Tag Archives: learning languages

Focus on culture: Martenitsa and Baba Marta (Bulgaria)

Author: Gustav @ Flickr, via Wikipedia Commons

Today’s blog post continues our culture series about interesting customs from all over the world and takes us to Bulgaria again and to Baba Marta Day with its Martenitsi which is celebrated on 1 March.

According to Bulgarian folklore Баба Марта, Baba Marta or ‘Grandma March’, is a grumpy old lady who is grudging at her two brothers and whose mood is said to determine the weather, so the sun only shines when she is smiling. There are different versions of the Baba Marta tale. One of them relates that Baba Marta is doing her spring cleaning on this day: While she is shaking her feather-filled blanket, all the feathers come out of it and fall down to Earth as the last snow of the year. This version of the tale has parallels to the German folktale of Mother Hulda (‘Frau Holle‘).

Bulgarians celebrate 1 March by observing the centuries-old custom of exchanging Мартеници Martenitsi in order to ask Baba Marta for mercy, in the hope that winter will pass faster and spring come sooner.

A Martenitsa (Bulgarian: мартеница, Macedonian: мартинка) is a small woollen ornament, made of red and white interwoven yarn, which usually takes the shape of two dolls, a male and a female. These are called Пижо и Пенда (Pizho and Penda): The male Pizho is predominantly white, while the female Penda is predominantly red and wears a skirt. Sometimes, the Martenitsi just take the shape of a red-and-white interwoven ribbon. The Martenitsi are good luck charms symbolizing health and happiness for the year and are said to protect against evil spirits. They are also a reminder that spring is near.

Author: Petko Yotov, via Wikipedia Commons Pizho and Penda

Traditionally, they are given away as gifts to friends and family, i.e. not bought for oneself, and are worn around the wrist or attached to one’s clothes for a certain period of time, usually until the first signs of spring appear, e.g. the sightings of a swallow, a stork or a crane, or blossoming trees. Then the Мартеници (Martenitsi) are removed. In the small mountain villages, people also decorate their homes and domestic animals with the Martenitsi. There are different rituals associated with the removal of the Martenitsi, which are different in every region. Some people tie their Martenitsi on a branch of a fruit tree, thereby also giving the tree the good luck that comes from the charm.Other people lay their Martenitsi under a rock, in the belief that the insect that will be closest to the charm the next morning will determine the owner’s health and luck for the rest of the year: If the insect is a worm червей or a larva ларви, the coming year will be full of success and health; if it is an ant мравка, the person will have to work hard to be successful; however, if the insect is a spider паяк, the person may not enjoy success or good health in the year to come.

The red and white colours of the charms are also associated with a colour symbolism: white бял symbolizes purity and red червен life and passion. At its origin, the custom therefore symbolized the cycles of life and death, good and evil, and of sorrow and happiness in human existence. White originally also stood for Man and the power of the sun, and under Christian influence came to stand for virginity and integrity and was the colour of Christ. Red stood for Woman and health, being a symbol of blood, conception and birth. The colours of the Martenitsi also symbolize Mother Nature: white symbolizes the purity associated with melting snow, while red stands for the colour of the setting sun.

Author: Danielgrad via Wikipedia Commons Magnolia full of tied Martenitsa, in Veliko Tarnovo (Велико Търново)

The custom of exchanging Martenitsi is thought to have been inspired by an incident in the life of Bulgaria’s first Khan Аспарух (Asparuh), who sent a white string to his wife to let her know that he survived a battle.

A similar tradition also exists in the Republic of Macedonia, as well as in Albania, Northern Greece, Romania and Moldova. Its origin derives from ancient pagan agricultural cults of nature common to the Balkan Peninsula. The specific ritual of tying red-and-white woolen strings suggests Thracian, Hellenic or even Roman origins of the tradition.

Is there a similar tradition associated with spring in your country or region? Tell us about it in the comments! 🙂

Focus on architecture: Trulli

Author: Marcok via Wikipedia Commons Trulli along Via Pertica in Alberobello, Bari, Italy

Today’s blog post is taking us to Apulia (Puglia), a region in Southern Italy, and to a type of architecture that is specific to the Valle d’Itria in the Murge area of this region: the so-called Trulli. Districts made up of trulli can be found especially in the town of Alberobello in the province of Bari.

Trulli had their origin as temporary field shelters or storehouses and as permanent dwellings of agricultural labourers. The italianized term ‘trullo‘ derives from the dialect word truddu, referring to a dry stone hut, which in turn comes from the Greek word τρούλος, cupola. Trulli are basically round or square dwellings whose internal space is covered by a dry stone corbelled or keystone vault. A trullisto or trullaro in Italian is a stonemason specializing in the construction of these trulli. Trulli were formerly known under the local term casedda (pl. casedde) (Italian casella, pl. caselle).

Trulli were built singly or in groups of up to five, sometimes also as a cluster of a dozen as farmyard buildings, but for a single rural family. The houses were made from local materials, which were either hard limestone or calcareous tufa, using the technique of dry stone masonry, i.e. without any mortar or cement. Dry-stone walls are also used in the surrounding area to separate fields. Trulli are on average 0.80 m to 2.70 m wide and between 1.60 m to 2 m high (from ground level to the beginning of the vault). Each conical roof covers one room, but sometimes there are arched alcoves which provide additional space and were often used as bedrooms, with a curtain hung in front of them.

Author: Marcok via Wikipedia Commons Spaccato di un trullo in Alberobello (modello in scala)

The region were the trulli are located, the Murgia, is a karst plateau. This had implications for the construction: As winter rains immediately drain through the soil into fissures in the strata of limestone bedrock, there is no permanent surface water, and any water needed for living must therefore be caught and collected in catchment basins and cisterns.Trulli were started by digging a cistern (cisterna), and the excavated stones were then used to build the dwelling itself; the cistern was topped with a lime-mortared barrel vault or dome, above which was often the floor of the dwelling.

The roofs consist of two parts: an inner layer of limestone voussoirs, crowned by a keystone, and an exterior layer of limestone slabs which are slightly tilted outward, to make sure that rain can drain off and that the house is watertight. At the top of the conical roof, there is usually a pinnacolo, or pinnacle, made from sandstone, which takes various shapes, e.g. a cone, sphere, disk, bowl, or polyhedron, etc. which is the signature of the stonemason who built the trullo.

Author: Luuuceee via Wikipedia Commons Cime dei Trulli in Alberobello

Both the exterior wall, and often also the interior of the trullo, were rendered with lime plaster and whitewashed for protection against drafts. Heating came from an open fireplace, whose flue was concealed in the masonry and the high chimneys were made from stone. However, trulli are difficult to heat because of their design, since warm air will rise up into the interior cone and so the houses will become unpleasantly cold during the winter, as well as condensing moisture. The thick walls will keep the dwellings pleasantly cool in the summer months though.

Some of the conical roofs have a symbol painted on it, e.g. Christian symbols such as a simple cross, a cross on a heart pierced by an arrow (representing Santa Maria Addolorata, or Our Lady of Sorrows), or a circle divided into four quarters with the letters S-C-S-D in them (for Sanctus Christus and Sanctus Dominus or the initials of Santo Cosma and Santo Damiano, two local saints), a dove symbolising the Holy Spirit, etc. These symbols are not ancient, but date from the late 20th century, when they were added when the roofs were repaired.

Author: Niels Elgaard Larsen via Wikipedia Commons Trulli in Alberobello

The trulli‘s archaic form is related to the Sardinian nuraghe, the Balearic talayots and the sesi of Pantelleria.

Vocabulary: Some animals in Romanian

Today’s blog post continues our visual vocabulary series and is taking us to Romania and the Romanian language. Here are the words for some ‘exotic’ zoo animals 🙂 :

How to achieve native-like pronunciation

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The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

Today’s blog post will be about how you can achieve native-like pronunciation when learning and speaking a foreign language.

1. The first step to achieve native-like pronunciation in your target language is to get a feel for the ‘rhythm’ of your target language, i.e. for the intonation of the words in a sentence, which words are stressed and where (stress), and for the sounds of the language in general. For this, listening attentively to your target language regularly and frequently, especially when you are starting a new language, is essential. Try to imitate the pattern of the rhythm of the language as closely as possible.
2. Another very important part of developing a native-like pronunciation has to do with phonetics, namely where exactly the vowels and consonants are formed in the mouth and which position your tongue is in when you pronounce a given sound in your target language. So how can you find out how to pronounce a given sound? Listen to a word, which contains a sound you have difficulty with, several times. Try to imitate the correct pronunciation of the vowel or consonant by trying to pronounce the sound with different positions of your tongue or in different areas of your mouth until you get it exactly right. Once you know the correct position of your tongue to form the sound in question, practice it until you really master the correct pronunciation of the vowel, consonant or syllable.
3. Apart from the correct pronunciation of the sounds themselves, how long the vowels and consonants are spoken also matters a lot (= vowel length and consonant length). For example, languages like Finnish or Polish have very short vowels, and when consonants or vowels are doubled, they have to be spoken much longer; likewise, Czech and Slovak have very short vowels and long vowels and these have to be clearly articulated and differentiated. By contrast, languages like English, French or German have medium-length vowels, and if you pronounced them very short, it would sound strange (to a native speaker).

So basically, native-like pronunciation can be achieved by paying attention to and practising the combination of the particular rhythm of the target language, its word stress, its phonetics and the length and ‘quality’ (e.g. aspirated or non-aspirated) of its vowels and consonants. The best way to achieve this aim is to listen to your target language(s) as often as possible, in every possible way (audio recordings, music, movies, radio, conversation) and trying to imitate what you hear. 🙂

Vocabulary: some fruits in Persian and Tajiki

Today’s blog post will take us to Central Asia, namely to Iran and Tajikistan. Both Persian (or Farsi) and Tajiki are closely related, and can be considered dialects of the same language. Persian is written with the Arabic script from right to left, while Tajiki uses the Cyrillic alphabet and is written from left to right.

Here is the vocabulary for some fruits in both Persian and Tajiki:

farsi fruits

Icelandic: Different words for snow

Author: Andreas Tille via Wikipedia Commons Eyjafjallajökull

Since it is now winter in the Northern hemisphere, today’s blogpost will take us to the very North of Europe, namely to Iceland (or Ísland), and I will share some Icelandic words for different types of snow. 🙂

snjór or snær = snow

hjarn = crust of snow, or snow that does not melt in summer

lausamjöll = powder snow

mjöll and ný snævi = new-fallen snow

krap = slush

fönn = drifted heap of snow, snow-wreath, or snow that does not melt in summer

Author: Sb2s3 via Wikipedia Commons

There are also different words for different types of snowfall in Icelandic:

snjókoma or fannkoma = snowfall

snjómugga = a small snowfall

hundslappadrífa = very heavy snowfall with large snowflakes in calm weather

kafald or kóf = thick fall of snow

ofanbylar = snowfall in a wind

skafrenningur = drifting snow

hraglandi = sleet, or cold drizzling shower

bylur or hríð = snowstorm

drífa = snow-drift

él = a sudden fall of snow or hail, or hailstorm

fjúk = drift, drifting snow-storm

How to learn vocabulary without ‘studying’ it

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Today’s blog post is about learning methods, more precisely about how to learn vocabulary without ‘learning’ or studying it actively or consciously.

This can be done with audio courses, in particular with bilingual ones, and the method belongs to an intuitive and immersive approach to language learning. So how can you do this?

Basically, what you do in order to learn vocabulary and phrases without studying them consciously is to listen to audio tapes repeatedly, quite literally *for hours* while doing something else (housework, cooking, waiting at the doctor’s or while commuting, etc.) and to repeat these sessions at regular intervals. Spaced repetition is absolutely essential for this approach: in the beginning when starting a new language, it is best to listen to the tapes every 2 or 3 days (or every day, if you are so inclined), and when you become more familiar with the language and start to pick up vocabulary and expressions quite naturally, you can increase the gap between sessions, but once a week or at least once every two weeks is best, in my experience (at least, so it works for me… 🙂 ), to reactivate the vocabulary and phrases you have learned.

Depending on how familiar with your target language you already are, the dialogues you listen to might sound quite like incomprehensible gibberish in the first few sessions, especially when it is a language that is unrelated to any you already know. But don’t worry – this is quite normal! Just keep listening to the tapes, and from about the 4th or 5th session onwards, you will notice that things are starting to fall into place, and that you have subconsciously learned (!) some of the vocabulary and phrases and that you can discern individual words and that is no longer just ‘gibberish’ 🙂 .

While this method or approach to language learning won’t (!) eliminate the need to also study grammar with a textbook to learn how the language ‘works’, this approach is suitable to get a basic intuitive grasp of your target language and to achieve basic fluency (A1 or even A2 according to the European framework for language proficiency, but here it depends very much on the course you are using and how much basic vocabulary and phrases are treated!). A nice side effect is also that this approach will boost your listening comprehension.

This method also works because all the vocabulary and all the phrases are absorbed in context, and in the context where they naturally occur and in which you will need these words. As I have written in a prior blog post, learning vocabulary in isolation almost never leads to good results and it is always best to learn the words as collocations (=words that appear frequently together as a set phrase, e.g. ‘to go by bus’, ‘to read a book’) and as expressions.

What audio tapes or courses are suitable for this method? Well, basically you can use any audio tape you might have, but bilingual tapes are best, since they will tell you the meanings of individual words or phrases and explain basic grammatical structures. If these special bilingual courses or tapes are not available for your target language, e.g. because it is a language that is only rarely studied and there is not much material on the market, you can also use a monolingual tape with dialogs (those that accompany textbooks), but then it is absolutely essential that you make yourself familiar with the content of the individual dialogs before listening to them – you will want to understand what the speakers are on about to be able to subconsciously absorb the vocabulary and phrases through repeated listening! Basically, this approach to language learning is like listening to your favourite songs or music on tapes – after a while you will know the lyrics and could sing along. Just here, you will know the words and expressions that make up dialogs. 🙂

Polyglottando

A blog about languages, multilingual living and cultural diversity