Binged and Googled

Madame Thalia insisted that I (her humble servant, please not to forget) follow up on the Bing Translator vs. Google Translate controversy.  She was quite appalled that a friend of hers, one who wishes to remain anonymous, had used Bing to translate two Korean comments that had been left on her Facebook page (no, Madame is not so old-fashioned, or old, that she does not keep up with the times!).  This friend, reared in what is most inaccurately called 'The West' and knowing absolutely nothing about any language except one or two falling squarely under the Indo-European umbrella constructed by Europeans in the 19th century, was surprised, indeed appalled, to find that Bing could not instantly take a comment from Seoul and render it into an English that she, in Gotham City, could at once understand.  Her coy post:  "I hope that Bing didn't quit her day job!"

Curious, Madame sent me on errand after errand in an effort to understand her friend's foolishness.  It was I, therefore, who copy-and-pasted the Korean remarks into, first, Bing and then into Google.  Let's see what happens.

The first remark was left by a native Korean speaker.  Here it is, complete with the trendy texting symbols:  윤성 산에서 훈련해요 ㅠ 5일동안 텐테에서자요ㅠ

Notice first that there is no punctuation--something that can make all the difference in the world to Bing or Google's translations.  Periods are an absolute must, and yet the native Korean speaker did not bother with any periods--presumably in keeping with the same trends we see in English language texting.

At any rate, here are the two translations:

Bing:  I'm a great 5 days training in Seongsan-Yoon ten sleep from me ㅠ

Google:  I trained in the mountains Yun, Seong sleep in a tent while 05 ㅠ ㅠ

You can see at once that they are very different, but more importantly you can see (especially if you know no Korean) that they make little sense.  If you know some Korean, you can probably figure out what meaning was intended:

Meaning:  Yoon-Sung is training in the mountains.  He has to sleep in a tent for five days.  [The texting 유 signifies sadness on the part of the speaker, a little playfully]

In both translations, notice, the correct subject of 'training in the mountains' is wrong, and I have no idea why both Bing and Google would make this error.  Any native Koreans reading this blog?    Why Bing translated the cognate for 'tent' as 'ten' is a mystery indeed.  

Of course, overall there are so many errors and awkward constructions that anyone not familiar with at least some Korean will simply turn away.

Let's try another.  This time let's use the Korean post of a non-Korean, someone (OK, it's me, I confess) whose native language (alas) is English.  

The post:  아이구! 너무 어렵습니다!   

This post was no doubt very awkward to my Korean friend, but I'm sure she could understand my meaning and my intention (because she got used to my butchered Korean over the course of many years).    Here, anyhow, are the two translations:

Bing:  Kids!  Is too difficult!

Google:  Oops!  Too difficult!

You can see at once that both translations are more similar this time.  Why?  I suspect it's because both 'sentences' (as determined by punctuation) are very short.   The moral?  If you use either Bing or Google, break down what you're trying to translate--into sentences, at the very least, and probably into phrases for better results.

Still, neither translation is very good, not very good at all.  It's especially surprising that Bing thought the first 'sentence' meant 'kids.'  It did so (I argue) because the word for 'children' is very similar, and in the Bing dictionary (so to speak) there is simply a typo.

But the Korean word doesn't mean 'oops' either, or at least it rarely means that.  It's a very all-purpose interjection, one of the first words a foreigner living in Korean is likely to learn.  Here, I would translate it as "Oh, no!"

The other 'sentence' (and it is a full sentence in Korean) is accurately translated (because Korean does not demand sentences have subjects).  Still, the translation is not good.  Why?  Because of me.  I simply didn't know what a native Korean would say in that such situation.   I have since remembered what one might say, but (as the French would say) what good is l'esprit de l'escalier?

Meanwhile, Back at the Hacienda

Ever noticed how Spanish seems so perfect for movies in the Western genre?  True, for a short while there was a fad called Spaghetti Westerns which originated from Italy, and Italian has a similar tempo and tone as Spanish, but somehow mis amigos just sounds more apropos than i miei amici.  Por qué?

I suppose it's because the American West is so deeply connected to Spanish culture.  Most Westerns are filled with padres and haciendos and chaparrales.  And are usually set in places like El Paso or Tucson (which I noted while watching Gran Chaparral the other day) is pronounced 'Toohk-sahn' in Spanish. 

If Spanish is your language of choice, you are in luck because I've found Spanish dubs of Bonanza, Wild, Wild West, The High Chaparral, Gunsmoke, and several other vintage Western TV shows on YouTube.  Also plenty of old Western movies.  You have to do some research, though, because they rarely have the same title as the English versions.  For example, The Wild, Wild West,  El Salvaje Salvaje Oeste is called Jim West in the dubbed version.  Gunsmoke becomes La Ley del Revólver.  Most of them have at least one or two Latino actors and it's rare that you won't hear at least some Spanish even in the English versions.  

So, turn on the TV or log on to YouTube.   Put your hands in the air, pardner.  Ponga sus manos en alto, vaquero.  Ahora, bailar!

I can't go on, I'll go on

Une autre chanson française

E una canzone italiana:

Motivation.  Such an elusive thing.  What would you call it? an emotion, a thought process, a pain in the ass? Uh oh, there I go again.  

One thing's for sure, if you don't have it, it's unlikely you'll be very successful in mastering a second (or third) language.  I suppose that just learning a language for fun could be motivation enough, but I'm finding that it's usually just not enough.  You've got to really really want it.  

Probably the best motivator is one in which it's not a choice; you have to learn Spanish or French because your job requires it, or you're moving to Ecuador, or your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, etc., doesn't speak English.  With those goals, you're never in that shaded area of ambiguity or ambivalence--you've bloody well got to learn the language.  Unfortunately, for English speakers this has not always been a viable approach, simply because English is such a widely spoken language.  You might say:  Well, when I move to Ecuador or Buenos Aires or Poitier, surely there will be enough people around that speak English that I'll get by.  Perhaps, but surely there will be times when knowing how to speak to native speakers will come in very handy.  Or you may live in an area where very few of the natives know English.  

I started out with only fun as a motivation.  I like studying languages.  But over time, when the going gets rough and you don't know whether to use 'de' or 'à,' just enjoyment probably won't keep you to the grind.  I think that if you don't have a more specific goal, then you at least have to pretend that you have one (or two). Think of some place where they speak the language you're studying and fantasize about moving there.  Picture yourself strolling on the Champs-Champs-Elysée wearing a sporty, black beret.  Or having a yerba mate in a trendy outdoor cafe in Havana.  Or imagine that your job is being transferred to Naples and you're in charge of PR for your company.  You get the idea.

And even better, start stashing away that dinero and really move to the country of your dreams.  Hey, stranger things have happened.  :)

Eh? Whadjasay?

First of all, I see in my statistics for this blog that I've apparently had visitors.  I highly encourage anyone who finds this blog interesting or helpful to comment on any posts of their choosing.  I'll appreciate the feedback and will respond.

As I've mentioned before, I'm watching foreign TV shows and movies every day, often through the ever-popular YouTube.  My assessment of this method of exposing oneself to spoken French, Italian, or Spanish is mixed.

By far, at least in the U.S., the biggest selection of foreign films and TV programs are in Spanish.  There are dozens of American TV series like Bewitched, Bonanza, The Wild, Wild West, Alfred Hitchcock Presents etc., skillfully dubbed in Spanish.  The funny thing is that many of these dubbed shows are re-dubbed from other languages, especially German.  Two of my favorite foreign detective shows, Inspector Derrick and Komissar Rex were filmed in German and then dubbed in Spanish.  You can tell because all the actors' names are German and in city scenes all the signs are also in German. 

You'd think this would be detrimental, but on the contrary I think it actually makes understanding the dialogue easier.  Why?  Well, it seems to me that German is generally spoken at a slightly slower pace and the dubbed Spanish or Italian has to match the movement of the actors' lips.  Thus the pace of conversation is slightly slower.  When I've watched shows that were originally recorded in French of Spanish, I barely catch a word or two.  Italian, for some reason, seems a tiny bit slower when spoken by natives.  Both Spanish and French seem extremely elided and its hard to tell when one word ends and another begins.  Also, Italian clearly pronounces every character, except in a few fairly rare cases when there's an apostrophe, such as all'università, (at or to the university) which loses the 'e' in alle.

If anyone out there (come on I know you're there) knows of some good Italian shows that are available on the Internet (for free, of course), please let me know in a comment.  I've discovered a juicy Italian soap opera called Un Posto al Sole (A Place in the Sun).  It has nothing to do with the Liz Taylor/Monty Clift movie of the same name.  I only understand about a fourth of the dialogue, but it's chock full of belle femme e bei uomini italiani, so you can watch it without being bored, even if you have no idea what's going on.  Ciao for now.

To Zoom or Not to Zoom

Madame Thalia has once again asked me, her humble servant, to send along a few words about her druthers in hopes she might be of help to others, especially those with eyes as ancient as hers (dating back as they do over two thousand years, after all).  In the Internet browser I've set up for her, one curiously called Chrome, one can click on an odd little icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and find Zoom as an option.   The enlargement, I must say, has made all the difference in the world to Her Ladyship's enjoyment of this blog.  She was particularly delighted to discover that once the enlargement had been set to her liking it did not have to be re-set each time she visited the page.

한국어 연습에 관해서, 그들은 외국인을위한 너무 어렵다.  심지어 구글 번역 외국인을 도울 수 없습니다. 저를 믿지 않는 경우 구글 물어!

Hey, What's Wrong with Writing?

Are you writing regularly in your target language?  Hmmm?  Just as I figured.  Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Here's how we say 'lazy' in Spanish, French, and Italian:

Spanish:  perezoso
French:  paresseux
Italian: pigro

I'm partial to pigro. 

Be sure to participate in our poll question on the right.

Really, though, it is important to allot some time in your daily studies (you do practice every day, don't you? Pigro!)  to writing in the language you wish to master.  If nothing else, studies show that writing vocabulary and sentences down aids in remembering them.  I know that when I write out exercises from my language textbooks, it forces me to concentrate on the text.  

Also, if you're in a foreign country and your accent or grammar is so bad that you're clearly not getting your message across to a native, try writing it down.  It's just another way of expressing yourself.  Also, what if you're in a hotel and you need to leave the maid a note?  It's a given that each of us has a preference for how we study a foreign language.  I like to read and write; others are not happy unless they have some CDs or an iPod full of listen-and-repeat phrases.  I have to practically force myself to devote a portion of my daily practice to oral listening and speaking.  

I'm wondering if we can persuade the divine Ms. Thalia to give us a brief exercise in writing Korean.  Hmmm?

But writing can be fun.  Why not write a brief essay or short story in the language?  Of course, you'll make mistakes, but it will re-enforce your learning and help you pay more attention to accents and other diacritical marks.  Feeling frustrated about the pace of your learning?  Scrivi! Ecrivez! Escribe! Write about it!  

Le Mot Juste; or, the Juicy Word

Google Translate or Bing Translate?  What're your druthers?

Our illustrious (and highly sensitive feminist) West Coast correspondent, Signora Thalia swears by Bing.  "Really, dear," she insists, "you simply must bing.  All other translation apps are subpar."  You go, girl!  La Thalia reports that when she compares the results of entering Korean text into Bing with the results of the same text entered into Google, Bing wins hands-down.

At first I thought that was true of French also.  I seemed to be getting more plausible translations from English to French in Bing, but then discovered that if one highlights a questionable word or phrase in Google Translate, the program lists several alternatives that relate to the context of the sentence or different shades of meaning.  In many cases I've been able to drill down to the exact translation I was looking for.

Here is the same English sentence translated first by Google Translate:
Je ai vécu en Floride depuis plus d'un an.

Then by Bing Translate:
J'ai vécu en Floride pour plus d'un an.

I think you need the 'depuis,' but the only way I'd be confident with either of these translations is to ask a Frenchwoman.

Of course, the problem is that sometimes, you simply don't know which is the more appropriate translation.  This is why nothing can beat a real live person to analyze your needs and present you with the best translation.  Perhaps with future technology such as intuitive robotics, it will be possible to make translating software understand exactly what you mean by detecting intonation, subtle voice modulations, deep context,etc.  Until that brave new world approaches, though, the reliability of online translators is far from perfect. 

Big blizzard on the East Coast, but not sunny Florida.  Here are the French, Spanish, and Italian words for 'blizzard.' 

French:  tempête de neige.
Spanish:  ventisca
Italian:  bufera di neve

I like the Spanish 'ventisca' best, don't you?

Learning a Language the Right Way: Cheap

Molto grazie  to yesterday's exemplary guest posting from il signore Thalia from our West Coast office.  We here at the East Coast headquarters always welcome Mr. Thalia's fine contributions.  And he runs the San Diego branch of Innamorato della lingua the same way we do here: as a tight ship, with a staff of one and no payroll expenses.  Kudos Mr. T.  Keep up the good work!

Indeed, I heartily concur with Thalia's praise of the FSI language learning system.  And it is possible to find completely free (though not updated and maintained) versions of the agency's primary language materials on the Internet.  I've used both the Italian and French programs and have found them just as good or better than some of those commercial packages you have to pay molto denaro for. In fact, it seems to me that the wildly popular Pimsleur method is highly derivative of the FSI system.  Both use a combination of an old Berlitz-style listen and repeat drills, plenty of exercises in using what you've learned, and (most importantly) constant review of material covered.  This is crucial, since new vocab and grammar structures are quickly forgotten if not constantly re-enforced.  

In closing today's post, I wanted to mention yet another language learning tool that I discovered recently:  foreign language chat rooms.  There are several of these on the 'Net.  The mylanguageexchange.com site has one, though it is very limited, especially if you don't want to become a Gold member.  Better is the one at ICQ: http://www.icq.com/icqchat/chatroom.php?c_id=1221.  Here you do have to register, but it's free.  It works like any ordinary chat room with the user logging on and clicking on one of the 'rooms.'  There you'll see a thread of conversation that you can join by typing in something in the given language in the comment field.  This beats the pen-pal approach in that you get instant feedback, often from native speakers.   It's also very good for getting you used to very conversational and slangy speech.

Il signore Thalia, however, has expressed concern that I am spending too much time in the Scottish Room and picking up 'non-standard' dialect.  Thanks for your concern, Mr. T.  Perhaps I need Lexie from Glenbogle to give me a good talking to. 

Defense Language Institute

Have you looked into what materials might be available from the Defense Language Institute?  When I got students from that Institute in my classes in Korea I was always impressed.  Clearly the methods used there are doing something right--and I presume the Institute has a long history, dating back decades (if not longer).

It's probably not possible, if you're not a soldier and in the program, to use the Institute's resources directly, but I strongly suspect that some of their material is available elsewhere (online for free).  In fact, it was you who some years back sent me links to the Korean material which I'd spent a fortune on when I first went to Korea.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol; or, How Reading Locks in Your Vocabulary

Do you read regularly in your target language?  Well, do you? Well, why not?  What's your excuse?  Not enough time?  Boy, if I had a euro for every time I've heard that.

It seems to me that there are few better ways of learning vocabulary than reading novels, stories, poems, newspapers, textbooks, etc. written in the language you want to learn.  Of course, we could memorize long lists of vocabulary words, but research shows that unless we use those words relatively soon after learning them, and use them frequently thereafter, they don't stick.  It has been my experience that the most painless way to increase my word stash in French or Italian is by reading daily.  It doesn't matter too much what you read.  Sometimes I'll pull up Le Monde on the Internet and skim the headlines or check out the culture section.  Other days I'll read a short story or a chapter or two of a novel, preferably something easy and fast-moving, like a policier or thriller or western.  I've been prodding through Mort sur le Nil for several months.  If you're reading fiction, it's best to find a piece with lots of dialogue; after all it's conversation that's going to be most useful to us, if we want to eventually become fluent. 

Again, you Spanishfreaks out there are lucky.  In the U.S. it's easy to download hundreds of public domain books in Spanish and you can find oodles of used books in Spanish on Amazon or Thriftbooks.com.  Locating books in French is not too difficult either.  But when it comes to Italian, the pickings are slim.  It's not too hard to find some Italian books on the 'Net, but they are not as numerous (or cheap) as Spanish and French.  Still, with persistence, you can find reasonably priced Italian texts.  There are also a few sites that have free public domain Italian books you can download.  I've had good luck at www.libroaudio.it.  You can find free audio books there in mp3 format.  I've downloaded Treasure Island and other action-packed classics from there.  They are all read by an excellent reader who dramatizes them with sound effects.  Yo, yo, yo e una bottiglia di rum!  Lot's of fun. 

For me, I learn and remember vocabulary much better if it's in the context of complete sentences.  I've tried books dedicated to learning foreign language vocabulary, but I haven't run across any that structures the exercises and practice around using the words in sentences and dialogue.  

And don't fool yourself.  Though the language-geeks will try to convince you that only a bare-bones vocabulary is needed to get by in a foreign language, I have not found this to be the case.  Many a time have I struggled to find alternative ways of expressing an idea in conversation or writing, because I can't for the life of me come up with a word that expresses what I want to say.  Knowing how to say the yellow cat is on the large table is not going to help you if you're lost and need some directions--unless you happen to be a yellow cat and the table on which you frequently lounge has been moved, I suppose.  

So then, leggi, la mia amica!  Lisez!  Read, you lazy-assed, good-for-nothing slacker!  Oh, dear.  How emotional I get when I talk about learning languages. :)

Touting Tutors

If I were a rich man, (No, I'm not going to sing from 'Fiddler on the Roof'; that is, unless you beg me to:) one of the first things I'd do is hire top-notch private tutors for French and Italian.  The second thing I would do is hire both a French-speaking and Italian-speaking cook to make savory and healthy meals for me three times a day.  And naturally, these cooks would be drop-dead gorgeous.  I would feel much more at ease practicing my language skills with someone who understands the problems a new learner is faced with.  She would know exactly how slow or fast to speak, the most useful words and phrases to practice, and could gently correct my errors.  And none of this 'virtual learning' or 'distance learning' crapola.  Give me a real live teacher sitting across from me patiently guiding me through the process and cheering me on periodically--and spanking me good when I slack up or start whining about how hard it is to learn a language.

I assume hiring a private language tutor would be easiest if one is learning Spanish.  There are so many Latinos in the US that you could probably find a struggling college kid who would tutor for very little dinero.  But for French and Italian, I suspect that the hourly fees are quite hefty.  Merde!  Merda!  Pardon my French (and Italian).  Excuse me while I go wash out my sewage-filled mouth with sapone and savon.

I wonder if there are language instructors who would go for the same deal as the language exchange sites propose:  I'll teach you English if you teach me Italian.  The problem is how would you filter out the good ones?  And if they're going to come to your house, how can you be sure that they are not serial killers or other vermin up to no good?  I suppose it would be better to meet in a neutral place like a library, but one has to be quiet in a library, n'est-ce pas?

And of course no tutoring can compare to a long sojourn in the country where the language is spoken.  Canada's not too far away, but Italy is way over il mare.  Merda!  Perhaps I can stowaway on a merchant marine ship bound for the Adriatic?  Join the Italian navy?  Oh dear, oh dear,  life is so complicated.  With Shelley, I have fallen on the thorns of life.  I bleed!  Aiuto!  M'aidez! Help!

Livres, libri, et libros

'Jumping the gun.'  Another English idiom--yet one that at least makes a little sense.  If one jumps the gun, she begins something too soon, before it's appropriate or 'before the gun fires.'  You can't help but wonder if this is an offshoot of the dueling days.  What better way to win a duel than to shoot first?  If the 'second' cries foul, you could always say, 'Oh, dear; my finger twitched.'

Anyway, I suppose I'm jumping the gun by reviewing two books about France and the French before I've finished reading them.  But I've always been the eager beaver (wonder where that one came from?) and prefer to count my chickens before they hatch.  Well, what's wrong with optimism?  I fully expect my hens to produce a healthy brood.

The books are Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barrow's, The Story of French and Alistair Horne's La Belle France: a Short History.  Both books are de rigueur for students of French.  

The Nadeau/Barrow book is over 450 pages and covers the development of what is now known as French from its Latin routes all the way to modernity.  One thing the authors make clear is that French is not a dying language.  They've even discovered a substantial population of Francophones in places as unlikely as Tel Aviv.  It has always fascinated me how the Big Three Latin-based languages came to be so different from each other.  For example, the most common Latin word for 'boat' is navis.  In Spanish it's barco. In Italian barca (odd that in one it's masculine and in the other feminine).  And of course the French is bateau.  So how did this transformation occur?  Well, it takes 450 pages to find out.  Some of it had to do with foreign invaders--especially Scandinavian and Germanic.  And often there were many different types of boats, all with their own word.  Think of English with boat, skiff, sloop, ship, schooner, canoe, etc.  One of those words over time was settled on to mean 'boat' in general.  And of course there's the enormous influence of French on English, what with the Norman Conquest and all.

Both my given name and my surname appear to have French origins.  Here's an entry concerning my middle name, Hugh, from the site 'Behind the Name' www.behindthename.com:

From the Germanic element hug, meaning "heart, mind, spirit". It was common among Frankish and French nobility, being borne by Hugh Capet, a 10th-century king of France who founded the Capetian dynasty. The Normans brought the name to England and it became common there, even more so after the time of the 12th-century bishop Saint Hugh of Lincoln, who was known for his charity. This was also the name of kings of Cyprus and the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. The name is used in Ireland and Scotland as the Anglicized form of Aodh and Ùisdean.

Funny how though the name was popularized by the French, it appears that it was originally German.  I feel much better now that I know my middle name means Heart, Mind and Spirit.  Is that cool, or what?!  And then there's William, Guillaume, in French, also popularized by the Normans, but derived from German.

As for my surname, I was always under the impression that it too has French origins.  But apparently it is Old English/Scottish.  When the Normans conquered GB, they adopted the name, changing it from Stewart to Stuart.  Those Normies were all over the place, weren't they?  So, it would appear that all my names came either directly or indirectly from French.  Merci, mes camarades.

But I regress.  So far  The Story of French is proving to be a good read, though like so many lengthy books, there's really more information in it than interests me.  

The same goes for  La Belle France.   If this is 'a short history' as the subtitle assures me, then I'd hate to see the long one.  It weighs in at close to 500 pages.  I've sampled histories of various countries before, and I must say that if this book is unbiased, it certainly depicts France as having had its share of blood and guts.  There are stories of a woman and her child being sent to a dungeon with no food and being found later dead, with the child's cheeks half eaten.  Drawings and quarterings, decapitations, castrations, and every kind of torture you can imagine--and some beyond imagination.  I will say that the book moves along at a few rapid clip and so far it has maintained my interest--and I haven't even gotten to Napoleon and Louis XIV yet.  

I'm generally not very good at finishing long books, so I'll have to publish another post at a later date to provide more thorough assessments, if I make it through to the end.  At least the word for book in Spanish, French, and Italian did maintain its integrity on the historical journey from the Latin to modern languages.  

La Rue est plus loin.

Go ahead.  Say the French word for street.  Now!  Oh, dear.  I don't know why I get so overbearing on this blog.  Je suis désolé.  Perhaps I'm absorbing some of the Latin temperament. :)

Anyway, I was instructed as an undergrad French student, to assume that I've just bitten into an unripe lemon or a green persimmon when I pronounce any word with the 'u' sound that occurs in rue and similar words.  The other 'u' is a piece of cake (Jeez, another worrisome English idiom) sounding very much like 'ou,' but there is really no equivalent to the vowel in rue and plus.  Perhaps the closest is the sound in the English word 'pew,' but a native Frenchwoman would immediately know that you're from out of town if you pronounced it like that.

As with a lot of French, if you want to reproduce this sound, you have to make a face.  In other words, you can't be shy and you have to be willing to momentarily feel silly.  Now, rest assured I'm not saying that French is a silly language, far from it, but that the uvula, throat muscles, facial muscles, and lips need to be utilized in ways different from the way English speakers normally use them.  It helps a little if you watch a French TV program or movie and mute the audio.  Watch the lips and facial expressions of the speakers.  

Meanwhile, back on la rue, many students of French just end up pronouncing all "u's" like 'ou.'  This may allow one to get herself understood, but we don't really want to sound like tourists forever, now do we?  And yet so many French people speak English with that ubiquitous 'accent,' having special difficult with the 'th' sounds.  Some say that it's necessary to have begun speaking the language as a child in order to conquer the accent problem.  But I think that if you really work at it, it's possible to speak a foreign language with some accuracy.  This all comes later, though.  If we expend a great deal of effort in trying to pronounce every word perfectly, we'll end up sounding artificial and stilted.  Better at first to simply speak.  Inky dinky parley voo. 

Ces gens là; Singing Your Way to Fluency

Merde! Sacre bleu! Oops, there I go again, me and my foul bilingual mouth.

Guillaume, c'est mon nom et la musique, c'est mon jeu.  Heard any good French songs recently?  Surely there's more under the sun than Edith Piaf.  Sometimes listening to pop songs in the target language is a good way to increase vocabulary and comprehension.  Just as nursery rhymes helped us absorb English as children, the rhyme and beat of a well-composed foreign language tune makes the text more memorable, not to mention more fun to learn.

Once again the problem is ferreting out good representatives of the target language's musical oeuvre.  Not having unlimited reserves for buying CDs on Amazon, I find myself turning once again to that goldmine of media, YouTube.  Ah, what a barren waste was life before YouTube, no?  I wonder how much longer it'll be free.

I have had some results from keywords such as 'chansons populaires' or 'French pop songs.'  But a lot of what comes up are American songs that are popular in France or some sort of French hip-hop or rap that's just not my tasse de thé.  I have found a few Jacques Brel classics that I like and one fairly current hit song called 'Il est le même que moi.'  I've attached links to both of these above.

I don't know about you, but I've never been a big fan of Maurice Chevalier.  There's something too cutesy and unsubstantial about his work.  C'est si bon?  I think not.  I do, however, still very much like Grace Jones' rendition of 'La Vie en Rose.'  Though I know it's sacrilege, I much prefer it to Piaf's more famous version   

Other than that, I haven't been that successful in locating a library of songs that I'd play over and over.  Italian pop songs are nice, but most of the current ones seem a little sappy and treacly.  One does tire of hearing about amore, as lovely as it may be.

Watching 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' in Three Languages (and understanding nary a word)

Mierda! Merda! Merde! 

I know, I promised to stop swearing in foreign tongues on this blog.  I'm sure my readers, er reader, will find such lack of etiquette on a blog unbecoming to say the least.  I'll try to restrain myself and continue to maintain this as a family-safe environment.  

Still, how amusing that the naughty, colloquial word denoting human waste is so universal.  Spanish, it seems to me sounds the most invective:  Mierda! Me olvidé de traer mi diccionario español!  The Italian, on the other hand, sounds once again like you're yelling poetry at someone.  And the more common French Merde!  sounds crisp and efficient.  

Today's topic is 'Watching Foreign TV shows:  a Worthwhile Tool for Learning a Language or a Waste of Time?'  I know that is a very long title for a topic, but hey, mierda!  It's my blog.  In my opinion, spending a couple of hours watching a television show that interests you is definitely worth the effort, with a caveat.  It has been shown that passive listening yields very small results for learning a language.  Just tuning the radio to a Spanish radio station while you do something else does not improve your comprehension, or if it does the gain is barely measurable.  No, it is essential to pay attention to what you're listening to and to concentrate on every nuance.  It seems to me that this is a little easier to do if you have a visual component to the experience, such as a television program.  

But where oh where are such TV shows to be found?  Of course, you can purchase them--but we're talking big bucks there.  I'm told there is a way to set up some kind of proxy server that will allow you to access foreign TV stations, but the instructions for doing that seem pretty complex to me, let alone possibly unsafe.  The options are a little better if you're learning Spanish, at least in the United States.  My Florida cable system has four or five channels that broadcast nothing but shows in Spanish.  So far, though, I haven't found many programs that appeal to me on these channels.  Most are 'reality shows' or semi-erotic 'telenovlas' that get tiresome after one or two episodes.  

But to the rescue comes the ever-popular YouTube.  Once again, you're in luck if you're studying Spanish.  I've found Spanish dubbed versions of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' 'The Twilight Zone,' 'The Nanny,' 'The Adams Family,' and a whole lot of German detective shows also dubbed into Spanish.  For some reason I find Mexican or Latin American Spanish easier to follow than the European versions.  I've found so far that there are Italian-dubbed shows available on YouTube--I especially like 'Ispettore Derrick,' a wildly popular German show that you can also find dubbed in French.  In general though, it's very hard to find French-dubbed material.  The French seem to frown on that sort of thing.

Perhaps I'm just fantasizing, but it does seem to me that watching these programs (and trying hard to pay attention) has helped me with my comprehension, at least a little.  Since I have the largest vocabulary and grasp of grammar for French, I've been concentrating mostly on listening to and watching shows in French.  I seem to be able to catch a word or two and a phrase or two and sometimes even entire sentences.  It's best to select detective shows or mysteries, since they have a lot of visual action and that helps one to figure out what's being said.  Ever wondered how to say:  'Hands in the air, Matthieu' in French?   Or 'It's curtains for you, Pierre!' Westerns also have lots of action:  'Il ya de place que pour une seule personne dans cette ville, Marcel!'  Stay tuned for more.

Feeling Stressed? Try Accents

Elegant little buggers, accents; aren't they?  Delicate little black berets in suspension over a vowel, slightly tipped either to the left or to the right.  Consider the French for 'she buys':  'elle achète,' positioned over the first 'e' to change the sound of the vowel from a long 'a' as in 'ate' to 'eh.'  Pretty cool, eh?  Or just look at how sophisticated and sassy the Italian word for coffee becomes with a grave accent:  'caffè,'--especially with that sexy double-f.  Here the accent is employed to indicate that this is a word that breaks the normal stress in Italian on the penultimate syllable.  We want to pronounce this word 'Caf-FEH.'  Is it not amazing how such miniscule marks act as gentle guides in the harrowing task of reproducing the wondrous sounds of a language?  

I even enjoy writing them.  There's something sort of defiant about topping off an 'e' with a grave accent--sort of a Now there! sense of completion.  One misses out on that metaphysical gesture when she types it.  No, one needs a pen; preferably one with a bold flow of jet-black ink.

Second best is the circumflex:  not understated tilted berets, but more like those pointy straw hats you see Vietnamese women wearing as they stoop over to  pluck stalks of rice from the paddies.  The French phrase for 'beside' goes all out, festooned in all sorts of orthographical regalia:  'à côté de.'  How extravagant!  How baroque!  

Still feeling gravely stressed?  Having an acute anxiety attack?  Accents to the rescue!  


Jusqu'à demain. 

La vita è dolce

Everybody knows about the famous Italian film La Vita Dolce.  From my limited interaction with Italians, it seems to me that most of them really do strive for the sweet life.  Though I'm sure there are sad Italians, most of them I've had any contact with seem exuberant and alive.  Maybe at least a little of that has to do with the language being so rhythmic and song-like.  Even Dante's hell seems sweet when he's carrying on in Italian. 

And Italians definitely use that word, dolce, a lot.  The Italian mountains are sweet, the family is sweet, everything is at least a little dolce.  I wonder if that's where the current youth-speak trendy word 'sweet' originated, such as 'That new i-Phone is swee-eet!'  And indeed the word seems to mean much more than having a pleasant, sugary flavor.  It seems to me that it sort of means 'wonderful' or 'great.' And of course, it also refers to the sugary taste of zucchero. 

Americans, and especially the English have always had a love affair with Italy.  There are countless novels, stories, essays, travel literature, etc. that extols it.  Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Forster, the list goes on.  And of course there's the art and the opera.  I've watched a few videos of concerts by young Italian pop singers and it never fails that several members of the audience are in tears--not because it's bad, but because the passion of the voices move them with intense emotion.  Most of the pop songs, of course, are about Amore, the universal language of love.

Well, it would be molto dolce to travel there and see for myself, but most likely that's just un sogno (a dream). 

The Idiocy of Idioms

Merde! Merde! Et double merde!  Am I permitted to say 'merde' on this blog? Les idiomes: au diable! 

Ah, that felt good.  A fine anti-venom for idiom poisoning.  We use idioms constantly in English.  Just yesterday I ran into the hazards of trying to transport English idioms to French.  I was responding to Denis' (my French pen-pal) email and used the expression 'to have one's hands full.'  Naturally, he wrote back and said he'd never heard of 'avoir les mains pleins.'  When I explained that the expression means something like 'to have a very onerous task at hand,' it occurred to me that there probably is no equivalent for 'at hand' in French.  All these hands had to go and were in no way handy.  I finally gave him the expression in an example:  'Denis really has his hands full trying to teach Guillaume how to speak French.'  He got it and suggested to me that the expression 'les mains pleins' in French means that one is filthy rich.  He probably thought I was after his money.   Idioms: Merde!

 I've concluded that the safest thing to do is not to use idioms until a certain amount of fluency arrives.  Even using valid French idioms you learn from textbooks is iffy, because often they are not appropriate in certain social situations.  Still, it would definitely be worthwhile to learn a lot of them, so that when you hear a native speaker use them, you'll understand. 

In spite of the frustration, it's experiences like the one above that verifies that writing native speakers, though not nearly as effective as speaking to them face-to-face, is probably the next best thing.  Denis not only corrects grammar mistakes, but suggests 'Frenchier' ways of saying things.

The next thing I need to work on is understanding spoken French.  I suppose it's just my imagination, but it seems to me that in every language, when we speak, we get lazy and our thoughts are coming faster than our mouths can move.  Thus, garbling and mumbling rule.  I'm sure it's just my imagination, but it seems to me that the French are number one in the mumble category.  Part of it is that they are so keen on elision and chop off entire word endings at the drop of a hat (Uh oh, another idiom.  Merde!).  Mon ami, Thalia has confirmed this by comparing his conversational voice to his more formal teaching voice.  So, not only do I have to worry about tu'ing and vous'ing, I also have to learn both conversational French and hoity-toity French.  !%$@!!!.  Yikes!

Pal-ing around wth a Pen, er Keyboard

Interesting that they're still called Pen Pals.  I've been using a site called MyLanguageExchange.com for several weeks now and am trying to decide if it's worth my time and effort.  So far, I'd say yes.  On this site you create a profile that expresses the language(s) you currently speak and those that you would like to practice.  Optionally, you can add your age and where you live but, perhaps more importantly, you indicate how you want to communicate--by email, by audio telephone, by text messaging, or by video (Skype).  Lacking the chutzpah it takes to interact with someone via video, I signed up for emails only. 

The surprising thing about this is that I feel it is helping me.  One of the hardest things is to filter out people you want to practice with.  With French and Italian the choices can be overwhelming, so you have to try to find someone you think you'd be compatible with (in other words, someone who will talk to you :).  And for Spanish, even when you filter with a lot of criteria, you get a huge list.  You can also filter by country.  So many people of practically every country want to learn a little English, that it's easy to entice people to write to you by assuring them that you'll help them with their English.  It has also helped that I mention I have an advanced degree in it in my profile.  One inconvenient problem with the site is that you're very limited if you don't fork over a few dollars to become a Gold member.  You can use the site for free, but that means that you can only send "Hi's" to people.  In order to exchange full emails, one of the two correspondents has to be a paid member.  Still, if you can get a paid member to email you even once, then you're good to go and won't have to pay anything at all.  Since I want to be able to choose who I want to write to, I went ahead and paid the fee.  It's for a whole year.

The reason I feel that this has not been a total waste of time, is that for the first time since college I find myself actually trying to express things in the target language.  First of all, I'm not one of those people who think you should completely ignore grammar, writing, and reading and concentrate on nothing but speaking.  I know that's all the rage in language instruction now, but if you ignore grammar and writing, you won't be able to read traffic signs or menus.  Nor will you be able to read a novel in its original language.  This is especially true of French, which looks very different in writing.  Still, language is meant to be spoken and there is no getting around face-to-face oral practice.  At some point, when I have a bank of correspondents that I feel comfortable with, I'll try the video method.  I've done enough classroom teaching that the prospect of face-to-face interaction does not frighten me.  The main problem is that I'm not much on chit-chat and I have to struggle to think of something to say--unless I have some kind of rapport with the person I'm conversing with.  Anyway, even with strictly emailing I've had a much better experience with the language.  With textbooks, you often learn words and expressions that would rarely come up in a casual conversation.  It's been a real eye-opener to struggle (even when writing, something I'm usually very comfortable with) to express even very simple things in the target language.  The main reason for this, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is that you cannot translate from English to another language word-by-word.  It will end up sounding artificial and sometimes even intelligible to a native speaker.  So, in essence, I'm reasonable happy with my pen pal experiment.  I especially enjoy writing to a fellow in Mexico.  I've been to Mexico a couple of times and am familiar with the country.  I'm much more likely to visit Mexico, pretty close to Florida, than to cross the Atlantic Ocean. 

Two for the Price of One

Injustice.  I'm in one of those moods in which doing something I love, in this case, learning a new language, seems like a pain in the ass.  Especially when the typical motives for learning a new tongue (need it for the job, going to the country where the language is spoken, have a girl/boy friend who speaks the language, etc.) are absent. 

One thing that I love to complain about (ah, does anybody else out there love to gripe about insignificant things more than I do?)  is the fact that in most of the Latin-based languages (and perhaps in others too since I haven't had much experience with them) you have to learn two ways of speaking:  formal and informal (or tutoyer, as it is affectionately called in French).  I've already been reprimanded (well, not reprimanded, but firmly corrected) for using a 'tu' when I should have used a 'vous'  in a message I wrote to one of my French pen-pals.  What exacerbates the situation is that it seems that many text books and home study books insist upon emphasizing the informal mode, presumably because it assumes the learner is an aimable, youthful college student practicing with her friends. 

Oh, if only I could vous you and be done with it!  And Spanish and Italian also employ this merciless torture.  Oh, well.  As usual I'll get over my indignant grand-standing and get back to the job at hand.  Merci messieurs et madames.  Je te remercie.  Oops.  Je vous remercie. :)

Français or italiano...decisions, decisions, decisions

Because I'm generally indecisive in just about everything, figuring out which language I want to focus on has been a real challenge.  I suppose I like Italian best, but my goal is to become reasonably fluent in at least one language.  Doing that with Italian would take the most effort and time, because I have never had any formal training in it; whereas, in French I have a degree and years and years of off-and-on exposure and practice.  In addition, it is a little easier to find people to practice French with; while it's pretty hard to locate someone who speaks Italian. 

So I resolve to take the substantial vocabulary and grammar mastery I have of French and run with that.  Oh, yes, I'll still write to my Italian pen-pals, but I think I'd make more progress if I zeroed in on one language.  And it's not like I hate French.  I like the language very much and have studied it for so long that it is beginning to sound less 'foreign' and I almost find myself thinking in the language at times.  Italian still sounds like someone singing to me.

In truth I would feel much more confident Skyping someone in French than in either Italian or Spanish.  I've even noticed that I'm getting noticeably better at understanding the French in movies and TV shows.  I still say that French is slurred and elided and mumbled over way more than Spanish and Italian.  Italians pronounced every character, even if there are four vowels in a row, which there often are.  French speakers seem to completely drop entire groups of letters.  Pronouns like 'te' or 'me' end up sounding like a whispered and clipped 'tuh' and 'muh'.  Finally, though, after hours of listening, one gets used to this and she learns to do it herself. 

Well, I guess I'd better get cracking.  Does anyone know the French for 'get crackin'?  Vive la France! et J'suis Charlie!

Immersed (and drowning)

Duet with Pavarotti and Eros Ramazzotti. How can you not like a people who name their sons after Greek gods?

Is it possible gain fluency without living abroad?  I'm not sure.

Some say there are other ways to immerse yourself in a language:  pen-pals, endless listen-and-repeat sessions, books, instruction videos, reading novels, pod-casts...the list goes on.  Yet, I think perhaps what you miss if you don't actual live among real people who speak the language every day is, well, let's call it interchange.  Or real back-and-forth dialogue.

I studied French, both formally and on my own, for many years.  I have never felt wealthy enough to live abroad, so I've rarely had the opportunity to speak F2F with a native or fluent speaker.  The result of that deficit:  When I am faced with a situation in which I have to be spontaneous or interact with someone in French, I basically freeze up.  I find myself mentally conjugating verbs and trying to recall the correct vocabulary or grammar to say even the simplest thing.  This is why I think for most people, it's best to thoroughly memorize common, everyday phrases, such as 'What do you do for a living?' or 'I am enjoying your party.'  These survival phrases should always be so thoroughly learned that they just roll out naturally without any effort or pause.

But then the problem arises of what to do when your conversation partner responds to your question or comment with a long or complex sentence or two.  I think a lot of language learners never consider that it's not enough to be able to ask 'Where is the police station?' If you don't understand 'The nearest one is two blocks north; turn left at the first light; drive over the bridge; turn right at the bakery; the station is about half-way down the street' then you'll never get to your destination.

Thus, it seems to me that there's no getting around real-life interchange.  Now, with Skype video-conferencing, and all the other ways to converse with someone without traveling, it's a little easier.  All you need is enough chutzpah to get out there and talk.  It helps if you're an extrovert and are willing to make a fool of yourself with no hard feelings.

Word by Word Translations (and why they usually don't work)

On the language exchange where I have a couple of pen-pals in French and Italian, I've noticed that the mistakes that people make when they write me in English are often the very same ones that I make in their language.

For example, the indefinite articles (a, an) are not used in Italian nearly as much as they are in English.  Whereas in English I would say 'I am a teacher,' it would be 'I am teacher' in Italian.  I suppose, though, that most Italians would not be too perturbed by this small point, but there are other cases where it's much more subtle--and difficult.

The main thing is that one almost always gets into trouble when attempting to render something in the target language by trying to phrase it the way you would in the source language.  Each language has its own word order and usage that often does not translate smoothly.

So, I guess what this leads me to believe is that there's more memorizing to do, entire phrases and sentences.  Many times the difference seems to go beyond grammar rules. 

Raison d'être

I've created this blog primarily to practice my Italian, which could certain use some!
I'm a beginner in Italian, but have an undergraduate degree in French and know a little Spanish. 

I suppose I want this space to be more about language learning in general than about Italian specifically.   I've learned the hard way, especially with French, that the standard methods of learning a foreign language in schools and universities just don't work.  They mostly train one how to write and read in the target language, but provide very little information and practice in speaking and, even more important, comprehensive of the spoken language in typical situations.  I've learned a few things as I plow through Italian learning materials and hope that other readers of this blog can share their experiences and add to the knowledge base.

I've had some success watching TV shows and films in the target language.  In the U.S. Spanish is the best for this, because there are hundreds of dubbed shows to watch on youtube and even exclusively Spanish TV channels in places like here in Florida.  But I've found episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' and 'The Twilight Zone' and several other vintage American TV shows on youtube.  I've also discovered Bonanza episodes in French.  It's unnerving and kind of funny to hear Hoss Cartwright riding up and saying, 'Bonjour, mes amis.'  Westerns seem to sound more natural in Spanish: 'Buenos dias, mis amigos.'

Still, the problem with this method of practicing languages is that it is very passive.  Though it's pretty good for perfecting pronunciation and comprehending spoken language, you're not forced to think in the language or to form sentences that respond to what's being said.  On the other hand, you can talk back to the screen:  'Ça va, Hoss?'