Language Trainers Blog

Many people believe that they are not ‘good at languages’, or will tell you that they were hopeless at languages in school. Some even claim that they don’t speak their mother tongue very well, so couldn’t possibly learn other languages.

It’s true that learning a language takes time and effort, but with sufficient interest, motivation, dedication and perseverance, anyone can do it. Having an enthusiastic teacher or tutor can also help a lot, though it is possible to learn languages on your own.

If you fall in love with a language, and/or with some aspects or the culture associated with a language, you will want to spend as much time as possible with that language. The more exposure you get to the language, the quicker you will acquire it.

There will be periods when your enthusiasm lags and you may become frustrated with your apparent lack of progress. These mights be times when it’s a good idea to take a short break, or to try studying in a different way. Seeking out other people who are learning the same language and discussing your frustrations can also help.

The key to learning a language is regular study and practice, and also as much exposure to the language as possible. Studying for a short time, such as half an hour every day, is more effective than studying for an hour or two a week. The more often you study, the better you remember. Short study periods might also be easier to fit into your life.

There are many resources and materials available for learning languages – classes, books, CDs, DVDs, online lessons and so on. What you need to do is find a combination of resources and materials that interest you and teach you what you want to learn.

Language classes are excellent for those who like a structured approach; they give you opportunities to practise what you’re learning with your tutor or other students; and the teachers provide useful feedback. The advent of online language classes means you don’t even need to leave your home to be taught regularly by a native speaker! Self-study language courses enable you to learn at your own pace and in your own way, though you can get into bad habits if you don’t practice often enough with native speakers.

Some people make sure they can understand and read a language before actively using it in speech and writing. Others prefer to jump straight and use whatever they know whenever the opportunity arises. The former type of learners tend to take longer to acquire fluency in the language, but also make fewer mistakes. The latter type of learners will become fluent more quickly, but will probably make many more mistakes.

Making mistakes is part of the learning process, as long as you learn from them. If your goal is to communicate, you don’t need to worry too much about mistakes. If you want to become an interpreter or translator however, mistakes need to be minimised.

When you can’t understand something, you might say that it’s all Greek to you. This expression comes the Medieval Latin phrase Graecum est; non potest legi (It is Greek; it cannot be read). Medieval scribes, who weren’t familiar with Greek, apparently wrote this phrase next to any text they came across in that language.

Some other languages compare incomprehensible things to Greek, for example Norwegians say Det er helt gresk for meg (it’s totally Greek for me); speakers of Farsi (Persian) say that they don’t understand Greek (yunaani nemifahmam); Portuguese speakers say É grego para mim (It’s Greek to me) or É chinês para mim (It’s Chinese to me), and Swedish speakers say Det är rena grekiskan (It is pure Greek).

In other languages incomprehensible things are compared to other languages, such as Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic or Latin, or to Spanish villages or Chinese cities. In Chinese such things said to be like ‘heavenly script’ (gēn tiānshū yíyàng).

Here are a few examples:

• Croatian: To mi je špansko selo (It’s a Spanish village to me)
• Danish: Dat is Latijn voor mij (That’s Latin for me)
• Finnish: Täyttä hepreaa (It’s all Hebrew to me)
• French: C’est du chinois (It’s Chinese)
• Greek : Εἶναι ἀλαμπουρνέζικα [Íne alabournézika] – It’s Arabic
• Lithuanian : Tai man kaip kinų kalba (It’s all Chinese to me)
• Russian: китайская грамота (It’s Chinese writing)
• Turkish: olaya fransız kaldım (I am French to the conversation/chat)

You can find more examples here.

In English-speaking countries idioms for heavy rain include it’s raining cats and dogs / buckets / stair rods / pitchforks / elephants & giraffes, or it’s pelting / chucking / pissing / tipping it down. In Australia some people say it’s a frog strangler, it’s a frog-strangling-gully-washer, or it’s a frog-strangling downpour.

The origins of the idiom, it’s raining cats and dogs, are uncertain. The most likely source is a satirical poem by Jonathan Swift, A Description of a City Shower, first published in Tatler magazine in 1710. The poem includes the lines “Drown’d Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench’d in Mud / Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.” There are more details here.

In other countries it can rain old women with knobkerries (Ou vrouens met knopkieries reen – Afikaans); boats and casks (Està plovent a bots i barrals – Catalan); wheelbarrows (Padají trakaře – Czech); shoemakers’ apprentices (Det regner skomagerdrenge – Danish); frogs (Il pleut des grenouilles – French); cobblers’ knives (Tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí – Irish); fire and brimstone (Það rignir eld og brennustein – Icelandic); female trolls (Det regner trollkjerringer – Norwegian) or knives and forks (mae hi’n bwrw cyllyll a ffyrc – Welsh).

“Taking” or “carrying coals to Newcastle” is an English idiom that means doing something completely unnecessary, pointless or superfluous. Newcastle-upon-Tyne used to be a major coal mining area and the UK’s first coal exporting port, and was first associated with pointless activities in Thomas Fuller’s 1661 The history of the worthies of England: in which he wrote, “To carry Coals to Newcastle, that is to do what was done before; or to busy one’s self in a needless imployment.”

Useless activity can also be compared to selling freezers to Eskimos.

The German equivalent of this is Eulen nach Athen bringen/tragen – to bring/take owls to Athens.

In Dutch they say water naar de zee dragen (to carry water to the sea).

In Biblical Hebrew a pointless activity was bringing straw to Ofarayim (a place known for its grain production).

The Yiddish equivalent of this idiom is tregn shtroy ken mitsroyim (bringing straw to Egypt).

In Russian they say ехать в Тулу со своим самоваром (to take a samovar to Tula) – Tula is a town where samovars were produced.

Brazilians describe pointless activities as raining on a wet place (chover no molhado). Spanish speakers do the same – llover sobre mojado (to rain on a wet place), or, say, compare such activity to ploughing the sea (arar en el mar).

There are quite a few different idioms for being busy in English. You might be up to your eyes, eyeballs, elbows or neck, snowed under, drowning, swamped or knee-deep in/with work. You can also be rushed or run off your feet. You could even say that you’re up to your nose in grindstones – one I came up with the other day.

You can also be up to your ears in work in Russian (po ushi), and up to your neck in Hebrew (עד הצוואר).

In Scots there’s an expression, up tae ma oxters in stour, which means ‘up to my armpits in muck’ and can be used to mean that you’re very busy.

In Spanish you can be flooded with work (estoy inundado/a), or be up to your neck, ears, nostrils or even balls with it (estoy hasta el cuello / las orejas / las narices / las huevos de trabajo)!

In Danish you can say that work is hanging far out from your throat (Det hænger mig langt ud af halsen), and you can say the same in German (das hängt mir zum Hals ‘raus). In German you can also be stuck in work up to the neck (bis zum Hals in Arbeit stecken), up to the chin (bis zum Kinn), or sink/drown in work (in Arbeit versinken).

In Swedish you can be overwhelmed or oversnowed with work (Jag är överhopad / översnöad med arbete).

In Czech an excess of work is said to come up over your head (mám toho až nad hlavu).

In Japanese you can be too busy for words (isogashiittaranai), or you can be so busy that you would even accept help from a cat’s paws (neko no te mo karitai).

In Arabic-speaking countries you might be sinking in work, not have time to scratch your head, or by busy to the last fuzzy hazy limit of your head hair (mashghool leshooshtoh).

Tamil speakers say that they don’t even enough time to breathe (mūccu vidaradku kūda nēram illai).