text:
Polyglossic
Love Learning Languages
Language Apps
Spanish Grammar Bites
Production Matters
Having joked about the state of my French at a recent Linguascope webinar, I've been giving Paul Noble's audio French course a whirl to revive and resume my secondary school language skills. Like the very similar Michel Thomas courses, his series is just magic for improving your language production.
Following a gradual, layering model of tuition, the courses provide a solid blueprint for producing language in the learner's mind. Step by step, they build up a working grammar and lexicon in the gentlest way possible. As no-tears, get-up-and-running-quickly approaches, they're honestly very hard to beat. And as a refresher for my français, it's doing a grand job; I'm already thinking of getting the next steps follow-up.
One Way Street?
What I still miss, though, is language training in the other direction. As audio courses, both the Noble and Thomas series are necessarily a little restrained in terms of teaching comprehension. They give you grammatical tools and vocabulary, but using those alone you are more or less back-engineering any input that comes your way in the real world.
This deficit, of course, is largely down to the format of all formal courses, not just these select few. Thanks to the nature of the medium, they are necessarily finite. They can't possibly contain enough 'input training' to improve that aspect of your fluency.
But thankfully, we can fill the other side of the equation through DIY listening techniques that provide a good comprehensible input model. Comprehension skills arise largely through exposure to unpredictable, everyday language, training your brain to be ready for anything in the target language.
The solution, in this case? A bit of podcast hunting, incorporating resources like News in Slow French into my weekly listens. Together with the Paul Noble course, they'll make an excellent pairing: production and reception, covered.
There's no doubt about it: courses that focus on production, through building a practical mental grammar, are based on sound learning principles, and are incredibly effective. They'll form an indispensable part of my language learning arsenal for as long as they're available.
So, not to take anything away from their usefulness, this recent experience is just more support for a blended, multi-resource learning approach, rather than reliance on a single course. Nothing new there. I do wonder, though, if there's an opening in the market for a really clever resource that combines all of these elements.
Quelle bonne idée!
The Language Doth Protest Too Much? Learning from Conflict
We live in contested times. If one form of language best typifies that fact, it is the language of protest.
It was a point driven home this week, with coverage of anti-Macron demonstrations in France all over the international news. "La jeunesse emmerde le front vaccinal" screamed the posters, turning on its head Macron's own promise to (in more delicate terms) pee off the vaccine-hesitant.
Reading Between the Protest Lines
Regardless of whether we agree with the sentiment behind the cardboard, protest placards like these are valuable sources of target language in context. They have much in common with political campaign literature in this way. Both are equally handy authentic resources in miniature for the impartial language-learning observer. Namely, they're short, snappy and contain very condensed vocabulary and grammar examples. As an added bonus, they provide very up-to-date and topical material for conversation.
Not to shy away from another side-benefit, though, their non-sanitised style is rather useful in another way. Popular protest slogans, like the above example shows, consist of highly colloquial, often profane, everyday language. As gritty as it is, it's not a bad idea to be familiar with it. After all, learning only polite French is really learning half a language. Incidentally, If you feel the need to brush up on that first, take a look at the juvenilely tittersome Dirty French and Beyond Merde!
The Last Laugh?
After all is said and done, politics can be a dirty business, and one that all too easily sucks us into a void of despair. After de-politicising my social media streams, I try to keep a level-headed distance from adversarial politics now. Viewing it as a resource, rather than a constant rematch between tribes, makes it a lot more fun as a language learner.
That said, if you find your disagreement a heavy burden to bear, learning from protest placards is a way to have the last laugh. It's the ultimate in turning a negative into a positive.
On that note, thank you, protesters: the word emmerder is now firmly in my Anki notes!
Mastering Beginnings : Dabbling Through the New Year
I set myself a task in 2021: to collect the full set of Teach Yourself language courses from the 1980s and 1990s. That task is nearly complete, with the missing languages now counting in the single figures. I've ended up with a really comprehensive language learning library including a bunch of languages I've never even thought of studying, from Afrikaans to Zulu.
So what now?
Well, it is the season for New Year's Resolutions, so I had a crackpot idea. What about working through each of them in 2022, attempting to complete the first chapter in every one?
The Dabbling Library
You crazy fool! I hear you cry, what's the gain in that? After all, a bunch of introductory chapters won't result in a very strong working knowledge of any of them. A bit of a lot, but not a lot of much.
That all depends on your goals in language learning, though. Of course, I still have those core projects with the aim of high-level functional or conversation fluency, like Gaelic, Greek and Polish. And I have my maintenance projects to retain fluency in languages like German, Norwegian and Spanish.
But there's a huge amount to be gained from casual dabbling, and my little TY cache promises to be fertile ground for that.
A Little Goes A Long Way
For one thing, I've learnt over the past year-and-a-bit of master study in linguistics that knowing about languages – regardless of your ability to speak them conversationally – is invaluable. Even a brief foray into how wildly disparate tongues work can give you a whole new perspective on how humans do this whole language business. Exploring beyond the Indo-European bubble, for example, helped me to dismantle some sticklers of limits to my linguistic thinking. Arming your mind with a thousand varied examples is great prep for linguistic research.
My single-chapter dabbling spree is a chance to fill in some telling gaps, too. Some of those languages on my TY shelf are close siblings to others I know well. Catalan, Portuguese, Italian… I'm expecting my Spanish to help prise the door open a little bit more than the very first pages. Just learning a few regular sound correspondences and cognate (mis)matches can provide a working knowledge beyond the concrete words and structures you learn from the page itself. That's not to mention the bird's eye view you get of particular language families, particularly on how close pairings differ.
And finally, there's the caveat that building bridges with languages doesn't require absolute fluency. Just a few words – a hello, a please, a thank you – is enough to make a human connection. Knowing just jó napot (good day) in Hungarian was ice-breaker enough to strike up conversation with restaurant staff in Birmingham. A smattering of 100 or so Hebrew words was ample for having a hybrid French-Hebrew conversation with Israelis in a bar in Paris. In short: don't discount the value of even a tiny bit of knowledge.
Dabbling Down on Languages
So, wish me fun, enjoying this lot. I would ask for luck, but when language is the pleasure it is to all of us, we don't need too much of that. Because that joy is the clincher, it'll remain very low-key in terms of organised study, particularly since I'm ever-wary of goal exhaustion.
But please, feel free to join me on this journey mastering beginnings, if I've convinced you. Giving old books a new lease of life is an easy and really affordable way to start your own dabbling shelf!
Retro Corner : De-Digitising Language Learning
Yes, it escalated. I'm not only seeking old Teach Yourself language books – I'm now hunting down the retro cassette packs too. How incorrigibly 1990s of me!
Now, this is not just a case of me giving into my obsessive-compulsive collector traits. My latest second-hand drive is all part of a general strategy to wean myself off 24/7 digital connectivity. Apps and social media are excellent language learning companions, but like many, I'm beginning to feel the digital fatigue.
Duolingo (bless their hearts!) didn't help much by adding a new level of challenge recently – diamond tournaments – which, obviously I had to spend far too much time on. My Gaelic and Norwegian may have come on in leaps and bounds lately thanks to that little carrot-and-stick, but I can almost see a phone screen when I close my eyes now.
I'm being gamified to distraction.
Yes, it's definitely time to rebalance the digital with some offline learning. And so I've sourced a few of these old Teach Yourself packs, a 30-year-old Walkman, and created a little retro language corner.
My gloriously retro Sony tape player
Language Learning, Fast and Slow
There's something warm and fuzzy about popping a cassette in, and forward-winding to the spot you want. I'm about to sound like a right old codger, but it's almost more satisfying finding your way around a resource, as opposed to doing a quick click, jump and gaining instant gratification online. This contrast is another case of language learning, fast and slow, where slow can bring along a heap of easy-to-overlook joy.
What's more, it's cheap and easy to recreate that retro learning hygge. I've spotted plenty of these old TY book and cassette packs going on eBay in my recent hunts. While CD-based packs are still a bit pricier (being a bit less obsolete), you can regularly pick the cassette versions up for a steal. If you have something to play them on, there are bargains to be had.
Retro Teach Yourself book and cassette language packs from the 1990s
Retro Happy Learning
Of course, you can always go that little bit further. After all, creating a happy learning space is all about triggering warm memories and feelings associated with studying. To that end, I have my eye on a couple of old Coomber cassette players now, the exact same models that our teachers played Tricolore French cassettes on in the early 90s.
Nostalgia, combined with sheer geekdom, can be a great motivator in language learning.
Teach Yourself Gujurati (1995) cassette
Goal Setting Or Less Fretting?
With the new year approaching, there's lots of talk about goal setting and language targets on #langtwt. So what are mine?
Well, let's start with what were mine? In 2021, for one thing or another (mainly the fact that it was a mad busy year), I didn't manage to stick rigidly to all my concrete language learning plans. Things like weekend podcast listening and daily reading sometimes slipped though the gaps between uni assignments and work commitments.
Goal Setting – Quick 'n' Easy?
Now, I usually talk a lot about quick 'n' easy tactics for daily learning – the kind of things that you can do in five or ten minutes every day. The idea is that they take little effort, but have great cumulative effect.
The thing is, sometimes quick 'n' easy is too much if you're already overloaded. It's so easy to promise to slip in a podcast on a train or while you're relaxing after work. But it's equally easy to forget that brains need occasional rest. Sometimes, I was just too tired to do anything but chill to music, rather than podcasts or read novels. And that is absolutely OK.
Quicker 'n' Easier : Weave Goals Into the Everyday
That said, where I wove language learning into my daily, often online routine, I had much more consistency. Idling on social media threw lots of target language my way. iTalki lessons were often chances to catch up with teachers I consider friends, so I'd gladly find time for an hour here and there.
And it worked.
For instance, I'm proud of how my Greek has come on over the last twelve months, largely thanks to that simmer on a low heat approach. Somehow, those low stakes, minimum outlay tactics just clicked. I'm already planning how to carry those successes over to my other language projects.
This much more organic approach worked brilliantly for me at a time when time was in short supply. That's why my 2022 goal setting will be more about everyday immersion strategies like this, rather than concrete levels or progress markers.
All the old favourites will still be there, of course. I'll be working mainly on Gaelic, Greek, Icelandic, Norwegian and Polish, as well as maintaining my German and Spanish. I'm sure I'll find time for some dabbling, too, as well as revisiting some of those languages in limbo where I have gone beyond just dabbling, but not quite taken off in (French, Hebrew, Irish, Swahili).
The fact is that I don't even know where I'd begin if I were calendarising all of those. Better to go with the flow and just enjoy them!
Christmas Favourites : Perennial Linguaphile Picks for 2021
I've done a few Christmas gifts for language lovers posts in the past. Perhaps that's more out of wishful thinking than anything else… After all, who doesn't like making their pleas to Santa public?
But looking back, it's a case of plus ça change. The same book series, the same piles of lovely stationery. Linguaphiles never really change. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Many of those old gift ideas are still going strong on a solid five stars. And some have since expanded to include new languages and features.
So what's in Language Santa's sack this year?
My top picks for Chrimbo books hasn't changed much. In the absence of any fantabulous new grammar series or language courses, the set-collector in me is still captivated by a couple of ranges.
ROUTLEDGE GRAMMARS
Because honestly, you can't beat them, can you? Many have seen updated editions recently, and a couple of new languages have come out in the Essential Grammar range (cue shrieks of excitement): Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian, and West Greenlandic. Music to the ears of anyone looking for more 'off the beaten track' language resources.
And I can barely contain my excitement that finally we're getting an Icelandic Essential Grammar from Routledge. It's due out on 21st December, just in time for Christmas. Oh my, it's like they knew.
This year also saw the addition of Intermediate Persian and Intermediate Korean to the Grammar and Workbook titles, too. Thanks, Santa Routledge.
SHORT STORIES IN…
These were an exciting addition to the language learning market when they appeared. There have been short stories collections for learners before, of course. Penguin have a great couple of titles in French, German, Italian and Spanish.
But what's nice about these is that they're written with key structures and high frequency vocabulary in mind. They're also available in lots more languages, including some underserved ones like Icelandic and Turkish. What's more, they all match. So, if you're studying multiple languages, you're getting similar input in both, and one isn't being neglected over the other because of a resources mismatch.
It's great to see that two more titles are in the pipeline for 2022: Irish Beginners and Japanese Intermediate. For our 2022 wish list, could I ask the Short Stories Santa for a Gaelic, Greek and Polish too?
TEACH YOURSELF TUTORS
If you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit of a TY fanboy. It's a nostalgia thing – I love a bit of language learning vintage.
TY reinvigorated their range with the excellent Tutor series a couple of years back, and they're still fresh and relevant. While there haven't been any news ones added to the range yet (pretty please, Teach Yourself!), the fourteen titles there are already classics in polyglot circles, and again, represent a fair few languages without masses of material available for learners otherwise.
Verdict? Still solid stocking fillers (if you have quite large stockings).
2020, was all about the VR. Most likely, the pandemic and rolling lockdowns had something to do with that. But VR has proven it's not just a flash in the pan. Its user base is growing, and it's still a fantastic immersion tool for language learning.
It wasn't all rosy with tech, though. Two years previous, I was raving about a brilliant Chinese voice assistant crowdfunding for development on IndieGoGo. A friend of mine had even invested, and there was some really positive hype around it. Following it up to post this update, I was sad to learn that the project hit serious difficulties, leaving a lot of people disappointed. Still, with the language learning potential of general purpose voice assistants, competition was always going to stiff.
At least we still have VR. My tip for 2022? It's still get an Oculus! Christmas is the best excuse.
Finally, alternative items that weren't on my radar over previous Christmas seasons include funky wearables. Maybe hiding behind this newfound sartorial daringness is the pandemic, and successive lockdowns where we all gradually felt less self-conscious about what we had on. But I really started to like more fab 'n' fun clothing over the past year, like these linguist t-shirts on Etsy. Amazon lists some fancy (and also quite bizarre ones) too.
I'm just sprucing up my wardrobe ready to step out at the 2022 round of polyglot events.
Syntax Games : Working Out Your Own Rules
I've been happily gambolling through the Enchanted Forests of Syntax this university semester. It was the turn of that particular branch of linguistics in my taught masters programme, and probably one of my favourite courses so far. Probing how parts of sentences fit together, like chains of molecules governed by the binding rules of organic chemistry, has felt like uncovering deep secrets of the human mind.
It was a chatty and relaxed final tutorial, and the conversation turned to our tutor's own experiences as a student of syntax. To our fascination, she explained that her introduction wasn't through course books, but rather a kind of simulated fieldwork.
Here's how it worked: a guest speaker of a small, undisclosed language, with very few speakers, would attend their tutorials. The students' task was to interrogate the speaker's native language knowledge (in English), in order to build up some generalisations about the grammar of the mystery language.
How do you say I eat an apple? What about the apple is eaten?
Gradually, the students built a picture of how syntax and morphology worked for that speaker by initial random stabs in the dark, deduction and hypothesis testing.
Solving a Syntax Mystery
Besides just sounding flipping exciting – like a linguistic detective story, or practical prep to send linguists off to decode alien languages à la Arrival – it seems like a brilliant way to get to know really well how a new language works. As far as learning by doing goes, this kind of stuff is at the top of the tree.
And beyond the syntax classroom, there are numerous ways the technique could be used in a language learning setting. It lends itself nicely to language quest tasks, where students could be tasked with interviewing a native speaker to make a series of observations about the target language. Conversely, the teacher could mindfully choose and provide a set of sample sentences, and then challenge students to deduce the rules of Language X from them.
For instance, what can you tell about Scottish Gaelic from this set of sentences?
cheannaich mi bò – I bought a cow
reic thu bò – you sold a cow
tha a' bhò mòr – the cow is big
an do cheannaich thu a' bhò? – did you buy the cow?
ceannaich bò! – buy a cow!
At first glance, we can work out that:
ceannaich / cheannaich are forms of the word buy
it looks like the verb comes first in Gaelic, followed by the subject (Gaelic is VSO)
bò / bhò are forms of the word cow
a' is a definite article which seems to turn bò into bhò
adjectives usually go after the noun in Gaelic
an do is a way of asking a question in the past
…and so on. Now, that's a lot of grammar from five sentences! And working out and listing these in a 'rule discovery' task is a great way to start understanding and memorising them – not to mention a great logic puzzle for mental gymming.
Glossy Examples
You can choose to provide even more information in your deduction lists, too. Linguistis often present sentences like these alongside glosses. These are simply word-for-word translations, along with extra linguistic annotations that show how the sentence works. Glosses add some valuable extra support for teaching the morphological bits and pieces alongside the syntax.
An example from Swahili:
Niliwaona watu wanasoma vitabu. I saw the people who are reading books.
Ni-li-wa-ona wa-tu wa-na-o-soma vi-tabu.
subj I.past tense.obj noun class 2 (plural) them.see noun class 2 (plural).person subj-they.present tense.relative marker (noun class I plural).read noun class 8 (plural).book
And as an extension task, students might try and produce grammatical sentences armed with the sample sentence, plus a mini extra glossary:
u- – subject pronoun marker 'you' (singular)
-sikia – hear
-nyama – animal (noun class 1/2)
-kimbia – run
Now, how do you say you heard the animals running?
A Pint of Syntax
Admittedly, it's the language geek in me that thinks you could have endless fun with this. But even if it never makes it to the secondary classroom, it makes a perfect game for a festive linguaphile get-together. Proper linguists' pub quiz fare.
Just remember to invite me along!
Finding Fault : Learning from Past Performance
Going through some old files the other day, I came across a bunch of Icelandic MP3 recordings I'd made for an old 30 Day Speaking Challenge. A long time ago.
Needless to say, when I played them back, I didn't feel too impressed. The accent, the grammatical errors, the stoppy-starty delivery. Not my finest work I tut-tutted.
But, listening on through gritted teeth, something started to happen. I found myself silently correcting the mistakes. I was almost willing handy hints for improvement back in time to that previous version of myself.
Fine to Be At Fault!
Old, imperfect language learning work is never anything to feel shame or embarrassment over. Most obviously, it shows us how far we've come.
But as 'faulty' resources, they're actually far from useless. They give us chance to review and remedy mistakes that we were prone to in the past. Yes, they do crystallise errors. But as such, they also serve as great anti-examples of language use, as well as remind us that we no longer make them.
The same goes for non-language material, too. Some years ago, I made some 'talking revision notes' for a social science module I was taking with the Open University. Listening back to them, beyond the initial cringe, I ended up in a kind of mental conversation with myself: lots of "yes, but what about…" and "that's one way to look at it, but…". It is such a great way to interrogate past knowledge with a present outlook.
Finding Fault : A Do-Over
Something you can do, if your previous faults annoy you too much, is a do-over. Rerecord your speaking challenges. Rewrite your previous notes. Create fresh summaries of your learning material including everything you've learnt since. But keep both old and new handy as a testament to your progress.
If you're tempted to delete your old recordings, or trash your old notebooks, pause to think: what can I still learn about my journey from these? Be generous to yourself – to a fault.
Sweet Charity : Supporting Good Causes Multilingually
An unexpected source of Spanish popped up in my inbox this week. It was a campaign video from Smile Train, a wonderful charity taking cleft lip and palate surgery and support around the world. The video featured the story of little Sebastián Álvarez and his parents, as they navigated the challenges of early life with a cleft.
Smile Train is an organisation very close to my heart, since I was one of those cleft babies – but lucky enough to grow up in a country where repairs are routine. It makes my heart sing to see the charity sharing that opportunity with those who might otherwise never get the support they need.
First and foremost, posts like these give us that heartwarming sense that there are good people doing good things in the world. We certainly need some of that lately. But it's also a reminder of how powerful it can be to combine language learning with your passions for activism and goodwill. It cross-references your worlds, and paints another corner of it with your target language.
Plug In to Multilingual Charity Initiatives
Smile Train in Spanish found me this time. But many global charities, like Smile Train, Cancer Research or the WWF, have information sites catering for many different regions and languages. A quick Google, like WWF España, for instance, is a great place to start looking for them.
Most also offer newsletter signup in those languages. Newsletter campaigns tend more and more to be packed with rich media, serving short and snappy update videos direct to your inbox. Like hacking your socials to drip-feed target language effortlessly, this is another way to lock in language practice regularly and unthinkingly.
As well as show support for your favourite causes.
Lastly, remember that there's more than one way to support your charity. If you're not in a position to donate, just signing up and sharing on social media is still valuable awareness-raising.
And if you're doing that in your language learning social channels, you're helping fellow learners, too!
Need some inspiration? Here is my unapologetically unimpartial list for some examples! But charity is personal – make it your own.
Amnesty International France Germany
Cancer Research Charities Institut Curie (France) DFKZ (Germany) CNIO (Spain)
Smile Train Latin America
WWF France Germany Spain
Learning Icelandic and Norwegian Together : Close Buddies and False Friends
There are advantages and disadvantages to learning very closely related languages together. And despite the benefits generally outweighing the snags, false friends are probably the most irksome spot of that downside. Icelandic and Norwegian are one such pairing that seems really popular in polyglot circles lately.
Because of the conservatism of Icelandic, tackling the two often feels like studying contemporary and 'historical' Norse side by side (although we need to be careful not to fall into that trap – Icelandic is a modern language that has been developing from Old Norse as long as Norwegian has).
That closeness gives us plenty of hooks to transfer knowledge. For example, Iceland þ (th) will show up as Norwegian t where the latter has inherited the same word:
🇮🇸 þreyttur – 🇳🇴 trøtt (tired)
But elsewhere, even when there is a really transparent cognate pair, meaning and use have drifted in the sands of time.
Traps to Trip You Up
One subtle cognate slip-up occurs with sem / som, the relativiser in clauses such as the book that I read. Icelandic and Norwegian agree as far as that is concerned:
🇮🇸 bókin sem ég las – 🇳🇴 boka som jeg leste
But that's all they can agree on. Firstly, sem is not optional in Icelandic, whereas Norwegian can do as English does and simply say boka jeg leste.
What's more, they also fall out when it comes to the other, more prepositional use, as in like a cat:
🇮🇸 eins og köttur – 🇳🇴 som en katt
That's, like, a bit tricky.
Taking a Liking
Likewise, líkur / lik (alike) don't always map onto each other like for like. While 'they are alike' can be:
🇮🇸 þeir eru líkar – 🇳🇴 de er like
…in Icelandic, you're more often than not going to come up against that eins again to mean 'alike':
🇮🇸 þeir eru eins
As eins clearly derives from the number one, it's not hard to connect this to phrases like one and the same in English, or en og samme in Norwegian. Still, Icelandic uses eins pretty much everywhere that Norwegian uses like, so it's another distinction to mark on the map.
Add to the fact that Icelandic uses cognate líka for also (også in Norwegian), and it has even more potential to be a confuser.
Do You Really Like It?
And like it or not, we're not finished with like yet. It actually turns out that it really likes to mess with us. The Old Norse verb líka has ended up in both languages (just as English ended up with like from a more distant common ancestor). However, in Icelandic, líka is used in purely impersonal expressions:
🇮🇸 mér líkar það (lit. to me likes/pleases it)
…whereas in Norwegian, it works just the way like does in English, with the liker as the subject, and a direct object as the liked thing:
🇳🇴 jeg liker det (I like it)
Not only that: while expressions with líka in Icelandic do translate as like, they're not the most colloquial way to express liking any more, and may come across as rather archaic. These days, you're better off with a phrase using skemmtilegur (amusing, entertaining) like:
🇮🇸 mér finnst það skemmtilegt (to me finds-itself it amusing)
Admittedly, these quirks can seem less than amusing as a beginner learner, to be sure.
Crazy House
Funnily enough, it's the realm of house and home where a little cluster of words diverges quite radically in meaning. Perhaps it's not surprising for words relating to everyday living arrangements; as customs and practices change, old terms get repurposed and attached to ever more differing concepts. But stand by: this set seems like it went through a tumble dryer.
Norwegian rom will be familiar to English speakers as the cognate room. It meant largely the same in Old Norse – any room or internal space. But in Icelandic, it can now have the meaning bed. There's quite an interesting theory for how that shift happened here.
Meanwhile, Norwegian seng, which means bed, is cognate with Icelandic sæng – which means duvet. And Norwegian dyne, which is duvet, materialises as Icelandic dýna – which means mattress. Utter bedroom confusion (as if deciding which side to sleep on wasn't hard enough already).
There are, predictably, plenty of these pitfalls between the languages – far too many for a short article. But amongst the hotchpotch of favourite falseish friends between Icelandic and Norwegian are two more favourites of mine.
Firstly, the word lag can mean layer in both languages. In Icelandic, however, it can also mean song. It's notably a word in the title of one of Iceland's most successful Eurovision entries, the boppy Eitt lag enn (one more song) of 1990. In Norwegian, on the other hand, it can mean team. One more team just doesn't sound as fun, does it?
Along similar lines, we have grein (spelt gren in some varieties of Norwegian), which means branch to both Icelanders and Norwegians. But in Icelandic, the very same word is used for an article in a newspaper. A case of a word branching out, perhaps?
It's all fun and games, of course, and one of the reasons it can be so fascinating to learn languages within the same grein of a family tree. For one thing, you end up collecting juicy etymological trivia in droves (the kind of stuff you can spin out for an upbeat language blog, for instance).
But a final point for fellow dual learners concerns the variety of Norwegian you learn. If, instead of vanilla Bokmål, you study Nynorsk, or any of the traditional dialects of Norway under that umbrella, you might well come across a few more cognates and similarities to Icelandic. Bokmål, as the heir to Riksmål and the imported Dano-Norwegian of centuries past, has levelled out some of the more Norsey features of traditional norsk. Dialects often preserve these beautifully. If you're up for exploring this further, then a good place to start is NRK's language programme Språksnakk, which regularly answers questions on local vocab features that bear more than a passing resemblance to islenska.
Do you have similar experiences with this or any other pair of languages? Let us know your favourite drifting cognates in the comments!
Learning Vocabulary
iTalki


text:
Chengde, formerly known as Jehol and Rehe, is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, situated about 225 km northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by the Qing emperors as summer residence.  The permanent resident population is approximately 3,473,200 in 2017.

History

In 1703, Chengde was chosen by the Kangxi Emperor as the location for his summer residence. Constructed throughout the eighteenth century, the Mountain Resort was used by both the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors. The site is currently an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since the seat of government followed the emperor, Chengde was a political center of the Chinese empire during these times.

The city of Jeholan early romanization of Rehe via the French transcription of the northern suffix ér as eulreached its height under the Qianlong Emperor 1735-1796 (died 1799). The great Putuo Zongcheng Temple, loosely based on the Potala in Lhasa, was completed after just four years of work in 1771. It was heavily decorated with gold and the emperor worshipped in the Golden Pavilion. In the temple itself was a bronze-gilt statue of Tsongkhapa, the Reformer of the Gelugpa sect.

Under the Republic of China, Chengde was the capital of Rehe province. From 1933 to 1945 the city was under Japanese control as a part of the Manchurian puppet state known as Manchukuo. After World War II the Kuomintang government regained jurisdiction. In 1948, the People's Liberation Army took control of Chengde. It would remain a part of Rehe until 1955, when the province was abolished, and the city was incorporated into Hebei.

The city is home to large populations of ethnic minorities, Mongol and Manchu in particular.

Geography

Chengde is located in the northeastern portion of Hebei, with latitude 40° 12'-42° 37' N, and longitude 115° 54'-119° 15' E, and contains the northernmost point in the province. It borders Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Beijing, and Tianjin. Neighbouring prefecture-level provincial cities are Qinhuangdao and Tangshan on the Bohai Gulf, and land-locked Zhangjiakou. Due to its Liaoning border, it is often considered a part of both the North and Northeast China regions. From north to south the prefecture stretches , and from west to east , for a total area of , thus occupying 21.2% of the total provincial area. It is by area the largest prefecture in the province, though as most of its terrain is mountainous, its population density is low.

The Jehol or Rehe ("Hot River"), which gave Chengde its former name, was so named because it did not freeze in winter. Most sections of the river's former course are now dry because of modern dams.

Climate
Chengde has a four-season, monsoon-influenced humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa), with widely varying conditions through the prefecture due to its size: winters are moderately long, cold and windy, but dry, and summers are hot and humid. Near the city, however, temperatures are much cooler than they are in Beijing, due to the higher elevation: the monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from  in January to  in July, and the annual mean is . Spring warming is rapid, but dust storms can blow in from the Mongolian steppe; autumn cooling is similarly quick. Precipitation averages at about  for the year, with more than two-thirds of it falling during the three summer months. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 50% in July to 69% in October, the city receives 2,746 hours of sunshine annually.

Administrative divisions

Chengde comprises:

Sport
The first ever bandy match in China was organised in Chengde in January 2015 and was played between the Russian and Swedish top clubs Baykal-Energiya and Sandviken. Chengde city was one of the initiators when the China Bandy Federation was founded in December 2014. The city hosted the 2018 Women's Bandy World Championship. While the record number of participants in previous Women's Bandy World Championships was 7, the organisers had thought out measures with the goal to attract 12 participating countries. However, in the end 8 teams participated.

Religion
Chengde is the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Chengde.

Transport
With road and railroad links to Beijing, Chengde has developed into a distribution hub, and its economy is growing rapidly. The newly built Jingcheng Expressway connects Chengde directly to central Beijing, and more freeways are planned for the city. The city's new airport was opened on 31 May 2017. It is located  northeast of the city center in Tougou Town, Chengde County.

Sights

The project of building Chengde Mountain Resort started in 1703 and finished in 1790. The whole mountain resort covers an area 5,640,000 square meters. It is the largest royal garden in China. The wall of the mountain resort is over 10,000 meters in length. In summers, emperors of the Qing dynasty came to the mountain resort to relax themselves and escape from the high temperature in Beijing.

The whole Resort can be divided into three areas which are lakes area, plains area and hills area. The lakes area, which includes 8 lakes, covers an area of 496,000 square meters. The plains area covers an area of 607,000 square meters. The emperors held horse races and hunted in the area. The largest area of the three is the hills area. It covers an area of 4,435,000 square meters. Hundreds of palaces and temples were built on the hills in this area.

The elaborate Mountain Resort features large parks with lakes, pagodas, and palaces ringed by a wall. Outside the wall are the Eight Outer Temples (), built in varying architectural styles drawn from throughout China. One of the best-known of these is the Putuo Zongcheng Temple, built to resemble the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. The resort and outlying temples were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The nearby Puning Temple, built in 1755, houses the world's tallest wooden statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.

Another popular attraction of the Chengde area is Sledgehammer Peak (), a large rock formation in the shape of an inverted sledgehammer. A variety of other mountains, valleys, and grasslands lie within the borders of the city.

Gallery

Sister cities
Chengde has city partnerships with the following locations:
 Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil
 Takasaki, Gunma, Japan
 Dakota County, Minnesota, United States
 Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan

References

Citations

Bibliography
 .
 .

External links

Chengde Government Online

Cities in Hebei
Prefecture-level divisions of Hebei
Populated places established in the 18th century

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
By you ripped them off ages ago - United Kingdom - Derby
Today, a few minutes after giving birth to our fourth child, my wife pulled me close and whispered, "I love you, but if you ever put me through that again I'll rip your balls off." Everyone laughed. FML
By corgi problems - 15/9/2020 20:05
Doggy dog world
Today, I walked into my house after my nightshift as a nurse and my corgi had the house turned upside down, with things everywhere. I have people coming to look at the house in 2 hours. FML
By Breezie - United States
Hi Zach!
Today, at work, a customer commented that I look like Zach Galifianakis. I'm a girl. FML
By missunlucky - Czech Republic
Today, I was at a club with my friends and my friend got really drunk. Later on he came up to me and said he really needed to pee but he was too drunk to work the zipper, and asked if I could help. When I finally unzipped him, he was so desperate to go he pissed in my face. FML
By sheyshey0413 - United States
Today, I realized that my boyfriend will only have sex with me if I am on my stomach and not revealing my face. FML
By Anonymous - 13/10/2020 08:02 - United States - Ann Arbor
How's your hovel?
Today, I was cooking in my Airbnb and grabbed a pan, only to find it had some kind of beetle and droppings all over it. I realized soon after that the whole place was infested, but the person in charge of maintenance won't answer my messages. FML
By Anonymous - United States - Elizabethtown
Today, I told my friend over the phone that I had to go drop the kids off at the pool. She told me that she didn't need to know about my bathroom habits and hung up on me. I really had to take my children to the local swimming pool for swim lessons. FML
By pickit - United States
Today, my girlfriend broke up with me because I brought to her attention a rather large zit on the corner of her mouth. She called me an insensitive prick. I only pointed it out because I didn't want other people to see it and make fun of her. FML
Today, my roommate hooked up with a guy she met at a party. After telling me about it, she says to me, "Maybe next time we go out we'll hit someone over the head and drag him back here for you." Apparently the only way I can get a guy is if he's unconscious. FML
Today, I was talking dirty with my husband over the phone while he was out of town. I started to verbally act out his fantasy and got quite into it. I was returned with silence. Embarrassed, I tried to hang up. Turns out the call had already been dropped, five minutes prior. FML
By Anonymous - Canada - Sherwood Park
Today, my boss chewed me out for leaving a work function early. I explained it was to avoid a former co-worker I constantly fought with. The boss revealed he purposely invited that former co-worker, hoping our fight would provide entertainment. FML
By obnum - United States
Today, I met my new girlfriend at her house for the very first time. And her 17 cats, whose names all begin with the letter "K", because they're all "kewl kats." FML
By Eet- - United Kingdom
Today, I awoke to rose petals leading me to the front garden. Curious, I followed them, thinking my boyfriend planned something romantic. As I walked out the door, I was hit in the face with a paper plate full of whipped cream and sprinkles, and then locked outside. FML
Today, I was looking at my wedding photos. The photographer moved onto the "candid" shots and thought it would be cute to have pics of us making out at the reception. I have blonde hair. The girl in the picture did not. FML
Today, my husband ate several slices of pizza and one whole ghost pepper. He then threw up all over the living room, hallway, and pile of dirty clothes in the bathroom before going directly to bed. I had to clean it up. FML
By CheatedOn - Romania
Today, my girlfriend and I broke up. The reason? She slept with four men while I was two weeks away visiting my brother. She told me it was because she missed me so much. FML
Oversharing
Today, my 10-year-old son told me that sometimes he wishes that he could be a girl, so that he could masturbate more easily in public. FML
By suppressinggags - United States - Kennett
Today, I found out that my stepsister loves sticking random household objects in her ear in an attempt to collect ear wax. I found out when I walked in on her trying to pick all the wax out of the bristles of my toothbrush. FML
By Anonymous - Canada - Saskatoon
Today, I woke up to an angry text from my roommate asking me to please let her know next time I'm going to have a friend crashing on the couch. I have no idea who she's talking about. FML
By shawty - Australia
Today, I heard my mother and father having sexual intercourse, and I found out that my mother moans the same way as my girlfriend. Guess who I now think about every time my girlfriend moans? FML
By pirate prude - Canada
Today, when getting off the bus, the driver said he thought I was going to exit from the front. Without thinking, I responded, "Oh no, I'm more of a backdoor kinda girl!" FML
By mickey1928
Today, I took my wife and newborn baby girl home from the hospital. While waiting for the elevator, an elderly couple leaned over, saw our baby, and said, "Look, it's the fat kid that was in the nursery." My baby is six and a half pounds, and my wife hasn't stopped crying. FML
By cramps - Australia
Today, I got my period. 10 minutes into a 3 hour exam. Apparently they are serious when they say you may not leave the room under any circumstances. FML
By Anonymous - Australia - Engadine
Today, some kid decided to pee in the kids' play area at work. Because I was the shortest employee working at the time, I got to climb through the area to mop it up, while all the kids pointed and laughed at me. FML
By Idiot says "HIPAA violation" - United States - Roanoke
Today, another idiot was admitted to my hospital with a foreign object up his ass. Yet again, the excuse went along the lines of "I tripped and fell on it." Please, someone tell me how you can accidentally trip anus-first onto the end of a cucumber, which just so happens to have a condom on it. FML
By Blondie - Lebanon
Today, I was trying to convince a friend that even though I'm blonde, I'm not the oblivious or stupid moron everyone apparently thinks I am. Then I smacked face-first into a glass door. FML
By Éponine - 12/6/2020 17:03
Today, as an aspiring performer, I tried to practice crying on demand by singing "A Little Fall of Rain" and "On My Own" from Les Misérables. It was all going well, until my nose started running uncontrollably and no tears actually came out of my eyes. Maybe acting isn't for me. FML
By charlie043 - United States
Today, I met my fiancée's parents for the first time. Her dad was telling me how he's not rich but not poor either. I replied, "Well, as long as you're not a garbage man!" Guess what his profession is. FML
By HelpMe - United Kingdom - Galashiels
Today, my mum asked me how the guinea pig was doing. We don't have a guinea pig. Turns out she had volunteered me to look after the next door neighbor's guinea pig when they were away and 'forgot' to tell me. They have been gone two weeks. FML
By Muddyidiot - 6/1/2021 05:01
Today, after I was done testing a group of people for Covid, the universe decided that no, the deed was not good enough. On the way to the bus stop, I slipped and had to ride home covered in mud. FML
By non believer - United States
Today, I told my parents I no longer believe in the religion they strictly raised me under. They responded by kicking me out of the house. I'm broke, jobless and the only person that will take me in is my psycho ex-girlfriend who never got over me. FML
By cheese123 - United States
Today, my grandmother introduced me to her friends as her 16-year-old granddaughter "who has never been kissed." FML
By Killmenow - United Kingdom
Today, having just told me what a great job I've been doing and how he'd really like to start giving me some more responsibility, my boss asked me if I'd sharpen a couple of pencils for him. FML
By Sacha - 19/1/2021 08:01 - Canada
Today, while I was working in a grocery store, a costumer decide to take a dump on the ground after I told him he couldn't access to restrooms because my boss closed them due to COVID restrictions. FML
Today, a hooker refused my custom. According to her, "Even whores have standards." FML
Today, while waiting in line at Gamestop, another customer and the cashier started chatting about how Pokémon is for kids, and anyone over 10 who's into it is weird. Embarrassed, I put the new Pokémon game back on the shelf and snuck out of the store. FML
By Ihatemylife - Slovenia - Ljubljana
Today, in the middle of sex, my girlfriend asked me, "Are you sure you're a guy?" I still have no idea what that was for. FML
By wdunn69733 - United States - Macon
Today, my 14-year-old step-daughter announced that she is 4 months pregnant. The father is my 15-year-old son. FML
By iamScaredyCat - 3/4/2020 20:00
Stay indoors, it's safer at the moment
Today, I was texting while walking up the stairs to my porch. When I looked up, I saw someone standing behind the porch door, and was so scared that I fell backwards down the stairs. Turns out, it was just my reflection. FML
By River - Oranjestad
Today, my boyfriend's idiotic friend shoved me into a stream so I could be "reunited" with my family, since my name is River. The first thing I saw as I climbed out, soaking wet, was my boyfriend high-fiving his friend. FML
By smurfette7413 - 13/10/2020 05:01
Today, my boyfriend and I were having a little fun when the pull-out couch decided to try to eat us. Now I have a broken nose and my boyfriend keeps making jokes about the "human eating couch." FML
By Damafia | 18
One type of vasectomy I guess...
By FunnnyGirrl | 19
Threats to remove ones manhood is the best kind of contraception...
HanBroman | 20
This isn't an FML. that's a pretty normal reaction from a woman who's just given birth.
tashb | 17
#6042558 - Wednesday 20 August 2014 4:41
What a dick...
By monstermatt001 | 13
Time for a fifth?
Soviet_American | 29
I think he's already planning for a sixth.
martin8337 | 35
No!!!!!! Clearly she doesn't want any more kids. Get yourself a vasectomy, don't rely on her to get her tubes tied. Four kids are more than enough.
lengi123 | 18
Why the hell should he have to get a vasectomy? If she doesn't want more kids she can get her tubes tied, it's not always up to the guy.
Melodija | 19
Because, if they decide to change their mind and have more kids, it's far easier to reverse vasectomy than for her to reverse her tubes being tied - a vasectomy is a far simpler procedure where as tying the tubes for a woman is difficult and can have far more complications
Ltturner234 | 12
Why not get birth control or condoms? Then neither one of you has to have any kind of surgery.
kingdomgirl94 | 28
Condoms and the pill actually can fail fairly easily, and thats not something theyre likely willing to risk. A vasectomy is really simple, and they don't even have to put you under. My dad got one after his forth kid and he was done in half an hour. Getting your tubes tied requires full surgery, going under heavy sleeping drugs and the recovery time is a bitch. everyone makes vasectomies sound like castration, but that's not the case. He'll even still ejaculate, there just won't be any swimmers in it.
addictedtoIASIP | 14
Really? Guys cause girls to get pregnant. Girls go through all that shit the least the guy can do is get fixed seriously.
brezzyanna | 17
Getting pregnant is a two way street. It's not just the guys fault. Girls need to take responsibility too
EchoSerenity | 15
If they can afford four kids they can afford to adopt, tying the tubes there's still a chance of getting pregnant if it wasn't done right, condoms break, and birth control can really mess up woman's systems. With having the guy getting fixed there isn't a reverse of that, once it's done, it's done.
MisterGasMoney | 16
Having sex is (usually) a mutual choice.
Having sex with the intent of having children is Definitely a two way street.
junkman6 | 22
#61 hold up now this is the age of equality of the sexes! Everything is the mans fault! Jeez don't you know how equality works?
PS the above is sarcasm laced with cynicism. Still waiting on sarcasm font FML staff!
octinate | 17
You do realise getting tubes tied is a full blown surgery with sleep inducing drugs and it takes a long time to recover and your body is forever ruined with a large scar, plus all the risks associated with surgery including death. Compare that to a minor vasectomy where the man is still awake while it's happening and he's outta there in half hour....
I understand that pills can fall and so can condoms. but a vasectomy doesn't always work either. And getting tubes tied it's a very heavy surgery. I don't think anything is 100% Effective.
DanielleinDC | 32
Because she went through childbirth FOUR times. He can endure the discomfort of a vasectomy.
And really, OP, get a vasectomy.
pitapizzaparty | 18
#33 u do realize u are able to untie ur tubes?
By Davids9199 | 14
Well then either one of you is going to get their tubes tied or a vasectomy or just wear a condom
gramirez23 | 9
Vasectomy it is!
USA1776 | 15
Condoms suck
Sandman366 | 6
OP's "name" just makes this almost impossible to NOT laugh at.
By ToxicTyrael | 26
Nevermind, as soon as she holds your child she'll forget the pain and everything is cosy :) congrats btw!
Lil_Red777 | 21
I don't know why people say you forget the pain, because you don't lol. It might not be in the center of your mind at the moment but it's there.
annie_nk | 22
I had third degree tearing, my episiotomy reopened and all my tears ended up getting infected. I easily reached a 10 on the pain scale and ended up having to be hospitalized for a week to get my vagina fixed. My baby is now almost three years old and I'm positive I'll NEVER forget the pain no matter how cute she is.
Monkey_language | 15
#62- I really admire how openly you share your experience with us, but for me that is a little too much information!
ChristianH39 | 30
62 I don't even have a vagina and that made me cringe
siggy_mcsigx | 22
#6042236 - Tuesday 19 August 2014 18:49
By Rainhawk94 | 27
I'd take that as a challange
fsomelife | 26
Is this pronounced "sha-LAH-nge"?
SpamPam | 18
A challenge? To get her pregnant when she doesn't want to be? That's messed up.
By mackdeezy | 21
Anyone notice the username? O.0
Chibi_Kitten | 24
#9 - I got confused and wondered why she would be in labor if that was so. Then I realized that maybe he meant when she started getting really hormonal, he got them removed. Or maybe they ran away from him in fear.
Wilffe56 | 9
ripped them off ages ago....
perhaps he means she sucked too hard......XD(ba dum tsss)
but in all seriousness, what were we talking bout? idc
By ninjahesten | 18
this is not a dare... but i dare you!
Axipiter | 24
Sounds like a dare.
If she does not consent to getting preggos again then trying to get her preggos without her knowledge is incredibly messed up.
By worldclassrager | 39
What was her response to the previous three?
By Ashamed_Sister | 60
As far as I know it takes two to make a baby, so it sounds a bit unfair.
hannah_cheers | 30
I always think that. Like women get mad at their partner and are always like "You did this to me." when in reality, she's just as much to blame.
Brandi_Faith | 33
True but the woman goes through excruciating pain along with a bunch of other issues while the man doesn't change at all. I think in the birthing moment he's an easy and frustrating target. Not right, but fairly common unfortunately.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


My Disney Side at Home Celebration Party was a resounding success. The secret? It all started with the decor! Best about it? It costs nothing but tons of elbow grease and lots of creativity.
Warm Welcome on the door.
Creatively cute double-sided DIY streamers using cupcake wrappers from the Disney Side party kit.
Wall Decor Galore using plates and cups, again from the party kits.
Don't it look totally adorbs?
Photo Booth Castle Ballroom backdrop unearthed inside a trunk from a birthday party decor ages ago.
A touch of humor always do the trick!
The plastic table cloth is not just for tables anymore.
This was the table cloth included in the party kit.
To complete the look and feel, I brought the Magic of the PARKS in da house!
Some of the wall decors were from an old Disney on Ice activity book. Beast's rose flower was from a Valentine's gift I got from my daughter this year.
And then of course, there's the tons of food, desserts and exciting games rewarded with fun prizes!
A lot of elbow grease was involved. It took me an entire week to put all the decor together, prepared some of the food the day before and it was the smartest thing I've done. I was quite refreshed and relaxed on the day of the party, I actually partied at my own party! It was a whole lot of work but it was so worth it. It brought all my friends together, old and new.
Thanks to Disney Side at Home Celebrations for providing the party goodies and selecting me to host this party. All my guests went home happy with giveaway goodies and prizes, fed and given a 100% pixie-dusted guarantee that they won't grow mouse ears after leaving my house! Promise.


text:
150+ residents of Naamless EBE to access potable water for the first time
― GWI to begin works on Monday, April 29
― residents made a request last week
DPI, Guyana, Sunday, April 28, 2019
On Monday, the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) will begin works to ensure the more than 150 residents of Naamless Village, St. Lawrence situated on the East Bank of Essequibo, have access to a potable water supply for the first time. Naamless is a small riverine community stretching for about a quarter of a mile. Most of its residents are involved in agricultural and cash crop farming activities which relies heavily on a reliable source of water.
Managing Director of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Dr. Richard Van West-Charles speaking to Region 3 residents during the government outreach in the region.
Managing Director of GWI, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles said that the provision of the potable water supply comes after several residents made a request last week. He added that it is also as a result of GWI's prompt response to the issue, reaffirming the agency's commitment to serving Guyanese and to ensuring that every citizen has access to a quality water supply.
The GWI has pledged to continue to execute its mandate of supplying potable water to communities, as far as possible, throughout Guyana. The pronouncement came at the sixth 'Government comes to you' initiative held in Region 3 (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara Region) on Sunday.
The service being provided is in keeping with the government's effort to ensure that Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2040, is attained in a timely fashion.
Since coming to office in 2015, the APNU+AFC government has overseen the installation of first-time potable water systems to scores of communities across the country. These include several sections of Georgetown, East Berbice, East Coast and East Bank Demerara, West Coast Berbice, Linden, Andy Ville, several Region 1, 7, 8 and 9 communities.
Nateshia Isaacs
Images: Giovanni Gajie
CATEGORIES GovernmentMinistry of CommunitiesNews Bulletin
TAGS Andy VilleDr. Richard Van West CharlesEast Bank DemeraraEast Bank EssequiboEast BerbiceEast Coast DemeraraEssequibo Islands-West Demerara RegionGuyana Water IncorporatedGWILindenRegion EightRegion NineRegion Sevenseveral Region OneWest Coast Berbice


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Home Article Cornel West's Telepathy
Cornel West's Telepathy
by Adam Serwer
Jesse Washington has a new piece exploring the uneven impact of the recession on the black middle class, with some really startling information on just how profoundly black homeowners have been impacted, noting that, "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents." That's in part because black people were disproportionately likely to have their wealth tied up in their homes, and so were particularly devastated by the foreclosure crisis.
Nearly 8 percent of African Americans who bought homes from 2005 to 2008 have lost them to foreclosure, compared with 4.5 percent of whites, according to an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending.
So far, so miserable. So who does Washington look to for a possible explanation for why the president has failed to provide adequate support to black folks losing their homes and jobs? Why, Cornel West:
"I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone," Princeton Professor Cornel West told truthdig.com recently.
West said Obama sold out the poor to become "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. . . . I don't think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama."
This is just a comically poor explanation, and not just because it relies on West having telepathy. It's very clear that the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program has helped stem losses for banks by keeping homeowners from walking away even as they begin to owe more money on them than they're worth. That's in part because Republicans in Congress helped defeat the proposed "cramdown" provision, which would have allowed judges to alter the terms of mortgages. You could argue that the administration failed to fight hard enough for the provision itself, and that this represents Obama becoming "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs," but that's a little glib given Congress' involvement in defeating a key part of the administration's original proposal.
Of course, West's original critique didn't contain so much as a whiff of a substantive policy critique--acting as Afro-Pope, he merely excommunicated the president from blackness, someone who is "culturally white" and therefore possesses a "fear of free black men." West's intellectual laziness is one thing, but it's odd to watch a reporter outsource an explanation for the disparate impact of the financial crisis on the black community (particularly when it comes to housing) and the administration's failure to address it to speculation about how the president feels about being black when a really simple, widely known and not particularly technical explanation is available. Washington might even address the administration's slide toward Hooverism, but why bother with policy or politics when you can just imply the president is a self-hating Uncle Tom?
Adam Serwer
Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at The American Prospect and a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Read more by Adam Serwer


text:
Charles Duncan Fearnley (born 12 April 1940), more commonly known as Duncan Fearnley, is a former first-class cricketer who, after retirement as a player, became a producer of cricket bats. Fearnley is also the great uncle of British Olympic gymnast Nile Wilson.

Birth and early life
Fearnley was born in Pudsey, Yorkshire. In 1955 he had just played for the England Schoolboys team and hoped for a career in professional cricket, but during the winter months he began making cricket bats to supplement his income.

The first bats Fearnley made were branded 'Tudor Rose', but soon they became known as 'Fearnley of Farsley'.

Cricket career
Fearnley's main aim was to play professional cricket, and though a phenomenal schoolboy cricketer, he could not make it into his home county's 1st XI, only managing to play for Yorkshire IIs. He sought trials elsewhere to fulfil his ambition and in 1960 he was given the opportunity he'd craved at Worcestershire.

Fearnley was a left-hand opening batsman who played 22 times in Worcestershire's maiden Championship-winning season of 1964 but never really established himself in the side. In seven seasons he made 97 appearances, his average always hovering around 20. After leaving New Road at the end of 1968 he played for Lincolnshire, returning to Worcestershire in 1972 to captain the 2nd XI.

Cricket bat company
At the same time he established his highly successful eponymous bat-manufacturing company, during the early years Fearnley got many of his ex-playing colleagues and opponents to use his products. Introducing new forms of sponsorship, he built the brand around these friends. John Snow was the first to use the Duncan Fearnley bat in an international, with the likes of Basil D'Oliveira and Dennis Amiss close behind.

By the early 1980s, Fearnley had become the dominant brand within the market throughout the world. At the time it seemed everyone was using or wearing the three-wicket symbol. Leading players such as Sunil Gavaskar, Clive Lloyd, Kepler Wessels, Ian Botham, Graham Gooch, Allan Lamb, Viv Richards, Graeme Pollock, Wasim Akram, Ravi Shastri, Allan Border, Martin Crowe and many more were putting their trust in the product.

In 1986 he became Worcestershire's high-profile chairman. He attracted some big names – notably Ian Botham – and the county won two County Championships, two Sunday League titles, one Benson & Hedges Cup and one NatWest Trophy title in his 12 years as chairman, as well as more than doubling the membership.

During the 1990s the marketplace changed, with many smaller brands developing, and cricket bat production started to move overseas to India and Pakistan. Fearnley firmly resisted this trend and cut production accordingly, still concentrating on totally hand-crafted bats at its factory in Worcester.

The company today
Today the brand still operates from its Worcester base, with a factory producing, by hand, up to 5,000 bats per year.

Fearnley still remains one of the major UK manufacturers as other companies seek overseas production and is still one of the world's most recognised names in cricket, with Vikram Solanki and Darren Gough two of the main UK endorsements. New markets include Club Clothing and Ground Equipment. The company manufactures and retails clothing and accessories for the ECB Association of Cricket Officials.

References

External links

Living people
1940 births
English cricketers
Worcestershire cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
Lincolnshire cricketers
Cricket equipment manufacturers


The three layers (audience > engagement > conversion) allow you to cast a wide net, so then you can conceivably lead people down a path of engagement and remarketing.
But what these last two images don't show you is that the funnel is actually NARROWEST at the top and WIDEST at the bottom.
It should actually look like a cone. In this article you'll understand why you need to "flip your funnel" (a term I'm stealing from our friend Neil Patel) to get Facebook ads to work properly for you.
Admittedly we've been preaching the standard funnel for a long time, so we're embarrassed to admit that the old ways aren't as effective anymore.
Social proof is your true converter. Boosting posts only requires a dollar a day. A micro-budgets targeted to a micro-audience, and then oCPM does the work for you.
Use small saved audiences to build awareness, custom audiences to drive engagement, and lookalikes to achieve conversions.
We used to be vehemently opposed to boosting posts.
It was the joke of social media marketing– a technique only for noobs, certainly not us pros that use Power Editor.
But then Facebook let us boost against custom audiences and various combos of saved target audiences.
And that let us execute the Dollar a Day strategy with ease. And we do mean ease, 80% of our work we could do right in the timeline, never having to go to the Ads Manager or Power Editor.
You can literally select the post, the pre-made audience, and the budget, all right from your page.
Then navigate down the newsfeed, taking 20 seconds for each boost.
It's so easy and effective that we demonstrate how to boost posts live at conferences.
Set aside your fear and give it a try.
Each boosted post spends a dollar a day targeting narrow audiences consisting of only a few hundred people.
You might even accumulate 20 or 30 of these minions to do your bidding, stacking up more and more dollar a day posts running evergreen.
The strategy behind this is that people trust their peers more than they trust anything you have to say.
So you're amplifying (advertising, in layman's terms) what influencers in your industry and clients have to say, anything but what's on your site.
Call it old-fashioned word-of-mouth but with a social media advertising twist to scale it.
You learned in your undergraduate marketing class that the average buyer must be exposed to your message 7 times before they even notice it.
84.7% of statistics are made up, anyway.
The point of "inception" in the above audience building phase is to implant the seed of trust. That way, when they see your next piece of content, they have a fuzzy familiarity with it.
So of course then they will click.
If they click on a link to your website, they become part of a website custom audience you can remarket to.
If they like, share, or comment on your post, they become part of a post engagement custom audience which you can remarket to.
If they watch your video for more than 3 seconds, they are now in your video view custom audience.
If they click "learn more" in your Facebook lead ad, they can give you their contact information in an auto-filled form.
If they install your app, you have them as a user and can ask for their email, too, among other things.
If they check into your retail store, they can be a check-in audience.
Whatever they do, you can reach them with the next message in your sequence, that's remarketing.
But most people think remarketing is just those dumb ads that incessantly follow you around the web after you leave an e-commerce site.
Find out how many people have been to your site, but aren't fans, and target exactly them.
Find out who is a fan, but hasn't used your app recently.
Find out who is on your email list, but hasn't seen your new products.
And so forth… until you have many custom audiences built up to remarket to.
I don't know what percentage of spend average Facebook marketers dedicate to remarketing, but I'd guess it's under 10%.
Of course, the "right" number depends on your sales funnel, but I'd say that 30% would be a healthy number.
Also in the engagement category is boosting posts to interest targets and lookalike audiences.
These audiences are far larger than the "inception" targets of the audience phase, so your engagement layer in the funnel has more spend and much larger audiences.
Most direct marketers proportionately overspend on conversion, we typically see over 85% of budget spent on conversion. We think it should be about 30%.
And like the earlier caveat, every vertical is different. You may face seasonality, and flat out might not have any content funnels (common in B2B and local).
You're running remarketing campaigns to drive engagement custom audiences into your conversion points, a lead magnet, free trial, tripwire, core offer, upsell, or whatever structure you have in place.
But the workhorse of your conversion campaigns are your lookalike audiences.
Facebook builds lookalikes from the seeds of your custom audiences; so the stronger your custom audiences, the stronger signal you send Facebook in building lookalikes.
Lookalikes can be as small as a million or even as high as 10 million, so don't let that scare you.
We used to pride ourselves in being thoroughly targeted in our conversion campaigns, to boast of efficiency in reaching the right folks with creepy accuracy.
But in the last year, we found that too small of an audience won't give the algorithm room to "breathe", to do the work for us.
For example, we've tested with ZERO targeting on campaigns. These campaigns have not only gotten some traction, but many of these ad sets beat out our well-targeted ads.
The system learns when you feed it the right inputs and allow oCPM to do the heavy lifting.
And usually the client or agency messes things up when they meddle, since they inadvertently exclude audiences that would convert.
They also think they understand who the purchaser is, but are often way off.
If you don't know about oCPM, it's the default bid type selected when you choose a business objective.
So choose "website conversion", "lead ad", or whatever your goal and let Facebook whittle down to exactly the right audience.
Lookalikes are based on the same logic as collaborative filtering, which has made Amazon and Netflix so popular (people who bought A, also bought B).
For every custom audience that's worth tracking (not every stage in your shopping cart, please, or every single landing page), you'd want to create a lookalike audience.
Find out who bought product X and might be interested in product Y that you offer.
Find out who didn't buy product X, but looks just like people who love product X.
Find a 3% lookalike audience who looks like product X purchasers minus the 2% lookalike audience.
So your conversion campaigns have the largest audiences of them all, since you have a bunch of custom audiences and the related lookalike audiences (that are a couple million users each). And if it weren't for oCPM, you'd blow all your money trying to hit everyone, instead of letting the system sub-target and bid for you.
Are you now convinced that your funnel needs to be smaller at the top and larger at the bottom?
If not, I hope you are working for one the competitors of our clients.
Just kidding, we hope that you've enjoyed the latest in funnel and ad targeting strategy.
While Facebook changing is a constant complaint, what you can glean from this is that they're moving towards AI.
This means that eventually you'll just input your goals, content, and targeting into the machine– then it will do the rest.
But until then, you have rebellious teenager (born in 2004) that you must treat just right to get the results you want.
Now you know the 3 types of audiences to create (custom, lookalike, saved) and how to use them in your 3 layer funnel.
What is the best way to determine a page's ROI?
Everyone wants to determine the ROI on their page likes and be able to directly attribute a page like's value relative to a conversion. But there's been confusion conveying this value in a way that's measurable back to that bottom dollar.
So what's the best way to track this or paint a better picture on the value of a like?
At the end of the day, if they attribute conversion value back to these likes, then they are interested in pushing the throttle a bit heavier.
You have to connect the top and bottom of the funnel to tie fan (or top funnel) activity to hard dollar ROI.
Perhaps the easiest way is to look at pairings of direct and two step sequences, where one ad is sending non-fans (of whatever targeting type) to a conversion page and the other ad is sending that same target filtered to also be fans.
You'd expect that fans convert better.
And the difference is a rough form of lift testing.
Here's a page from our weekly reporting template to see how to set up such a pairing.
But why assess just the incremental funnel impact of someone becoming a fan?
Why not look at the contribution from them joining the email list (which is like becoming a fan), visiting the site, searching on our brand terms, etc?
The heart of marketing automation is deconstructing complex interaction sequences into simple pairs.
And each pair is measuring the difference in conversion value between directly going from X to Y versus going to X to an intermediate step and then to Y.
There is a bit of chicken and egg here, since someone may already be a fan in real life, just not on Facebook.
It's not possible to fully eliminate the correlation and causation issue here.
But if you really want to get that extra level of precision, then you'd set up factorial tests with these pairings by geo.
Some randomized DMAs (designated market area) would get the fan acquisition campaigns, while others don't.
Beyond the directly trackable effects of fan growth, which is tied in closely with generating reach, we have the softer benefits of brand growth.
Measure this via aided and unaided recognition in brand perception surveys, increase in conversion or brand search volume, or general increases in engagement. There are mountains written about how to assess the value of a brand, independent of channel.
But for the immediate, direct hard dollar ROI of fan acquisition via Facebook, we'd set up these pairings as described above.
This lets us measure the incremental impact of fan acquisition campaigns, so long we take care to give these fans enough time to move down the funnel.
Marketing, not just social marketing, is about establishing these journeys and measuring the value of these nurtured touchpoints.
What women most want is ice cream, while men want cars says social analytics firm NetBase.
Facebook can predict if you're gay or exactly where you'll be in one year from now within 50 meters with high accuracy (Hey, do you like Spongebob and work out on Wednesday mornings at the gym)?
Moneyball for social media? Not so fast.
Grab all the mentions of a company across all social channels, categorize the sentiment using the latest LSA techniques– then correlate to their stock price.
Predict how your posts will do or even suggest content tweaks based on what will happen in the future. React to tomorrow's news today, proclaims one social startup.
A liquor company wants to know if they run Facebook ads, what the impact will be on incremental sales.
An entertainment company with the most popular TV shows wants to measure whether social engagement drives more TV tune-in, which yields more ad dollars.
A B2B marketing company wants to drive not just leads, but sales-qualified opportunities via Facebook.
Of these three cases, which do you believe has actually measured social ROI with hard dollars?
If you guessed the last one, you're right. It's Marketo and they've traced revenue all the way back.
But the entertainment company can't definitively tell yet. Nielsen has a product called Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) that will show unique and total reach across different demos, broken out by digital vs TV. They'll show efficiency in reaching your target– even performance by Facebook ad campaign (if you spend at least $100k a month).
Their Watch Effect product certainly measures correlations between activity in social and TV, and may start to demonstrate incremental lift within segments that we define.
The CPG company wants to know not just increased awareness of the product (it's already well-known in the target market), but how much incremental trial comes from stronger promotion on Facebook against the right audiences.
There is the DataLogix and Facebook partnership where point of sale data is tied back to actual Facebook users. Where the audience is big enough, it shows correlation, but not causation.
The new partner category targets allow you to segment your existing audience by loyalty card and other POS/retail data.
What's truly driving incremental sales?
We know that a popular TV show will drive more social activity– so these will trend together.
We know that your existing real-world customers are more likely to become fans– so we can't say that a fan is worth X% more than non-fans. Yes, you'll still see a ton of "research" on this.
And there are still plenty of folks trying to buy fans and grow engagement, often with puzzling results.
But you and I know that if anyone can truly answer this ROI question, they control how all marketing budgets flow. If you can demonstrate clear profits– that you can put in one dollar and get back 20 dollars– who wouldn't go all-in?
It's not about predicting the future– that's a gimmick for news coverage.
When you build you presence on Facebook or wherever, you have greater awareness, which increase the CTR on your Google ads. The higher CTR, in turn, drives more brand searches (for your name) and increases your account's Quality Score (influencing what you pay per click). Have you ever thought about what caused people to search for your company name on Google?
When you run a custom audience on Facebook (uploading your email addresses like so), some people will click on the Facebook message, but more importantly, your email open and click rates will increase for folks who saw your message on Facebook. Do you know how to measure this? It's easy.
When you run Facebook ads targeting people by job title or even to get your messages into the newsfeed (60 minute tutorial here), people see it, but might not click on anything. You see a picture of ribeye steak from Texas Roadhouse in your newsfeed on your iphone, then decide to pull into the restaurant as you drive by. No last click, coupon, or trackable link to your sale.
The real meat of social ROI comes from tying together all your data sources and tracking back to revenue events.
So if you can't measure the ROI, even via indirect lift testing, then it doesn't exist in our book. But at the same time, you might actually be hitting a home run in social, but don't notice it, because you're not measuring the impact in your other channels.
Some stuff just isn't measurable yet or ever will be (although the NSA may beg to differ), but shouldn't you at least be collecting unified reports across all your marketing channels to get full credit for your efforts?


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This boat gives you the seating of most deck boats or pontoons but with the versatility of an offshore fishing boat. You can cruise the intercoastal with family and friends, or go diving/snorkeling, fishing offshore, skiing, wakeboarding, you can do it all!
Boat cruises at 33-35 MPH at 4,200 RPM's depending on load.
Boat will attain over 3MPG at cruise.


(Bloomberg) -- Two days after central bank policy makers became more dovish than anyone thought possible just a few months ago, stocks notched their worst day in 11 weeks. Could it be that the economy is becoming a bigger concern for investors than Jerome Powell?
It sure looks that way when the sell-off is examined for signals on the economy. Friday's decline was led by cyclical industries, among them banks -- casualties of a flattening yield curve that many would attribute to the Federal Reserve chairman. But it's drawing steam from a host of other sectors whose profits are directly tied to the economy.
Getting serious on the growth question has been a process investors were mostly able to avoid as long as Powell and the Fed were on hand to play hero and villain during five months of market volatility. That got harder on Wednesday when policy makers promised zero interest rate hikes in the foreseeable future and a sooner end to the runoff of the balance sheet.
The Fed's preferred yield curve inversion measure turned negative Friday for the first time since 2007, a sign that preceded past recessions. The flip came after a slew of economic data showed economies slowing around the world. Japan reported a contraction in its manufacturing sector, and Europe's economic outlook was thrown into fresh doubt after reports showed weakness in Germany and France.
A few minutes before inversion, the preliminary U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index printed a 21-month low, according to IHS Markit, with manufacturing companies indicating weak business conditions. Manufacturing output, new orders and employment all softened this month, the data show.
The S&P 500 tumbled 1.9 percent, its worst day since Jan. 3. While the most cyclical areas of the market led losses -- financials, materials, energy, tech and industrial stocks all plummeting 2 percent or more -- safer areas fared better. Utilities gained 0.7 percent, while consumer staples only lost 0.2 percent.
Smaller stocks took a beating. Before today, chart watchers were looking to the Russell 2000, hoping it would confirm the rest of the equity market's rally. Instead, the small cap gauge experienced its worst day since early December, and is on its way to the worst month of underperformance relative to the S&P 500 since 2002. While banks make up a quarter of the index and are bearing the brunt of the pain, eight of the index's nine industries -- including cyclical materials and consumer discretionary -- are down in March.
Markets certainly haven't made Powell's job easy since he took the helm. He was vilified for communications blunders in the fourth quarter stock meltdown. It was an easy case to make, given losses mounted after Powell hinted rates were a long way from neutral. And once the views were walked back, it was off to the races for stocks.
With equities mostly down since Wednesday's uber-dovish pronouncements, it may be that the Fed's potency in markets is wavering. The Cboe Volatility Index, commonly seen as a barometer of fear in the market, spiked the most since early December.


This Isenberg Visit Day is an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the MBA program.
Susan Shaw speaks on "Medication adherence and chronic disease self-management among community health center patients in Springfield, MA" as part of the College of Nursing's spring seminar series.
Join for us an interactive workshop focused on public speaking and writing for a live audience.
The Department of Music and Dance presents the Symphony Band in a performance led by graduate conductor Matthew Sypek in the culminating project of his master's degree.


text:
import django_filters
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

I18n_ORDERING = _("Ordering")

class CrispyFilterMixin(object):
    form_class = 'form-inline'

    @property
    def form(self):
        from crispy_forms.helper import FormHelper
        from crispy_forms.layout import Submit
        self._form = super(CrispyFilterMixin, self).form
        self._form.helper = FormHelper(self._form)
        if self.form_class:
            self._form.helper.form_class = 'form-inline'
        self._form.helper.form_method = 'get'
        self._form.helper.layout.append(Submit('filter', _('Filter')))
        return self._form

class AutocompleteChoiceFilter(django_filters.ModelChoiceFilter):

    def __init__(self, autocomplete_name, *args, **kwargs):
        from autocomplete_light import shortcuts as autocomplete_light
        autocomplete = autocomplete_light.registry.get_autocomplete_from_arg(autocomplete_name)
        if 'label' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['label'] = autocomplete.model._meta.verbose_name
        kwargs['queryset'] = autocomplete.choices
        kwargs['widget'] = autocomplete_light.ChoiceWidget(autocomplete)
        super(AutocompleteChoiceFilter, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

class UserKwargFilterSetMixin(object):

    def __init__(self, user, *args, **kwargs):
        self.user = user
        super(UserKwargFilterSetMixin, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Granville is the home to two historic inns: the Buxton Inn and the Granville Inn, which are both located in the 300 block of East Broadway.
In 1812, Orrin Granger, a pioneer from Granville, Massachusetts, built "The Tavern" on land that was purchased in 1806. That tavern, now known as "The Buxton Inn," has operated continuously since that date in 1812. It is Ohio's oldest continuously-operated inn in its original building. The Inn is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Inn operated as Granville's first post office and as a stagecoach line on the line between Columbus and Newark.
The Inn has been expanded into a carefully and lovingly restored complex of four buildings that offer 25 lodging rooms filled with antiques. The Inn also offers seven dining areas, elegant gardens and cascading fountains.
In 1923, John Sutphin Jones, a coal and railroad magnate and owner of the Bryn Du Mansion and the Granville Golf Course at the time, commissioned the construction of The Granville Inn in the Jacobethan Revival style on the former site of the Granville Female College, which closed its doors in 1898. The stone and half-timber structure was designed by Frank L. Packard, a prominent Columbus architect. All of the sandstone was quarried at Bryn Du.
According to the newspapers of the time, the Inn's opening on June 26, 1924 was attended by as many as 5000 people.
The Inn, located in the heart of Granville, offers a full-service restaurant and pub, 27 traditional guest rooms and three suites, along with banquet, meeting and catering services.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Inn's old-world charm, hand cut oak paneling, native sandstone and rural hospitality make it a place for great escapes.


text:
Q: Priority queue with O(1) delete-max, insert-min, and find-min and O(log n) insertion and deletion Is it possible for monotonic priority queue to have :

*

*O(1) for finding and delete item with highest priority,

*O(1) for inserting item assuming the priority given is lower than every other item,

*O(log n) for inserting and deleting item without assumption?

I do know if the insertion and deletion is allowed to be O(n), by using linked list. I was also thinking of skip list. However, in worst case, inserting and deleting item is O(n).
Decrease-key is not required.

A: In an amortized sense, red-black trees have this property. In the worst-case, you can use one of many finger-tree designs, like Fleischer's "A Simple Balanced Search Tree with O(1) Worst Case Update Time."
I wrote a long overview of how these things work.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Fellow podcaster and new friend Joshua Toomey tells us his chapter. Early beginnings as a bassist of Nashville heroes 12V Negative Earth, his joining and immediate touring with Primer 55, being on an album with drumming hero John Stanier playing in a band with Rollins Band drummer Sim Cain. He discusses how setting up a two-week tour with AOL IM. Toomey has some flight time to talk about.
Then he decides to give the podcasting game a whirl. In a SHORT amount of time his "Talk Toomey" podcast has gone from the "um I don't know what I'm doing" stages to joining the Los Anarchy Radio and talking to the likes of Glen of Deicide, Max Cavalera, Kirk of Crowbar, Ellefson of Megadeth, Jeff of Carcass...metal fans HAVE to check this out.
Toomey and I became buddies and we talk a lot so you get to hear us kinda babble a little bit. This was fun. I love the discovery of talking to new people, but talking to friends is kinda awesome too.
12 Volt Negative Earth- "Cancelled" - Toomey's first band.
Carcass: "Buried Dreams" - Celebrating that Toomey just talked to Jeff Walker.