Reading Is To The Mind What Exercise Is To The Body

It is very well said that reading is dreaming with open eyes. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are. Books has a whole world in itself. We can fantasize of having a ride on the world’s biggest roller coaster, visiting our prince charming who comes riding on the white horse, diving into the deep blue ocean, swimming in gold coins, tasting the best world cuisine and what not..This is what a book does to us. There are various reasons why reading is considered as the best hobby ever. Books are the only best friends who will never leave us alone even on an isolated island.

Books expand our horizon. Every time reading adds something new to life with perfect blend of diverse subjects. Start by picking up the book on the subject of your interest and then slowly climb the stairs of complex subject. There are different genres of books available today. These are Science, Fiction, Satire, Drama, Romance, Mystery, Horror, Self help, Guide, Travel, Children's group, Religious, History, Mathematics, Anthologies, Poetry, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Comics, Art, Cookbooks, Diaries, Journals, Prayer books, Series, Trilogies, Biographies, Autobiographies, Fantasy etc. Whether we are reading fiction or reality, books can never bring boredom.

Books broaden the outlook and enable mind to grasp new concepts easily. It increases the power and extent of imagination and gives us creative ideas. Reading is very healthy for the brain and keeps it active 24*7 hours. Not only theory, but the practical part can be well achieved through reading. Reading at early age sharpens the mind. It increases our vocabulary and improves pronunciation. We get to learn number of new words plus their meaning. We start framing better sentence structure with proper tenses, prepositions, adjectives and conjunction. It is very well said reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Reading is a complete package of fun with learning.

In the hustle bustle of the world, peace is something we all need. Reading is a very peaceful hobby. We can enjoy reading books in complete silence either on our bed, sofa, in the garden or while traveling. We enjoy reading any where, any time and any place for that serene and tranquil atmosphere. Books take us to the journey of inner thoughts. Books can take you to any decade from ancient time to medieval period or modern time. Similarly it can take you to the place you have always fantasized for. Your thirst of traveling can be very well quenched by reading books. Do you know anything else that offers such enjoyment?

Power of Words

 The wonderful line by P.B. Shelley, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" offers the poets and writers a powerful and impactful position. Generally, we regard poets as people living in a world of their own, an idyllic world. Not only this, many a great critics have often compared an artist or a poet with the mighty Creator since they also create a beautiful and serene world through their thoughtful pieces of work.

Reading between the lines, the works of our poets and writers, one may easily infer that the world they reflect actually is the one they want to substitute our real world with. Not only do they dream of a utopian society but also reveal the hypocrisies prevalent in our real world. Thus, offers the society a new way, a new thought to bring about the change. How do they do it? Which magical wand do they use to convey their messages to society. Of course, it is the power of words. From Geoffrey Chaucer to W.B Yeats, the poets have experimented with their language and many literary genres in order to make their stands more appealing to the common masses.

Poets: Language They Should Prefer

John Keats, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron, Pablo Neruda, Charles Baudelaire, W.B. Yeats &  William Wordsworth are some names we generally hear from literary scholars or professors; but why is it so? The answer is- They didn’t write or compose for just a handful of readers but for each and every person who is a part of society. And for that matter, they preferred to write in the language of “everyman.”

William Wordsworth, indeed the favorite of everyone, devoted his Preface to Lyrical Ballads  to the kind of language a poet should use in order to relate even with a layman. He argues that a poetry should be composed in the language of common speech, not in lofty and ornamented diction that is generally termed as “poetic.”  We should not forget that the first aim of a poetry is to give pleasure to its readers and listeners through it’s beautifully expressed emotions wrapped in a language common to all. The poetry of love and hatred, violence and peace, justice and injustice are some such core topics of the humanity that are needed to be discussed including all the sects of the society.

There were times like the period of Renaissance when the poets and writers were more interested in displaying the vastness of their knowledge through their use of words, metaphors, similes, etc. To express their power of words they used to write using too powerful words to be grasped by a simple mind. Since at that period of time, education had its access only to a handful of people, poetry were generally composed in the praise of kings & queens and their kingdoms.

But as the time changed, things changed the focus of the poets shifted to the condition of the common man. They started taking interest in the drawing room of a common man rather than the courtroom of a king. Highly intellectual words were replaced with vernacular one.

The Effective Affect of Words

 

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, is according to me, one of the best examples one can have as the best mixture of apt words and emotions. Through this collection, he views the same situations with the two different lenses- first of innocence and the other of experience. However, not only does his poetry reveals the injustices prevalent in the society but maintains the ray of optimism to change the condition. His poetry reveals the horror behind colonialism & racism, criticizes child labour and hypocrisy of the religious institutions.

W.B. Yeats, a poet who harshly condemns all sorts of protests that turn into bloodshed, take toll on many lives. He doesn’t even hesitate to criticize the love of his life Maud Gonne for leading such protests. He does it all in a very subtle yet direct manner. His poetry like The Second Coming, informs us of the horror and abnormality that comes up with the wars and hatred and describes it all as anticipating the end of the whole world.

If the aim of a language is to communicate, then only a simple language can justify this aim. The aim of the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” is not to point out at the oddity of our lives but to force the readers to look for a solution to remove this oddity. And they succeed in doing this only through their power of words. With this power of articulating one’s views appropriately in their inspirational poems, the poets are capable of bringing about a positive change not just in the society but also in the thought of a common man.

How I Learnt French..

Lemme juz narrate you a bit of my childhood. It was my favorite summer season and my last working day before summer vacation. I was in Kindergarten. “Where are we going for the summer vacations? What will be our plans???” Some exciting questions that were popping-up in my mind, when I was on the way back home from school. I stayed with my family in France, my father was posted there in one of the government concerns that manufactured carpets in the year 1986. As soon as I reached home, I saw my mom sitting on the sofa with all our luggage packed.

Fascinated by the new language that I have been learning in school for a while, there were some common sentences that I had definitely managed learning. Since my maid was also French, how I learnt French was not a difficult task for me, I interacted a lot with her. I asked my mom,” Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé à vous?”, which means what happened. She said that we were shifting to India because of Summer 1992 riots in England. We basically belong to India. As French was an all new exciting language for me, so was Hindi.

But soon I grasped the new language and forgot the one I had learnt as a toddler. Days passed, so did the months and years. I had completely forgotten how to speak French. But do you know, one can never forget how to write any language that you have once learnt, throughout your life. Inspite of our settling down in India, I had always dreamt of going to France, listening to the tales and lovely time, my parents had spent in abroad. What wine, what high-fashion, and what art? How I learnt French? My mother always missed France. 

And finally I had made it. ISA offers the Carlos Castaneda Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship was awarded to me based on the academic achievement. To be eligible for it, the students must have some knowledge of the foreign language with good ranking. By the grace of God, I had both. My little knowledge about French had minted me a great opportunity. As soon as I reached Bellegarde - Vouvray Aerodrome airport, I came across several advertisement boards with French written all over them.

I tried putting up the alphabets together. It did work. From words I learnt phrases and from phrases, I made sentences. In a few days, I was almost through with the basics of French language. To add on to this, a brand new app has come up on iOS, that teaches you alphabets of the world. Phonetic is also a wonderful feature of this app. With the app and my little knowledge almost as a toddler, I had really made my dream come true and also got back the time my parents had longed for. How I learnt French so easily was sometimes even surprising for me. Today they were coming to spend entire week with me and cherish the memories.

The Noise Surrounding SAT

         

The 2013 SAT scores created a lot of noise and controversy. Virginia, for example was thrilled that students there got the highest scores ever on the exam, and officials credited the improvement on school reform. Maryland was unhappy about seeing a drop in scores for the third straight year .

The question raised wasn’t about why the scores went up or down, but whether or not the results reflects a student’s achievement and abilities. They don’t according to a report released in September’ 13 by the College Board, which owns the SAT.

Less than half of the students who took the SAT in 2013 are ready to succeed in postsecondary education, the report said.

Only 43 percent of the test takers this year met or exceeded the benchmark score of 1550 out of a possible 2400, the same proportion as last year.

Those who reach that number, according to the College Board, have a greater chance of attaining a B-minus average or higher during their first year of college and persisting to graduation. The mean score for 2013 was 1498.

For more test takers to reach a score of 1550, rigorous coursework will have to become more widely accessible, said David Coleman, president of the College Board.

Mr. Coleman plans to better align the SAT with the Common Core State Standards, which he helped write. They prescribe what students should learn, in English and mathematics, from kindergarten through high school. His proposal make the essay portion of the SAT more analytical has been met by a mix of applause and apprehension.

Critics of standardized tests contend that the examinations are unfair to students from low-income backgrounds. Many of those students, they argue, don't have the same access to advanced classes and test-preparation materials as their more-affluent peers do.

The College Board's report showed that test takers in the lowest income percentile, whose families make less than $20,000 per year, averaged a score of 1326, well below the mean. The average score for students from families who make more than $100,000 was 1619.

Language, too, can be a barrier for some SAT takers. Students who reported learning "English and another language" or "another language" first tested as high in math as their English-first peers—or higher than them. But on the critical-reading and writing sections, the average scores for that first group of students—who made up nearly 30 percent of those tested—were notably lower than for those who had learned only English first.

Mr. Coleman said to expect details about the forthcoming changes in the SAT, including the essay portion of the test in January.

The issue is complicated and needs a larger discussion. As of now Scholastic Assessment Test, better known as the SAT, still looms large in the minds of SAT aspirants.

Learning European Languages

If you don’t know a hoot about Italian Language, then there’s no harm starting from the scratch. Here you have “Alphabets of the World” as your personal guide. Download it on your device and start learning Italian from the very basics.

Lingual Logics

Learning a new language brings many funny instances. You never know it meant something else in some other languages. And if they have an entirely unrelated meaning, it becomes a bigger source of pleasure. Let me tell you some words I came across:

I used to watch Shinchan, the cartoon series with a Japanese kid, with my nephew. The name of Shinchan’s dog is Shiro. I thought its just another meaningless words for pets like tommy and all. Whereas, to my amusement, Shiro in Japanese means white in English. And it struck me that yes! the dog was white. Quite justifiable, but amusing.

Mandarin, as we know, is a language used in China, is also a word used for citrus fruits in English. I mean what would the following sentence imply “Mandarin has a flavour of bitterness.”

‘Shove’ (pronounced as shuv) is a word in Hindi that means corpse. I wonder how would we take this sentence - “That shove was necessary to make things possible.“

Hell in German means Light. So next time, if you yell at someone saying “Go to hell”, be sure that you specify which ‘hell’ you mean.

Hose means trouser in German. So next time you see a fire, grab a ‘hose’ and... wear it! You will need to run.

See, what fun you can have while learning languages! I opened the word-stock I had. What about you?

Rendezvous with non-English speakers

Being an English speaker among English-speaking natives, I had never imagined the fun of being with non-English speakers. I was in Switzerland for an official conference, when I started experiencing the effects of lingual change. Let me tell you some of the legendary moments I can still giggle on.

I decided to delight myself in a French restaurant. The menu card in French looked like a crossword puzzle. But, somehow I managed to make noodles out of Nouilles due to a small graphic after the name. The French serveur, who was almost on skateboard all the while, stood by me for at least 10 minutes to absorb the details of my order. I explained him the whole procedure of making noodles to escape any kind of bad experiences. With my loud actions and mimes, I was able to tell him that I do not want non-vegetarian touch in my Nouilles. After a while I was served with delicious looking noodles to raise my temptations, which brewed away as soon as I sniffed. It was cooked in FISH OIL!  

Next morning, I had to reach a conference via public transport. I googled about the route options that would be available to me. I had to take a train to Paradeplatz, for which I had to hire a taxi to reach the station. I had to hurl from one taxi to another with one word on my tongue Paradeplatz. I asked to every taxi but all I was getting was a perplexed look. I showed the spelling I had jotted down last night to a driver who pronounced it differently with some silent consonants and different vowel sound. Pa -ra -da - pla - z (with T silent) or t(with Z silent) Huh! I should have known that!

When people around you, suddenly start talking in their native language while looking at you, certainly they ought to be discussing you, suspense reaches the climax. You try hard to recall all your kinesics’ lessons to make out what their body language is saying. Soon I realized that it is far more difficult to understand the language of whole body without the language of tongue. And, I kept running my thoughts to try and catch some context. That is a very awkward position to be in, believe me.

Next day, I happened to meet a native speaker in the strange land who, like an angel, ebbed all my hitches with single sway of LingoDiction. With LingoDiction, an offline app for iOS, I got to know all the frequently used words with their audio pronunciation. Then, I faced the same bunch of foreign language speakers with my armours ready to their attacks. I pretended that I cannot understand like before but I could atleast make out the context of their conversation which, to my embarrassment, wasn’t related to me at all.

One more thing I and that angel native did. We reversed the trick on non-English speakers. We make them suspect our topic of conversation, which made them self-conscious. We had a furious laugh before and after the act. Cheers to LingoDiction!

             

You don’t have to be “gifted” to learn a new language, but you do have to be smart about how you learn it.

We all know the use of knowing different languages. It brings the power to read different literature's, the ability to start conversations with people from different geographies, to understand cultures, and what not. On top of all, knowledge of multiple languages lets you make more friends. Isn’t it what today’s Facebook Generation has been chasing?

The need for knowing a new language gets multiplied when you’re touring some place not very known to you. Traveling is all about exploring far off regions, which in turn meeting more natives and facing the linguistic crunch again. You not only lose on making new friends, but there are chances of you being duped into various awkward situations.

Having said that, we all know how difficult it is to learn a new language. You can’t practically learn a language right from the scratch every time you go for a sojourn.  Does that mean you should suppress your desire to explore new places? Or stay conscious while you’re actually in that region? Or shelling out money on guides and escorts to ensure a safe, pleasing voyage?

Well, absolutely not as long as you have a smartphone in your hand. There are several language apps currently available in the apps marketplaces to rescue you out of such situations. But, it’s not as easy as it seems in the first place. This is because the marketplace is oozing with language apps sporting heavy price tags. Not just that, most of these apps are too bookish in nature, which implies giving too much time to become conversant in a language of your choice.

All these problems are now nightmares of past. Get LingoDiction on your iOS or Android-powered smartphone. LingoDiction isn’t just any other language app, but it’s a “smart communication builder” which lets you set off conversations in many language just like that.

Currently available for iOS and soon to be launched on Android, LingoDiction comprises of some of the most commonly used words and phrases from different walks of life. With LingoDiction on your smartphone, you can convey your needs to the natives of most of the popular regions. It has audio capabilities too with which you can actually let your device speak out for you. There are region specific packages to make your exploration of any specific region.

Another important reason to get LingoDiction on your iPhone is its price tag. Each package of LingoDiction has five languages of a particular geographic region. So you’ll have five languages at significantly lesser the amount you’d otherwise pay for one language.

These are just few of the many reasons for how LingoDiction can be that Language Trainer you’ve always been aspiring for. We have a sample package incorporated with the app to give you a feel of its features and content. Download it today and figure it out yourself.

Download LingoDiction from here