Cool like a banana

I've just got back from Tanzania and learnt some basic Swahili along the way. My favourite phrase has to be 'Poa kichizi kama ndizi' or as it would be in English, 'cool like a banana'. While climbing Kilimanjaro this could be used in response to questions about how we were and the guides enjoyed getting us all to try and remember it and say it correctly. It took our minds off the trek for a while anyway. I was trying to think of how we might translate it into English. The obvious phrase seems to be 'Cool as a cucumber'. But if someone is cool as a cucumber they are a little distant, aloof, removed. I wouldn't say it's a cool thing to be. And nor would I reply to the, How's it going? with 'Cool as a cucumber'. But, even though it's not an English phrase I could happily say, 'Cool like a banana'. Bananas are just more fun than cucumbers. We associate them with sunshine, slapstick humour, fun desserts - banana split, Bananaman. But cucumbers? They're rather cold, tasteless, salad vegetables. The more I compare the two phrases the more different they become. I can't think right now of a more appropriate English translation for, Poa kichizi kama ndizi, so for now I'll stick with the literal, Cool like a banana.

Take Take Take

Sometimes it's the most simple verbs which are the most difficult to learn. Take - It seems like an easy verb to most native speakers. So easy it can be used all the time. And that's the problem. In English we use many verbs such as take, make, do and have extensively.

We use take as a main verb, usually meaning to carry something from one place to another. But does it mean that? I can also say I take a bus to work, but I certainly don't carry the bus. Take is one of those verbs with lots of different usages and we have to learn when and how to use it if we are a learner. One way of learning how to learn such verbs is to learn collocations i.e. combinations of words that are very frequently found together e.g.

take the bus
take heart
take my advice

If groups of words are learnt together, it will be easier for the learner to use them together. But that's not the only difficulty with take. It is also used with many prepositions as a phrasal verb e.g.

take on
take off
take in

These are so similar for learners that they are very confusing to learn. Not only that, sometimes they can have more than one meaning e.g.

The plane took off early. =left the ground
Comedians are always taking off politicians. =making jokes about

If you're interested in learning more and discussing 'Take' I'll be holding a class on Edufire on 7 September at

http://edufire.com/classes/8068-how-to-use-the-verb-take

In the meantime, If you're learning English, what do you find difficult about common verbs?

Teaching on Edufire

Recently I came across Edufire, an excellent site where teachers can advertise their lessons and students can find teachers. Lessons take place in the online classroom which allows the teacher to upload files and presentations to use during the lesson. I've spent much of this week discovering how it works and I'm now really excited to be able to try it out soon. I'm going to be teaching IELTS speaking courses first which will give students preparing for the IELTS exam an opportunity to practise, but will also be suitable for students who just want to practise their spoken English. I'm really looking forward to it. Hope to meet you soon on Edufire.
http://edufire.com/CorinaBlum

Are you different in a Foreign Language?

When I speak English I am being myself. When I speak a foreign language I feel I am an actor and can be a differnt person. You could say, the person I am speaking to does not get the real Me. I use the foreign language differently. In English I use language in a conservative way. I rarely make big exclamations such as Wow! Cool! Fantastic! When speaking spanish I love to say Fantastico! Excellente! Que Bueno! When speaking French I can say things using flowery language I would cringe to say in English. Could it be that using a foreign language allows us to express sides of our personality we don't get to express normally? Is it because at some level we feel we are acting, we are not being ourselves so we can risk using language in a way in which we would not use our first language? Although we are 'acting', are we still being ourselves, just showing a different, perhaps even more private side of ourselves? Does a side of me want to be the flamboyant person I am in Spanish, when I am 'being myself' in English? I suspect so, just as the different characters an actor plays allow the actor to explore different facets of their personality. What do you think? Are you a different person when you speak a foreign language?

Talk to yourself

I've been thinking back to one of the best ways to improve fluency in a foreign language. It's something you can do even if you're learning all by yourself. An old school teacher recommended it and we laughed. Even so, I tried it. It's simple: Talk to yourself. Now, this may sound silly, and if you're not used to it you may feel silly too. But try it when you're alone, maybe in the shower, or cooking or on your way to meet friends. Think of what you'd like to be able to say and rehearse saying it. Imagine conversations with friends. It doesn't even matter if you don't speak aloud but just the process of doing this reviews the language you want to be able to use fluently. When you then get a situation where you can use it, it'll be easier. Have you heard about how athletes imagine their performance before an event? They visualise it and it gives them confidence. It prepares them psychologically for the real event. This is exactly the same as practising language. Good Luck. Let me know if it works.

First Post

So, my first blog, my first post. Quite poetic. I hope to interest you with my thoughts on language and to hear your thoughts too. We might agree, we might disagree. But I hope it'll be fun and thought provoking. I've been learning other languages for 22 years, and I'm still not perfect. During that time I've lost and gained. When I lived in Germany I began to think in German. I arrived home to England and as I was hurrying to catch a train, lugging a huge suitcase, I could see the train was about to leave and if I'd missed it I would've had to wait another 2 hours. I was then stopped and asked to show my ticket before I got on. I was in such a hurry and I could not find the ticket - but I knew I had it. I was speaking without thinking, explaining to the guard that I had the ticket and I really needed to make the train. Suddenly I found the ticket, I relaxed, and at that moment I realised I had been speaking German. What does that tell me? When we're emotional we speak in the language that is most natural. It's usually harder to speak in a foreign language at those times. As I'd been living in Germany for the last 10 months, It had become almost as natural as my first language - English. Although it was embarrassing, I felt proud of myself. It showed me how much I'd learned and improved during that year. I'm a bit rusty now. I'd need to go back and live there to become fluent again. I speak German but I stumble a bit and forget vocabulary. So the process of learning and knowing a language is up and then down. And hopefully up again.