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If there is something you would like to share with us, please contact us sending an e-mail to [email protected]. If you have questions, doubts or suggestions, we will be more than happy to answer. We are open to any kind of cooperation with other student associations.
We would also like to encourage students from State Higher Vocational School in Nowy Sącz to co-operate with us.
Follow us! :-)
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TONGUE TWISTERS
Betty Botter
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter,
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter,
Makes batter better.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter,
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better.
Peter Piper
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
But if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Were they pickled when he picked them from the vine?
Or was Peter Piper pickled when he picked the pickled peppers,
Peppers picked from the pickled pepper vine?
How many cars can a carpark park
How many cars can a carpark park
if a carpark could park cars?
A carpark could park all the cars that it could
if a carpark could park cars.
Sister Suzie
Sister Suzie sewing shirts for soldiers
Such skill at sewing shirts
Our shy young sister Suzie shows
Some soldiers send epistles
Say they'd rather sleep in thistles
Than the saucy, soft short shirts for soldiers Sister Suzie sews
She sells sea shells
Sister Sue sells sea shells.
She sells sea shells on shore.
The shells she sells.
Are sea shells she sees.
Sure she sees shells she sells.
Thistle sifter
Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter,
was sifting a sieveful of unsifted thistles,
when he swiftly thrust the thistle,
through the thick of his thumb.
Fuzzy Wuzzy
Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he? (wuzzy)
Fisherman named Fisher
There was a fisherman named Fisher
who fished for some fish in a fissure.
Till a fish with a grin,
pulled the fisherman in.
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.
Luke's duck
Luke's duck likes lakes. Luke Luck licks lakes. Luke's duck licks lakes. Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes. Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.
How much wood
How much wood could Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck, if Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood? If Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood, how much wood could and would Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck? Chuck Woods' woodchuck would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as any woodchuck would, if a woodchuck could and would chuck wood.
Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter,
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter,
Makes batter better.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter,
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better.
Peter Piper
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
But if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Were they pickled when he picked them from the vine?
Or was Peter Piper pickled when he picked the pickled peppers,
Peppers picked from the pickled pepper vine?
How many cars can a carpark park
How many cars can a carpark park
if a carpark could park cars?
A carpark could park all the cars that it could
if a carpark could park cars.
Sister Suzie
Sister Suzie sewing shirts for soldiers
Such skill at sewing shirts
Our shy young sister Suzie shows
Some soldiers send epistles
Say they'd rather sleep in thistles
Than the saucy, soft short shirts for soldiers Sister Suzie sews
She sells sea shells
Sister Sue sells sea shells.
She sells sea shells on shore.
The shells she sells.
Are sea shells she sees.
Sure she sees shells she sells.
Thistle sifter
Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter,
was sifting a sieveful of unsifted thistles,
when he swiftly thrust the thistle,
through the thick of his thumb.
Fuzzy Wuzzy
Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he? (wuzzy)
Fisherman named Fisher
There was a fisherman named Fisher
who fished for some fish in a fissure.
Till a fish with a grin,
pulled the fisherman in.
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.
Luke's duck
Luke's duck likes lakes. Luke Luck licks lakes. Luke's duck licks lakes. Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes. Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.
How much wood
How much wood could Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck, if Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood? If Chuck Woods' woodchuck could and would chuck wood, how much wood could and would Chuck Woods' woodchuck chuck? Chuck Woods' woodchuck would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as any woodchuck would, if a woodchuck could and would chuck wood.
Język angielski (podobnie jak każdy inny język) posiada sporo ciekawostek.
Oto kilka z nich:
1. Język angielski jest jednym z języków, które posiadają najwięcej wyrazów – około 600 tysięcy (licząc terminologię medyczną i techniczną; bez tych terminologii byłoby „jedynie” 300 tysięcy słów).
2. Przeciętny użytkownik języka angielskiego używa około 5 tysięcy słów podczas konwersacji i około 10 tysięcy słów podczas pisania.
3. Aby móc się porozumiewać w języku angielskim wystarczy znajomość około 2 tysięcy słów.
4. Najczęściej używanym angielskim słowem jest słowo the.
5. Najdłuższe znane słowo w języku angielskim to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (przewlekła obturacyjna choroba płuc).
6. Najwięcej słów w języku angielskim rozpoczyna się na literę s.
7. Słowo set posiada aż 464 znaczeń.
8. Według wielu pisarzy oraz naukowców najpiękniejszym słowem w języku angielskim jest cellar door.
9. Słowo underground (podziemie, metro) jest jedynym angielskim słowem które rozpoczyna się i kończy na und.
10. Słówko screeched (pisk) jest najdłuższym wyrazem jednosylabowym.
11. Słówko cleave jest jedynym angielskim wyrazem, które ma dwa przeciwstawne znaczenia. Cleave znaczy rozszczepiać, ale także przylegać.
12. Najdłuższym angielskim słowem, w którym żadna litera nie powtarza się ani razu jest uncopyrightable (zastrzec).
13. Słówko queue jest jedynym angielskim słowem w którym jeżeli usuniemy cztery ostatnie litery i tak będziemy je tak samo wymawiać.
14. Słowo checkmate (czyli po polsku Szach mat) pochodzi od perskiego słowo Shah mat i oznacza „król zmarł”.
Oto kilka z nich:
1. Język angielski jest jednym z języków, które posiadają najwięcej wyrazów – około 600 tysięcy (licząc terminologię medyczną i techniczną; bez tych terminologii byłoby „jedynie” 300 tysięcy słów).
2. Przeciętny użytkownik języka angielskiego używa około 5 tysięcy słów podczas konwersacji i około 10 tysięcy słów podczas pisania.
3. Aby móc się porozumiewać w języku angielskim wystarczy znajomość około 2 tysięcy słów.
4. Najczęściej używanym angielskim słowem jest słowo the.
5. Najdłuższe znane słowo w języku angielskim to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (przewlekła obturacyjna choroba płuc).
6. Najwięcej słów w języku angielskim rozpoczyna się na literę s.
7. Słowo set posiada aż 464 znaczeń.
8. Według wielu pisarzy oraz naukowców najpiękniejszym słowem w języku angielskim jest cellar door.
9. Słowo underground (podziemie, metro) jest jedynym angielskim słowem które rozpoczyna się i kończy na und.
10. Słówko screeched (pisk) jest najdłuższym wyrazem jednosylabowym.
11. Słówko cleave jest jedynym angielskim wyrazem, które ma dwa przeciwstawne znaczenia. Cleave znaczy rozszczepiać, ale także przylegać.
12. Najdłuższym angielskim słowem, w którym żadna litera nie powtarza się ani razu jest uncopyrightable (zastrzec).
13. Słówko queue jest jedynym angielskim słowem w którym jeżeli usuniemy cztery ostatnie litery i tak będziemy je tak samo wymawiać.
14. Słowo checkmate (czyli po polsku Szach mat) pochodzi od perskiego słowo Shah mat i oznacza „król zmarł”.
NATIONALITY IDIOMS
English often use the names of other countries in common phrases.
If two or more people at a restaurant or pub go dutch, they all pay for themselves.
If you can’t make sense of written instructions, you say ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
If warm, dry weather continues into autumn, it’s an Indian summer.
Do you know what Dutch courage is?
Where would you see a Mexican wave?
What is Russian roulette?
Dutch courage- confidence gained from having alcoholic drink
Mexican wave- effect caused by spectators at sporting events standing up then sitting down progressively round stadium
Russian roulette- reckless ‘game’ of loading pistol with one bullet, spinning chamber and firing at one’s won head; any very high-risk action
English often use the names of other countries in common phrases.
If two or more people at a restaurant or pub go dutch, they all pay for themselves.
If you can’t make sense of written instructions, you say ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
If warm, dry weather continues into autumn, it’s an Indian summer.
Do you know what Dutch courage is?
Where would you see a Mexican wave?
What is Russian roulette?
Dutch courage- confidence gained from having alcoholic drink
Mexican wave- effect caused by spectators at sporting events standing up then sitting down progressively round stadium
Russian roulette- reckless ‘game’ of loading pistol with one bullet, spinning chamber and firing at one’s won head; any very high-risk action
I guess everybody agrees ;-) English is a crazy language indeed!
LETTER PHRASES
Some idiomatic phrases feature letters. What do the following mean?
Have you got an A to Z?
(street atlas of the town)
I’ll have to watch my p’s and q’s.
(behavior)
She drops her h’s.
(doesn’t pronounce the –h at the beginning of words)
We were taught the three R’s.
(reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic)
Some idiomatic phrases feature letters. What do the following mean?
Have you got an A to Z?
(street atlas of the town)
I’ll have to watch my p’s and q’s.
(behavior)
She drops her h’s.
(doesn’t pronounce the –h at the beginning of words)
We were taught the three R’s.
(reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic)
LETTER-WORDS
The first part of each of the following words consists of a single letter.
What do the words mean?
A-bomb atom bomb
E-mail electronic mail
V-formation airplanes flying in the shape of V
T-shirt a short-sleeved vest
V-neck a shirt or vest with V shaped neckline
X-ray electromagnetic radiation
U-turn a 180% turn
T-junction a road junction shaped like a letter T
A-line a narrow, slim-fitting skirt
The first part of each of the following words consists of a single letter.
What do the words mean?
A-bomb atom bomb
E-mail electronic mail
V-formation airplanes flying in the shape of V
T-shirt a short-sleeved vest
V-neck a shirt or vest with V shaped neckline
X-ray electromagnetic radiation
U-turn a 180% turn
T-junction a road junction shaped like a letter T
A-line a narrow, slim-fitting skirt
Taken from: www.focus.pl
Translated by: Anna Duda
LANGUAGES LIKE RABBITS
What is the secret of hyperpolyglots?
The first few foreign languages are the most difficult to acquire. However, the next several dozen are a piece of cake. What makes hyperpolyglots learn foreign speech so successfully?
C-3PO, a robot from Star Wars, claimed he was familiar with over 6 million forms of communication. A human can’t hold a candle to him, but among the representatives of Homo sapiens impressive examples of downright collector’s passion for foreign languages can also be found. The most motivated people not only know several dozen of them, but also learn new ones within a few weeks. A recently published book Babel No More by a linguist and journalist Michael Erard, tells what is needed to have such results. It shows that the path to linguistic proficiency leads through the use of certain tricks and systematic work in solitude.
Confession in Sardinian
Giuseppe Mezzofanti, an Italian cardinal who lived in Bologna in the beginning of 19th century, is a linguistic legend. The biographers claimed that he knew up to 72 foreign speeches, i.e. the number of tongues spoken by the people when God, according to the Bible, mixed up the languages of the Babel Tower’s builders. Other reports show that Mezzofanti knew well only 60 of them, including Polish, Arabic and Hebrew. People who, like Mezzofanti, dabble in between ten and twenty up to several dozen tongues are said to be hyperpolyglots. An effort put into acquiring languages could be even more beneficial today than in the past. New job markets are opening up for Polish people, domestic entrepreneurs do businesses all over the world. As for travel agencies, they tempt with holidays anywhere in the globe. In 1960, 25 million people set out abroad. In 2008, it was 924 million tourists travelling to foreign countries. According to United Nations World Tourism Organization, by 2020 this number will increase to 1.6 billion. More and more often we come face to face with representatives of other nations and even though English has become the lingua franca of our time, learning other languages, such as Chinese, opens up numerous opportunities.
Mezzofanti’s method is hard to be found in recommendations of modern language schools. His idea of learning was asceticism: he ate little, never drank wine, slept supposedly three hours a day, to learn new languages all night. And in this regard he was extremely efficient. One day a woman approached him, wishing to confess in a Sardinian dialect which Mezzofanti didn’t know. He asked her to come in two weeks. When she appeared in the prescribed time, he was able to accept the confession and give an appropriate penance.
Shadows and screams
The problem with Mezzofanti lies in the fact that everything we know about him are anecdotes - most of them come from the book by Charles William Russell The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti. It includes few scientifically proven facts that could be useful to contemporary scholars of language and human capacities. From this point of view, more valuable is information about hyperpolyglots living in the 20th century, such as a Hungarian Lomb Kató, a translator of 10 languages who didn’t believe in linguistic talent and emphasized the proper motivation to learn and devoting it at least few minutes a day. Most valuable for researchers, however, are contemporary hyperpolyglots.
One of them, 48-year-old Alexander Arguelles, last year published in The Guardian an article about how he learned 50 languages. Arguelles started late – he took up the first foreign language at the age of 11. It was French, and the learning process didn’t go too well. Arguelles was even close to give it up. It was a German language course that brought the breakthrough. At the age of 20 Arguelles already knew that the purpose of his life will be learning as many foreign languages as possible. Today he speaks about 40 languages, and is superficially familiar with a few more. Helpful was the fact that he repeatedly changed his place of residence. Born in the USA, he studied in Berlin and South Korea; now lives in Singapore. Arguelles, like other hyperpolyglots, stresses the importance of systematic work in solitude: reading, studying and practising grammar. He uses his own technique which is called shadowing: learning while walking briskly outdoors, he repeats out loud new words he hears from a Walkman. “For five or six years, before I married and had children, I would study for 16 hours a day. I'd transcribe Irish, Persian, Hindi, Turkish, Swahili. Gradually, all these wonderful languages started to swim into focus, and ever increasing numbers of great works became accessible,” writes Arguelles.
The more tongues he knew, the easier he learnt new ones: while acquiring, a learner realizes that there are structures common to all languages. This experience seems to confirm the hypothesis put forward in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky about the existence of universal grammar, lying at the root of all languages on Earth.
Fetus flooded with testosterone
Is really stubbornness and working oneself to the ground enough to master further foreign languages? Many researchers believe that at the root of such passion lies talent, and perhaps even the unique architecture of the brain structures. The fact that something like this might actually exist, is shown by the case of Emil Krebs, a German diplomat who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th century and knew 68 languages. Krebs left science a legacy of his own brain. Examination conducted shortly after his death by Oskar Vogt detected above-average density of neurons in Broca's area, an even structure occurring in both hemispheres of the brain, responsible for language functions.
In turn, studies conducted a few years ago by researchers at the University of Düsseldorf showed that a portion of Broca's area was extremely enlarged not only in the left hemisphere (as it was expected, since this hemisphere is responsible for the linguistic skills), but also in the right. In a different fragment of Broca's area an unusual asymmetry was recorded. For now, the scientists are not able to interpret these results, but they believe that the uniqueness of the examined brain areas can be the source of Krebs’ linguistic talent.
The explanation of where such talent can originate from is provided by the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis. It assumes that language skills can be the result of variations in hormone levels in fetal life. This hypothesis was put forward in the 1980s by two American neurologists: Norman Geschwind and Albert Galaburda. They observed that the left hemisphere in rat fetuses developed little slower in those periods when followed by an increase in testosterone levels. Then the cells destined for the left hemisphere migrated to the right hemisphere. If a similar phenomenon occurred in humans (which is very likely), then the fluctuations in testosterone levels would be responsible for a whole group of abilities and cognitive deficits.
Similarly, in the case of hyperpolyglots we can observe a certain grouping of characteristics that may indicate the existence of predispositions to linguistic talents in the brain, resulting from the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis. The majority of hyperpolyglots are men (about 75 percent), many of them are homosexual, left-handed people, often having problems with spatial orientation. All these features, as well as language skills, are associated with enlargement of the left hemisphere of the brain, associated with testosterone levels. The statistical link between certain characteristics does not necessarily mean that there is a direct relationship between them, but this hypothesis doesn’t stop to rankle the scientists.
Language of hallucinations
Is it possible to accept the idea that people with particular linguistic talents are a kind of savants - people who like the film character Rain Man are brilliant in only one field, and in other areas of life resemble helpless children. There are cases of such linguistic geniuses. The most spectacular example is Daniel Tammet, a 33-year-old British, who not only has a talent for languages, but also for mathematics. He’s also the master at memorizing and holds the European record for reciting number Pi digits from memory (he knows 22514 of them). Tammet is an epileptic and suffers from autism. His linguistic talent is best illustrated by the way in which he learned Icelandic, considered one of the most difficult languages. Not knowing it completely, Tammet went to Iceland and after a week of intensive course appeared in an Icelandic television program, conversing freely with the hosts. People such as Tammet are rather exceptions in the world of hyperpolyglots. Though among the linguistic geniuses there are many recluses. Most often hyperpolyglots activate socially when they can speak in a foreign language. To understand the significance of such contacts for language learning, just look at those areas of the world where at the same time several languages are spoken. Their inhabitants acquire new ones without any effort. One such area was for example Mezzofanti's Italy. Few people remember that when in 1860 the Italian republic formed, only 10 percent of the people of this country spoke the Florentine dialect, which today we consider to be Italian language. Similar phenomenon occurs in modern India where people use 29 tongues: Hindi mixes with Urdu, Bengali, Kannada and English. In some African countries even small children know up to eight local languages.
Multilingualism is however not the same thing as hyperpolyglotism. In the latter case, always one language (the mother tongue) will be privileged - the others are re-imposed on it. It is shown by the cases of mental patients who heard voices or had hallucinations only when they were using their native language - not the other ones, mastered later. Such cases were investigated by Dr. Felicity de Zulueta, a psychiatrist from the UK. Similar studies indicate the limitations encountered by the learners of multiple languages. New ones will always be like in a separate pocket (though not in a separate area of the brain). Therefore, while a hyperpolyglot is able to master several languages, none of them will he know as much as his own. Another difficulty of being a hyperpolyglot lies in the fact that language is not just words and grammatical structures, but also the cultural context in which they occur. Therefore, mastering the language requires vast knowledge and acquiring it takes time. The more languages you know, the harder it gets to find emotional contact with all cultures they represent. So if you don't have time for poring over books constantly, you can always get down to English. This language isn’t rather possible to be skipped.
Tips & tricks
Do you want to learn a foreign language successfully? Here are a few methods used and recommended by hyperpolyglots.
1. Immediately learn how to build simple substructures. You can use them if you don't know a certain word. For example, if you don't know how to say a baseball bat, you use the expression a thing which is used to hitting the ball.
2. Find a native speaker, even on the Internet (www.rosettastone.com). Ask him to give you the names of body parts and objects in the environment. It takes about 50 nouns, to begin to acquire verbs and build sentences.
3. Use linguistic forums, such as how-to-learn-any-language.com.
4. If you learn several tongues, change the language every 20 minutes.
5. Chew gum. There are studies indicating that this activity promotes memorization.
6. Establish a schedule of repetitions. The method developed by a linguist Paul Pimsleur tells us to revise the material every five seconds, then 25 seconds, two minutes, ten minutes, an hour, five hours, day, five days, 25 days, four months, two years.
7. Memorize poems and favorite passages of books.
8. Practice monologues in a foreign tongue and play in your mind language games, such as how many synonyms of a certain word you can think of.
9. Take care of memory training. Use computer tools, such as programs like Super Memo.
10. Stick to the methods you have chosen. Do not change them during learning.
Translated by: Anna Duda
LANGUAGES LIKE RABBITS
What is the secret of hyperpolyglots?
The first few foreign languages are the most difficult to acquire. However, the next several dozen are a piece of cake. What makes hyperpolyglots learn foreign speech so successfully?
C-3PO, a robot from Star Wars, claimed he was familiar with over 6 million forms of communication. A human can’t hold a candle to him, but among the representatives of Homo sapiens impressive examples of downright collector’s passion for foreign languages can also be found. The most motivated people not only know several dozen of them, but also learn new ones within a few weeks. A recently published book Babel No More by a linguist and journalist Michael Erard, tells what is needed to have such results. It shows that the path to linguistic proficiency leads through the use of certain tricks and systematic work in solitude.
Confession in Sardinian
Giuseppe Mezzofanti, an Italian cardinal who lived in Bologna in the beginning of 19th century, is a linguistic legend. The biographers claimed that he knew up to 72 foreign speeches, i.e. the number of tongues spoken by the people when God, according to the Bible, mixed up the languages of the Babel Tower’s builders. Other reports show that Mezzofanti knew well only 60 of them, including Polish, Arabic and Hebrew. People who, like Mezzofanti, dabble in between ten and twenty up to several dozen tongues are said to be hyperpolyglots. An effort put into acquiring languages could be even more beneficial today than in the past. New job markets are opening up for Polish people, domestic entrepreneurs do businesses all over the world. As for travel agencies, they tempt with holidays anywhere in the globe. In 1960, 25 million people set out abroad. In 2008, it was 924 million tourists travelling to foreign countries. According to United Nations World Tourism Organization, by 2020 this number will increase to 1.6 billion. More and more often we come face to face with representatives of other nations and even though English has become the lingua franca of our time, learning other languages, such as Chinese, opens up numerous opportunities.
Mezzofanti’s method is hard to be found in recommendations of modern language schools. His idea of learning was asceticism: he ate little, never drank wine, slept supposedly three hours a day, to learn new languages all night. And in this regard he was extremely efficient. One day a woman approached him, wishing to confess in a Sardinian dialect which Mezzofanti didn’t know. He asked her to come in two weeks. When she appeared in the prescribed time, he was able to accept the confession and give an appropriate penance.
Shadows and screams
The problem with Mezzofanti lies in the fact that everything we know about him are anecdotes - most of them come from the book by Charles William Russell The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti. It includes few scientifically proven facts that could be useful to contemporary scholars of language and human capacities. From this point of view, more valuable is information about hyperpolyglots living in the 20th century, such as a Hungarian Lomb Kató, a translator of 10 languages who didn’t believe in linguistic talent and emphasized the proper motivation to learn and devoting it at least few minutes a day. Most valuable for researchers, however, are contemporary hyperpolyglots.
One of them, 48-year-old Alexander Arguelles, last year published in The Guardian an article about how he learned 50 languages. Arguelles started late – he took up the first foreign language at the age of 11. It was French, and the learning process didn’t go too well. Arguelles was even close to give it up. It was a German language course that brought the breakthrough. At the age of 20 Arguelles already knew that the purpose of his life will be learning as many foreign languages as possible. Today he speaks about 40 languages, and is superficially familiar with a few more. Helpful was the fact that he repeatedly changed his place of residence. Born in the USA, he studied in Berlin and South Korea; now lives in Singapore. Arguelles, like other hyperpolyglots, stresses the importance of systematic work in solitude: reading, studying and practising grammar. He uses his own technique which is called shadowing: learning while walking briskly outdoors, he repeats out loud new words he hears from a Walkman. “For five or six years, before I married and had children, I would study for 16 hours a day. I'd transcribe Irish, Persian, Hindi, Turkish, Swahili. Gradually, all these wonderful languages started to swim into focus, and ever increasing numbers of great works became accessible,” writes Arguelles.
The more tongues he knew, the easier he learnt new ones: while acquiring, a learner realizes that there are structures common to all languages. This experience seems to confirm the hypothesis put forward in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky about the existence of universal grammar, lying at the root of all languages on Earth.
Fetus flooded with testosterone
Is really stubbornness and working oneself to the ground enough to master further foreign languages? Many researchers believe that at the root of such passion lies talent, and perhaps even the unique architecture of the brain structures. The fact that something like this might actually exist, is shown by the case of Emil Krebs, a German diplomat who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th century and knew 68 languages. Krebs left science a legacy of his own brain. Examination conducted shortly after his death by Oskar Vogt detected above-average density of neurons in Broca's area, an even structure occurring in both hemispheres of the brain, responsible for language functions.
In turn, studies conducted a few years ago by researchers at the University of Düsseldorf showed that a portion of Broca's area was extremely enlarged not only in the left hemisphere (as it was expected, since this hemisphere is responsible for the linguistic skills), but also in the right. In a different fragment of Broca's area an unusual asymmetry was recorded. For now, the scientists are not able to interpret these results, but they believe that the uniqueness of the examined brain areas can be the source of Krebs’ linguistic talent.
The explanation of where such talent can originate from is provided by the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis. It assumes that language skills can be the result of variations in hormone levels in fetal life. This hypothesis was put forward in the 1980s by two American neurologists: Norman Geschwind and Albert Galaburda. They observed that the left hemisphere in rat fetuses developed little slower in those periods when followed by an increase in testosterone levels. Then the cells destined for the left hemisphere migrated to the right hemisphere. If a similar phenomenon occurred in humans (which is very likely), then the fluctuations in testosterone levels would be responsible for a whole group of abilities and cognitive deficits.
Similarly, in the case of hyperpolyglots we can observe a certain grouping of characteristics that may indicate the existence of predispositions to linguistic talents in the brain, resulting from the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis. The majority of hyperpolyglots are men (about 75 percent), many of them are homosexual, left-handed people, often having problems with spatial orientation. All these features, as well as language skills, are associated with enlargement of the left hemisphere of the brain, associated with testosterone levels. The statistical link between certain characteristics does not necessarily mean that there is a direct relationship between them, but this hypothesis doesn’t stop to rankle the scientists.
Language of hallucinations
Is it possible to accept the idea that people with particular linguistic talents are a kind of savants - people who like the film character Rain Man are brilliant in only one field, and in other areas of life resemble helpless children. There are cases of such linguistic geniuses. The most spectacular example is Daniel Tammet, a 33-year-old British, who not only has a talent for languages, but also for mathematics. He’s also the master at memorizing and holds the European record for reciting number Pi digits from memory (he knows 22514 of them). Tammet is an epileptic and suffers from autism. His linguistic talent is best illustrated by the way in which he learned Icelandic, considered one of the most difficult languages. Not knowing it completely, Tammet went to Iceland and after a week of intensive course appeared in an Icelandic television program, conversing freely with the hosts. People such as Tammet are rather exceptions in the world of hyperpolyglots. Though among the linguistic geniuses there are many recluses. Most often hyperpolyglots activate socially when they can speak in a foreign language. To understand the significance of such contacts for language learning, just look at those areas of the world where at the same time several languages are spoken. Their inhabitants acquire new ones without any effort. One such area was for example Mezzofanti's Italy. Few people remember that when in 1860 the Italian republic formed, only 10 percent of the people of this country spoke the Florentine dialect, which today we consider to be Italian language. Similar phenomenon occurs in modern India where people use 29 tongues: Hindi mixes with Urdu, Bengali, Kannada and English. In some African countries even small children know up to eight local languages.
Multilingualism is however not the same thing as hyperpolyglotism. In the latter case, always one language (the mother tongue) will be privileged - the others are re-imposed on it. It is shown by the cases of mental patients who heard voices or had hallucinations only when they were using their native language - not the other ones, mastered later. Such cases were investigated by Dr. Felicity de Zulueta, a psychiatrist from the UK. Similar studies indicate the limitations encountered by the learners of multiple languages. New ones will always be like in a separate pocket (though not in a separate area of the brain). Therefore, while a hyperpolyglot is able to master several languages, none of them will he know as much as his own. Another difficulty of being a hyperpolyglot lies in the fact that language is not just words and grammatical structures, but also the cultural context in which they occur. Therefore, mastering the language requires vast knowledge and acquiring it takes time. The more languages you know, the harder it gets to find emotional contact with all cultures they represent. So if you don't have time for poring over books constantly, you can always get down to English. This language isn’t rather possible to be skipped.
Tips & tricks
Do you want to learn a foreign language successfully? Here are a few methods used and recommended by hyperpolyglots.
1. Immediately learn how to build simple substructures. You can use them if you don't know a certain word. For example, if you don't know how to say a baseball bat, you use the expression a thing which is used to hitting the ball.
2. Find a native speaker, even on the Internet (www.rosettastone.com). Ask him to give you the names of body parts and objects in the environment. It takes about 50 nouns, to begin to acquire verbs and build sentences.
3. Use linguistic forums, such as how-to-learn-any-language.com.
4. If you learn several tongues, change the language every 20 minutes.
5. Chew gum. There are studies indicating that this activity promotes memorization.
6. Establish a schedule of repetitions. The method developed by a linguist Paul Pimsleur tells us to revise the material every five seconds, then 25 seconds, two minutes, ten minutes, an hour, five hours, day, five days, 25 days, four months, two years.
7. Memorize poems and favorite passages of books.
8. Practice monologues in a foreign tongue and play in your mind language games, such as how many synonyms of a certain word you can think of.
9. Take care of memory training. Use computer tools, such as programs like Super Memo.
10. Stick to the methods you have chosen. Do not change them during learning.
LITERARY OR POETIC WORDS
A certain class of words is mainly found in old-fashioned English or poetry. However, it is worth paying attention to them because they are still used in jokes and ironic language.
You might hear, ‘You’ve been imbibing’ (drinking) or ‘He’s my deadly foe’ (enemy).
Here is a short list.
toil work
behold see
swift fast
demise death
attire clothes
tidings news
fare food
peruse read
scribe writer
hale healthy
betwixt between
penurious poor
slumber sleep
thoroughfare street
converse talk
A certain class of words is mainly found in old-fashioned English or poetry. However, it is worth paying attention to them because they are still used in jokes and ironic language.
You might hear, ‘You’ve been imbibing’ (drinking) or ‘He’s my deadly foe’ (enemy).
Here is a short list.
toil work
behold see
swift fast
demise death
attire clothes
tidings news
fare food
peruse read
scribe writer
hale healthy
betwixt between
penurious poor
slumber sleep
thoroughfare street
converse talk
Animals speak foreign languages as well! There are some sounds they make in English.
Btw, do you know how a fox sounds? If you want to find out watch the video!
Taken from: www.focus.pl
Translated by: Anna Duda
MAKE YOUR OWN LANGUAGE
The Biblical parable of the Tower of Babel doesn’t seem to go out of date - at least when it comes to the amount of generated languages.
Constructed languages are springing up. Can they break the hegemony of English?
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam – this mysterious-looking patchwork of letters is by no means an editorial mistake, but a battle cry which can be translated as: Today is a good day to die. This is a sentence in Klingon, spoken by the Klingons - a warrior race from Star Trek. The Klingon dictionary and textbook was created in 1985, when a linguist Marc Okrand observed a huge interest in his language created for the TV series. Seven years later, the institute promoting the culture of the Klingons was founded, and in 2010 the first opera in their language was staged.
Klingon is one of about 500 currently functioning constructed languages, i.e. those which - in contrast to those resulting from a spontaneous development - are a conscious human creation.
It’s difficult to estimate the number of people using them. The most famous one, Esperanto, according to some of the sources, is spoken by about 1.6 million people. There are about 30 fluent Klingon speakers, other languages have a few hundred or a few users.
Undoubtedly, film or literary languages top the list among linguistic utopias. "None of the hundreds of languages invented for sociological and ideological reasons earned such popularity," says Arika Okrent, the author of In the Land of Invented Languages.
Klingons are no exception. The inhabitants of the planet Tatooine from Star Wars also have their own language, Huttese. In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, in turn, Cityspeak can be heard .
Na'vi is spoken by the people of the moon Pandora in the film Avatar. The record holder when it comes to the number of invented languages, which, moreover, the passion for creating them called his secret sin - is the writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, author of Sindarin , Adunaic, Westrone, Khuzdul and the most developed one - Quenya. The latter is used by, among others, the characters of The Lord of the Rings. The popularity of the cycle of novels about the history of Middle-earth causes that even the computer game Minecraft has been translated into Quenya (there’s also its Klingon version).
Linguistic ghetto
Artificially created languages often successfully live their own lives afterwards. Suzette Haden Elgin, a professor of linguistics at the University of San Diego in the U.S. experienced it. For the benefit of her feminist novel Native Tongue, she has created a secret language of women – Laádan. Professor Elgin admits that while creating it, she was thinking about language having about a thousand words and very simple grammar rules. A circle of its enthusiasts was quickly expanding, and many of them began to invent and add new words to the Laádan dictionary.
The same happens with the majority of constructed languages. Tolkien's Quenya is still developing (it was improved, inter alia, for the purposes of filming The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson) and Klingon is constantly complemented by the fans of Star Trek. An American linguist d'Armond Speers even used it every day at home and has been teaching his son for the first three years of his life, wanting it to become his child’s second language.
Do these languages, however, have a chance to become more than just conceits of their creators and fans?
Only devoted Tolkien fans are interested in Quenya, and teenage now Speers' son that - as a result of an experiment conducted by his father - learned to speak Klingon quite smoothly, today almost doesn’t remember it. It found out, that too big gaps in vocabulary were responsible for problems in communication.
Why then people want to learn constructed languages, and what can they be useful to?
“According to people who took up film or literary language, learning is more of an emotional decision than a practical one. It’s about belonging to a certain society or a group of fans,” says Arika Okrent.
Do you speak volapük?
Do not forget that constructed languages are created not just for fun or for literature or film. One of the reasons is also - as in the case of Ludwik Zamenhof - longing for a new universal language. Since childhood, this ophthalmologist from Białystok has been dreaming of a common language for the Russians, Germans, Poles and Jews living in the city. He decided to make this dream come true and in 1887 published an Esperanto textbook. It was by no means the first conlanger, i.e. the creator of constructed languages. In 1817, a French musician and composer Jean-François Sudre created Solresol, which is a language based on the musical scale. A decade before Zamenhof, German priest Johan Martin Scheyer, drawing from spoken English, invented Volapük: a language in which all adjectives end in "ik".
The birth of Esperanto by no means chilled the enthusiasm of the creators of new languages. In 1930s, a British linguist Charles Kay Ogden, wanting to improve international trade, came up with the idea of Basic English - a language based on abbreviations and patchworks of syllables - which corresponds to the level of a six year old. Simple to use is based on loose terms and words from different tongues European language Europanto. In turn, the most concise language in the world was created in 1978 by a Canadian translator Sonja Elen Kisa - Toki Pona consists of only 123 words.
Today, new languages are springing up on the Internet. Talossa, Freedonia, Alphistia or Aeldaria are only the few of the virtual lands with distinct languages. Created in an era of the Internet newspeaks are quite poor, compared to their predecessors. In combination with the development of technology, however, they can be considered as fulfilling the dreams of the sixteenth-century utopians who placed the actions of their novels in imaginary lands. "Lands are created today, the essence of which is not space, but the word," says Caterina Marrone, a philosopher of language at the Sapienza University of Rome.
Against linguistic supremacy
Swiss psychologist Claude Piron claimed that the dominance of English is fiction. He argued that most of the people for whom it’s not a native language, use so-called Pidgin English which consists of no more than 1500 words. This is drop in the ocean of 615 thousand words contained in the Oxford Dictionary. This means that the international English is not richer than the constructed languages, aspiring to the role of the universal means of communication.
According to Piron, the supremacy of the language was always associated with a political and economic hegemony of the nation, which, nota bene, drew huge profits from this privilege. Swiss predicted that the end of the political and economic dominance of the United States would open the field to new global languages. Esperanto would probably have its chance. Piron claimed that it develops in accordance with the principle of exponential growth, which would mean that after years of slow development there will be a huge boost. From time to time there are also suggestions to make it an official language of the European Union institutions, which would reduce the colossal expenditures on translations. Would it - after Latin, French and English - be the time for Esperanto then? For now, only two thousand people consider Zamenhof's language their native one. In comparison to 30 people speaking Klingon however, it's still a pretty good result.
Translated by: Anna Duda
MAKE YOUR OWN LANGUAGE
The Biblical parable of the Tower of Babel doesn’t seem to go out of date - at least when it comes to the amount of generated languages.
Constructed languages are springing up. Can they break the hegemony of English?
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam – this mysterious-looking patchwork of letters is by no means an editorial mistake, but a battle cry which can be translated as: Today is a good day to die. This is a sentence in Klingon, spoken by the Klingons - a warrior race from Star Trek. The Klingon dictionary and textbook was created in 1985, when a linguist Marc Okrand observed a huge interest in his language created for the TV series. Seven years later, the institute promoting the culture of the Klingons was founded, and in 2010 the first opera in their language was staged.
Klingon is one of about 500 currently functioning constructed languages, i.e. those which - in contrast to those resulting from a spontaneous development - are a conscious human creation.
It’s difficult to estimate the number of people using them. The most famous one, Esperanto, according to some of the sources, is spoken by about 1.6 million people. There are about 30 fluent Klingon speakers, other languages have a few hundred or a few users.
Undoubtedly, film or literary languages top the list among linguistic utopias. "None of the hundreds of languages invented for sociological and ideological reasons earned such popularity," says Arika Okrent, the author of In the Land of Invented Languages.
Klingons are no exception. The inhabitants of the planet Tatooine from Star Wars also have their own language, Huttese. In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, in turn, Cityspeak can be heard .
Na'vi is spoken by the people of the moon Pandora in the film Avatar. The record holder when it comes to the number of invented languages, which, moreover, the passion for creating them called his secret sin - is the writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, author of Sindarin , Adunaic, Westrone, Khuzdul and the most developed one - Quenya. The latter is used by, among others, the characters of The Lord of the Rings. The popularity of the cycle of novels about the history of Middle-earth causes that even the computer game Minecraft has been translated into Quenya (there’s also its Klingon version).
Linguistic ghetto
Artificially created languages often successfully live their own lives afterwards. Suzette Haden Elgin, a professor of linguistics at the University of San Diego in the U.S. experienced it. For the benefit of her feminist novel Native Tongue, she has created a secret language of women – Laádan. Professor Elgin admits that while creating it, she was thinking about language having about a thousand words and very simple grammar rules. A circle of its enthusiasts was quickly expanding, and many of them began to invent and add new words to the Laádan dictionary.
The same happens with the majority of constructed languages. Tolkien's Quenya is still developing (it was improved, inter alia, for the purposes of filming The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson) and Klingon is constantly complemented by the fans of Star Trek. An American linguist d'Armond Speers even used it every day at home and has been teaching his son for the first three years of his life, wanting it to become his child’s second language.
Do these languages, however, have a chance to become more than just conceits of their creators and fans?
Only devoted Tolkien fans are interested in Quenya, and teenage now Speers' son that - as a result of an experiment conducted by his father - learned to speak Klingon quite smoothly, today almost doesn’t remember it. It found out, that too big gaps in vocabulary were responsible for problems in communication.
Why then people want to learn constructed languages, and what can they be useful to?
“According to people who took up film or literary language, learning is more of an emotional decision than a practical one. It’s about belonging to a certain society or a group of fans,” says Arika Okrent.
Do you speak volapük?
Do not forget that constructed languages are created not just for fun or for literature or film. One of the reasons is also - as in the case of Ludwik Zamenhof - longing for a new universal language. Since childhood, this ophthalmologist from Białystok has been dreaming of a common language for the Russians, Germans, Poles and Jews living in the city. He decided to make this dream come true and in 1887 published an Esperanto textbook. It was by no means the first conlanger, i.e. the creator of constructed languages. In 1817, a French musician and composer Jean-François Sudre created Solresol, which is a language based on the musical scale. A decade before Zamenhof, German priest Johan Martin Scheyer, drawing from spoken English, invented Volapük: a language in which all adjectives end in "ik".
The birth of Esperanto by no means chilled the enthusiasm of the creators of new languages. In 1930s, a British linguist Charles Kay Ogden, wanting to improve international trade, came up with the idea of Basic English - a language based on abbreviations and patchworks of syllables - which corresponds to the level of a six year old. Simple to use is based on loose terms and words from different tongues European language Europanto. In turn, the most concise language in the world was created in 1978 by a Canadian translator Sonja Elen Kisa - Toki Pona consists of only 123 words.
Today, new languages are springing up on the Internet. Talossa, Freedonia, Alphistia or Aeldaria are only the few of the virtual lands with distinct languages. Created in an era of the Internet newspeaks are quite poor, compared to their predecessors. In combination with the development of technology, however, they can be considered as fulfilling the dreams of the sixteenth-century utopians who placed the actions of their novels in imaginary lands. "Lands are created today, the essence of which is not space, but the word," says Caterina Marrone, a philosopher of language at the Sapienza University of Rome.
Against linguistic supremacy
Swiss psychologist Claude Piron claimed that the dominance of English is fiction. He argued that most of the people for whom it’s not a native language, use so-called Pidgin English which consists of no more than 1500 words. This is drop in the ocean of 615 thousand words contained in the Oxford Dictionary. This means that the international English is not richer than the constructed languages, aspiring to the role of the universal means of communication.
According to Piron, the supremacy of the language was always associated with a political and economic hegemony of the nation, which, nota bene, drew huge profits from this privilege. Swiss predicted that the end of the political and economic dominance of the United States would open the field to new global languages. Esperanto would probably have its chance. Piron claimed that it develops in accordance with the principle of exponential growth, which would mean that after years of slow development there will be a huge boost. From time to time there are also suggestions to make it an official language of the European Union institutions, which would reduce the colossal expenditures on translations. Would it - after Latin, French and English - be the time for Esperanto then? For now, only two thousand people consider Zamenhof's language their native one. In comparison to 30 people speaking Klingon however, it's still a pretty good result.
AMERICAN ENGLISH
There are a few small differences in the use of prepositions and adverbs between British and American English.
How would a British person say the following American sentences?
Washington is a very different than New York. (Br.E. from)
The exhibition continues through 30 April. (Br.E. until)
He’s shy around girls. (Br.E. with)
There was a large field in the back of the house. (Br.E. at the back of/behind)
I haven’t seen John in years. (Br.E. for)
This work isn’t good enough. Do it over. (Br.E. again)
I was there from a quarter of nine to a quarter after ten. (Br.E. to, past)
Mary Perez made a speech in behalf of the whole class. (Br.E. on)
The school is named for its founder. (Br.E. after)
There are a few small differences in the use of prepositions and adverbs between British and American English.
How would a British person say the following American sentences?
Washington is a very different than New York. (Br.E. from)
The exhibition continues through 30 April. (Br.E. until)
He’s shy around girls. (Br.E. with)
There was a large field in the back of the house. (Br.E. at the back of/behind)
I haven’t seen John in years. (Br.E. for)
This work isn’t good enough. Do it over. (Br.E. again)
I was there from a quarter of nine to a quarter after ten. (Br.E. to, past)
Mary Perez made a speech in behalf of the whole class. (Br.E. on)
The school is named for its founder. (Br.E. after)
Just a piece of advice ;-)
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)