RadioLingual

Does this mean goodbye?

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Emily and I had a lot of fun teaching English, teaching radio, and yakking on the podcast. But I'm leaving Seattle now. We hope to keep Radiolingual alive as a multi-city project with a little more focus.

Here's a journey through some of our students' progress. At the end, some unaired content from the Speakers' Bureau about what it feels like, emotionally, to learn English.

It's sad, but celebratory. Listen in.

Music from Jason Bianco at magnatune.com

Fish are flying!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily E.) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:07:00 +0000

It's what we've all been waiting for: a personal tour with star reporter Ai Ikeda! In this audio postcard, Ai shows us the vibrant sounds of Pike Place Market. She made two versions, one in Japanese and one in English. She started with the Japanese, so she could get all of her ideas out first. Then, with the Japanese version as a guide, she recorded the English version--and it's obvious in both languages that she's a natural!

Here's the English version.

And here's the Japanese postcard.

If you speak both languages, listen in, and tell us what you think of the pair!

Pike place fish photo from Jhuffmanphotography's flickr photostream.

Liza's Loss

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:50:00 +0000

Liza Enriquez achieved her childhood dream of becoming a nurse. She also lost her house in the economic crisis.

But this story wasn't coming out clearly. So I kept asking her to say it again, in different ways.

Eventually we got it just right. But then, more than words came out.

Listen to Liza share her story, and the way we worked together to make it come from the heart.

Liza will be reading her story in libraries and schools around Seattle as part of the Speakers Bureau, a public speaking class for ELL students. Special thanks to Rachel Leadon.

picture from respres' photostream, music from trip wamsley at magnatune.com

An apple a day...

noreply@blogger.com (Emily E.) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Last week, our Radiolingual students ventured out to different Seattle locations and recorded sounds for audio postcards. They'll be making two versions of the postcard--one in English (for you, our listeners!) and the other in Japanese for their friends and family back home.

We listened to Ai's tape from Pike Place Market, and she captured some great sounds that evoke that busy market feel. But while we were listening and imagining ourselves in the market, Hammad and I got into an intense discussion about confidence and negotiating prices in another language. If you'd like to listen in, click here.

Yummy-looking candy apples from cursedthing's flickr photostream.

How is this confusing?

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:39:00 +0000

"Everytime they pointed to a banana and said 'yellow,' something wasn't clicking."

Marta explains one of her first memories learning English in a Californian elementary school. Ai interviews. Hammad and Emily act out.

Listen in to hear what's so slippery about bananas.

pic from foundphotoslj and music by Bacilos

When will they give me bilingual texting?

noreply@blogger.com (Jake Rollow) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:31:00 +0000

I used to live in El Paso, Texas, which, paired with Ciudad Juárez, straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. While most people there speak English and/or Spanish fluently, everyone speaks Spanglish, and I became one of those people. Speaking Spanglish was often fun for me, as I got to play with the words of two languages, but it could also be frustrating on occasion, as I use predictive (T9) text messaging, which is impossible when writing in two languages simultaneously.
For example, here's what happens if you have your predictive text set to English, and you have a text conversation with a friend in Spanglish.

Friend: Hey innard, what you up to this taped?
(Hey hombre, what you up to this tarde? = Hey man, what you up to this afternoon?)
Me: Track
(Trabajo = Work)
Friend: No names hue
(No mames guey = Give me a break punk)
Me: Km pheno amigo. Let's get together mananc.
(Lo siento amigo. Let's get together mañana = Sorry friend. Let's get together tomorrow.)

Anyway, you get the gist. And the thing is, sometimes you just wanna speak Spanglish. Like, for instance, "give me a break punk" is a terrible translation for "no mames guey," but I can't think of a good one, which is why I, and many others, would want to say it in Spanish.

So there you have it. I figure it's only a matter of time before one of the cell-phone companies offers bilingual texting, and I hope they hurry up and do it. That day will be, one might say, super chido!

Ideal Vox-cation

noreply@blogger.com (Emily E.) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Armed with a mini-disc recorder and a sunny disposition, Ai weathered the Seattle storms by asking people on the University of Washington campus about vacation. She was so slick with the tape recorder that we hardly edited her tape at all.

Make yourself a pina colada and be an audio tourist for a minute.

Sweet vacation photo from rogilde's flickr photostream.

Flowers? What flowers?

noreply@blogger.com (Emily E.) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:43:00 +0000

On Wednesday last week, I (Emily) was lucky enough to attend Talk Time, which is a free conversation group for English Language Learners at the Seattle Central Library.

I spoke with enthusiastic learners from around the world, and I got to brag about this website. While I was there, I captured a couple of questions about English that have been bugging some of the participants. Here's the first question:

Over the weekend Radiolingual readers responded, and then we mixed their answers into a short piece.

Listen to the piece here.

Send us your thoughts and comments and stay tuned for our next question--or if you have a question, send it in!

Write from Karen's flickr photostream and Tulip Trees by Rob Costlow.

How to make an intro

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:34:00 +0000

Ai's got mad voiceover skills.

When leading a workshop full of Japanese speakers, avoid calling it "RadioLingual."

This week Ai and Masa recorded their own version of the introduction to our podcasts, but every word was a stumbling block. As if 'RadioLingual' wasn't hard enough, they had to contend with: KUOW. Jack Straw Productions. The Association of Independents in Radio.

For Masa, there's not much difference between Association and Isolation.

Ironies abound in this podcast installment, but beauty too. Ai produced an amazing version of the introduction (or show ID), which will be our default from here on out.

_ in the sky with _

noreply@blogger.com (Emily E.) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:43:00 +0000

In class last Tuesday, we started talking about words that have multiple meanings. As one of the new Radiolingual producers explained the two meanings of a Japanese word, we had a little bit of confusion over the relationship between those two meanings.

Listen to the above piece to hear an audio exploration of the word and the process I imagined as we tried to understand the actual meaning of the word.

In any language, how do we build mental relationships between the words we know and the experiences and images that those words describe?

Multilingual Puns

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:17:00 +0000

In Urdu, the word for "peas" is "mattar." So, now that you know that, here's a joke that only bilingual Urdu speakers would understand.

How do peas talk? They mutter.

I got a million of them.

Puns was one of the unexpected topics that we ended up convering in our FIRST RADIO WORKSHOP on Tuesday night. Listen in to the latest podcast episode to hear some potential Japanese puns.

What other multilingual puns do you know?

Leave a message, leave a comment. Tell us the words we need to know first, and then make us laugh. If we get good ones we'll post to the podcast.

Answered! Give up / Give in

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:09:00 +0000

For the first interactive audio Q&A feature, an English language learner asked, "What's the difference between give up and give in?

Listen to the question

Here's a nice, 1-minute mashup (with music) of what RadioLingual listeners had to say.

Listen to the answers

Keep on sending in your great answers and we'll keep re-mixing them!

Ask YOUR question

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:31:00 +0000

Why do nuts and bananas both mean crazy?
What's the difference between give up and give in?
Am I saying the word squirrel correctly?
What's the English translation of the French word chez?

Post your question now.

Leave a message here, or at (571) 482-7806. Post a text comment if you must.

RadioLingual will recruit tons of people to send in their voice message answers to YOUR question.

Here's an example of a previous Q&A.

Workshop schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Hammad) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:56:00 +0000

FREE radio workshop for English Language Learners.

Learn to use a microphone / produce bilingual news reports / make a website / create music & talk with native English speakers online and on KUOW radio.

Tuesdays, 7:00 pm
February 24 - April 21, 2009
Jack Straw studios: 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle