Helsinki School to Teach Regular Subjects in Chinese
Mood:  cheeky
Now Playing: Dad's tapes
Topic: Language

Swedish, German and English were already available, and now Finlands multilingual education society adds yet another language to it's portfolio:

"As of next week, about 20 primary school pupils will attend classes primarily in Chinese at a public school in Helsinki"

 

Bladder disease has returned
Mood:  silly
Topic: Language

Here is a story about what could happen if people use online translation tools instead of flesh-and-blood-translators.

Road sign leaves Welsh-speakers bewildered

Creative writing course, part 2
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: The Verve - Urban Hymns
Topic: Language

A few months ago the Editorial Team of Helsinki Times participated in a creative writing course, led by Anne Gray. Anne taught us many useful tricks how to get inspired, and how to find a theme for your story.

Often, though, the most difficult part of writing is how to start. No worries anymore.

From Philipp Lenssen's blog I found a web site that provides a good starting point by generating an opening line for your becoming infamous novel.

The sentence it gave me was: "The screaming candle maker boiled a potatoe in a neat closet to find the rare stamp." I think it might become a never-dying piece of art...

Esperanto on Steroids!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: football
Topic: Language

 Always wanted to learn Japanese? 

 

"This section gives an overview of the Japanese writing system. It explains how kanji are used within actual words and sentences, and in conjunction with the other Japanese alphabets."

 

Let's see what Wikipedia says about Kanji:

 "Kanji are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana, katakana, and the arabic numerals."

 

 

Anne Gray's creative writing course
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Bonzo&T?un
Topic: Language
Today, two editors of Helsinki Times participated in a creative writing course. The course took place in Kallio Library and was held by Mrs. Anne Gray from Scotland.

Under inspirative guidance the "pupils" (about a dozen of them) had to write two little stories and read those out load to the others. It was quite a task even for people who make a living out of everyday writing in one form or another.

The first topic was "A clothing item I am wearing right now". It was amazing what kind of touching, funny, descriptive and personal stories people came up within 15 minutes about their shirts, pants, socks and necklaces. It felt almost like as if we actually don't even realise, what kind of historical packages we are carrying with us every day by a simple choice in the morning - what to wear today.

The second topic was "Somebody I like". Once again, there was a large variety of approaching the subject - the best friends, own children, father-in-laws, shopping bodies and pets were taken into a brief but intimate focus. In those short stories one could live for a moment in another person's inner world. This is what writing should be about.

There will be eight gatherings of this group this spring. The editors intend to attend all of those and hopefully, as an outcome of Anne Gray's initiative, you will read better quality stories on this web site in the future.