Random thoughts for an achiral translation

Learn how to pronounce English

2009-10-14T15:22:00.002-06:00

This post is for some of my students. I wish I were as patient as this teacher! And that you were as determined as this student :p

Now repeat after me:

I.

WOULD.

like.

to buy.

a hamburguer.

GREAT!!! I knew you could do it!

Indonesian Anda

2008-12-22T16:57:00.005-06:00

Indonesian is a young language. And some time ago I was commenting about pronouns. The use of anda in Indonesian is very interesting. I found this and thought of posting it.

There are many words for 'you' in Indonesia. Anda is the one that most closely resembles the all-purpose English pronoun 'you'. But Anda is by no means the most commonly used word for ' you' although its popularity is definitely on the rise. It is important to remember that, unlike the English 'you', Anda still cannot be used indiscriminately to all and sundry. In addition to Anda, learners of Indonesian should set out to master the appropriate use of, at the very least, Bapak, Ibu Saudara, Adik, Abang, kamu dan kalian. There is some confusion over the spelling of Anda. It would seem that for some people Anda is analogous to Bapak, Ibu, Saudara, etc and should be written with an initial capital letter. Others see it as analogous to kamu and kalian and therefore most appropriately spelled with a small initial letter. The official dictionary of standard Indonesian, the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia prepared by the Government's Language Centre (Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa), spells Anda with a capital A. but it is also very common to see anda written wholly in lower case.

Anda is a fairly recent invention. Reputedly it was coined in the 1950s by Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (1908 - 1994), the greatest of the pioneer developers of Indonesia's national language. A critic of hat he regarded as 'feudal' features of Indonesia's languages, Takdir sought to create an egalitarian second-person pronoun that could be used to address anyone, irrespective of rank and age, and that would eventually displace the hierarchy of pronouns like Tuan, Nyonya, Bapak, Ibu, Saudara, Adik, Abang, engkau, kamu, kaliat, etc. He detached the suffix -anda that was traditionally used to add a dimension of respect to common kinship terms (producing titles like Ayahanda, Ibunda, Ananda, Kakanda, Adinda, and others). Standing on its own, Anda was at first used almost exclusively as a catch-all second-person pronoun in advertisements and formal public announcements. Since the 1980s Anda has come to be used more and more in conversation, though it still sounds somewhat stiff. Despite its increasing use, it has so far failed to achieve "monopoly" status as a second-person pronoun. In effect, it constitutes just one more pronoun option, beside all the others, that has to be considered by speakers when choosing which second-person pronoun is the most appropriate in a particular situation.

It was taken from a Yahoo Groups and it said the source is the Indonesian learner's dictionary.

Le français langue officielle européenne

2008-10-10T23:29:00.001-06:00

Yes, there is also a French version of the "ortography reform" story. Here it is:

Bruxelles, 8 déc. (AFP) - La Commission Européenne a finalement tranché,après la monnaie unique, l'Union Européenne va se doter d'une langue unique, à savoir... le français.Trois langues étaient en compétition : le français (parlé dans le plus grand nombre de pays de l'Union), l'allemand (parlé par le plus grand nombre d'habitants de l'Union) et l'anglais (langue internationale par
excellence).
L'anglais a vite été éliminé, pour deux raisons : l'anglais aurait été le cheval de Troie économique des Etats-Unis et les Britanniques ont vu leur influence limitée au profit du couple franco-allemand à cause de leur réticence légendaire à s'impliquer dans la construction européenne. Le choix a fait l'objet d'un compromis, les Allemands ayant obtenu que l'orthographe du français, particulièrement délicate à maîtriser soit réformée, dans le cadre d'un plan de cinq ans, afin d'aboutir à l'eurofrançais.

La première année, les sons actuellement distribués entre 's', 'z', 'c', 'k' et 'q' seront répartis entre 'z' et 'k', ze ki permettra de zupprimer beaukoup de la konfuzion aktuelle.
La deuzième année, on remplazera le 'ph' par 'f', ze ki aura pour effet de rakourzir un mot komme 'fotograf' de kelke vingt pour zent.
La troizième année, des modifikazions plus draztikes seront pozzibles, notamment ne plus redoubler les lettres ki l'étaient; touz ont auzi admis le prinzip de la zuprezion des 'e' muets, zourz éternel de konfuzion, en efet, tou kom d'autr letr muet.
La katrièm ané, les gens zeront devenu rézeptif à dé changements majeurs, tel ke remplazé 'g', zoi par 'ch', - avek le 'j' - zoi par 'k', zelon les ka, ze ki zimplifira davantach l'ékritur de touz.
Duran la zinkièm ané, le 'b' zera remplazé par le 'p' et le 'v' zera lui auzi apandoné - au profi du 'f', éfidamen - on kagnera ainzi pluzieur touch zur no klafié.Un foi ze plan de zink an achefé, l'ortograf zera defenu lochik, et lé chen pouron ze komprendr et komuniké.
LE REF DE L'UNITE KULTUREL DE L'EUROP ZERA DEFENU REALITE !

Any doubts about it? :p

Reformas ortográficas

2008-09-23T20:13:00.004-06:00

This is like the dream of some people I know. But let me say it now: I think they suck big time.
Anyway, this is another funny thing:

La Real Academia de la Lengua dará a conocer próximamente la reforma modelo 2000 de la ortografía española que tiene como objetivo unificar el español como lengua universal de los hispanoparlantes. Me han mandado, con carácter exclusivo, un documento reservado que revela cómo se llevará a cabo dicha reforma. Será, pues, una enmienda paulatina, que entrará en vigor poco a poco, para evitar confusiones.

La reforma hará mucho más simple el castellano de todos los días, pondrá fin a los problemas de ortografía que tienden trampas a futbolistas, abogados y arquitectos de otros países, especialmente los iberoamericanos, y hará que nos entendamos de manera universal quienes hablamos esta noble lengua.

De acuerdo con el expediente secreto, la reforma se introducirá en las siguientes etapas anuales:

Supresión de las diferencias entre "c", "q" y "k". Komo despegue del plan, todo sonido parecido al de la k (este fonema tiene su definición téknika lingüístika, pero konfundiría mucho si la mencionamos akí) será asumido por esta letra. En adelante, pues, se eskribirá kasa, keso, Kijote.

También se simplifikará el sonido de la "c" y la "z" para igualarnos a nuestros hermanos hispanoamericanos que convierten todas estas letras en un úniko fonema "s". Kon lo kual sobrarán la c y la z: "el sapato de Sesilia es asul".

Por otro lado, desapareserá la doble c y será reemplasada por x: "Tuve un axidente en la Avenida Oxidental". Grasias a esta modifikasión los españoles no tendrán ventajas ortográfikas frente a otros pueblos hispanoparlantes por su estraña pronunsiasión de siertas letras.

Así mismo, se funde la "b" kon la "v", ya ke no existe en español diferensia alguna entre el sonido de la b larga y la v chikita. Por lo kual, a partir del segundo año, desapareserá la v y beremos kómo bastará kon la b para ke bibamos felises y kontentos.

Pasa lo mismo kon la elle y la ye. Todo se eskribirá con y: "Yébeme de paseo a Sebiya, señor Biyar". Esta integrasión probokará agradesimiento general de kienes hablan kasteyano, desde Balensia hasta Bolibia. Toda b será de baka, toda b será de burro.

La hache, kuya presensia es fantasma en nuestra lengua, kedará suprimida por kompleto: así, ablaremos de abichuelas o alkool.

A partir del tercer año de esta implantación, y para mayor konsistensia, todo sonido de erre se eskribirá con doble "r": "Rroberto me rregaló una rradio".

No tendremos ke pensar kómo se eskribe sanaoria, y se akabarán esas complikadas y umiyantes distinsiones entre "echo" y "hecho". Ya no abrá ke desperdisiar más oras de estudio en semejante kuestión ke nos tenía artos.

Para ebitar otros problemas ortográfikos se fusionan la "g" y la "j", para que así jitano se eskriba komo jirafa y geranio komo jefe. Aora todo ba con jota: "El jeneral jestionó la jerensia". No ay duda de ke esta sensiya modifikasión ará que ablemos y eskribamos todos con más rregularidad y más rrápido rritmo.

Orrible kalamidad del kasteyano, en jeneral, son las tildes o asentos. Esta sancadiya kotidiana jenerara una axion desisiba en la rreforma; aremos komo el ingles, ke a triunfado unibersalmente sin tildes. Kedaran eyas kanseladas desde el kuarto año, y abran de ser el sentido komun y la intelijensia kayejera los ke digan a ke se rrefiere kada bocablo.
Berbigrasia: "Komo komo komo komo!"

Las konsonantes "st", "ps" o "pt" juntas kedaran komo simples t o s, kon el fin de aprosimarnos lo masimo posible a la pronunsiasion iberoamerikana. Kon el kambio anterior diremos ke etas propuetas osionales etan detinadas a mejorar ete etado konfuso de la lengua.

Tambien seran proibidas siertas konsonantes finales ke inkomodan y poko ayudan al siudadano. Asi, se dira: "Ke ora es en tu relo?", "As un ueko en la pare" y "La mita de los aorros son de Aguti". Entre eyas, se suprimiran las eses de los plurales, de manera que diremos "la mujere" o "lo ombre".

Despues yegara la eliminasion de la "d" del partisipio pasao y kanselasion de lo artikulo. El uso a impueto ke no se diga ya "bailado" sino "bailao", "erbido" sino "erbio" y "benido" sino "benio". Kabibajo asetaremo eta kotumbre bulgar, ya ke el pueblo yano manda, al fin y al kabo. Dede el kinto año kedaran suprimia esa de interbokalika ke la jente no pronunsia. Adema, y konsiderando ke el latin no tenia artikulo y nosotro no debemo imbentar kosa ke nuetro padre latin rrechasaba, kateyano karesera de artikulo. Sera poko enrredao en prinsipio, y
ablaremo komo fubolita yugolabo, pero depue todo etranjero beran ke tarea de aprender nuebo idioma rresultan ma fasile. Profesore terminaran benerando akademiko ke an desidio aser rreformas klabes para ke sere umano ke bibimo en nasione ispanoablante gosemo berdaderamente del idioma de Serbante y Kebedo.

Eso si: nunka asetaremo ke potensia etranjera token kabeyo de letra eñe.

Eñe rrepresenta balore ma elebado de tradision ispanika y primero kaeremo mueto ante ke asetar bejasione a simbolo ke a sio korason bibifikante de istoria kastisa epañola unibersa.

Gosh! I'd have to relearn Spanish if this were true!! :p

Semantic priming

2008-09-19T15:46:00.012-06:00

I was reading about the Keki language (which is material for a future post) and I stummbled upon the term semantic priming. The clearest explanation I've been able to find so far is this one, in a reseach by Hutchison and Balota:

Human languages are thoroughly contextual in nature. This fact can be seen plainly by considering how the meaning of a sound, word, sentence, or passage can change drastically when taken out of context, or placed in a different context. The contextual nature of language has proven to be a major challenge for developing computer algorithms that can understand or produce language, yet humans process language in context so easily that we are usually not even aware of it. Linguistic and cognitive scientists have been studying how humans process context for decades, often with respect to individual words in the context of other words. For instance, it is well established that a person's ability to recognize a word like "dog" is enhanced when it appears shortly after a word like "cat" that is related in meaning. Results like these are referred to as "semantic priming",

Priming refers to activating parts of particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task. The remembered item is remembered best in the form in which it was originally encountered (auditory, visual, etc.).

The hypotesis of lexical priming (found in Prof. Michael Hoey's book Lexical priming, Routledge, 2005) are:

Every word is primed to occur with particular other words; these are its collocates.

Every word is primed to occur with particular semantic sets; these are its semantic associations.

Every word is primed to occur in association with particular pragmatic functions; these are its pragmatic associations.

Every word is primed to occur in (or avoid) certain grammatical positions, and to occur in (or avoid) certain grammatical functions; these are its colligations.

Co-hyponyms and synonyms differ with respect to their collocations, semantic associations and colligations.

When a word is polysemous, the collocations, semantic associations and colligations of one sense of the word differ from those of its other senses.

Every word is primed for use in one or more grammatical roles; these are its grammatical categories.

Every word is primed to participate in, or avoid, particular types of cohesive relation in a discourse; these are its textual collocations.

Every word is primed to occur in particular semantic relations in the discourse; these are its textual semantic associations.

Every word is primed to occur in, or avoid, certain positions within the discourse; these are its textual colligations.

Ongoing action reseach project

2008-09-18T11:56:00.010-06:00

First of all, thanks for volunteering. I am doing this because I need some data about student's vocabulary for my action research project (check here if you want to know more about action research).
For those who will dare to be part of this project, the first step is to answer this vocabulary test (which is version A).
Onece you finish each level, press the "check" button and your result will appear on the left-hand side of the screen. Please write down your results for each level and send it to my e-mail address (which I should have given you after the class).
After you finish a level (and see your result), you can go to the next level by pressing the button "Next level".
If you have any doubts about this, please let me know. You can leave a comment in this post or send it directly to my inbox.

Again, all information I gather from this is absolutely confidential and will not have any impact on your grades.

Thanks for helping!

-Javier

Cambridge exams in English language

2008-09-16T14:03:00.005-06:00

More than 2 million people in 130 countries take one of the many Cambridge exams. The most popular ones are the First Certificate in English (FCE) and the Certificate of Proficency in English (CAE).
I've seen peopleo who are not sure about what exam would be right for them. For some days, Cambridge ESOL has been piloting an online test at their website so candidates can know which exam is best for them. It consists of only 20 multiple-choice questions. You can try it out here.
Next year I might be taking one of those (if I have the money, that is).

It'd be great if you'd like to share here what test you were reccommended to sit.

Just because

2008-09-06T23:30:00.001-06:00

Yes, that's exactly why. And because it had to be today. Javier, enjoy.

¿Culturas nacionales?

2008-09-02T21:56:00.005-06:00

I'd like to quote something I read today. I found it very interesting.

Sabemos que todos los estados nacionales fueron creaciones artificiales en algún momento de la historia y que, en la mayoría de los casos, las nuevas fronteras agruparon a pueblos diferentes, los cuales muchas veces ni siquiera compartían un idioma común (un buen ejemplo al respecto es México). Para llegar a definirse como integrantes de una sola nación, los ciudadanos tuvieron que sufrir un largo proceso de ideologización política y de aprendizaje de la lengua dominante, procesos que hasta la fecha en muchos estados nacionales no han quedado totalmente concluidos. ¿Por qué entonces suponer una cultura nacional, si estas naciones fueron integradas por grupos distintos, cada uno con su propia historia cultural?

[Taken from Lenguas en contexto, from 2005]

Something I hadn't thought of!
I'll keep on reading this article (yeah, yeah. It is homework. I have to anyways!)

Tips for writing

2008-09-01T18:21:00.001-06:00

The text in previous post made me remember this set of tips. I read it at PB, posted by Marta.

1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid awkward, affected, annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should never generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
32. Do not put statements in the negative form.
33. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
34. A writer must not shift your point of view.
35. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
36. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
37. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
38. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
39. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
40. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
41. Always pick on the correct idiom.
42. The adverb always follows the verb.
43. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
44. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
45. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
46. Write all adverbial forms correct.
47. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
48. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.
49. Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
50. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"

English-Asylum for the verbally insane

2008-08-30T18:23:00.004-06:00

Today I was at a Pearson workshop and they gave us this text. I had read bits of it here and there on the internet, so now it is my tipe to post it as well.

English-Asylum for the verbally insane

We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes.
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plurall of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never bee hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren.
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it. English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineaplle.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicsand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is a pig.
And why is that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If teacher taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do peoplerecite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck and send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in the driveway and drive in the parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which
your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

Engels leren

2008-08-28T00:37:00.000-06:00

This is a Dutch TV commercial:

Yeah. It is kind of important to understand a little what the music you like is about!

Indefinite plural form of Swedish nouns

2008-08-27T23:27:00.004-06:00

Swedish, Norwegian and Danish behave pretty much the same when it comes to grammar. The form of their nouns (definite and indenite in singular and plural) is something that can be difficult for learners.

There are five main ways of forming the plural of nouns in Swedish:

en blomma (a flower) → två blummor. The majority of nouns in this declension are en-nouns ending in -a. They drop the -a before the plural ending. A few nouns of this group do not end in -a (en rose, en våg, en åder).

en arm (an arm) → två armar. All nouns belonging to this declension are en-nouns (with the exception of ett finger → två fingrar). All en-nouns ending in -dom and -ing belong to this group.

en kostym (a suit) → två kostymer. Both en-nouns and ett-nouns are found in this declension. note that many nouns in this group modify their stem-vowel in the plural. Latin words ending in -eum and -ium belong to this group.

ett äpple (an apple) → två äpplen. The majority of nouns in this declension are ett-nouns ending in a vowel, usually -e.

ett glas (a glass) → två glas. They have no ending. To shis declension belong ett-nouns ending in a consonant and en-nouns ending in -are, -ande and -ende. note that some common nouns also modify their stem-vowel (en bro(de)r → två bröder, en man → två män).

According to the book Basic Swedish word list, by Martin Samuel Allwood, 12 % of the 1000 most used Swedish words belong to the first declension; 37 %, to the second; 21 %, to the third; 4 %, to the fourth; and 26 %, to the fifth.

All this would be pretty cool if I had already told the whole story.

Nouns ending in unstressed -e, -el, -en and -er drop the -e before the plural endings -or, -ar and -er:

en toffel (a slipper) → två tofflor, en poijke (a boy) → två pijkar, en dotter → två döttar (note here also the change in the stem-vowel), en regel (a rule) → två regler.

Some nouns form their plural with the ending -r only: en händelse (an event) → två händelser, en ko (a cow) → två kor.

As you can see, some nouns change the stem-vowel and some other, beside that change, also double the final consonant.

Yes, it is like Norwegian... but this is not helping!

More Danish language

2008-08-26T05:58:00.003-06:00

Several months ago I posted a video from the Norwegian series Uti Vår Hage about Danish language.
There is a second part to it! These guys are really funny. Here it is:

Schemata

2008-08-25T20:46:00.005-06:00

Every time we face a situation in language learning, we relay on our schemata and not only on the linguistic information we are facing. These schemata are unconscious mental structures that represent an individual's generic knowledge about the world. It is through schemata that old knowledge influences new information.
Relationships among different levels of abstraction are conceived to be like webs (rather than hierarchical); thus each one is interconnected with many others (as in the image above).
In 1977, Richard C. Anderson brought this concept into the education field. But the term was not entirely new as Piaget had already used it.
According to Anderson, some characteristics of schemata are:

Schemata are always organized meaningfully, can be added to, and, as an individual gains experience, develop to include more variables and more specificity.
Each schema is embedded in other schemata and itself contains subschema.
Schemata change moment by moment as information is received.
They may also be reorganized when incoming data reveals a need to restructure the concept.
The mental representations used during perception and comprehension, and which evolve as a result of these processes, combine to form a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

In order to better understand how schema theory fits into the reading of a foreign language, you can read this article.

Jabberwocky

2008-04-21T23:08:00.004-06:00

Is there any nonsense that is not useless? And even nonsense that can be interesting?
You might like to take a look (again) to something Lewis Carroll wrote:

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood
, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
' He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

If you need help with some of those words, you might like to take a look here or here.

Translation of Facebook

2008-03-04T23:43:00.001-06:00

Am I a pesimist or what? This news report (and probably most people who is informed about this) is saying that is it such a cool thing. But is it really?

How many social networks are theour out there? I have no idea. But they have grown as mushroons in rainy season. And I have no idea either of why they are so popular (I might be getting old...). Besides from the game Facebook is now featuring, I don't see much to do at those sites.

1500 volunteers translating the whole site into Spanish. Sounds great, huh? But as a native Spanish speaker, I am quite disappointed at the level of that translation.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to be part of that volunteering team. I wanted to know how that translation was being carried out.

There was a text (a sentence) to be translated. You did it as best as you could, just as others were doing. Then, volunteers voted on the accuracy of that translation. I guess the one with most vote was the one Facebook was going to keep.

So far, so good. But who are these volunteers? Are the native speakers? Are they advanced students?

I am very skeptic about democracy, and here it didn't work as well as expected. There is still need for some kind of moderation. People who think are good enough to do the translation is voting too. And from what I saw, they are majority.

Yes, it keeps me wonder how the German translation will be.

Of course, I was not into it deeply, so if anybody who actually participated in the Spanish translation or is participating in the German translation and sees things in a different way (or with what actually goes on and not from an outsider's perspective), it'd be nice to be corrected by you.

RAFTS technique

2008-03-02T16:20:00.007-06:00

RAFTS (and acronym standing for Role, Audience, Format, Topic, Strong verb) is a system to help students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing and the expected content.

Role of the writer: Who are you as a writer?

Audience: To whom are you writing?

Format: What form will the writing take?

Topic: What is the subject or the point of this piece?

Its purpose is to give students a fresh way to think about approaching their writing.

Voice onset time

2008-02-29T22:21:00.008-06:00

In this figure, the top line shows the closure (single line) and opening (double line) of the lips. Each of the three other lines shows when voicing begins relative to the opening of the lips (the dashed vertical line) for three different stops, [p^h], as in English pie; [p], as in Spanish pie; and [b], as in English buy and Spanish vaya.

For voiceless plosive consonants, vocal fold vibration is stopped for a period that is a little longer than the hold phase, so there is still no vocal fold vibration around the moment of release (when the articulators part and the plosion is heard) and posibly for a further brief time afterwards. This delay, measured from the start of the explosion to the point where vocal fold vibration begins, is called voice onset time (VOT). Though so short that it is best expressed in milliseconds, it is very important for the listener.

If the VOT is longer than 30 ms, a plosive doesn't just sound voiceless. The VOT can actually be heard as a brief [h]-like segment following the explosion and the plosive is said to be aspirated.

There can be a zero VOT (where the onset of the vocal fold vibration coincides with the plosive release), positive VOT (where there is a delay in the onset of the vocal fold vibration after the plosive release) and negative VOT (where the onset of the vocal fold vibration preceeds the plosive release).

Word of the day: salti

2008-02-29T22:05:00.002-06:00

(eo) salti: altiĝi en la aeron kaj for de la tero, fleksante kaj subite etendante la krurojn (se fiŝo, la voston), kaj refali preskaŭ sur la sama loko, plejofte por montri vivplenon, ĝojon aŭ simple por ekzerciĝi.
(no) hoppe: gjøre et hopp, sprette.
(en) jump: move forward by leaps and bounds.
(sp) saltar: salvar de un salto un espacio o distancia.

Electropalatography

2008-02-27T22:26:00.007-06:00

Electropalatography (EPG or palatometry) is a technique for recording the timing and location of tongue contact with the roof of the mouth (hard palate) during continuous speech. It requires the speaker to wear an artificial palate which is similar to an orthodontic brace and fits against the hard palate. This false palate has 62 silver elctrodes embedded in it, arrenged in groups to cover the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. The electrodes are sensitive to the contact by the speaker's tongue. The outputs of the electrodes are continuously monitored by computer while the speaker is talking. The resulting analysis is displayed in a series of figures known as palatograms. an example of such a system is LinguaGraph. The conventional way of displaying the output is in a grid of cells. The alveolar area is at the top and the border with the soft palate area is at the bottom. If a cell is empty, then no tongue contact was recorded there.

EPG can also be used to help diagnose speech disorders like cleft palate, articulation disorders, hearing impairement and in adults with aquired speech disorders (for example, difficulty with speech following a stroke).

You can read a little of this technique's history here. You can read here the procedure followed to do a research with this technique.

Word of the day: ŝoko

2008-02-27T21:31:00.003-06:00

(eo) ŝoko: stato en kiu, iu ĉagrenas iun ajn, malplaĉante al li kaj kontraŭante lian komprenmanieron pri dececo kaj konveneco.
(no) sjokk: en svært stor (og ubehagelig) overraskelse.
(en) shock: the feeling of distress and disbelief that you have when something bad happens accidentally.
(sp) conmoción: movimiento o perturbación violenta del ánimo o del cuerpo.

Word of the day: Skandalo

2008-02-26T10:41:00.003-06:00

I should go back to the word of the day thingy. Again, I'll ba basing it on the word of the day sent by Lernu.

(eo) skandalo: kolektiva indigno, kaŭzata de la malbona ago kulpita de respektata publika persono.
(en) scandal: disgraceful gossip about the private lives of other people.
(no) skandale: noe som vekker stor forargelse og pinlig oppmerksomhet.
(sp) escándalo: acción o palabra que es causa de que alguien obre mal o piense mal de otra persona.

"Introducing phonetic science", by Ashby and Maidment

2008-02-26T08:19:00.006-06:00

I've started reading Introducing phonetic science, by Michael Ashby and Jonh Maidment. You can find the chapter summaries here.

Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin and the rest

2008-02-21T23:36:00.004-06:00

Ever wondered why some of us learned the capital of People's Republic of China is Peking? And what about Beijing? The city that is called 北京 in Chinese (meaning "Northern capital") has been writen for us as Běijīng, Peiching, Pei-ching, and Peking. Maybe because it is pronounced [peɪ˨˩ tɕɪŋ˥˥].

In order to have something to study, I needed to look up some of the words and phrases in Chinese. I find that using pinyin is easier than the ideograms.
But how is pinyin read? And what is pinyin?
Pinyin is a romanization of Mandarin. This is, Madarin language written with Latin alphabet. A logical step, if you consider that for Westerns it'd be way easier to learn that language (and to be used on communications). Yeah, right. This approach has some important drewbacks.
For example, the conventions of how to use pinyin may not coincide with the use of those Latin letters in Western languages. Letters j, q, x and zh indicate sounds that do not correspond to any English sound, but the reader might be mislead and pronounce them as English sounds.
And maybe this is why someone comes and proposes his own romanization way. The most common of all is Hanyu pinyin (汉语拼音), but the current official romanization in the Republic of China is the Tongyong pinyin (通用拼音). These two replaced the old Wade-Giles system (威妥玛拼音).

In 1859, the British Thomas Francis Wade developed a system to write Mandarin language with the Latin alphabet. In his Chinese-English dictionary of 1892, Herber Allen Giles gave a settled form for Wade's system.
This system was the main one for transcription in the English speaking world for a good deal of the 20th century. It was used for all publications relating China until 1979, but it is still in use in the Republic of China.

The Chinese Postal Map Romanization (郵政式拼音) came into use in late Qing dinasty and was officialy sanctioned by the Imperial Postal Joint-Session Confernce (帝國郵電聯席會議), which was held in Shanghai in the spring of 1906. It was retained after the fall of the Qing dinasty in 1912, and since it was in use in the official postal atlas f the Republic of China, it remained the most common way of rendering Chinese place names in the West for a large part of the 20th century. It was based on Wade-Giles.

A group of linguists that included Yuen Ren Chao (赵元任) and Lin Yutang (林语堂) developed the Gwoyeu Romatzyh system (國語羅馬字, meaning "National [language] Romanization) from 1925 to 1926.
In 1928, China adopted the GR system as the official one. The problem with this one is that it was too narrowly based on the eijing dialect and it was too complex.

Then Hanyu pinyin came, developed by Zhou Youguan. The first edition of Hanyu pinyin was approved and adopted at the Fifth Sesion of the First National People's Congress on February 11th, 1958 (Hey! 50th birthday!) . In 2001 the Chinese Government issued the National Common Language Law, providing a legal basis for applying pinyin.

Tongyong pinyin was introduced in Taiwan in 1998 by Yu Bor-chuan (余伯泉) and it was aproved by ROC's Ministry of Education in 2002 but its use is not mandatory.

A comparision chart of Hanyu pinyin and Tongyong pinyin can be found here.

But besides all I've already mentioned, there are still more.

There is a Chinese transcription system by the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) that was in use in the French speaking world until the middle of the last century. It was created by Séraphin Couvreur in 1902.

In 1928, with the intention that the large Chinese population living in the Eastern region of the U.S.S.R. could be literate, the Soviet Scientific Research Institute on China (in Moscow) constructed the Beifangxua Latinxua Sin Wenz system (北方話拉丁化新文字). In 1931 a coordinated effort between the Soviet sinologists B.M. Alekseev, A.A. Dragunov and A.G. Shrprintsin, and the Moscow-based Chinese scholars Qu Qiubai, Wu Yuzhang, Lin Boqu (林伯渠), Xiao San, Wang Xiangbao, and Xu Teli established the Latinxua Sin Wenz system.

The Yale romanization was created during World War II for use by United States military personnel to communicate with their Chinese allies on battlefield.

Legge romanization is system used by the prolific 19th century Scottish sinologist James Legge.

The Simplyfied Wade is a modification of the Wade-Giles devised by the Swedish linguist Olov Bertil Anderson in 1970.

The Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (國語注音符號第二式, abbreviated MPS II) was used in Taiwan until it was abandonded in 2002. It was released on May 10th, 1984 by the Ministry of Education and after two years of public feedback, it was established on January 28th, 1986. It is called II to distinguish it from the Zhuyin fuhao (注音符號, officially called officially called "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I", 國語注音符號第一式).

You can take a look at a brief comparision of some of these systems here.