Changes worth celebrating, that have happened in my lifetime

[matticus]

Mod note:

Folks, the discussions about languages and car crumple zones would make good topics in threads of their own. Now that this has steered back on topic could we keep it there.

Thanks

Eh? What topic is that?? Seems to be all about Brexit now.

 

[bitsandbobs]

Plenty of innovation in the UK over the last decades.
I drink draught.

Good to hear! Got an example?

 

[Blue Hills]

Good to hear! Got an example?

too many - i drink mostly from spoon's generous ever changing selection - usually at a place dubbed by a famed writer as "one of the finest booze altars we've ever seen"
I'm not technical on beer anyway - just know what I like.
cheers

 

[mudsticks]

I very much doubt that. You are talking about names of things.

Care to give us an example para of one of your chats down the cabbage patch in latin?

Latin is really useful botanically.
Not just so we all know precisely what we're talking about, but the nomenclature being grouped into families helps understand cultural conditions necessary.

I use a fair bit of Sanskrit in my evening job too. Fascinating stuff - although mine is very basic, it give similar advantages as Latin.

Language learning is great in so many situations, for all kinds of communicating, and cultural exchange.

As well as being a good brain exercise.

The inverted snobbery that resists learning for its own sake, as as well as for utility, is incredibly self defeating imo

 

[Andy in Germany]

As well as being a good brain exercise.

Which produces "happy Hormones" incidentally. From vague memories of my pedagogy classes I think they include Dopamine, which is as close to heroin as our body can get, so in theory you can get a bit high when learning.

 

[mudsticks]

Which produces "happy Hormones" incidentally. From vague memories of my pedagogy classes I think they include Dopamine, which is as close to heroin as our body can get, so in theory you can get a bit high when learning.

That makes sense.

Here's a confession - I can still remember the high I got from solving algebraic equations, or trigonometry - it didn't come easily I'd hasten to add.

But I do still use both in my work..

And getting a breakthrough in learning a new yoga move, or grasping a new concept, still feels pretty good.

 

[Andy in Germany]

But I do still use both in my work..

The getting high or the Equations?

 

[mudsticks]

The getting high or the Equations?

Both

 

[mudsticks]

There...

That's a good change in my lifetime.

That lifelong learning is a good thing, and that its accessible for pretty much anyone, if they choose it.


I was chatting with a lady on a bus in France a few years back (in my very average French - but she was encouraging)

She was starting up on learning something like her seventeenth language - Farsi - different alphabet n all !!

So she could do translations for refugees, now that she'd retired from diplomatic service.

She was somewhere in her mid seventies iirc.

 

[Andy in Germany]

That lifelong learning is a good thing, and that its accessible for pretty much anyone, if they choose it.

Certainly it's a good thing. I think we've a way to go to make it accessible to all who want it though.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Kindles.

Much better than fusty old paperbacks etc.

(Sorry if they have already been mentioned but I have not read the whole thread.)

 

[mudsticks]

Certainly it's a good thing. I think we've a way to go to make it accessible to all who want it though.

Yes to a point, but t'internet is full of free nollige.

I know not everyone has access to all that, but far more do than previously.

 

[PaulB]

The youtube thingamajig. Since that was available, you can learn pretty much anything you want. Without the youtube I wouldn't be able to play any instruments (Banjo, uke, bass guitar and guitar-guitar) or fill in the stud-holes or other holes you get in walls or change gear and brake cables on bikes or repair minor scrapes and scratches on car surfaces. And it's all available for nowt.

 

[Blue Hills]

Latin is really useful botanically.
Not just so we all know precisely what we're talking about, but the nomenclature being grouped into families helps understand cultural conditions necessary.

I use a fair bit of Sanskrit in my evening job too. Fascinating stuff - although mine is very basic, it give similar advantages as Latin.

Language learning is great in so many situations, for all kinds of communicating, and cultural exchange.

As well as being a good brain exercise.

The inverted snobbery that resists learning for its own sake, as as well as for utility, is incredibly self defeating imo

My point remains on latin.
I have a latin O level.
It may even be a grade A.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

What second language should British children learn?

I wouldn’t want to limit it to just one, learning any second language can be beneficial. Perhaps Spanish, with around 450 million native speakers, is a good one to start with and could be a gateway to all of the other Romance languages.

I have the most basic school French, not having studied it since I was 14 but I have a good knowledge of Italian which came about because we regularly spent our holidays there since 1999.

Fifteen years ago I did two weeks at a language school in Florence to consolidate what I had been learning at home.
In my class were no other native speakers of English, they were from Ecuador, China, Japan, Austria, Guatemala and Brazil but we could all chat and learn about each other because we shared Italian. Isn’t that fantastic?

A couple of years ago, when we were visiting Cortina d’Ampezzo a guy asked me (in Italian) where the bus station was. I gave him directions, we had a nice chat and eventually he asked me where I was from. When I said Glasgow he replied, “Glasgow?! Sure we’re practically cousins, I’m from Dublin!”

And just to keep this within the thread topic, I am grateful for the arrival of the CD which has allowed me to supplement my language learning with loads of material in a compact medium.