Using Twitter in Your Language Learning – Reading Practice

This is the second and penultimate post in my Using Twitter in Your Language Learning series. This time, we will be looking at the ways in which you can use Twitter as a means of improving your reading comprehension.

One of the easiest ways to find foreign-language posts is to use the Search function. For example, typing 日本語 into the search box will return results which include the word 日本語. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the search results will be written in Japanese but it’s a good starting point. A word of caution : some of the posts may be written by people who are learning Japanese so you will need to keep an eye out for posts written by native speakers if you want to read “real” Japanese.

The public timeline is another good place to look for foreign-language posts, though you will probably find yourself refreshing the page a countless number of times in order to find a post in the language you’re learning.

Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, you can try “deciphering” the tweet. Analyse the grammar (if the author made the effort to bother writing something grammatically sound), use an online or print dictionary to find the meaning of any words you don’t know and try to translate the post into your own native language. Analysing the way that people write can be a good way to reinforce and improve your own writing skills. Writing even a short post in the language you’re learning can be a challenge if you’re not sure how to express your feelings in that language or lack the vocabulary. It’s very tempting to try and translate things word for word but I’m sure most of you are aware that this is not the way to do it.

I find it very useful to memorise sentence structures and learn how to modify them for my own purposes. I enjoy breaking down Japanese and Mandarin tweets to get a feel for the writing style and learn new slang and idiomatic expressions. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from reading people’s Twitter messages, blog entries and forum posts.

Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend relying on Twitter as your sole means of reading practice. Don’t expect everyone to use correct grammar, spelling or punctuation. It would be unwise to assume that what you are reading is a good example of written Japanese, German, whatever. The character limit prevents people from writing in-depth posts and people commonly resort to abbreviations and “text-speak” as they only have 140 characters to work with. It’s also worth keeping in mind that a lot of the posts will be on very trivial matters, such as what time the author got out of bed and complaints about the weather.

If you’re determined to use Twitter as a means of boosting your reading skills, it might be a good idea to ask a language partner or native speaker to explain any unknown words or expressions to you or point out the differences between formal and informal written language. Make sure you supplement your reading material with other, more orthodox material so that your writing skills don’t suffer.

有趣的汉字

It has been almost a week since my last proper update (not counting the two language learner interviews I posted on Saturday) so I thought it was time for me to prove that I’m still alive and well.

My partner has been away on business this week so I took the opportunity to catch up with some chores around the house and some reading. I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini’s book A Thousand Splendid Suns, a heartbreaking tale of two women growing up in Afghanistan. I really recommend it to anyone who hasn’t already read this wonderful book.

I’ve also been spending some time brushing up on my Mandarin as I rarely get the chance to use my skills these days (aside from the occasional translation). I discovered yet another video site, Ku6.Com, on Monday. It can be a little slow but you’ll be able to find hundreds of movies and TV series from all over the world. I watched a few episodes of a drama series called 中国家庭421, which comes complete with Chinese subtitles (perfect for anyone who wants to improve their listening skills). The expression “421″ refers to the composition of the modern Chinese family, where the average child is an only child with two parents and four grandparents, a social system which will put an enormous pressure on young Chinese to support a greying population (this also seems to be the case in many European countries). You can watch the first episode here.

I try to read at least one short text a day in order to keep my reading skills sharp. It’s amazing how I can still stumble upon unknown 汉字 despite years of study, especially in academic or literary works. What annoys me the most is that I have learnt some of these “unknown” characters in the past but have forgotten their meanings after months (years?) of not using them or coming across them in my reading. A Chinese teacher of mine always used to tell us that Chinese characters were our friends. If we didn’t spend time with them every day, they would slip away. An exaggeration, perhaps, but  a good point nonetheless. Mandarin is certainly a high-maintenance language…

Unknown characters that I stumbled upon this week include :

鸳 (yuān) – Mandarin duck (I’m pretty sure I came across this character once or twice during my time in China)

睿 (ruì) – astute, farsighted

嚣 (xiāo) – clamour

掬 (jú) – to scoop up with both hands

There are thousands upon thousands of Chinese characters, though many of these are rarely used in daily life. The exact number of characters needed for comfortable reading is a hotly debated topic. 3,000 is a good start but you’ll still come across unknown characters in the newspapers, especially in place names or anything that uses specialist jargon (e.g. articles on scientific issues). I like to liken the study of Chinese characters to Pokemon : you’ll spend years, perhaps decades, trying to catch them all.