Language Trainers Blog

Here’s a rare educational post!

It is a fairly well known fact that English borrows words and word roots from a variety of sources. Wikipedia states that that majority of English roots come from Latin and French (Old Norman), though the 100 most frequently used words are all Germanic in origin. This graph demonstrates a full breakdown, taken from a sample of 80,000 words from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary:

Although we have a rich vocabulary (by far the widest of all languages, with some 2 million words at last count), the English language treats nouns and verbs (and, to an extent, adjectives and pronouns) rather differently from the Romance languages from which it borrows heavily. One of the main differences is in the morphology of words – that is, how they change depending on gender and number (for nouns and adjectives), and person, mood, voice, and tense (for verbs). Verbs in English, for example, do not change in form much, usually adding an ‘s’ in the third person singular. For example, the verb “to see”:

In the future tense, the verb form (or inflection) itself does not change at all – instead, we use the auxiliary verb “to be” in its future tense, and the present participle of the verb (in this case, “see”). For example:

This makes learning regular English verbs pretty easy. Making a “verb table” like this seems a little pointless in English, since there are only two different forms in the present tense for this particular verb. This process is also known as conjugating a verb.

Let’s compare our relatively simple English verb table (the top one, indicating the present tense) with the French equivalent, then – the French verb to see is voir:

There are 5 different forms here. The future tense in French has another 6 different forms (je verrai, tu verras, il verra, nous verrons, vous verrez, ils verront), meaning that there’s a whole lot more learning to do.

Likewise, nouns in English have a singular and plural form – we don’t have to worry about gender or case, which explains why these are seen as new and slightly unusual concepts when it comes to learning a language like Spanish, French or German.

Let’s take the word ‘table’ as an example (since above I listed two ‘verb tables’) – in English, you either have a table, or you have several tables. Singular and plural – simple, right? Let’s compare the Latin word for ‘table’ (mensa, which happens to be a 1st declension feminine noun) and see how many forms it has (listing the different forms for a noun is also known as declining):

You can safely avoid the case names for now (though you may recognize a few), but straight away you can see that there are far more noun forms in Latin than in English (in this case, 7 different inflections in Latin vs. only 2 in English). Latin is perhaps an extreme example here, since it is an extremely inflective language and relies on the inflections of the words to ‘fill in’ the rest of the words in a sentence far more than English does. Moreover, this is just how you decline 1st declension feminine nouns in Latin – there are 5 groups of nouns, most of which have several genders, and there are all kinds of identical and similar forms across the groups, meaning that you really have to know your word endings to understand what is going on.

This is just a short demonstration of morphology at work, and barely begins to touch on the subject. However, if you’re thinking of learning another language (especially if it’s a Romance language), then it’s useful to see what you’re going to be up against. Learning your nouns and verbs in all their forms early on in your studying – especially the irregular ones – will put you in a much better position once your vocabulary expands and you start learning more complicated constructions and idioms, which sometimes combine several forms to create different or subtler meanings.

Sorry for all the technical talk – I hope this was useful to some!

Source: langladder.com

I recently stumbled upon LangLadder, a super useful extension for the Firefox web browser which has an array of features to help intermediate and advanced level language learners reinforce your vocabulary while you browse the web. By merging the learning experience with how many people spend the bulk of their free time (statistics have shown that the average person spends around 2 hours a day on the internet), it creates a fun way to practice your target language in context. By browsing foreign language sites, you can add words you don’t know to a vocabulary list that pops up in your sidebar, which gives you definitions as you go using Google Translate. You can later test yourself with the plugin’s built-in flashcard system, which tracks your progress as you improve.

You can learn more about how LangLadder works from its creator, Erik Larson, by watching this video:

I love when technology can legitimately aid your language studies – this is a simple yet great idea for those who want to sharpen up their skills. Check out langladder.com to download the plugin, and for more information. It works on both PC and Mac; all you’ll need is the Mozilla Firefox browser and the Jetpack plugin, plus the LangLadder add-on.

Source: kttc.com

Another baby-related post today – it has been found by a team of psychological scientists at the University of British Colombia in Canada that babies born from bilingual families seem more likely to have more of a penchant for picking up spoken languages later on.

Quite how they found the correlation between babies’ “sucking reflexes” and their stimulus for languages, I don’t really understand… but since they’re wearing white lab coats, I am tempted to believe them.

From the article:

A team of psychological scientists at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France, watched the sucking reflexes of newborns born to either monolingual English-speaking women, or women who spoke both English and Tagalog, a language native to the Philippines.

The researchers explained that increased sucking behavior indicates newborns’ interest in a particular stimulus, including spoken language.

The team found that babies born to monolingual mothers exhibited increased sucking behaviors when they heard English, but not Tagalog, while infants born to the bilingual mothers showed interest, regardless of which of the two languages was being spoken.

I’ve always wished that I had been brought up bilingual!

Another annoyance post today – this time concerning the phrase “beg the question”. This is now such a common error that you can see it everywhere – television, newspapers, advertisements – the whole nine yards.

In basic terms, to beg the question does not mean the same as to “raise the question”. For example:

“I don’t like strawberries; which begs the question, why do I love strawberry Pop Tarts?”

This is quite simply wrong, no matter how many times you have heard the phrase being used in this sense. You should be raising the question here.

“Begging the question” actually refers to a type of logical fallacy, also known as petitio principii (Latin: “assuming the initial point”). Begging the question is a fallacy in which you make a claim, but have no evidence as to whether this claim is true or false other than the statement itself. For example:

“I don’t trust her, because she’s untrustworthy.”

Describing her as ‘untrustworthy’ does not actually explain why you don’t trust her, as they both mean the same thing. This is an example of somebody begging the question, thus creating a logical fallacy.

This, perhaps, raises the question: why is this error so often made? It seems to have slipped under the radar a long time ago, and now the incorrect meaning has simply been introduced into modern usage.

You can find out more at begthequestion.info, who give the following statement as to why they feel the error should be corrected:

While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous “modern” usage. This is why we fight.

As a bit of a pedant myself, I completely agree. So remember, don’t beg questions – raise them.

Source: latimes.com

When I’m trying to learn a new language, I’ll often use flashcards. For me, it isn’t just the flashcard itself, but the process of making the flashcards that makes them such a great learning aid. I find that I learn best when I go over everything several times, and writing out vocabulary – especially if the language uses a different alphabet or writing system, like Japanese – really helps hammer the words into my brain.

However, they didn’t prove to be such a great aid for 22 year old Pamona College physics major Nicholas George, who is studying Arabic to aid his hopes to become a US diplomat in the Middle East someday. As he boarded a flight from Philadelphia to California he figured he’d take some of his English-Arabic flashcards on board with him, to help him brush up on his vocabulary during the flight.

Sadly, since Arabic newspapers are rife with this kind of vocabulary these days, George’s flashcards included cards for words such as “terrorism” and “bomb”. This alone was enough to provoke so much suspicion from the TSA that he was handcuffed and was detained for 4 hours, and the offending flashcards were confiscated. He was asked if he was a member of a terrorist or pro-Islamic organization during his detention, to which he replied no, and was later released without an apology.

George is now suing the TSA.

I feel the TSA acts like it has a blank check as long as what it does is in the name of fighting terrorism. Of course, the TSA’s job is to keep us safe – but they have to follow the Constitution and respect rights.

[If the flashcards triggered such deep suspicion] then we’ve got a real 1st Amendment issue here. I have a right to study Arabic.

- Nicholas George, Pamona College student

Personally, I think this is ridiculous. George also admits that the stamps in his passport from Jordan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan (from an overseas semester last year) as well as a book in his carryon that was “critical of US foreign policy” may also have added to the suspicion – but to me this is just another tale of airport authority paranoia.

Happily, this is pretty much the only circumstances I can think of whereby learning a language could land you in this much trouble…

Two friends of mine had a child together a couple of years ago, and I’m happy to say they’re still going strong. The boy, however, was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to speaking – he hit two years old a few months back, but had still barely said anything more than ‘dada’ and ‘momma’. This of course led to a certain degree of frustration and concern when trying to find out why he was crying when he was upset or unhappy, since he was unable to communicate at all.

A little worried, my friends did some research online and through their doctor, and found that this is a more common phenomenon than you’d expect – many (perfectly normal) children do not speak their first words until 15 or 16 months. While there is no hard and fast solution to get their kid talking earlier, they were recommended to try to teach him the basics of Infant Sign Language – basic terms such as “thirsty”, “hungry”, “blanket”, “pacifier”, etc.

Many daycare centers and preschools now cater to Infant Sign Language to facilitate easier communication – some starting as early as six weeks old. Contrary to what many believe, teaching your children sign language before they can speak will not delay speech even further, but in fact helps to further speech development – baby signers were found usually to start talking earlier than non-signers. Children who are able to communicate their thoughts like this – even at a rudimentary level – are also far less prone to outbursts, since they are able to communicate their needs before they can actually pronounce them.

We are a sociable species, so it makes sense to allow communication as early as possible during a child’s development – it not only helps in ways mentioned above, but it will also serve to reinforce the infant’s vocabulary, as well as stimulating the basic need for socializing and communicating.

So, while the thought of a baby gesturing in sign language is perhaps a little strange to some of us, it certainly seems to have its advantages!

Source: youtube.com

A pretty witty 3 and a half minute skit about the importance (or impotence) of proofreading – possibly not safe for work (a little bit of coarse language), but very funny!

“Do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice: one, there is no prostitute for careful editing of your own work – no prostitute whatsoever; and three, when it comes to proofreading, the red penis your friend.”

There’s a serious point here – always proofread your work! You can sometimes be surprised at the avoidable errors you can find just by reading something through for a second time, and Word’s autocorrect is certainly not infallible. This is particularly true when learning a new language and jotting down information for the first time – it makes it very easy to get yourself into bad habits early on.

A survey performed by the Center for Applied Linguistics has found that the number of US schools offering Chinese language learning is way up:

A Center for Applied Linguistics survey indicates there was a significant increase in Chinese language classes at U.S. schools offering at least one foreign language between 1997 and 2008, The New York Times reported Thursday. During that time period, the percentage of schools offering Chinese increased from 1 percent to 4 percent, the survey found.
Source: UPI.com

These results come at a time when foreign language education in the US is facing cuts across the board. Mandarin is rapidly becoming the language to learn for future business endeavors, given China’s huge industrial expansion and development in recent years.

Having recently returned from China (and having found Mandarin extremely difficult to pick up), I say best of luck to everybody taking up Chinese! Or as the Chinese might say, hao yun qi (好运气)!

As somebody who has studied a lot of Latin, this one annoys me more than it should, and seems extremely avoidable. You see the two confused far too often! Both are direct abbreviations of short Latin phrases, and both are used to clarify a preceding statement – one by giving examples, the other by explaining something further. But which is which?

e.g. stands for exempli gratia (literally “for the sake of example”), and should be used when giving an example or several examples of something.

For example: “I love eating fruit – e.g. apples, oranges, and mangoes.”

i.e. stands for id est (literally “that is”), and is used in the sense of “in other words”, or “which means” – expanding on a previous statement.

For example: “The responsibility falls only to the President of the United States, i.e. Barack Obama.”

Source: theoatmeal.com

So, once again The Oatmeal has managed to put into a short, amusing cartoon what many people take years to get to grips with: the semicolon. Some people are almost ‘afraid’ to use the semicolon for fear that they’ll use it incorrectly. The rules of usage are actually pretty simple, and can be boiled down to 3 occasions:

1. Linking together two related sentences without the use of a conjunction.
e.g. “I’ve never eaten pigeon; I assume it tastes a lot like chicken.”

2. Linking together two sentences which already contain punctuation.
e.g. “For the life of me, I can’t remember where I put my keys; I must have left them at work.”

3. Separating items in a list where there are already commas used within the items themselves. (Usually used with place names)
e.g. “Replicas of the Eiffel Tower can be found in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Hangzhou, China; and Crailsheim, Germany.”

Check out the comic for more examples of correct semicolon usage!