Expecto transcriptum

Thanks to the efforts of our L2 brethren, we have access to mountains of learning material we’d otherwise be without. Feel like giving something back? I added a “submit a transcript” form at EverydayEnglish.tv! Surely you know a few cool videos that our sisters and brothers from other mothers would love to have transcribed! It only takes a few minutes, and hey, suddenly browsing youtube is like, you know, productive!

Hop on over and drop me a line, and I’ll add it to the slowly growing archive

Matt out!

p.s. Yes, the site is still ugly. I know. But it’s functional!

p.p.s. Seriously though, it’ll get prettier soon.

Further reading:

• Back From My Hiatus
• Back home
• The Ramses Is BACK!

Further

Good news, everybody! Announcing my new site: EverydayEnglish.tv

Poorly-drawn Transcription Wizard is here to help!

EverydayEnglish.tv is my new site for learners of English and lovers of crappy mascots. I decided to create the one resource I’ve been trying so hard to find for other languages– videos of varying difficulty, along with exact transcriptions, all in one convenient location. Finally there’s a pure, media-based learning resource distilled of all academic hogwash. It’s English, as used in television and movies! If I was learning English, I’d love me!

If you know anyone studying English, send them over! Make it known! Tweet it! Are you an ESL teacher? Use it in the classroom! Tell your pets! Climb on a Starbucks counter, pour creme all over yourself, and shout “EVERYDAYENGLISH.TV” until you get arrested!

In all seriousness, I have gotten so much good, free information from sites like Spanish-Only and AJATT that I felt like giving something back. Spanish-Only will continue to be the place where I blog, but now my time will be divided between providing ideas and tips here, and purely functional content at EverydayEnglish.

Spread the word!

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You wouldn’t feel so awful about about Monopoly.

 You wouldn’t feel pressured to do Anki reps about hidden Metroid rooms.

 You wouldn’t get an ulcer because you didn’t sentence-mine that bizarre man-on-man-action scene in Final Fantasy VII.

You wouldn’t lock yourself in your room and cut off contact with your English-speaking friends because you’re trying so, so hard to save the f***ing mushroom kingdom.

Relax… Breathe.

It’s just a game.

Have fun.

Fun gets done.

Further reading:

• You’ll Never Learn Spanish If It’s Not Part of Your Life
• How Much Spanish Is There in Your Life?

Further

soon...

For those of you not in the know, I’ve been scorched-earth sentence-mining Mass Effect 2. I’m not actually playing the game; I’m watching a ‘Let’s Play’ video of someone beating it in French. It’s cool, but like everything in life, at some point the high wears off and it’s not so thrilling any more.

That’s where carrots come into play. See, I’ve promised myself that when I finish Ankifying Mass Effect 2, I’m going to purchase and play Mass Effect 3 myself! How’s that for motivation!

We like to get down on ourselves when we have a large task to accomplish, but it’s a lot easier, and infinitely more effective, to use positive reinforcement.

Plus, you know… Mass Effect.

Further reading:

• Let’s Play French
• Stick to One Dialect, Stupid!

Further

*ahem*

Textbooks, like hookers, generally leave you worse off than you started. They’re both purchased by people looking for love in all the wrong places. But are they entirely without merit? No. You just have to know how to use them. (I’m talking about textbooks of course).

I found a great way to use my sister’s* college French textbook. Actually, I found a great way to use the audio Cd’s it came with; the textbook is less than worthless to me. I used Audacity to create mp3s of each individual word/phrase on the cd, and put them into a ‘French Pronunciation’ Anki deck. This leaves me with two decks:

1 – ‘Francais’ – Thousands of audio cards made from movies, TV shows, and video games. Question = audio, answer = transcription.

2 – ‘French Pronuncation’ – Question = audio, answer = nothing. Listen, mimic, repeat. It’s all about creating the correct sounds.

See, expecting a textbook to teach you a language is like expecting a bottle of water to make you a good runner. It’s just help along the way. Running makes you a better runner, and spending time doing French stuff for French people makes you good at French.

That being said, once you’re already scrotum-deep in comprehension, the audio from a beginner French textbook can rapidly push you into the speaking phase because it has:

1. Clear, easy-to-mimic pronunciation

2. High-frequency words

The combination of these two factors makes it much more economical to make a speaking deck out of a textbook than from random media sources. Textbooks can indeed be used for good. Once I feel comfortable with this deck, I’ll switch over to mimicking my normal French deck; it’s really just training wheels until I’m ready to play for realzies.

So remember, next time you’re cruising the seedier parts of town in your ’92 Toyota Camry, looking for a little textbook-love, make sure you’re the one the using the textbook, and not the other way around; if you let things escalate, her pimp –named ‘Upgrade’– will regulate you like an animal.

Now get out there and be somebody.

*My sister enthusiastically took college French for two years. Guess how good her French is.

Further reading:

• Dearest dudes and babes,

Further

You.

All of these language-learning methods- Anki, immersion, focusing on quantity, keeping it fun, learning by testing (rather than learning for testing) – are fully applicable in other fields. I’m learning Ruby on Rails at the speed of light. My shoulders and abs have never been more defined. Supermodels have been using pick-up routines on me.

Like ketchup, duct-tape, and alcohol, these methods go with pretty much anything.

How are you using them in your life?

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Sounds good to me

I’m currently reading two French books right now: Hunger Games, and Le Défi Américain. The former is a young-adult novel about teenagers trying to survive a death-match. The latter, published in 1968, is a treatise from a Frenchman to his countrymen on why Europe must rise to the American economic challenge.

Here’s the thing: I’m struggling with Hunger Games, but breezing through Le Défi Américain. Why?

It has to nothing to do with reading level, and everything to do with my addictions – comic books, video games, websites, forums, and news. By merely carrying over these addictions into French, I’ve developed reading fluency with this kind of material. Le Défi Américain reads like a general interest/news article, and thus is easily within my sphere of addiction.

On the contrary, Hunger Games is a novel packed with literary French, with which I have no familiarity. It’s a first person, present tense account of life in a distopian American ghetto, and uses lots of vocabulary that I’ve never seen before. “But, but… it’s for teenagers! That’s the easy section of the library!” Sorry bud, but that argument just doesn’t cut the mustard.

See, the principal of specificity tells us that we get good at what we practice. I’m not simply practicing ‘French’ – I’m practicing a specific kind of French: the French used within my realm of interest.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Junkie

Some people say to read at your level. Others say to read at your interest. The truth is that, before you know it, they’re the same thing. Bookstore categorizations are meaningless; ‘young-adult’ doesn’t mean easy, and ‘economics/politics’ doesn’t mean hard. The only gage you have is your internal addiction-meter. Does it jump at a certain book or subject? Go for it. Feed your addictions.

If you’re interested, it’s for you.

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” – George Bernard Shaw

Further reading:

• Let’s Play French

Further

Just a quick update by me, Ramses. Currently I’m in Málaga (Andalucía) for work, and it’s great here. Back home in Amsterdam it’s something like minus 10°C which is not funny at all. Luckily I’m in Málaga where yesterday it was just below 20°C.

Don’t believe me, huh? Well, here’s proof:

¡Tomaaa! ¡19 grados!

Yes, I love my life at the moment, thank you for asking.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m posting (or maybe just a little)- I’m posting because I want to share a little success story with you all. This simply proves that anyone can become good at any language and sound like a native. It doesn’t take any grammar lessons or studying, just old school copying and persistence.

What happened?

So right after arriving in Málaga, two colleagues of mine and I went out for lunch and some beers. Because we have a collective hate for anything McDonald’s or Burger King we decided to go to a chiringuito (beach bar) where they had tapas and raciones. Immediately the waiter started to tease me with my strong Galician accent, and he was convinced that I was from Galicia. I didn’t mention that I’m Dutch and didn’t speak any Spanish four years ago.

We ended up talking about football (what else is new in Spain) and still he was convinced that I just arrived from La Coruña to celebrate carnaval in Andalucía. I didn’t fool him for a just few minutes, but for an entire two hours, which consisted of joking around with my colleagues and him and just talking about lots of random stuff.

So yes, I dare say that I’ve graduated as gallego. Even in Galicia I’ve managed to fool people for a few hours, but in the end they knew there was something ‘off’ about my Spanish skills. Not anymore; I just speak and don’t even notice my accent anymore. Everyone I speak to says I have the strongest Galician accent ever, which just feels cool.

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s impossible to acquire a native accent, because it’s possible. My ‘method’ was/is to always imitate people and just exaggerate. Don’t sound like a robot, just pick up the way people pronounce things and try to make fun of it. In the end you will sound exactly the same if you persist and people from other parts of Spain will make fun of you. However, this time having people make fun of you is the best feeling ever, because you will know you’ve reached your goal of becoming a native.

¡Ciao nenos!

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French transcripts for nearly every episode of Les Simpsons:

http://www.simpsonspark.com/scripts/scripts_list.php

I’d cry with joy if my tear ducts hadn’t atrophied from disuse.

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