If you have trouble reading this email, go to http://www.randomhouse.com/livinglanguage/newsletter
|
January 2009 |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
Language Learning on a Budget |
|||
Language learning doesn't have to break the bank in 2009! Living Language offers a variety of courses and products for under $20.If you're searching for an all-audio course, the beginner-level Starting Out in… series from Living Language gives you 3 CDs for just $15.95, and is | |||
|
available in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. If you prefer to learn with a book and audio, our 30 Days to Great series includes easy, fast, and fun programs in French, Italian, and Spanish for just $19.95 each.
|
|
|
|
|
Many years ago, I traveled to Brazil to give a keynote speech in São Paulo before about 200 people. It was for a conference on computer-aided design (CAD) and I was going to talk about "strategic technology planning." Since I don't speak Portuguese (and I most definitely couldn't give a detailed business talk in the language), the venue provided an interpreter. In other words, while I spoke into the microphone, someone interpreted what I said into Portuguese from a booth in the back of the room. Many people in the audience wore headsets to hear the translation.
Do you have a language story that you'd like to share? Submit your experiences to us at livinglanguage@randomhouse.com. We'll pick our favorites and post them in this newsletter. 
The g-word and finding patterns
The days of the so-called "grammar-translation method" for learning foreign languages are long gone. This method was mostly devised to teach classical, dead languages, like Latin and Ancient Greek, when they were still taught to many children in the course of elementary or secondary education. It consisted of memorizing grammatical rules, reciting paradigms ad nauseam, and painstakingly translating famous, and often boring, sentences and paragraphs.
I can still hear my older sister reciting the Latin first declension in bed, stella, stellae, stalae, stellam, stella, stellae… stellae, stellarum, stellis, stellas, stellae, stellis, early in the morning before going to school. Not such a pleasant way to be woken up in the morning…
|
Il bay-watch: English words in foreign context I recently came across a reference in an English sentence written by an Italian to a "bay-watch," where she meant to say "lifeguard." I asked my co-workers if they'd ever heard of a lifeguard being referred to in English as a "bay-watch," and no one had ever heard it used in such a way.
Also on the blog this month: 
Do your question words move or stay put? Take a look at these Japanese and English examples of a question and its answer. Mamori-san wa nani go o hanashimasu ka? |
|
You have received this message because you have subscribed to the Living Language list. |
LIVING LANGUAGE © 2009 |
|