Englishonthe.net

In the last post on quantifiers we learnt about words we use to talk about a large quantity of something: much, many and a lot/lots of and talked about the difference between them.

Words we use to talk about small quantities include few and a few, little and a little.  There are also expressions like barely any, hardly any and less common, scarcely any.

Look at the following sentences and see if you can tell the difference between few and little:

Few teachers enjoy marking their students’ work.
There are only a few apples left on the tree.

I have little patience with politicians.
Why don’t you take a little sugar with your tea?

Did you notice that we use few with plural nouns, and we use little with singular uncountable nouns?

Now what about the difference between few/little and a few/a little?  Look at the following sentences and try to notice the rule:

The average parent has little control over how much television their children watch.
Few doctors visit patients in their homes these days.

Could you you put a little oil in the car before you leave?
John has said a few times that he would like to change jobs.

Few and little usually have a negative meaning.  They suggest ‘not as much/many as one would like’ or ‘ not as much/many as expected’.

A few and a little have a more positive meaning.    The meaning is similar to ‘some’, and gives the idea of ‘better than nothing’, ‘just enough’, ‘more than expected’ or ‘enough to be noticed’.

In informal style it is more common to use not many or not much instead of few or little.  Using the same examples as above:

The average parent doesn’t have much control…
Not many doctors will visit you in your home…

A related word is fewer, which we often confuse with less.  The meaning is the same but they are used differently.  See the following sentences:

There are fewer men than women working in our company.
I have less time than I used to to read novels.

Did you get it?  Fewer is used before plural words, and less before uncountable words.

For more details I recommend the following resources:

• Practical English Usage
• How English Works: A Grammar Practice Book
• English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English

Never have the words of an American president been so analysed as those of Obama – notably in the field of EFL / ESOL.  A book of his speeches for English learners with accompanying CD has become a national bestseller in Japan, and his speeches have been subtitled and are popping up on many English-learning sites.

This might be an interesting exercise for advanced students working on public speaking skills.  Garth Risk Hallberg writing for The Millions diagrammed an excerpt from one of last week’s press releases, with the idea that it might provide an insight into the way Obama thinks.  The speech was in the context of a proposed investigation into the conduct of the Bush administration.

This is what Halberg came up with:

He notes how a more “hard line” statements in the speech, such as

My view is also that nobody’s above the law, and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen.

is turned into a platform for vague but inspirational phrases:

But that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.

which leaves the hearer with the impression of a forward-looking, progressive Obama, rather than a hardliner.  The full transcript of the speech can be found here, and The Millions has Halberg’s full analysis, which gives some good insights into speech writing.

Who doesn’t know WordReference.com? It has become so widely used that I risk repetition by featuring it here. But I still remember back to the BWR period of my life (“before Word Reference”), so for any readers who find themselves in that situation, let me introduce to you a multi-lingual dictionary that is simply the best.

It’s nothing much to look at, but don’t let appearances deceive you. It’s a powerful and very reliable translation dictionary full of useful features:

• 14 English to another language pairs (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and soon Arabic)

• 5 “to English” pairs (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian)

• other combinations including Spanish to French and Portuguese, French and Portuguese to Spanish.

• monolingual dictionaries (English, Spanish),  synonym dictionaries and conjugation tables.

• plugins for Firefox and widgets for your blog.

• accessible for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

But the feature that keeps me coming back is the forums. When you search for a word, not only do you get a detailed list of usages, audio pronunciation and compound forms, but you also get links to questions that have been posted in the forums relating to how to translate the term. Every translator knows the frustration of looking up a word and not finding a translation that fits. The WordReference community has become so huge that there is a very good chance that someone has already come across the same problem, and may have posted a question about it. Translation dictionaries are valuable tools but can never replace native speaker instinct, which is why the human contact available in the forums of WordReference is so valuable.

There are many translation dictionaries available, but I haven’t felt the need to look further than WordReference. What about you – do you have a favourite free online translation tool? Tell us about it in the comments.

Two live online events this week that are well worth watching, both very different.

The first is a Virtual Round Table with Noam Chomsky, who doesn’t require any introduction.  Lancelot School is now offering a series called “Virtual Round Table On Demand” for live online discussion with renowned authors.  This session with Mr Chomsky will be the first.

Seats in the virtual room are very limited, and already taken.  However there is unlimited space in the “overspill room” which will be hosted in Instant Presenter.  The event will be held at 21.00 CET, Tuesday February 17. More information and details about how to enter the session can be had on the Lancelot School site.

The other session will take the form of a debate on the subject Are online profiles safe? This will be hosted by members of the Digifolios EVO09 workshop, facilitated by Nellie Deutsch.  The session will be run in WiZiQ, and held at 21.00 CET, Wednesday February 18.

When it comes to vocabulary learning there’s a lot to be said for learning by rote.

At this point a lot of language teachers will probably close this page and never come back.  “Traditional” methods of memorising vocabulary have become very unfashionable.  New words must be learnt in context or not at all!

I really like the theory of learning vocabulary naturally in context, as this mimics the way we acquire our first language as children.  But I wonder if we are not being a little optimistic when we seek to recreate the environment of first language acquisition in the methods we use to teach adults (or adolescents) a second language.

For one thing, children learn very differently to adults.  They are not conscious of learning the way that adults are; learning happens as if by accident.  Adults learn “on purpose”, using methods that they have consciously chosen.  We lose a lot of the natural learning capacity of children as we grow older, and need tools to assist us in learning.  Some of these tools can seem quite “artificial” in comparison.  This is why rote memorisation of vocabulary has been so criticised.

Perhaps it is time to rehabilitate vocabulary memorisation.  OK, it’s not very exciting, but a couple of questions might be in order: is vocabulary building in a foreign language worth it?  If we see it as valuable, is it worth some discipline and effort?  Does all learning really have to be “fun”?  Or are we willing to sweat a little bit in order to reach the goal of communicating more effectively in our foreign language?

I am not an expert in second language acquisition theory, but a language learner and teacher.  These observations are based on experience, not research, so it is quite possible that I have drawn some faulty conclusions.  That said I have noticed as an adult learner that although reading in a foreign language is my preferred context for learning new vocabulary, if I don’t note the new vocabulary and have some method for revising it, I don’t learn it.  My considerations from the teaching point of view are much more pragmatic: I find that intentionally teaching vocabulary in context requires a lot of work and preparation that I don’t always have time for.  It’s one thing to organise a reading or listening activity where you just highlight the vocabulary that happens to occur in the material, but this is very  haphazard.  Teaching vocabulary that is “useful” on the other hand (whether from the point of view of word frequency or  the specific purposes for which the learner requires the language) necessitates hours of searching for materials that  contain the target vocabulary.

So I come back again to word lists.  I’ve made it one of my goals this year to increase my repertoire of activities and tools for memorising vocabulary effectively.  In terms of technology, we have already reviewed the online flashcard system Popling.  Today I came across another tool which seems to fit the way my brain works better, so I took it for a test drive.

The app. is appropriately named Anki, the verb for “memorise” in Japanese.  It has some similarities to Popling, although its designer seems to have given more thought to how the memory actually works.  It is marketed as a “Spaced Repetition System”, and recognises that memorisation is actually work,  not the “learning without studying” that Popling advertises.  The idea behind spaced repetition is that   memory loss slows down considerably when a memorised item is reviewed at appropriate intervals.

Anki is obviously a real labour of love.  It is a work in development though. the interface is not quite as sharp, the help a bit limited and I didn’t find it as intuitive to use.

You can create your own flashcard piles or “decks”, or import one of a large number of existing decks (contributed by users so of varying quality).  Anki is very definitely oriented toward language-learning, although it could also be put to good use in other disciplines requiring memorisation.  There is a bent toward Asian languages in the list of available decks.

Some of the features:

• screencasts for a quick introduction to how it works
• desktop and online synchronisation so you can study anywhere
• possibility of sharing decks, and for teachers to “push” materials to a number of students at once.
• intelligent scheduler which allows you to very easily categorise a flashcard according to difficulty.  Anki will calculate the interval between revisions according to whether you remembered the item easily, with difficulty or not at all.
• flashcards are quite configurable, and Anki can handle very large decks, even up to 100,000 +.
• a growing directory of plugins
• Anki it is completely free, although a donation is in order for a truly useful application.

Popling has the advantage of flashing cards up while you are doing other things which is the idea behind “learning without studying”.  Not everyone enjoys such interruptions, however.  Anki requires you to be a lot more intentional, setting aside specific learning times, although you have a lot of freedom to determine how much time you spend and the number of items you want to revise for memorisation each day.

More on Spaced Repetition Systems.

For general information on building vocabulary, I recommend the following resources:

• Teaching Adult Second Language Learners
• Building Academic Vocabulary (Michigan Series in English for Academic & Professional Purposes)
• English Vocabulary in Use Advanced with Answers and CD-ROM

… “tense”, that is.

Twice this week I have heard the comment from an English learner: “I find the future tense in English so complicated!”  As usual a look of bewilderment follows when I explain that there is no future tense in English.

What?  But we talk about the future all the time – how is that possible if there is no tense for it?  Well, we get around it by using one of several standard ways of speaking about future events, each one with its own particular meaning.

1. WILL.  Do you think John will visit us this summer?

2.  GOING TO.  I’m going to resign from my job.

3. PRESENT CONTINUOUS.  Manchester United are playing at Wembley tonight.

4. SIMPLE PRESENT.  My flight leaves at 7.00 tonight.

With so much variety, which one should I choose?  If you remember these simple principles, you will choose the right one most of the time.

For predicting – talking about what I think will happen in the future, without any reference to the present, we use will or going to, but not the present continuous.  I can say:

I think the price of fuel will fall / is going to fall next year,

but I can’t say *I think the price of fuel is falling next year.

When we talk about future plans – things that have already been decided, we use going to or present continuous, but not ‘will’.  I can say:

Where are Steve and Barbara going to spend / spending their holidays?

But I can’t say *Where will Steve and Barbara spend their holidays?

When we talk about a future action at the moment when we decide to do it, we use will.  I can say

It’s getting late.  I think we‘ll go home,

but I can’t say *It’s getting late.  I think I’m going / going to go home.

When we have present evidence that something is going to happen (that is, we can see it coming) we use going to:

Slow down! We‘re going to hit that car!

I can’t say *Slow down! We will hit / we’re hitting that car.

When we talk about future events that are already on a programme, such as a timetable, we can use simple present:

What time does the next train leave for Wellington?

This little summary doesn’t say everything there is to say about the future, as there are some other forms that we can also use:

5. WILL BE + ING.  Fred will be having dinner with us tomorrow.

6. TO BE TO.  The President is to visit Florida later this month.

7. WILL HAVE + past participle (future perfect).  The workmen will have replaced all the windows by next Tuesday.

These three will be the subject of another post.
Practice Makes Perfect: English Verbs
Idiomatic English: A Workbook for Mastering Verb Phrases
English Phrasal Verbs in Use: Advanced

Some people are addicted to news and current affairs.  If you are a language learner who is also a “news junky” – who enjoys following the latest news, here’s a great idea for improving your reading skills and increasing your vocabulary.

It is true that the language of newspapers is often very complex.  It is estimated that to read an English language newspaper fluently you need about 4,000 words.  This can be overwhelming for some learners.  And then there’s the question, with so many newspapers, where do I start?  Few of us have the time in a day to search the Internet for the articles that we find interesting.

Enter Google News.  When I first looked at Google News, the thing I liked about it was that it brings all the breaking news from a variety of the world’s newspapers and puts them all together in one place.  But I didn’t realise that it can do a lot more.

One of the best motivations for improving reading skills is reading things we are interested in.  This sounds so basic, but perhaps you remember doing reading comprehension exercises in school which you found really difficult, mainly because the subject matter was so boring!  What do you like to read about?

First select the country of your choice for your Google News page.  The default setting is for the US (why am I not surprised?)  This will give you a standard layout like this:

You might decide that you are interested in sport, but not interested in entertainment.  You can move the sports section up the page, and delete the entertainment section.  You can also easily add news headlines from several different countries by selecting “Add a standard section“.  Let’s say you are studying French.  It is possible to add news from France, French-speaking Canada and Belgium to give you a more international perspective.

Let’s say you are particularly interested in Finance, or perhaps you are learning English vocabulary for an exam like the TOEIC, and you need to work on your financial words.  Google News allows you to create your own personalised content.  You select “Add a custom section“, and then “advanced options“.   Let’s say the words you are revising are banking, finance, interest, loan and credit.  Type in these key words, then give the section a label, “Finance” for example.  Once you have saved these options you will see that a selection of Finance articles, each containing your chosen key words, is waiting for you.  You can move it up or down the page to suit you.

You can change your content as often as you like.  The best way to revise vocabulary is according to theme.  This week it might be finance, next week transportation.  You could create a new section for transportation with related key words to replace the one on finance.  The point is that the best way for revising vocabulary you know, and for learning vocabulary that is new, is in the context of real everyday language.  Memorising lists of words is not usually an effective way of increasing your vocabulary.

Google News is a great addition to your language learning toolbox.  Do you use it already?  Have you found it useful?  How do you like to use Google News?  Join the conversation in the comments.

Developing Skills for the TOEIC Test (w/3 Audio CDs)
Inside the New TOEIC

“Learning without studying” is the strapline of a new language learning application called Popling.  I think the idea that you can learn anything without working for it is a bit unrealistic, but I do think that the creators of Popling are on to a good thing.

The idea is to help you by “tricking” your brain into learning while you are doing other things.  It works on a classic pedagogical tool which every language learner has used at some time or other: the flashcard.

So what’s new?  Flashcards have been around forever.  Popling is flashcard software which works especially well for second language learners who spend a big part of their day in front of a computer.  Every few minutes as you work, Popling will display a question or a prompt in a small online flash card window.  It is very easily configurable for vocabulary in the language you are learning, so that if you are trying to learn French kitchen vocabulary for example, you might get the prompt “dishwasher”.  If you have learnt the word, you will type in “lave-vaisselle”.  If you haven’t learnt it, you can take a peek at the word and try to memorise it for next time.

You also have the choice of ignoring the flashcard if it arrives at a bad moment, and it will just go away.  Apparently it’s “learning with no motivation required”.  I doubt that it is really possible to learn anything without motivation, but in spite of the blah blah, it is a very good tool.

You can either subscribe to an existing set of flashcards in the language you are learning, or create your own.  It takes a bit of work writing your own flashcards, but it’s part of the learning process and that way you can be sure to learn the vocabulary you need.

It requires the installation of a lightweight Adobe Air desktop application.  Have you tried it?  Found any other interesting uses for it?  Have your say in the comments.

For more information on online flash card systems, see Building vocabulary through spaced repetition.

This week many international newspapers reported that a man may have been cured of AIDS.  A number of health-related words can be learnt from these stories.  Note that a cure is something that makes someone with an illness healthy again.  It is pronounced /kju:r/.

Transplant

Doctors in Germany say a patient appears to have been cured of HIV by a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had a genetic resistance to the virus.

BBC News

A transplant (n.) is when something is transplanted (moved from one place or person to another), especially an operation in which a new organ is put into someone’s body.

Marrow

The clinic said since the transplant was carried out 20 months ago, tests on the patient’s bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clear.

BBC News

Bone marrow (n.) is soft fatty tissue in the centre of a bone.

Infect

The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

As Dr Huetter – who is a haematologist, not an HIV specialist – prepared to treat his leukaemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carried a genetic mutation that seemed to make them resistant to HIV infection.

New Zealand Herald

To infect (v.) is to pass a disease to a person, animal or plant.  A person, animal or plant having received the disease is infected (adj.), and is said to have an infection (n.).  A disease that is able to infect is said to be infectious (adj.)

Infectious can also have a positive meaning, as in an ‘infectious laugh’ or ‘infectious enthusiasm’, describing something that has an effect on everyone who is present and makes them want to join in.

Mutation

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient’s marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

CityNews, Toronto

Mutation (n.) is the way in which genes change and produce permanent differences.  The verb is mutate.