Sunday 27 July 2014
Bénabar - Tu Peux Compter Sur Moi (French)
Bénabar is a personal favourite of mine. Whilst the music can sound a little "middle-of-the-road" there is an incredible depth to his lyrics which is often very amusing and paints a vivid portrait of a character or makes light of relationship problems.
Tu peux compter sur moi is a song about a rather fickle chap who promises to be there for you no matter what, but then goes on to list times and places that are inconvenient for him. Some such contradictions are below. Enjoy!
Helpful Bénabar:
si tu as besoin de moi... - If you need me...
peu importe le problème - No matter what the problem
tu peux compter sur moi - you can count on me
je serai toujours là pour toi - I will always be there for you
Si tu as perdu le chemin... - if you have lost your way...
Si tu te sens seul... - if you feel lonely...
si t'as besoin d'une épaule... - If you need a shoulder (to cry on)...
t'hésites pas, tu m'appelles - don't hesitate, call me.
Flaky Bénabar
j'ai des obligations - I have duties/obligations
il faut pas que ce soit trop loin - as long as it's not too far away
je prends pas l'avion j'ai trop peur - I won't fly I have a fear of it.
je prends pas non plus le bateau parce que j'ai le mal de mer - I won't take the boat either because I get seasick
Le week-end ça m'arrange pas - weekends are no good for me
la semaine j'suis pas trop joignable - During the week I'm not very reachable
Je peux je crois en juin, mais vaut mieux que je vérifie - I think I can in June, but probably best that I check
il faut choisir le bon jour - you'll have to pick the right day
Friday 25 July 2014
Smile and Say Cheese/Marmoset/Aubergine!
In English we don't really have too much need to question the phrase that we use to encourage folks to smile when we are taking a photo:
Say Cheese!
This is probably because we also have the associations with "cheesy" and our smiles. And a cheesy smile makes for a great photo.
In reality, though, the two are most likely not linked, and cheese is just a word with an elongated vowel that makes us smile as we say it.
There are some great foreign language examples in this Wikipedia entry :
A couple of my favourites, though - checked via other sources - are as follows:
French: Marmoset
ouistiti
Chinese: Aubergine
茄子
qiézi (sounds like cheese)
A Christian Genocide Symbolised by One Letter (National Review)
Language can be very powerful, but it works both ways. See how a single Arabic letter has become symbolic for both persecution and solidarity:
Wednesday 16 July 2014
Foreign Soap Addiction
Getting addicted to a foreign soap is a great addition to more formal study. It is more relaxing than hitting the books and you'd be surprised what you can understand of melodrama simply from the "acting" alone.
Some soaps can be difficult to get hold of online. There is an excellent French soap - Plus belle la vie - but it is not available to stream free online. German learners, however, are spoilt for choice. There are several available to stream online for free on RTL-now. As well as a number of other programmes along the lines of "The Farmer wants a wife" (Bauer sucht Frau).
My personal favourite is Alles Was Zählt. And it can be watched here:
It is basically Dallas - a soap centred around a rich, manipulative family - except the cast has come straight off the set of Hollyoaks...and there's dancing. Lots of dancing.
You'll be surprised at the wonderfully dramatic vocabulary you can pick up watching soaps such as this:
Lovesick - Liebeskoma
Heart attack - Herzinfarkt
Blackmail - Erpressung
...so much more interesting than colours, pets and days of the week!
Tuesday 15 July 2014
Monday 14 July 2014
Sunday 13 July 2014
Cheb Mami feat. Zaho - Halili (Arabic/French)
This is a great song for anyone interested in Arabic. I'd consider it fairly accessible for a Western audience (probably because Zaho is better known for French R&B) and its a great tune to work out to at the gym!
Music is a great way to connect with a language. You can practice your pronunciation, test your comprehension, and it is easy to pick up and remember vocabulary as music is repetitive in itself, and if we like a song then we want to listen to it again and again.
Arabic has always presented me with problems, though, as a western speaker who is trying to self-teach. I have, however, picked up one interesting grammar point through looking the Arabic transcript of this song, studying translations, and searching on google.
You can state personal ownership of a noun in Arabic simply by added the letter ي [i:] to the end of it
قلب (heart) > قلبي (my heart)
حنين (longing, yearning, nostalgia) > حنيني (my longing, my yearning, my nostalgia)
It's a small lesson. But it's a step in the right direction. And so gratifying to have seen it myself within the lyrics of a song I enjoy.
Saturday 12 July 2014
Language Tools: Lexilogos
I'm positive that this website has a multitude of gems for any language learner.
What interests me, though, isn't there language dictionaries - it's the multilingual keyboards
I have been using these to assist in typing Arabic and Mandarin Chinese and I don't know how I would get by without them.
The arabic keyboard is fairly simple - it allows you to select the phonetic characters quickly, they then collect in the text box and can be easily copied and pasted.
The chinese keyboard, though, is a wonder to behold.
Simply enter your pinyin, and all the available characters will appear below. Simply pick the one you need!
Friday 11 July 2014
Was JFK a Doughnut?
On June 26th 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy spoke to the people of West Berlin in a statement of solidarity. The result has become a much derided phrase:
What JFK actually intended was to declare "I am a citizen of Berlin". Ein Berliner, however, is a popular variety of doughnut. The implication of this being that he should have said:
I've never had any reason to question this...until recently.
Listening to a BBC Radio 4 podcast I was casually informed by a translation expert that this little joke at the expense of the late President Kennedy was actually utter nonsense. "Ich bin ein Berliner" means exactly what was intended. JFK was not claiming, in a moment of madness, to be a doughnut - metaphorical or otherwise.
Now, I'm not one to argue with the BBC. So I'm calling for debate. Can anyone shed light on this claim? All I see is doughnuts, but my ears and eyes are wide open.
"Ich bin ein Berliner"
What JFK actually intended was to declare "I am a citizen of Berlin". Ein Berliner, however, is a popular variety of doughnut. The implication of this being that he should have said:
"Ich bin Berliner"Nationalities are not treated as "countable" in German. You can't individually be many citizens of Berlin - unless you have split personality disorder - so this makes sense. The limit is set by the personal pronoun rather than the noun's article, so the article is removed and the noun treated more like an adjective.
I've never had any reason to question this...until recently.
Listening to a BBC Radio 4 podcast I was casually informed by a translation expert that this little joke at the expense of the late President Kennedy was actually utter nonsense. "Ich bin ein Berliner" means exactly what was intended. JFK was not claiming, in a moment of madness, to be a doughnut - metaphorical or otherwise.
Now, I'm not one to argue with the BBC. So I'm calling for debate. Can anyone shed light on this claim? All I see is doughnuts, but my ears and eyes are wide open.
Wednesday 9 July 2014
The Etymologicon
If you invest even the slightest interest in the workings of language and the origin of words then this is a must read.
Why?
Well firstly it's not a difficult read, neither is it a patronising one. I won't claim to follow absolutely every thread, but I didn't feel like I was missing the point as a result. Where possible this is written in plain terms that pretty much anyone could follow
The Etymologicon is also neatly arranged into short, manageable sections, making it ideal to pick up and read when you have a couple of minutes spare. These sections, moreover, link neatly to one another, so if you feel like a more substantial session your read won't feel stilted by the segregation.
We also have humour and pedantry in the same place, which Eats, Shoots and Leaves demonstrated is a viable, and wonderful combination. The Etymologicon is better than Eats Shoots and Leaves though, as there is no hint of accusation in its pedantry. This is the pedantry of a person who has a passion for language, not a bee in their bonnet about folks misusing apostrophes.
Mostly though it's a great lesson about the misguided assumptions we make about our own language. I was fascinated to learn that so much of our language was actually bought back from exotic climes by explorers (you'd be astonished at the number of arabic and indian influences on our language), and that so much of it was simply invented by creative authors with sufficient influence.
...and then so much more is the result of butchering, laziness, and misunderstandings through the ages that have evolved our language.
WARNING: This book may cause you to bore the crap out of your loved ones, without even understanding why.
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