Serendipity and Learning

India is a unique country. With 122 odd major languages and 1599 other languages. And yet, the languages available in schools is dependent on many factors - like demand, availability of teachers and so on. So, on the one hand, there are a range of options of choose from, on the other hand it is not uniform. Here is where the power of the internet can be used. If for every language, the government made courses available online with tests and practice lessons - anybody can learn any language at home. Without having to depend on the quality of teachers, number of students and suchlike. All they need is a standard question paper that gets delivered (and this can be automated from a huge question bank) to do the tests. Wonder if something like this is already available? The truth is also that schools with non English mediums of instructions are closing down in urban areas - slowly but surely. And English is the language of opportunities, the other languages deserve to be learnt -...

Most of the times when we learnt languages at school, there is hardly joy in the learning process. There are very few a-ha moments. For example, when we learnt English, we hardly learnt to appreciate the language. The appreciation happened much later via PG Wodehouse. (Our syllabus did have a PG lesson though - and a chapter out of the Little Prince and one from Sherlock Holmes  - so we had one good lesson a year). But the concept of reading a novel or a good story was not there. Some worthy had replaced it with a pathetic book on moral science or some such crap. Net result - zero appreciation. Take Hindi - again, there were snatches of some good poems and writings - but overall, Hindi was a dreary learning effort and I was thankful that I would never have to learn Hindi ever in my life. Marathi - similar lines - the selections was better than Hindi, but the overall effect of learning these languages did not leave us with any appreciation of the subject. The other language...

Sitting in a room filled with as many English accents as people. I could not help but wonder about how some people are obsessed with getting rid of Mother Tongue Influence in India. Call me an ignoramus, but I think this focus on so called mother tongue influence is all wrong. Nobody, no f8ing body wants to hear your goddamn accent you perfected somewhere. They are here to hear your skill, what you bring to the table, what is your role in solving the problem they have. Whether you speak with a mother tongue influence or not has no bearing whatsover in the process. Whether you solve a problem has a major bearing in the process. Imagine a situation where the person speaks perfect English but ruins your work. Hope that helps. Almost anybody focussed on this mother tongue influence bullshit is getting it wrong. What is need is more skills not more language. (There are exceptions, like call centres who want to pretend that they are located in Louisiana while being located in Lu...

Many months ago, when I was training a set of people, someone told me, "I have a bad accent, therefore I cannot train people in Oracle." I have heard quite a few variants of this. One is - My accent is not good, therefore, I have to take on a different accent - and this at a job interview. And so on and so forth. The one which takes the cake is this one- "His grammar is not good therefore, he cannot conduct 'Oracle' training". To this one my response is "My grammar is awesome, but Oracle is zero - you really don't want me taking your Oracle training do you?" Somehow, we in India seem to prize foreign accents - mostly American or European, never Arabic or African (and there is an answer somewhere there). We do not like our accents - so much so that we even have a term for it - Mother Tongue Influence- we call it. I personally feel that this accent thing is overrated. My favourite example is at a cricket commentary - the West Indians have th...

Many years ago, North Indians tried to impose Hindi on South Indians. Many things happened since then. Hindi was banned and the South became an English superpower. But Hindi made its inroads, mostly thanks to the phillum industry. What diktats and Hindi diwas could not do, Hindi movies achieved it. And perhaps a bit of paneer butter masala as well. In cosmpolitan Bangalore - nobody speaks Hindi. Children speak a mix of languages at home Tamil, Kannada - English outside while playing and at school - cartoons are also seen in English. But in the school the second language is Hindi. (Why, you ask? Simple utility - it lets you get around the country etc etc.) But, the little ones are unable to comprehend why are they learning a language that is not used anywhere. Unlike when (and where) I grew up, the lingua franca was Hindi, here it is not. Now, learning a language without having to use or converse is about as motivating as having to learn to swim without a swimming pool (bad simile,...