Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "humour"
China 2012
With all the building work going on, the crane should be China’s national bird.
In hospitals, the nurses have to pay a lot of attention to making sure the patients don’t get bed sores. One says to a hard-working nurse: “You may not recognise our faces, but I bet you recognise our arses.”
Q notes that no longer is a specific fashion followed by everyone. Individuals are starting to cultivate their own “look”.
In hospitals, the nurses have to pay a lot of attention to making sure the patients don’t get bed sores. One says to a hard-working nurse: “You may not recognise our faces, but I bet you recognise our arses.”
Q notes that no longer is a specific fashion followed by everyone. Individuals are starting to cultivate their own “look”.
Murphy's Laws
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 6. Limit input
In addition to what you learned in Step 5, avoid radio and TV in the target language.
The Internet and cable or satellite TV can keep you informed and entertained in your own language.
If you make the mistake of watching your favourite programmes dubbed into the local language, your knowledge of programmme format will make situations easy to predict; this will help you to guess the meaning of the language, which, unfortunately, might cause you to learn some of it.
Be canny: for instance, English football fans in Thailand could watch live Premiership matches on Indonesian TV, so that the language and language awareness they pick up would not be Thai.
Read a good deal, but only in your own language. Bangkok, astonishingly, has three English-language daily newspapers, as well as English-language libraries and bookshops.
Talk shop while socialising. This will prevent the people you talk to from giving you information about the target language and culture.
If you must talk about such things, try and do it only with people whose language awareness is low.
Try to hang out with people who, if they are aware of the local culture, do not like it.
This will further help to keep your integrative motivation usefully low, always providing you can stand such people.
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 6. Limit input
In addition to what you learned in Step 5, avoid radio and TV in the target language.
The Internet and cable or satellite TV can keep you informed and entertained in your own language.
If you make the mistake of watching your favourite programmes dubbed into the local language, your knowledge of programmme format will make situations easy to predict; this will help you to guess the meaning of the language, which, unfortunately, might cause you to learn some of it.
Be canny: for instance, English football fans in Thailand could watch live Premiership matches on Indonesian TV, so that the language and language awareness they pick up would not be Thai.
Read a good deal, but only in your own language. Bangkok, astonishingly, has three English-language daily newspapers, as well as English-language libraries and bookshops.
Talk shop while socialising. This will prevent the people you talk to from giving you information about the target language and culture.
If you must talk about such things, try and do it only with people whose language awareness is low.
Try to hang out with people who, if they are aware of the local culture, do not like it.
This will further help to keep your integrative motivation usefully low, always providing you can stand such people.
Murphy's Laws
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 7. Avoid instruction
After an interim of strange doubt, the value of foreign language teaching to foreign language learning has been re-established.
Accordingly, it is best avoided; particularly if you are by nature analytical or enjoy the role of disciple.
If you feel compelled to go through the motions, select a teacher who will talk to you in the literary version of the language or give you false information about it in your own language.
Ideally, choose a teacher whose personality clashes with yours, who is unreliable about showing up, and whom you pay either little or nothing (so that you will not be determined to get your money’s worth.)
Make the arrangement as informal as possible, so that you do not have fixed, definite times for study, and so that you can cancel frequently.
Translate and be damned. Formulate everything you want to say in your own language first, and translate it badly, i.e. word for word and with scant regard for context.
Insist on having as much of the target language you encounter as possible translated (badly) for you.
Target language videos, discs and tapes are best avoided, but if you do have such things, do not use them to practise the things that parroting can help you with, like phonemes, tones and formulaic language (set phrases); use them instead to try and analyse the language.
Use books to practise reading aloud: unless you intend to be a news-reader, this is a fairly useless, excessively difficult exercise - it is hard enough to do it well in one’s own language, and trying it in a foreign language is an excellent recipe for failure.
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 7. Avoid instruction
After an interim of strange doubt, the value of foreign language teaching to foreign language learning has been re-established.
Accordingly, it is best avoided; particularly if you are by nature analytical or enjoy the role of disciple.
If you feel compelled to go through the motions, select a teacher who will talk to you in the literary version of the language or give you false information about it in your own language.
Ideally, choose a teacher whose personality clashes with yours, who is unreliable about showing up, and whom you pay either little or nothing (so that you will not be determined to get your money’s worth.)
Make the arrangement as informal as possible, so that you do not have fixed, definite times for study, and so that you can cancel frequently.
Translate and be damned. Formulate everything you want to say in your own language first, and translate it badly, i.e. word for word and with scant regard for context.
Insist on having as much of the target language you encounter as possible translated (badly) for you.
Target language videos, discs and tapes are best avoided, but if you do have such things, do not use them to practise the things that parroting can help you with, like phonemes, tones and formulaic language (set phrases); use them instead to try and analyse the language.
Use books to practise reading aloud: unless you intend to be a news-reader, this is a fairly useless, excessively difficult exercise - it is hard enough to do it well in one’s own language, and trying it in a foreign language is an excellent recipe for failure.
Murphy's Laws
20 March 2013
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 8. Develop coping strategies
If, in spite of yourself, you start to take in something of the language you’re trying not to learn, make sure you speak a pidgin version of it rather than the real thing.
Try and get the people you talk with to use a pidginised version, too.
This insistence on "foreigner talk" will cut down on genuine target language input and will help set your errors in stone.
Feign understanding.
Many languages have stock expressions for indicating that you understand, empathise and wish the speaker to continue uninterrupted. Develop such stock responses in order to preclude real conversation.
Try, if you must, to understand the meaning of what you hear or read, but without paying attention to its form. Understanding does not mean you can use what you understand.
Learn basic paralinguistic features of the target language. Gestures have been claimed to incorporate a whole semiotic system. Learning foreign gestures need not involve foreign language input, and indeed can greatly help you to avoid it.
Finally, use every opportunity to switch to your own language.
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 8. Develop coping strategies
If, in spite of yourself, you start to take in something of the language you’re trying not to learn, make sure you speak a pidgin version of it rather than the real thing.
Try and get the people you talk with to use a pidginised version, too.
This insistence on "foreigner talk" will cut down on genuine target language input and will help set your errors in stone.
Feign understanding.
Many languages have stock expressions for indicating that you understand, empathise and wish the speaker to continue uninterrupted. Develop such stock responses in order to preclude real conversation.
Try, if you must, to understand the meaning of what you hear or read, but without paying attention to its form. Understanding does not mean you can use what you understand.
Learn basic paralinguistic features of the target language. Gestures have been claimed to incorporate a whole semiotic system. Learning foreign gestures need not involve foreign language input, and indeed can greatly help you to avoid it.
Finally, use every opportunity to switch to your own language.
Murphy's Laws
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 9. Do not persevere
Be influenced by this article.
Rosenthal and Rubin (1978) showed the strong impact that one’s own and other people’s expectations can have on learning.
So expect to fail, and let other people know you expect to fail.
When you have a frustrating experience, take it to heart.
My experience has brought home to me the fact that motivation is dynamic, not static. When it ebbs, let it go.
In the last resort: [see step 10]
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 9. Do not persevere
Be influenced by this article.
Rosenthal and Rubin (1978) showed the strong impact that one’s own and other people’s expectations can have on learning.
So expect to fail, and let other people know you expect to fail.
When you have a frustrating experience, take it to heart.
My experience has brought home to me the fact that motivation is dynamic, not static. When it ebbs, let it go.
In the last resort: [see step 10]
Murphy's Laws
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 10. Get the hell out
Before you start having a good time.
Learning nothing of the language will, of course, help you not to have a good time.
If you are serious about not learning Thai, for example, do not leave Bangkok unless you also leave the country. Once you’re outside the capital, it is almost impossible not to enjoy yourself, and this would force your motivation up.
And only buy souvenirs for other people, not for yourself; otherwise, once you've left, you might find yourself surrounded by items which remind you what a fascinating place Thailand is, and tempt you to go back there and jeopardise your good work so far.
Don't go back.
[Still to come: Postscript]
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 10. Get the hell out
Before you start having a good time.
Learning nothing of the language will, of course, help you not to have a good time.
If you are serious about not learning Thai, for example, do not leave Bangkok unless you also leave the country. Once you’re outside the capital, it is almost impossible not to enjoy yourself, and this would force your motivation up.
And only buy souvenirs for other people, not for yourself; otherwise, once you've left, you might find yourself surrounded by items which remind you what a fascinating place Thailand is, and tempt you to go back there and jeopardise your good work so far.
Don't go back.
[Still to come: Postscript]
Murphy's Laws
2 May 2013
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Postscript
First, to re-capitulate: the Ten Steps.
Failing completely to learn a foreign language need not be an impossible task, especially for adults. Close adherence to the following ten precepts will give anyone a good chance of succeeding in failing:
*** 1. Opt to stay mono-lingual
*** 2. Choose a hard language to learn
*** 3. Grow as old as you can before you start to learn it
*** 4. Minimise your motivation
*** 5. Develop avoidance strategies
*** 6. Limit input
*** 7. Avoid instruction
*** 8. Develop coping strategies
*** 9. Do not persevere
*** 10. Get the hell out
Now, the Postscript.
I almost succeeded in following these precepts and failing totally to learn Thai, but fell at the first and last hurdles, as well as brushing most of the others.
It was number 10 that flattened me.
After 2 grisly months in Bangkok, I retired, found myself an island, and started to have a good time.
Some language-learning ensued.
A month later, unfortunately, I had to return to England, for family reasons. Nevertheless, I hope some day to go back to Thailand, overturn as many of these precepts as I can, and achieve, at least, basic communicative competence in Thai.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Sofia to have another crack at Bulgarian.
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Postscript
First, to re-capitulate: the Ten Steps.
Failing completely to learn a foreign language need not be an impossible task, especially for adults. Close adherence to the following ten precepts will give anyone a good chance of succeeding in failing:
*** 1. Opt to stay mono-lingual
*** 2. Choose a hard language to learn
*** 3. Grow as old as you can before you start to learn it
*** 4. Minimise your motivation
*** 5. Develop avoidance strategies
*** 6. Limit input
*** 7. Avoid instruction
*** 8. Develop coping strategies
*** 9. Do not persevere
*** 10. Get the hell out
Now, the Postscript.
I almost succeeded in following these precepts and failing totally to learn Thai, but fell at the first and last hurdles, as well as brushing most of the others.
It was number 10 that flattened me.
After 2 grisly months in Bangkok, I retired, found myself an island, and started to have a good time.
Some language-learning ensued.
A month later, unfortunately, I had to return to England, for family reasons. Nevertheless, I hope some day to go back to Thailand, overturn as many of these precepts as I can, and achieve, at least, basic communicative competence in Thai.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Sofia to have another crack at Bulgarian.
In the chair
I've put a new poem on my website: "In the Chair". If you have suffered for your teeth, it'll resonate: http://www.bryanmurphy.eu/poetry.asp
Dementia with added superpowers
Last year, my 90-year-old stepfather fell victim to dementia. You don’t need me to explain how hard it was for him, or how rapid his decline. What surprised me was how he created an alternative world of his own and how steadfastly he maintained his central part in it until his body gave up on him. As a tribute, I wanted to suggest in my writing that even if we, as a society or as individuals, give up on people with dementia, they do not give up on themselves, and deserve admiration for it. That may sound pretty heavy, and labouring the point would be counter-productive, so I have not made “Charlie” the protagonist, and I have given him super-powers as a way of saying that we dismiss people with dementia at our peril. Now, I also believe that the very idea of super-powers is preposterous, so I have made Charlie’s limited and unreliable. And, to emphasise his humanity, I show him using them with both caprice and vindictiveness. I hope readers will not laugh at him, but laugh with him, and emphathise with him. Let us not forget that we are all more likely to get dementia than cancer.
Charlie has dementia, superpowers and deep black humour. Meet SuperOldie! http://bit.ly/1QoVeGR
Charlie has dementia, superpowers and deep black humour. Meet SuperOldie! http://bit.ly/1QoVeGR
The Sellout, continued
The daftness of racism is mirrored in the categories used to describe a “race”. In the UK, for instance, “Asian” refers only to people from South Asia. I'm not sure where that leaves people from East Asia, West Asia or Central Asia. In the USA, things seem to be even more bizarre. The term “Caucasian” can be applied to people born on the other side of the globe to the Caucusus. I think it means “white”. Then there is “Hispanic”, which implies you're not white, even if you come from Spain or Portugal. And anyone with the tiniest trace of African heritage is deemed “black”, irrespective of the evidence of one's eyes. In “The Sellout”, Paul Beatty makes riotous fun of the whole shebang surrounding “blackness” and pours cold water over the self-righteousness of racists of all persuasions, while leaving the reader in no doubt that racism is still pervavasive and still pernicious. He is a master of language endowed with rare insight into human society and the human mind. I hope that one day he will turn his attention to this far side of the Pond.
