As you might imagine from its title, this book is a handbook for practising teachers and students who intend working in the field of language teaching. The author, Rolf Kreyer, is a professor of modern English linguistics and works at the University of Marburg in Germany. It was students of his who inspired him to write the work.

Unlike guides on practical teaching techniques, this book aims to provide its readers with a thorough grounding in key aspects of modern linguistics that are relevant to teaching and learning a second language. It shows you how this theoretical foundation can be used effectively to teach a foreign language to learners (hence its subtitle, "Discovering the value of linguistics for foreign language teaching"). 

Section 2, "Errors and why they are a good thing", is about making mistakes in a foreign language and about the various stages in mastering it (the learner's "interlanguage"). Sections 3 and 4 are on sounds, pronunciation and comparative phonetics ("What are you sinking about?”). The author even goes into the rarely mentioned subject of "weak" forms of sounds (like the "e" in "the", as opposed to the clearer/stronger "e" in "empty" or "elephant"). Such "weak" sounds often occur in English, but many German learners are not aware of them. Sections 5 and 6 are on words, the mental lexicon and interrelatedness. Sections 7 and 8 are to do with corpus linguistics and how corpora (collections of texts) can be used in the classroom to show how words are commonly used or grouped together (collocations). Sections 9, 10 and 11 are about text work, the differences between spoken and written English, and how to express politeness. Finally, sections 12 and 13 focus on communicating, on the importance of background knowledge and on how information is packaged in different ways, which are not always easy to "unpack" correctly, even for native speakers.

It's quite an achievement to compress these aspects of linguistics into 300 pages, but Prof. Kreyer has done a good job of it in my opinion. On top of that, he has included various examples, diagrams and tables to help readers grasp the concepts better and has incorporated practical exercises in each chapter as well.

Tips for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter for those who want to find out more about the subjects he discusses. All the works he refers to are listed in the bibliography near the end of the book, followed by a glossary of technical terms and an index with page references to help readers find the sections they need quickly.

This is a well-designed book that is written in a readily accessible style, making it a good read for any language teacher, regardless of what language they choose to focus on. Some sections are easier to follow than others because they are relatively technical, but the contents are always outlined clearly and the short exercises make you think about the topics and apply what you have just learnt. Some supplementary material is provided for free on the publisher's website, which can be accessed by keying in a code inside the book cover.

My only gripes about this textbook are that it would have been good to get the whole book proof-read by a native speaker of English before it went to print (I would gladly have done it as I'm a language teacher myself!). Besides that, there's no mention of translation in the table of contents or the index, even though it's an age-old skill and something every learner does automatically. How we translate words, sentences and ideas into another language is a fascinating subject in itself. Translation techniques can be taught explicitly in the classroom to help students do it better themselves. After all, translation is a cognitive process and therefore part of psycholinguistics.

Click on this link to the publisher's website to view the table of contents online. (I particularly liked section 4.3, entitled "France is bacon"! It's about how words are linked together in spoken English.)

It's obtainable directly from the publisher or through your local bookshop.

Publisher/year: narr/francke/attempto, 2023

ISBN: 978-3-8233-8611-7 (printed version), 978-3-8233-9611-8 (ePDF)

Hope you enjoy the read as much as I did.

Carl

Computerlinguistische Methoden für die Digital Humanities. Eine Einführung für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen

by Melanie Andresen

While I was studying Applied Linguistics at university in Hamburg back in the 1990s, the academic subject of computer linguistics was just developing. I touched on the interdisciplinary field of computing and foreign language learning and teaching in some of my courses and later went on to write my Master's thesis about acquiring foreign-language vocabulary using software packages currently on the German market.

In other courses, we analysed language textbooks by using a digital corpus we created ourselves and rudimentary commands written in Turbo Pascal, a programming language popular at the time. This simple computer analysis of the contents and structure of language textbooks was essentially a practical, hands-on introduction to corpus linguistics in the language education sector.

A lot has happened in educational computing since then and a host of studies have been carried out based on digital corpuses of written language from sources like novels or news magazines. Lexicographers (dictionary compilers) built up huge databases of pre-existing linguistic data, most of which was in written form rather than spoken, and analysed these by computer to obtain information about the various senses of a word, its frequency and the contexts in which it was used in the corpus, for example. The Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary project was an early case in point from the 1980s and led to some very useful material being produced for language learners and teachers alike.

Some of the methods employed in corpus linguistics are also used in the field of computer linguistics, so there is an overlap to an extent. Melanie Andresen points this out in the introduction to her recent book on methods used in the digital humanities today, explaining how the two fields are linked and how they differ (see pp. 14-16). In a nutshell, while corpus linguistics describes the use of language by analysing corpora and looking for linguistic patterns, computer linguistics tries to model languages on computers in order to find technical solutions to practical problems (p. 16, quoting T. McEnery & A. Hardie, Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 228).

Computer linguists analyse language corpora for a number of reasons, one of which is to learn how to simulate speech on a computer and get it to produce helpful responses to things that users say. So one aim is to create chatbots and other 'interactive assistants' that can converse with customers in a naturally sounding way and help them achieve what they want to do (finding out how to get somewhere while they are driving, say).

Melanie Andresen's book is aimed at newcomers to the subject who have a background in the humanities and who presumably want to know how computational methods from another field can help them analyse humanistic data in new ways, gaining insights they would not have discovered otherwise by taking a traditional approach. She begins by outlining the basic concepts of linguistics of relevance to computer linguists, such as lexical aspects of language, syntax, semantics and pragmatics (chapters 2 to 8 ). The second part of the book concerns specific methods, such as corpus searches, manual annotation, machine learning and deep learning (chapters 9 to 12). These last two chapters will be of particular interest to translators who use CAT tools or online tools with an MT (machine-translation) component like Linguee/DeepL.

The third and final section of the book is called 'Gesellschaft' (society) and explores the issue of ethics in computer linguistics, or rather, artificial intelligence. Spanning 12 pages (in the first edition of the book), this part discusses issues such as dual uses of technology (i.e. conflicting uses), unclear authorship and 'author profiling' using metadata about people who have provided some of the linguistic data in the corpus (section 13.2). Other topics she goes into are bias, discrimination and (lack of) representation in the data, which all have a negative effect on the computer's linguistic output.

I'm still reading this interesting book at the moment, but one thing that's struck me already is that the author focuses on explaining what computer linguistics is rather than giving her readers an idea of how it could be employed in their own area of the humanities. (The digital dictionary examples above are my own, not hers.) How might it be employed by historians, for example? Some practical suggestions and pointers would have been helpful, I'm sure.

Still, Andresen's introduction to the subject is well written and certainly gives the reader some insights into a new interdisciplinary field that is expanding rapidly. Here's a link to the book on the publisher's website. You can order a printed copy of it online or from any bookshop (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2024, €26.99 for the softcover version, €21.99 for the e-book).

Enjoy the read.

Carl

Friday, 8 August 2025

A few months back, I started finding out more about online learning platforms, partly out of curiosity and partly because I thought I might need to know how to use Moodle in my own language teaching one day.

Since then I've been working my way through the platform's online tutorials. These are self-paced, so you can do them whenever you like and as fast or as slowly as you want. Every time you complete one, you get a badge for that particular subject (or what's now called a "micro-credential" to document your progress in life-long learning). My latest badge is for learning how to create and present course content using the Moodle platform.

The tutorials are a combination of texts you have to read through, short videos to watch and questions to be answered actively in a test of what you've just learnt. You only get a badge if you get enough points in the test. If your percentage is a bit too low, you can read up on the subjects you got wrong and then do the test again soon after.

I've found that using the sandbox feature (my own term for it) really helps you learn how to use Moodle: you get free access to an area of the platform where you can play around with files you create for your own use and try out the new features you've just learnt about in a tutorial.

Whenever you learn about a new subject and how to create material for your students, you can go through the steps in your own section and get some proper, hands-on practice. Learning how to use Moodle involves a lot more than just reading through its guides and how-to tutorials, but the more often you use it, the easier it gets. There's quite a learning curve, to be honest, and the tutorials will keep you busy for hours.

Still, why not try it out yourself? See what you think and find out if it meets your own needs. The trial period is free.

Are there any good alternatives you know of? Particularly for teaching and learning foreign languages? Here are seven suggestions I found today in an article by Aishwarya Lakshmi from April 2025: Top 7 Moodle Alternatives.

Carl

Hey, I've just got my first Moodle badge! Well, it's a start, at least, even if it's only for beginners...

A little while ago, I decided to broaden my knowledge of e-learning and start finding out more about virtual teaching tools I might be able to use in my own language teaching one day. Moodle was an obvious choice as it's been around for quite a few years and it crops up in job ads for teachers, too.

What I find interesting about it is that it's an OpenSource platform, so anyone can contribute to its functionality and enhance it, not just the original programmers. Plus it's got a global reach as well and has been localised in all kinds of languages (no doubt by volunteers).

I'll keep on doing the basic courses until I get a reasonable grasp of it. Fortunately, you can try it out for four weeks before having to book a package. (The basic package is reasonably priced, though.)

As I don't have any Moodle students of my own yet, it's just me using my little corner of the platform, but still, it gives me a chance to try things out and see what I can design myself.

Have you used Moodle yet? What did you think of it? It would be interesting to hear about the pros and cons of working with it from users and experienced instructors.

Carl

Links for further reading: https://moodle.com/about/

Am Sonntag, den 7. Mai 2023 wurde das Heimatmuseum in Memmingen nach umfangreicher Renovierung wieder eröffnet. Die Ausstellung über sudetendeutsche Aussiedler (= Flüchtlinge/Vertriebene), die am Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges von Tschechien nach Memmingen gekommen sind und dort ein neues Leben für sich aufbauen mussten, wurde von der Museumspädagogin Ursula Winkler (Fa. Winkler Kultur) neu konzipiert und mit großem Engagement realisiert.

Die Hintergrundinformationen zu den zahlreichen Fotos und Ausstellungsstücken sind weitgehend in drei Sprachen auf Infotafeln in den Räumen zu lesen: auf Deutsch (von Ursula Winkler), Tschechisch (von Jana Vymazalová übersetzt) und auch auf Englisch (von mir übersetzt).

Der Besuch lohnt sich für Museums- und Geschichtsfreunde im Allgemeinen! Ich war bei der Eröffnung im Mai 2023 dabei und habe mich auch sehr gefreut, meine mühevolle, monatelange Arbeit in Form von ansprechenden Infotafeln neben der Fotografien der Ausstellung zu sehen!

Übersetzungen dienen schließlich der internationalen Völkerverständigung. Und in einer Ausstellung wie diese machen sie englischsprachigen (und tschechischen) Besuchern auf ein wichtiges Kapitel der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte aufmerksam, das den meisten Touristen sonst unbekannt wäre. Schließlich sind über 3 Millionen Sudetendeutsche nach Deutschland geflüchtet, nachdem sie aus ihrer Heimat vertrieben wurden.

Link zur Website des Museums: Heimatmuseum Freudenthal/Altvater

Öffnungszeiten März – Dezember 2025:
Dienstag bis Sonntag: 11 – 17 Uhr
Feiertage: 11 – 17 Uhr

Eintritt frei 

(Bild: vom Flyer über das Heimatmuseum)

Verstehen und Übersetzen

by Paul Kußmaul

This work is a textbook for students of translation studies. It stands out from the crowd because of the way it's written: it's clear and practical, and doesn't get overly abstract when it addresses theoretical aspects of cognition and semantics. The author taught translators at the University of Mainz in Germersheim, Germany, for many years and often draws on what he experienced in his classes, introducing questions the students had and explaining how they tackled linguistic problems encountered during translation exercises.

The book is divided into eight chapters and spans 230 pages in its third, revised edition (from 2015). The first edition of it appeared in 2007, so it seems to be popular (and justifiably so in my opinion). Each chapter is followed by a short section with exercises to practise what has just been covered in the book, and some suggested answers can be found at the back, which is handy.

I like the variety of topics in this book. Initially, the author discusses lexical "false friends", ambiguity and knowing which word or meaning to pick in a dictionary (is a brush a "Pinsel" or a "Bürste" in German?). He looks at semantic prototypes and "framing" (1.5) in connection with mental images of words and situations to be translated and then covers words that are "hard to translate" (1.7).

Some of the examples he picks are taken from questionnaires in English that were translated for mass surveys in various European countries (ISSP surveys). These often contain references to culture-specific terms, such as "National Insurance Contributions", but even words like "local" or "government" (p. 88) can turn out to be tricky to translate and call for careful reflection (pp. 37, 38). One of the key points Kußmaul makes is that words don't live in isolation, but in a specific cultural setting (2.1), which a translator also needs to bear in mind.

Here are a few more points he covers: how close should a translation be? (chap. 3), the need to differentiate (3.3), how to go about researching a term or subject (4.1), linguistic v encyclopaedic knowledge, expanding your vocabulary by learning new meanings of existing words, going beyond dictionaries when their entries fail to help (4.2), referring to online resources (IATE, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) and analysing texts properly to deduce the right meaning of a word in its context (dictionaries don't always offer the right answer!).

In the second half of the textbook, the author looks at cognitive translation processes (chap. 5), creativity in translation (6), visualising and scenes (7), and problem-solving as a translator, along with various practical strategies and techniques (8) translators can use.

In a nutshell, then, "Verstehen und Übersetzen" is a useful, hands-on textbook that is well worth reading. And astonishingly for a German textbook, it's actually easy to follow.

Link to the e-book on the publisher's website (Narr Verlag). You can also order a printed copy of the book online or from any bookshop.

Best,

Carl

Thursday, 3 February 2022

Do you happen to know what the difference is between "recto" and "verso"? How is a "folio" different to a "page"? What exactly is a "codex" and how does it relate to a printed book?

Yes, you guessed it - I'm on about manuscripts this time. Here are a few links to glossaries on the Web and in print that I've found useful in my own editing and translation work about codicology:

• A general glossary provided by the British Library, London: Glossary on Illuminated Manuscripts
• A short glossary by the University of Nottingham: glossary on medieval books

• Glossary of English terms concerned with medieval art and architecture (listed in sections from A to Z).
• Harvard's METRO glossary (on Middle English texts such as Chaucer's works).
   
• Glossary of Hebrew terms by the British Library, with illustrations.
   
• A comprehensive glossary of German terms on medieval bookmaking and illustration by Heidelberg University ("Bibliotheca Palatina" project). This has illustrations as well as detailed explanations of terms.
   
• Glossary of Lao manuscript terms (in English and Lao). These explanations relate to the Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts ("DLLM"), which is a project to save the contents of Lao manuscripts by digitising the material.

I'll be adding more links as time goes on. Please let me know of any helpful ones you are familiar with so I can take a look at them and possibly share them here.

One printed work in German that is related and deserves a mention here is "Buchmalerei. Terminologie in der Kunstgeschichte" by Christine Jakobi-Mirwald, particularly Chap. 12, which is a 27-page mini-dictionary of German terms in English, French and Italian.

Another notable dictionary that is in English is Peter Beal's "A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology, 1450-2000", published by OUP. This printed work is pricey, but there's a Kindle version of it (an e-book) that's good value and handy when working on a computer or tablet. Beal's dictionary is a comprehensive one with clear definitions for all the entries.

Hope you find these tips helpful.

Regards

Carl

Note: the image above shows a page of a 15th-century manuscript depicting Vincent of Beauvais, the author, working on it.
(Wikipedia Commons, public domain)

If you have a valid support & maintenance agreement for memoQ, you are entitled to download the latest release of the software (either a build or a major upgrade) and install it on your PC. After doing that, however, you may find it doesn't do some things quite as well as your previous version, and if you come across enough of these shortcomings, you may want to go back to your old version and carry on using that for a while until the shortcomings get ironed out by the software development team. How do you get hold of that older version, though, now that it's been replaced by the latest one on your computer?

If you haven't had the foresight to save the installation file beforehand, don't worry – all is not lost! All you need to do is go to a page on the memoQ website and download the right installation file from there – it's https://www.memoq.com/en/downloads.

The versions of memoQ you can currently find here go back all the way from the newest one to memoQ translator pro 4.2, which was released several years ago.

Download the file, save it to your desktop (for example) and double-click on it to install it over the existing installation. The next time you launch memoQ, this earlier version will be used automatically.

And that's all there is to it!

Best,

Carl