{"id":7065,"date":"2020-03-27T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=7065"},"modified":"2020-03-26T17:39:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T17:39:13","slug":"what-does-the-loch-ness-monster-have-to-do-with-language-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/what-does-the-loch-ness-monster-have-to-do-with-language-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does the Loch Ness Monster Have To Do With Language Learning?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When it comes to learning a new language, where do you start? Pronunciation, maybe, or some listening? Then you\u2019ll start learning words, phrases. Grammar. How to write. All these building blocks come together to help make up a language you can then communicate with. But, of course, communication is more than just words\u2014it\u2019s culture, too.<\/em>
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If you break learning a language down to just its most basic parts, then it seems like you would only have to learn the components of two major areas: grammar and vocabulary. After all, grammar governs the rules, the structure of how you say or write things to make them make sense. Vocabulary fills in the gaps in the grammar, making everything make sense. 
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So if you just learn all <\/em>the grammar and then all <\/em>the vocabulary (or vice versa), then you\u2019ll have yourself a language, right?
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Well, not exactly. 
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See, the thing is, it\u2019s really easy to underestimate the influence culture has on a language. While you can learn a language without learning about a culture related to it, it makes it much, much harder. Plus, when we\u2019re using the word culture, here, that doesn\u2019t just mean a national culture. It can be regional. It can be related to age or ethnicity or religion or gender.
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Here\u2019s a quick example: even if you\u2019re a native English speaker, if you\u2019re not from the UK then you might be surprised when you hear someone refer to their evening meal, dinner, as tea. After all, tea is tea, right? <\/a>
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In the Victorian era, the concept of \u2018afternoon tea\u2019 came into being: a serving of light snacks and tea around 5pm that first began to take place in rich households. This eventually spread among the working class, as well, as a snack after lunch was found to boost energy levels. Afternoon tea (which still occurs today, albeit most of the time as an occasional treat) was then contrasted with \u2018high tea\u2019, or dinner, where the snacks were combined with a meal, all of which was served at around 6pm. 
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Eventually, things evolved so that lower class people called their midday meal \u2018dinner\u2019 and their evening meal \u2018tea\u2019, whereas higher class people referred to them as \u2018lunch\u2019 and \u2018dinner.\u2019 Although class boundaries are less rigid now than they were in Victorian times, you will still notice that there is a north-south divide when it comes to dinner versus tea\u2014people in the north of the UK tend to say tea, whereas in the south, they say dinner<\/a>! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is culture important when you learn a language?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For one thing, if you want to get your language skills to a decent level, there are words and phrases you\u2019re going to learn that just won\u2019t make sense without their cultural context. So many utterances, in every language, related to events or ideas that the people speaking it have experienced, whether that\u2019s something as benign as \u2018it\u2019s swings and roundabouts\u2019 (meaning it doesn\u2019t matter one way or another\u2014as in, both swings and roundabouts are equally good) or something related to more impactful events, like \u2018friendly fire\u2019 (when you shoot someone who is on the same side as you), which was a term that arose in English during World War One.
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A complete lack of cultural knowledge, then, can cause difficulties for all parties involved in a conversation. Of course, it can also be an opportunity to make new friends\u2014asking for help will almost always go across well! 
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Knowing about cultural aspects associated with a language you\u2019re learning can also make the language easier to learn, however. There are likely to be customs you\u2019re unfamiliar with, or foods, or even place names. If you know something about these things before you learn the language\u2014or if you are exposed to them while learning\u2014then they are more likely to stick in your mind, especially if they are things that are so totally different from your own culture. Doing some research into culture can make your learning a little easier!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does uTalk help you learn about culture?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, we don\u2019t pretend that we have every tiny aspect of culture that you might need when you\u2019re learning a language in our app. That would be impossible! However, we\u2019ve come up with something that we hope will give you a bit of an insight into the depth of what you\u2019re learning\u2014and will interest you in learning more!
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When you open any of our languages, you\u2019ll notice one topic right at the bottom of the screen. It\u2019s the only one that\u2019s called different things in different languages, because it relates directly to the language you\u2019re learning.
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It\u2019s also the only topic where we don\u2019t use your source language. Not even a little bit.
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This is what we call our Culturally Specific topic. Usually, the topic has a country name (e.g. French has La France) but sometimes it doesn\u2019t (e.g. Ladino is called Ladino). When you open it, you\u2019ll see the same games and the same format, but all of the images are related to something that is either nationally or culturally specific, and the names of everything are in the language you\u2019re learning.
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We build this collection with the help of our translators and voice artists (who are, nearly always, native speakers), who pick out all kinds of things they believe are culturally relevant. This can be the names of cities, of buildings, of particular people\u2026 The list is huge, and we choose 20-50 of those to be in this section.
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Let\u2019s just show you some examples.
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If you\u2019re learning German and go to the Deutschland<\/em> topic, then you\u2019ll get to learn the word Oktoberfest, which is the annual beer festival held, not only in Germany, but nowadays, around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learning British English? The United Kingdom<\/em> topic has gems like Yorkshire puddings, which are lovely baked puddings we have as a side dish (usually with a roast dinner). And that\u2019s right, we have different cultural topics for different varieties of the same language!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the Korean topic of \ub0a8\ud55c (South Korea),<\/em> you\u2019ll learn the word for taekwondo, \ud0dc\uad8c\ub3c4 (taegwondo), a martial art from the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Niseag is one of the fun words you can learn if you\u2019re learning Scottish Gaelic (in the Alba<\/em>) topic. This is, of course, the Gaelic name for the Loch Ness Monster<\/a>!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And for Spanish (Espa\u00f1a<\/em>), you\u2019ll learn the name of Barcelona\u2019s most famous cathedral\u2014very useful if you plan on sight seeing there!
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If this has convinced you that learning about culture is just as important as learning the nitty gritty of language, then why not start learning with us today? With one of our subscriptions, you get full access to all of the 60+ topics in your chosen language, including the culturally specific one! Get started today.<\/a>
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When it comes to learning a new language, where do you start? Pronunciation, maybe, or some listening? Then you\u2019ll start learning words, phrases. Grammar. How to write. All these building blocks come together to help make up a language you can then communicate with. But, of course, communication is more than just words\u2014it\u2019s culture, too. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[794],"tags":[46,333,265,1821],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}