![]() Diane Mufson: Americans must speak more than just English
Huntington Herald Dispatch, WV - Mar 14, 2008
"While many recent immigrants speak a foreign language and have various
degrees of facility in English, the great majority of Americans are
monolingual; they communicate only in English." …
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages indicates that about a third of American students in grades 7 to 12 are taking foreign languages, but more than 95 percent study only Spanish, French, German, Italian or Latin." …
"The same article also noted that the Chinese have more than 200 million
students studying English, but fewer than 24,000 Americans are studying
the Chinese language. In everyday terms, this means that millions of
Chinese will understand our conversations but only a tiny fraction of
Americans will comprehend theirs."…
"In the 21st century, teaching foreign languages should be viewed as
just as important as math, computers, science and social studies.
Schools should be offering a variety of foreign languages to all
students from an early age.Our traditional way of teaching foreign languages to mainly
college-bound high school students is ineffective. Developing fluency
or even familiarity within another language also tends to …"
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Tags: ForeignLanguage, Foreign Languages, Chinese, Chinese language, French, Spanish, German, Latin
By Shareen Aguilar
The romance languages of Europe, has familiar similarities to each of them. This is because the languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish all came from the mother language, Latin. This means that there are functions and words that are in relation with each other among the languages mentioned above.
If you already know portions of speaking French or Spanish (either of these languages), you are actually helping yourself in enriching your foreign language vocabulary. This is because when you start learning either of the romance languages, you are opening to chances of learning other European romance languages as well.
This doesn't mean though that starting to learn the Italian language doesn't require your complete understanding of the lessons. You still have to start from the simplest Italian language lesson to the difficult part. We all know how to obtain Italian lessons as well. An online course is one thing or taking a formal course from a university is also a good option.
If attending a complete full course of the subject does not appeal much to your busy schedule; try taking lessons that you can learn in a daily basis. Or better yet, take one Italian word each day. No need to worry in moving on to the next though, because the more you understand its meaning and purpose; the better you are able to use it with other Italian words.
Enriching yourself with more than one language is a great way of maintaining and putting your brain to constant work. If the Italian language is a completely new experience for you, so it is to your brain. For all you know, you are actually helping your brain maintains its efficiency by inputting new information to it everyday.
To help you remember the words more, try putting up posts of the lesson you have for one day around the house. This will clearly help you remember more the current lessons you're trying to learn.
About the Author: Shareen Aguilar is a writer for Learn Italian Program which has Memory Improvement Books and Memory Game Software for better Italian language memorization.
Italian American Assoc. to open center Jan. 31
Atlanticville, NJ - Jan 23, 2008
"[This year] will mark our 32nd anniversary as an organization that is dedicated to children, families and the fostering of the Italian American heritage and culture," said Cultural Committee Co- Chair Nick Sestito of Interlaken in a press release. …/
IAATO's Cultural Center adds to the association's ongoing community contributions, including weekly Italian language classes for children, annual academic …
Read the rest of the article at Italian American Assoc. to open center Jan. 31
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Tags: languages, Italian, Italian language
Italian school coming to country's most Italian town
The Hammonton News, USA - January 19, 2008
By BEN MERITT HAMMONTON — Interested in exploring the Italian language and culture? The Pinetina Center for Italian Arts and Culture may be the place for you. …
What better place for a school that celebrates all things Italian than
in the town that, according to the 2000 census, had more Italians per
capita than any other town in the country? …
"Our philosophy at Pinetina is you shouldn't learn
the language without the culture," Bellesorte said. "You should know
where your dialects came from. You should know why you say a word a
certain way." …
Read the full article, Italian school coming to country's most Italian town
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Tags: languages, foreign languages, Italian, Italian language
Group updating list of people fluent in other languages
Daily Mail - Charleston, WV - Jan 9, 2008
"…When the Woman's Club of South Charleston first set about in 1963 to organize a list of Kanawha Valley residents who not only spoke foreign languages but also were willing to lend help in translating, it found a rich resource….
The Kanawha Valley Language Bank currently contains 300 names and represents 54 different languages…. The list now includes a wide variety of languages from the expected - French, Spanish and Italian - to the perhaps unexpected - Fiji, Rudu, Boyangu and Bengali…
Read more about Group updating list of people fluent in other languages
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Tags: languages, foreign languages, French, French language, Spanish, Spanish language, Italian, Italian language
 Express from The Washington Post |
Fluent Season: Group Help for Learning Languages Express from The Washington Post, DC - 12 hours ago But by searching for "Italian language groups" on the Internet, the Bethesda resident found an informal, no-cost alternative: the Montgomery County Italian Language Meetup Group, hosted by Meetup.com. She registered with the Web site (for free) and RSVPed for a bi-monthly meeting. Soon, Rabbin found herself in a Starbucks, practicing her "ciaos" and "come vas" (How are you?) with new "amici" (friends) over "caffe" (coffee) and "dolci" (desserts)…
"Experts say language skills, whether gained through meetups or formal classes, can be a particularly valuable leg up in the competitive working world. So, learning and practicing a new vernacular — or even brushing up on that rusty high school French — is a smart idea."
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Tags: Languages, Italian, Italian language, Meetup, learning languages,
Italian Soccer School - Scuola Calcio, Jekyll Island - PRLog.Org (press release)
Italian Soccer School - Scuola Calcio, Jekyll Island
PRLog.Org (press release), Romania - Oct 31, 2007
The program includes all coaching fees plus direct Italian language course offered throughout the program. Italian language expands from the classroom every …
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technorati tags:languages, Italian, Italianlanguage, learnitalian