Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

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eido
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby eido » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:54 pm

Cavesa wrote:Yes! This is what I was trying to describe but in a much worse way. We often even find a list of such vocabulary but usually just with bare nouns and the choice is not always representative to what do people really need. And this is getting even worse with the spreading popularity of frequency lists and their idealisation. I am sure a rolling pin or the combination to roll dough is not in the first few thousand words used in newspapers and books but it is a word every native knows and will use correctly.

I personally would like to know all the kitchen vocabulary because I work in a Mexican restaurant and directing employees who don't speak English, or even customers is something I cannot do. I need to know words for specific things that could perhaps be very common, like "rice spoon" or "medium sauce" or "burner". I don't think every employee would go as far as I want to go, but maybe if the resource existed for monolingual English-speaking managers, or even the rare advanced Spanish-learning manager, they'd use it to help everyone who came into their restaurant. (I am a cashier, though - there's a dearth of resources it seems for them, too.)
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby Balltongue » Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:44 am

I want to make videos however I don't know where to start. If this convo somehow eventualy leads to discuss that issue, I may take advice of that and begin my work.

I'm a native speaker of spanish and my english is pretty good, nevertheless I wanna keep my videos free of english. Just spoken spanish with transcription and translation subtittles so people listen to it on the way to work.
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:11 am

I thought this was going to be resources for niche languages... never mind. Need coffee.
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby garyb » Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:53 am

I agree that we need more resources on advanced grammar and specific domains!

I'm still a lowly intermediate Spanish learner so I don't know what's out there in terms of more advanced materials, but I can comment from my experience with other languages. One blog that was posted on HTLAL a few years ago that really impressed me was "Fluent French Now", which sadly isn't maintained much now and is half-broken (the "previous page" links don't work, etc.). It seemed a goldmine for someone who already knows the language quite well but wants to clear up some grammar and usage points and speak more idiomatically. Some example lessons. At first some of them look like the usual generic stuff - my initial reaction might have been "groan, does the world really need yet another article on how to use en and y or jour and journée" - but they really go beyond that and explain a lot of the more advanced and idiomatic usage. That's the kind of resource I'd love to see more of.

Breaking out of beginner's Spanish is another resource I enjoy and have found useful, again aimed at teaching everyday idiomatic usage to people who already know the basics; perhaps lessons in the style of that but on more advanced or niche topics would be a good idea.
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby Jim » Fri Jul 13, 2018 7:38 am

garyb wrote:One blog that was posted on HTLAL a few years ago that really impressed me was "Fluent French Now", which sadly isn't maintained much now and is half-broken (the "previous page" links don't work, etc.). It seemed a goldmine for someone who already knows the language quite well but wants to clear up some grammar and usage points and speak more idiomatically.

Thanks for mentioning this site, it’s great but I’d completely forgotten about it.

Cavesa wrote:I am sure a rolling pin or the combination to roll dough is not in the first few thousand words used in newspapers and books but it is a word every native knows and will use correctly.
This reminds me of Richard Simcott’s article about fluency and the argument that you cannot be truly fluent if you don’t know the word for “shoelaces”. Whether or not that is true, I can assure you that the inverse is not true, although I always make a point of learning the word for “shoelaces” early on, just in case!
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby Axon » Sat Jul 14, 2018 4:09 am

Well nobody else did it yet, so I thought I'd give a quick example of what I meant. Unfortunately I only know how to do it in English.



Correcting the auto-generated subtitles for this short video took about 15 minutes.

Also, I made actual mistakes when speaking my native language in my childhood home :oops: . So depending on how strict you want to be with yourself, you might end up doing a few takes of this.

Regardless of mistakes, it would be amazing to see others do this, even with stuff around their computers or outside their homes. Even if it's in a language I don't understand at all. This kind of activity just somehow feels a lot more natural and real than any monologue or pre-made lesson.
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Re: Ideas for far-out (niche) language resources?

Postby Kat » Sat Jul 14, 2018 11:41 am

Axon, thank you very much for that kitchen walkthrough. I especially liked that you spoke fairly slowly and pointed things out before naming them. That gives the viewer a moment to think whether or not they know the correct term before you say it.

By the way, seeing all those kitchen implements made me realize that I didn't know the proper English word for eggcup. :o
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