*** Interesting Articles -- July/August

The world sunlight map seems an appropriate way to welcome July around the world of LibraryThing.



Please spread the word about interesting things you find on the Internet by posting links here to articles, images, etc., that catch your attention.

I thought this collection of writing tips was worthwhile.

http://www.matthaig.com/some-fucking-writing-tips/

An interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from today's NY Times.

Interestingly depressing.

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6900189/i-havent-read-a-book-since

A collection of tweets from people bragging about how they haven't read a book in so long.

very sad....

On the upside, at least the heading is 'twidiots'.

To counterbalance that, The New York Times had a few novelists share their summer reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/07/10/summertime-and-the-reading-is-ea...

One of the translators of An Armenian Sketchbook has done an article about it for the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/03fa2b0e-e3ec-11e2-91a3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2YM...

Robert

Thanks for that link. Some of what the Chandlers wrote in the article was also in their introduction to the NYRB edition that I read, but it was fun to read anyway.

Nice link Mr D and interesting about the lag from translation to publication.
I was also happy to find an article on the same page about the new hotel on Fogo Island, which I have been reading about for some time. Waiting to see how well it goes over, given the combination of remoteness, weather and price, but it does look truly amazing. Maybe the FT readership won't find those things obstacles to going. I was somewhat surprised to read that you could take the ferry there from basically landlocked Gander; it it about 85 km from Gander to the ferry.

Reading globally: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130715-reading-the-world-in-365-days

PS: And here is her list: http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/

As I mentioned on another thread, there are several people in the Reading Globally group who are trying to read at least one book from every country. It boggles my mind that this woman could do it in one year!

Yeah - I know... I had a plan to do it in 4 years or thereabouts (which failed apart when I moved) but in an year?

>11 AnnieMod: Thanks AnnieMod for posting this. Kudos to the author for taking on such a huge challenge. It took me a year to finish The Europe Endless challenge. Now that I've joined the Commonwealth challenge, I expect that to take about a year also.

I'm sure your post would be very welcome in both of those groups.

That is really an impressive undertaking. Annie, thank you for posting.

Many English Speakers Cannot Understand Basic Grammar
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706082156.htm?utm_source=feedbur...

Although depressing, I found the article interesting. Reading comments on news articles lately, I'm seeing more and more that some people simply have no reading comprehension -- not being able to find the who, what, where, when, why and how of an article.

Furthermore, I just read one series of comments on an "article" about two Kate and William impersonators going into a hospital. The original poster was commenting on a woman in a photo who was walking right past the impersonators, oblivious to them, because she was looking at her cell phone screen. The original poster wrote "And that woman on the phone is missing 'history'!" Subsequent people wrote how the original poster was an idiot because this "obviously isn't history since the Kate and William guys are fake". Yet they looked like the idiots since missing the simple grammar mark of a quotation mark made them miss the humor of the original post entirely.

Truly, truly sad. And I need to stop reading comments on articles.

Once upon a time, a language was taught using the Grammar method - you learn the Grammar as a base and for the first few months/years, a new language is a like a word puzzle - you follow the rules and the formulas until you get so used to then that it becomes a second nature to follow them. Then you suddenly become almost proficient in no time.

Nowadays, the modern way to teach a language seem to be the immersion model (or similar to it) - start from living speech and introduce the grammar you meet only and with as little details as possible and let the learned get the nuances from osmosis... or whatever. That can work in a real language environment (and even there I am not so sure) but in a classroom...

And native speakers are sometimes as bad - for similar reasons (I got grammar and spelling lessons in Bulgarian until the 10th grade; a dictation was a standard thing until well into high school; these are almost gone these days - and most students had not had a dictation as an exercise in their life.)

That was a depressing article! I appreciate your perspective, Annie, on learning Bulgarian and learning other languages. I know we must have been taught grammar when I learned English (and, indeed, we diagrammed sentences), but I have always felt I got a much more solid grounding in grammar when I studied French and, for a few years, Latin.

Some years ago I tried to teach myself Spanish with tapes, and they completely focused on conversation, which I found incredibly frustrating. I would have liked to develop an understanding of the grammar first ,and I think I would have retained more of the vocabulary if I had that structure to hang it on.

Lilisin, when you started studying Japanese, how was it taught?

I'll give a summary of my languages to show how I learned it.

French:
Immersion environment at home with family then going back to France every summer.
Additional French schooling at home (after regular American school) taking French Language and Mathematics. From what I remember, French language consisted of a lot of dictations where my dad would read a passage and I had to write what he wrote. After that I had to identify subjects, verbs, adjectives, etc. Not too sure what else I did for those studies.
So I had both an immersion environment and emphasis on grammar.
I took myself to the level of French people living in France by reading classics growing up and still reading them now.

Spanish:
Learned starting in elementary school. Beginning levels involved lots of vocabulary lists and grammar quizzes. Then we'd have to write little essays in Spanish. Mid level and beyond we stopped grammar analysis and would read short stories and then later short novels and had to write papers about symbolism, themes, plot, etc.
Immersion came on my own later when I did study abroad in Spain and Argentina.
After I got sick of writing papers on books, I later stopped taking classes and just read the books on my own for fun.

Japanese:
I took four years of Japanese in college.
1st and 2nd years: Focused vocab lists (ie. groceries, parts of a car, body, types of sickness), 5 grammar points per textbook chapter, short passages the used the vocabulary and grammar. Auditory practice from cd that came from the textbook. Quizzes every other session on vocab/grammar followed by an exam at the end of the unit. Also had to do oral exams where we had to speak in Japanese with the teacher. Every unit we had to write a short "paper" using a certain amount of the new grammar we learned and vocabulary. Then every semester we had to create a skit also using a certain amount of grammar.
3rd year: Took business Jpn (learning formal language and expressions used in business) and a more verbal class.
4th year: Start looking at newspaper articles and study vocab, expressions, grammar within those articles.

Didn't so much break sentences down as we just learned grammar. Conjugation, particles, articles, tenses, formal vs casual speak.
Now in my own studies post school, I focus primarily on immersion: watching tv shows, listening to music, read comics and books with varying degrees of extensive and intensive learning. If I come upon a grammar point that I can understand via context but maybe couldn't say it on my own, I'll put it aside and study examples of it, etc... Nowadays I only study from native material. No textbooks.

I have a language blog which I use as a notebook so that I can access it everywhere and I can use tags to pull up what I want instead of having to flip through pages looking for some obscure point I wrote down.

You can see that here to get an idea of what I do:
http://http://kuremitonihongo.blogspot.com/

----

So yes, all my beginner years had a good focus on grammar points and then to push myself up the levels, I switch to immersion. I do intensive study on certain things I feel I need to focus on.

In English I had teachers who loved teaching grammar and we did that until high school. High school primarily turned into reading books and writing papers and doing projects about said books. In eighth grade I had a great English teacher who made us have to break down sentences. Everyone hated it but I learned a lot from it. It wasn't tree diagramming. It was a different technique. Having to put parenthesis, or underlining certain grammar patterns. Then having arrows to show what direct objects were referring to or clauses. Learned every single type of clause possible.

So it would look like:

The cat went to school with a book.

The cat went (to school) (with a book).
(art) (S) (AV) (art) (N) (prep) (art) (N)

art=article, S=subject, AV=action verb, prep=preposition

And then more like that. I would have had to label what kind of clauses those were and whatnot. It was intense.

Lilisin, that is so interesting. Thanks for taking the time to explain how you learned different languages. I am envious too! Back in the winter, I thought I would have a summer project of relearning enough French to read novels in French, but now that it's summer I'm too eager to read other books to think of slowing down enough to try reading something in French. Maybe next summer!

You are a great example to us all lilisin, fascinating stuff.

rebecca -

The thing with languages is that you just have to start... now. Because the excuse of being able to do it the next day prevents you from learning a new word, a new grammar point that very day and it's one step further away from the knowledge you used to have if you have studied the language in the past. So... just do it! It's fun. :)

Plus, once you start reading, it gets faster and faster and eventually you'll be telling me the same thing but about books in French!

baswood -
You give me too much credit!

Well, lilisin, you've certainly given me my marching orders! I think you have talked me into it. We're going away for a few days, but I'll try L'étranger when we get back and I have my dictionaries and grammar books handy.

22 & 23 I am so envious of your language abilities. I took French in high school, but that was so very long ago, I am sure that I haven't retained more than a thimble full. lilisin, the number of languages in which you are proficient is marvelous.

If only: http://quirkbooks.com/post/keep-cool-national-ice-cream-month-book-inspired-flav...

Too funny - though Clockwork Orange Creamsicle is a bit creepy. Some of them do look really good. Come to think of it, it's surprising B&J haven't ever done book-inspired flavors. Maybe...?

Clever! I wouldn't be surprised if B&J did jump on the concept...

The woman behind the Shirley Jackson novels

interesting and sad article about Shirley Jackson, Robert. I have a biography of her by Judy Oppenheimer that I hope to read eventually.

Also, there is a "new" story by her in this week's New Yorker, but you may have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. Her daughters found a whole trove of stories in her papers after she died.

http://bookermarks.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/the-many-covers-of-the-2013-man-book...

This compares the different covers of each Booker nominee. Really interesting to see which country has which title.

Depressing or encouraging?

An article from the New York Times about independent bookstores turning to donations for support.

Cover art cliches: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/19-book-cover-cliches

Some of these are just a reuse of the same photo, others are truly cliches. It really does illustrate what I've heard about book publishing today--there is very little time or money to spend on the cover art. Hence the repeated images. Interesting though.

Late Elmore Leonard's writing tips:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-...

Love the reference to Steinbeck's "hooptedoodle"!

I've always loved tip 10: " Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.:

>33 avidmom:, 34 -- great piece. I love his references to other writers; as with musicians mixing it up e.g. during the Grammys, it reminds me how they're as full of respect as of competition.

Dog eats The Count of Monte-Cristo.

http://www.dogshaming.com/2013/08/revenge-is-a-dish-better-served-cold/

I mean, it IS the abridged version. Why waste your time on that?

The dog was clearly taking a brave stance against abridgments.

LOL, Ridgeway Girl!

Novelist Philip Hensher reviews this year's Booker Prize longlist in an article in tomorrow's issue of The Spectator, which was posted online yesterday:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/8998261/philip-hensher-reviews-the-man-booker-p...

When does your native language stop being your native language? Is there a point where loanwords need to stop?

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6381&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_...

Here's a long interesting article on Thomas Pynchon. I attended his alma mater while there were still professors around who liked to talk about him. I have read V. (back when it was new and I was at that college and again a couple of times), The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity's Rainbow and reckon that I still have Mason & Dixon to read. But I also reckon that V. is the book that makes him an important novelist, and I am not much interested in his other work.

Robert

Is this essay from the New Yorker about English majors devoid of content?

Robert