English Superlatives Are the Best

At the end of last week we took a look at English comparatives, words that are used to compare two things and say which is bigger, better, or more beautiful, for example. Today we're going to continue focusing on the English language as we look at things that are beyond comparison, also known as superlatives.

Superlatives are used to explain something that is in some way beyond comparison. In English, these words are created in a similar way to comparatives, but rather than adding the -er suffix, we add the suffix -est.

Last week we used big, hot, fat, and thin as our example adjectives because their final consonants double. As comparatives, they become bigger, hotter, fatter, and thinner. When used as superlatives, they become biggest, hottest, fattest, and thinnest.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world.

In terms of syllables, the same rules apply to both comparatives and superlatives. When adjectives are too long to add the -est suffix, we add "most" to create a superlative. Therefore the word beautiful becomes the most beautiful.

As with comparatives and the English language in general, there are always exceptions. For example, the superlative of good is the best and the superlative of bad is the worst.

Hopefully these simple rules will help you have the best English grammar around!

The Grass Is Always Greener: Comparatives in English

In almost every language, there is the notion of comparative adjectives. As human beings, we are very interested in whether something is bigger, smaller, longer, shorter, hotter, colder, fatter, or thinner than something else.

All of the words in the list above were comparatives, which are used when you consider two things and compare them. Pretty obvious, right? In English, comparatives generally consist of an adjective with the -er suffix at the end. Of course, much like English gerunds, certain spelling rules apply.

One of these rules involves doubling the final consonant. Consider the adjectives big, hot, fat, and thin from the examples above. In these cases, since the adjective is short and uses a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant, the final consonant is doubled. Therefore big becomes bigger, hot becomes hotter, and fat becomes fatter. See what happened there?

Of course, not all comparatives are alike. For instance, when adjectives get to be too long (two or more syllables, to be precise), English decides that the -er suffix will not suffice. In these instances, the word "more" is used. Consider beautiful, one of the nicest words in English. In this situation, you have to say that something is more beautiful than something else.

That's not all of the rules though, as there are always exceptions. One of the most commonly used comparatives in English is better, the comparative form of good. Bad also follows an irregular pattern by becoming worse when comparative. Adverbs follow the same rules too, with well becoming better and badly becoming worse when used as comparatives.

If you're curious to learn more about the rules involved in the creation of English superlatives like tallest and shortest, be sure to check back next week!

10 Tips for Learning a Language in 2016

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, people often choose to learn a new language. Whether it's for work, fun, or whatever other reason, learning a language isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. It's a long process, which leads people to give up far too often. That's why today I thought I'd give you a few of my personal tips for learning a language, in hopes that this won't happen to you.

1: Choose Wisely

You shouldn't buy the first car you see on the lot. I'd say the same is true for languages. You're much more likely to give up on your language-learning mission if you don't really like the language you're learning or you don't have a good reason to learn it. If you only learn a language because you feel you have to, you're not going to enjoy it as much!

Slow and steady wins the race.

2: Slow and Steady

Remember that learning a language will take time, a lot of time. Don't start your journey thinking that you'll be fluent after a couple of months or even a year. Just go at your own pace. Those learning their first foreign language are often overly ambitious, and eventually become disenchanted with the whole process.

3: Make Mistakes

Nobody's perfect. I have said this before and I'll say it again. Making mistakes is one of the most important things that will happen to you as you learn a foreign language. When you make a mistake and are corrected in a foreign language, it gives you an opportunity to improve and learn. It's very rare that your mistake will cause offence, and most people around the world are very aware that those learning a language will make mistakes.

4: Speak as Much as You Can and Try Out the Accent

I believe that speaking is the most important part of learning a language, yet this wasn't reflected in my foreign language classes in school. Speaking is always the first thing you learn to do with a language. Nobody learns to write before they can speak in their mother tongue, so why should it be any different for your new foreign language? If you have the opportunity to talk to someone in your new language, give it a go!

A personal bugbear of mine is when people make no attempt to emulate the accent of the foreign language they're learning. Every language has a unique sound, so if you just speak with your own accent, it will be more difficult for native speakers to understand you. Don't be shy; if you make the effort, people will notice.

5: Listen to the Radio and Music

How many hours do you spend idle each week? Even if it's just background noise, you can fill your environment with the sounds of the language you're learning. If you listen to commercial radio, you'll quickly find that you've become familiar with the various phrases that are repeated throughout the day.

There are also plenty of places to find music in other languages. If you don't mind adverts, you can always look for foreign language music on Spotify (or enjoy it advert-free for a small fee).

6: Watch Movies

It may seem like a stretch if you're just starting to learn a new language, but there's never been a better time to get foreign language films and media. I always like to check film sites and lists online for possible viewing materials before heading to online retailers like Amazon to buy a DVD.

When you're first starting out, it's nice to just hear the language you're learning and follow the subtitles in your own language. Once you start to progress, you can watch with subtitles before finally removing them and just using your ears.

7: Play Games

Some people love learning languages, others don't. That's fine. I never really enjoyed learning languages in school because it focused on grammar drills and conjugating verbs, which I didn't find very fun or entertaining. While these things are important, you need to be engaged in order to learn a language.

If you like to play games, particularly on the go, there are many language learning games to choose from. Personally, I would avoid these and instead play games you already own in the language you're learning (when possible).

You can also check out our post on gift ideas for language lovers if you'd like to get somebody something fun to help them with their language learning.

8: Get an App

If you're like me, you take your phone everywhere with you. Why not use of some of the time you spend idly messing about with your phone to improve your language learning? We've mentioned in the past that you shouldn't use a translation app when learning a new language. However, there are plenty of different language learning apps out there to help you on your way.

I enjoy using Duolingo, and would recommend it to anyone starting to learn any of the languages they have available. You can read our early review of it here.

The world is a marvelous place. Go out and enjoy it!

9: Travel

If you have the chance and can afford it, I highly recommend living and breathing the language you are learning. If you can go where the language is spoken, you will have many more opportunities to practise, as well as enjoy and experience the culture, cuisine, music, and lifestyle that accompanies your chosen language. Get out there!

10: Don't Learn Alone

Nowadays everyone and everything is connected. Whether remotely or in person, you can easily connect with other language learners, language experts, or native speakers of whatever language you're learning. You're much less likely to give up if you have the support of others.

Do you have any tips for learning a language? Share your ideas with us in the comments below!

2015: The Best of Languages on the Web

On Wednesday, we looked back at our most popular posts from 2015. Today we're going to give you our picks of the best language content we saw throughout the year.

January

Our first pick comes from James Chapman of Soundimals, a series of amazing multilingual illustrations. His "How to Sound Happy in Eight Languages" brought a smile to our faces for the start of the year. You can see the image here and see other brilliant illustrations on the Tumblr here.

We also enjoyed a snippet from the "Beeb" (or the BBC if you're not from the UK) which discusses the work of American linguist Noam Chomsky on language acquisition and human language. You can listen to it here.

February

Our favourites from February include an amusing comic from Itchy Feet. This strip, called "Expressive Vowels", gave us a giggle and made us appreciate the diaresis (or trema or umlaut). You can read the comic here and read the other amazing comics here.

March

In March we enjoyed The Guardian article entitled "A Quick Guide to Speak Franglais". It discusses the Académie française and the French government's efforts to protect the French language, as well as the increasing influence of English on the language. You can read the article here or more on language from The Guardian here.

April

As we love April Fool's Day, we also loved the article on "Grungespeak" from the Oxford Dictionaries' blog. The post discussed fictionalised words that gained some credibility as journalists tried to ride the wave of grunge music in the early '90s. You can read the article here and check out the OxfordWords blog here.

May

In May, NPR looked at the relationship between language and memory and how accents foreign to us make it more difficult to remember words. You can read the article here and more from NPR on languages here.

June

The pick from June mixes pop-punk and linguistics, two of my favourite things. The article "I Made a Linguistics Professor Listen to a Blink-182 Song and Analyze the Accent" revealed some valuable insights into why accent is so important to music. You can read the article here.

July

The Atlantic had a fascinating article on Toki Pona, a language with a hundred words. You can read the article, "How to Say (Almost) Everything in a Hundred-Word Language" here.

August

In August we read a great article from www.fluentin3months.com, "7 Common Language Learning Strategies That Don’t Work (And How to Fix Them)". You can read some of Benny Lewis' best tips and tricks here.

September

We're back with NPR for September. We loved their piece on pleonasms, which you can learn about by reading or listening to "Please Don't Have A Temper Tantrum About The Pleonasm In This Headline" here.

October

In October we enjoyed an article from nature.com on the Indus script and how it was deciphered. You can read the fascinating piece here.

Trees, like languages, also have roots.

November

Another article from The Guardian grabbed our attention in November. We love stuff on language acquisition and the beginnings of language, so this article was great for us. You can read the discussion on "The roots of language: what makes us different from other animals?" here.

December

To finish the year, we liked this piece about non-binary pronouns on the BBC. As the discussion on gender identity becomes more and more important, we can see how language adapts and how we can adapt language to better suit our world. You can read the article here.

Were there any language articles you enjoyed from 2015 that should have made our list? Tell us about them in the comments below and we'll be sure to share the best suggestions with our followers.

2015: The Best Of The Blog

2015 has been an interesting year, so we thought we'd end it by taking a look at our ten most popular posts from 2015, as well as the ten most popular posts we shared from around the web. Today we'll just be focusing on our own blog. Without further ado, here we go:

Top 10 Blog Posts

10: Breakfast, Brunch, and Brinner: A Guide to English Meals (July 3rd)

It seems that English-speaking nations love their food and have a multitude of interesting words for the meals throughout the day. We had a look at them back in July and it proved popular. You can read the full post here.

9: Localizing The Aisle: The Power of "Foreign Branding" (March 11th)

Making products sound foreign can make them more appealing. In March we discussed how languages were employed in marketing to sell products. You can read the full post here.

8: Why Translation is a Fascinating Career (August 28th)

In August we sang the praises of our chosen careers, and it looked like many of our readers agreed with us. You can read the full post here.

7: A Destruction of Cats: Collective Nouns of the Animal Kingdom (May 15th)

The intriguing collective nouns for animals from the English language proved very popular back in May and throughout the year. You can read the full post here.

6: Why There's No Such Thing as "Untranslatable" (April 22nd)

The internet is full of articles of the best "untranslatable" words from languages around the world. As professional translators, we think people need to rethink their use of this term. We explained why in April. You can read the full post here.

5: Romance Languages: From Aragonese to Zarphatic (May 1st)

It seems our readers love a bit of Romance languages. Our post from May covering one of the world's most important language families was one of the most popular of the year. You can read the full post here.

4: How French Gave English its Sophisticated Words (February 4th)

Towards the start of the year we covered the reasons behind many of English's most prestigious words being ultimately from the French language. You can read the full post here.

3: Why It's Hard to be a Translator and a Language Lover (May 29th)

In May we discussed the difficulties we were encountering as promoters of languages, learning languages, and translators, and wondered whether or not it was sustainable to encourage everyone to learn foreign languages even if it could result in us losing out on work. You can read the full post here.

2: Language Learning: Cognates and False Friends (July 24th)

Our second most popular post of the year came back in July when we discussed "false friends", words in a foreign language that look similar to those in your own, but can carry very different meanings. You can read the full post here.

1: Speech Tempo: What is the World's Fastest Language? (April 8)

Everybody's had that one complaint about people speaking too quickly when they're learning a foreign language. Back in April, we looked at a study that sought to work out if some languages are spoken more quickly than others. You can read the full post here.

Why Life's A Beach: Minimal Pairs in the English Language

When two words are written differently, have different meanings, but are pronounced the same, we call them homophones. When words have different meanings, but are pronounced almost the same with the exception of one phoneme, we call them minimal pairs.

Differentiating ship from sheep can be as
difficult as telling sheep apart.

Some of the most complicated minimal pairs for non-native speakers are those with similar-sounding (but not identical) vowels. While it is quite easy to differentiate between bat and cat, hearing the difference between feet and fit is much more difficult.

It's not just vowels that can be problematic. When consonants sound quite similar, like the letters b and p in English, you can often mishear or mispronounce them, like in the words tap and tab. The letters t and d can also be difficult to distinguish when speaking and listening to English, as in the words bat and bad, for example.

Making mistakes with minimal pairs is to be expected and it often doesn't get in the way of communication, which I believe to be the most important thing when learning a language. However, I can also imagine how it might be embarrassing if one of the words in the minimal pair is a curse word. The difference between beach and bitch and sheet and shit is a nightmare. Of course, there's also can't, which can unfortunately sound like a word I wouldn't dare to type.

Minimal pairs can also be very problematic if the differentiating phoneme doesn't exist in your language. This usually means that you will find it difficult to either hear the difference or to pronounce the difference when you're speaking.

Sadly, I don't think there's a quick fix to getting minimal pairs right other than practice. However, there are a number of useful resources and websites to help you along the way, such as www.shiporsheep.com, which is one of my personal favourites.

Pseudo-Anglicisms: Loanwords English Doesn't Need Back

A great bit of footing.

In the past, we've looked at loanwords that have made their way into English from many different languages, including Russian, Hawaiian, and Malay. Of course, plenty of languages have also borrowed English words with varying degrees of success. These words sometimes remain unchanged from the original English version and keep the same spelling and meaning. However, there are also loanwords that have nothing to do with their English incarnations, which are known as pseudo-anglicisms.

Today we're going to show you a few of our favourite words that went from English into another language and got a bit lost along the way.

If you speak German, you might be familiar with the world Air-Condition. While it's clear that this word means "air-conditioning", it still sounds very peculiar if you speak English as your first language. The same goes for shampooing in French, which is not a verb, but rather the noun for "shampoo".

French, just like Romanian, likes to use baskets to refer to trainers or sneakers, whereas Spanish and Portuguese borrowed the English word "tennis" and changed it to tenis and tênis respectively.

While basketball is quite popular, borrowing the word in its entirety is not. Several languages, including French, have taken "basket" to refer to the sport. Footing is also a popular pursuit in French, Italian and Spanish... Never heard of it? In English, we call it "jogging".

Some tents in a camping.

When you go camping, you stay in a campsite. If you go camping in a country that speaks Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, or Spanish, you stay in a camping. Do you want to park your car in a "car park" or a "parking lot"? In Arabic, Flemish, French, Swiss German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish, it can sometimes simply be called a parking.

The trend of adding the -ing suffix to English words doesn't end there. Lifting actually refers to a "facelift" in a number of different languages. Arabic, German, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish also sometimes use marketing to refer to "advertising", which is of course related to marketing, but doesn't cover all types of marketing.

A number of a languages like to call a tuxedo or suit jacket a smoking. This comes from the English term "smoking jacket", but does away with the most important part for English speakers, with "smoking" developing its own meaning in its new language.

My last pseudo-anglicism is zapping, I absolutely love this word. It means channel-hopping or channel-surfing in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Swedish and has given rise to a number of TV shows that replicate that very idea without you ever having to touch the remote!

What are your favourite pseudo-anglicisms? Are there any words from your language that English has borrowed in a nonsensical way? Tell us about them all in the comments below!