Translation services/strategies/costs...

[Martin Brown]

On 23/12/2021 10:35, Don Y wrote:

On 12/23/2021 2:39 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

Alexa can\'t manage for example Tyne & Wear  (tine and weir), dialect
Chop Gate (chop yat) and Cholmondeley (Chumlee) catch out most
non-native English speakers in fact most non-locals. For that reason
the latter was a location for sensitive military intelligence during
WWII.

Worcester (WUSS-ter), Billerica (bill-RICK-a), Berlin (BURR-lin, not
burr-LIN),
etc.  Or, words that folks often mispronounce (almond, salmon).

I can identify folks who are from my home *town* (not \"state\"!) by their
speech habits -- highly localized.

I can recognise a fair number of British accents but I have all but lost
mine from time spent away from my home town at university and overseas.

A neighbor claimed her firstname to be \"Lara\" -- though she spelled it
L-A-U-R-A (\"Isn\'t that Laura??\").

[BTW, I\'m still waiting for a pointer to the code you want compiled...]

If you are willing to give it a go I\'ll email you a copy (about 150k
main file plus a couple of tiny header file stubs to satisfy includes).

I don\'t seem to have your email contact details. My own peculiar looking
reply-to address is valid provided that you do not alter it in any way.

First time around just throw it at the Intel compiler and send me the
error messages (or if by some happenstance it compiles and links OK the
output of running it with no parameters - also about 100-200k).

If you have any nice fast series 10 or 11 Intel CPU\'s I\'d be interested
in the output from running an MSC 2019 compiled executable on them too.
I\'m looking for SSE architectural differences affecting out of order and
speculative execution (and how they have changed with time).

I thought you were tied up until the year end.
I know how pressured year end shipment deadlines can be. Good luck!

Have a super Christmas!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Jan Panteltje]

PS most android smartphones have text to speech and support bluetooth earpieces.
Then you could write an application and maybe even use the phone\'s camera to guide the blind.
If you have a clue about image recognition.

Carrying a raspi and a lipo battery around is not that hard either, 10 hours should go
and fits in ones pocket.

Show us something you did apart from babble.
Else you are - in essence - just waiting my time.

It is what it is.

 

[Don Y]

On 12/24/2021 4:32 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Dec 2021 03:36:53 -0700) it happened Don Y
blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <sq47sd$qn2$1@dont-email.me>:

On 12/24/2021 1:55 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Thu, 23 Dec 2021 12:57:23 -0700) it happened Don Y
blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <sq2kbf$s5s$1@dont-email.me>:

On 12/23/2021 9:53 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Thu, 23 Dec 2021 08:43:24 -0700) it happened Don Y
blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <sq25f9$br9$1@dont-email.me>:

On 12/23/2021 6:16 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 22 Dec 2021 17:21:06 -0700) it happened Don Y
blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <sq0fdu$gjc$1@dont-email.me>:

On 12/22/2021 10:15 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 22 Dec 2021 09:30:43 -0700) it happened Don Y
blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <spvjrv$tj1$1@dont-email.me>:

It would be a tough call to determine if American English had evolved more
OR LESS than the original British. I\'ve read that American English is, in
many ways, truer to its British roots than modern British English.

Pronunciations also evolve, over time. As well as speech patterns.

E.g., I was taught \"the\" should be pronounced as \"thee\" when preceding
a word beginning with a vowel sound: \"Thee English\", \"Thee other guy\"
but with a schwa ahead of a consonant: \"The next one\", \"the Frenchman\".
This seems to no longer be the norm.

[You\'re interested in these sorts of things when you design a
speech synthesizer; the different \"wh\" sounds, etc.]

A pretty decent text to speech is google translate.

This script, called gst2_en on my system, has a female talk in english:

#!/bin/bash
say() { local IFS=+;/usr/bin/mplayer -ao alsa -really-quiet -noconsolecontrols
\"http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&client=tw-ob&q=$*&tl=en\"; }
say $*



You call it like this (with your text as example):
gst2_en \">E.g., I was taught \"the\" should be pronounced as \"thee\" when preceding\"

In the script the &tl=en can be changed for the language you want, so &tl=nl for Dutch and &tl=de for German.

If you want the output to go to a mp3 file then use mplayer -dumpstream in that script.

I find the quality better than other things I have tried.

All Linux of course

There are lots of synthesizers out there -- FOSS as well as commercial.
But, those that run on a PC tend to be bloated implementations -- large
dictionaries, unit databases, etc. And, require a fair bit of CPU
to deliver speech in real-time. If you\'re trying to run in a small
footprint consuming very little \"energy\" (think tiny battery), there
really isn\'t much choice -- esp if you want to be able to tweek the voice
to suit the listeners\' preferences (with unconstrained vocabulary)

Sure
But the advantge of this script is that it uses NO resources on the PC / raspi or whatever

Of course it uses resources! You need a network stack, the memory to
handle the packets delivered across that connection, the memory to support
the shell, the filesystem from which to load the script and other binaries,
the kernel, etc.

Sure

You just assume they cost nothing because they are already present
in your implementation. Take a *bare* rPi and see how much you have to
add to it to make it speak. *That* is the resource requirement.

Not sure what you mean by a \'bare rPi\', but even my old raspi one has all that.

Strip all of the code off of it so you are starting with *hardware*.
Then, add back what you need to make it speak.

OK, let me give you some example in this, and why the choice between apples and oranges .
Let\'s say we have nothing but a PIC 18F14k22 (because I have those).

To do the internet thing you need a TCP stack and add a Microchip ethernet ENC28J60 chip
Microchip _has_ a TCP stack, but then what fun is it, I wrote one back in the 5 1/4 inch floppy days but
those files got lost, but here is project with an UDP stack I wrote in PIC asm
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/ethernet_color_pic/
controls room lighting from anywhere, been working fine 24/7 since 2013
You you will need:
1 PIC18F14K22
1 ENC28J60

Now let\'s see if we can do audio out with that
Sure I have done audio with same PIC:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/audio_pic/
that used PWM somehow, but here I would use a R2R DAC on 8 PIC output pins perhaps.
The B I G question is now \"With This chip can I decode the mp3 stream from google translate?\"
Perhaps, would have to look a the source of mpg123 (open source C mp2/mp3 decoder) to see if I can do it all with 256 bytes
RAM
maybe the buffer size is too small, maybe need a bigger PIC or some external memory is needed.
Never wrote a mp3 decoder so question mark here.
Config system via RS232 in EEPROM (as in projects above) for IP, gateway, MAC etc etc.
So 2 chips (or 3 if memory), some caps, power regulator, wall wart, and now you need to make a board if it is for production.
And you need to write the asm.
And test an debug it
Estimated time: some days.
Cost per hour of qualified person?
A Raspberry Pi that has all connectors plus some, costs 47$ (went up a while ago because of chip shortages I have read)
and a small SDcard.
Runs Linux, is easy to program in minutes, and proven reliable, no board layouts needed, ready in an hour or so.
And can fall back on whatever speech synth. you installed on it if no internet connection for any reason.
The advantage of using google for speech is that THEY will do there best to make the audio as good as possible
and support several languages

So, in short, the Raspberry way is faster, cheaper, better, proven reliable, available everywhere.
Now show us what YOU did.

Put it *in* a bluetooth earpiece and have it run off the battery that\'s
in that earpiece. Make sure that earpiece is paired with a BT host that
ultimately has internet access -- to get to your google service. And,
maintain this connectivity while I walk, drive, ride a bicycle or
any other activity -- above or below ground.

You\'re solving the wrong problem with a sledgehammer.

You should have spcified that right away.

I stated:
[You\'re interested in these sorts of things when you design a
speech synthesizer; the different \"wh\" sounds, etc.]
I didn\'t realize I had to explain my entire application in order
to defend that statement.

You also need to know braille if you want to transcribe emitted text
into braille \"on-the-fly\".

And, how to Daltonize visual presentations if you want to rely
on vision.

And, how to render graphic images if you want to present information
graphically.

Do I have to defend each of these statements, as well?

So again, PIC, bluetooth chip, asm nothing new.
Some people here can even design it all in one chip.
But we are talking text to speech no (or did you change requirenent again)?
WTF would you get the text from?

A set of applications. As well as audio from music sources,
annunciators, etc.

> Much simpler to use a normal bluetooth earpiece and a Raspberry Pi talking to it from a fixed place..

That sort of thinking says it\'s much easier to use a land-line phone
in a fixed place (than to bother with all these silly cell phones)

And, why bother with tablets and laptops when you can sit bolt-upright
in front of your desktop PC?!

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-bluetooth/
For other platforms / system bluetooth USB adaptors plenty, I have some for the PC, also bluetooth earpieces.
Like I said,the raspi can fall back on any otehr sinth. if no internet connections

Where is that other synthesizer? What resources does *it* use?

AGAIN where is your text coming from?
You did not show any design or code

My synthesizers are *big*. There\'s a lot of code to implement the text
normalization, prosody assignment, waveform synthesis, unit databases,
exception dictionaries, letter-to-sound rules, etc.


I\'ve implemented a formant-based synthesizer modeled after an
enhanced Klatt synthesizer, a diphone synthesizer (but with only
one voice, presently, as sampling speech is tedious and requires
a fair bit of time from the voice model), and an LPC coder. I\'ve
implemented the NRL LTS rules, Hunnicutt\'s as well as McIlroy\'s.
(all of these technologies and documentation are available,
publicly -- but you may have to do some digging)

[The regression tests for the rule sets are each ~50pp. Rhyme
tests another dozen or so. etc.]

I\'ve implemented fixed point and floating point versions of each
(as necessary) to address the possibilities of having limited target
capabilities. So, I can piece together ~20 different synthesizers
with different resource requirements (and capabilities/limitations)
by mixing and matching these modules.

Unfortunately, there are no concrete criteria that I can use to
decide which (combination of algorithms) is \"optimal\". Judging
the quality of speech output isn\'t something that lends itself to
a simple metric. And, different approaches have different
tradeoffs (e.g., it\'s considerably harder to alter a diphone
voice than one created via LPC or formant synthesis)

[If algorithm 1 pronounces A, B and C well but chokes on D and E,
is that better than algorithm 2 pronouncing C, D and E well and
choking on A and B? Does it matter if any of them can pronounce
\"platypus\" correctly? Will questions ever be uttered? If not,
then why deal with the associated rising intonation? Will input
text always be grammatically correct? Or, will I have to potentially
deal with \"nonsense\"?]

I didn\'t see any of google\'s code presented in YOUR implementation...

> Just babbling?

I don\'t think you\'ve thought through the problem space.

Close your eyes -- permanently -- as if you were blind, suffered from
macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, etc. (We\'ll assume you\'re
still mentally competent and able to suss-out the details of high tech
kit so we can ignore that potential complication...)

Your sole means of getting information from this gizmo is via audio
(i.e., speech and annunciators).

Now, take that brand new gizmo that you\'ve been given and make it
talk to you. How do you connect to the internet? How do you
get status messages from it telling you that it *can\'t* connect?
Are you sure it is powered on? How do you adjust the volume?
Voice used? Speaking rate? How do you even KNOW how to do these
things -- as you can\'t READ a manual!

(Gee, it sure would be nice if the device could read it *to* you...
but, you\'d need to be able to synthesize speech BEFORE you\'d
*configured* the device in order to learn HOW to *configure* it!
OTOH, if it could speak \"natively\", then it can prompt you to
determine if you need assistance: \"Would you like me to read
the manual to you?\")

When your box stops talking, how do you know if it is because
it lost the connection to google? Or, a bad battery? Or, just high
latency or dropped packets? Is there a way to coax it to utter
something to prove it is still operational (but, that would
have to be an annunciator and not spoken word)

How do you ask *it* how much battery run-time is left? Does
it have to send a message to google so google can sort out
how to speak that information?

Similarly, when charging, how do you ask it how long until
fully recharged? Maybe a series of coded beeps and bops
and an outrageously good memory to sort out which is which?

OTOH, if you can *always* speak -- even in the absence of
google -- then you can convey all of this information just
like any other application-generated information -- in
spoken utterances:

\"Battery at 46% charge. Estimate 3 hours until depleted.\"
\"Battery at 52% charge. Estimate charging complete in 2:10.\"
\"Nominal battery life exceeded. Replace soon\"
\"Volume level 12 (of 20)\"
\"High frequency boost +3 (of 5)\"
\"Low frequency cut -2 (of 5)\"
\"Voice selected is Tommy\"
\"Speech rate set to 200 words per minute\"
\"Received (radio) signal strength low\"
\"Name resolution error: google.com\"
\"Unable to acquire DHCP lease.\"
\"Using IP 192.168.1.105\"
\"Available networks are MYHOUSE23, VERIZON19 & YourPlace\"
\"Selected server busy; use foo.bar as alternate\"
\"For assistance, contact Dr. Jones at x5-2323\"
\"Access denied\"

etc. But, being able to *always* speak means it has to be
able to do so \"cheaply\" as you don\'t know how long it will
have to rely on its own capabilities to communicate with
the user!

 

[Don Y]

On 12/24/2021 5:26 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

PS most android smartphones have text to speech and support bluetooth earpieces.
Then you could write an application and maybe even use the phone\'s camera to guide the blind.
If you have a clue about image recognition.

Go get that android phone. CLOSE YOUR EYES. Now, find the application
and download it. Figure out how to pair your BT earpiece to the
phone (still with your eyes closed). You suffer from the typical engineering
Dunning-Kruger effect regarding misjudging your own assessment of problem
domains. (surely you have considered the bootstrap issues I presented
in previous post -- right?)

I guess you\'ll write another version that runs under iOS, too?

And, ensure that the application takes over the phone completely
so the (blind) user isn\'t stuck wondering why your app isn\'t
talking to him, presently. Or, how to get BACK to it after
completing a phone call.

And, when there\'s a new android version released, keep chasing it?

Or, if google stops offering their (free!) service -- assuming, of
course, that you don\'t mind google knowing everything that is
SAID to you.

Spend a day blind-folded. Or, in a wheelchair. Or, with ears plugged.
Then, explain how \"simple\" it is to address these shortcomings. And,
how patient you will be with the fools who think they understand the
problem space and toss out half-baked solutions. EVERYTHING is easy
if you don\'t actually have to *do* it!

Obviously simple enough that there must be TONS of solutions out there,
right? (where are they all hiding?)

Carrying a raspi and a lipo battery around is not that hard either, 10 hours should go
and fits in ones pocket.

How wonderful of you to decide what users should be willing to
carry -- and how! This, in *addition* to the android phone?
What if their only *input* modality is a sip-n-puff? Or,
a braille keypad? Or, an ASL glove? Surely the phone is designed
to accommodate all of these... I just haven\'t found them in
any stores!

> Show us something you did apart from babble.

Yeah, that\'s the Larkin trick. Then, when confronted with concrete
evidence, skulk away in ignorance.

> Else you are - in essence - just waiting my time.

Show me you\'ve even thought about the application -- as your comments
clearly indicate you\'re just tilting at windmills. Wasting *my* time.

Have you ever done anything with something bigger than a PIC? In
anything other than ASM? Ever designed a system other than a
prebuilt box (e.g., rPi)? Surely you\'ve written kernel drivers?
Network stacks? OSs?

Show us. Something beyond trivial shell scripts.

> It is what it is.

yup. My sentiments exactly!

Bye!

 

[David Brown]

On 24/12/2021 11:15, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2021-12-23 15:37, David Brown wrote:
On 23/12/2021 12:23, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2021-12-23 10:39, Martin Brown wrote:
[...]
Cholmondeley (Chumlee) catch out most
non-native English speakers in fact most non-locals. [...]

English is well known for its complete disconnect between
pronunciation and spelling, but this is ridiculous.


It is not a \"complete disconnect\" - not by a long way.  Despite some of
the common oddities of spelling in English, and some particularly
unusual cases, there are far worse languages.  Look at verb endings in
French - many different spellings have different meanings, but are
pronounced the same.  Mongolian and Gaelic have a very much bigger
separation between the phonetic values of the written spellings and the
actual pronunciation.  [...]

French spelling is pretty regular, in the sense that spelling
usually unambiguously specifies the pronunciation. The reverse
is far from true though.

That is a good way to put it.

I should know, I live there.

From my school days, I found French was not bad for reading and writing
(despite it seeming like all verbs are irregular), but I could never get
the hang of understanding even simple spoken French.

I am fortunate that the language of my second home - Norwegian - is
quite regular in both directions (although of course regional dialects
vary).

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Dec 2021 06:04:01 -0700) it happened Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in <sq4gga$gs4$2@dont-email.me>:

Have you ever done anything with something bigger than a PIC? In
anything other than ASM? Ever designed a system other than a
prebuilt box (e.g., rPi)? Surely you\'ve written kernel drivers?
Network stacks? OSs?

Show us. Something beyond trivial shell scripts.

My site is full of it, open source too.

It is what it is.

yup. My sentiments exactly!

You are an asshole, posting here babble only, have nothing to show for, and cannot read it seems.

>Bye!

Nothing missed

Post to a babble group, not to a design group.
You have nothing.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:55:55 +0100) it happened David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote in <sq4n1s$phk$1@dont-email.me>:

On 24/12/2021 11:15, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2021-12-23 15:37, David Brown wrote:
On 23/12/2021 12:23, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2021-12-23 10:39, Martin Brown wrote:
[...]
Cholmondeley (Chumlee) catch out most
non-native English speakers in fact most non-locals. [...]

English is well known for its complete disconnect between
pronunciation and spelling, but this is ridiculous.


It is not a \"complete disconnect\" - not by a long way.  Despite some of
the common oddities of spelling in English, and some particularly
unusual cases, there are far worse languages.  Look at verb endings in
French - many different spellings have different meanings, but are
pronounced the same.  Mongolian and Gaelic have a very much bigger
separation between the phonetic values of the written spellings and the
actual pronunciation.  [...]

French spelling is pretty regular, in the sense that spelling
usually unambiguously specifies the pronunciation. The reverse
is far from true though.

That is a good way to put it.

I should know, I live there.


From my school days, I found French was not bad for reading and writing
(despite it seeming like all verbs are irregular), but I could never get
the hang of understanding even simple spoken French.

I am fortunate that the language of my second home - Norwegian - is
quite regular in both directions (although of course regional dialects
vary).

Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

 

[Arie de Muijnck]

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

Oh, these memories... French started when I was 11, English at 12,
German at 13. Had exams in all 4 languages.

Papa fume une pipe.
Maman coupe le pain.
Le soldat sur la mur.
etc...

But it still really helps on holydays in France :-}

Arie

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Fri, 24 Dec 2021 18:14:09 +0100) it happened Arie de Muijnck
<noreply@ademu.com> wrote in <61c5ffe1$0$9511$e4fe514c@usenet.xs4all.nl>:

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

Oh, these memories... French started when I was 11, English at 12,
German at 13. Had exams in all 4 languages.

Papa fume une pipe.
Maman coupe le pain.
Le soldat sur la mur.
etc...

But it still really helps on holydays in France :-}

Arie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJvI0WNihyM

 

[Jan Frank]

Arie de Muijnck <noreply@ademu.com> wrote:

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

Oh, these memories... French started when I was 11, English at 12,
German at 13. Had exams in all 4 languages.

Papa fume une pipe.
Maman coupe le pain.
Le soldat sur la mur.
etc...

But it still really helps on holydays in France :-}

Arie

I am Canadian and married my wife while I was with NATO in Metz, France.
Our first child was a boy, and by the time he was 4, he could speak fluent
French and English. He knew which was which, and never got them confused.

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages. I
suppose it is an evolutionary necessity to be able to say they are hungry
(they are always hungry), and to learn the other things essential to life.
It is a beautiful thing to watch.

 

[Don Y]

On 12/24/2021 4:45 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 23/12/2021 10:35, Don Y wrote:
On 12/23/2021 2:39 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

Alexa can\'t manage for example Tyne & Wear (tine and weir), dialect
Chop Gate (chop yat) and Cholmondeley (Chumlee) catch out most non-native
English speakers in fact most non-locals. For that reason the latter was a
location for sensitive military intelligence during WWII.

Worcester (WUSS-ter), Billerica (bill-RICK-a), Berlin (BURR-lin, not burr-LIN),
etc. Or, words that folks often mispronounce (almond, salmon).

I can identify folks who are from my home *town* (not \"state\"!) by their
speech habits -- highly localized.

I can recognise a fair number of British accents but I have all but lost mine
from time spent away from my home town at university and overseas.

*Regional* accents tend to be easy to identify -- New York vs. Boston
vs. West Virginia, etc.

But, in this case, the accent is much more localized -- to a particular
city, not the region containing it. Add to that, local vocabulary
and speech customs and, for a tuned ear, its a dead giveaway.

I met a guy, here, some 2000+ miles from home. Within minutes, I
asked him if he was from my home town. He was stunned at the
unexpectedness of the question. And, that I was able to pick up
on those subtleties in his speech (he\'d lived many other places
in the intervening years).

I had a similar experience when introduced to the CEO\'s wife at
a cocktail party many decades ago. He was actually \"put out\" by
the apparent instant bond I shared with her (and likely wasn\'t
keen on his wife taking an interest in a \"young man\"!).

A neighbor claimed her firstname to be \"Lara\" -- though she spelled it
L-A-U-R-A (\"Isn\'t that Laura??\").

[BTW, I\'m still waiting for a pointer to the code you want compiled...]

If you are willing to give it a go I\'ll email you a copy (about 150k main file
plus a couple of tiny header file stubs to satisfy includes).

gzipped tarball? ZIP/RAR archive?

I don\'t seem to have your email contact details. My own peculiar looking
reply-to address is valid provided that you do not alter it in any way.

I will make a point of dropping you a line a bit later. I\'m presently
waiting on the last (6th!) cheesecake to come out of the oven. It\'s
a rather time critical process to ensure it cools without cracking, etc.

First time around just throw it at the Intel compiler and send me the error
messages (or if by some happenstance it compiles and links OK the output of
running it with no parameters - also about 100-200k).

OK. I will try to plan on doing so over the weekend. By then, I\'ll have
cleared all of my XMAS chores (and can start on those remaining for New Years).

If you have any nice fast series 10 or 11 Intel CPU\'s I\'d be interested in the
output from running an MSC 2019 compiled executable on them too. I\'m looking
for SSE architectural differences affecting out of order and speculative
execution (and how they have changed with time).

That\'s harder. I\'d have to go to the warehouse and see what\'s
lying around. And, once there, I\'d surely get roped into lending a
hand on something *else* (forklift driver quit so I tend to have
to fill in; and, I\'m sure there\'s lots of stuff backed up that
will need to be moved/reshuffled at this time of year)

> I thought you were tied up until the year end.

I am. But, I am finding that I can let the machines do much
of the work while I shift my attention to other tasks.
E.g., one doing \"make world\", another rendering 3D models,
another rendering animations... and, me sitting at this one
pushing files onto the server! :>

Otherwise, I never would have managed to get *any* of my baking
done. (Though I still have 250 dozen cookies to bake -- plus
a batch of biscotti for SWMBO.)

And, I\'ve got to remember to make a XMAS card for SWMBO in
the next few hours (I came up with a great idea, for this year!
Sadly, you can\'t reuse ideas from one year to the next...)

> I know how pressured year end shipment deadlines can be. Good luck!

Well, it\'s self-imposed so not as intense. But, getting it done
SOONER is still better than having it linger on the ToDo list.
It looks like I\'ll get 4 designs released, for sure, by year
end. The fifth may take a back seat due to the baking requirements
(I got distracted helping a disabled neighbor string XMAS lights
on his property and lost half a work-day). The sixth I\'d previously
resigned myself to leaving until after New Years.

I figure most folks aren\'t actively *waiting* for this stuff
as they are enduring the holidays, as well! So, the deadline is
largely symbolic.

> Have a super Christmas!

Ditto.

And I still have to make the cavatelli (though I neglected to pick up
any chestnut flour so they won\'t be as \"special\").

And, harvest the lemons (which are probably WAY too sweet, by now!)

Did I mention that I hate the holidays? (sigh)

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

Arie de Muijnck <noreply@ademu.com> wrote:

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

Oh, these memories... French started when I was 11, English at 12,
German at 13. Had exams in all 4 languages.

Papa fume une pipe.
Maman coupe le pain.
Le soldat sur la mur.
etc...

But it still really helps on holydays in France :-}

Arie

I am Canadian and married my wife while I was with NATO in Metz, France.
Our first child was a boy, and by the time he was 4, he could speak fluent
French and English. He knew which was which, and never got them confused.

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[Don Y]

On 12/24/2021 2:56 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

It\'s relatively uncommon (in the US) for folks to *need* such
immersion as most folks are willing to converse in English, even if
it is not their native tongue.

But, do you *think* in French? Or, do you *translate* into French
(in your head)?

Aside from common interactions, I find I have to *consciously*
map English into the language I want to utter (and vice versa).

And, time away from a language causes it (proficiency) to fade,
rather quickly. (and reading/writing vs. speaking vs. listening)

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

On 2021-12-24 23:10, Don Y wrote:

On 12/24/2021 2:56 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

It\'s relatively uncommon (in the US) for folks to *need* such
immersion as most folks are willing to converse in English, even if
it is not their native tongue.

But, do you *think* in French? Or, do you *translate* into French
(in your head)?

Aside from common interactions, I find I have to *consciously*
map English into the language I want to utter (and vice versa).

And, time away from a language causes it (proficiency) to fade,
rather quickly. (and reading/writing vs. speaking vs. listening)

I have no need to translate. I really think in the target language,
be it Dutch, English or French. In fact, I find translating accurately
from one to another considerably harder than just expressing myself
in the target language ab initio.

I\'m born Dutch, use lots of English professionally and live in
France since 1981. I\'ve had plenty of time to learn. The first
few months were very tiring, is true. It got easier after that.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[Don Y]

On 12/24/2021 3:39 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2021-12-24 23:10, Don Y wrote:
On 12/24/2021 2:56 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

It\'s relatively uncommon (in the US) for folks to *need* such
immersion as most folks are willing to converse in English, even if
it is not their native tongue.

But, do you *think* in French? Or, do you *translate* into French
(in your head)?

Aside from common interactions, I find I have to *consciously*
map English into the language I want to utter (and vice versa).

And, time away from a language causes it (proficiency) to fade,
rather quickly. (and reading/writing vs. speaking vs. listening)

I have no need to translate. I really think in the target language,
be it Dutch, English or French. In fact, I find translating accurately
from one to another considerably harder than just expressing myself
in the target language ab initio.

For anything other than \"common interchanges\", I find myself mentally
pausing as I\'ve translated the *heard* language into english, adjusting
for colloquialisms, etc. formulating my reply, adjusting for idiosyncracies
of the target language and *then* translating into the spoken language.

Part of this is a deficiency in hearing (not a deafness but almost
the equivalent of astigmatism in the ears). So, I have to *see*
the text that I think I\'ve heard and \"read\" it, in my mind. Then,
\"write\" the reply and, finally, speak it to get the correct sounds.

It\'s \"work\". But, something I rarely have to do, now (as most
of my interactions are in english for the past several decades,
dropping into other languages only occasionally for \"pleasantries\").

Growing up, it as much easier to slip in and out of other languages
as interactions were more common and unplanned. But, also, typically
not very \"deep\" (I\'d never try arguing a fine technical point in
anything other than english out of fear my focus on the translation
*process* would lead me to overlook some nuanced meaning)

I\'m born Dutch, use lots of English professionally and live in
France since 1981. I\'ve had plenty of time to learn. The first
few months were very tiring, is true. It got easier after that.

You are most likely *very* immersed. And, would have to *seek* out
dutch speakers in your day-to-day if that was a desire of yours.

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 24.12.21 um 22:56 schrieb Jeroen Belleman:

On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:
Arie de Muijnck <noreply@ademu.com> wrote:

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

I am Canadian and married my wife while I was with NATO in Metz, France.
Our first child was a boy, and by the time he was 4, he could speak
fluent
French and English. He knew which was which, and never got them confused.

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

Jeroen Belleman

I started with Latin, then French and then English.
Really good pupils would have chosen Old-Greek instead of
English. Thanks Goddess I was bad enough.

BTW Metz is 65 Km away from where I live.

But there IS more to it to learn a language as a child.
We once were near Ulm in the valley of the Blau river (to be
somewhat on-topic: that\'s where the Gauss family still lives)
and we (my Ex and me) met an English-speaking couple; the
conversation was in English. After some 20 min the woman
asked if my SO was Russian. That came to a huge surprise
to me as my SO\'s English sounded maybe somewhat German to my
ears, not even Saxonian ( which she CAN speak if asked for,
she\'s from Dresden). Her German is absolutely pure normally.

But she has spent her first 3 years in the \"stars town\" near
Moscow because her father was there as a kosmonaut-to-be and
she speaks Russian good enough to buy Bolschoi tickets for
non-tourists.

According to a customer of mine who is a Russian-German
medical doctor (you can discuss dielectric resonators with him)
the fine pronounciation is lost unless you learn it as a small
child. There are differences in R and L among others. I cannot
hear that.

And Bodmer in his book \"Languages Of The World\" writes
clearly: \"You want to learn really good Russian? Wait until
your next re-incarnation\".

BTW, when in Nepals I tried to learn Nepali, and I had a
language guide with lots of drawings of tigers, flies,
butterflies and such. We used to stay for the night at local
farmers and their kids soon found out about my language guide.
The kids pointed to the butterfly and shouted \"putali\". These
are the Nepalese words I did never ever forget. Maybe the
children are somehow contagious.

Gerhard

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 25.12.21 um 00:50 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann:

BTW, when in Nepals I tried to learn Nepali, and I had a
language guide with lots of drawings of tigers, flies,
butterflies and such. We used to stay for the night at local
farmers and their kids soon found out about my language guide.
The kids pointed to the butterfly and shouted \"putali\". These
are the Nepalese words I did never ever forget. Maybe the
children are somehow contagious.

The first guy I tried my Nepali on was a porter.
He understood nothing. Zilch. It later turned out
that he was Tibetan and did not know a single word
of Nepali. That\'s probably why he was a porter
and not a guide.

Gerhard

 

[Jan Frank]

Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

> On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

[...]

I am Canadian and married my wife while I was with NATO in Metz, France.
Our first child was a boy, and by the time he was 4, he could speak fluent
French and English. He knew which was which, and never got them confused.

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

Jeroen Belleman

I picked up a few phrases quickly (voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ein bier
bitta), but it took years before I was able to think in French. Our son had
no such trouble. Children simply inhale a language.

 

[Jan Frank]

Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:

Am 24.12.21 um 22:56 schrieb Jeroen Belleman:
On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:

[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

Jeroen Belleman

I started with Latin, then French and then English.
Really good pupils would have chosen Old-Greek instead of
English. Thanks Goddess I was bad enough.

BTW Metz is 65 Km away from where I live.

Saarbrucken? I didn\'t realize the border was that close. We used to take
many trips to a US base nearby to get parts for our ford. One time we had a
load of exhaust pipes and mufflers. We stopped at the border for customs.

When the agent asked if we had anything to declare, our son who was in the
back seat, started screaming at the top of his lungs. The agent rolled his
eyes and waved us through. Our son saved us a bit of trouble that day

[snip fascinating story]

> Gerhard

 

[David Brown]

On 24/12/2021 22:56, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2021-12-24 20:24, Jan Frank wrote:
Arie de Muijnck <noreply@ademu.com> wrote:

On 2021-12-24 16:24, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Here in the Netherlands they started teaching French in kindergarten.
Maybe that is why I have few problems with the language when in France.
They did not start with German and English until highschool.

Oh, these memories... French started when I was 11, English at 12,
German at 13. Had exams in all 4 languages.

      Papa fume une pipe.
      Maman coupe le pain.
      Le soldat sur la mur.
           etc...

But it still really helps on holydays in France  :-}

Arie

I am Canadian and married my wife while I was with NATO in Metz, France.
Our first child was a boy, and by the time he was 4, he could speak
fluent
French and English. He knew which was which, and never got them confused.

It never ceased to amaze me how quickly children pick up languages.[...]

A myth, incessantly repeated. Adults can pick up a new language in
much less time, provided they are motivated and completely immersed.
It took me, as an adult, less than a year to become fluent in French.

It depends on many factors. Immersion and dedication is certainly very
important to learning any language. There\'s no doubt that most adults
/could/ learn another language fairly fluently if they are motivated,
spend the time and effort required, have suitable learning facilities,
and practice sufficiently outside of the learning environment. (I
consider my mother-in-law\'s refusal to speak English to me, and
incredible patience, as significant to my learning Norwegian.)

However, there are many factors that differentiate learning a language
as an adult, and learning it as a child.

To start with, in the first two years of life (and especially the first
six months), a baby\'s ears and immediate auditory processing is
extremely malleable. The system is trained and tuned to hear and
distinguish the phoneme of the language the baby hears around it. There
are hundreds of phonemes used in languages around the world, but each
language only uses a subset. Added to that, languages vary
significantly in how they handle tones, variations in volume, and other
factors. Your hearing system is tuned and trained during this part of
your life, and while it can learn more throughout your life its
flexibility drops off sharply with age.

When you learn another language as an adult, but find that certain
sounds in the language are particularly difficult and you get them wrong
both when speaking and listening, it is because you simply cannot hear
the difference.

The effect of this is stronger the greater the difference between the
languages. Being born and brought up in the Netherlands, you\'ll
probably have had early contact with several other languages in addition
to Dutch. If you had heard enough French or English, you\'d have some
familiarity with the few phonemes that you would otherwise be missing
when you learned French as an adult. But if you had decided to learn,
say, Chinese or Thai as an adult, you\'d have had a bigger challenge.

Another big effect is language learning at school. Very few of us keep
much of the French, German or whatever that we \"learned\" at school. But
like many subjects at school, the point is not to learn the subject but
to learn to learn. I remember almost nothing of my French or German
from school, despite having got quite solid grades - but I have no doubt
that they made it far easier to learn Norwegian as an adult.