May 4, 2016

On Languages: Czech

The Czech language or čeština is a language which may look and sound difficult: the words’ endings can change, vowels with acute signs have a longer pronunciation and words are written with diacritics. BUT, it is a funny sounding language due to its soft pronunciation, with many words you may already know or which may sound familiar: e.g. muzeum, galerie, sestra, tři, robot, Pilsner, Škoda, Bat’a. What’s more, the stress is always on the first syllable and there are only three tenses: the present, the past and the future!

Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka

The Czech language belongs to the group of Slavonic languages and if you speak Russian, Polish or Croatian, that certainly helps. But, this does not mean that non-Slavonic-language speakers cannot master the language.

In many textbooks, it is said that there are two Czech languages, the standard (spisovná čeština) and the colloquial (obecná čeština). This is a phenomenon that also exists in many other languages: the everyday language is different from the one spoken in formal situations. Yet  in Czech, the difference between the two is indeed visible. If you happen to live in the Czech Republic you can learn it fairly quickly (as you will hear how the natives speak on a regular basis) and if you are living abroad and want to learn Czech for business or to follow the news and read newspapers, then the formal language might be more useful. However, you can always learn both!
Written by Kinga Macalla

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April 27, 2016

Interview with Family without Borders

1. We are very impressed by your motivation to prove that a nomadic lifestyle and having children don’t have to be mutually exclusive. What advice would you give to new parents who don’t want to give up on travelling?
Just don’t 😉 Just think about anything you would like to do with your life – without the stereotype “if I have kids I can’t…”. Think whether you really can’t. Having kids is a very good excuse for not doing things: going out, developing, taking care of yourself. In our couple we believe that your kids will be happy – if you are happy. Not when you sacrifice yourself to do this or not to do that. With us, it just so happened that what makes us happy – is travelling. So we wanted to check whether our kids liked it too. We took into account that they might not and we had in mind that we would come back home if they were unhappy. But what does a little kid need? To sleep, to eat and to have happy parents!

Family without borders 4

2. You’re a journalist, your husband works as a photographer. Are your travels professionally motivated or are they just for leisure? 
It started with pure family holiday happiness. The time together. Both my pregnancies were risky, both girls were born much too early and with both of them we spent long weeks in the hospital, at the beginning of their lives. Travelling was this “finally, our time together”, non-stop together, kids with mama and papa 24/7. But I am a journalist and my husband loves taking pictures – I was taking notes and he was taking pictures. In the beginning, our blog was just for the grandparents, but then it started to grow, got more popular, we started to have opportunities to publish some of the stories in travel magazines – and this just motivated us to collect notes and pictures in a more professional way.

3. Does travelling with children enhance your travelling experience? Do your daughters offer a different perspective of the places you visit?
Absolutely! Travelling is slower (because based on smaller feet or with little breaks here and there) but also more detailed. They also ask a lot of questions – which motivates me to find the answers. And they help us to get in touch with people immediately. Starting from talking about their names, age and amount of teeth, very quickly we can move on to serious, and also journalistic, topics.

4. Have you had to adapt your travels since the girls were born (for example in terms of safety)? Are there any places you chose not to visit because of this?
Actually, we only started seriously travelling with them. Before they were born, each of us, travelled a bit, separately but it was not far and not for long. What is worse about travelling with kids than without them? What can’t you do (if you would like to)? We do not party too much in the evenings (because we can’t leave them in the car, tent or hostel room alone), like we could at home, having their grandmother or our friends to help with it. And we don’t visit war zones or casinos. All the other things we do: travelling through mountains, visiting refugee camps, hitch-hiking on the yacht. We do believe that for kids everything can be interesting (not only so-called “family friendly” places). Even if it’s only interesting for the parents, they can talk to them about it.

5. In terms of language, how do you find bringing up your girls in a trilingual environment? Do you use any particular strategies? What are the main challenges?
We are a Polish-German couple and it was clear to us from the beginning that I was going to speak Polish with my kids and Tom, German. I can’t imagine not speaking my own language to them, the one I love and feel the best in. It would be artificial somehow. And because Tom and I speak English to each other, they also have passive knowledge of English. That’s what we thought, but during our visit to New Zealand, they also started to speak English. For them, the concept of languages is normal and clear: people in the world speak different languages. It is also easy in Berlin: in our kindergarten most of the kids are bi- or trilingual.
From our perspective: it was very important to make a separation: one person-one language. Tom can also speak Polish for example, but if he sometimes spoke  Polish to the girls, they would code it as German. For them: everything that papa says to them – is one language.

Family without borders 3

6. In your opinion, how does a multicultural childhood affect a child’s development?
I don’t know how it is with other kids, because I was never a mother of non-multicultural kids 😉 I can also look around and compare: they don’t have this “the Other” attitude. They know (because of their languages and because of travelling) that people can be very different and have different behaviours. That very poor people, who speak some strange Mayan language in Guatemala, might give them the best chocolate ever or that black kids in Vanuatu might be better at hide-and-seek. And that it all doesn’t matter and in most cases you do not need a language or even deep knowledge of some culture – you can just stay open, smiling and respectful – and you will be happy everywhere. My girls know that a “stranger” is in the first place a potential friend, not a danger.

Brilliant, thank you, we will follow your travelling projects eagerly.

Interviewed by Bristol Language School  
Photo courtesy of The Family Without Borders
To follow The Family’s travels and life visit their website and FB page.
If you would like to purchase a copy of “Rodzina bez granic”, you can do so here (from mid-May 2016).

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April 20, 2016

Travelling Corner: 5 Favourite Secret Beaches in Cornwall

I return to Cornwall frequently, most often to walk the South-West Coast Path. Whilst walking, I have discovered quite a few beautiful secret beaches. Below is a list of my favourites (and yes, I swam in the sea there, too, brrrr!).

SWCPTrebarwith Strand Beach
Quite large, big waves, popular [directions: Trebarwith Strand car park]

TrebarwithLundy Bay
Small, picturesque, big waves, semi-popular [directions: 1 mile along the coast path from Port Quin or ½ mile from the National Trust car park on New Polzeath Road]

Lunday Bay 1Porth Joke (Polly Joke)
Small, but long, quiet, semi-popular [directions: 1 mile along the coast path from the car park in West Pentire]

Polly JokePorthcurno Beach
Quite large, beautiful, popular [directions: very steep walk down from Minack Theatre]

Porthcurno1Polurrian Beach
Small, idyllic with light yellow sand and light blue sea, semi-popular [directions: from Mullion Cove 20mins north on coast path]

PollurianThis is my list. Do you have any favourite beach(es) in Cornwall? Please share your favourites in the comments below.

Written by Kinga Macalla

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April 13, 2016

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism: Journals

If you find multilingualism a fascinating subject that you want to explore, you might want to be updated on current research, observations and discussions on the topic. Below you will find a list I have prepared of journals on multilingualism and bilingualism.

International Journal of Multilingualism – focuses on the psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and educational aspects of multilingual acquisition and multilingualism. It is published quarterly and subscription is available both online and printed (or payable per issue or per article).

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism Magazines and Journals 1

International Journal of Bilingualism – focuses on linguistic, psychological, neurological and social issues with a focus on the linguistic behaviour of bilingual and multilingual individuals. Is it published quarterly and subscription is available both online and printed (or payable per issue or per article).

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism Magazines and Journals 2

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism – promotes theoretical and applied research into bilingual education and spreads ideas about initiatives in bilingualism and bilingual education. It is published in 6 issues per year and subscription is available both online and printed (or payable per issue or per article).

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism Magazines 3

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development – covers topics on the sociology and social psychology of language, in language and cultural politics, policy, planning and practice. It is published in 7 issues per year and subscription is available both online and printed (or payable per issue or per article).

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism magazines 4

Bilingual Research Journal. The Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education – covers bilingualism. It is published quarterly and subscription is available both online and printed (or payable per issue or per article).

On Multilingualism and Bilingualism Magazines 5

Written by Kinga Macalla

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April 6, 2016

Book Review: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

Like any “Art of…” book, this publication focuses on how to, in this instance, travel better.

It takes the reader on a fascinating intellectual journey through ideas, thoughts, paintings, literature, cities, countries and much more.

I will say no more other than that it was a pleasure to read.

Book Review The art of travel

Written by Kinga Macalla

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March 30, 2016

Language Learning Techniques – How to Develop your Listening Comprehension

We hope you enjoyed our Language Learning experience posts over the past few weeks.

In the posts that follow, we are going to look at different techniques to develop your skills in your chosen language in four different areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

This posts gives you a few tips on how to develop your listening comprehension skills. Like any other skill, listening can be developed with practice. Good listening skills also help you improve your speaking skills.

Remember that there are only a few situations when you need to listen hard to and understand every word – like an announcement telling you when your flight is at the airport. Most of the time it’s not necessary to understand everything, so don’t worry if you don’t catch every word.

Another thing to remember is that if you are speaking to someone, you can ask them to repeat something. This is a normal part of speech so will not disrupt the conversation. The important thing to do when listening is…relax (but be active)!

listening skills

Learn Listening By…Listening

A few posts ago, we recommended you immerse yourself in the language you are learning in order to become more familiar with it. So the first thing to do to develop your listening skills is to listen to your chosen language as much as you possibly can. You will be surprised how much you pick up.

You can chose to have the sound on in the background while you are doing something else so as to get used to how the language sounds or you can take part in active listening. The two tasks have different goals.

You can find material to help you develop your listening skills on the radio, on TV or in audio books.

Preparing for Listening

In most conversations you have or situations you experience, you usually know more or less what is going to be talked about, so you know what kinds of words are going to be used. Approach listening exercises by preparing for what you are about to hear: make decisions about what to listen for and what to focus attention on while listening.

Ambient Listening

Listen to the radio thorough your headphones while you are walking or listen to music in your chosen language while you are cooking, doing the housework or relaxing. This will mean you get used to hearing the sounds of the language. It also means that you will not feel stressed when it comes to active listening because you will already be familiar with the sounds of the language.

It is important that this is not your only listening activity. The trick is to combine different types of listening so that you make progress.

Active Listening

There are a number of tasks you can do to practice listening actively – that means listening with a purpose, focusing your attention and listening out for specific details. Active listening requires you to take action based on what you have heard.

  1. Listen for one element in speech patterns rather than listening for meaning: listen for sounds, for tones, for melody, for stress and so on. You can then practise applying these patterns to your speaking.
  2. Pick out as many words as you can without worrying about understanding everything. The more you do this, the more words you will understand each time.
  3. Decide on a topic and try to pick out key words to do with that topic. Write them down so you have a list of topic-specific vocabulary to refer to.
  4. Try to transcribe what you hear. You can pause the audio and go back if you miss something or need to listen to it again. Many online radio programmes have transcripts that you can check yours against.
  5. Read the transcript whilst listening to a radio programme. That way you will be able to hear exactly what the speakers are saying.
  6. Listen to music and read the lyrics. There are lots of music videos online with lyrics that you can read along to.
  7. Listen to the same segment again and again to see how much more you understand each time.

Resources

You can find a lot of listening resources on the internet. If you search for the name of the language you are learning + ‘radio’, you will more than likely be given a list of radio stations you can choose from. Some of the online radio stations have tailored listening exercises for language learners, such as Radio France Internationale (scroll down to ‘Apprendre le français’ or see the Journal en français facile (News Report in Easy French) or Deutsche Welle.

A Word on Vocabulary

In order to develop your listening skills, it is also important that you keep up your on-paper study of vocabulary and grammar too. This will mean you will recognise more of the words in the audio you are listening to.

And, most importantly, have fun!

Written by Suzannah Young

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March 23, 2016

Easter around the globe

In some countries Easter is much more than chocolate eggs and a bank holiday weekend. From water fights to crucifixion, we’ll take you through some of the most interesting Easter traditions from around the globe.

Eastern and Central Europe

In countries such as Poland, Slovakia and Hungary is it a tradition to celebrate Easter Monday with a water fight. Men throw buckets of water at women, a custom which originally represented a cleansing process and was meant to increase women’s fertility. In Czech Republic, the tradition has taken a slightly more worrying turn and the women are (gently) beaten with sticks.

Germany

In Traustein, in the south of Germany, hundreds of men dressed in traditional costumes take part in an Easter horseback parade.

Iberian Peninsula

Easter is taken very seriously in Spain and Portugal, where it’s known as Semana Santa. Religious processions walk through the towns, adorned with candles and Catholic statues, accompanied by marching bands for a dramatic effect. However, it’s the hooded figures, known as nazarenos that are the most surprising of all.

The Philippines

During Easter many Filipino men decide to undergo the suffering of Christ by being publically whipped with bamboo sticks and eventually crucified. This is believed to cleanse them of their sins and cure illnesses.

Bermuda

On Good Friday, the locals of Bermuda look to the sky to watch children fly their homemade kites. Afterwards they enjoy a breakfast of hot cross buns.

Happy Easter!

Easter 2015

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March 16, 2016

Interview with Multilingual Matters

Multilingual Matters is an international independent publishing house with lists in the areas of bilingualism, second/foreign language learning, sociolinguistics, translation and books for parents.

Most publishing companies tend to be based in London. Why did you choose Bristol?
The company was originally based in Clevedon where the company’s founders Mike and Marjukka Grover lived. When they retired and their son Tommi Grover became Managing Director we moved our office to Bristol as that’s where the majority of the staff lived.

As your publications are highly specialised, are your staff also experts in the area?
We are not all specialists in applied linguistics and tourism studies, our expertise lies in publishing not the world of academia. All our books are peer reviewed by academics working in the field to ensure that the content is accurate and appropriate.

Are all your publications written by academics or are other professionals also considered?
The majority of our books are written by academics but we do publish a small number of books aimed at parents and teachers, some of which are written by non-academics. These books are usually for a more general audience and are more accessible to the general reader. The most popular of these titles is A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism by Colin Baker which is a guide for parents bringing up their children with more than one language or teachers working with multilingual children.

Do you organise any events, such as meetings with authors or discussion forums?
We don’t tend to organise our own events but we attend a number of conferences every year where we meet with authors and often we participate in a publisher session where we advise academics, particularly younger postgraduates, on the process of academic publishing and how to get their research published.

What would you say are the most interesting aspects of working in publishing?
Working for a small independent publisher allows for a lot of variety and flexibility that isn’t always possible in bigger publishers. It’s also great to work with the same people over several years so you can build good relationships – both with colleagues in the office and authors in the academic world.

How has the publishing sector changed in the era of e-books?
People have been saying for decades that the increasing popularity of ebooks will cause the death of the print book but so far that hasn’t happened although we are selling fewer print books and more ebooks all the time. More university libraries are purchasing electronic content for students and many of our customers prefer to read books on a tablet or e-reader rather than in print these days. However, we’re pretty sure that the print book isn’t going to disappear any time soon!

Thank you!

Multilingual Matters -- photo

Interviewed by Bristol Language School  
Photo courtesy of Multilingual Matters

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March 9, 2016

Book Review: Growing up with Three Languages by Xiao-Lei Wang

Raising children bilingually sounds challenging enough, but trilingually? Xiao-Lei Wang and her husband decided to teach their children their heritage languages: Chinese and French, while living in the USA. They were very serious about this project and gave their full attention and creativity to make it work for their boys who are now trilingual! Xiao-Lei Wang described their experience in the book Growing up with Three Languages. Birth to Eleven and says that one of the motives behind this publication was the lack of successful examples of multilingual upbringing practises. By writing this book Xiao-Lei Wang wanted to help parents discover the possibilities of raising multilingual children. This is not to say that the task in itself was somehow easy and without difficulty or frustration, rather it was overall an enjoyable and rewarding process.

Growing up with three languages

Growing up with Three Languages was recommended to me by a friend who is planning to raise her daughter trilingually and found some of the book’s guidelines very useful. I particularly enjoyed its style, case studies, real-life examples, friendly reader approach and long lists of resources. I would point out however that the addition of an all-in-one bibliography would have been useful.

The author highlights a number of key factors on the process of raising children trilingually. Firstly , if we are planning to raise our children multilingually, we must ask ourselves a number of questions: from our reasons and motives, practicalities and teaching methods to our children’s names (yes, that is important, too!) and then deciding whether they should be going to a supplementary school or not. Secondly, let’s make the whole process as interesting, enjoyable and also positively challenging as we can, so that it does not feel like a chore both for us and for our little ones. Thirdly, we should not forget that communication should always be the most important priority and that language learning is a life-long process (I certainly agree with this!).

I would definitely recommend this book to any parent who is planning to raise their children multilingually, and it is an undeniably helpful resource for those whose heritage languages are Chinese or French.

Written by Kinga Macalla

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March 2, 2016

On Languages: Polish

What makes Polish SO hard?

It seems that Polish grammar is the one responsible for these rumours! Many people are led to believe that Polish grammar is impossibly complex and simply un-learnable, but truth be told, it follows a set of logical and regular rules.

Warszawa

Let us explain a few of the reasons why some people are put off learning Polish:
• Nouns can have three genders: masculine, female and neuter
• There are seven grammatical cases, which means that each noun and adjective can have seven different endings
• Verbs come in two aspects (English doesn’t have grammatical aspects)
• The pronunciation is just impossible!

Okay, this might sound like a difficult language to learn, but don’t worry. While some things may appear harder, some things are definitely easier. For example:

• There are no articles – people who learn English often struggle with when to use “a”, “an”, “the” or nothing at all. In Polish, however, you don’t have to worry about this, you just say the word as it is with no article.
• Word order is flexible – the case system means that syntax (that is, the word order within a sentence) is more flexible than in English. You therefore don’t have to worry as much about how to structure your sentences.
• Fewer verb tenses – English has 16 grammatical tenses! This is extremely difficult for most non-native speakers. Polish, on the other hand, has only 5 tenses (or 3 tenses and 2 aspects, depends on how you count). This means that what in English can be expressed in three different ways: “I read”, “I am reading” and “I have been reading” in Polish is reduced to a simple “Czytam”.
• Lots of vocabulary with Latin roots – you might be surprised by the amount of vocabulary that will be very familiar to you, for example:
Situation – sytuacja
Motivation – motywacja
Conversation – konwersacja etc.
• Phonetic alphabet – unlike in English, once you learn the rules, you can look up any word and know how to pronounce it based on its spelling.

As you can see, there are lots of areas where Polish is not so difficult (and perhaps even easier than English!). Yes, it may seem strange and difficult at first due to its phonology (i.e. the system of sounds) and grammatical structures that simply don’t exist in English, such as the case system or verb aspects. However, any language can be learnt with motivation and perseverance, and there will always be elements that won’t have an equivalent in your native language.

Written by Alicja Zajdel

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