Duolingo - You can have it your way

How can I best learn a new language?  Oh, if I only knew the answer to that seemingly innocuous question.  Lots of us want to learn another language, but few of us succeed.   My best advice is to give DuoLingo a try.  DuoLingo is a web-based language learning program available for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.  Two of the pluses of DuoLingo are that it has a perfectly acceptable free version and that you can tailor it to your own needs.  Is it the panacea for all language learning problems?  No, sorry.  But I have been using it for about six years and still look forward to using it on a daily basis. Here is the advice I would give a friend who wants to acquire another language using DuoLingo.

First, choose a language that is meaningful to your life. DuoLingo offers a wide variety of languages.You may be planning a trip to a foreign country, have friends who speak another language,, enjoy the music from a certain country, want to connect with your roots, or learn about a new culture.  I study Spanish and Portuguese because I have taught those subjects, French because I have French-speaking Canadian friends and enjoy traveling in Canada, Italian because a good friend has just bought a flat in Venice, and Irish and Welsh because I am intrigued by Celtic cultures.  And if you find that you chose the wrong one, you can quit it and start a new one.  I once began Catalan and  Romanian because they are Romance languages, but I quickly lost interest, probably because I didn't have a personal connection.

Next, set a daily goal ( a small one is fine) or let DuoLingo set one for you.  The program can be instructed to send you reminders if you don't meet your daily goal. I used them at first to develop the habit of doing some bit of language every day, but after a while, the reminders began to feel like a nag.  Now my strategy is to gain ten points every day, which is really easy.  I have a streak going of over 1800 days.  You may laugh, but I go to great lengths to maintain my DuoLingo streak.  However, in addition, my personal daily goal is to do one exercise in six different languages every day without making five errors.  Duolingo lets me know when I make an error by losing one of my five available hearts. So, my advice is to play around with your goal so that it fits your lifestyle.

Now to the content that DuoLingo offers.  You will choose topics to work on, some based on life experiences, like travel, and others based on grammar, like past progressive verbs.  Once again, you are in charge here.  The topics are arranged from easier to more advanced, but you don't have to necessarily work through them in a lock step fashion.  Remember, language learning can be a truly enjoyable experience. Language Acquisition experts talk about the important role of Language Input, that is, getting lots of language into your head in a comprehensible way. Duolingo offers an impressive amount of content.

Another piece of advice is to allow yourself to explore what DuoLingo offers.  There is no one right way to use it.  DuoLingo is constantly changing,  so you may log in one day and find new features.  I can compare it to learning how to use an iPhone or an Apple Watch.  You will discover capabilities you want to use and others of no interest.  On Duolingo, I have explored grammar explanations (pretty boring), jump ahead quizzes (great), vocabulary count (not useful), online discussions (pretty interesting if you have time), and adding friends to compete with (not so interesting anymore).  Just keep clicking around in the program until you find features that suit you.

Now back to the thorny question of how to learn a language.  I can only say that DuoLingo will help you along in your journey.  The program gives me an opportunity to maintain Spanish and Portuguese, helps me feel that I am not losing the French I learned in school, gives me hope that the next time I am in Italy I can use more Italian than the last time, and provides an intellectual challenge figuring out the workings of Irish and Welsh.   

My plea to Duolingo is: Please bring back the 'bots'.   The bots carried on a conversation with you to which you replied speaking or in writing.  Talking to the bots was very close to having a conversation with a real person, which means that you were creating language in your own head.  I loved talking to them.   But the bots unfortunately only made a brief appearance in the program.

Is DuoLingo the ultimate answer to the question, "How do I best learn a language?" No, but it is a flexible, motivating way to study language. And I look forward to a future where language learning is even more accessible. 

 If you are a DuoLingo user or want to be, I look forward to reading your comments and observations on language learning!

Are you a victim of Language Attrition?

The term "Language Attrition" has a fairly unpleasant ring to it, doesn't it?   I hesitate to admit it, but falling victim to Language Attrition has risen to the top of my personal worry list.

Attrition is defined as the wearing away of something.  Language Attrition is the term linguists use to describe a natural decline in a person's language skills due to insufficient use or environmental changes. (In other words, "Why is it that I used to carry on a conversation in Spanish but now find myself groping for words?")  I'm not concerned with losing my first language, English, because I use both the oral and written forms all day, every day. But I am becoming very concerned about the loss of Foreign Language skills.

An inordinate part of my life has been devoted to learning Foreign Languages.  Through the years, I have taken countless language courses, completed college degrees in languages, and taught languages and linguistics. I would have thought that given the amount of time and energy I have devoted to Spanish and Portuguese that at least those two languages would have a permanent place in my brain. Surely the languages I have been most intimately connected with are not beginning to recede in my memory! But I fear they are.

The first hint of trouble appeared as I was doing a daily round of exercises recently on Duolingo, my favorite free, online language learning program.   I have worked on Duolingo with at least one of six languages every day for over 1700 consecutive days. On some busy days, I have completed just a Spanish exercise.  On others, I have plowed through Spanish, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Welsh and Irish. I typically do Spanish and Portuguese back to back to avoid mixing the two Romance languages.

When you get the right answer on Duolingo, you receive a pleasant sound as a reward.  When you make an error, the correct answer appears in a red box at the bottom of the screen, and, depending on which version of the program you are using, you lose a segment of the much dreaded "health meter." (Loss of too many health segments potentially stops your progress for a period of time.)

I noticed that I was making more and more errors in Spanish and Portuguese.  And the errors weren't with big issues, like obscure vocabulary items or intricate grammar points.  The mistakes appeared with commonly used words and concepts.

Who would have thought I could mix up the Spanish and Portuguese words for "the"?  Spanish uses "el" or "la" for singular "the" and Portuguese uses "o" and "a" for the same concept. How could I forget that the Spanish word for "bus" is autobús but ônibus in Portuguese?  How often did I have to remind students that the "they" form in Spanish ends in "n" (ellos beben) but in "m" in Portuguese (eles bebem)?  I feel Language Attrition setting in.

I can recommend to myself many paths for maintaining languages to keep attrition at bay.  Unfortunately, I no longer lead a life style that allows frequent practice with native speakers of other languages. (Granted that living on the border with Mexico in El Paso, Texas gives me some contact with Spanish, but we are in truth a bilingual city.) Of course, videos, movies, radio, music, newspapers, and novels could fill the void if I would just make time to use them. 

I'm not sure I like the conclusion I have arrived at in writing this post about Language Attrition.  Counteracting it is going to take much effort on my part, along with losing weight, exercising, practicing the baroque recorder and guitar, not to mention decluttering the house.  

But instead of whining about being one of the many victims of the disappointing phenomenon known as Language Attrition, I'm going to begin reading a Graham Greene novel translated into Spanish, Nuestro Hombre en La Habana (Our Man in Havana). It's one small step, but at least I feel like I am doing something.  Now on to those other life challenges!    

Strange marks in foreign languages

Diacritics

When I first study a new foreign language, I admit to ignoring the various written marks above and below letters.   Although I am not proud of that fact, it is human nature to pay attention to what seems to be most important at the moment, and the sounds, structures and words of a language consume my thinking.  After the initial rush of becoming acquainted with a language, however, details start to stand out, and I wonder which language clues I may be missing.  Diacritics are one of those important clues.

Written marks added to letters are technically called diacritics.  We often refer to the more common ones as accent marks.  The diacritics that I find most often in Romance languages are the acute accent (é), the grave accent (è), the circumflex (ê), the tilde  (ã), the trema (ë), and the cedilla (ç).  I  took a look at the four Romance languages that I study (French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) to see how certain diacritics may help me in acquiring those languages.

In French, I found that the acute accent and the grave accent are guides to the correct pronunciation of the e.    The (é) with the acute accent is an "ay" sound. The  (è) with a grave makes a sound, like "ehh."  Also, the (ç) lets you know when to use a soft s sound rather than a hard k sound, as in the word français.

In Italian, I learned that some accents are obligatory and others are optional!  What a slippery path for the beginning language learner!  The most useful accent I found was the one used to tell the difference between two words with identical spelling but different meaning.  Dì  means "day," but di means "of," ; è is a verb, but e is a conjunction.

For the Portuguese language, the acute and circumflex accents indicate not only stress on the syllable for all vowels,  but also the open or closed quality of the vowels a, e and o. Á, É and Ó  are open vowels. Â, Ê. and Ô are closed vowels. Open vowels are produced with the mouth open wider, as the name implies.

The tilde ((ã) is placed only on vowels in Portuguese and gives them a nasal quality, with the air going out through the nose.  One other diacritic, the cedilla, is used as in French to give the "c" a soft pronunciation.

Finally, Spanish language diacritics are fairly straightforward.  If you see an acute accent ((é) on a word, stress that syllable.  And sometimes the acute accent will help you distinguish between two words that have the same sound but different meaning.  For example, Sí means "Yes," but Si means "If." Spanish uses the tilde (the wavy line) to pronounce the "n" as "ny,"  as in the powerful weather system, El Niño .

We did not do an exhaustive study of Romance language diacritics in this post; otherwise both you and I would be exhausted.  But I think by looking at the diacritical highlights in each language, we have made a beginning.  Now we can at least notice those "strange marks" in other languages and use them in our quest for language acquisition.

Some fascinating grammar facts (yes, really!)

I recently added a sixth language to my daily study regimen on Duolingo.  I know; it's an obsession. But before I admit to being a bit quirky when it comes to language study, I would like to defend my choice to spend valuable time each day learning other languages. You see, I truly get a kick out of analyzing how other languages are put together.

Linguists will tell you that languages are more similar than they are different, and I agree.  The common elements of nouns, verbs, questions, and negatives come to mind.  But each language I study has differences in grammar that are important in the language acquisition process. 

First, let's explore up front why the word "grammar" gives some people the heebie-jeebies. I think it is because grammar in our native language (English for me) is fairly boring because we have already acquired it automatically. But once we start overlaying our English grammar patterns on new languages, ah! That's when grammar becomes intriguing. 

Let's take a look at a grammar point in Spanish labeled "The Personal A." Here is an example: Busco mi hotel (I am looking for my hotel); Busco a mi esposo (I am looking for my husband). Did you notice the extra "a" in the second sentence?  Don't bother trying to translate it. The personal a is a Spanish grammar requirement before direct object nouns that are specific people. Sounds easy enough, right?  But how about Bitsy, my beloved pet cat?  Isn't she as important as any person?  Yes! Busco a Bitsy.  I am looking for Bitsy.  Here is the link to a YouTube video that gives further explanation of the personal a in Spanish:    The Personal A . 

On to Portuguese, which may be my favorite other language.  Portuguese creates combined words that make beginning Portuguese students tear their hair out.  Take a simple phrase like "the girl's book" which translates into Portuguese "the book of the girl" (o livro da menina).  The English phrase has five words; the Portuguese phrase has four.  The Portuguese word da combines the meanings of "of" and "the." And the Portuguese language has many of these forms, which are usually prepositions combined with other parts of speech. Take a look here Chart of Portuguese combined forms to be completely overwhelmed by grammar rules. These forms are best acquired rather than learned!

Another of the languages I have studied for many years, French, still makes my mind work overtime with some unique grammar rules.  To say, "She remembered" in French, you have to know that "to remember" is a reflexive verb, that is, a reflexive pronoun is required.  Then the past tense of reflexive verbs in French is formed with the helping verb, être.  And if that isn't enough, the past participle must agree with the subject.  Elle s'est souvenue is the result. ( I missed this translation recently on Duolingo!) Not easy, but fascinating.

For the next blog post, I am planning to tackle some sticky grammar points in Irish, Welsh, and Romanian, all languages that are fairly new to me, and therefore even more of a challenge.

Recently I read the headline of an article that ran something like "Forget Luminosity; Learn a Language."  Analyzing grammar may just make those neurons in our brains a little more active.

The Perils of Counting in Other Languages

"Can you count from one to ten in ______ (fill in the language)?"  Counting in another language is one proof for the world that we are acquiring another language.  But is expressing numbers in another language as simple as memorizing new vocabulary words for 1-10?  Of course not!  Few things having to do with language are simple!

Most beginning lessons of a foreign language course include the labels for numbers 1-10.  A few chapters later, the textbook writers think you are ready for the complexities of 11-100.  And here is where the fun begins.  It is interesting to note that Duolingo, my favorite on-line language learning program, does not include numbers as one of the first topics in their language tree.  And I agree that numbers, like all vocabulary, should be acquired gradually, and in context.

First, let's talk about what it takes to master foreign language numbers. Number concepts in a foreign language are notoriously hard to internalize.  It may be that we only truly learn to count once in our lives, and that is in our native language. I consider myself fairly fluent in Spanish, but I still have to take an extra second or two to translate a Spanish number, like sesenta y seis, into the concept of 66. I have often witnessed Spanish-English bilinguals speaking in English who make a temporary switch to Spanish when counting objects or people.

And do we really need to know numbers in a second language?  Yes, for activities such as counting, doing math, telling time, or giving phone numbers and addresses.  But how often do we have to write numbers rather than understand or speak them?  Not so often.  Check writing comes to mind, which is becoming somewhat archaic.  Formal wedding invitations, which may also be going by the wayside. Most of our use of numbers will be in communicating orally in a new language.

To further understand numbers in other languages, I made a comparison chart of 1-100 in my native language, English (Germanic family), Spanish, Portuguese, French (Latin family), Irish and Welsh (Celtic family).  Here is a sampling of what I discovered.

In all these languages, 1-10 are the building blocks of the numbering system, so, yes indeed, they will have to be learned. The teen numbers in English and the Latin-based languages must still be learned individually, although most contain a hint of their meaning (thirteen, trece, treze, and treize all remind us of the concept of three, for example).

To form the numbers from 20-100, basic arithmetic skills are required.  Since we are working on a decimal system, all these languages have a word for intervals of ten, but there are some differences to note.  English, Spanish and Portuguese have separate words (often easily recognizable) for 20, 30, etc., to which the numbers from 1-10 are added.  Examples are thirty-one in English and trinta e um in Portuguese.

French adds a bit of challenge by having separate numbers for 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 but then expressing 70 as 60 + 10 (soixante-dix),  80 as 4 x 20 (quatre-vingts), and 90 as 80 + 10 (quatre-vingt-dix).  The need for math skills continues as 71 becomes 60 + 11 (soixante-onze).  Whew! I may need a calculator on my next visit to Canada!

I thought the Celtic languages, Irish and Welsh, were going to have me as flummoxed as the sound systems of these languages, but I discovered a comforting regularity in the numbering systems. (I ignored for the time being that Irish has three numbering systems, used in different contexts, and that Welsh has masculine and feminine number forms.) 

Counting in Irish is a matter of learning 1-10 and adding déag/dhéag for the teens (13 is a tri déag). As in English, labels have to be learned for 20, 30, etc.  Then numbers 1-10 follow.  ( 20 + 1 is fiche a haon).

The key word for numbering in Welsh is deg (10)   20 is a logical 2 x 10 (dau ddeg), with the pattern holding for 30-90.  And 22 is a logical 2 x 10 + 1 (dau ddeg un).

The number 100 (one hundred) is very different in English only.  Here is how to say 100 in the other languages we are discussing.

Spanish - cien
Portuguese - cem
French - cent
Irish - céad
Welsh - cant

And the worst part of the matter is, even if I learned to sing the song, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," in any of the languages besides my native language, I would still have some complex thinking to do. Maybe I can start counting sheep in other languages on sleepless nights for a little extra number practice?


  

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or not?

The well-known saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do,"  encourages visitors to adapt to local culture, customs and behaviors.  But is speaking the language of a different country or region part of that advice?  At first glance, I would be tempted to say "yes" because language is an essential part of culture.  But being addicted to foreign language study, I can attest that attempting to speak a foreign language to native speakers is often less than successful.

One of my earliest realizations that native speakers of a language are not necessarily volunteer language teachers occurred in Lisbon, Portugal, where I had enrolled in a Portuguese language school.  I set out confidently the morning after my arrival to find a cup of coffee.

The harried lady behind the coffee counter had to ask twice for my order because my Portuguese accent was not what she was used to hearing.  Then as we were discussing the milk, I became confused about the grammatical gender of milk in Portuguese. (The confusion arose because the word for milk is feminine in Spanish but masculine in Portuguese.)  So I asked the server if the correct word was "o leite" (with a masculine article) or "a leite" (with a feminine article). By now, she was completely confused and quite annoyed. Resorting to gestures, she pointed at the milk jar on the table behind me, shaking her head at the ignorance of tourists.

I had an important ah-ha moment in that small coffee bar.  My goal in using the native language and the server's goals were completely different.  She wanted, quite understandably,  to complete my order as quickly and efficiently as possible.  After all, customers were waiting in line.  I was completely focused on learning more of the Portuguese language.  Small wonder that my first attempt at communication in Lisbon was less than pleasant!

That long ago incident recently came to mind when I read a letter to Dear Abby in the El Paso Times dated September 5, 2016. 

A retired librarian in Texas (white, non-Hispanic) who speaks four languages wrote that a Hispanic friend had advised caution when choosing to speak Spanish to Hispanics. The writer confirmed the advice with a retired college-level Spanish teacher, who explained that languages are often used by speakers as a boundary to identify group members.

Having lived my entire life in El Paso, Texas, a bilingual English-Spanish city, and having had both positive and negative experiences speaking Spanish in my home town, I can affirm, speaking of language choice, that "It's complicated!"  And, I must admit that every time I choose to speak Spanish, I am hoping to get a mini-Spanish lesson, not just communicate or fit into the environment.

I will face a similar decision in Canada about use of the French language when my husband and I take The Canadian, a long-distance train across that country.  My guess is that all of the train employees will be bilingual in English-French, so attempting to use my fairly rudimentary French (along with my American accent!) seems counterproductive.  But maybe I will by chance run into a retired French teacher in the lounge car who really, really likes to discuss in detail the French partitive construction....

Language learning may change your brain and personality!

Yet another article touting the benefits of language learning caught my eye recently,  How to learn 30 languages by David Robson on BBC.com. He states that language learning is "arguably the best brain training you can try." Since I  enjoy the process of studying languages anyway, it is heartening to think that I am also giving my brain what Robson describes as a "tough mental workout." I may be strengthening attention and memory and even delaying the onset of dementia.

Another key idea is that of multiple languages providing learners with "a new cultural skin." You may have experienced the sensation of adopting a new identity when you speak another language.  I certainly have, but only with certain languages.

When I speak Spanish rather than my native English, I soften my expression to be more polite. I find that I invade others' personal space by giving more abrazos to my speaking companions. ( Abrazo is translated into English as "hug" or "embrace," but I would never give a hug to someone I just met when speaking English; however, I might give an abrazo in the same situation when speaking Spanish.)  My expression is less abrupt in Spanish; for example, I  answer questions in English with a "yeah," or an "uh-uh", while in Spanish, I might say "Sí, ¿cómo no? (yes, of course), or "No, gracias" (no, thanks)

The Portuguese language has an even more noticeable effect on my reticent personality.  I love to speak Portuguese. The sounds are pleasing to the ear, and I can produce all Portuguese sounds with some resemblance to the original.   The grammar is playful.  Can grammar really be described as playful?  I think so.  I enjoy leaving out the word "it" when not required for meaning, as in the response, "Tenho, sim." (Yes, I have it).  I think it is cool to have a special subjunctive tense to express future doubt.  "If I speak Portuguese" becomes "Se eu falar português," and it feels like I have gotten away with not conjugating the ver "falar." Yes, a bit geeky, I'll admit.

When I speak Portuguese, memories of when and how I first learned Portuguese come to mind.  For a few minutes at least, I can again be a young language teacher on an NEH-sponsored trip to Brazil to learn Portuguese.  I can buy a morning café com leite (coffee with milk) from the nuns at a small stand in front of the university.  And I can smile at the Brazilian immigration officer who remarked that I spoke pretty good Portuguese as I was leaving the country. 

The two other languages I work on every day, French and Irish Gaelic, are mainly for brain training. I never expect to be fluent in either language, but I enjoy the challenge on Duolingo of analyzing how these two somewhat complex languages express meaning.

So, thanks to the BBC article for helping me justify the amount of time and energy I spend on language learning. I have high hopes that my brain and personality are changing for the better with each passing day!

Choosing a Language on a Whim

6,500.  That's the number of different languages estimated to exist in today's world.  Some counts give a higher number, some a lower, but no matter how you look at it, acquiring all languages in a lifetime is not a reasonable option, even for dyed-in-the-wool language enthusiasts.

How then does a language learner make a decision about which language (or languages) to select for study? We might like to think that when choosing certain languages we make rational, clear-headed decisions that will pay tangible dividends in the future, like new job opportunities, job promotions, and increased social contacts.

After examining my own rationales for selecting different languages, however, I have come to the conclusion that language choice is often not rational at all.  Sometimes a language choice is merely circumstantial. And often the choice of a language for study is subjective, based on emotions, feelings, and yes, even whims.  

English is my native language. I really didn't choose it; it chose me by reason of birth and upbringing. English is my everyday, working, default language.  I am very happy to have it as a means of communication, but as a subject for study, English doesn't interest me. I get really annoyed when I have to research an English grammar or punctuation rule.  And I get no particular thrill from speaking English.

Spanish, my first foreign language, was a natural choice. My home town of El Paso, Texas is located on the United States-Mexico border.

We are a bilingual community.  I  heard Spanish as a child and still continue to hear it on a daily basis. Studying Spanish in elementary and high school and later in college was an easy choice for me, one that felt natural in my environment. But I still categorize Spanish as one of my workaday languages, along with English,  that I use for purposes of communication.

French entered my life in college as a natural choice for the college second language requirement, and it has been in and out of my life several times since then.  I'm afraid my interest in French waned in college when a grumpy professor told the class that I had the worse pronunciation for a French 'r' that he had ever heard!

I once taught a semester of high school French in an emergency situation, but my pronunciation never improved.  I sort of gave up on French until I had the opportunity recently to travel to Canada and spend time with French-speaking friends (who are completely fluent in English as well).  Oh, how I envy their language abilities.  I still include French on my daily Duolingo study, but my chances of becoming a fluent French speaker are not promising, as much as I admire the language.

Then I enrolled in a Portuguese course at our local university.

It was love at first sight, or more accurately, first sound. What an absolutely gorgeous language! Speaking Portuguese is pure joy - and I have no trouble at all pronouncing the Brazilian 'r' sound! Even the grammar seems less complicated and demanding than other languages. And Brazilian Portuguese has an interesting future subjunctive verb that adds a richness of expression.  No wonder  Brazilians refer to their language as "the language of the angels."

My most recent language, Irish Gaelic, is truly a labor of love.  It is a Celtic language and not easy for an English speaker to learn.  Quite honestly, I have little hope of acquiring communicative abilities in Irish Gaelic, but the vocabulary and grammar are so different from the Romance languages that I usually study that I am intrigued. Each sentence I am given to work with on Duolingo is like an absorbing puzzle.  And the sounds of Irish Gaelic are soft on the ear.  I at least know how to say "I like..." in Irish Gaelic:

Some of my languages were thrust into my life by circumstance.  Portuguese and Irish Gaelic are the languages I choose to study.  Who knows why?  I only know that when I log on to Duolingo every day to practice my four foreign languages, Portuguese and Irish Gaelic are the languages that feed my soul.

Cognates - Friend or Foe?

One of the first challenges of a new language is learning the vocabulary, especially at the beginning stages of study.  We grasp anything that will help our brains remember new words. That's where cognates (words that are similar in two languages) enter the picture.  

Definition of Cognate

Cognates are generally friends to the language learner, allowing us to immediately understand the meaning of words and remember them for future use.  Cognates are great for soothing jangled nerves of language learners. 

You can immediately get the meaning in Spanish of these words because they are cognates of English words.

absurdo

magnífico

secreto

declaración

 Let's try some English cognates in French.

admiration

cigarette

dialogue

pirate

Here are some Portuguese-English cognate words.

animal

hospital

moral

eternidade

Irish-English cognates are a little more difficult to find, but thankfully I have come upon several playing around with the beta version of Irish on Duolingo.

pasta

dinnéar

tae

péarla

But be careful with cognates!

The cognate story is not all rosy.  Sometimes there are words in two different languages that look like cognates but are what have been labeled 'false friends'.  These words only appear to have the same meaning, but in actuality they have very different meanings. Beginning language learners are sometimes led astray by these false friends and, as a consequence, make some pretty strange statements.

The classic language goof made by Spanish learners (very common in beginning Spanish classrooms), is thinking that embarazada in Spanish means 'embarrassed' in English. Many a poor student has unknowlingly announced to the class that he or she is pregnant.  The correct Spanish translation for 'embarrassed'  would be avergonzada.  False friends, indeed.

Here is an example of false friends in Spanish and Portuguese that would often confuse my beginning Portuguese students.  The Portuguese word acordar means 'to wake up', but in Spanish acordar means 'remember'. The correct translation would be the Spanish despertar.  

A common error of French learners is another case of a false friend.  Assiter in French does not mean what an English speaker would expect, which would be 'to assist'.  Instead, assister means 'to attend'. Aider is the French word for 'to assist'. 

And here are some false friends I just learned about in Irish, which I know will be very useful! Mná means 'women' on restroom doors.  (Might look like 'man' to someone in a hurry!)  Fir, which means 'men', indicates the men's restroom, not a type of tree.  

So will cognates play the role of friends or foes in your language study?  Maybe we need to regard them as we do our human friends, enjoy them, but with a touch of caution! 

Languages and Imagination

Language learning has gotten a bad rap through the years!   Unpleasant images spring up of long vocabulary lists and verb conjugations to be mastered before we were even allowed to order a coke in another language.

It was like a Jane Fonda exercise video telling us we had to "feel the burn" in order to acquire another language.

I survived traditional language instruction in school because I enjoyed learning languages, no matter how they were taught.   But as an adult, I have freedom to choose my own language learning path.

Nowadays language learning is much more sociable.  We are encouraged to use language for real communication with others.

But the reality of language study is that sometimes we don't have anyone to communicate with in the language we want to practice. It still often remains a solitary activity.  So I have been trying to fire up my imagination to liven up language study time.

I usually spend about an hour a day on Duolingo, practicing four languages.  Sometimes Duolingo asks for a translation into English and at other times a translation from English.  With each translation, I try to conjure up a scenario in which I would use the sentence.  Memory experts tell us we need to connect new information to an image that will help us recall it.  And that picture in our minds can be nonsensical, funny, outrageous, or pleasurable.

My idea for creating scenarios began, I believe, with my husband Wayne's Spanish study.  The sentence in question was "El gato no cabe en la puerta."   (The cat doesn't fit in the door.)  I imagined something like Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire cat, trying to come across the threshold with a big grin on its face.

In Duolingo  Portuguese, I am at a Level 14, so I find lots of interesting sentences for imagining. "Please, give me another chance" was the latest.     I am driving my red Lamborghini a bit too fast up the beautiful Douro River Valley of Portugal when a handsome young policeman pulls me over.  I bat my eyelashes at him and say, Por favor, me dê outra chance.  Well, a girl can dream.

My Level 12 Duolingo Spanish provides me with pithy comments like, "That is going to resolve itself."  I'm in the plaza at Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, admiring the cathedral.

A bedraggled female pilgrim begins telling me her trials and tribulations on the Way of St. James. She has met her soul mate, but he has taken up with a hippy actress from California. I assure her with Eso se va a resolver solo,  not even believing it myself.  Ah, el amor!

As I try to use imagination with my other two languages, French (Level 6) and Irish (Level 5), I have to work a bit harder. I'm on a train in France, and it is dinner time.  I'm not much of a meat eater, but I would rather eat chicken than beef, so I ask a young teenager in the dining car (who perhaps won't make fun of my American accent), Tu manges du poulet? (Are you eating chicken?)  I won't even try to imagine his response.

Irish (Level 5) has been a true challenge. At this stage of learning, my Irish knowledge is mostly nouns.  I am in Dublin, Ireland, and a robbery occurs in the pub where I have dropped by for a pint and some lively music.

 

A handsome Irish policeman is taking notes on the incident.  "Who were the robbers, ma'm?" he asks politely.  Bean agus fear  (a woman and a man), I reply.  "Thanks, darlin'," he replies with a wide grin. 

So, as you can see, I have been having a really entertaining time learning other languages.  I hope you have as well!

Brain training through languages

A few of the many world languages

I  just completed my daily hour's language practice on Duolingo, and my brain is tired - which is a good thing. Recently the media have been touting the importance of keeping one's brain active throughout life. Since I am a self-confessed language nerd, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and exercise my little grey cells by learning different languages.  Here is my brain/language training daily routine.

Great advice!

Spanish.  I begin each Duolingo session with the Spanish language for a brain warm up.  Since I have been working on acquiring Spanish since I was a child, I can generally breeze through the Spanish lesson. I sense that I have a 'Spanish brain' somewhere in my mind, and after a few responses in Spanish, I can enter into that other brain and put my responses on automatic.  Quick responses are great for communication in Spanish, but not so effective for brain training, since I don't have to do much hard thinking.

Serenity Prayer in Portuguese (much needed by language learners!)

Portuguese.  I choose Portuguese next because it takes effort to keep Spanish and Portuguese separate in my mind.  They are sister languages, both descended from Latin, and are certainly similar, but they also have significant differences in vocabulary, grammar, and especially pronunciation.  I can move from automatic responses to getting my brain cells firing. 

In my last Duolingo session, I lost a heart by translating 'pocket' as bolsillo in Spanish rather than the Portuguese bolso; I also lost another heart by choosing the Portuguese word leva for 'wear', making a parallel with Spanish llevar.  Portuguese expresses 'wear' with either the verbs veste or usa.  Thank goodness I didn't lose my third heart and have to start the lesson over. 

French calendar.

French.    French is next on my practice list.  I have studied French several times in my life but with large gaps of time in between study, so my grammar is still pretty well intact, but my vocabulary is fairly minimal. And I won't even mention my pronunciation.  So anything I can get correct in French is a bonus.  My brain moves out of the Spanish/Portuguese area (which I'd be willing to bet they share) and into a new French space.  I don't mix up French with Spanish or Portuguese, but I do mix it up with English.  I lost one heart by writing French dauphin as English dolphin.

Irish cities.  Good opportunity for language practice!

Irish.    And now that my brain is thinking linguistically, I tackle Irish.  Oh my.  Almost every sentence looks and sounds like a mystery to me.  No meaning comes through automatically to give me a hint.  I have to analyze every word separately.  The nouns I have to check for singular or plural endings and definite and indefinite articles.  The verbs I need to check for position in the sentence and for endings which specify the subjects.  And I love it!  When I am doing Irish, I am completely absorbed in the thought process. It is a mini-vacation from ordinary life.

So if you would like to challenge your mind and enjoy learning about other languages and cultures,  a regime of language learning may be for you.  Now if I could just get into a physical routine for my body.....   

Just about my speed!

Can I trust Google Translate?

Last night, my husband Wayne and I watched a rerun of the movie "Midnight in Paris"  on TV.  It was even more enjoyable the second time around. 

Afterwards, I was bragging to Wayne that I had understood more of the French dialogue than before because I have been doing a free online course in French. "Okay," says Wayne, "so how do you say 'I want a glass of water' in French?"   Oops, he caught me.  I had forgotten that I need to learn practical words and phrases for our trip to Canada.

I decided then and there to write down ten of the most useful travel phrases for me personally and make sure I can say them in French, Portuguese and Spanish.  Those three languages, plus my native language, English, should take care of my travel needs for the next several years.  I knew I would need some help with the French.  Who should I turn to, but everyone's online friend Google Translate?

This was an embarrassing thought that gave me acute guilt feelings. I have spent years teaching foreign languages and threatening students with dire consequences if I caught them using Google Translate to do their homework. "Google Translate will get you in trouble.  It's not accurate," I warned haughtily.

So I am going to do the following experiment and share the results with you.  I will take the phrases listed below and attempt to put them in French, Portuguese, and Spanish.  If Google Translate does well with Portuguese and Spanish, languages that are more familiar to me, I will trust it to correct my amateur French translations. And I will put salt (or maybe a little New Mexico red chile powder) on my critical words concerning Google Translate and eat them if my findings exonerate that service.

My travel bookshelf

Here are my top ten useful travel phrases, in no particular order:

•  Where is the restroom, please?
•  I have a (room) reservation for tonight.
•  My name is Linda.  What is your name?
•  When does the train leave/arrive?
•  How much does it cost?
•  Pardon me.
•  Do you have a vegetarian dish?
•  May I have a glass of water please?
•  I want to buy a ticket please.
• Where is the restaurant (bus station, train station, museum)?

Are those the travel phrases that you would choose?  For next week's blog, I am going to translate them into Spanish and then check them against Google Translate.  Maybe you would like to do the same, and we can compare results.