages to a decent standard within a couple of years. If it's a language with complex verb declensions too, then one could also add in the conjugations for one tense of one verb each day too.

If someone was only learning one language, then doing these, plus using the whole vocab quota for that one language would mean that a vocabulary of over 3000 words plus the common conjugations of all regular verbs plus 50 or more irregulars as well as a substantial grip on other aspects of grammar and increasingly free expression within a year and all in the comfort of one's own home. Worth a try? I think so!

Boxes arrived from Taiwan!

2008-05-30T18:58:00.006+01:00

Been ill (a-bloomin'-gain!), so I haven't got much done, linguistically or otherwise. The whole formal postgraduate study idea has got thoroughly dumped as the Uni would actually charge me for the full programme - ie I'd have to pay as if I were being taught and assessed for the 60 credits worth of modules I'd be getting advanced standing on and not joining in. As I can't see us having £5K to spare, I decided to say 'Forget it!' and just get on with learning for actual real use!! I can take the HSK, TOP Huayu and Goethe Institut exams anyway, so there's still plenty of 'make me study' exams around. This coming year I hope to be my last teaching at all as I just don't enjoy it anymore - too many students, not enough teachers and no money to get more etc etc etc, so I'll have to sit in on all the classes I want pronto. So, reckon I'll be spending as much time as I can manage in 'revision' classes, subject to the relevant teachers OK-ing it.=)

Our boxes of goodies arrived from Taiwan with the above Chinese language things. Some are just the student workbooks and MP3 CDs to go with main texts we already have.

There were also these Korean books and CDs, which are working from Chinese to Korean!!! I started learning Japanese that way too, many moons ago! The book on the left is mostly about learning to read and write the Hangul script, whereas the other seems to assume you know the script from the word go and focuses on conversation, (in 3 minutes a go, it reckons!!). I also have 'Teach Yourself Korean' which does both, so I should have enough here for an all round programme. Just need a decent dictionary now and all I need to do then is get on with it. Ha!

Made a start, at last!

2008-05-15T14:42:00.000+01:00

This morning I went through chapters 5, 6 and 7 of 'Teach Yourself Beginners Chinese', just noting the words I needed to learn/revise etc. I marked them in orange when I needed to sort out the tone and green where I needed to learn either the whole word/expression or look at the uage point more closely. Included in the 'orange' section was the word chà - 差, 'lacking' or 'short of', frequently used in time expressions such as 差一刻两点 chà yíkè liǎngdiǎn, 'a quarter to two', or one I use a lot: 我的中文很差 wǒde zhōngwén hěn chà, 'my Chinese is naff (lit 'lacking'). I tended to prove myself right there by always saying: wǒde zhōngwén hěn chá, when chá 茶 means 'tea'. Hmmmm!!! So, the listener knew to believe me at least!!!

So, the plan for the summer is this: There are 18 weeks (starting next week) left until teaching begins again in late September and I plan on joining in as many level 2/3rd year classes as I can (2nd year is study abroad and not given a university level). I may only be able to get to the main grammar class and do the readings etc and the listening work alone, but that will at least give some structure. Anyway, I'll have about 3 weeks off for my sister's visit in mid-June and our trip to the continent in July and I'd better take something later too, so that leaves 14-15 work weeks. The idea is to finish this book and get as far through 'Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar' as I can in that time and also to move on to another textbook, such as 'Coloquial Chinese 2'. When classes start, I also have texts I plan to do alongside that, but we'll get to that when it comes as, knowing me, I'll be pitifully behind from day 1!

OK, back to the scheduling. Feels good to have made a start at least!

Study Plans

2008-05-14T11:56:00.000+01:00

Well, I was hoping to be able to go back to Uni and finish my MA in Translation Studies. I left the programme with a PGDip owing to serious illness back in 2003 with the offer of being able to go back and upgrade when I was better. I planned to go back 2 years ago, but couldn't as there wasn't the money to spare at that point, then last year the classes I wanted to do were unavailable and I was becoming ill again with a job that was entirely unsuitable for me. Now it's too long between when I got my PGDip and re-started in September - Uni regulations state that I have to finish within a certain number of years, so I'd have to re-apply and then get credit transfer. That's no problem in principle, it's just that I could only get advanced standing to the tune of 60 creidts, when I've actually done the equivalent of 120, so there's a risk of having to re-take classes and re-pay for them! So, I'm enquiring about changing programmes and having my PGDip count as 60 credits towards that, so I wouldn't have to re-take the common components and might be able to swap the other class I'd already done and got a merit for, for some of the MA in Advanced Chinese language stuff. Well, we'll see. This newer programme has a lot of interpreting in it and that would actually be more useful to me than taking 2 linguistics classes, (which I may be able, as a staff member, to sit in on lectures for anyway and can read up on by myself). I'll need to put in a LOT of work on my Chinese in order to be suitable for this new programme, but I won't be thinking of going back until autumn 2010, by which time I should also have been able to save up the fees!! Hope they don't charge much, or anything, for the 60 credits I'd be transferring!

So, I've been looking through a number of my Chinese resources and thinking about how to go about really bringing my language level up to scratch. I'm going to start with the books mentioned before as, although I'm by no means a beginner, there's some good revision in there and our BA(Hons) programme didn't teach a lot of the practical situational material that's in there and I will need that sort of vocab, both for chatting with Chinese folk and also it may possibly be needed in the 'Situated Dialogue Interpreting' module, which could well be used as a training session for small-scale interpreting. That can be business, medical, legal and all sorts of everyday stuff, so the more I can get under my belt, the better!

Looking forward to the boxes coming back from Taiwan. When we were there recently, we bought some new books, as well as the workbooks and audio for the courses we already had. We're planning to spend part of spring 2010 over there going to classes and, if we're there in May, I want to take the 'TOP Huayu' test too - 'Test of Proficiency'. Hope to take intermediate level of HSK (汉语水平考试 Hanyu shuiping kaoshi - Chinese proficiency test, the mainland one) in autumn 2009 too, so lots of work to do! Exams, tests and goals are good to get one going though, so I think this is a good idea. Even if I don't do the MA programme, then I'll at least get a really good level of Chinese again.

In my boxes from Taiwan are also 2 books on Korean! One is mostly based around reading and writing the hangul script, but there's also a CD and vocab learning opportunities and the other is a course with CDs which my friend gave me. Looks quite a lot duller than many of the other courses available there, but should still be a good start. No matter how dry a textbook looks (or indeed is), if you learn everything in it, you'll learn a lot of the language! I also have 'Teach Yourself Korean' as can be seen in the blog header photo, so that's something I want to get to doing over the next few years. Have a hankering over Vietnamese as well.....

Got it!

2008-05-08T11:11:00.001+01:00

Went to Borders on Saturday to get 'Teach Yourself Linguistics' with my 25% off voucher, but they'd just sold their copy. So, I ordered one on Amazon and bought books on vegan baking and landscape painting and drawing with my voucher instead! The Amazon parcel came today, the book looks great and I'm looking forward to starting on it.

Other than that, haven't done much language-wise beyond more or less finalising a booklet for Mandarin learning friends on how to improve their skills.

Current Studies

2008-05-02T21:18:00.000+01:00

On the left are photos of the books I'm reading and/or studying at any given time. At the mo, these 4 photos are a bit of a nonsense really as I haven't studied any of them for quite some time, but they are the ones I plan to get to.

The Beginners' Chinese one might require some explanation, esp as I have a degree in Chinese Studies and a postgrad translation qualification as well. It's simply that my uni course didn't cover many practical situations, whereas this beginners course does! There are lots of useful things in there that I've never met before and I'd like to say I know. Also, as it (and the Schaum grammar workbook) are the two books I'm in the process of recommending to friends who want to improve their Chinese, I think I'd be as well to study through both thoroughly myself too!! I need a good grammar review as well.

The German one is one that Sir bought as part of my anniversary pressie about 3 years ago and that I've spent pitifully little time with since. Describing Language is a set book with a discontinued Open Uni course about the English language (for which I have a full set of books and materials and hope to work through them too in time), and is quite a good intro to some aspects of linguistics. I'm planning on buying Teach Yourself Linguistics tomorrow as I have another one of those lovely 25% off vouchers for Borders.....

Intro

2008-05-02T21:13:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been threatening to become a respectable linguist for several years now and so now I think it's time I got down to it! LOL! Here I plan to keep a brief record of my language studies - both in terms of actually learning foreign languages and also about language itself - the study of linguistics. Second language acquisition really interests me, especially multiple second language acquisition, i.e. how some seem to be able to absorb a number of foreign language at once when others can't. Some can learn new languages in sequence, ie when they're already past beginners level with another language, but others can take on two or more from scatch at the same time. Fascinating! To me, anyway!!