Language Museum

I don’t mind admitting I’m incredibly lazy when it comes to things I should do, but don’t have a strict deadline for. This even extends to language learning – if I hadn’t signed up for a class (which I feel obliged to go to), then my intention to learn Spanish would never come to anything.

So when I came across the Me No Speak series of books, it struck me as a great idea – but also one that means my latent lazy tendencies would come to the fore.

The Me No Speak books are filled with pictures and phrases that travellers can point to instead of trying to find the word in the local language. Their tagline is “When you can’t say it, point to it.” They cover a range of destinations, from France to China and Turkey to Thailand.

I’m glad to see that the creators of this series still think people should attempt the local language, but it seems to me that people would be more likely to put this in their bag and use it as a replacement for the local language. One of the things I enjoy overseas is all the nodding and smiling that happens when two people don’t speak each other’s language but are trying to communicate anyway. The surprise element also makes for good stories – you think you ask for a plate of noodles and instead a plate of something else appears, that turns out to be delicious anyway (or not).

Has anyone used one of these books? Did you find it helpful?

New tech words are always in the news, but what about anti-tech words?

BBC News asked for submissions, and I really like some of the words the contributors came up with. Here’s the list:

1. Plugthug: someone who’d kill for access to recharging facilities.
Paul, Chester

2. Game-shame: The feeling of slight embarrassment that occurs when you realise what you thought was about half an hour of game play was actually about five hours, especially when you have inadvertently missed an event to which, under normal circumstances, you would have assigned a higher priority than game play.
Ray D, Turku, Finland

3. Spamnesia: failing to reply to e-mails from friends, because your computer thinks they’re spam.
Rob, Australia

4. Meanderthal: someone who tries to drive or walk while using a mobile phone.
Dave Case, Wokingham

5. Sheeple: people who have to go out and buy the latest gadget (usually one whose name starts with an “i”) just because they believe that everyone else is getting one, and they can’t bear the thought of being left out.
Mike Plunkett, Fleet, Hampshire

6. Memail: e-mail I send to myself to remind me to do things. Everyone else spends all day reading and sending e-mail to each other, I prefer mine to be private.
John Dolan, Cambridge

7. Nerds-nest: the tangle of cables behind your TV or desk.
John, Wellington

8. Faceless: what happens when you get either vindictive or drunk and post on Facebook, someone finds it offensive and your account is suspended.
Tim Ellam, Ashburton

9. Dot con: the process of making money from the internet.
Robert, Rochester

…and, to end on a more uplifting note…

10. My word isn’t exactly anti-tech, but it does fill a gap in the language. When I have a friendly conversation by e-mail with a new acquaintance, I finish the e-mail with “nice to have intermet you.” A smiley emoticon is optional. If the Oxford English Dictionary is interested, please give them my number.
Kaylie, Runcorn

My favourite of these is memail – I’m always sending myself reminder emails! I also mail myself interesting news items that could interesting for this blog (I emailed this story to myself for instance!). Can you think of any other anti-tech words?

Listening to the radio in the car earlier, I heard about a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival called Bilingual Comedian.

The show is by Becky Donohue, and in it she apparently “attempts to ‘teach’ the audience and herself Spanish using nothing but ‘borrowed’ language tapes”. The show is based on the genius Eddie Izzard’s ‘Bring Bilingual’ (see video).

Coincidentally, I also read an article today about comics from overseas performing at the festival. The article explores the idea that comedy is different in different languages – for example a joke that works in Italian because it uses Italian wordplay would not have the same effect in English.

Being able to laugh and joke in a different language seems to be quite difficult to achieve – not only do you need to know the language, you need to know the cultural background. If you enjoy comedy, make it part of your language learning by finding comedy routines in your target language and listening until you can understand – or at least raise a chuckle.

Dickens has been translated into street slang, by the author who re-wrote Shakepeare’s plays in text-speak.

The ‘translator’ Martin Baum, has modified 16 Dickens novels into stories nine or ten pages long, including changing the immortal line from Oliver Twist – “Please Sir, I want some more” – into “Oi mate, gimme some more”.

He said:

“There are many people who love and understand great literature but many more who don’t. My book is the bait to draw them in and get them interested in some wonderful stories.” ( Source: The Australian)

Hmm, seems like a gimmick to me. Perhaps I’m biased though, as I have an aversion to Dickens’ work!

* I’m not quite sure where this phrase comes from, but my mum uses it a lot. It seems to mean that the required outcome of a task will be hard to achieve – “I had a dickens of job trying to pull up those roots.” Anyone know the origin?

Over at the LanguageHat blog I saw a post about a live translation event taking place as part of the London Review Bookshop’s World Literature Weekend.

The challenge has been set by the francophone novelist Alain Mabanckou – two translators will offer up their translation of his short text, and then discuss and debate the differences with the author and each other. The idea is to bring out aspects of the text that aren’t normally paid attention to as well as paying attention to the process of translation itself.

Audience members will receive a copy of the French text as well as the two English translations to help them follow along.

The event is being held at the British Museum in London on Saturday 19th June. Definitely looks well worth attending!

A cool new application from Google will soon be able to help you translate from written words.

Google Goggles users can point their phone at a word or phrase they wish to have translated, and then fine-tune their onscreen selection to a smaller area. Using the phone’s camera, the application will recognise the language and give you an option to translate it. This makes the application perfect for globetrotters – whether you need a menu or sign translated, you can do so without the hassle of searching through a guide book or dictionary.

The application can only translate languages based on the Latin alphabet such as English, French, Italian, German and Spanish at the moment, but once the text is captured it can be quickly translated to other languages. Google are apparently confident that other languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Hindi will soon be added to the app.

Whilst the app is free, you’ll need a mobile device running Android 1.6 or higher. I’ll definitely be giving this a try on my trip to Italy next month!

I came across a new site that looks useful and thought I’d share. Called RhinoSpike, the site offers users the chance to record audio in their native language and upload it for others, but also request recordings in a wide variety of languages.

It can be difficult to find interesting audio content in the language you are studying, and RhinoSpike offers a solution to this – you can request the speaker to record any text you wish, from your favourite book to a conversation (probably best to make sure the book’s not too long though!).

The best thing about the site is it’s free. All the content is contributed by users of the site and the community is encouraged – if you contribute recordings you will move up the queue for the recordings you request. As the site says, “Give and you shall receive!”

Most of what we hear and see about Afghanistan is war-related. The Taliban, the troops, roadside bombs, insurgents.

So it’s heartening to hear about someone who is trying to make a difference by connecting with Afghan culture.

Corporal “Taff” Edwards, a Welsh soldier, has learned to speak Dari, one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan, so he can help train men serving in their National Army.

A Welsh and English speaker, Edwards decided to start learning Dari as he wanted to learn a useful skill that would take him to the war.

Cpl Edwards underwent intensive training to prepare him for the demands of being a linguist in a war zone, and he said it was difficult to pick up.

“The training involved a lot of classroom time. All the teachers were trying their utmost but it is a very difficult language to learn,” he added.

“One of the reasons is that nothing is produced in the language – there is no Dari dictionary, there is no literature. These guys have been fighting for so long, producing books and things hasn’t been high on their list of priorities.

“So all the resources that we try and find all come from Iran as Parsi is very similar, but it is not exactly the same.”

Cpl Edwards now hopes to study Pashto. (Source: BBC)

Pashto and Dari are the two official languages of Afghanistan. Pashto was declared the National Language but Dari is probably more widely used, according to a UN estimate. There are a number of minority languages also spoken, including Nuristani and Pashai, and many Afghanis are bilingual.

Let’s hope people like Cpl Edwards can help connect with Afghan people and help them find peace and stability so they can write down their languages and encourage people to visit this incredible country.

Closed captioning (subtitles) have recently been introduced to some videos on YouTube, which could potentially be a great language learning resource. The service is in beta mode at the moment – and apparently it needs a lot of work. From Dvice.com:

Engadget first spotted how weird Apple’s iPad launch video got when the feature was activated — sometimes the text is so different from what’s being said that you wonder if Google is just having a laugh. “A high-res color display” becomes “a high risk going to split,” and when one of the designers says he doesn’t have to change himself to use the iPad, the captions make it sound like he very clearly does. If you were relying on these captions, it would be a very different commercial.

The captioning is machine-generated, so it seems the software has a ways to go before this becomes a reliable means of translation!

Subtitles. They’re there to help you out when you’re watching a foreign movie or TV show. They can be a useful tool when you’re learning a new language. But what happens when the subtitle writers get it horribly wrong? This is often the case when an English film is dubbed into another language and then subtitled back into English. Well, it seems that some hilarity ensues… Take a look at this slideshow.