What language are they speaking at the World Cup anyway?

The 2014 FIFA World Cup has me enthralled.  What super athleticism  is shown by the players as they race up and down the pitch for ninety minutes or more and address the ball with amazing moves!   What rabid support is demonstrated by fans in the stands, dressed up in national costumes and painted in national colors! And what drama as the lead and hopes of a nation change in a split second with an unexpected goal!  

As if all of this is not enough to keep me well entertained, I have many questions about language. The Cup is an international event. There are players, coaches and officials from the five inhabited continents, symbolized by the Olympic Rings:  Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania/Australia.




How is everyone managing to communicate? 

My first thoughts on language use came while watching pre-match shows with commentators from around the world. Thank goodness for closed captioning.  The combination of different varieties of English and lack of familiarity with soccer terms had me turning up the TV volume and frantically trying to listen and read the lagging captions simultaneously.  I heard commentators speaking English with British accents, Scottish accents, Brazilian accents, Spanish accents, Dutch accents, and a few more I couldn't readily identify. 

Even more intriguing were the conversations on the pitch between referees and players and between players of opposing teams.  If body language is any indication, they had a lot to say to each other, but the question is what language or languages was the communication taking place in?

Could he have been saying "Moi?"

Probably no spoken language needed here!

Do you think this discussion was in meters or feet?

Whichever of the approximately 6000 existing languages in the world is being used at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, I'll bet the language is a lot more colorful than that written up in grammar textbooks.  Maybe if  I could learn to lipread, I could learn some very useful language!

   

Two hints for understanding Brazilian Portuguese

Hurray for the Brazilian Portuguese (BP) 'r' sound, I say!  I struggle with the trilled 'r' that is necessary to describe the picture above in Spanish as a  ferrocarril  (railroad), but I can produce the Brazilian equivalent estrada de ferro with no problem.

This is because in BP, a written 'rr' calls for a sound that is not a trill, but one that sounds very much like a strong 'h' in English, or the 'j' sound in Spanish.  Now that I can manage!  And I can use the same sound when a Portuguese word begins with an 'r'.

Just for a little fantasy, let's imagine ourselves at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, meeting Cristiano Ronaldo, the famous Portuguese soccer player.

A Brazilian making the introduction would pronounce the first sound in Ronaldo with a sound like the 'h' in 'heaven'.  If you are a Spanish speaker, you might imagine that his last name was spelled 'Jonaldo'.   A visitor from Portugal saying his name would trill the 'r' sound.  A Spanish speaker would immediately recognize  Cristiano's last name as Ronaldo.  And an American saying Ronaldo would make an 'r' sound like those in "red rabbit sitting on a rock". The Spanish and BP speakers would probably think, "Wow, what an American accent."  (Just kidding!)

So the moral to this story is, don't let that strong 'h'  sound  in BP fool you.  Here are a few practice words. 

rota  (route)

robô (robot)

regular ( regular)

roda ( wheel)  [No laughing allowed, Spanish speakers!]

rancho (small farm)

Did you resist the temptation to make a Spanish or English 'r' sound at the beginning?

Another tip about BP pronunciation is that there are certain consonants that Portuguese speakers do not like to hear as the last sound in words.  So they add a sound to the word like 'ee' in English to make a more pleasing sound to their ears.  Sometimes the extra sound can be seen in the spelling of the words.  English 'rink' becomes BP rinque; English 'jeep' becomes jipe.  

Sometimes you just hear the sound but don't see it written. English Walmart pronounced in BP has a 'chi' sound at the end, as does Internet. (You may remember from last week's post that in  BP 't' becomes a 'ch' before the 'ee' sound.  Whew!  Lots to remember!)

The addition of the 'ee' sound  results in some words that sound amusing to English speakers because we add the 'ee' sound to words as a sort of diminutive (similar to 'ito' in Spanish). 'Blanket' becomes 'blankie' when we talk to our two year old child.  'Sweet' becomes 'sweetie' when we talk to our spouse.  'Aunt' becomes 'auntie' if we like our relative.  A movie villain becomes a 'baddie' when we secretly admire him. But BP speakers are not adding any additional meaning to the words they end in an 'ee' sound; they just know it sounds better to them.  

I hope these two hints have made Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation a bit more accessible to you. To me,  it is well worth the effort of playing a few mental games to understand this melodious language.     

I speak Spanish. Why can't I understand Brazilian Portuguese?

As Brazil prepares to host the FIFA 2014 World Cup, and the 2016 Olympic Games appear on the horizon, I'm looking forward to hearing quite a bit more of the Portuguese language.  It may be a matter of catching just a sentence or two on TV before the English translator breaks in, but it is enough to remind me what a melodious, expressive language Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is.

Just to set the record straight, there are various dialects of Portuguese in the world.  Because Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, both in area and population, Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is the dialect most frequently heard.

I have Spanish-speaking friends who tell me that they have tried, but just can't understand Brazilian Portuguese.  An interesting fact is that if you speak Portuguese, you can probably understand quite a bit of Spanish. However, if your language is Spanish, you may have some difficulty understanding spoken Portuguese at first. Reading is much easier in the opposite language.  So it must be the sound system that is interfering with listening comprehension.

Without going into a lot of phonetics and phonology (after all, the first match of the World Cup is already upon us), perhaps just a quick comparison between several sounds of the two languages will be of some help in understanding BP.

Spanish is considered a phonetic language; that is, for the most part, sounds have only one pronunciation. A Spanish 't' is almost always a Spanish 't'.    In BP, however, the 't' changes pronunciation rather dramatically in certain cases.  Take, for example, the word for 'mind', as in "I'm losing my mind."  The translation, mente, is written the same in both languages.

But oh the sound! Let's do this in two stages.  First take a look at the word 'Stop' in both Spanish and Portuguese.  

In BP, an 'e' at the end of words is pronounced higher in the mouth than in Spanish, like the vowel sound in the English word 'cheese'. Say pare  in Spanish and then pronounce it in BP ("paree").   

This different vowel sound at the end of words in BP can have important consequences.  A Brazilian Portuguese 't' takes on a new pronunciation when it comes before the 'cheese' vowel. The 't' changes into a sound like the 'ch' sound of English 'church'.   Spanish says mente as it is written, but BP says something like 'menchee' (like the frozen yogurt chain).  Try the same word out loud in the two languages.  Different, huh?

Now that you have been alerted to possible changes in the BP 't' sound, you are ready to tackle the 'd' sound. When a 'd' appears at the end of a word before that same vowel in English 'cheese', instead of making a regular old 'd' sound, BP makes a sound like the 'j' sound English 'judge'.  Try saying in Spanish the word for 'late' or 'afternoon', tarde.  Now say that same word in BP, something like 'tarjee'.  Got the idea?

I can't quite give up my former role as a language teacher, so how about a little practice test?  Say each of these words, first in Spanish, then in Portuguese.

abundante
lente
presente
potente
abunde
acomode

Did you make the 't's' and 'd's' with a different sound in BP because you pronounced the ending 'e' as 'ee'?

If so, you have made the first big leap into the mysteries of BP pronunciation.  More next week!

Still going strong with DuoLingo

I'm on a 20-day streak of using DuoLingo to maintain my knowledge of the Portuguese language. For someone like me, who likes to start activities but not carry through with them, that streak is remarkable.   DuoLingo is now included on my mental list of tasks I have to accomplish, not just things I want to do, on a daily basis.

I read recently that gamification is becoming an important part of education.  Before trying DuoLingo, I would have scoffed at that notion.  Now I am sold on the motivation that is built into the program. Getting points to move up to another level  keeps me hunched over an electronic device to do just one more activity. When I recently succeeded in making my first big move up to a new level, I felt like I had truly accomplished something. My husband Wayne just shook his head at my big news and probably secretly wished I would expend all that energy in the kitchen trying out a new recipe.

56 Lingots!  That's what it is in my virtual DuoLingo bank.  I'm ready to spend.  One option I've already splurged on is getting a heart refill in case I make an error.  Because you are only allowed three hearts per activity, and lose a heart every time you make an error, a  heart refill may keep me from having to redo a whole activity.

And it is easier than you may think to make an error.  Sometimes I really know the answer but just make a careless mistake (Yeah, sure!), sometimes I hit the 'Check' key by mistake before I am finished, sometimes I don't agree that my answer is wrong, and sometimes I really don't know the answer.  So heart refills are great helps.

When I first started using the program on my laptop, I would make a comment every time I thought Duolingo didn't have something quite right.  For example, I think "I gave a book to my friend" and "I gave my friend a book" have the same meaning and should be alternative answers.  I soon gave up those cyperarguments, however, because I wanted to spend my time racking up more points.  Life and language, after all, are never perfect.

Now, on to spending some of my Lingots.  Here is one option I may choose.

Idioms are expressions in languages whose meaning is more than that of the individual words used.  They are best learned as 'chunks' of information.  Idioms are a higher level language skill and may fool someone into thinking you know more than just textbook language.

Here is an option I probably won't choose as it would be of minimal use to me at my age, but then again, if might be kind of fun if I find myself in a bar listening to the Portuguese spoken around me.

And most important of all, is my Portuguese improving?  Yes.  Using DuoLingo has certainly started what Stephen Krashen call the "din in the head"; that is, I'm now hearing Portuguese again in my mind.

Oops.  Looks like I need to try for a few more points today.

Delving into the Psychology Behind the DuoLingo Approach

When I logged on to my DuoLingo program this morning, it gave me a pat on the back by telling me that I was on a 14 day streak. This means that every day for two weeks straight, I have earned a minimum of ten XPs (Experience Points) on DuoLingo.

It is still surprising to me how much I want to maintain that streak!  In my free time, I could walk around the yard and check on plants, take a nap, read an article on Flipboard (my favorite iPad app), pet the cat, or watch House Hunters on HTGV. But because someone (???) cares how much I am sticking with my Portuguese maintenance program, I'll work on a DuoLingo exercise instead.  I would not have guessed that I could be so easily seduced.

Another motivational feature of DuoLingo is charting how many XPs I have earned each day for the previous week.  

As you can see, on Thursday and Friday, I did just the minimum amount of work to earn 10 XPs. On Monday, a holiday, I got busy and earned 200 points. I wanted that orange bar across the top to move closer to the next skill level, Level 12.  And I discovered that if I can test out of certain skills, I will earn 90 XPs instead of just 10.  

Testing out is not easy, as I discovered when I got right  to the end of a test yesterday and made a mistake with no hearts left.  (I understand that for gamers, hearts are like lives.  When they are gone, you are dead!) I got a message from the DuoLingo Professor Owl saying that he was very sorry, but that I was out of hearts. I was sorry too.

I have never been a gambler.  Las Vegas casinos have no appeal for me.  But when I saw this offer on DuoLingo, I have to admit I was a bit tempted to participate.

Lingots are the virtual currency of DuoLingo and can be earned by various means.  If I want to bet five of my Lingots that I will maintain a seven day streak, I can double that amount and end up with ten Lingots. If I don't maintain the streak, I'll lose five of my present 21 Lingots.  It sounds like a pretty sure bet to me!  I hope this decision doesn't lead to a life of crime!

There is one more DuoLingo message that I'm not sure I want to hear about.

When I first read this message, I thought, "How sad!" But then I realized that introverts like myself would prefer to learn alone than to actually have to interact with another human being, even virtually! 

I've got to rate DuoLingo very high for motivation.  And I now understand why my son and his friends, when they were teenagers, wouldn't stop playing those video games until they either got killed or reached the next level.  I really want to reach DuoLingo Level 12 this week!

Language acquisition for procrastinators

I am a procrastinator.  And I'll bet I am not alone in the world.  But I think I have found a language learning program that I will stick with for a while.

Last week I wrote about starting DuoLingo,

a web-based language learning program available on computer and mobile devices.  For the first few days, I tried out the program just on my laptop.  Recently I also put the free app on the iPad, and today, waiting for a friend at a restaurant, I downloaded the app for the iPhone. Now I have fewer excuses not to improve my language skills.

Instructions for using the program are minimal, which for a procrastinator is a good thing. You can't put off starting by saying that you are going to learn how to use it first (old thinking!).  I just started clicking on buttons.  Nothing disastrous happened.  I chose Portuguese as my language and was taken through a series of  questions and then placed at a certain level.  If I would have realized that I was being given a placement exam, I would have been a bit more careful with my answers, but I feel comfortable with the results.  The questions are (like the Three Bears) sometimes a little too easy, sometimes a little too hard, and sometimes just right.

I'm not absolutely certain about the following information, but it appears that you can practice grammar skills

and vocabulary

to gain experience points (if you are successful - not always easy). You can also participate in real world translations.  I have only felt brave enough to choose the practice option up to now.

When you sign in, you are given three icons at the bottom of the screen.  One is learn, one is practice, and one is store.  The store allows participants to spend virtual currency, called Lingots, for virtual prizes.  I'm getting in over my head here, so I'll stop and talk about motivation, an important topic in the field of language acquisition.

Language acquisition is a task that is appealing to many people but very difficult to follow through on.  I am very impressed with the motivational features of DuoLingo and surprised at myself for devoting extra time for a few extra experience points.  And when I receive an email from the DuoLingo gently chiding me because I haven't participated yet that day, I feel real guilt and move language learning up to the top of my to do list.  

Last night I really wanted to skip language instruction and escape into a good murder mystery novel, but I used my iPhone to do a practice and earned 10 experience points!  I'll be exploring more features this week. If you use DuoLingo, please let me know your experiences.

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Something new in language learning!

In last week's post, I traced the arc of my lifelong goal to acquire the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Unfortunately, that arc is now at its nadir because I haven't been using those languages.  The dreaded condition of language attrition is starting to take its toll on my hard-earned foreign language fluency. I need a new approach!

Fitness experts say that a person needs to vary an exercise routine to achieve maximum results, don't they?  I wish I could confirm that recommendation, but right now it's my mind rather than my body that I feel is in need of attention.  I've studied languages through various approaches - grammar-translation, audio-lingual, and communicative, but I want a fresh approach that will keep me on task.

I decided to investigate a web based program called Duolingo (http://www.duolingo.com). I don't remember how or when I first heard about it, but somehow yesterday I found myself staring at my laptop computer screen and reading the motto "Free language education for the world."  Hmm, generous and ambitious, I thought.  I googled Duolingo to learn more about the program before I went through the sign-up procedure.

Here's what I know about Duolingo so far.  The five languages offered in complete form are Latin American Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Brazilian Portuguese.  That suits me fine, because at the moment I want to maintain Spanish and Portuguese (maybe French for later on if all goes well).

There is no cost to the program.  That raised a red flag in my jaded mind.  I was suspicious of the claim until I read about the Duolingo business model. Because it is a crowd sourced text translation platform, income is generated by charging organizations that want their web site or other documents translated.  Crowd sourcing!  Doesn't that sound hip and modern?

Duolingo has other modern features that may provide a partial solution to my nagging fear that the world of technology is leaving me behind.  Duolingo  is available on the web and also on both Apple and Android devices as a free app.  I have dreams of putting it on my iPad and iPhone so that I can play around with a foreign language in my free time and anywhere I choose.

After the simple sign up procedure on Duolingo, I tested my Portuguese language abilties.  I didn't really know what I was doing, but I just followed the simple instructions.  I was asked questions using various language skills, translating from Portuguese to English, translating from English to Portuguese, multiple choice grammar questions, audio bites to write in Portuguese (with a slow down feature, fortunately), and even remarks like "watch your accent marks"when I failed to do so.  It was absorbing and fun.  I was given a chance to further practice my skills , which I did.

It will take some time to fully understand the program, I know.  The practice structure is described as  "gamified", which will be a real challenge for me, because I have never played a video game in my life.  And this morning I received an email from Duolingo, gentle chiding me for not practicing yesterday and reminding me that learning a language requires constant practice. Everyone needs a little nagging now and then.

My main impression of Duolingo  at this early stage is that it is new and challenging.  And best of all, I am looking forward with great anticipation to continuing it.  Language study has now moved from my "have to" list onto my "fun to do" list.

I'll keep you posted!