Tag: MFL

ChatGPT releases custom GPT models

ChatGPT, Your Way : Custom GPTs In The Wild!

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This week saw one of the biggest recent developments in consumer AI. ChatGPT released GPTs – customisable AI bots – into the wild for Plus members, and the community has gone wild.

In a nutshell, GPTs are AI bots with custom behaviour that you define. And you define that behaviour using natural language, just like how you talk to regular ChatGPT.

Crucially, GPTs are shareable. So you can come up with a killer app idea, set it up in seconds, then share your creation with the world. Already, linguists and language lovers are sharing their creations on the socials.

ChatGPT for Worksheet Creation

Obviously, I couldn’t wait to get playing when the GPT creation tool went live this week. I’ve long been a cheerleader for topic-based units for independent study, especially when preparing for spoken lessons. So the first thing I coded up was a foreign language worksheet creator!

It’s the kind of thing I’ve been writing and sharing prompts about for a while, now. The big game-changer, of course, is that now, all that functionality is packaged up into a single, one-click module. Open it, tell it your language, topic and level, and watch it go. This will produce a range of resources and activities for independent learning, including a vocabulary list, reading comprehensions, and cloze quizzes.

Genuinely useful for self-study!

Foreign Language Worksheet Creator GPT in ChatGPT

Foreign Language Worksheet Creator GPT in ChatGPT

It’s already been a learning experience, for all of us tinkerers. For one thing, I found out not to overload it by trying to do too much at once, or turning on all its capabilities (browsing, code interpretation and image creation). I ended up with a uselessly slow initial version that I can no longer even reopen to edit.

Ah well – these things make us!

Old English Monkeys

When you do get a working version, however, you can boggle at the versatility of it. That’s thanks to the billions of training points backing up the platform. I asked it to create an Old English worksheet on the topic “Monkeys”, in the style of a Modern Languages worksheet, as a cheeky wee test. Admittedly, ChatGPT did say that it would be a challenging task. After all, just how many Old English documents do researchers train their LLMs on? But the results were really not bad at all…

An Old English worksheet in ChatGPT

An Old English worksheet in ChatGPT

 

I expect many of us are playing these games, pushing the new tech to see how far it can go. At the very least, we can all revisit those isolated prompt ideas we’ve been collecting over the past months, and turn them into shareable GPTs – for work and for fun.

Have you had chance to play yet? Share your proud creations with us in the comments!

A neon lock with a glowing owl motif, reminiscent of Duolingo

Green Handcuffs – Duolingo and the Walled Garden of Welsh

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What happens when you pour your heart into learning a language on service X, then service X mothballs the resource? It’s a situation many Welsh learners found themselves in this week, as Duolingo announced an indefinite pause to further development of its Welsh course. 

The immediate question is where do these learners go? There are other Welsh courses, of course, like the excellent materials at LearnWelsh.cymru. But the Duolingo announcement begs a further question: how do these learners take their progress with them? Progress data, the result of weeks, months, years of hard learning work, is locked into Duolingo’s proprietary system.

Now, you can already request your personal data from Duolingo. The Duolingo Data Vault is definitely a welcome addition in data transparency, allowing you to access personal data records the site holds on you. But crucially, language-based progress is missing. There’s nothing to say what you’ve studied, item for item. That means there’s no way to pick up where you left off elsewhere, with a true record of where you are.

No wonder users feel a bit stuck inside a course consigned to gather dust.

Duolingo Data Vault files, unzipped.

Duolingo Data Vault files, unzipped.

Interoperability and Language Learning

It all sounded very familiar after tech activist Cory Doctorow’s recent discussion of open internet practices in The Internet Con. This quick read (well worth a look for anyone invested in apps and services – ie., all of us) bemoans the walled gardens that Big Tech firms have become. They’re great places to be, when they work for/with us. But when they suddenly change at the whim of execs, the lack of interoperability – standards or conventions that allow you to use data from one service on another – leaves us stranded and at their mercy.

Don’t like a recent update? Tough, you’ll just have to stay, or start from scratch on another service.

It’s not for a lack of standards. Language learning platforms have long used industry-wide formats to allow interoperability. Take the plain old CSV (comma-separated value) spec. You’ve long been able export your Anki deck in this plain text format, and import it into another service like Quizlet or Educandy.

Not to be too hard on Duolingo (we love it really), there’s a clear counterargument to allowing full export of full vocabulary and phrase lists, as with Anki and Quizlet decks. The full complement of learning text is the result of lots of hard work on company time; it’s a copyrighted resource just as a course book is.

Opening the Duolingo Garden Wall

But when it’s tied to user progress, it becomes something else; a personal record of items we’ve committed to memory. Other programs export this as a matter of course. Anki, for example, will export frequency and accuracy data alongside vocabulary item entries. It shouldn’t be too hard to export this subset of Duolingo material in a universal format that could be loaded without fuss into an app like Anki.

Duolingo might well fret about losing users if the effort costs of leaving were reduced like this. No big tech corp is under obligation to organise its data in a way that helps users migrate. But you can imagine a world of interoperable ‘take your data with you’ standards to have a double-edged benefit.

First off, it could incentivise Duolingo to strive for constant betterment, to be additive rather than reductive in its updates. The race would be to the top, rather than the bottom, to maintain a winning app for all. There’d be an open door, but nobody would feel the need to defect (or the resentment that they can’t).

Likewise, there’s a general benefit even if the resources simply aren’t there for a Welsh continuation on Duo. Course migration standards would allow smaller companies to step in and fill in the gaps. Duo could focus on its core projects and nobody would feel linguistically homeless. And, of course, if Duolingo offered the missing service again in future, it would be easy to move right back.

Perhaps it’s time to make a request of our beloved owl in the name of an open web for linguists.  As the trailblazer that you are, could you be a leader in open standards, prising ajar the door to these walled gardens?

A neon globe surrounded by books - the AI future is here.

AI for Language Teachers – the Essential Bookshelf

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Clearly, emerging Artificial Intelligence platforms have colossal potential to transform education. Indeed, they are already doing so, proving to innovative disruptors that teachers and students are still grappling to understand. Given the pace of change, where can educators find solid training on practical, classroom-ready AI techniques?

Thankfully, a raft of publications has sprung up with teaching practice at its core. Many of the best titles are from author-educators who have self-published from personal experience. Self-publishing, of course, is a quick, reactive way to get books out there, so it’s unsurprising that there are so many gems that don’t originate with big publishing houses.

It must be said that the majority of current titles are US-centric – again, unsurprising, given that largely US-based AI companies have generally release the leading-edge innovations in the US first. That said, the following picks are all notable for a universal approach, with a generality that should make them useful whatever the setting.

Without further ado, here is the language teacher’s essential AI bookshelf!

The Essential AI Bookshelf

THE AI CLASSROOM

Amazon product image - the AI Classroom The AI Classroom With five-star reviews almost across the board, the authors of The AI Classroom were quick off the mark; the book has become an early leader for practical teaching ideas utilising artificial intelligence. It contains a broad range of ready-to-use prompts, perhaps the most reliable hallmark of the best AI guides for teachers and learners on the market at the moment. What is particularly insightful is the discussion of school policy as an important consideration – an indispensable consideration, particularly for department heads and administrators.

THE AI INFUSED CLASSROOM

Amazon product image - The AI-Infused Classroom

The AI Infused Classroom by Holly Clark is a practical and visionary guide for educators who want to use emerging LLM tools to transform teaching and learning. Clark, a seasoned teacher and edtech expert, is author of The Infused Classroom series, which explores how to amplify student voices with technology. This book builds on those ideas, demonstrating how to leverage AI as a catalyst for innovation, creativity, and deep learning. The book adopts a refreshingly student-centred approach to classroom AI, and is a source of invaluable best practice for teachers of languages and otherwise.

AI FOR LEARNING

Amazon product image - AI for Learning Part of the AI for Everything series, AI for Learning is a book that explores how the medium can, and should, positively impact human learning in various contexts. The authors offer a clear and engaging introduction to the concepts, applications, and implications of AI for learning. The book serves as both an explanatory introduction and practical guide, covering topics from core concepts of AI to how it can develop critical thinking and digital citizenship skills, and prepare learners for the future of work and learning. The book also addresses the ethical and social issues that arise from using AI for learning, such as privacy, bias, accountability, and trust.

80 WAYS TO USE CHATGPT IN THE CLASSROOM

Amazon product image - 80 Ways to Use ChatGPT in the Classroom You can’t beat a good old ‘X ways to do…’ guidebook, and this volume boasts an impressive 80 of them! 80 Ways to Use ChatGPT in the classroom gets straight down to brass tacks with organised, practical prompt examples. A particular strength of this book is a welcome nod to balance throughout, with ample discussion of the issues as well as the well-fanfared benefits. As one of the earliest of these guides to appear, the focus is ChatGPT. However, as with all of these books, the knowledge is easily transferrable to other platforms.

AI FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS

The cover of AI for Language Learners by Rich West-Soley As the only title to focus specifically on languages – and the one I penned myself – I could hardly leave out AI for Language Learners! Written to be accessible to individual learners as well as classroom teachers, it’s packed full of practical prompt ideas. These cover language reference, practice activities and resource creation. What’s more, the book includes access to a website with copy-paste prompt for those with the paperback. That is definitely a boon to those those typing fingers! The book was a labour of love over summer 2023, and is the product some very enthusiastic experimentation to support my own polyglot learning. I hope you have as much fun trying the prompts as I did writing them.

Brave New World

As AI comes to land firmly in classrooms over the coming months, we’ll undoubtedly be seeing title after title appear. Are there any favourite titles of yours that we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments!

Fun With Texts : Travel Edition

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I came across an ancient video this week that took me right back. The video in question  was from a series of video diary entries I made on a trip to Austria in 2004. In this particular segment, I was proudly showing off the stash of free leaflets I’d cached from Klagenfurt town hall – treasures of authentic texts to take home for my teaching materials box.

German-language texts from Austria - leaflets about the EU in 2004

Austrian leaflets about the EU (2004)

A still of Rich West-Soley showing some leaflets from Austria in a video from 2004

Showing off my Austrian leaflet haul in 2004 in a video shot on a phone just a little more sophisticated than a toaster, judging from the quality

Fast forward 19 years, and I’m approaching the end of a wonderful, extended trip around Greece. It’s been a holiday full of wonderful sights, amazing food, and of course, lots of language practice. Incidentally, Greeks must be amongst the most encouraging people on the planet when you try to speak their language.

But what links this trip with that early noughties vid is that continued fascination with curating authentic texts. It’s a polyglot obsession that’s lasted well beyond my classroom teaching days; there’s no longer any teaching materials box to fill, but I’m still on the hunt.

Hunting Texts : Then and Now

The format has changed, naturally. It’s less about free brochures and leaflets now. Alas, my EasyJet baggage allowance won’t quite stretch to that any more. This time, it’s digital – and I’ve been going to town collecting text samples for my virtual Greek learning box.

Of course, Greece has a tradition of texts that stretches back a little further than many fellow European countries. It’s been particularly fun looking out for inscriptions on the many ancient monuments, and spotting similarities and differences between the ancient and modern languages.

A stone tablet in an Ancient Greek ruin, with a partial inscription in Greek

Authentic Texts in stone!

An Ancient Greek artefact


But it’s the modern examples that really hit the spot – the more everyday and prosaic the better. From bags of crisps to public notices, every bit of writing is a potential new word learnt, and an extra peep into the target language culture. It’s addictive.

A notice to save water on a Greek ship

Save water, and save those words (in Anki!)

A washing machine control panel with Greek labelling

It’ll all come out in the wash

As far as I’m concerned, there’s never any going over-the-top when collecting digital texts. Knock yourself out with as much target language as you can! The criteria for what makes an authentic text are wildly broad – it can be the odd couple of words, a text-dense poster or an entire book. It all has worth to us as learners, no matter how long.

The only rule I try to stick to is one of practical use; I aim to try and use the images somewhere, be it a blog post (like this one on German political posters) or by scraping the language for Anki flashcard entries.

A bag of crisps with Greek labelling

Language snacks

Are you a curator of authentic texts in your target language? How do you collect them, and what do you do with them afterwards? Let us know in the comments!

AI for Language Learners by Rich West-Soley; ChatGPT, Bing and more for your languages study

AI for Language Learners – Book Now Available!

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It was a labour of love that happily took up most of my summer, and it’s finally out! I’m very chuffed to announce that my book AI for Language Learners is available on all Amazon stores.

 

The book is the product of months of tweaking, prodding and experimenting with emerging AI chat platforms. If you’re a Polyglossic regular, you’ll have seen some of those nascent techniques appear on the blog as I’ve developed and used them in my own learning. The blog has been a bedding ground for those first book ideas, and I’m thankful to everyone who has followed along with my own AI journey.

What we’ve come to call AI are, strictly speaking, actually large language models (LLMs). These LLMs arise from billions of words of training material – truly staggering amounts of data. The resulting super-text machines are perfect matches for subjects that benefit from a creative flair with words, and as language learners, wordplay is our currency. The book contains over 50 rich prompts for getting the absolute most out of AI’s impressive capacity for it.

The process has been huge fun. Of course, that’s thanks largely to the often unintentional humour our non-sentient friends ChatGPT, Bing and others. I try to get this across in the book, which has its fair share of lighthearted moments.

I hope you have as many smiles trying the recipes out as I did putting them together!

AI for Language Learners is available on Amazon Kindle (UK £2.99, US $2.99) or in paperback (UK £7.99, US $7.99). Even better: if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member, you can download and read it as part of your subscription.

The Flag of Sweden, the Scandinavian country where Swedish is spoken. Image from Wikipedia.org.

The Great Norwegian – Swedish Mismatch Game

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If you’ve been following my recent posts, you’ll know I’ve embarked upon a new journey of late. It’s a strange, yet also strangely familiar one. I’ve skipped across the Norwegian frontier and am learning Swedish.

Learning a language so closely related to one you already speak is a very particular kind of language learning. Uniquely, you’re not starting from scratch. In fact, you most likely already have a decent degree of passive comprehension, either in reading, listening, or both. It’s what made annual Melfest viewing so much more rewarding, despite never having studied a jot of Swedish formally!

Because of that passive comprehension, though, beginners’ resources are much less useful when you hop across to sibling languages. For one thing, they’re boring; you feel like you already know the basics, as everything is so familiar. Instead of step-by-step textbooks, a better tactic is systematic exposure to higher-level media like podcasts, TV shows and current affairs apps, with a mindful eye on learning the features that distinguish the two languages.

Swedish ≠ NOrwegian in Disguise

Naively, I thought that might be almost entirely tonal, before I started out on my language family hopping. But no – Swedish isn’t just Norwegian with a cutesy accent. There are a lot more vocabulary differences than I’d expected.

Sometimes these are due to borrowing from different sources. Swedish, once the language of an expansive European great power, might have a Middle German loan (like fråga, question) where Norwegian has a North Germanic root (spørsmål). Other times, it’s Swedish that preserves the Norse root (bjuda, invite), while Norwegian has an international interloper (invitere). And then there are times they both go native in different ways (Swedish jämföra and Norwegian sammenligne, to compare).

In any case, my Swedish vocab strategy is to audit the mismatches I find, rather than make a record of all the vocabulary I come across. It’s fascinating watching it come together, like a tale of two siblings who were thick as thieves before going their separate ways. You can see the results so far below, a rather random hotchpotch of items I’ve spotted my recent listening and reading. It’s still early days, and it’s impossible ever to make this exhaustive, of course.

But that said, I hope other double-Scandi learners find it interesting and/or useful!

The Great Norwegian – Swedish Mismatch List

Nouns

🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇬🇧
en avis en tidning a newspaper
en bedrift, et selskap ett företag, ett bolag a company
en edderkopp en spindel a spider
en flamme en låga a flame
en forskjell en skillnad a difference
en lommebok en plånbok a wallet
lykke, flaks tur (good) luck
oppførsel beteende behaviour
ei pute en kudde a pillow
et samfunn ett samhälle a society
en sang en låt a song
en sky ett moln a cloud
en ting en sak a thing
en ulv en varg a wolf
en utfordring en utmaning a challenge

Verbs

🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇬🇧
bruke använda use
finde hitta find
fortelle berätta tell
invitere bjuda invite
like gilla, tycker om like
pleie å gjøre bruka göra to usually do
sammenligne jämföra compare
snakke prata, tala speak, talk
spise äta eat
stole på lita på rely on
unngå undvika avoid

Other

🇳🇴 🇸🇪 🇬🇧
alle allihop everyone
cirka ungefær approximately, about
den eneste den enda the only one
en om gangen en i taget one at a time
en slags … en sorters … a kind of …
fordi eftersom, för att because
… igjen … kvar … left (over)
klar redo ready
nettopp (gjort) precis (gjort) just (done)
nå for tiden numera these days
selvsagt, åpenbart självklart obviously
skuffet besviken disappointed

Are there any biggies you’d add to this nascent list? Please share in the comments!

Using Bing's AI chat to play a word association game in French.

AI Chat Prompts for Language Learning Practice

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As AI becomes more and more a fixture of daily life, it’s not surprising to see it sneaking gradually into the language learning setting. The list of AI-infused apps is growing daily: premium chatbots, word games and other practice tools that are taking app stores by storm.

But before you shell out the cash, be reassured that you don’t need to spend a penny to bring the magic of AI to your own routine. You can achieve exactly the same, routine-transforming effects with a few handy prompts and free-to-access AI platforms.

AI for Free

There is an impressive and ever-growing array of AI chatbots to experiment with, some free, some premium. The difference, largely, is in the amount of environment setup that has already been done in premium apps. This is often just a case of configuring the AI to play a certain role, or act in a certain way. But here’s the secret:

You can do this easily yourself, with no development skills required.

It’s simply a case of good prompting. Tell it, in simple, natural English, the rules of the activities you want to run. Define the way you want it to respond to you. Give it a role to play. And state your limits and boundaries. Get a handle on prompting effectively, and popular, free platforms will more than suffice.

The biggie, of course, is ChatGPT, which has a solid free tier for general use. Google have also joined the game with the commendable Bard, which is definitely worth a look. That said, since Microsoft released their new AI-powered Bing chat mode, I’ve been using that more and more. It has an excellent Creative Mode preset, which gives it more unpredictable, humanlike responses. Just bear in mind that Bing currently limits the conversation to a 30-interaction maximum.

The following examples use French and Swedish to show how I’ve been using it to support my own language practice. Just swap in your own target language as required!

Word Games

The simplest kind of game to set up is good old basic word play. The following prompt sets up a turn-based alphabet game, which challenges your vocab recall:

Let’s play a word game in French. We have to go through the alphabet in turns, stating a verb that begins with each letter, plus a short sentence using that verb in context. Let’s play!

One of the best things about using AI for these kinds of language games is the capacity for on-the-fly correction and feedback; it can sometimes appear almost human. Below, I started cheating by inventing words, but Bing was far too clever to be caught out!

Playing a language learning word game - and trying to cheat - with Microsoft Bing's AI-powered chat mode.

Playing a language learning word game – and trying to cheat – with Microsoft Bing’s AI-powered chat mode.

Another fun vocab item practice mode is word association. The following prompt sets up a game where the meaning of each turn’s word must be related to the last. If the bot considers the link too tenuous, you lose the game:

Let’s play a word association game in French. You kick us off with a random noun. We then take it in turns to give a word which is somehow related in meaning to the last. If the link is too tenuous, the player loses. Shall we play?

It’s a great way to recycle vocabulary. You might need to play with the prompt to make your AI teacher a little less strict, though. Mine ended up with a bit of a mean streak. Very harsh!

Bing AI being VERY harsh on me in a word association game.

Bing AI being VERY harsh on me in a word association game.

Story Games (with Tutor Mode!)

When you’re ready to take it beyond words, AI is ready for you. One of the most amusing ways to practise with full sentences is storytelling. Try this prompt for a narrative whirl:

Let’s play a turn-based storytelling game to help me practise my French. We build a story by taking it in turns to add a sentence each time. Please keep the language level to about A2, and tell me about any mistakes I make as we go along. The story should be set in the present day. You start us off!

Note the specification of a language level, as well as the instruction to correct your mistakes as you go. It makes the AI response so rich and helpful that it really is a gift to learn from. To tailor it further, try adding instructions about which tenses to use (narrative present or past?), and even vocabulary topics to crowbar in.

Role-play

Ai chat can prepare you for real-world chat, too. Setting up a foreign language role-play is as simple as describing the situation in as much detail as you like:

Let’s do some role-play to help me practise my French! You play a friendly waiter in a Paris café, and I am a customer. I enter the café and you come over to take my order. You realise I’m learning French and so give me very simple descriptions of all the dishes. But you keep mishearing me, so I have to repeatedly rephrase what I ask for.

This can be as straight-laced or as silly as you like. Sometimes, it’s a case of the crazier, the better. There’s nothing like a bit of silliness to increase engagement and recall.

You can even target the chat more by priming the AI with the actual vocabulary items you want to lever in. It’s a great way to recycle words over and over again:

I want to practise talking in Swedish about family. Imagine you’re a friend of mine and we’re having a chat about our families. Keep the language level to about A2 on the CEFR language scale, and using the following words as much as possible: mamma, pappa, bror, syster, vänner, snäll, vänlig, lita på, besöka

Whether you’re new to AI, or just beginning to experiment with it yourself, I hope these sample prompts give you some useful, fun practice ideas. Do you have any good ones to add to the list? Let us know in the comments!

The French flag flying in front of a town hall. Parlez-vous français ou anglais?

Désolé, je suis anglais…

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Désolé, je ne comprends pas, je suis anglais…

Words of shame from any self-identifying polyglot. Nonetheless, I found myself stuttering them out in a crammed Paris branch of fnac on a Saturday afternoon, befuddled and bewildered by a particularly opaque queuing system. A harassed and exhausted assistant had muttered some question that went totally over my head in the mêlée, and flustered, I admitted defeat.

Luckily, a very kind fellow shopper overheard the confusion, and stepped in with a simplified and friendly “carte bancaire?“. The kindness was especially benevolent since my saviour didn’t immediately switch to English – the ultimate polyglot shame. What a considerate way to help, I thought – to support my use of the language, rather than my failure in it.

Un coup anglais

In any case, the breach of flow did  bruise my ego a little. That’s despite an insistence that French is my low stakes language, my weak ‘extra’ that I’m happy to just get by in. I shouldn’t really care. But still, why didn’t I reach for support phrases instead, a polite “pardon?” or “répétez-vous, s’il vous plaît“? And most of all, why, blurt out my nationality, as if it were some excuse for not understanding French properly? It’s like the biggest faux pas in the book.

The fact is, when there are multiple distractions in the heat of the moment, brains do struggle. It’s completely normal. We reach for whatever is easiest, whatever bridges the gap most quickly. But, as I’ve said many times, beating yourself up about it is an equally poor language learning strategy. What is a good strategy is spotting when you do err towards self-flagellation, and employing a bit of self-kindness and consideration out ‘in the field’.

Regroup, recharge

So what did I do after this particular stumble?

I found a branch of Paul – an eatery where I know my French will work more than decently – and treated myself, en français, to a coffee and pastry. Basic stuff, but it topped my confidence levels back up, and made me appreciate how situational conditions are as much, if not more, responsible for our missteps as any lack of knowledge.

And, by the time I took my seat at Matt Pokora’s fabulous 20 years concert, I was gallicising with the best of them again. You should have seen me mouthing along to Tombé like a native (or perhaps rather like the reluctant churchgoer struggling to remember the hymns).

It’s appropriate that Matt took his last name from the Polish for humility, and practising that – at least acknowledging that we are all fallible – is no bad thing for a polyglot.

Hotspot for politics: inside the cupola of the German Reichstag in Berlin

The Power of Languages: Using Politics to Engage with Your Target Language

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Politics isn’t a dirty word! Well, it needn’t be. It might actually be a gateway to both better target language skills, and greater engagement in your target language culture.

I’ve written previously about the passive benefits learners of highly visible political language. The concise, snappy nature of sloganism is just perfect for bite-sized language lessons. But language itself is a potent tool capable of conveying ideas, forging connections, and instigating change. In the realm of politics, language serves as a vehicle to raise awareness, mobilise communities, and advocate for transformative action.

And harnessing that power is an excellent way to participate directly with your target language culture.

Finding a Way In

To get started turning politics into a learning strategy, reaching out to political or activist organisations in your target language countries is an effective first approach. This not only deepens your understanding of the political landscape in those nations, but also allows you to actively contribute to the fight for a better future on your terms.

Here are some valuable resources to kickstart your journey, each of which are mineable for links to your particular country of interest:

  • Action Network: Discover and join political and activist organisations in your target language country. [https://actionnetwork.org/]
  • Change.org: Initiate and sign petitions on crucial issues that resonate with you. [https://www.change.org/]
  • Global Citizen: Take action on global challenges such as poverty, climate change, and human rights. [https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/]
  • MoveOn.org: Engage in political activism by contacting elected officials and supporting political campaigns. [https://moveon.org/]
  • 350.org: Join the fight against climate change by mobilizing individuals to take meaningful action. [https://350.org/]

Politics and Social Media

Social media platforms also offer excellent opportunities to connect with political or activist organisations in your target language country. Following political accounts – for instance, Senterpartiet in Norway, or Sweden’s SV – can equip you with the vocabulary and structures you need to engage.

It’s also helpful to follow a range of organisations, including those espousing views that might not necessarily overlap with your own. Preparing yourself for both sides of a debate is never a bad idea.

Here are a few steps you can take:

  1. Research: Identify organisations or groups that align with your political interests and goals. Explore their online presence, including their websites and social media profiles, to gain insights into their mission, activities, and values.

  2. Follow and Engage: Follow the organisations’ social media accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Stay updated on their initiatives, campaigns, and events. Engage with their posts by liking, commenting, and sharing to show your support and connect with like-minded individuals.

  3. Direct Messaging: Some organisations may provide contact information or allow direct messaging through their social media profiles. Consider reaching out to express your interest in getting active, ask questions, or seek more information about their work. Be concise, polite, and explain your language learning journey and enthusiasm for their cause.

  4. Hashtags and Communities: Utilise relevant hashtags and join online communities or groups dedicated to political activism or social causes in your target language country. Participate in discussions, share your insights, and connect with individuals who share your passion.

  5. Online Events and Webinars: Many organisations host online events, webinars, or live streams to share knowledge, discuss pressing issues, and engage their audience. Attend these events and actively participate by asking questions or sharing your perspectives. This allows you to connect with both the organisation and fellow participants.

By leveraging social media platforms, you can broaden your network, stay informed, and actively engage with political or activist organisations in your target language country. This digital connection provides a gateway to collaborate, learn, and contribute to meaningful change.

Getting Involved

Once you’ve established contact with political or activist organisations, whether through social media or other means, you can explore various avenues to contribute. Volunteer your time, make donations, or even consider running for a position. By actively participating, you’ll utilise your language skills to make a tangible impact.

Here are a couple of additional tips for connecting with political or activist organisations in your target language country:

  • Respect the culture: When communicating in another language, it’s vital to show respect for the culture and language of the individuals involved. Use appropriate language forms and be mindful of cultural sensitivities.
  • Persevere: Finding the right organisation for you may require some time and effort. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t immediately find the perfect fit. Remain persistent, continue your search, and you’ll eventually discover an organisation that aligns with your passions.

With these suggestions, I hope you’re inspired to use and improve your language skills by exploring the politics of your target language countries. Let your linguistic abilities be a force for positive change!

The Flag of Sweden, the Scandinavian country where Swedish is spoken. Image from Wikipedia.org.

Scandinavian Swapshop : Switching Teams Late in the Game?

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I always think Scandinavian languages are like football teams. You pick one and you stick with it.

It was Norwegian that I plucked out of the polyglot hat very early on. Admittedly, as with many of those early language choices, it was my Eurovision favourites that led the way. I positively lapped up Norway’s entries in the 90s, so resolved to learn as much as I possibly could about the country and language (or languages, as I soon found out).

Scandinavian Value for Money

The thing is, with a Scandi lang, you get bang for your buck. First-language speakers of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish grow up with this in mind. They readily understand each other’s languages – to varying degrees – and consume media from each other’s countries with few issues.

As a second-language speaker, you too can gain access to that value for money party to some extent. Learning Norwegian equips you with an ability to read Danish and Swedish with little difficulty, and, I soon found, to follow the gist to the most animated of Melodifestivalen presenters. You can even fake speaking one of the other languages semi-successfully by adjusting your accent and tone. It’s like supporting your team, but nipping over to see a rival team’s games now and again.

But this year, of course, Sweden went and won Eurovision (again). And if there’s anything that makes me want to learn a new language ‘properly’, it’s the thought of visiting a country to attend said Eurovision. How hard can it be, I thought? Norwegian and Swedish are so similar, it’s just a case of tweaking here and there.

Little Difference, Big Difference?

Ohhhh, no. I soon realised that it’s a slippery slope to assume any of the Scandilangs line up with each other perfectly. As I delve into formal Swedish study for the first time, I’m learning how unintentionally hilarious that assumption could be. For instance, the Norwegian word ful can mean clever or sly. Don’t go calling anyone in Sweden that, though. There, it means ugly.

Other mismatches are perhaps less likely to get you into actual trouble, but will still give you away as a blagger, not a speaker. You’ll need to remember that a newspaper is a tidning, not an avis, for example. You don’t like (like) and huske (remember) but rather tycka om and komma ihåg, using phrasal constructions that Swedish seems so much more partial to than Norwegian. And before you cry wolf, be aware that it’s a varg, not an ulv (incidentally, Swedish ditched the latter due to superstition, a fascinating phenomenon known as taboo replacement).

In any case, having a real go at Swedish is opening my eyes to how different the languages are from each other, and challenging the flawed assumption of equivalency. Maybe soon, I’ll be singing along to those Melfest favourites in the original language, and not my best faux Swewegian.

I’m still Team Norway – but might have sneakily bought a Sweden scarf to whip out at the right moment now and again too.