Reading exercise: why learn languages?

Hello there,

We're at the  very end of September and I just didn't have time to celebrate the European Day of Languages with you, as I did two years ago. In case you didn't know, the European Day of Languages took place on September, 26th. Last year I wrote an entry on the advantages of speaking English. Today I'm bringing you a very interesting reading exercise stating the importance of learning foreign languages. Do the exercise and, as usual, you can the answers down below. 

From : https://www.pinterest.es/pin/373798837804734409/

Read the text and match the paragraphs (1-6) with the headings (A-I) that best correspond to each text. There are two extra heading. Item 0 is an example:

A) A language is linked to its culture

B) No languages, no job

C) Languages will improve your physical strength

D) Live a better and longer life thanks to languages

E) Make  your life more interesting !

F) Speaking a language means becoming independent

G) Languages may improve your working conditions

H) Travelling is easier !

I) Less effort with the next language

J) You’ll feel lonely

Why learn languages ?

0.  __A__

Learning a foreign language implies getting to know other cultures. As the Canadian singer Buffy Sainte-Marie once expressed : "language  and culture cannot be separated." The language reflects the culture of the country and, in the same way, the culture of the country is reflected in the language.

1. _________________________________________________________

Learning languages makes your brain more flexible. It has been proved that people who learn more languages live longer than people who can't speak foreign languages !  Charlemagne once predicted this by saying : "to possess a second language is to possess a second soul." Poetic, isn't it ?

2. _________________________________________________________ 

 Languages play an important role in today's job market. Speaking several languages will certainly make a difference in your résumé, especially in big busy cities with a lot of tourists from different countries ! So, if you want to get that promotion you were looking for, or simply... get a job, you may wanna think about learning a foreign language. Otherwise, you may get  a job,... but getting it will be a difficult and slow process. 

3. _________________________________________________________

 The more languages one speaks, the more countries one can visit and, what is more important, understand everything. Plus, if you don't want to sound like outsiders in the country you visit and enjoy your trip and understand everything, speaking languages will help you ! 

4. ___________________________________________________________

By learning a language you can travel overseas, study abroad, get to know native friends and become more open-minded. No need for mummy and daddy, it’s just you out in the world doing things by yourself.

5. _________________________________________________________ 

By becoming a speaker of different languages, you see the world in another way. You can understand things more easily, boost your self-confidence and ease your decision-making process. In addition, people will surely be impressed by your skills. Before learning a language, your life was boring !

6. _________________________________________________________

Learning a language is not the end of the road. Once you’ve learnt a foreign language, it will be easier for you to learn another one. By learning two languages, it is much easier to learn a third one and so on.

As promised, here you have your answers. I encourage you to learn foreign languages! Go to a nearby school and get started!

Answers :

TEXT	TITLE
1	D
2	G
3	H
4	F
5	E
6	I

Exercises on Greek loanwords

Howdy!

Did you read my post about Greek borrowings in the English language that I wrote last week? Today I'm bringing you some exercises that will challenge you and hopefully will reinforce your knowledge of Greek loanwords. As usual, the answers will be at the bottom of the post. Ready?

1. Write the name of the following things. Pay attention to your spelling! All the words come from Greek! Clue: all the words have the [f] sound.
a)  b) 

c) d) 

e)   f) 
g)  h) 
i)  j) 

2. Spell the following words from its phonetic transcription. All of them come from Greek:

a) [‘a:kaɪv]
b) [eɪk]

c) [kəˈtæstrəfi]

d) [kəˈrɪzmə]
e) [kaɪˈmɪərə]
f) ['saɪkɪk]
g) ['ekəʊ]
h) ['ɑːkɪˌtekt]
i) ['ɔːkɪstrə]

3. Underline the word which is correctly spelled. Sometimes, more than one option is correct. Then, identify the Greek words

a) festival / phestival
b) dolfin / dolphin
c) phantasy / fantasy
d) psyquiatric / psychiatric
e) Fiona / Phiona
f) Filip / Philippe 
g) corus / chorus
h) archaic / arcaic
i) dichotomy / dicotomy

j) Christian / Cristian 
k) carp / charp
l) fetus / phetus 
m) caracteristic / characteristic
n) crocodile / crochodile
o) physics / physich / fysic
p) fenomenon / phenomenon

4. Guess the meaning of the following Greek loanwords from their components (prefixes, suffixes, words...)

a) microphone
b) photophobia
c) monolingual
d) hypothermia 
e) hypercorrection
f) polysyllabic 
g) theology
h) politics
i) amphibian
j) octopodes

5. Give the plural form for the following words coming from Greek:
a) Polyhedron
b) Trauma
c) Oasis
d) Climax
e) Criterion
f) Metamorphosis
g) Analysis
h) Phenomenon
i) Appendix 




Answers:
1. a) Photographer b) pharynx c) microphone d) elephant e) sphere  f) pharaoh 
g) geography h) pharmacy (chemist) i) trophy j) phoenix

2.  a) archive b) ache c) catastrophe d) charisma e) chimera f) psychic g) echo h) architect i) orchestra

3. a) festival b) dolphin c) fantasy and phantasy (the option with <ph> is not very common); d) psychiatric e) Fiona and Phiona (the option with <ph> is unusual); f) Philippe g) chorus 
h) archaic i) dichotomy  j) Christian k) carp l) fetus m) characteristic n) crocodile o) physic 
p) phenomenon.

b), c), d), f), g), h), i), j), m), o) and p) come from Greek. 

4. 
a) microphone = Micro (small) +  phone (sound). A device that produces a small sound.
b) photophobia = Photo (light) + phobia (fear). Fear to the light.
c) monolingual = Mono (one) + lingua (language). Speaking one language.
d) hypothermia = hypo (under) + thermos (heat). Below normal temperature
e) hypercorrection = hyper (over) + correction. Correct someone more than necessary
f) polysyllabic = poly (a lot) + syllable. A word having a lot of syllables (more than three).
g) theology = theo (God) + logos (study). The science that studies God.
h) politics = polis (city) + tikos (related to). The science that studies the city. 
i) amphibian = amphi (both) + bios (life). An animal that can live both in the water and in the ground. 
j) octopodes = octo (eight) + podes (feet). An animal with eight feet (the irregular plural of octopus).

5. 
a) Polyhedra
b) Traumas /traumata
c) Oases
d) Climaces (climaxes)
e) Criteria
f) Metamorphoses
g) Analyses
h) Phenomena
i) Appendices (appendixes)  

Well, I hope that words from Greek won't be a mystery for you at this point. 
See you around. 

Greek and English are also intertwined

Another week has gone by and here I am writing another post about the quirks of English. Today I will be delving into the languages having an influence on English. So far, I've written post on the influence of French upon English; the influence of Italian upon English; and the influence of English upon Italian. Today, I'll try to cast some light on the traces of Greek in the English language.

How can we identify Greek words in English?
In a practical sense, some Greek words can be identified by the letter <ph> for the sound [f]. This is thanks to the Greek letter, phi (φ). How many <f> are there in the word 'philosophy'? The answer is zero, that indicates the word comes from Greek.

1. Greek words with letters <ph>

• Dolphin: From Greek, Δέλφος, meaning dolphin and womb
• Elephant: From Greek ἐλέφας,
• Alphabet: This word indicates the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. 
• Pharmacy: From Greek φαρμακεία, meaning medicine. 
• Physics: From Greek φύση, meaning nature.
• Emphasis: From Greek ἔμφασις.
• Phase: From Greek φάσις.
• Phantom: From Greek φάντασμα .
• Orphan: From Greek ὀρφανός.
• Phobia: From Greek φόβος.
• Philosophy: From Greek φίλος (love) and σοφία (wisdom)

There are thousands of examples following this pattern, but what you need to bear in mind every time you see the letters <ph> representing the sound [f] is that that word is likely to be a Greek borrowing!

2. Words spelt <ch> and pronounced [k]

Normally the English words spelt <ch> are pronounced [ʧ], as we do in Spanish. However, there are some words pronounced with [k] that are borrowing from Greek. This is due to letter chi χ. Here you have some examples:

English word	Greek origin	English pronunciation
Ache	Αχος (grief)	[eɪk]
School	Σχολή (leisure)	[sku:l]
Chemistry	Χημία (blackness)	[‘kemɪstri]
Stomach	Στόμαχος (stomach)	[‘st˄mɪk]
Chaos	Χάος (gap, chaos)	[‘keɪɒzs]
Orchid	ὄρχις (testicle)	[‘ɔ:kɪd]
Character	Χαρακτήρ (nature)	[‘kærəktə]
Archive	ἀρχεῖον (public records)	[‘a:kaɪv]

3. Famous Greek suffixes (or words that are considered suffixes in English):

There are plenty of words in Greek that have become fossilized in English to such an extent that they are considered prefixes or suffixes:

• -phone: From Greek φωνή. It means sound. From that word, we have the terms 'telephone', 'microphone', 'allophone' or 'Anglophone' among others.
• -phobia: From Greek φόβος, meaning 'fear'. From this word, English has created hundreds of terms, e.g. 'homophobia' or 'hydrophobia'. 
• -logy: From Greek  -λογία, meaning 'science' or 'study'. Thanks to this suffix, English has coined terms like 'terminology' or 'methodology' (the science of method).
• - ics: From Greek ῐκός, meaning 'related to'. In a practical sense it depicts sciences or fields of knowledge. Thus, we have words such as 'politics', 'mathematics' and 'aerobics'.

4. Famous Greek prefixes

• Amphi-: From Greek ἀμφί, meaning 'both', as can be seen in the word 'amphibian' (lives in both sides, ground and water).
• Hydro-: From Greek ὑδρο, meaning 'water', as in 'hydrophobia' (fear to water) or 'hydrated' (having water). 
• Micro- / macro- : From Greek μικρός (small) and μακρός (big), for example, 'microscope' or 'macroeconomy'.
• Hypo-/ hyper-: From Greek ὑπο (under) and ὑπέρ (over). Thus, if you have hypotension, your tension is lower than normal. However, if you happen to have hypertension, then, your tension is over the normal limits. 
• Uni- / di- / tri- / tetra- / penta-/ deca- / poly-: These prefixes refer to numbers. Uni- refers to number one, as in 'unicorn' (one horn); di- refers to number two as in 'diarchy' (two governments); tri- makes reference to number three, as in 'triplets', tetra- is related to number four as in 'tetrahedron'; penta- means five as in 'pentagon'; deca- refers to number ten, as can be seen in the word 'decalogue' and 'poly' means a non-specific quantity, meaning 'a lot of', as can be seen in 'polyglot' (a person capable of speaking a lot of languages).

5. Greek plurals

As I wrote in my post about irregular plurals, Greek loanwords are easily identified by their endings. There are four endings that can help us identify Greek borrowings:

• Words ending in -on: In Greek, there are neutral words ending in -on whose plural is formed by removing -on and adding -a. Here you have some examples: Criterion (singular) criteria (plural); phenomenon (singular); phenomena (plural)
• Words ending in -is: The plural of these words is created by removing -is and adding -es. The plural form of the word 'hypothesis' is 'hypotheses', and the plural of the word 'basis' is 'bases'
• Words ending in -ex / -ix: To make the plural, the morpheme -es needs to be added. However, with these words some irregularities will appear when forming the plural. Thus, the plural of 'index' is 'indices' and the plural of 'matrix' is 'matrices.'
• Some words ending in -a: There are some minor words in English whose plural is formed by adding -ta. This is the case of 'enigma', whose plural can be 'enigmas' or 'enigmata.' The same happens with 'schema' whose plurals can be 'schemas' or 'schemata'. 

General tips to identify Greek borrowings

To sum up, Greek loanwords can be spotted and identified quite easily:

1) Words with <ph> and [f] sound like 'philosophy' or 'dolphin.'

2) Words with <ch> and [k] sound like 'chaos' or 'chemistry.'

3) Words with Greek prefixes and suffixes like -phobia, -logy, amphi-, hyper-, hypo-....

4) Irregular plurals of words ending in -on / -is / -ex / -ix / which do not follow the normal pattern of plurals. 

Both Greek and English are fascinating language. I hope that thanks to this post, you can now identify Greek borrowing much more easily! If you are more interested in this issue, I recommend you watch this video explaining the vast influence of Greek upon English. 

P.S. To test your knowledge on Greek loanwords, have a look at these self-correctable exercises. 

Idioms and expressions with number 3

September is here and that means that my hols are officially over, unfortunately. Anyway, I can't complain since I've had plenty of time to disconnect from it all and, as you know, I've been keeping my blog updated, even in summer. Last August, I was celebrating the third anniversary of my blog, with a ranking of the most successful entries; a ranking of the least popular entries; and a catalogue including a description of all the entries in the blog so far.

Now, to somehow give closure to this anniversary, I'm writing an entry with idioms and expressions related to number 3 (last year I did it with idioms and expressions involving number 2). Let's begin:

1. Bad luck comes in threes / bad things come in threes / bad luck happens in threes

If you're the superstitious kind of guy, this is your idiom. It basically states that normally bad things happen in a streak of bad luck involving three misgivings, that is, once you're in a bad luck streak, three bad things will happen to you and not just one: 

2. Moving three times is as bad as a fire

Moving house is a tiresome activity, indeed! And not only that: things get broken and lost and you get tired and tired. This is why this idiom speaks about the "dangers" of moving house three times. Do you agree with the idiom?

3. To be the third wheel in a relationship


Can you imagine a bike with three wheels? That wouldn't work, would it? The same thing happens with the third person in a relationship. That person in English is called the third wheel, whereas in Spanish, these people are called "candle holders." The idea is practically the same: an extra person that is always around a couple.

4. Two is a company, three's a crowd

Similar idiom to the previous one. One says this when they want someone else to leave just to be alone with their loved one. At the end of the day, a couple consists just of two people, not three!

5. Three strikes and you are out

This expression coming from baseball highlights the fact that after three wrongdoings, you'll face the consequences, for example, I won't accept anyone else breaking the rules. Remember, three strikes and you're out.

6. A three-ring circus

Can you picture a circus with lions, elephants and tigers on the loose? A complete chaos, right? This is precisely what the expression a three-ring circus means, a situation of utter confusion and chaos. You know, what you can have if you come back home after leaving your children alone for three hours...

7. I didn't exchange more than three words (with someone)
This expression is said when you meet someone but you barely speak to them, or you just exchange the necessary words: 'hello', 'how are you?' and all that stuff.

8. As easy as one, two, three

When something is super-easy you can say, it's a piece of cake; easy peasy lemon squeezy, or simply, as easy as one, two, three. Do you get it?

9. Three hots and a cot


If you use this expression, you are probably an inmate, a prisoner. In jail, all you get is three hots meals and a bed to sleep on. 

10. Clogs to clogs in three generations

This is quite a wise idiom. It basically explains that even if you get rich all of a sudden, your wealth won't make it through three generations of relatives, in other words, wealth doesn't last much. 

Well, did you like the selection of idioms with number 3? Which one was your favourite? Do you know any others? Then, post a comment!