Make your own vocabulary test

I remember that when I studied Latin and had to memorize tons of vocabulary, I had my mother test my vocabulary before every test. Her job was very limited. She just had to say the word in Dutch and I would translate it into Latin.
Recently, I doscovered that I could have saved her a lot of time! On the internet, I found the website www.vokabel.com. It is a grammar and vocabulary site, but it also offers its users the possibility to create their own test. All you have to do is insert a list of words and the according translation. And after just one mouseclick, the website test you just as your mother would. The next time I have to study vocabulary, maybe when I start studying Spanish, I think I could really use that website!

Random words

I was opening my Longman Dictionary earlier today to look up the word "mallet" which I encountered in Trivial Pursuit. Suddenly I realized that each time I open the program, it displays a random word with its definition and a clarifying picture!
So actually, everytime I look up a word, I could learn two. I will try to remember all of these random words at well! The word that popped up today is "strainer". Not the kind of word that I would discover while playing Trivial Pursuit, but still nice to know!

Much/Many

One grammatical feature of English that I really have a problem with is the difference in use between much and many. I even made the mistake of writing "much compromises" in an essay.
I know the rule: use much for uncountable nouns, many for countable. But still, sometimes much just seems more right with a countable noun. I think that it has something to do with the colloquial speech of many Americans. In films and television series, I'm sure that I have heard it wrong a few times. And even if that makes a character more believable for the audience, it makes it difficult for the language learner!

Thanks a million!

In my previous post, I talked about how I'm taking over Irish expressions. Today, it happened to me again. I wanted to photocopy one page in the library, but had forgotten my copy card. I asked a girl if I could pay her to photocopy the page for me. She did it and didn't even desire any money for it!
It struck me as the ideal opportunity to exclaim something I had heard many Irish say already: "Thanks a million!" I still thought it sounded somewhat unusual, but the girl clearly perceived nothing strange. I think I might use that expression more often, however I wonder if an American or even a British person would understand it. I should try it out one day.

Half Four

The Irish expression of time is very confusing for people who speak Dutch. Already in my first days here, I noticed that when Irish say "half 4" they mean 4.30. In Dutch "half vier", the literal translation, means 3.30!
However, after 3 months in Ireland, I have started to use the expression in the same way and the Erasmus people in my house completely understand me. I guess I'm really taking over the culture in all its ways!

New word!

A new word which I have very consciensly learned is the verb "to indent". I heard it first in the tutorial Critical Practice and I wouldn't have known what it meant, if it weren't for the context. After hearing the word, I stored it in my memory. But my knowledge of it was only passive, because when I was writing an essay I tried to think of the term but I couldn't recall it.
Luckily, a few days later it was mentioned again in the lecture of Critical Practice. Because I knew there was a chance I'd forget it again, I really focussed on it this time. And as you can see, I have now gained active knowledge of the verb "to indent"!

Word Challenge

In my last post, I stated that gaming can have positive effects on one's vocabulary. A specific type of games who will definitely help a language learner, are word games. A crossword puzzle can be seen as a word game, but nowadays, many more animated games are at our disposal.

An example one one of those games is Word Challenge. This game can be added as an application on the popular networking site Facebook and is all about vocabulary. The player gets a set of 7 letters and is challenged to make as many words as possible with them as fast as possible. Words which you would have never expected to be English pop up and find the way to one's memory. After all, a player will need them again when the same set of letters appears ever again.

I must admit though, this kind of memory game is not the best way to build up a vocabulary. Sure, a huge amount of words passes by, but you cannot see them in their context and often don't even discover their meaning at all. So perhaps a good old fashioned crossword puzzle with only 15 words, accompanied by their explanation might do more for us.

Truce!

I was having dinner last night when my housemate Arthur entered the kitchen and called to his friend Holger: "I call truce!" Now, Arthur is from France and studies computer sciences, so his English vocabulary is not that extended. I wondered how he had picked up the word "truce".
But when I entered the living room, I quickly understood. The boys were playing a war game on their computer and were taking a break. Many might say that gaming is not good for young people, but it can add something to our vocabulary!

Reading / Writing

How does one learn English or any other language the best? By reading or by writing? I think both methods have there language learning qualities and disadvantages.

The great learning benefit of reading English, is that you do it a lot! The reading list of the literature department of the UL is quite impressive. I think, all in all, I will have read 13 books, 4 short stories and a whole collection of poems at the end of the semester. Moreover, everyday I spend hours on English websites, reading away! While reading, one gets really familiarized with how others use language. Especially expressions get internalized after a while. Soon, a language learner will feel confident enough to use these collocations themselves.
The disadvantage of learning by reading is that you do not use language yourself. When a word is unfamiliar, I don't feel the urge to look it up. Mostly, I can just read on without missing the zest of the story.

This is different for writing. A writer has to use vocabulary and think of synonyms to make a text more interesting. By doing this, new terms stick much more easily. Of course, the input of language is rather limited while writing. You use the collocations and grammatical structures you know and only sometimes need a synonym. Writing is also not something you do so quickly as reading. Sure, I have to write 10 essays this semester, but all together they do not even add up to "Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters, a 500 page book.

It is quite obvious that, to learn a language, one should combine the development of reading and writing skills to reach the best result.

Not English 6

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.

Let's cast a look out into the future. I have not learned Spanish yet, but I plan to take up evening courses next semester. Only a year ago, Italian actually interested me more and I wanted to go on Erasmus in Pavia, Italy. Unfortunately, as a language student English-Dutch, I had to choose a country with a Germanic language. The Italian dream was popped there.

There are several reasons why Spanish has interested me more and more these last months. I suppose my holiday in Spain last year, definitely contributed to my fascination. In Madrid, I got to experience such a warm culture and society, that I want to explore more. I went there with two girlfriends, one of who knew a girl from Madrid and studies Spanish at University. When she was talking to the Spanish girl, I tried to understand their conversation. And actually, I succeeded quite well! With French and some Latin in the back of my mind, I could easily draw parallels between the vocabularies. At the end of my holiday, I think I must have been able to ask a Spanish person for the time or directions.

Moreover, recently, I have discovered Spanish cinema. Films like Lucia y el Sexo and Hable con Ella do not only display a beautiful country but also a beautiful language. Watching these films, I try to interpret the words before looking at the subtitles. I am very happy that in Belgium, films never get dubbed!

Furthermore, I think Spanish is favourable to Italian because it is truly a word language. It is even more widely spoken than English! In my life, I would definitely like to visit Latin America once and the knowledge of Spanish would definitely be convenient then.

I hope Spanish will end up in the list of languages I have successfully learned. Only the future can tell!

Not English 5

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.

German is one of the national languages of Belgium, so obviously it is taught in secondary school. I didn't consider German to be a very appealing language, but I did look forward to learning something new. Unfortunately, the learning method of our teacher was not good, I think. We skipped the basic vocabulary, because German is similar to Dutch. So now I know that a "Radler" is a half-beer half-lemonade drink, but I do not know how to say "building" in German.

The language is also known and dreaded for its complicated inflected grammar. I remembered some aspects from my Latin classes, but the teacher left us in the dark about many grammatical aspects. For the exam, we could just use an inflection chart. After two years of German, my pronunciation had not advanced one bit and I wouldn't dare to use it in public.

It was really a pity and I even thought about taking German back up again in University, but eventually I chose English-Dutch and I haven't regretted it so far.

Not English 4

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.

Considering my failure in Latin, it might be surprising that I did take on Greek in the second year of secondary school. Actually, I only continued Latin after the first year in order to be able to learn the language of Socrates and Plato. I suppose this fascination stemmed from my love for Greek mythology and strange symbols.

I really enjoyed studying the Greek alphabet, but unfortunately, the vocabulary already proved to be just too hard. I did try to master it, harder than I had ever tried for Latin, but it didn't go anywhere. As in the Latin courses, the wordlists were extensive and we did not really use any exciting reading material in class. The only thing I excelled at was the Classic Culture part of the course, which did not really matter that much. The half year when I did Latin-Greek was definitely the most depressing period of my academic career.

However, I am glad that at least I tried. And strange enough, there is one aspect of the language I still remember completely and that's the alphabet, from alpha to omega.

Not English 3

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.

Not all my attempts to learn a language have been successful. When, at age 11, I left primary school and I had to make a decision what to do in secondary school, my teachers recommended Latin. No one really asked me. It was just what you were supposed to do if your grades were high enough.

At the beginning I was quite enthousiastic, but this changed when I had to start learning vocabulary. When I learned French, our vocabulary was expanded through different themed chapters with texts and a few new words. In our Latin textbook, however, we had to learn entire lists of words. And each word has three forms, so actually it was even more demanding. I tried to memorize them by linking the words to French words I knew or by inventing links, but we had a test at the beginning of each class and I just could not put that much effort in it.

When Latin grammar also proved to be a drag and I could not see the use in learning an extinct language, I quickly bailed. In the middle of my second year, I switched Latin-Greek for Maths and Economics. However, I still remember some of those very first Latin words and sometimes, because of this, I can retrace the origins of a Romanic words. So I suppose the study did help me in some aspect.

Not English 2

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.




When I was about 9 years old, I learned my first words of French. Each Wednesday, in the afternoon, I went to a language class for children. We didn't learn much more than words, nut it did give me an introduction. Also, by listening to French music, it made me appreciate te language. By going on a holiday there almost every year, I also started to love the country ants its culture.
In the fifth year of primary school, we started to learn French in school. In the first two years, we mainly built up our vocabulary. But from the secondary school on, grammar came into play. I don't like grammar in general and French grammar is particularly tricky. However, I had a feeling for it. This had probably to do with the language camps I followed in summer. From the second year of secondary school on, I went to France to speak nothing but French for two weeks. The language camps offered French classes, but also workshops and daytrips. I think my French really benefitted from them.
Since the end of secondary school, I haven't learned French any more and I feel that my knowledge of it is decaying. My accent is still quite natural and I could explain or ask something in French, but I couldn't write a decent text without mistakes. Perhaps I should watch some more French films in order to conserve the beautiful language.

Not English 1

English is not the only language I have been learning in my life. In a little "series", I will reflect upon how I studied other languages.


It all started with Dutch off course, my mother tongue. My mother says I started talking at a really early age. But then I guess all parents assume that their children are slightly exceptional. Writing happened more slightly. I remember how I first got acquainted with letters in kindergarten. All children got a sheet of paper with the letter-to-learn on it in great format. We were supposed to copy the letter with crayons all around it. Not really an effective way to learn a language, but the letters did fascinate me. When I was at my grandparents' house, I used to construct series of letters on a sheet of paper. Then, I went over to them and asked them weather I had created a word. Mostly, I didn't.
In primary school, we finally got to the words. We used a book with two children (Tom and Leen) who conducted very easy conversations. Already in the first year, we were able to write a New Year's letter. In primary school, I was a fanatic reader. I could enjoy myself with a book for hours. I always read books before I went to sleep to and when my parents came to check, I quickly hid the book under my pillow and put out the lights.
I think all this reading contributed to the development of a smooth writing style. In secondary school, my teachers always complimented my essays. Sadly, I had discovered the internet by then and the books stayed on the shelf more and more. The upside was that by browsing English sites, I learned a great deal about that language..

So at the end of secondary school, it was not really difficult to pick a direction to go. I chose Literature and Linguistics within English and Dutch. I am very glad that I am rediscovering books now. I am still trying to improve my writing style and have recently joined the redaction of my school magazine. My native language will always be a part of me and I hope that I will be able to use it in my profession.

Grrrrammar

My academic career has so far been quite smooth. I didn't fail any class in my first year, which is unusual in my home University. My second year was not bad either, but I did fail a course. And I failed again in the second exam period. It was no surprise to me that this haunting course is Dutch grammar.

I have never liked grammar and actually, I don't know anyone who is fond of it. Especially in your native language, you feel how you can form a correct sentence. I understand that as linguists-to-be, we should understand grammatical rules. But I don't think it is useful to disect the most intricate sentences (which you would never actually encounter), just for the hell of it. In the end, the grammar exam comes down to memorizing theory. I would prefer to have a more practical exam, so that I can show that I master grammar, even if I am not always able to explain the framework of a sentence.

Facebook ahoy!

As many of my peers, I am active on the social networking site Facebook. My interface has always been set on British English to learn some vocabulary. But after a while, the same old, plain English expressions gets a bit boring. So I decided to look into the interface possibilities and that's where I made my discovery.

You can set the language of the Facebook interface to... Pirate English! This might sound a bit vague at first, but after a few clicks I understood what it was all about. Instead of a home page, I now own a home port. I don't have Facebook friends, but mateys. And I don't write on a wall, I scrawl on a plank. It took me a while to get used to the new terminology and I had to research a few words (like "scour" and "wench"). The pirate English version of Facebook has already taught me a great deal of funny vocabulary and alternative grammar. I don't think I will change it quickly.

Translation: a piece of cake...

Today, my roommate Hermien celebrates her birthday. Me and one of the neighbours, a Czech girl called Martina, baked a chocolate cake for her yesterday. We were wondering if the cake mix we'd prepared would expand a lot during its time in the oven. I checked the ingredients for yeast and encountered a word I didn't know: starch.

Mostly, when a word is unfamiliar to me, I run it through my explanatory Longman dictionary program. But this time, the explanation did not really help me.

starch - a white odorless tasteless granular or powdery complex carbohydrate (C6H10O5)x that is the chief storage form of carbohydrate in plants, is an important foodstuff, and is used also in adhesives and sizes, in laundering, and in pharmacy and medicine

I do not spend a lot of time in the kitchen and definitely not in the chemistry lab, so I still could not figure out the Dutch equivalent for the term. There was only one thing I could do: counsel an online translating dictionary. I thought it would be easy to find what I was looking for, but I was wrong. Even the most visited websites seem to lack a lot of vocabulary. Freedict.com, ectaco.co.uk and majstro.com are just a few of the websites that failed the starch test. I also remarked that a lot of translation websites are not very user-friendly.

Eventually lookwayup.com offered me the solution for my quest. Hopefully, websites can expand their territory, so that language learning will not demand this much effort in the future. If you'd be interested. The Dutch word for starch is "zetmeel".

Swimming Togs

To learn by trial and error: the language learner does it as well.
A few days ago, I was talking to an Irish girl while we were waiting for courts to open up during badminton training. I told her that I'd like to go swimming in the University pool, but that I didn't have my bathing suit with me. She informed me that in Ireland, no one would ever say "bathing suit". The most common term used is "swimming togs" and "swimsuit" is acceptable too. I'm glad she corrected me, because otherwise I might have never learned this.

Cinematic English

Watching films may be the most effective way to learn another language. Especially for someone learning English, the range of material is extremely varied. Cinema can help the language learning in several aspects.

The viewer picks up a busload op vocabulary. The good thing about cinema, is that you get images. This way, you gets an illustration when he doesn't understand what a word means. Personally, I don't think that an advanced language learner should watch English films with subtitles in their own language. You read the sentences in your own language before they are pronounced in English and subsequently, you don't get motivated to think any more. The opportunity to learn passes you by. I prefer to watch English films without subtitles, but sometimes it is hard to understand the actors and then I opt for English subtitles. The great advantage in that, is that you also learn a lot about spelling.

Watching films must stay fun, but it is always nice to learn something at the same time.

The Hard Shoulder

Last weekend, we went on a roadtrip to the Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher. On our way home, we discovered a mystery. A road sign displayed the words "End of Hard Shoulder". None of us, an Erasmus company, had any idea what to make of it. Some thought it had something to do with a way of steering, others were confident that you could stop looking over your shoulder from that point on. I intended to look it up, but forgot soon afterwards.

But during the week, I watched some episodes of Top Gear and from the context, I could finally understand. Watching British series is definitely a way to learn vocabulary and cultural traits. However, foreign drivers who don't know what "Hard Shoulder" means, could land up in trouble. I think these road signs could benefit from an illustration.

The Aughananure enigma

So we went on a roadtrip this weekend! We went to the cliffs of Moher, Galway, Connemara and... that Castle with the really strange name.

Placenames in Ireland, for Erasmus students, they're a leap in the dark every time again. How can we ever learn how to pronounce "Aughananure", "Knockaunranny" and "Shannapheasteen"?
On my computer, I have the Longman dictionary CD-rom and when I look up a word, a voice pronounces the word immediately. I can even choose between the British and American pronunciation. A system like that for the Irish placenames would be very welcome. Or maybe, they should all be abbreviated by a syllable or two.
Just joking!

Does Athena herald a good mark?

So it has begun. The workload.
Today I have started my first Limerick essay. The first in a long series to come. The educational system in Ireland is completely different from that in Belgium, so I'm slightly worried. In my home country, only the language proficiency courses are evaluated through essays. And last year, I only had one English proficiency course. Thus my experience in writing English texts is very limited.
But today in the library, I swiftly laid out my structure and researched some information on the web. Soon, the writing process could begin. The great thing about writing on my computer is that all necessary tools are just a mouse click away! The wondrous system that helps me is called "Athena". This is a site, exclusively for students of Ghent University. It allows you to access all kinds of programs that would cost you a fortune to collect otherwise.
The section I find particularly interesting is the Dictionary section. It contains a vast amount of translating and explaining dictionaries in all imaginable languages. Furthermore, I can easily find synonyms to vary my vocabulary and there is even a program that makes it easier to insert endnotes. I owe it to Athena that I can use fancy words such as "to herald" and "perpetrator" in my essays. Writing essays and looking up synonyms, I am sure it will enhance my vocabulary a great deal!

Ze hebben niets dat jouw hart ooit zal vangen*

Your full name on Google. A curse that could haunt you forever. I know what I'm talking about.

When anyone looks up "Aline Lapeire" on the popular search engine, they find a lot of sites that actually concern me. There are not many Aline Lapeire's in this world, or so it seems. People are redirected to my Facebook, a review about a cellphone I once wrote, a Wikipedia page of an author with whom I wrote a book and much more. But the internet can also reveal more embarrassing sites about your person. In my case: dozens of pages with translated song texts.

My site of shame is nedtlyrics.nl, a Dutch site on which you can post translated lyrics. I discovered this site when I was 15 years old and thought it was great! It was very enjoyable to look up lyrics, translate them from English to Dutch and put them on the internet for anyone to see. I admit, vain definitely played a part in it. Soon, I told my English teacher about the project and she was so enthusiastic that some of my translations were even published in the school magazine. I really expanded my vocabulary during that period, because I had to look up a lot of words in the dictionary. After a while, most lyrics I liked were translated already and I lost interest in the site.

That could have been the end of story, but alas. A few months ago, a new friend of mine opened an msn conversation with a very awkwardly built sentence. At first, I didn't realise what he was talking about. But after a few quotes, the penny dropped. Apparently some people like to google their friends to discover long forgotten secrets of the past.

So I went back to the lyrics I had translated and felt quite silly. My interpretation of the lyrics had been very literal and it looked as if I'd just run the text through Babelfish. If in "Downtown train" by Tom Waits, something captures one's heart, in my version the heart was actually imprisoned. When Shirley Manson of Garbage 'hangs upon every word', well, in my translation there in fact is the danger of falling.

Now, I know that some lyrics, most lyrics, are not meant to be translated. Some English expressions just can't be put into Dutch, neither the other way around. Translating songs was a good exercise, but in the future, I'd rather work with less poetic language and blush whenever someone brings up my past hobbies.

*They have nothing that will ever capture your heart (Tom Waits)

Marie, a friend abroad?

In the previous lecture and lab of Language & Technology, we have got to know about the website Friendsabroad.com. This site enables you to meet people from abroad, to learn and to teach languages.
At first, this seemed as a true enlighment. But I soon realised that Friendsabroad is not as innovative as I thought at first glance. Memories of my childhood sprung to mind. And in this childhood, we had a phenomenon, called "penpals". Through several media, one could reach penpals from all over the world. You could find advertisements in newspapers, join penpal societies or search a pal on the internet. So even when the internet took its first baby steps, it enabled long distance communication for everyone.
During a few months, I had a penpal myself. Her name was Marie and she lived in France. In those days we were limited to simple e-mail traffic, but still I believe I learned quite a lot. Marie was not interested in learning Dutch (Who is, right?), so we corresponded in French and she corrected my mistakes.
I wonder how it would have been if I had met Marie with Friendsabroad. I could have spoken to her, could have chatted with her, could have seen pictures of her. I think Friendsabroad does offer more ground for actual friendship than the classic penpal system. But then again, I wouldn't have met Marie, because she didn't want to learn Dutch...

Nails: to clip

It's funny how you sometimes master words of the vocabulary, while you have no idea where you picked them up.

Two days ago, I was talking to my roommates Léanne (from Switzerland) and Hermien (from Belgium). Léanne was explaining that she needed "a tool for her nails... something to...". I helped her: "A nail clipper, to clip your nails with.". She looked at me, increduously, and thought I had invented a word. But I insisted that the expression I used was a correct one. Then she asked me how I could possibly have picked up the word "nail clipper". And that's where I couldn't answer her anymore.

I started to think about how I learned that word. There's no question that I have ever learned it at school. In secondary school, we did not learn lists of vocabulary. We had to study words, extracted from articles in magazines. And I am fairly sure those texts never had anything to do with nail clippers. In university, I have learned lists of vocabulary. But these words covered areas such as the legal jargon. But is the legal vocabulary more important than the word "nail clipper"?

I concluded that I must have familiarized myself with this word while watching lighthearted series and films. Wouldn't it be better to introduce these materials in the educational system then?

Irish VS The Queen

Language Learning in Limerick. I have been thinking about it before I left for the green island. As an Erasmus student, I hoped to learn a great deal of English while residing in Ireland. But as a student of English literature, I must say I was a bit worried about the Irish accent.

For two years know, at my home University in Ghent, I have been studying "British English". Not the common man's English, rather the Queen's English. The socalled RP. I have always cherished this posh pronunciation, even though I know a waiter in London would frown if I addressed him in my somewhat haughty University speak.
The Irish accent... let's just say it is miles (or kilometres, if you please) away from what I know. I do want to learn the peculiar pronunciation and vocabulary. After all, an Erasmus student should bring some of the Irish culture back home. But still, I hope that after my stay here I will be able to switch from "Irish" to RP and back. If only for the sake of my pronunciation classes in Ghent!