You’re in a meeting at work. You’re leading a discussion about a project which isn’t going well. You don’t know what’s wrong with the project, so you want to ask one of the people who’s working on it.

Nelly, can you maybe shed a little light on this?

This is a way to ask someone to do something. It’s appropriate for a boss to use with the people who work for him or her. It’s more direct than asking “Could you…”
Sometimes a person will include “maybe” in this question:

Can you maybe call him and tell him to meet us there?
                     Can you maybe turn the volume down just a little?

Shed light on (a topic)
The phrase “shed light on ___” means to explain or give information about something that people don’t know much about.
For example, if there’s something broken in your house and you think that your children may have caused it, you can ask them:
 The lamp seems to be broken. Can anyone shed some light on what happened?

News stories often use this expression in headlines. For example:
Testimony sheds light on politician’s shady dealings
This means that the things that people have said in court (“testimony”) has shown some of the dishonest (“shady) things that the politician did.

This
When people are discussing a problem or situation, they commonly refer to it as “this”:
   What are we going to do about this?
                     How long do you think this is going to last?

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That’s an interesting topic brought up by a study published in 2007 by Jonathan Winawer (MIT) et al. Such study involved a group with native English speakers and a separate group with native Russian speakers. They were presented with blue squares that differed in shades from light to dark blue, with one of them being used as the main matching reference to the others, just like shown in the main picture of this article. When prompted, participants had to quickly choose which shade of blue matched the reference square. Seems very easy, doesn’t it? Well, one fact worth mentioning is that, in Russian, light blue and dark blue are actually considered to be two totally different colors, with two completely different names (lighter blues are “goluboy” and darker blues are “siniy”), much like if you were to compare orange to red.

As you would expect, Russian speakers found it very easy to distinguish between light blue and dark blue and were faster than English speakers when doing so. English speakers treated comparisons between different color categories (shades of light and dark blues) and comparisons between same color categories (shades of light blues only/ shades of dark blues only) with the same level of difficult, while Russian speakers showed some advantage in the first type of comparison. Even though language was a determinant factor, the study did not involve language at all. We can also generalize it and say that the way people use language determines how they perceive the world and changes their conscience.

Subjects were additionally analyzed for their ability to perform the same task described above with an extra distraction of silently rehearsing an specific string of numbers, such as “1,8,6,7,2,5,4…” As such a task demands linguistic attention from the individual (digit strings are not easily memorized without linguistic help, hence the way we memorize telephone numbers), the advantage shown in the first trial was not mirrored on the second one. A third control trial was performed to make sure that this effect was not only caused by “having to do two things at the same time,” but rather caused by the fact that these two tasks mentioned above overlap linguistically.

This study suggests that, after all, language may not only be treated simply as a code or a tag we put on elements and established concepts. Language may also create these elements and establish itself new concepts and how Humans perceive them. It may also serve as an explanation of why there are so many untranslatable expressions between languages.

Do you know what Voxy Academy is? It is the Human side of Voxy on which we get in touch with actual ESL students in New York giving classes for free. Now, the leader of this Academy is Stephen Mayeux, Voxy’s Curriculum Producer . Steve also extends the Academy into the Internet by making fun videos with 15-second English lessons. Stay tuned for a brand new batch of more than 100 new videos coming up, about 2 each day. Learn expressions such as “Blow up”, “Draft Beer”,  ”I’m so pumped” and how English is used in real life situations. Plus, there’s always something hilarious, like this video where Steve shows he’s a natural when it comes to dancing:

So stay tuned and check out Voxy’s 15-sec lessons on the Facebook tab or Voxy’s page on  Tout!

Jusczyk tested two groups of American babies aged 6 months and 9 months. The experiment recorded how long the baby looked at either the right or the left speaker when listening to a word list in either English or Dutch. The result showed that the 9-month-old babies preferred the English list and the 6-month-old babies had no preference. Next the same word lists were passed through a low-pass filter to only let the low frequencies out. This resulted in the both groups showing no preference. This concludes that 9-month-old babies are aware of the phonemes in their own language as they start to use both prosodic and phonotactic cues to discriminate individual speech sounds of their language.

Why do the 6-month-old babies have no preference? Jusczyk changed the word lists to English and Norwegian because Dutch and English have the same prosodic pattern, whereas English and Norwegian do not. The results were that with or without a low-pass filter, the 6-month-old babies preferred the English list. Conclusion; 6-month-old babies are not aware of sound sequences but can discriminate different prosodic patterns and prefer their own languages pattern. The reason could be the belief that babies at birth hear at a low frequency because the middle ear is still filled with fluid and so cannot differentiate different speech sounds.

There is a vast difference seen in the auditory sensory abilities of an infant aged 6 months and a child aged 12 months. From being able to discriminate different prosodic patterns in different languages to being able to differentiate the different phonemes, eventually children reaching one year of age become better at discerning phonemes in their native language and poor at other languages. For example, Japanese speaking adults cannot discriminate the English sounds of ‘la’ and ‘ra’, whereas English speaking adults have no problem and English speaking adults cannot discriminate the Japanese sounds ‘i’ and ‘ii’, whereas Japanese adults can. However these sounds and sounds from other languages such as the Hindi ‘da’ and ‘da’ can be discriminated by an infant in the first few months after birth. In the end, infants lose this ability to start to develop language and speech as they start to form concepts and begin categorising speech in their native language.

India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries. Between 850 and 900 languages are spoken in India, though only 122 are recognized in the census and just 22 are scheduled as official languages in the constitution. Indeed, looking at these figures, it’s no wonder that India is losing languages faster than any other country in the world.

Linguist Ganesh Devy is overseeing the largest survey of Indian tongues, the People’s Linguistic Survey of India. This will be a huge attempt to document these languages before they become extinct, or perhaps even help stave off extinction.

Out of the 7000 languages spoken on Earth, only about 600 is predicted to survive this century.

Let’s have a look at the Middle English poem, the Canterbury Tales:

Whan that Aprill(e), with his(e) shour(e)s soot(e),

The droght(e) of March hath perced to the root(e)

Even around the time that the Canterbury Tales was written, most of those (e)s  weren’t pronounced.

In addition, word order was becoming more fixed so there was less need for case marking. As a result of the loss of case marking, the two processes probably fed into one another. When word order is fixed, there is no need for case marking to show the relationship between the constituents of a sentence.

In English, the word order in “Stephen gave the book to Sonny” is the only order of those three words that can express that proposition. However, in Old English, we had a bit more leeway with word order:

Sonny Stephen gave the book.

The book gave Sonny Stephen.

And the meaning would all be the same. Why? Because the case marking at the end of the nouns would tell you which is the subject, object and indirect object. When these case endings began to drop off, English word order became more rigid to compensate.

For this experiment the participants were given a total of $15 in singles and
given the choice to bet $1 at a time on either heads or tails. If they bet and won,
they received $1.50 and lost nothing if a bet was not placed. These instructions
were given in English and then in Spanish. A similar phenomenon was seen. When
the instructions were given in English, the participants only bet about half
the time. But when given in Spanish they bet 74% of the time.

What can we conclude from the findings? The researchers believe that thinking in a second language helps avoid making quick emotional decisions, and allows people’s decision-making process to be more rational. So, if you find yourselves in a situation where you just can’t seem to make a decision, sit down and think about in English, Spanish, French, or whatever your second language may be!

Euro London Appointments has put their thinking caps on to outline what they think are the top reasons for knowing a second language.

1. It increases intelligence – Whether you learn a language as a child or later on in life, there is an increasing amount of evidence that being multilingual provides an added advantage in communication, cognition and social interaction than those who can’t speak a second language [1].
2. It increases your understanding of your own language – “Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own” – Goethe. This is true! Monolinguals rarely think of how to use a word and congregate a sentence as it seems natural; bilinguals understand the structures of their own language a lot better.
3. It increases your enjoyment of culture – Of course you can enjoy culture with only one language, but those of us who can speak a second language usually are able to enjoy it a bit more.
4. It increases your resistance to mental illness – There is evidence that knowing a second language may decrease the risk of mental illness. There is also research showing that the ability to speak more than one language may reduce the susceptibility to Alzheimer’s [2].
5. It enables you to stand out from the crowd – Gaining entry to the best colleges and universities is a challenge, aspects of your life have to stand out from the crowd. Knowledge of a second language is a great way to stand out.
6. It enables you to study overseas – You may like to enhance your international outlook and take your studies overseas. This will almost certainly mean knowledge of the language you are travelling to will be essential as lectures and seminars will be held in the language of the host country.
7. It increases employability – It’s an incredibly competitive job market at the moment, wherever you are. Recruiters are looking for the crème de le crème and they have a lot of applicants to pick from, knowing a second language will make you stand out. It also increases opportunity to roles you wouldn’t have had the option to apply for as they require languages as a must.
8. It gives you greater mobility – Thinking about emigrating? Want to work in a new foreign city? Knowing the native tongue will almost certainly be essential. Even if they use English in the office, getting around town, going out in the evening and activities at the weekend will require interaction in that countries native language.
9. It allows you to discover entertainment from around the world – You can gain access to a new multitude of cinema, books and music. A whole new media is available to you in your new language.
10. It enables travelling – Want to go travelling? Perhaps take a year out or a sabbatical? Knowing a language may not be essential; well trodden back packer routes have some great tourist organisations and companies set up to cater to you. But if you fancy going off the beaten track and exploring somewhere new, not in the tourist brochures; knowledge of the countries language will be of great assistance. You can converse with the locals and really get to know them.“If you talk to a man in a language he understands it will go to his head, if you talk to him in his language it will go to his heart” – Nelson Mandela
11. It allows you to engage in business globally – Globalisation has meant that businesses coordinate their efforts all over the world; international organisations need to be able to communicate with each other to function and this means speaking to each other. Unfortunately we don’t all speak the same language, a trait that’s not going to change soon, so knowing different languages helps communication within business.
12. It’s just plain sexy – Let be honest, people who speak more than one language are considered more attractive and intelligent. It’s just sexy.

Why did you learn a second language? Go to Voxy’s Google+ Page  or Euro London Appointments’ Facebook Page and tell us your story!

[1] http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bilingualism-is-good-for-learning/

[2]http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

So how does speaking more than one language fine-tune the auditory
nervous system? Northwestern bilingualism expert Victoria Marian worked with
auditory neuroscientist Nina Kraus to find out how. The study was conducted
on 23 bilingual English/Spanish speakers and 25 English-only speakers. The
participants heard sounds in two conditions, quiet and background noise, while
the researchers recorded the brainstem for responses to these complex sounds.
Results showed that in the quiet condition both groups responded similarly,
whereas in the noisy condition the bilingual group was better at detecting the
different sounds, therefore enhancing attention.

What does this mean? As Marian explained, some people do puzzles,
crosswords, or other activities to keep their minds sharp, but bilinguals already
have this advantage just by being able to speak in two languages. They are
natural jugglers of sounds, as they are able to differentiate between input of
relevant and irrelevant sounds and avoid linguistic confusion. Therefore as
Kraus states, “The bilingual’s enhanced experience with sound results in an
auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound
processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions.”