One of the things that I find frustrating with most language learning courses is how little thought they put into teaching you how to pronounce words. Learning good pronunciation is essential for you to make any sort of progress with your language - you need to feel confident that you can be understood by other speakers, to be able to read aloud without stumbling over every word.

A tall order? Not really.

They key to pronunciation is listening and speaking. So many books give you a table of letters and words and maybe an audio track of someone speaking those words and they think that's it, that's all they need to do. Unfortunately, half the time their explanations of the sounds leave a lot to be desired and the sound file is about as far from inspiring as it is possible to get. So what do you end up doing? You skip over that chapter entirely and go straight to the first chapter of allegedly interesting stuff.

You have to resist that temptation. Instead, aim to be able to read your target language aloud with some degree of confidence and fluency, no matter whether you understand it or not. Being able to talk out loud will help you learn, so it's worth spending the time to learn pronunciation as thoroughly as you can, and to keep at it even whilst you are learning grammar and vocabulary. In fact, my advice? Never stop practising pronunciation.

Learning your alphabet
Some languages use the same Roman alphabet as we do in English. Some appear to, but either are missing some letters or have letter combinations that are pronounced differently to how you would expect.

Welsh is a great example of this. The Welsh alphabet, for example, has no K, Q, V, X, Z, and it is only recently that J has become part of the alphabet, used only in loan words from English.

However, the differences don't stop there. Welsh has a number of digraphs - two letters which correspond to one sound - which are in some cases very different to English pronunciation: Ch, Dd, Ff, Ng, Ll, Ph, Rh and Th. And then, of course, there are letters which look identical in Welsh to English, but are pronounced differently, e.g. F, which is really a V (FF is an F).

It's a good idea to learn your alphabet thoroughly and be aware of which letters might trip you up in the future.

Learn your А to Я
Of course, some languages don't just have a different alphabet, they have a really different alphabet. Russian, for example, uses Cyrillic, which can totally fry your brain if you let it. Some course books will throw you in at the deep end and give you only phrases in Cyrillic to learn but whilst understanding of the new alphabet is essential, it can be daunting when you're a beginner.

In order to learn that 'Добрый денъ!' means 'Hello!' you have to memorise it by rote, because there's little similarity between Roman and Cyrillic alphabets so there's nothing familiar upon which you could base a guess at pronunciation or translation. There's no way you're going to guess by looking at it that Паслорт is 'Passport' - you have to hear it spoken (it sounds very similar in Russian to the English). There's a fundamental disconnect between what your brain is hearing and what your eyes are seeing, and you have to bridge this gap before you can make good progress with the language.

One way to do this is through transliteration - writing Russian in the Roman alphabet. This renders Паспорт as Pasport, which is instantly recognisable, and Добрый денъ as 'Dobry den' which is very close to how Добрый денъ should be pronounced.

The drawback with transliteration is that although you will end up with a rough idea of what the words might sound like, it won't be accurate and if you rely on transliteration you will learn bad pronunciation habits that you will later have to break - and breaking bad habits is harder than not making them in the first place.

Transliteration can also be used for languages that use a completely different writing system, such as Japanese or Hindi, and it's a reasonable middle step to use whilst you're getting your head round it, but you keep your usage to a minimum and be careful not to mis-learn things.

Phonetics
Some books, such as Berlitz phrase books, have very good phonetic explanations of how to pronounce words, and they give them for every word or phrase in the book. These pocket-sized books are little gems. I have spent hours and hours sitting with my Polish for Travellers book just muttering Polish phrases and trying to get the pronunciation fluid:

Do you have any records by...? - Czy są płyty...? - chi sawng PWIti...?
Can I listen to this record? - Czy mogę przesłuchać tę płytę? - chi MOgeh pshehSWOOhahtsh teh PWIteh?
That's just what I want. - Właśnie to chcę. - VWAHSYñeh to htseh.

Be careful with phonetics though. Some explanations of the 'sounds like' type are subject to the vagaries of accent. For example, the explanation that A is pronounced 'as in grass' is too fuzzy to be useful. Do they mean the short A of the north of England, (rhymes with 'cat'), or the long A of the southern counties, (rhymes with 'car'). And how does your (likely not British) accent affect your pronunciation?

A real, live native speaker
The best way to learn how to pronounce words properly is with the help of a sympathetic and patient native speaker. I was about 22 when I first started learning Polish from a woman that I was working with at the time. She took me through my phrase book and helped me learn my numbers and learn how to speak Polish out loud. I rapidly got to the point where I could read any Polish text with what she told me was a great accent. Sadly, I didn't understand a word of what I was saying, but at least I sounded good.

Audio books and short stories
If you can, find some audio books or short stories online, with a text version, and download them. It doesn't matter if you don't understand what they are about, what matters is that you have an audio file to listen to and the written words to read.

When I was putting together Clwb Malu Cachu, my website for Welsh learners, one of the first things I did was write some short stories and get native Welsh speakers to narrate them for me. Short and sweet, they're not too demanding nor intimidating - perfect for learners who want to improve their pronunciation.

Once you've downloaded some material, I'd recommend listening to each story several times over, and then work on reading them out aloud yourself until you feel comfortable with the sounds.

The sound of music
I started learning Welsh mainly because I had a crush on Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals. (Just don't tell him that, ok?) I would listen to the songs he'd written in Welsh and I'd sing along. Loudly. Torra fy Ngwallt yn Hir was the very first Welsh song I learnt, but as time went on I discovered more and more Welsh music that I liked, which meant more and more lyrics to learn, more and more songs to sing along to.

Again, it didn't matter that I didn't understand what I was singing - in fact, in some cases my lack of comprehension just added to the mystique of lyrics which turned out to be quite banal when translated. Everything just sounds so much better, more meaningful, in Welsh - you can ask for beans on toast in Welsh and it sounds like you're asking for the food of the gods.

So find music in your target language, get a hold of the lyrics, and start warbling. It will do your pronunciation the world of good.

(Note: In theory, TV and radio would also be good places to learn pronunciation, but in practice I've found it to be a bit too daunting. All those people speaking far too fast about stuff you can't understand becomes frustrating instead of educational, so be careful. If you try listening to foreign language radio or watching TV, make sure you don't end up making yourself feel stupid in the process.)

Variety is the spice of life
Whatever you do, don't rely on one tactic for learning pronunciation. Mix and match. Do a bit every day - you'll learn more from working 10 minutes a day than an hour on the weekend. And remember to talk out loud as much as possible. Talk to your cat, talk to your plants, talk to anything that won't point and laugh. Read everything aloud, from the boring pronunciation exercises at the front of your course book to new words in the dictionary to the lyrics of foreign language songs. Listen to everything that you can, podcasts, audio books, music, your friends. Listen as often as you can. Instead of listening to the latest chart-topping hits on your commute to work, listen to stuff in your target language.

Eventually, your tongue will get used to the new sounds and will be able to say the words your eyes are reading with less and less effort. When that happens, you'll see the value in all that effort - you'll be able to read new words and phrases without hesitation, and you'll understand more of what people say to you.

I had really hoped to get over to Etech this year, but circumstances conspired against me and instead I am stuck here in Dorset, bemoaning my fate. Well, not completely... Thanks to iChat, a webcam, Kevin Marks and the very flakey network at the Etech venue, I've been Etech Camgirl, as Cory put it, smiling out at everyone from Kevin's laptop.


The view from here

I've caught snatches of various presentations, although never enough to say for certain what they were about, and have mingled with attendees in the hallways and lobby. I have smiled and waved at a number of very pixelated faces, and attempted to say hello to some people who probably couldn't hear what I was saying - I certainly had a hard time making out what they were saying - but it was fun anyway.

If you were amongst that number and asked me what the weather was like in England, I was trying to say that it's been dull and grey here.

Virtual attendance it is not - no need for O'Reilly to get worried about people 'getting in' for free. But it gives me a feel for the conference, for what I'm missing out on, and it's the best we can do under the circumstances. I just wish that the networks were a little more robust, and that webcams were better, and then maybe, just maybe, it would I would have spent the majority of the last few hours actually watching and listening, instead of restarting iChat, attempting to get a video link going, and cursing the connection when it craps out.

Fingers crossed that next year I get to be there in person.

It seems that something has gone awry with Blogware's RSS feed generation, resulting in my feed producing nothing but empty posts. This must be irritating for those of you who read me in your aggregators, so sorry about that. There's not much I can do about it except wait and see how long it takes them to fix it. I'm sure it won't take that long - Blogware have always been very responsive when it comes to fixing problems.

I did notice, however, a big spike in the number of people visiting my site yesterday, something which I would have liked to have put down to the scintillating content, but I fear it's really just frustrated people clicking through from their aggregators to find out what I'm wibbling on about.

Oh well.

UPDATE: RSS is fine now. :)

Constantine is XFM's Film of the Month, so I'm not the only one who thought it wasn't completely pants. Only a matter of days now before I get to go see it again and see how it stands up to a second viewing.

You've decided that you want to learn a new language, or maybe brush up on an old one that you've mostly forgotten, but where on earth do you start? Maybe you don't want to spend too much money to start with, so those swanky language courses on CD-ROM are out of the question, but don't worry, you can achieve a lot on a very small budget.

Essential items that you need to have are:

1. A source of information
2. A way of keeping notes organised
3. People to practice with

1. A source of information
Dictionaries
I would always recommend that you splash out on a good dictionary and, if at all possible, buy a dictionary designed for learners. This is the one thing you can't skimp on because without a good dictionary you'll find life much harder. If possible your dictionary should:

• Explain nuances of meaning, rather than just give you a list of alternatives. If you are looking up 'row', for example, then you need to know which word you would use in 'row of houses', 'a blazing row', or 'row, row, row your boat'. The more examples your dictionary gives, the better.
• Provide information on irregular nouns and or verbs. If plurals can be formed in a non-regular way, the dictionary should give you those plurals with each noun. In Welsh, for example, there are dozens of ways to form a plural - and the rules are so complex as to be useless - so each plural is given with the noun. If a verb is irregular, then the dictionary should give you the irregular forms.
• Provide translations of common idioms or phrases, e.g. under 'course' you get 'of course' as well.
• Provide the gender of nouns in languages which use gender. In English, we're so used to nouns not having gender that we forget they are essential in other languages. If your dictionary doesn't provide gender information, it'll be useless.

When searching for a dictionary, try to do so offline so that you can flick through it and 'test' it. Does it give you explanations and examples? If you look up a word in the English side first, then in the foreign side, how well does it translate back? Is it easy to use? Do you feel comfortable with it?

Grammar/course material
Total immersion learning is undoubtedly the best way to learn a new language, but it's an option for very few people.

An evening or day course is the next best way to learn a new language - the benefits of working with other students and an experience tutor are immense. You'll get to start speaking almost immediately, you'll have people around you to give you moral support, and you'll be able to ask questions of the tutor every time you don't understand something.

Sometimes, however, courses aren't available in the right language at the right price and in the right location. But that doesn't mean that you can't learn your target language perfectly adequately using other methods.

If you're really broke, then some intensive searching online will undoubtedly turn up some learning material that you can use for free. However, the caveat emptor here is that while there are many excellent sources of information online, there are also a lot of sites that provide flawed material, so be careful.

If you can, buy yourself a good course book, one which explains the grammar clearly in terms that you understand and which gives you lots of examples. Frequently course material is very shallow - short explanations and few examples, but whilst that gives you the illusion of making rapid progress it doesn't actually help you remember stuff in the long term. Your aim should always be to learn thoroughly, not quickly.

Again, it's a good job to search for your course book in shops rather than online, so that you can look through it and try to assess how well you will get on with it. If at all possible, get a book that comes with a CD or CD-ROM so that you have the opportunity to hear the language spoken - that will really help you to learn pronunciation.

Of course, if you have the money, have a look at language learning software too, but beware - some courses aren't worth the money they charge.

2. A way of keeping notes organised
One challenge for every learner is figuring out how best to organise their notes. For some people, it's an A4 folder and notepad, for others it's a word processor. For others it's a set of index cards. I'll cover this in a bit more detail in another post, but your best bet to start with is to start simple. For that you need just two things.

Full-length notes
Whether you prefer writing your notes by hand or in a word processor, you will need to find somewhere, such as an A4 notebooks, to keep some full-length notes and in which to do all the exercises from your course material. Although you may find it tedious, it's a good idea to write out each each exercise in full because it will help you remember it later on.

Cheatsheets
A great idea is to keep a small hardback notebook always to hand. The perfect size is A6 (148mm x 105mm). In it, keep concise grammar notes in the front and important vocabulary in the back.

A notebook of this size is perfect for lists of prepositions (like 'to', 'from', 'into'), conjugations of verbs (like amo - I love, amas - you love, amat - he, she, it loves, amamus - we love, amatis - you love, amant - they love - 'to love' in Latin), and declensions of nouns (like puella, puellae, puellae, puellam, puella, puellae, puellarum, puellis, puellas, puellis - 'girl' in Latin).

This gives you a quick and easy reference of the grammar that you've learnt and it will help you when you're constructing new, original sentences for yourself.

3. People to practice with
Most learners harbour a huge sense of embarrassment about their new language - they fear that they might sound stupid, or make an embarrassing mistake, or that people will laugh at them. Thus they say to themselves that they will start speaking or writing in their new language 'when they are good enough', but, of course, that day never comes because they never feel confident in what they have learnt.

The sooner you get over this, the faster you will learn. Use your new language from day one, regardless of how good or bad you think you are. Even if you just defnyddio isolated words in a sentence which is mostly written in Saesneg, you will be helping yourself to dysgu new vocabulary and will increase your confidence with the language.

There are plenty of places you can find other learners and penpals - here are just a few:

Yahoo Groups
Google Groups
MSN Groups
My Language Exchange

So, now you've collected together a dictionary, some course material, notebooks and penpals, you're ready to rock and roll!

language, language learning, languages

I've put a lot of effort into attempting to learn languages over the years, ever since I realised that there were languages other than English just sitting there ready to be learnt. I remember at middle school learning to sing carols in German, learning to count in French, and trying to make up my own language which no one but me would speak (which, ok, would be slightly less than useful, but the idea of having a secret language was so romantic).

At upper school I learnt French and Latin. French I gave up at the first opportunity, much against the advice of my teacher who was convinced I had an innate talent for languages. Due to changing schools, I had had a year less tuition than everyone else in my class and felt completely out of my depth in every lesson. I thought my teacher was barking mad to say I had a 'talent' for languages.

Latin, however, was great - particularly the racy poetry. You've never seen so many teenagers clustered around their Latin text books, dictionary held close, as when someone figured out that some of Catullus' poems - the ones that weren't in the syllabus - were a bit 'interesting'.

Since school, I've tried with varying levels of success (and effort) to learn Swahili, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Cornish. I've pretty much failed at all of them.

I did, however, learn to speak Welsh, and I spent two years running my own business providing people with Welsh practice material. In fact, you can still buy it if you're interested, at Get Fluent.

That's not a bad feat, really, considering that I learnt the hardest way, from books and dictionaries and friends. I had a few lessons and a have been on a couple of courses, but primarily I've learnt through friends emailing me in Welsh, and me having to translate in order to find out what the hell they were babbling on about.

For the last few years I've been thinking about pulling together all the stuff I've learnt about learning languages, all the research I've done into linguistics, memory and language processing. I guess now is as good a time as any to do it - after all, it's not like I'm doing anything more interesting with this blog at the moment.

This stuff isn't going to take over the blog - I am still going to be posting the usual ol' crap here - but I am going to try to write up some of the techniques that I've learnt, including even some exercises that people can do. I'll tackle grammar, vocabulary, memory, motivation and anything else I can think of as and when I think of it.

I'll bring together a whole variety of techniques too - so many language learning courses are a one horse race, relying on one technique which 'worked like a dream' for the author, but which may not suit everyone. Personally, I have the attention span of a gnat, and I've always found myself quick to get bored, so much of what I will suggest will be ways to try to keep you interested, to keep your motivation going.

Learning a language can potentially take years, and you need to figure out how your brain works, how you learn best, and what techniques work for you. But most of all, you need to have fun whilst you're learning. There's no reason why language learning should be a boring slog, and I'm going to do my best to ensure that whichever language you're learning, you have fun doing it.

languages, language learning

Dear Christopher Chope,

I am so disappointed to hear that the 'terror bill' has been passed and will become law.

I strongly believe that as soon as we start eroding the rights and civil liberties that we hold so dear, the terrorists have won. Detaining people indefinitely without trial, even a trial in camera, without them knowing why they have been detained or what the evidence is against them is a clear breach of civil liberties. This is exactly the sort of thing that our government criticises other countries for. What possible excuse is there for thinking that this is reasonable behaviour for a civilised democracy to indulge in?

Kofi Annan recently spoke at the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. In his keynote speech he said:

"[...] terrorism is a threat to all states and to all peoples, which can strike anytime, anywhere.

"It is a direct attack on the core values the United Nations stands for: the rule of law; the protection of civilians; mutual respect between people of different faiths and cultures; and peaceful resolution of conflict.

"So of course the United Nations must be at the forefront in fighting against it, and first of all in proclaiming, loud and clear, that terrorism can never be accepted or justified, in any cause whatsoever.

"By the same token, the United Nations must continue to insist that, in the fight against terrorism, we cannot compromise on the core values I have listed. In particular, human rights and the rule of law must always be respected. As I see it, terrorism is in itself a direct attack on human rights and the rule of law. If we sacrifice them in our response, we are handing a victory to the terrorists.

"[...] Human rights law makes ample provision for strong counter-terrorist action, even in the most exceptional circumstances. But compromising human rights cannot serve the struggle against terrorism. On the contrary, it facilitates achievement of the terrorist’s objective — by ceding to him the moral high ground, and provoking tension, hatred and mistrust of government among precisely those parts of the population where he is most likely to find recruits.

'Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with a successful counter-terrorism strategy. It is an essential element in it."

You can and should read the full text of the speech here:
http://english.safe-democracy.org/keynotes/a-global-strategy-for-fighting-terrorism.html

The travesty of justice that is Guantanamo Bay must not be allowed to happen in this country. It's already been ruled that detaining terrorist suspects in Belmarsh was unlawful and the lack of civil rights afforded the detainees is disgraceful.

We absolutely must not become the paranoid, terror-obsessed country that the US has become, and I urge you in the strongest possible terms to do all you can to ensure that civil liberties are protected - everyone's civil liberties, not just selected members of society.

Our entire justice system is based on 'innocent until proven guilty' and if we sacrifice that then we sacrifice everything that makes this country a truly free democracy.

Yours sincerely,

Suw Charman

* ** **** ** *

If you want to write to your MP - and even if you're not of a political bent, I think you should - then just go to WriteToThem and put your postcode in.

Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (Via Kate.)

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Go to Google and search on the word 'fuckwit'. I tell you, Google's not a search engine anymore, it's AI...

UPDATE: Thanks to John B's comment, I can now reveal that it is, in fact, the power of blogs that has achieved the #1 spot for 'fuckwit' for John Prescott. Maybe we should start on Blair, Howard and the rest of them. (I firmly believe in not being partisan when it comes to pointing out fuckwittery in politics. They're all fuckwits, afaiac.)

Just read a few of the posts on Query Letters I Love, and suddenly all will become clear. If you had to do this for a living, how would you resist the desire to poke your own eyes out? (Thanks Maciej.)

Black 'patent' evening bag with gold chain strap

Black sheepskin rug, 160cm long

Black sheepsking rug, 117cm long

Roaring monster with flashing eyes

Get 'em whilst they're luke warm.

I'm such a pack rat. It's terrible. I can't bear to throw things out, not just because one day I might need them, but because I feel awful that stuff just gets put in a big hole in the ground to rot or, in some cases, hang around for the next few tens of thousands of years quietly poisoning everything in the area.

When I lived in Reading, I had a two bedroom maisonette all to myself and was making good headway in filling it full of stuff. I then had to move back down here to Dorset, where I had two rooms to my name. Last year I moved house again and now I have one very small, very pink room which doesn't even have enough space for a wardrobe. Most of my stuff is in boxes in the loft.

My plan, up until relatively recently, was to go back to London. My small brain was telling me that when that happened I'd be able to take all my stuff with me and would once again live in a nest of my own building, like that of a schizoid bower bird with a thing for candles and gadgets. In a way, that would have been lovely, but part of me is sort of glad that that's not going to happen. Sometimes you just get stuck in a rut and the only way to get out of that rut is by launching yourself head-first into a ditch. I may be struggling now to get out of the ditch, but that doesn't mean the rut looks any more attractive than it did two years ago.

So, my plan is to have no plan, but it would be easier to have no plan if I had less stuff. I've got used to the nomadic life over the last six month, and the future seems to hold the promise of more wanderings, so all this stuff I have carefully packed in boxes is just going to sit there until... until what? I magically buy a house? Father Christmas comes a-thieving? My parent's hold a big car boot sale whilst I'm out of the country?

Best to beat them to it. I am going to be putting as much of my stuff up on Ebay for sale as possible. Obviously I won't be letting my books go, or my records. But the two sheepskin rugs that I bought 15 years ago but never really used can go. The handbags I have been bought but never use can go. The hats. The dinosaur with the roar and the flashing eyes. The camera. Maybe the guitar. The four drawer filing cabinet, if I can ever get round to clearing it out. Definitely the tent.

It's all too much stuff for one nomad to own. It hangs like a weight around my neck, dragging me down. I don't need it, and I don't want it anymore. You can have it. It'll all be going cheap, I promise you.

(If you want, you can grab my Ebay auction RSS feed so you can stay totally up to date with what sort of crap I'm trying to flog.)

Quite.

Sometimes, I wonder if the tree I'm barking up isn't, in fact, a lamppost.