New words for old ideas

One of the joys of being a language nerd is the chance to observe how language is ever changing.  I am seldom bored as long as I have some bit of language to analyze, whether it be a random conversation in the Walmart checkout line or a phone conversation with our thirty-something Californian family members.

Price Point

Home and Garden Television (HGTV) provides lots of opportunities to listen to real people speaking real language.  A term I hear constantly on "House Hunters" is "price point."  The agent assures the eager couple that he can find them a house at their "price point."  Why not say "at your price"?  It is  fun to speculate why speakers begin to use a new term.  What does "price point" provide that good old simple "price" does not?  Is it our aversion to discussing finances that makes us want to bury the reference to money in an expression?

Skill Set

Another term that has turned a word into an expression is "skill set."  Why not just "skill"?  "I don't have the skill needed to turn on Netflix on my new television."  Is it perhaps that modern life has become so complicated that it now takes a set of skills rather than a single skill to survive?  Having just gone through several days of breaking in a new remote controller for our television, I do wish my technology skill set was larger!

Issues

I was teaching a college course in English Linguistics several years ago when I a student told me she was having  "issues" with an assignment. Was she having problems, I wondered? The Merriam Webster Dictionary gives multiple definitions for "issue," the closest one to the idea of a problem being "a point of debate or controversy." "Issue " is used so frequently nowadays that I use it myself. Did we all get tired of talking about problems?  Does the word "problem" have such a negative connotation that we are trying to soften it with a more neutral word?

Reach Out

Our travel agent recently volunteered to "reach out" to the airlines to find us air transportation to Europe this summer.  What happened to contacting people and companies?  Has the word "contact" become too formal?  "Reaching out" to someone does sound more friendly, I must admit.  But it is still a bit too modern for my vocabulary, and I would feel uncomfortable using it.

Optics

I saved the best for last — "optics."  "Don't let the elderly politician appear with his young blond curvy girlfriend.  The optics would be bad."  I like the new use of this word.  Optics used to mean a science that deals with the nature and properties of light.  Now it can mean "appearance" or "perception."  What a leap the word has taken!  Instead of remarking, "That wouldn't look right," we can now say "Bad optics."

Ah, language.

Language is going to evolve in spite of our efforts to put the brakes on.  How about relaxing and enjoying the ride?  Dare I suggest that we all "chill" about language change?

Just enough Italian pronunciation

Does the experience of stumbling over place names as you travel to a foreign country sound familiar to you? Trip planning brings up the importance of pronouncing foreign words in a comprehensible fashion.

My husband, Wayne, and I ran into this very problem as we sat at our laptops recently, hoping to rent a villa in Tuscany, Italy for a summer house party with family and friends.  We found ourselves inventing pronunciations or, as a last resort, spelling the name aloud to each other. Communication slowed to a crawl as we tried to help each other locate listings or find cities on a map.

Explanations of correct pronunciation of the Italian language abound on the Internet.  But who wants to wade through a lot of technical phonetic information?  Not even me, who claims to love anything and everything related to Linguistics!  So I decided to take the baby step of writing down ten Tuscan place names and learning just enough to pronounce them according to rules of Italian pronunciation.

My native language is English, but I also speak Spanish.  I began the task by ignoring Italian sounds that are similar to Spanish.  (So I'm going to speak Italian with a Spanish accent? Probably!)

I struck the five vowel sounds off my list, even though Italian has open and closed versions of "e" and "o" which Spanish does not.  I figured I could pick up that difference by listening to native speakers.

First I learned that most Italian words are pronounced with the stress on the next to the last syllable.  Some words carry stress on the last syllable or the third from the last syllable.  I'll be on the lookout for those exceptions as I listen to spoken Italian.

Here is my list of Tuscan place names that may require special attention to pronounce correctly.

*Bagni di Lucca.  The "gn" is similar to the Spanish "ñ" or the "ny" in the English "canyon."  Double "c" requires a longer pronunciation.

*Ponte Buggianese.  The "gg" is a challenge because the first "g" is the familiar hard sound (as in "golf" in Spanish or English) but the second "g" appears before the vowel "i", so it takes on a soft sound, like the English "gem."  The "s" between vowels becomes a "z" sound.

*Casciana Terme.  The letter combination "sci" becomes a "sh" sound.

*Pienza.  "Z' in the middle of a word is "ts."

*Ponticino.  "C" before "i" has a "ch" sound like "China" in Spanish or English This is a hard rule for me to remember!

*Arezzo. The "zz"  is a strong "ts" sound.

*Cinigiano.  A real challenge!  The vowel "i" is changing both the "c" to a "ch" sound and the "g" to a sound like the beginning of "gem" in English.

*Magliano in Toscana.  The "gl" sound is close to the "ll" in the English "million."

*Pisa.  The "s" sound once again becomes "z" between vowels.

Well, that little exercise was not too painful.  Now I know to watch out for "c" and "g" followed by "i," double consonants, and "s" and "z" in certain word positions.

It's a start on acquiring as much of the Italian language as I can before this summer.  Arrivederci!

How much Italian can I learn in six months?

In six months, I hope to be relaxing by the pool in a villa in Tuscany with friends and family.

And, before we leave,  I intend to indulge my passion for other languages by learning something of the Italian language.  I may never overcome my introverted nature to actually speak to an Italian, but what a super excuse to learn something about another language.  The question is:  How much Italian can I reasonably learn before I arrive in Italy?

Setting an appropriate goal for second language learning is anything but a straightforward decision. I often start with a lofty goal and then give up.  So many factors must be considered — time available for study, dedication to study, materials to utilize, opportunities to practice the language, former experiences with languages, the list goes on.

First I have to curb my enthusiasm for a new language.  I must admit to being a bit of a language junkie, always wanting to try something novel and exciting.  Will I ever be able to read Dante's Inferno in the original Italian?  Doubtful.  I probably won't even get around to reading an English translation of it, if the truth be known.  Will I be able to understand conversations around me in Italian?  Also, very doubtful, unless they are close enough to Spanish or Portuguese to catch the drift.  Will I be able to work out a problem at the train ticket window in Italian?  Also, extremely doubtful.  Stressful situations do not bring out my best language efforts.

So with these caveats in mind, what can I reasonably expect to accomplish in Italian from January to June, keeping in mind that the real world has a habit of messing with our best laid plans?  Here's the study list I am planning to start with.

* Learn the sounds of Italian that are different from other Romance languages I have studied.  Being able to read and pronounce even names of locations is a great help in planning a trip and navigating once we arrive.  My husband, Wayne, and I once made a reservation at a B&B on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, the Bredalbane.  We had been calling it the BREdalbane, and couldn't figure out why no one could give us directions to it until someone realized we are asking for the BreDALbane.

*Make a list of twenty possible questions on flashcards that I may ask in Italy, such as, "Where is the train station?", "How much does it cost?", or "Please bring me a coffee."  

*Make a list of three possible responses on the reverse of each of the question flashcards above.  It is pretty scary to ask a question in a foreign language if you fear that you can't understand the answer.

*Complete the "tree" in Italian on DuoLingo to get an overview of essential grammar and vocabulary.

This knowledge will be especially useful in reading signs and menus.  As an added bonus, I get to analyze how the Italian language is put together, just to satisfy my curiosity.

*Investigate other online language learning apps, such as Italian by Nemo, which gives the opportunity to pronounce Italian and listen to yourself to check pronunciation against the original.  Listening to myself speak Italian may give me confidence to speak, or not, depending on how I judge my performance!

* Pledge an extra 10 minutes a day to study Italian along with my daily study of other languages on Duolingo.

Hmm.  Where do they say that road leads that is paved with good intentions?   I would love to hear about successful activities of other language learners, just to keep myself motivated.  So many fun things to do in life, so little time! 

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.

Say What? The World of Baseball Vocabulary

This fall's major league baseball season opened up a new lexicon in my brain — baseball jargon.  It all began with a recent opportunity to see the Dodgers play on their home field in Los Angeles, California.

Dodger Field, Los Angeles

When the Dodgers began playing for the National League Championship, the excitement of watching the team play on TV made me eat my words about not enjoying baseball on the screen. 

I soon discovered that although English is my native language, the baseball announcers often used words and phrases that were not communicating any meaning to me.

Baseball vocabulary

At first I would ask my husband, Wayne, to interpret, but making him pull off his headphones every few minutes to hear my questions was not a solution to my vocabulary problem.  I decided to start a list of baseball terms to investigate.

Many terms already have a meaning in the non-baseball word and have acquired the following additional definition in the world of baseball (my amateur definitions!).

Walk Batter is allowed to advance to first base after the pitcher has failed to strike him out.

Strike Pitcher delivers the ball in a defined area (strike zone), or batter swings at the ball.

Ball  Pitcher delivers the baseball to the batter outside of the strike zone.

Tag  Opposing team member touches a runner or a base to force an out.

Out  Batter or runner is not allowed to continue at play.

Retired  Batter fails to achieve a hit after three strikes.

Slide Runner tries to reach a base by diving toward it.

Triple Runner hits ball and reaches third base.

Dugout Structure that houses the players' bench

Choke up Batter holds bat further from knob end for more control.

Bull pen Location for pitchers to "warm up" (prepare to take over pitching duties)

Grand slam Batter hits a home run, allowing himself and runners on three bases to run to home base for a total of four runs.

Whew!  Those terms were hard to explain in a few words or without referring to other baseball terms. Thank goodness I'm not trying to explain the game of baseball to a Martian!  And sometimes baseball announcers use colorful and even metaphorical language to describe action on the field. Here are some phrases I heard recently, some of which required a bit of interpretation.

"the big guys delivered"

" all the way to the wall"

"dropped in the basket"

"go ahead, three-run homer into the short porch in right field in the second"

"a bloop single to center"

"intentional walk"

"maybe the batter struck out because he was feeling bee stings"

"the batter missed because the ball was upstairs"

I have only made a start in discovering baseball jargon. Needless to say, I am looking forward to watching the Dodgers play in the World Series next week.  And I'll have eyes on the scoreboard and ears tuned in for more baseball jargon, which Google informs me is unbelievably extensive.

A quick glance at the Catalán language

Do you speak Catalan?

I'm sure you have seen or heard, as I have, recent news reports of the independence movement in Catalonia, Spain.  How little I know about this autonomous region of Spain, and how little I know about the Catalan language!

A previous spark of interest in this language hit me several years ago during a family trip to Barcelona, the capital city of Catalonia (see "So many languages, so little time" in this blog, 2/10/16).

Barcelona

But as usually happens with me, I visit a country, get super-hyped about learning the local language, and then let my fickle language learning self put it to one side when I return home.

Now Catalan is calling to me again, although I am realistic enough to know I will never be a Catalan speaker.  But I would like to become better acquainted with this language that plays such a large part in cultural identity.

First, some basic facts about Catalan.  It is a Romance language, descended from Latin, like its sister languages French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, among others.  Nine to ten million persons currently speak Catalan.

Romance Languages Family Tree

Catalan is spoken in the small country of Andorra, where it is the national and official language, and in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia (called valenciano), and even a town in Italy and some regions in France.

Catalan-speaking regions

Beware of calling Catalan a dialect of Spanish!  It is a separate language. Monolingual Spanish and Catalan speakers cannot readily understand each other. Also, Catalan itself has six different dialects, evidence that it is a separate language. The written versions, however, of both Spanish and Catalan may appear similar enough for the reader to make an educated guess at meaning.

Because Catalan sounds like a mixture of Spanish, French and Italian (closer to French and Italian than Spanish), and I study those Romance languages, I am lulled into thinking that I should be able to at least understand Catalan.  Not! So I turn to my favorite online language learning program, Duolingo, to investigate Catalan.  It is available as a language for Spanish speakers to study.

Duolingo Catalan Lesson One

I tried out the first Catalan lesson on Duolingo. If you are acquainted with Spanish, see if you can guess the meaning of these Catalan words and expressions that I encountered.

un home
una nena
una dona
un nen
Sóc un home.
Jo sóc un nen.
Jo sóc una nena.

Some words look comfortingly familiar.  Un and Una are indefinite articles (a or an in English). Home looks like a shortened form of hombre (man), nena is close to niña (girl), and nen is fairly close to niño (boy).  Jo looks like yo (I), so  jo sóc  probably means yo soy (I am).

The spoken language may be more of a challenge, however.  A web search revealed some letters that  take special attention.  The letter combination "nya" is equivalent to the Spanish ñ, which is why you will often see the province name of Cataluña (in Spanish) written in Catalan as Catalunya. 

The "x" is a distinctive letter.  Can you guess the meaning of xocolata, one of my favorite comfort foods? The ç is an "ss" sound, as in the Catalan word for "to begin," començar. The "ny" is like a Spanish ñ, but with no vowel sound afterward, so baño (bath) becomes bany in Catalan.  And I also discovered that the "ll" is a different, harder sound than  the "y" sound those letters make in Spanish.

I'm going to leave Catalan on my list of Duolingo languages to study daily. The allure of using knowledge from other Romance languages to make quick progress in Catalan is too strong to pass up.  What an enjoyable way to learn about another culture!

 

When bad things happen to good language learners

"Into each life some rain must fall."  I'm okay with that, but I wish downturns in life didn't have such an adverse effect on my language study.  So far I have managed to keep a month long bout with bronchitis from ruining a 1223 day streak on my favorite online language learning platform, Duolingo. Many of those days were earned by me lying in bed, bleary-eyed, fumbling for my cell phone and completing a quick set of exercises in Spanish, which I can pretty much do automatically, just to get credit for the day.  Other languages I had been following on Duolingo were left by the wayside like sad unwanted pets.

And I don't think language study necessarily equates to the common wisdom about riding bicycles, for example, that once you learn how to ride, you don't forget.  If languages are not practiced daily, they begin to fade in our brains, until finally, it is just too much trouble to go searching for them. I've got to get back to those other languages, TODAY!

Other bad things can happen to good language learners as well.  Have you ever been stuck at what feels like a plateau of a new language?  

You keep trudging along, but the scenery remains the same.  You don't feel you are making progress in your language. You know a little;  you want to know a lot more.  How good it would feel to finally master a new language.  (Note:  You probably won't!  Once you decide to truly learn another language, it will always be in progress in your life.) 

The Irish language is my plateau at the moment. Shall I study a new grammar topic, practice pronunciation, or try to read a Facebook message in Irish? I need to give serious thought to what efforts I can make to take me across the plateau  so that I can climb the next mountain.

Another pitfall for language learners is the very common phenomenon of loss of interest in a language or culture.  A while back, I got very excited about studying Romanian on Duolingo, partially because it is a Romance language.  I could readily recognize some vocabulary and grammatical features in the beginning exercises.  Then it got difficult.  I got impatient when I couldn't whiz through an exercise.  So I started rationalizing, telling myself I will probably never have the chance to travel to Romania, and that I have other fish to fry.  Now I have left this perfectly lovely language for so long that it will be just a memory, a fleeting moment of a peek into another culture.

Romanian Castle

Then there is the case of Italian. Big plans were being discussed for a family trip to Italy next summer, complete with a rented villa, trains excursions in Switzerland, and an international motorcycle race.  I can do Italian, I thought, and raced through the Duolingo exercises.  Plans change, as life does, so we may now be going to the Netherlands or Germany.  Duolingo makes it so easy to add new languages without deleting old ones, which appear like ghost icons on my start-up page. I'm resisting the urge to click on Dutch or Germany until travel plans become more concrete. but I hear the siren call of a new language. 

We all start out with the best of intentions of being good language learners.  With a little more discipline and a little less complaining about the vicissitudes of life, we can get back on the track and enjoy language study every day of our lives.