6 Honest Challenges Adults Face in Language Learning, Number 4 Will Shock You.

Hi language learners,

As an adult, on the other hand, learning a new language is definitely a different experience. It’s not all bad, though: there are some big advantages, too! Understanding how adults learn differently will help you stay aware of possible challenges, while taking advantage of the benefits of being an adult learner.

1. Lack of discipline to create time for your language lessons.
At this stage of your life you might not have afternoons free like you did as a child and young adult, I recommend blocking out times in your schedule that are distraction free and one hundred percent focused on language learning. Even if the chunks of time are short, consistent study will lead to noticeable progress, so keep it up!

2. Your tribal or native accent can pose as a big problem.
When children learn a new language, they naturally assimilate the unique sounds, inflection, and rhythm of the language. As adults, it can be harder to completely master the accent, as the foreign sounds can be challenging to assimilate completely since speech patterns are already set.

There’s good news, though: if you were exposed to the sounds of foreign languages as a child, that can be enough to make learning a new accent easier, as studies have shown that just exposure as children, even without speaking, can familiarize us with the sounds at a later date.
And even without that exposure, there are many ways your tutor can help you improve your accent if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Working with a language tutor — as opposed to relying on prerecorded courses, videos, and apps — is key, as you’ll get feedback and corrections as you’re speaking.

3. Lack of of time like you had back in school.
You may have counted down the minutes until the end of the school day, whereas now you dream of uninterrupted time for study and self-development as a working adult. The upside is that there are many opportunities for adults to pursue intensive, serious study, as well. You might even benefit more as a serious adult student than you did as an adolescent.

Examples of study you could undertake include Part time one on one coaching during time off of work, night classes, online group classes , and intensive private tutoring sessions, all of which can fit into the busiest of schedules. With these ideas, you’ll be learning your target language in leaps and bounds!

4. Fear of making mistakes.
A big difference between adults and kids is that the latter group is often unhampered to try new things, even if it means looking a little ridiculous and making errors. Adults can be intimated by trying new things, and making errors is frowned upon.

This can make it challenging to learn well, as an inherent part of language learning is to make mistakes and experiment! You can remain aware of this downfall and work to overcome fear of mistakes by staying open, having fun, and trying new things.
5. Vocabulary acquisition needs targeted practice.
As an adult, it’s often not enough to just rely on exposure to acquire and memorize new vocabulary. As you learn, you’ll need to make a targeted and concerted effort to memorize new vocabulary. Children and adolescents can often pick up new vocabulary simply through exposure and repetition; the advantage adults have is that they can choose to focus on specific vocabulary sets that interest them. These could be highly specific (i.e. Spanish vocabulary for healthcare) or general; either way, you’ll be learning exactly what you want to learn in no time.

6.  Grammar won’t come naturally.
Children learning new languages often pick up sentence structure and other grammatical points simply by listening and interacting. Adults, on the other hand, may struggle with structures that are different in their native language. Because of this, grammatical exercises and dedicated study are usually necessary.

However, adults can use the grammar rules they already know and understand as a jumping off point for learning a new language’s grammar. This can be advantageous as well as an interesting exploration if you have an interest in how languages function. To sum it up, adults can often explain the “why” behind a usage in a language, while children can only execute the grammatical function without the capacity to explain.

Which one do you think resonates to you in your language learning, leave a comment below.

To your learning
of languages,

FrenchLadyDisi
Your Language Tutor.

Challenges And Triumphs In My Translation Journey

Hi guy's,
I use to think translation is not as hard as it looks. Well guess what, looks can be deceptive and I learnt the truth the hard way when I started translating.

 Translation is a dynamic intellectual craft that is developed through experience and maturation. Translation is a profession with elements of both art and science, and with deep historical roots. At its best, translation can be an exquisite form of communication, facilitating a meeting of minds across cultures. Translation  is essentially a decision-making process that requires a combination of language ability, subject-specific knowledge, intuition, research skills, and judgment.

A proper translation expresses the meaning behind the use of written words in one language in the written word usage of a second language. Although the translator appears to be dealing with words, in actual practice the translator is dealing with units of meaning that may or may not be expressed by the words appearing on paper. The translator must go beyond the stated word to the true intent of the document to be translated. Meaning is not contained in words, but is abstracted from words and interpreted within a context.
As a translator I must rely not only on linguistic clues appearing in the document, but also on extra-linguistic knowledge. As a translator I must be able to understand and appreciate distinctions made in the "source language" of the document to be translated, and to make equivalent distinctions in the "target language" of the translation. This is not an easy task.

The Steps In The Translation Process Are As Follows:
Step 1: Text Analysis–Analyzing the structure of the text and its meaning.
Step 2: Research–Searching for meaningful "clues" within the text and outside of the text.
Step 3: Draft Translations–Preparing as many drafts as are needed.
Step 4: Accuracy Checking–Comparing the source and target texts.
Step 5: Editing–Reviewing the target language text for appropriate style and jargon.
Step 6: Formatting–Putting the final text in printed and/or electronic form.

This is what I call the «TRDAEF» Translation process. The process of translation is essentially the same in all cases but a variety of approaches are in use which are largely determined by the translator's personality and experience. A document must be analyzed not only for its linguistic structure, but also for its underlying meaning. Some documents are written under pressure, and sometimes by more than one author which can result in internal inconsistencies. I am sometimes faced not only with typographical errors in the source text, but also with intermittent failure in grammar, rhetoric and logic.

The Quality of a Translation Depends Primarily Upon:
The quality of the "source language" document;
The degree of subject-specific knowledge acquired by the translator;
The level of "source language" and "target language" proficiency of the translator;
The translator's diligence and attention to detail.

Some translators prefer to dictate their translations, and some translators prefer to use "Machine Assisted Translation" {MAT} software in preparing their rough drafts. The reason is that both of these approaches increase output speed and productivity. There are great advantages to dictating, especially when translating documents that are very familiar and that contain few ambiguities. But if not done properly, dictation ca lead to things getting "lost" or misplaced in the translation. Haste makes waste.

 In any case, the accuracy checking step cannot be overlooked. "Machine assisted translation" can sometimes work for documents that are very consistent and very repetitive. Of course, there are various levels of "machine assistance" that can be provided by computer software, but in most cases, although some of the simpler aspects of translation (those that involve "code switching") can be speeded up, there is really no substitute for the careful and attentive human touch. After all, the original text was prepared by human beings.

I believe that the subconscious mind plays a very significant role in the process of translation. I have often had the experience of trying to decide the best way to translate a troublesome passage, and having exhausted all available reference and research resources, I let the problem go from my conscious mind, turn it over to my subconscious mind, and focus my conscious mind on something else. Later, it will suddenly occur to me what the best choice is, or how to go about it.

 It is often useful to step outside the conscious aspect of the translation process, let the subconscious work on it, and then return to the conscious aspect. Unfortunately, we do not always have that luxury because of deadline pressure! However, I have often found that when I have a problem, either professional or personal in nature, I can find the solution by releasing it to my subconscious mind.

The truth is that knowledge of a foreign language is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition, to become a translator. Many additional skills and aptitudes are required. A translator must be able to write well in the target language. The terminology, phraseology, and speech level of the translation must be accurate, up-to-date, and appropriate to the specific context and audience. In order to achieve this, the translator must have an understanding of the subject matter of the text, and the translator must know how to write in the specialized field.

This does not necessarily mean that the translator has to be an "expert" in the field, but to a significant degree, the translator needs to have acquired knowledge of the field through schooling, work experience, and self-study.  Some translations require expertise that the translator cannot possibly possess, and this is particularly true of certain types of interdisciplinary work. In many cases, it is the client who possesses the necessary subject expertise related to a particular document, and the translator should not feel embarrassed to ask the client for help.
One of the most interesting attributes of translators is perfectionism.

The documents we are called on to translate are not necessarily perfect themselves, but we are expected to render them into the target language faithfully and accurately. On the other hand, we know that translators can at times be very sloppy and sometimes unacceptable. Sometimes this is due to inexperience, unreasonable deadlines, laziness and lack of attention to detail. Of course, this can happen in any Profession, and is certainly not unique to the field of translation. In the final analysis, the most important attitude of any professional is to be willing and able to learn from one's mistakes, and to apply what one has learned so as to further improve the quality of the work.

Although I know from experience that perfection is unattainable. After all, we are humans and we live in an imperfect world. And though we strive to produce the most perfect product we can, we know that in many cases, perfection in translation is an impossible goal. One of the most beautiful aspects of our profession is that there is always more to learn.  We must recognize our limitations, while at the same time making continual efforts to transcend those limitations and build on our strengths.

Ultimately, we can provide appropriate service only when we understand the needs of our clients. Although we may feel that what we want to achieve is perfection, I believe that what we are really striving for is excellence. Excellence is a habit of mind that can be cultivated only through a developmental process involving continual improvement through hard work and self-discipline.

Please do leave a comment about what you think of translation.

To your learning
of languages,

FrenchLadyDisi
Your language Tutor.

Importance of Communication Via Language in a 2016 Movie “ARRIVAL”

Hi Guys,
Today I want us to go in-depth into the importance of language comprehension, language learning and communication by pinning my point from an American movie I watched titled «ARRIVAL». Seriously when I watched it, I was intrigued and fascinated by the storyline of the movie which got me really thinking how necessary and important it is for one to be Multilingual as well as language flexible and language adaptable.

This move was Initial release on 11 November 2016 in Russia. It was directed by Denis Villeneuve and was produced by: Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde. The movie was awarded, Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. The major languages used was English, Russian and Standard Mandarin. It is of importance to note that it was based on the 1998 short story: "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang and had a budget of $47 million. The star cast are Amy Adams (Dr. Louise Banks), Jeremy Renner (Ian Donnelly) and Forest Whitaker (Colonel G.T. Weber).

The synopsis of the film follows a linguistic and dialectology professor Dr. Louise Banks who leads an elite team of investigators in Montana, enlisted by the U.S. Army to discover how to race against time to find a way to communicate with the alien extraterrestrial visitors who have arrived on Earth in a gigantic spaceship in 12 different locations of the world, before tensions lead to war.

Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind. Her job is to try to learn the aliens' language and enable communication with them. Through regular meetings with two of the aliens she starts to compile a record of the aliens' "language" - a series of drawn symbols.
The important question is - are they friend or foe? Other nations with alien landings are starting to view them as a threat, making it a race against time as war with the aliens could erupt at any moment. The nation's of this world always think things that occur unexpectedly have destructive tendencies. Time is non-linear for the aliens, and they have a different means of communication.

Amoung the elite team of  experts was the theoretical physicist Dr Ian Donnelly, burdening them with the impossible task to decipher a coded conversation with the intergalactic visitors. But when all attempts to communicate prove fruitless, a practical, yet very important question will arise: does humanity have enough vocabulary to understand the aliens' answer before a new global war sparks?

They go through a series of back and forth communication with the aliens over a period of about a month. Louise takes with her a small white board to help write what she is trying to say to the aliens. She first writes the word “Human” on the board to tell them what they are. The pods perceive the written English to be a form of communication and respond with a circular symbol. This shows that they have written text. Of course, they use some ubercool space ink to write stuff.

On their next trip, Louise decides to take off her radiation suit so that the aliens can see her face. She now writes “Louise” on the board and points to herself. Ian takes off his suit too. She writes “Ian” on another board and he points to himself. The two aliens respond with two different symbols. They have names too. For the sake of convenience they name the heptapods Abbott and Costello.

The objective is to ask them – “What is the purpose of your visit to Earth?”. Language and communication is complex, especially with some advanced alien species, hence the process is long. Humans are obviously paranoid and destructive by nature. China decides to go offensive on the aliens and stop all their communications with other countries of the world. Other nations follow suit. Eventually every country stops communicating with one another and start working on their own strategy. The last communication they get from the heptapods is translated to the phrase “use weapon”.

The alien vessel, after the human attack, goes up higher. They lose the ability to enter the craft now. Ian has a breakthrough. He isolates 12 repeating symbols that match with the number of alien crafts. They feel that the aliens are trying to tell them that all 12 countries have to unite their knowledge to understand the reason of their visit.

While trying to decipher the last complex message, Louise sees a glimpse of a small transportation module coming out of the main craft. She also sees a vision of her inside the craft. She doesn’t understand the visions but she goes outside. As seen, the transportation module comes down, Louise steps in, and is taken to the craft. Inside the craft, she meets the heptapod. It explains that she has the ability to see the future. It is confirmed that “use weapon” was actually “use gift”.

The aliens have come to gift their language to the humans. They say that 3000 years later, they will need the humans help. There is no clarity on the nature of that help that they will need from the humans. But they have identified that gifting the humans with non-linear time vision is important and this will somehow enable the humans to help 3000 years later.

 To a lot of people this was annoying because the reason of their “arrival” was not stressed upon in detail. The focus lies more upon the moment of not understanding the alien language and getting to understand it. This event will lead to the unification of the world to make us a species that will live long and prosper, and to help other intergalactic beings.

Leave a comment below stating if you will watch the movie and tell me what you think.

To your learning
of languages ,

FrenchLadyDisi
Your Language Tutor.

Vila Tips And Tricks For Language Learning

 In all facet of life there are always tips and tricks to speed up achieving one's desired gaols. Fortunately, language learning is no exception to this short-cut. Here are some simply but interesting points, if followed judiciously could yield some formidable results. 

1. Learning on the go:
With mobile smartphone to study each day, I have decided to pen down some few tips and tricks that could give you to best use of  your time with your mobile phone. “If you take a moment to determine where you have more time and where you have less time, you can choose your lesson accordingly. At Vila, we’ve designed our lessons so that they fit perfectly into those times when you’re waiting or commuting.” Many users use the whatsApp group chat while on public transportation, especially on their way to work, while some from work. It’s the perfect use of an otherwise boring stretch of time.

2. Find the right learning pattern:
I noted that learners can adapt their studying to their personality type. “There are two types of language learners: those who like routines and those who don’t. The ones who like routines can make up their own schedule, like two sets of repetition and one new lesson, and they stick to it. Then there are ones that don’t like routines. It’s no problem, they just don’t do the same thing every day. ” I suggest that these types of people can choose to dedicate some days to only repetition (which isn’t a lost day, because you didn’t forget anything!), and other days to just new lessons, or whatever ratio you prefer.

3. Build confidence through practice:
Also, I recommended that one day per week should focus on applying the language to real life:  If that’s unavailable where you live, the internet still provides a lot of places to read the language, or listen to a podcast, or to find an online community where you can communicate with others. To apply is the best way to really get the information into long-term memory.” If you plan on using the language in real life (which is the goal, isn’t it?), then you should actually put it to use.

4. Make a habit of daily learning:
The most important thing is to do something every day. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, it’s better than nothing because you made connections. While spending a full 15 minutes on lessons and taking time to review should be the goal for language learning, the key to proficiency in another language is daily practice. With this consistency, you’ll be speaking a new language in no time.

5. Using music for memorizing:
For the final tip: learning a language can sometime be stranneous and confusing. But research has shown that learning through musical form helps the learning process move from short term memory to long term memory, thereby facilitating retention of that target language. So getting a simple short music of a particular subject of the language you are learning could go a long way. This in this internet age where everything is made readily available online, you can download as many subjects on the language your learning or streamline to listen online.

Comment below by telling me which global language you would like to learn.

Start learning a new language now with VILA Institute online programmes!

To your learning
of languages,

FrenchLadyDisi
Your Language Tutor.