So over at the Guardian we find out that the Ukraine has passed a law which makes Russian official as a regional language where it is spoken by more than 10% of the population. A normal democratic move you would say pushing the way to Europe, if it wasn't for the dramatic undertones of what that means for a country that is almost wholly in the shadow of its big neighbour, Russia.

We must not forget that France, right in the heart of Europe, will not ratify the charter for minority languages, meaning that the Ukraine is now more democratic and liberal in this matter than France, whatever the reason may be. And I struggle to see this in the way the Guardian does, because surely Russian-speaking people should be allowed to receive services and have official status for their language, especially where it constitutes an important minority, or even, in some places, a clear majority. This law does not make Ukrainian subsidiary to Russian, it doesn't demote it, instead it merely reflects the order of things as they stand today. And there's no way I can see that in a bad light.

Here's to language plurality and rights for minority languages!

A key factor in language learning is the quality of materials at hand. A good book counts for a lot. A good teacher is nigh on priceless. But what about internet resources? Do they unlock the great potential they so obviously hold? Sometimes.

With Deutsche Welle I can only give praise. They are a fantastic resource for German learning, in terms of news, exercises, audio and radio - they really have it all. Indeed, without DW I don't think my German would be half as advanced as it is, so I'm truly thankful for all the effort and investment they've put into this resource. Another thing I enjoy is the redesign they've just given their website, making it cleaner and more elegant. Style is important, something the Language Forum I frequent could certainly work on.

I don't know about other countries' efforts in this area, apart from my very own BBC, which is admirable if perhaps slightly dated now in languages (content does not seem to get updated much, and quality is seemingly lacking). But Deutsche Welle is an excellent model, for which the architects and employees should be justifiably proud.  Thank you!

In the language world there seems to be a few core debates, one of which is 'critical periods' i.e. that one learns languages better before our brains are 'wired'. However an article in last week's Observer doubts this hypothesis, suggesting that although there may be differences in speed of learning, there hasn't actually been much study in this area. And there was me thinking this was a done scientific deal!

So what's the rub? On a general level it seems as if we can learn languages at any age and that kids may have better accents, but adults can learn that given sufficient time and effort. And that's the crux really. If we put enough time and effort into learning something we will get better, and what could be better than that? The author, psychologist Gary Marcus, goes on to explain that adults may need to learn in bite size bits to progress as they would wish (kids may not need this) but that all in all there's not the discernible difference that we may have been lead to believe exists. Good news for us language learners who started later (I started with Spanish at 20, German at 22)!

One last nugget of information from the article was that we should concentrate on our weaknesses, instead of our strengths (which can be solipsistic), and that we should challenge ourselves with goals that are slightly ahead of where we are at now.

So what does that mean for me? Well, I'll have to concentrate on the areas of the languages which I find difficult. With my German, for instance, that means more focus on tenses and vocabulary. With Spanish, on the other hand, that means focus on colloquial and idiomatic usage. With Swedish, it just means practice!

Picture from Wikipedia

I live in Wales. And the historical language of Wales is Welsh. But that's not all. Every day, even now someone will speak Welsh somewhere. They may be ordering a coffee or learning in school, or just chatting about last night's game, but the important thing is that Welsh carries on in the day-to-day normal life of Wales (which isn't a small achievement after 500 years of competition with English).

I don't speak Welsh. But I have a growing feeling I should. It's not that I would use it every day. It's not that I think I'm going to live here for the rest of my life. It's that I feel Welsh, and I feel connected to the rhythms and rhymes of this ancient, Celtic language. I feel that I didn't give the attention I should have given at school, and so now, at 25 years of age (and not for the first time) I shall go back and start again, from pretty much zero, to learn the language of my country.

I do speak a little. And I understand a little more. Also, the alphabet is very similar and the fact that I've heard the language for 25 years and have easy access to materials means that the stars are aligned, so to speak, when it comes to learning the language. But it'll still take work, and effort, and time, and that's OK, because I've already done that with Spanish, German and Catalan.

So I'll started with Welsh in Three Months. I'll focus on the basics, perhaps just the alphabet and the basic verbs and tenses for this summer/autumn. And I'll build up. Perhaps next year I can read my first book? Perhaps next year I wont feel the ignominy of being able to say "dw i ddim yn siarad cymraeg" when the answer should be "dw i'n siarard cymraeg".

Let the journey begin.

Nos da.

The UK has a problem: languages. And while we could talk about that problem in many ways, I'm going to talk about one specific aspect of that problem i.e. languages in Higher Education. Basically, while graduates of other countries are likely to speak their native tongue and (at least) English, that is not the case here. Certainly people who are studying for a language degree will speak languages here, but people doing Engineering, say, or History, will more often that not have no foreign language ability. And this is problematic, in many ways.

Firstly, it means that graduates here are unlikely to be able to move abroad, or worse, have much idea of what goes on abroad.

Secondly, when graduates come to apply for research degrees (Ph.Ds or otherwise) they are not only limited in terms of which country and institution they can study at, but crucially, they are unable to study Spanish History, or French Politics, because they do not speak the language. This leads to two issues: a weakening of previously strong departments and a lack of new areas of interest (Arabic/Chinese) and the obvious recourse to employing those from abroad who do speak the languages.

However, while a mixture of both domestic and foreign is best, the UK at the moment cannot provide even a semblance of research students who have the necessary languages.

But what can we do?

Well, on paper it's rather easy. You take language learning earlier (primary school), you make it fun and use immersion, and you make sure that universities relish languages and encourage them as GCSEs and A Levels. Other things could be done too, but the problem is that nothing of note is being done.

So what's gonna happen?

The truth is, nobody knows.

There's an article and quiz over at the BBC which deals with less-spoken languages, or extinct languages i..e Latin, Aramaic, Akkadian. I've always wondered what the role of these languages today can be. Should we teach Latin as a basis from which to understand history, or the modern languages to which it gave birth? Or would we spend our time more wisely on modern languages, on modern themes? A balance seems best. In Spain Latin and Greek are on the curriculum and yet in Britain knowledge of those languages is only pushed at independent and/or private schools. However, while in Britain Latin and Greek are revered in those schools that teach it, in Spain Classics are thought of as something that are completely useless, and it is likely to find the Classics teacher with a job outside of school too! Someone should tell Boris Johnson that Classics is worthless...

The article and quiz at the BBC form part of a larger BBC emphasis on languages which is admirable, but could be improved. It would be good to see more programmes like that of Stephen Fry's Planet World and less language learning between 4 and 6am - they couldn't really give a worse schedule and thus importance... However, a new Speaking Sport section which deals with Sport and languages is interesting and has something going for it. I've always thought that if you want to get boys to learn languages, then showing them that Bradley Wiggins speaks French, or Gary Lineker speaks Spanish, is not a bad way to go!

Ciao.

So I went to Bristol, a city that lies across the water from my beloved Wales, to my A2 Catalan exam. It was a lovely day (see the pic!) and I felt really confident. As the exam was in a different city, in a university I had never been to, I was quite glad to find it easily - Bristol University's maps are really good! We arrived early (I was with a friend who was also taking it) and waited for the teacher to arrive. And then we started:

Listening: For some reason I really struggled on this part. I've listened to hours and hours of Catalan radio and yet I just couldn't separate the words or make out the sentences. Hmm, so I'll need to work on this, but perhaps it was the whole getting into it problem whereby at first it's difficult to get into the groove etc.

Reading: I've never really had any problem in reading Catalan, it being so similar to Spanish and all. Plus, I try to read newspapers in Catalan every week, so this seemed pretty easy. Although ambiguous questions can be REALLY annoying!

Speaking: Ah, the oral, the thing that most people fear (including my friend, he was so nervous)! But it seemed to go OK, I mean it was only A2, so I only had to say some things correctly and have a modicum of variety in my sentence patterns and tense use etc. So i'd say this was pretty good.

Overall? A good day, but I hope that the listening section doesn't mess it all up. But we'll see, and sometimes you have to make errors to realise where you are going wrong, and only then can you fix it. I've learnt a lot, but there's more work to do! Vaig apendre molt aquest any, però he de fer més!