Language Trainers Blog

Language courses often explain pronunciation by comparing sounds in the language you’re learning with those in your native language. This can be misleading as the sounds are rarely exactly the same, and some of the sounds may not be used in your language and you may find them difficult to distinguish.

You need to listen to a language as much as possible to tune your ears to the sounds, intonation patterns and rhythms. You can do this by listening to radio broadcasts, watching TV programmes and films, listening to songs and so on. Try to mimic what you hear, and also pay attention to the gestures and facial expressions people use, and the ways they interact.

If you’re having particular difficult with certain sounds, it might be useful to ask a native speaker to pronounce them in an exaggerated way. Try to copy the sounds and also the movements of their mouth.

Some people believe that it is best to spend quite a long time – perhaps several months or longer – listening to a language before you try to speak it.

Pronunciation is something you need to keep on going back to and refining, as the closer your pronunciation is to that of native speakers, the easier it will be for them to understand you.

If you make regular visits to, or have regular contact with people from a particular country or region, learning the language(s) spoken there would be a good idea.

If you have an interest in some aspect of a particular culture, such as literature, music, art or food, learning the language of that culture will help you explore your interest in great depth.

If you want to learn a language that is ‘useful’ generally, then the ones to consider are French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), German, Japanese, Portuguese and Hindi/Urdu. This list is based on the number of speakers, the number and population of countries where the languages are spoken, the number of major fields using the languages internationally, the economic power of countries using the languages, and their socio-literary prestige.

Some languages might be more in demand than others in your region. Looking at job advertisements, particular those on recruitment agencies specialising in bilingual and multilingual jobs, is a good way to find out what employers are looking for.

Another factor to consider is whether courses and materials are available for the language you want to learn. This shouldn’t be a problem for popular languages like French, German and Spanish, but it might be more difficult to find courses in less commonly-studied languages such as Hindi or Malay.

Some languages are more difficult to learn than others. If your native language is English, the least difficult languages to learn are French, Spanish and Italian. However, if you relish a challenge, languages like Chinese and Japanese are worth considering.

When something is impossible or very unlikely to happen, you might say it will happen only when pigs fly, when hell freezes over, or on a cold day in hell. Or that it won’t happen in a month of Sundays.

Flying pigs are also uncommon in Norweigan (Når griser flyr), Romanian (când o zbura porcul), Swedish (När grisar flyger) and Welsh (Pan fydd moch yn hedfan).

In Catalan it’s cows that are unlikely to fly – quan les vaques volin. The same is true in Finnish (Kun lehmät lentävät), and Italian (Quando voleranno gli asini).

The temperature of hell is unlikely to fall below zero in Danish (Når helvede fryser til is), Finnish (Kun helvetti jäätyy), German (Wenn die Hölle zufriert), Hungarian (Majd ha a pokol befagy), Swedish (När helvetet fryser till is), and Welsh (Pan fydd uffern yn rhew drosodd).

Equivalent idioms in other languages include:

• Bosnian – Kad na vrbi rodi grožđe - When grapes ripen on the willow
• Danish – Når der er to torsdage i en uge – When there’s two Thursdays in a week
• French – Quand les poules auront des dents – When chicken have teeth
• German – Wenn es im Sommer schneit – When it snows in summer
• Hindi – Sooraj pashchim se ugega – When the sun rises in the west
• Latvian – Kad pūcei aste ziedēs – When the owl’s tail blossoms
• Malayalam – Kakka malannu parakkum – The crow flys upside down
• Spanish – Cuando las ranas críen pelo – When frogs grow hair
• Ukrainian - Koly rak na gori svisne – When the crayfish on the hill whistles

There are quite a few idioms in English to describe people who are a bit crazy or not very intelligent. In some something is lacking – a sandwich short of a picnic, a few beers short of a six-pack, one brick short of a load, not playing with a full deck and so on. In some animals are loose somewhere, like having bats in the belfry, or kangaroos loose in the top paddock.

Others include out to lunch, as nutty as a fruit cake, as crazy as a sack full of ferrets, as mad as a hatter, to have a screw loose, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and not hitting on all six cylinders.

Here are some examples in other languages, some of which seem as crazy to me as the imaginary person being described:

• Croatian – Vrane su mu popile mozak – Crows have drunk his brain
• Czech – Šplouchá mu na maják – It’s splashing on his lighthouse
• French – avoir une araigneé au plafond – to have a spider on the ceiling
• Indonesian – otak udang – shrimp brained
• Italian – Non avere tutti i venerdì – to be lacking some Fridays
• Latvian – Caurs jumts – the roof is full of holes
• Polish – Brak mu piątej klepki – he’s/ missing the fifth stave
• Portuguese - Tem macaquinhos no sotão - (He) has little monkeys in the attic
• Spanish – Más loco que una cabra / un plumero – Crazier than a goat / feather duster
• Turkish – Keçileri kaçırmıs – His goats fled

When something is very easy, you can say that it’s as easy falling off a log, or as easy as pie, ABC, 123, taking candy from a baby, or shooting fish in a barrel. You can also say that it is a piece of cake or no sweat.

It’s pretty interesting to compare these with some of the equivalent expressions in other languages:

• Belarusian – Проще пареной репы (Prošče parenoj repy) – simpler than a stewed turnip
• Chinese – 易如反掌 (yì rú fǎnzhǎng) – as easy as turning your hand over
• Croatian – Dječja igra – Child’s play / Prosto k’o pekmez – Simple as jam
• Danish – Så nemt som at klø sig i nakken – as easy as scratching one’s neck
• Dutch – Kinderspel - child’s play
• French - les doigts dans le nez – (as easy as sticking) your fingers in your nose
• Indonesian – semudah membalikkan telapak tangan - as easy as turning your palm around
• Italian – facile come bere un bicchier d’acqua – as easy as drinking a glass of water / è un gioco da ragazzi – it’s a kid’s game
• Portuguese – É canja – it’s chicken soup
• Swedish – Lätt som en plätt – as easy as a small pancake
• Welsh – mor hawdd ag anadlu – as easy as breathing