Tag: English

Untranslatable Words or … The Mystery and Beauty of Communication

Untranslatable Words or …
The Mystery and Beauty
of Communication

Untranslatable Words!!!

This doesn’t mean the word makes no sense, it just means the word has no equivalent in another language! It could be cultural, historical or even anecdotal ….  or just made up!

It does not lessen the meaning and I would argue, enhances the meaning OF a word, when another language or culture can actually embrace what might be described as …’There really is no word for (fill in the blank here) in English!” 

I found a wonderful site that not only lists 30 amazing words, but the artist has provided some amazing posters too! Check out “30 Untranslatable Words From Other Languages Illustrated By Anjana Iyer” and let me know which one is your favourite!

My FAVOURITE from these posters is the Norwegian word Utepils which means ‘to sit outside on a sunny day enjoying a beer‘!

Although the FUNNIEST word is the Japanese word Age-otori which means ‘to look worse after a haircut‘! 🤣 And with physical distancing necessary, just how ARE you going to get a good haircut in the foreseeable future! 🤷‍♂️

Maybe you have a different favourite from the “50 Untranslatable Words From Around the World” poster below!

Oh yeah, and shameless promotion – I did “Untranslatable Idioms” the other day! LOL!

ENJOY!!!

TTFN!

JAVA Programming or … How to Order Coffee in Other Languages!

JAVA Programming or …
How to Order Coffee
in Other Languages

JAVA! JAVA! JAVA!

import java.util.Scanner; class PrimeNumberDemo { public static void main(String args[]) { int n; int status = 1; int num = 3; //For capturing the value of n Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println(“Enter the value of n:”); //The entered value is stored in the var n n = scanner.nextInt(); if (n >= 1)

Well, not THAT kind of JAVA! That is part of ACTUAL JAVA CODE to “…display first n or first 100 prime numbers” .. SERIOUSLY!   I did not write that! 🤣

MY kind of JAVA is more of the magical liquid elixir that most of us rely on to not only start the day, but to make it through the day! LOL! Ah, is there anything it can’t do! (Apologies to Homer and Donuts in German and ‘anything they can’t do’!)

Victoria has SO MANY FINE COFFEE SHOPS, including at UVic too! Let’s not forget about my favourite coffee spot on campus – The Munchie Bar! 

Walking into a Starbucks is actually a language lesson with all those Venti, Grande and a size I just learned about … TRENTA! Be warned, it is actually a size that is larger than … the average STOMACH!!!!

And my old friend, Dictionary.com – Order Your Coffee Like A Boss has some background on all those wonderful names for the sizes and kinds of coffee that are out there! Learn something new today… about COFFEE! ENJOY!!!

TTFN!

 

How to Order Coffee in …

JAPANESE !

RUSSIAN !

FINNISH!

MANDARIN CHINESE !

GERMAN !

FRENCH !

And if you made it THIS far, a bit of movie humour! How would a Marvel Super Hero, oh, say, Ant Man, order his coffee! LOL! You just need to see the first 1:15 of this for the coffee scene!

 

And if you have not seen Airplane 2, then .. this is about the only good scene!


YouTube Language Translations of Popular Shows

YouTube Translations of 
Popular Shows

YouTube? Translations? Well not quite translations, but clips from popular media (TV and movies) in other languages! Not quite Google Translate (a future post is in the works!) but good for a different perspective of popular shows, iconic moments and just plain .. FUN!

So below are a bunch of YouTube clips from some of my favourite TV shows and movies, all in other languages such as German and Japanese! Just a quick search at YouTube and I found all of these in a short period of time! Most people will instantly know the setting, movie or moments AND the iconic lines, so they offer quite a teaching moment, as well as some fun in learning a new language!

Besides, UVic HAS taught a course in Klingon! Really and for true! Qapla’! Today IS a good day to …  learn a new language!


TTFN!

 

Anakin Obi-Wan Star Wars Japanese

Star Wars in Japanese

Beam Me Up, Scotty! German!

Clip “Ich bin der König der Welt!”
Titanic!

Doctor Who in Five Languages

Doctor Who in Japanese

 
 

 

 

 

Language Poster of the Day – Japanese Words You Absolutely Positively Probably Might Need to Know

Language Poster of the Day

(But not necessarily Daily!)

Japanese Words
You Absolutely Positively Probably
Might Need to Know

I am bringing back my Language Poster of the Day! Even though I might not do it every day! LOL! There are so many words in different languages that have absolutely NO translation to English, and that is a great loss for speakers of English. Fortunately virtually every single culture and language HAS fascinating words, INCREDIBLE words,BEAUTIFUL words that describe something that cannot expressed in English! 

Today, a poster of Japanese words that have no real translation in English! And don’t think that there aren’t any ENGLISH ONLY words that have no other translations! Take for instance ….. Serendipity!

And that will be a subject for a future post!

My favourite word below is …. YUGEN! Which one is YOUR favourite?

TTFN!

The Funniest Languages in the World

The Funniest Languages
in the World

So the easiest and toughest languages were discussed in yesterday’s post. But learning should be fun and learning a new language SHOULD BE THE MOST FUN! And, as Haruki Murakami ponders, there IS another person inside of you:

What Is The Funniest Language?
Stephen Fry’s Planet World

Shakespeare’s Words that Failed to Catch On

And for me …..
The FUNNIEST English Language Skit
OF ALL TIME!


TTFN!

NEW CALL FACILITY FURNITURE !

! NEW !
The CALL Facility Furniture
HAS ARRIVED!
! NEW !

All the new furniture has arrived in CALL! Many thanks to Marcus and Adam for arranging all of this! Adam was up on campus yesterday, social/physical distancing of course, putting the new furniture into CALL, and taking these photos too! 

The students will certainly be in for a nice surprise when we are all back at UVic and their favourite lab now has spiffy furniture! We will work on the best layout and with wheels on the upright stations, students can move things around to suit their needs! I can hardly wait to get back to UVIC … for even more reasons than just new furniture! 

Thanks everyone who helped out on spiffing up The CALL Facility for students so they can colllaborate and thrive in their studies even MORE!! And a comfy chair suits the bill!

THANKS TO ALL
WHO HAVE HELPED!

GET – THE COMFY CHAIR!!!


TTFN!

 

Easy and Hard Hard and Easy – Which Languages are … Easy and Hard to Learn!

Easy and Hard … Hard and Easy
Which Languages are … Easy and Hard to Learn!

A few of my MUCH earlier posts will have expired links, expired videos or expired information! So I will be updating them, combining them and hopefully IMPROVING them for my daily Bog Blog!

 

Ten Easiest Languages to Learn

 

Top 10 Difficult Languages to Learn

 

TTFN!

Top 10 ZOHO Links – The World According to Greg

The Top 10 ZOHO Links – According to Greg

NOTE: Unfortunately, I recently discovered that ZOHO is no longer free, at least for the purposes that The CALL Facility used it for. I still have access as an Admin, but I am researching how I might be able to continue to provide the same resources in perhaps a slightly different format. Options such as a website, pdf, Word, Excel or other kind of document, but so far, they are not as easy to use, create, support and maintain. But I am hopeful and optimistic!

MANY THANKS to everyone who supported The CALL Facility (& me!) in offering this very unique resource over the past many years, probably dating back about 15 years or more! ZOHO came about as a response to needing a quick way to access Language bookmarks in CALL! Way back when, and this is BEFORE GOOGLE, I would email an attached bookmark file for specific browsers such as Explorer (Mac!), Safari and even Netscape Navigator! Good times, good times!

ALL the bookmarks are  still ‘at’ ZOHO, and I can access them, and export them into a simple .pdf document if anyone wants them. I can subsort, or include them all in one document. Please let me know! But for now, I won’t be updating ZOHO on a regular basis while I research other, if any, similar resources for Instructors and students.

In the meantime, probably the best strategy, for Instructors, would be to Copy/Paste website inks directly into  Brightspace for students. Yeah, cludgy and inelegant, but … sometimes old school works! The first shift I had in the CALL Facility – was bulk erasing and then making copies of Spanish lessons .. on cassette tapes! Good times, good times!

AND, if you DO CLICK HERE or on the icon of a PDF to the left, then you can view and download a .PDF version of ALL of The CALL Facility ZOHO Bookmarks in alphabetical order. Yeah, not ideal, but … at least they are all in one document.

And many thanks to Mark vH who helped me set it up so very long ago!

As of this morning, there are 896 language related links at ZOHO! WHOA! So many!

So I will be editing them one day in the future, removing and/or updating many of them. Often, the links disappear, they become commercial, have too many pop-ups, are re-routed elsewhere, so they need to be attended to.

So I bring to you, the Hall of Fame ZOHO bookmarks that are the Top Ten of All Time! At least, in my opinion!

You turn to Youtube! I have had to update some of the videos as they have disappeared from Youtube for some reason! But found a few more! Needed an update anyways, from way back in about 2014!

#10 – Klingon Language Institute
Just for fun and I have been kidding about including Klingon as a language in The CALL Facility for … years! And there IS a connection to UVIC too! Just click … here! 

#9 – Tex’s French Grammar
Who would know that one of the best French websites is … deep in the heart of … TEXAS! And true love springs between Tex & Tammy – ARMADILLOS!

#8 – I’m Yan (Yan and the Japanese People)
THE most popular video series in CALL HISTORY! An original resource on VHS, no less, follow the adventures of Yan, a foreigner living and working in Japan! VHS? So not available anymore in CALL? Say it ain’t so … well … IT AIN’T SO! I have all 26 episodes digitized on a single DL-DVD! There is even a Wikipedia Page!

#7 – News and Media Sites such as CBC, BBC and CNN. There is also a single link for World Newspapers too! Many offer transcripts on a daily basis too.

#6 – CBC Digital Archives  are an excellent source for Canadian History with articles, texts, videos, etc.

#5 – DICTIONARY sites – all kinds of them! Merriam-Webster and Cambridge and even more here.

#4 – ThoughtCo. Lifelong Learning – once known as About, all kinds of language links and others too! 

#3 – Utilities – Another Filter where you can discover keyboard layouts, fonts, foreign characters, graphics, media conversions, Google Translate and even World CALL Language Links! One stop shopping for that hard to find font for the designer who has everything!

#2 – TED Talks! Bet you didn’t know there were Language based Ted Talks! Now …. you do!

#1 – UVIC SITES! Each Department has their own website with resources, links, tests, Instructor contacts and more! You might not need ZOHO for any of these, but they will be your single best resource for all the languages you are studying! Oh, and you can also download my CALL Orientation .pdf there too – which has all the Department links in it too!

TTFN!

Throwback Thursday – Language Learning Videos!

Welcome to Throwback Thursday here at Bog Blog!

What happens if you can’t find anyone to speak to you in …. German?

You turn to Youtube! I have had to update some of the videos as they have disappeared from Youtube for some reason! But found a few more! Needed an update anyways, from way back in about 2014!

How German Sounds to Other Languages

How to Speak Canadian

 A bit of Fry and Laurie

How to Speak with an Irish Accent (Complete)

Top 10 Oldest Languages in the World

What is the Funniest Language? Stephen Fry’s Planet Word – BBC

Spanish Narration with QuickTime and PowerPoint

Spanish Narration and PowerPoint

Recently, we had great success with a Spanish multimedia assignment using macOS in The CALL Facility.

I believe this type of assignment provides great promise for any Instructors that want to challenge their students a bit more. Increasingly, students are improving their own digital skills at a phenomenal rate! Just a few years ago, I had to explain how to attach a file in an email! I would ask the class and all their heads would nod that this was something new to them!

Now, I don’t do it at all, other than briefly mentioning it in the form of ‘… and then all you need to do is attach your recording in an email to your Prof!’ and they all get it! Of course, I get a few obligatory ‘eye rolls’ too! 😂

In a recent Spanish 391 class, their assignment was to create a very simple PowerPoint presentation and then narrate commentary at their own pace, recording it as a self-contained MOVIE!

The content and narration was of course, in Spanish, but the emphasis was on the CONTENT and NARRATION, not PowerPoint skills or special effects! A VERY wide range of experience and abilities was instantly apparent in this class! From a complete novice to PowerPoint to Super Users of just about EVERYTHING!

Their Instructor was INCREDIBLY SUPPORTIVE of all their efforts – that is SO KEY to having a successful classroom experience, no matter the course! The most satisfying experience for me was helping a student with ZERO PowerPoint skills, ZERO digital recording skills and ZERO macOS skills, achieve success with this assignment!

I showed her how to create a basic PowerPoint slide deck (4-5 slides at home on her WIN computer), how to access her file on macOS in CALL, how to use QuickTime to record her narration (with our CALL USB headsets) and then edit/trim her new ‘movie’ and then export it!

All the hardware and software was available – iMac, webcam, USB headsets, PowerPoint & QuickTime and enough storage for her and her Instructor! He actually wandered around copying all the movies to his USB stick after each student was done! LOL!

Yes, earlier, it did take about an hour to build confidence in her, but she was so satisfied with her final product that time spent with her was WELL WORTH IT! AND she passed her assigment … well, actually, we are now working at home and one more class was scheduled for critiqing amongst her fellow students, but … I AM EVER OPTIMISTIC SHE PASSED!! I was quite impressed with what she was able to accomplish! I give her 100% on this assignment! My ‘grades’ will never show up on her transcripts though! LOL!

Unfortunately, all my sample files are at work, and the ‘Behind the Scenes‘ part of this story was …. even I had to learn this in a matter of .. seconds for his class in CALL!

The Instructor came down, completely changed what was going to be an Audacity class into a QuickTime/PowerPoint class and I proceeded to give a demo (using Fly By the Seat of My Pants Lesson Planning!) on something I myself had NEVER SEEN, NOR DONE BEFORE ….. with less than, oh, about 360 seconds worth of instruction from the Instructor!

Makes it seem longer if I convert 360 seconds to, oh, say …. NANOSECONDS =  360,000,000,000 !! Ah, all the time in the world now!

And that was a GOOD THING! As I mentioned above, an engaged and informed Instructor is a Key Factor, perhaps THE KEY FACTOR, to have a successful class, especially when involving even a hint of multimedia assignments and something new .. to EVERYONE!

I am basically describing this type of assignment as ‘Audacity on Steroids‘ to other Instructors. This may not be for all, but …..  it might be for some!

And remember … Many are Chosen, but few are … CALL-ed ! 😎

TTFN!