Mental health advice in various languages

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The Royal College of Psychiatrists has information about mental health: on depression, shyness, stress, eating disorders, therapies, etc.

Some of it has been translated into various languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Urdu.

For example:

  • الاكتئاب عند الرجال
  • 焦慮症、恐慌症和恐懼症
  • よい眠りのために
  • Каннабис и психическое здоровье
  • Preocupaciones y ansiedades
  • سگریٹ نوشی کے ذہنی صحت پراثرات

Information is also available from Mental Health in Multicultural Australia in several languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese.

The Chinese Mental Health Association (in the UK) has information in English and Chinese.

How to spell compounds

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Compounds are words formed from two (or more) words. For example, black + board = blackboard.

They can be spelled in three ways:

  1. as a single word: flowerpot
  2. as two words: flower pot
  3. with a hyphen: flower-pot

So which one should you choose? A linguist has devised a rule which she says works for 75% of words:

  • Compound verbs, adjectives and adverbs – use a hyphen (blow-dry, world-famous, well-nigh)
  • Compound nouns:
    • 3+ syllables – use a space (bathing suit)
    • 2 syllables:
      • second part has 2 letters – use a hyphen (make-up)
      • second part has 3+ letters – as a single word (coastline).

You can read more on her website.

My even simpler rule: if you’re not sure, write it as a single word: blowdry, worldfamous, wellnigh, bathingsuit and makeup. Even if it’s wrong, it looks cuttingedge.

Learning the IPA

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A post on All Things Linguistic says:

The International Phonetic Alphabet is really one of those useful life skills that everyone should learn. Trying to write about speech sounds without the IPA is like trying to write about music sounds by just making up your own musical notation.

The post provides three links:

More law blogs

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Our report on the death of law blogs was an exaggeration. It turns out there are more survivors:

No doubt there are even more, but these are enough for now.

Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzles

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Every fortnight The Guardian has a mathematical puzzle by Alex Bellos. For example, this is from the puzzle for 31 December 2018:

Fill the blanks in the following equation, so that it makes arithmetical sense:

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 = 2019

You are allowed to use any of the basic mathematical operations, +, –, x, ÷, and as many brackets as you like.

There are various solutions, including this one: ((10 × 9 × 8) – (7 × 6) – 5) × ((4 –3) + (2 × 1))

Ls and Rs

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Some non-native speakers of English appear to confuse L and R sounds. People from Japan are particularly famous for this. It is a stereotype sometimes used in films with Asian characters, such as Lost in Translation.

This video looks at the different L and R sounds in English (such as clear L, dark L, tapped R and bunched R) and why native speakers of Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese may have difficulty pronouncing them.

Source: Vox via All Things Linguistic

Economist’s View

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There are numerous blogs on economics and related subjects, with new posts every week. One blog that regularly provides links to them is Economist’s View.

For example:

It also has a permanent list of about 150 blogs.

Even if you are not particularly interested in economics, many of these blogs discuss other current issues too.