چھڈو جی
Friday, July 16, 2010
Indian Rupee Gets Symbol Like Dollar, Pound
India is making its international presence more stronger and influential day by day. Their economy, like of China, is one of the biggest economies of the world. Their currency is getting attention due to high investments by multi nationals. Now the Indian Rupee has got a symbol.
And where is Pakistan?
چھڈو جی
چھڈو جی
Monday, July 12, 2010
Prezi: Presentations with Zooming
EFL 2.0 posted a presentation on the use of technology in language teaching. The thing I liked about it is the idea of creating a zoom able presentation. Prezi is a nice way to create innovative presentations. The website structure tells that it uses Adobe Flash for presentation creating, another Flash product.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Mr. Zardari with His Family on An Offical Visit?
Can someone tell me who'll pay for his family members on an official visit in China?
Monday, July 5, 2010
Selecting Range of Filled Columns and Rows in Calc
In Microsoft Excel you have to select End Mode by pressing End button on Keyboard. Then Shift + Arrow keys let you towards the end of the series of rows or columns which are filled with data. I was looking for same solution for OOo Calc and it was pretty straightforward. In Calc you just have to press Shift key which will tell it that you are going to select every thing and then press Ctrl + Arrow keys, the range of cells which is filled would be selected. :-)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Regular Expressions: Facility, Ability and Haste
Regular Expression or regex is a powerful tool for text processing. People like me who encounter with text processing on daily basis know the ease and power they provide. Regex are full fledged language actually, a mini language with its own rules and very systematic and organized structure. Regex as they are known today are mostly borrowed from early days of Perl, that's why they are mostly called Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. No high level language can ever miss this most demanding feature in today's circumstances, and even the parent of many new languages C++ will have regex library in its new C++0x version/standard.
I came to know about regex 3 years ago when I was working with my teachers on their corpus research work. I was unable to grasp the meaning of regex initially and the power they had behind them. But after some time I got books and article on the topic and started learning them. The book most helpful for me was Friedl - Mastering Regular Expressions 3e (O'Reilly, 2006). I completed only 2 chapters of this book but it made me speedy panther in text processing from a lame lamb. Being a linguistics student and a corpus linguist I am always seeking ways to get text patterns automatically with least possible time. And regex provide me this facility. Along with regex I use C# 2005 which gives me a powerful capability to do everything I want with the texts.
Regex are good but they are like knife in your hand which can be used to cut your own hand also. You should be very well aware of the pros and cons of using regex. The very first thing you should consider as a corpus linguist is to search the regularities in the text. These regularities or patterns will help you find the perfect regex for the purpose. The best strategy is to analyse the data manually e.g. by inspecting concordance lines in search of the required constructions. After you have inspected and found the ways in which the construction is occurring, you can create a good and regex. But remember cross check, double check and recheck your regular expression to verify does it doing the maximum? Does the loss is minimum? And finally does it affordable? Affordable here I mean if it is hasty to add every construction and thus increasing your work. Regex give power and flexibility but they should be carefully used. They should be constructed with great care and also verified with manual analysis. And the most important thing, use regex to get concordance lines which you will inspect manually thus you can reduce your work as well as quality would be maintained.
I came to know about regex 3 years ago when I was working with my teachers on their corpus research work. I was unable to grasp the meaning of regex initially and the power they had behind them. But after some time I got books and article on the topic and started learning them. The book most helpful for me was Friedl - Mastering Regular Expressions 3e (O'Reilly, 2006). I completed only 2 chapters of this book but it made me speedy panther in text processing from a lame lamb. Being a linguistics student and a corpus linguist I am always seeking ways to get text patterns automatically with least possible time. And regex provide me this facility. Along with regex I use C# 2005 which gives me a powerful capability to do everything I want with the texts.
Regex are good but they are like knife in your hand which can be used to cut your own hand also. You should be very well aware of the pros and cons of using regex. The very first thing you should consider as a corpus linguist is to search the regularities in the text. These regularities or patterns will help you find the perfect regex for the purpose. The best strategy is to analyse the data manually e.g. by inspecting concordance lines in search of the required constructions. After you have inspected and found the ways in which the construction is occurring, you can create a good and regex. But remember cross check, double check and recheck your regular expression to verify does it doing the maximum? Does the loss is minimum? And finally does it affordable? Affordable here I mean if it is hasty to add every construction and thus increasing your work. Regex give power and flexibility but they should be carefully used. They should be constructed with great care and also verified with manual analysis. And the most important thing, use regex to get concordance lines which you will inspect manually thus you can reduce your work as well as quality would be maintained.
Friday, May 28, 2010
ELT in Pakistan
To the Headmistress
Govt. High School
Madam
I have an urgent piece of work at home. Therefore I cannot come to school. Kindly grant me leave for two days.
Yours Obediently
X.Y.Z.
This was the lesson my younger sister cramming when I was taking my breakfast this morning. She is in 5th grade and goes to a coaching center for extra help in studies also. Both at school and at coaching center the teaching system of English is same. They make them cram the lesson. Initially there are no rules of the language but simple cramming of big and small chunks of language in the form of vocabulary items like names of colours, simple sentences, and afterwards stories, applications, letters and essays. Initially stories etc. are simpler having a few sentences and simple structures. Afterwards things start gonna complex and lengthy. And this goes upto B.A. i.e. 14 grade.
I still remember the good old days, when I was a school boy and used to cram things just like my younger sister was doing. Initially it was just cramming for me but in later grades 7, to onwards I remember myself trying to do some 'creative' work. I used to add a few sentences in essays like My Best Teacher, or stories. It was an intentional effort to get more marks as compared to other class fellows, but afterwards this creativity somehow expanded and now at this stage of my life I am able to write a blog post in English.
English Language Teaching System in Pakistan just makes you cram the rules and the vocabulary. It just pushes you to the sea of language now if you are a good learner you may learn to survive in this world, you may start getting points on your own. Otherwise you won't be able to write sentences or essays other than you crammed during your education. We produce crammers or if they are lucky enough good writers. We need English for writing mostly and our system of teaching is thus writing oriented.
But things are gonna change now. Our govt. educational system produces writers still but there is an urge to learn spoken English. So there are numberless institutes which offer spoken English classes. They provide a low quality version of communicative language teaching methodology but they somehow are trying to cope with the problem.
But we need to redefine our needs of English and our system of education as well.
Govt. High School
Madam
I have an urgent piece of work at home. Therefore I cannot come to school. Kindly grant me leave for two days.
Yours Obediently
X.Y.Z.
This was the lesson my younger sister cramming when I was taking my breakfast this morning. She is in 5th grade and goes to a coaching center for extra help in studies also. Both at school and at coaching center the teaching system of English is same. They make them cram the lesson. Initially there are no rules of the language but simple cramming of big and small chunks of language in the form of vocabulary items like names of colours, simple sentences, and afterwards stories, applications, letters and essays. Initially stories etc. are simpler having a few sentences and simple structures. Afterwards things start gonna complex and lengthy. And this goes upto B.A. i.e. 14 grade.
I still remember the good old days, when I was a school boy and used to cram things just like my younger sister was doing. Initially it was just cramming for me but in later grades 7, to onwards I remember myself trying to do some 'creative' work. I used to add a few sentences in essays like My Best Teacher, or stories. It was an intentional effort to get more marks as compared to other class fellows, but afterwards this creativity somehow expanded and now at this stage of my life I am able to write a blog post in English.
English Language Teaching System in Pakistan just makes you cram the rules and the vocabulary. It just pushes you to the sea of language now if you are a good learner you may learn to survive in this world, you may start getting points on your own. Otherwise you won't be able to write sentences or essays other than you crammed during your education. We produce crammers or if they are lucky enough good writers. We need English for writing mostly and our system of teaching is thus writing oriented.
But things are gonna change now. Our govt. educational system produces writers still but there is an urge to learn spoken English. So there are numberless institutes which offer spoken English classes. They provide a low quality version of communicative language teaching methodology but they somehow are trying to cope with the problem.
But we need to redefine our needs of English and our system of education as well.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Oka: A variant form of Okay, O.K. prevailing in Punjabi Youth
When I first heard this phrase "oka fer" (okay then) I laughed for hours because it was too funny for me. I remembered it again after few minutes and again started laughing but after that I forgot the laughing. Now I use this word quite frequently with my close friends, class fellows and collegues.
O.K or Okay is a word used for affirmation in colloquial English. The history of this word tells that its usage was started from America, perhaps some American president wrote o.k. on a file and then it "officially" came into being. It is also used as a discourse marker along with right, etc. It is pronounced as:
/k/ in this word is as usual aspirated like /kh/ by native English speakers of American and British origin.
As per the suggestion of Wikipedia, this word is used in colloquial English and adopted in several languages of the world. This word is also borrowed by local languages of Pakistan like Punjabi and the National Language (Urdu). In Urdu it is pronounced as "okay" same is the case with Punjabi. But there is a variation in Punjabi. As Punjabi is a more informal language and used among closed friends, at homes etc., an informal use of okay is prevailing in Punjabi youth specially young boys. They use it as fun, while saying "oka" they initially have a smile on their faces but after that they accept it as a form of okay and try to use this new word in their friends' company. It can be called a slang word because it is being used informally only by youngsters in their sittings but the change is underway. It is being used by young university girls also with their close male friends and collegues in informal situations. They are also using it more frequently within female to female interactions. Another variation "oki" among girls and "oku" among boys is used at rare occasions when motive is to create more fun and laughter.
Variation is underway which is the destiny of language. Continuing our discussion on variation I would like to document the variation in romanized variety of Urdu and Punjabi which is being used in text messages specially by youngsters and university students while messaging their peers and friends.
O.K or Okay is a word used for affirmation in colloquial English. The history of this word tells that its usage was started from America, perhaps some American president wrote o.k. on a file and then it "officially" came into being. It is also used as a discourse marker along with right, etc. It is pronounced as:
/k/ in this word is as usual aspirated like /kh/ by native English speakers of American and British origin.
As per the suggestion of Wikipedia, this word is used in colloquial English and adopted in several languages of the world. This word is also borrowed by local languages of Pakistan like Punjabi and the National Language (Urdu). In Urdu it is pronounced as "okay" same is the case with Punjabi. But there is a variation in Punjabi. As Punjabi is a more informal language and used among closed friends, at homes etc., an informal use of okay is prevailing in Punjabi youth specially young boys. They use it as fun, while saying "oka" they initially have a smile on their faces but after that they accept it as a form of okay and try to use this new word in their friends' company. It can be called a slang word because it is being used informally only by youngsters in their sittings but the change is underway. It is being used by young university girls also with their close male friends and collegues in informal situations. They are also using it more frequently within female to female interactions. Another variation "oki" among girls and "oku" among boys is used at rare occasions when motive is to create more fun and laughter.
Variation is underway which is the destiny of language. Continuing our discussion on variation I would like to document the variation in romanized variety of Urdu and Punjabi which is being used in text messages specially by youngsters and university students while messaging their peers and friends.
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