Smiley's Tropical Escape

English Is

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:40:19 +0900

A student asked me if English is a beautiful language. I answered no. English is not a beautiful language, English is...

One summer, I traveled around Italy as a student. While strolling through the market in Florence I saw this German girl at a hand-made book stand. She was not conventionally beautiful. She had blonde hair pulled into a braid that hung from the arc of her scalp, with the nape of her neck shaved. Her skin was too pale and her lips a dull shade of pink over slightly crooked teeth. Her eyes were wide set over a nose just a touch too long.

But she smiled as she was talking to the vendor. She changed, in an instant, from a still life to a brightly animated picture. Her hands rose to cover her mouth as she laughed and she closed her eyes for a second; when they opened they were bright with amusement and her skin glowed.

That's English, the best I can describe it.

With it's convoluted grammar, stolen vocabulary from a dozen languages, thoughtless spelling, and exceptions to every rule about its use, English is not a beautiful language. But when it's used correctly, when the right people make it come to life, it outshines its flaws to the point of banishment, leaving us with a wholly beautiful idea.

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Perpetual Student

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:41:56 +0900

It's come to me recently that, could I go back and do university again, I would do a business degree. On the other hand, could I go back and study anything I wanted, I'd like to study linguistics.

At the moment, I study Japanese and Spanish and I dabble in Italian. And I just signed up for an introductory, tourist level course in Russian. I don't really have many reasons for doing so. At least not for anything other than Japanese. But I enjoy it, so I do it.

Everyone needs hobbies, right?

So now I'm thinking of going back for my masters. And here's the question: Getting my masters will not immediately benefit my family or my career. In truth, it would probably detract from them in that I'm spending my time and money on myself only. And, frankly, it's a lot of work. But it just sounds...interesting.

Any thoughts?

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Lingo

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:59:57 +0900

So, I've been thinking about languages recently. Nothing new, really, except that instead of the mechanics of language, I've been thinking about how we acquire languages.

Many of my circle of friends are in mixed-nationality marriages and speak two languages as primaries in the house. This is great for their children, who are growing up bilingual, but it is also somewhat confusing for the kids as they don't always know how to express themselves to the people around them. Something that will change as they grow older and more fluent, but can be problematic in the beginning.

And it is no secret that kids learn languages from their parents and the other adults around them. What I think most of us forget is that that is how we adults learn best too. I actively study two very different languages - Spanish and Japanese and while Spanish is the easier language (for native English speakers), my Japanese far surpasses my Spanish.

Let me put that in a bit of perspective: I grew up in Arizona, not 20 miles from the Mexican border. I took Spanish all through high school and have spent quite a bit of time in Mexico, as well as having several friends whose first language is Spanish. Some of my friends had parents who spoke only Spanish, necessitating that we kids speak Spanish in their homes.

By contrast, I have lived in Japan for just over seven years and my wife is Japanese.

And my Japanese is much better than my Spanish. The only reason I can really give for this is that I hear Japanese being spoken on a constant basis, where as I hear Spanish only when I pop in a DVD (Seriously, Shrek? Much funnier in Spanish.) I can attribute much of my Japanese to what I have heard when I watch t.v. or listen to J-Pop, or just talk to our friends. Because I have spent equal amounts of time studying both languages and yet my Japanese is so much better than my Spanish.

So.

The other day, as my wife and I were driving around somewhere, I was being a fairly typical husband. In other words, I was not really listening to what she was saying, instead concentrating on my driving. My wife smacked me on the arm and said, "Pay attention, bitch!"

I almost drove off the road from laughing so hard.

But the point is, we acquire languages from those around us much more than we give credit for. All studying, reading, writing aside (and don't get me wrong, those things are necessary for learning another language), the most natural, most fluent pieces of language we have do not come from a textbook.

There is a similar point to be made in that all of us use the same expressions and phrases as our friends and media heroes. However, I have to get back to studying now.

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Mango Language Learning

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 12:49:15 +0900

Mango Screengrab

Mango is a new web 2.0 service designed to help people study languages. The user interface is clean and easy-to-use and signup is free for the moment.

There are several languages, including my favorites, Spanish and Japanese, available to study. The website breaks lessons down into slides (sometimes over 100 per lesson) that have a given phrase or conversation in the studied language with an English translation as well as an attached audio file that has the spoken pronunciation.

From the Japanese lessons I've tried, it sounds as though they have tried very hard to have native speakers voice the audio recordings, giving correct pronunciation and intonation.

The lessons are well designed, however, even at the basic level, the system expects one to have a working knowledge of the written forms of the studied language. At least, in my case, even the beginning slides were presented with the Japanese written in kana, which while no problem for me, could potentially be discouraging to absolute beginners.

In general though, Mango looks like it could be a valuable new service for anyone wanting to study a new language or brush up on a familiar one. Recommended.

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