The LanguageGuide.org Blog

English UK guide

2011-07-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

The English UK guide has been published. I'm visiting Morelia, Mexico again and had the good fortune of sharing a room at Hostal Allende with Jonny Gannon, who recently spent a year studying and teaching in Aguascalientes. When I first arrived at the hostel I heard Jonny speaking to a friend in Spanish and his accent was so good, I asked myself whether he was Mexican. It turns out he has a knack and in turn did an amazing French, Scottish, and then an American accent. When doing the American accent, he pretended to be Steven, a Boston red-sox fan from Massachusetts, and to my American ears it was flawless. Perhaps to make me feel better about my inferior Spanish accent, he acknowledged that it is his forte and that he's less strong in audio comprehension. (My strength is audio comprehension due to my watching telenovelas and series.)

Jonny studies Modern Languages at the University of South Hampton and speaks fluent French, Spanish, and German. After a demo he volunteered for the project and we recruited Simran Chadha, a friend of his who was staying at the same hostel. We had a a jolly good time recording the digestive system.

Mandarin Expansion

2011-07-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Some new categories have been added to the Mandarin Guide - 数字 (Numbers), 面部 (The Face), 身体 2 (The Body II), and 农畜 (Farm Animals). The voice you hear is that of Julie Zhu, director of director of the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center. Julie is orginally from Beijing but has been a longtime resident of Los Angeles. In addition to teaching at the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center she teaches at local high schools. There are some other recordings I made with Julie that I hope to publish soon.

About the Ads

2011-07-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

The board of directors of Language Guide has decided to run ads on portions of the English and French guides to try to fill a budget hole. If you're using these pages in a school environment, send me an email and I'll send you a link that disables the ads. We weren't able to reach our fundraising goal earlier this year which has required the ads. After the budget hole is filled, there are some ideals we're going to try to encourage donations, and we're gong to pursue other funding sources. Our goal is to fund the project through the npr/pbs model - a combination of donations and perhaps underwriters.

Interactivity with SVG

2011-06-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you're using a browser that supports SVG (IE 9, chrome, firefox, safari), you'll notice new features on the body page (English body, French body, Russian body, Mandarin body, Japanese body) and face page (English face, French face, Russian face, German face, Italian face).

When you place your cursor over a red circle, the portion of the body that is being referred to is outlined. (The effect is most visually appealing in google chrome due to it's great support for SVG filters.)
You can choose the level of difficulty that you prefer using a drop down menu that's next to the options menu. On the body page if you choose an intermediate difficulty, the red circles that refer to the names of individual fingers, the hamstring and shoulder blade disappear. If you choose the beginning difficulty level, you can focus on words like arm, leg, hand, and head. When doing a quiz, you'll only be quizzed on the words that correspond to your chosen difficulty.
When "speaking quiz" is selected under the options menu, a random object is outlined. Try to say the word for it aloud. A second or so later you'll hear the voice of your teacher either correcting or confirming your guess. The "speaking quiz" is available on the alphabet and number pages as well as the face and body pages. One of the goals of the site is to promote active learning and the speaking quiz is designed to force you to be active. Voice recognition is being built into browsers like google chrome and eventually I'd like to set up the speaking quiz so that it waits for you to speak before the teacher's voice chimes in, and to even check and see if you said the correct word.

Are these features helpful and would you like to see them in other categories?

Spanish of Mexico Guide

2011-06-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

A portion of the new Spanish of Mexico vocabulary guide is now available. This past winter I travelled to Morelia, Mexico and did most of the recordings there. (Thankfully the narco siege was over.)

Paula

One of the voices you hear is that of Paula, a teacher at the Baden Powel Institute, a Spanish school in Morelia. You can hear her voice h e r e.

You can also hear my good friend Romelia Núñez Juárez h e re. Romy is a doctor that works for la cruz roja.

Katia

Finally there is Kathia Jemal who is originally from Morelia but currently works in an art gallery in San Antonio. You can hear her voice h e r e.

New Italian Guide

2011-04-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Recently a new Italian vocabulary guide was published. One of the v o i c e s y o u h e ar is that of Giovanni, my hostel roommate in Morelia, Mexico. During our discussion of what we do, I gave him a demo of the project and he volunteered!

Giovanni is a winemaker and world traveler. When it's harvest time in the southern hemisphere, you'll find him in Chile, Argentina, or Australia. When it's harvest time in the north, you'll find him in a vineyard in California or Europe.

New French Categories

2010-12-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

New complementary vocabulary categories have been added to the French guide. I recorded Fabien, Marie-Hélène Rulence, and Claire Alexandre - three friends and volunteers - during my last days in Paris.

The new categories are le temps - suite, l'école - suite, l' école - suite & fin, l'électronique -suite, les animaux, les animaux de la ferme - suite, les animaux de compagnie - suite, les vêtements, les vêtements - suite, l'argent - suite, l'argent - suite & fin, la santé, les maladies & les symptômes, les médecins et les hôpitaux, and la santé mental.

Marie-Hélène

Fabien

Old Guides still Available

2010-12-11T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping that the new versions of the pictorial vocabulary guides which are being developed through the wiki can be published early next year. You can find the previous versions of the guides here.

Add Your Language

2010-11-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

Last week languageguide.org's hard drive crashed. I happened to be traveling in central France and when I returned to my apartment in Paris the router was dead. As a result getting the site up again has been a challenge. I've been working from coffee houses, libraries, and "la mairie du 10e".

Unfortunately, I don't have a backup of the sounds files for most of the languages at my current location. They're on a DVD back in the US. Rather than get those old guides running again, I would prefer that we make a push to get the new versions of those guides translated and published. These new versions are in the mode of the French and English guides with additional enhancements coming soon and you can participate in the creation of these guides on the add your language page.

P.S. I'm implementing a better backup and recovery strategy to prevent this from occurring again.

In Paris

2010-09-09T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be Paris for the next three months. In addition to finishing the recordings for the French pictorial guide, I'm going to be recording a series of interactive readings on French history with a focus on the revolution. Whenever someone asks me why I'm in Paris, in addition to talking about enjoying life in France, I give them this 'carte de visite'.

Later this fall I'll be traveling to Amsterdam, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, and London. If someone in those cities would like to contribute their voice, I'll have my recording equipment.

A Parisian in Texas

2010-05-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

This week I recorded Patrick Rech, a volunteer from France. You can hear his voice h e r e. Patrick is a former Parisian who now lives in the United States. As an American who came close to settling in France, and who has a great appreciation for life in France (the 35 hour work week, long vacations, affordable health-care, shared bicycles, good public transportation, markets in the city square) it was really interesting to talk to someone who chose life in the US. Patrick appreciates the entrepreneurial friendly climate, the can-do attitude, and enjoys the more expansive personal space that the more spread out American cities allow. (Part of this decision to stay might have been influenced by that American women love his french accent) In the end I think that both societies have something to offer.

Cette semaine, j'ai enregistré Patrick Rech, un bénévole français. Vous pouvez entendre sa voix ici. Patrick est un ancien parisien qui habite maintenant aux États-Unis. En tant qu’Américain qui s'est presque installé en France, et qui a une grande appréciation pour la vie en France (la semaine de travail de 35 heures, les longues vacances, les prix de soins médicales abordables, les vélos partagés, les bons réseaux de transports publics, les marchés au centre ville), c'était vraiment intéressant de parler à quelqu'un qui a choisi la vie aux États-Unis. Patrick apprécie le climat favorable a l’entrepreneuriat, l'attitude dynamique, et aime bien l'espace personnel plus expansif que les villes américaines plus étendues permettent. (Une partie de sa décision de rester pourrait avoir été influencée par le fait que les femmes américaines adorent son accent français.) En fin de compte je pense que les deux sociétés ont quelque chose à offrir.