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I love languages. My brain must be wired like a decoder ring; I absolutely love the process of learning a new language.
If you are lucky, you can go to a conference with participants from 80 countries. You can understand many languages and converse in other languages at International meetings. Indo-European languages use a simple alphabet, while Chinese, Japanese and Arabic for example are difficult to learn for an Occidental person, but not at all if you just want to be a friend and love the peculiarity of cultures, people and places. There are people who speak languages that can simply seem strange for a European man: Malaysian, Mandarin Chinese, Mongolian.
Kate Tsubata, (a home-schooling mother of three) tells us this little experience:
So, what do you do when you're on a bus with a bunch of people you don't understand? Learn their language, of course. I began with the Malaysians, which was easy because most of them could speak English.
"How do you say, 'How are you?' in your language?" I asked my seatmate.
"Appa kahbahr," he answered.
"Appa kahbahr?" I repeated, jotting it down phonetically on an envelope in my purse.
"Appa kahbahr," he repeated, correcting my pronunciation, happily.
"And what is the response if you say that to someone?"
"Saya kahbahr baik."
I tried out my phrase on a few of them, and they responded with the appropriate phrase. Then I moved on to "thank you," and "goodbye." When I mastered those, I continued with a list of helpful phrases: "My name is ..." "What is your name?" "Where is the bathroom?" "Please" "Excuse me" "Yes" "No" and counting to 10.
Within about 20 minutes, I had about six persons helping, correcting my pronunciation, laughing and explaining, and that got other people interested, too.
Then it was their turn to ask me questions. "Do you speak any Korean?" "A little," I said. "How do we say 'hello'?" "Anyung haseyo," I said.
Now the process was reversed, with me giving them the pronunciation and responses, and them mimicking. They started taking notes, just the way I did. Then they asked me a question I couldn't answer, so I found a Korean speaker and brought her into the conversation. We all started peppering her with questions. She taught us a dozen important phrases, and we all repeated them and made notes, and tried them out.
That was the extent of the language lessons for that day, but I was able to pick up some Mandarin Chinese, and a lot more Korean before the end of the conference. This was heaven for me.
Another way to learn languages is by watching foreign movies with subtitles, or by watching the dubbed versions of a familiar English -language movie. This can be done easily now using the technology of DVDs, which often come with several language versions of a movie on the same disc. The great thing about this method is that the conversation is usually real-life language, not textbook dialogue.
Some families watches movies in Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Farsi. Why not? They often are beautifully photographed, have wonderful stories, and have subtitles so you can understand the dialogue perfectly. Not only do you get to see totally different stories than the standard Hollywood fare, but you get to train your ear in the inflection, melody and sound patterns of another language.
Some adolescents even became enamoured with Italian after watching "Life is Beautiful." They loved the cadence and the soft consonants of the language, not to mention the emotionally rich inflections.
Our whole family loves the Japanese language movie "Shall We Dance?" about an uptight Japanese businessman who secretly learns ballroom dancing. Of course, we already are familiar with Japanese, but every time we watch it, we learn new phrases.
Why not enjoy the French films "The Dinner Game", "Amelie" and "Happenstance." ? In Farsi, "Children of Heaven" is delightful, and a wonderfully human look at life in Iran, which we typically only hear about in political or religious discussions.
Chinese language films you can enjoy include "Shower", which tells the story of a modern businessman's struggle to unite his family's humble circumstances with his new life in the city. Another bittersweet story is "Happy Times," about the bumbling but sincere efforts of a group of friends to create a safe haven for an abandoned blind teenage girl.
Learning language is exciting because it connects us to a new group of people that was previously unknown to us. You can create a language-rich culture in your home through many methods. Turn on the foreign-language cable channels on the television, and just let them play in the background during the day. If you have sports fans, watch soccer games in Spanish or any other language. You can watch MTV-type music videos from other countries. The possibilities are endless.
The purpose of learning languages is to understand people. Don't worry about passing tests or memorising grammar and vocabulary. The reward is in the new ability you gain, and the new friendships you will make.
Obviously you will need a translation agency if you turn to the serious side of communication. Emails, Letters, Certificates, Business documents, Contracts, Patents, Advertising material, Brochures, Manuals, Books, Extracts, Websites are our business. We are here to create bridges between different parts of the World. Don’t hesitate to contact the Italian aClick office. Our translators worked for Toyota Canada, some software houses and other important firms. There are so many cultures in the actual society, but remember : “words are real” is our motto. The founder chose that sentence to underline that the talking of two people, the internal documentation of a business, the relations of two companies and the exchanges between two groups are facts: they are actions and real facts.
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