What Is Dyslexia and What Causes It?

Dyslexia is a so-called learning disorder. It can be due to heritage or hormonal development in the fetal stage. In some rare cases, it is caused by some sort of brain injury. Both primary (through heritage) and secondary (through hormonal development) dyslexia are more common in boys.

It is caused by an impairment in the brain. Dyslexic people have difficulties to match visual marks (letters) with sounds and meanings.

There are believed to be three subtypes of dyslexia: visual dyslexia, auditory dyslexia and dysgraphia.

• Visual dyslexia means that the dyslexic person has difficulties to bring letters and numbers into the correct order.

• Auditory dyslexia has to do with the perception of sounds. People with auditory dyslexia have difficulties to distinguish the different sounds within a word or sentence and have therefore difficulties to match the sounds to the written words.

• Dysgraphia is the difficulty to control a pencil to make the right written marks. The person knows what it looks like but can't make his hand to write it properly.

Dyslexia has nothing to do with a person's IQ. It is no sign of being dumb, and it has nothing to do with visual or hearing impairment. Dyslexic people can be real geniuses and still struggle with reading and writing. They can have excellent vision and hearing, yet their brain has problems to connect written marks with sounds.

Learn more about the symptoms of dyslexia next Monday!

My Two Cents ... IX

Today's phrase came to me through the blog of a fellow writer, Lindsay Maddox.

"to be in cahoots with someone"

What does this phrase mean?

It means that you are in a conspiracy with someone. You are planning something illegal or some kind of mischief together.

Where does it come from?

I found out that it's a US expression and likely to come from the Spanish word "cohort". It goes back to the 19th century and was formerly used in its singular form.

My two cents:

Ok, so a misunderstanding in Wild West America probably ended in this nice idiom. So no one tell me mistakes can't be positive...hehe. I like this expression and will certainly keep it in mind for future use. Thanks to the cowboy whose Spanish listening comprehension ended in this misunderstanding!

How to Find a Good Dictionary

If you learn a second language, you will come to a point where you will need a dictionary. You might think: Dictionary is dictionary; it doesn't matter which one I choose. And that's where you're wrong. Let me tell you, there's nothing more frustrating than reading a good book and stumbling upon a word without which you don't understand what's going on in that scene. You get out your dictionary to look up the word, only to find out the word in question isn't listed...bummer!

So, how do you find the right dictionary for you?

Online Dictionary

A good online dictionary should have a forum. Why, you ask? It's simple: A German-English dictionary, for example, attracts both German and English native speakers. In a forum, they have the possibility to talk to each other about word meanings, translations, grammar and style questions. A forum makes an online dictionary so much more than a mere dictionary; it changes it into a place where you can learn and improve a language.

The best online dictionary I know is the German site LEO. Its German-English forum is highly frequented and when you are lucky, you get answers to your questions within minutes. Their dictionary is comprehensive and comes along with declination tables and pronunciation. I think it also offers a vocabulary trainer though I've never tried it out.

Offline Dictionary (Computer and Book)

When you look for a dictionary, look at the number of words included. Compare various dictionaries to get a feeling for high or low word numbers.

Rule of thumb: The more you want to do with/in the second language and the better you get, the more words your dictionary should include.

If you need your dictionary for a specific field, for example office work, note down some specific terms and look them up in the dictionary you want to buy. If they are included, it's ok. If not, you should look for a different dictionary instead.

Some dictionaries include information on difficult words, false friends and sometimes even on countries and culture. If you are interested in these things, you might want to look for a dictionary which included this kind of information.

Dyslexia - Too Stupid to Read?

Yes, the heading is provocative. I know. So...which reaction does it provoke in you? Is it a "yes", accompanied by a sneer? Or is it a clear "no"? Are you undecided?

Here is my answer: NO!

Children with dyslexia are not stupid. They are only slower than others when it comes to reading and writing. They need more help when they learn to connect letters and sounds. They need more time when they try to connect written words with their meanings. But they are definitely not stupid. Full stop.

Dyslexia belongs to the so-called learning disorders. Its impact on a person's life varies greatly. It can be as simple as making slightly more mistakes when writing and a slower reading speed than the average people, and it can be as grave as not being able to read and write at all (mostly because it was too difficult so they just stopped trying).

During the next few weeks, we will have a closer look on dyslexia. What causes it? How can you recognise it in your child? What can you as a parent/teacher/friend do to help a dyslexic person?

I want to invite you to share your own experiences with dyslexia or dyslexic people with us to help raise awareness to the fact that dyslexic people are not stupid. You can share here or on the follow-up posts directly via the comment function, or you can send me a guest blog post with your experiences. If you don't want to write your own post, you can simply write me your experiences and allow me to use them for a blog post. Of course, you can remain anonymous.

I am looking forward to your reactions and experiences!

My Two Cents ... VIII

During an editing job, I came across the phrase

"to live it up"

To be honest, I had to look this one up. However, here's what I found out, as well as my two cents:

What does it mean?

To live it up means to enjoy oneself, to live life without worries or remorse. Most of the time, it also means to spend quite some money in order to enjoy oneself.

Where does it come from?

I haven't found out where its origins are, but at least I found out when it was apparently coined: in 1951. This phrase is quite a recent phrase.

My two cents on this one:

It is a handy phrase as it involves more than just "Enjoy yourself!" I will certainly keep it in mind, though I can't predict if it will find its way into my regular vocabulary.

Writing Poems - Painting with Words

Poems are images, paintings and drawings. The only difference is that your brush is a pen, and your lines are letters and words.

Have you ever read a poem that didn't conjure up some image or feeling inside your mind? It's just what poems do, even more so than stories. A poem has to convey its meaning with much fewer words than a story. Thus, each and every word holds meaning; the writing is much denser. It is really like drawing or painting an image. You have only this one chance to strike home. A story, on the other hand, is more like a film. You have a flow of images, none of them carrying so much weight as a single image would have.

I don't write poems regularly. Most of the time, they are just feelings which want to get out of me. I take a pen and the words just pour out of my head, my heart and my soul, right onto the sheet of paper in front of me. Those poems are true soul images. They ban my feelings, my state of soul onto paper.

Other poems just "happen". They are never planned; I just can't plan poetry. Either I'm in the mood to write a poem (or two, or three), or I'm not. Sometimes, my poems get a voice. That's when I write a song. More often than not, words and melody go hand in hand, evolve hand in hand. The last sond I wrote, however, was one of those true soul images. After the poem was banned on paper, this tune kept probing into my head. I knew: This one's gonna be a song; this one wants to be a song.

Of course, there are as many ways to write poetry as there are poets out there. I can only write about my own way and hope that some of you can relate to it. However, I would love to hear about your ways to write poems as well! Feel free to share as a comment.

First Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning

Do you wonder why I use the word "acquisition" with the first language and the word "learning" with a second language? Well, it's simple, actually. See, babies and children learn their first language(s) without effort. They seem to absorb the vocabulary, grammer rules, pronunciation and sentence structures like a sponge. They can even distinguish between several languages if the speakers and/or the situations are clearly separated. That way, babies can learn more than one first language. They become bilingual or even multilingual. I have heard of children who grew up with four different languages and ended up understanding and speaking all four of them like a native language.

First language acquisition is passive.

When children start a new language at the age of three or older, on the other hand, their natural ability to absorb the new language without effort is already gone. From that point on, we need to study hard in order to learn a new language. We need to learn all the new words, the grammar rules and pronunciation. Some sounds may be so difficult to pronounce that we never quite manage to reproduce them. Only few people manage to acquire true fluency in a second language, and even fewer manage this without spending years in a country where they speak that language every day.

Second language learning is active.

How can this great difference be explained? The difference is found within our brains. When children are born, they are able to distinguish between every phoneme which is used in any language. However, as we grow older, our brain loses the ability to hear all the different phonemes; it concentrates on the phonems it needs for its first language(s). That is the reason, for example, why many Asian people can't distinguish between the "r" and "l" sounds. These sounds don't have any difference in meaning and are therefore mingled together by their brains. They don't need to distinguish between them.