Language Trainers Blog

Source: xkcd.com

Just a little something I found whilst browsing the archives of one of my favourite webcomics, xkcd.com, by Randall Monroe… which just seemed very apt for this blog. This is one of his old ones, which I’d forgotten about. Most of his programming/science comics go straight over my head, but when I can appreciate them they’re hilarious. Definitely recommended reading!

If you are going to language classes, you can practise using the language with your teacher and other students. You could seek out native speakers of the language in your area – these might be people who have immigrated to the area, international students who are studying at a local school, college or university, tourists, or people visiting on business. You might be able to make contact via shops or restaurants run by and/or catering for such people, via cultural organisations, via educational institutions, or via friends and acquaintances.

There are also quite a few websites where you can find conversation partners and penpals. You usually have to register and enter a short profile which includes details of which language(s) you speak and which you’re learning. You can then search the sites for people who are learning your language and speak the language you’re learning. You can establish contact either via the sites themselves, some of which have built-in email and text chat facilities, or via Skype or chat programs like MSN Messenger.

I use the following sites and have met many people through them:
http://www.friendsabroad.com
http://www.sharedtalk.com

If you can, it’s really helpful to spend time in a country where the language you’re learning is spoken. You could go on a language course, do another course taught through the language, travel, teach your language, or find other kinds of work.

For many people in the English-speaking world, grammar can be a bit scary. You can probably tell a noun from a verb, and might have some idea about adjectives and even adverbs, but maybe not much more. You might also have some vague ideas about not splitting infinitives or not starting sentences with words like and or because. So when language courses or teachers start talking about noun cases, genders, moods, subjects, objects and such like, you might feel a bit lost.

If this is the case, don’t panic! Grammar doesn’t have to be intimidating, and you don’t necessarily have to learn all the grammatical terms and rules. What matters is being able to apply the rules and being able to recognise them when others use them.

There are a number of approaches to learning grammar – one is to learn the rules, to practise using them, then to try to apply them in normal language usage. Another method is to start learning the language without worrying too much about grammar, then to try learning some of the grammatical rules once you have some familiarity with how the language works in practice.

One of the major tasks you face when learning a language is acquiring vocabulary. The number of words you need to know depends on what you want to do with the language, and your active vocabulary (the words you can readily use in conversation and writing) is likely to be smaller than your passive vocabulary (the words you can understand).

You could try learning vocabulary systematically. This might involve learning all the words you can find related to particular topics, activities or places. For example, you could choose an activity you enjoy, such as cooking, and then learn as many relevant words as possible. You could also learn to make recipes from the country or countries where the language you’re learning is spoken, perhaps using recipes in that language.

Another technique is to learn networks of words. For example, when you learn the word for table, you could also learn words for other types of furniture (chair, sofa, etc); related verbs (eat, read, sit, etc); words for parts of a table (top, legs, etc); words for materials used to make tables (wood, metal, etc), and so on.

You could label things around your house with their names in the language you’re learning, and mentally label things elsewhere every time you see them. You could also try to describe what people around your are wearing and doing. If you can’t think of how to say something while you’re out and about, make a note and look it up later.

A way to remember words is to associate them with words or phrases in your native language that sound similar. For example, the Mandarin Chinese word for kitchen, chufang. sounds like chew fang – this might conjure up a image of a vampire chewing with his fangs in your kitchen. Don’t worry about such associations being silly or bizarre – the sillier and more bizarre they are, the easier they will be to remember.

It helps to learn words in context by reading and listening to your chosen language frequently. When you see unfamiliar words, try to guess their meanings from the context, or at least to work out whether they are verbs, nouns, adjectives or whatever. They may appear again in a different context which makes their meaning easier to guess, so don’t worry if you don’t understand them the first time.

When you’re head over heels about something or someone it means that you’re very excited, and/or turning cartwheels to demonstrate your excitement. It can also be used when you’re falling – he rolled head over heels down the hill.

This idiom is often used in the phrase head over heels in love with. It was probably first used in the 14th century, when it was heels over head, which makes a lot more sense. At some point the parts got switched round.

Similar idioms in English include upside-down, topsy-turvy, arse over tea-kettle and arse over tit.

In German you might be Hals über Kopf (neck over head) about something or someone.

There’s a similar phrase in Dutch, hals over kop (head over heels) but it means ‘at the spur of the moment’ or ‘in a terrific rush’. Although you could fall hals over kop in love, a more common expressions is hij moest hals over kop naar het ziekenhuis (he had to be rushed to the hospital suddenly).

In Italian you can say that your head is spinning more quickly than usual with excitement – su di giri.

In Welsh you can be over your head and ears in love – dros dy ben a dy glustiau mewn cariad.