#learninglinguist

The Incas may not have bequeathed any written records, but they did have colourful knotted cords. Each of these devices was called a khipu (pronounced key-poo). We know these intricate cords to be an abacus-like system for recording numbers. However, there have also been teasing hints that they might encode long-lost stories, myths and songs too.  

In a century of study, no one has managed to make these knots talk. But recent breakthroughs have begun to unpick this tangled mystery of the Andes, revealing the first signs of phonetic symbolism within the strands. Now two anthropologists are closing in on the Inca equivalent of the Rosetta stone. That could finally crack the code and transform our understanding of a civilisation whose history has so far been told only through the eyes of the Europeans who sought to eviscerate it.

A linguistic stereotype, explained.

A foreign accent is when someone speaks a second language with the rules of their first language, and one of the most persistent and well-studied foreign-accent features is a lack of L/R contrast among native Japanese speakers learning English. 

It’s so well-known that American soldiers in World War II reportedly used codewords like “lallapalooza” to distinguish Japanese spies from Chinese allies. But American movies and TV shows have applied this linguistic stereotype to Korean and Chinese characters too, like Kim Jong Il in Team America: World Police, or Chinese restaurant employees singing “fa ra ra ra ra” in A Christmas Story. 

Learning a new language through immersion doesn’t mean you have to pack your bags and move to Europe for three months. Now, you just need to turn on Netflix. Language Learning with Netflix is a Chrome extension that lets you watch shows with two subtitles on at the same time so you can visually pair translations with dialogue and learn some new vocabulary in the process. It’s a clever service that makes use of Netflix’s massive catalog and all of the major languages in which it already offers subtitles, including Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. 

The extension was created by developers David Wilkinson and Ognjen Apic who experimented with making their own language learning software before collaborating on Language Learning with Netflix. “For some languages (Farsi, for example), there’s only a limited amount of learning materials available,” Wilkinson said in an email. “I think a lot of people would enjoy studying a language with material they are already familiar with.” 

The tool works best as a supplement for people who already have some basic understanding of the language they’re learning. There’s a vocabulary-highlighting feature that grays out less common words, which is adjustable to match your vocabulary level. Hovering over a word produces a pop-up dictionary, and clicking the word lets you hear it. You can also slow down the dialogue or automatically pause playback at the end of every subtitle, so you can learn line by line. There’s even a catalog of recommendations for movies and shows that are good to study. 

The Chrome extension is free to use, but Wilkinson and Apic are planning to add more features, like additional subtitles for dubbed dialogue, which would only be available for paid users. “Netflix has alternative audio tracks for many well-known series, but the subtitles in other languages don’t match the audio,” Wilkinson said. “We’re considering creating new subtitles for these alternative audio tracks, so you could study German, for example, with Breaking Bad with matching German audio and subtitles.”