Learning foreign language made easy with practice

No, really???

Actually, it’s a pretty cool article, with the lesson being more (intentionally or not)  how living experiences help to drive concepts (and therefore vocabulary) into our brains.  give it a read…

Getting back to Spanish verbs (after a long, and much deserved rest)…  Last time, we went through -ar verbs.  At the time, I mentioned that there were three basic verb patterns, all based upon the final letters of the infinitive form.  The other two types are -er and -ir.  Let’s look at the patterns.

infinitive: -er

I: -o                            we: -emos

you (sing.): -es          you(plural): -éis

he/she/it: -e             they:-en

So, the verb “comer” (to eat) would be conjugated in the following manner:

Presente
yo       como
tú       comes
él       come
nosotros comemos
vosotros coméis
ellos    comen

-ir verbs are quite similar, and only vary on the nosotros and vosotros forms.

infinitive: -ir

I: -o                            we: -imos

you (sing.): -es          you(plural): -ís

he/she/it: -e             they:-en

For example, “escupir” (to spit) is conjugated in the following manner:

yo       escupo
tú       escupes
él       escupe
nosotros escupimos
vosotros escupís
ellos    escupen

And there you have it!  Now, before you get to happy with yourself, let me warn you, there are exceptions to the standard forms, and we’re going to start looking at those next week….

Check out this article from the telegraph: “English as it is spoken today will have disappeared in 100 years and could be replaced by a global language called Panglish, researchers claim.”

 Errr…  Not buying it completely…

 As I’ve noted before, languages change rapidly (think how many new terms and usages have entered English in just the last 20 years!), so English will certainly be quite different from the current variety in 2108 — but then, so will every other living language on Earth!  There is a correlation between the size of the speaking community and the amount of (divergent) change, so as English is now a first or second language most everywhere, one can already see divergent forms emerging.  Still, I think the article, while containing some nuggets of fact, is engaging in alarmism.  While the next 100 years will certainly see the emergence of some competing models of English, native speaking communities will continue speaking much as they did before — with only natural language change, technology, and  the influx of immigrant vocabulary affecting the language.  Our descendents in 2108 will probably consider our current speech to be oddly stilted — just like we think that speech from the early 1900s has an odd quality to it — but it will certainly be comprehensible to all.

The only type of radical change that could very well happenis that some sort of global agency tries to set up an official lingua franca, drawing from English, as well as other sources.  Otherwise, expect things to go on as they are now — with English continuing a long stretch of global hegemony in economic, scientific, and news forums, but expect regional English varieties to become increasingly divergent (unless acted upon by a global agency as in the above).

Exit Q: Who came up with “Panglish?”  — I mean, really!  It sounds more like a Winnie the Pooh character than a language!

Shouldn’t this be an indication that you’re *ahem* not really cut out to be a pastor!  I mean, really!  If you find the very name of Jesus Christ to be too political, too divisive to be uttered in a church, then maybe it’s time for this pastor to move on in life….

Unintentionally hilarious quote of the day: “{s}he says there’s been virtually a consensus among scholars for the past 30 years that the Bible is not some divine emanation – or in Ms. Vosper acronym, TAWOGFAT, The Authoritative Word of God For All Time – but a human project filled with contradictions and the conflicting worldviews and political perspectives of its authors.”

Ohhh the humanity!  So these “scholars” (any bets that she lists Christopher Hitchens as one?) from the past 30 years have completely gutted the voluminous architectural, historical, eyewitness, etc. evidence that has been amassed over the last 2000 years and been vetted, verified, and constantly reviewed by the best and brightest of every generation since Christ’s apostles made the extraordinary (not to mention unprecedented) claim that their master, who had been publicly executed 3 days prior, had risen victoriously from the grave.  Some the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century (such as C.S. Lewis) have made it their life’s mission to disprove the Bible, only to come to the realization that intellectual honesty required them to believe its precepts.  We’re supposed to believe that “scholars” from the last 30 years who substitute a visceral hatred for God and inflamed rhetoric for actual honest evaluation of evidence…

Nope… Not buying it…

She wants an end to the image of God as an intervening all-powerful authority who must be appeased to avoid divine wrath; rather she would have congregations work together as communities to define God – or god – according to their own worked-out definitions of what is holy and sacred.

This is the old lie, that we find repeated throughout human history…  It’s as pervasive as it is old — affecting every human civilization.  That lie is: “it’s all about you!  You just need to know yourself, advocate yourself, love yourself, and it will all be ok.  I’ve seen children who immediately see through the fallacy of self-actualization as the supreme state of humanity.  Humans tend to have mutually exclusive likes, goals, and the like.  If I can only “be me” by denying others the ability to express themselves, this whole thing is going to come crashing down faster than a ton of bricks…  If you deny the existence or relevance of any power beyond the individual, you take away any foundations for morality.  How can one even determine an idea of sacredness without a clear distinction of what is good and evil.  There has to be a universal constant in order to even talk about things in terms of “holy” and “sacred.”  Stripped to its core, this type of atheism uses terms (good/evil) that shouldn’t exist in their worldview — yet they are intensely aware of their presence in the world.

Well put!  Via the Anchoress : “it is the logical culmination of baby-boomer narcissism and that generations’ tireless effort to deconstruct the universe and put itself at the center of all things”

Beware of intercourse with wombats!  Apparently such can lead to accent-changes!!!!

Not surprisingly, the prosecutor has stated that “alcohol played a large role in Cradock’s life…”   The heck you say!  Do tell!

For the record:

1) Australian is not a language (you see, Ms. Hilton, the first lesson’s free!)

2) Wombat’s don’t live in New Zealand

3) While there are documented cases of accent shifts due to brain trauma,  there are no such cases on record that list the causation as “marsupial love.”

Update: Never one to shy away from all the details, Allahpundit from Hotair.com has linked the *ahem* intimate details on wombats…

It’s been a long while since I’ve blogged anything on my attempts at Arabic.  I’m happy to report that I’m still floundering away err… studying hard…

I had applied to a couple of scholarship programs earlier in the year to go abroad to an Arabic-speaking country to study this summer, and I’m sorry to say that I was rejected by both.  However, as that would have caused a two month split between my wife and myself, that’s probably for the best.  I was honestly starting to get nervous over the prospect of leaving her (and my terrific and much beloved dog, of course) for that long.  I guess I’ll have to shunt that off to the future, but I still hope to do go to the Near East to work on my language abilities sometime.  It seems like a fascinating area, and, to be honest, I’ve always had a peculiar limitation in that I never really get proficient at speaking a language in the classroom — I literally have to go abroad (reading and writing, however, I learn in the classroom just fine).  While nothing in my career at this point hinges on Arabic, I’d still like to improve.  I’m not certain whether I’ll be able to take the next section of Arabic next Fall because I’ll be taking my comprehensive exams (one of the last stages before starting dissertation work), and it’s recommended to minimize coursework.  I’m happily finishing up my final (degree-relevant) courses now, so I may have a completely clean slate this fall.  Still, it does give me some pause to think of taking a break in my Arabic studies from May until next January….  Will I remember anything???

I’m getting to that “heavy” part of the semester where I don’t have a whole lot of free time, so please excuse the somewhat sparser posting over the next few weeks.

To those who enjoy the language learning segments, and may be confused as to their absence this week, don’t worry!  The weekly Spanish, French, Japanese, and Chinese lessons will be back on as of next week.  This week was simply a little hectic trying to catch up on the work that I SHOULD have been doing when I was traveling during  spring break.  I spent the first few days this week growing to despise Excel (i.e., doing some preliminary analysis of data from a study I’m currently running).  Currently, what’s keeping me busy is student-conferencing.  This weekend, I’ll be writing code for a new study I’ll be starting soon…  SIGH!!!  How many more weeks until summer break????

Or suffer the consequences…

 Actually, language learning is a great way to learn more about the world, and to increase one’s savvy as to what is and isn’t a country (as well as where they’re located).  Paris, I’d be happy to teach you for the small fee of $1000/hr. — mere chump change to you — and then the media won’t be able to mock you so cruelly for being a moron on the leftish side of the bell curve…  Think it over! 

You know, when it was first built 120 years ago, the Eiffel tower was considered to be a hideous eyesore to Paris residents.  Now it has become the symbol of the entire city, itself, as well as one of the most iconic images in the world…  I guess some think that it’s boring for landmarks to be readily accepted, because there is a move afoot to re-uglify the tower…  Read all about it.

Ick…