Fall
2007
Key Languages News
Get Your Feet Wet
for people who have never tried
Spanish Monday, Oct. 15, 2007
Portuguese Monday, Nov. 12, 2007
Christmas party in December
German Monday, Jan. 14, 2008
French Monday, Feb. 11, 2008
Basic vocabulary and conversation
Lesson from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
$80 per lesson
Reservations by e-mail: info@keylang.com
Language in the News
Words failed TV host – so did her bosses. Luisa Fernanda, a host for six years of a popular talk show on Telemundo, is jobless because of linguistic diversity. Being from Mexico, she used a word that is offensive for Cubans. The word “cherna”, which is a fish (grouper), is a pejorative term for gay man. The word was a good fit for a joke with co-host Mauricio Zeilic, and she had no intention to offend anybody. The Miami Herald. July 2007.
For military, a crash course in Latin culture. A program pioneered by Southcom’s commander, Navy Adm. James Stavridis, has set a goal of 60% proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese or French, the languages of the region, for its personnel. Among other initiatives, they’ve acquired Rosetta Stone licenses for at-desk learning and hired tutors for face-to-face practice. The Miami Herald. July 2007.
Doing business abroad? Simple faux pas can sink you. People who commit a faux pas will end up perceived as rude, even obnoxious, and can hurt business deals. Terri Morrison, co-author of a business etiquette book series, Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, says that making an error in a person’s name is a personal insult in many cultures. The Chinese practice of placing the surname first would make a person make a mistake equivalent to calling President George instead of President Bush. USA Today. August, 2007.
United Nations Names 2008 the International Year of Languages. The UN General Assembly proclaimed 2008 the “International Year of Languages” and will pursue multilingualism by giving equal importance to the six official languages of the organization (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish).The Language Educator. August 2007.
Learning Mandarin is now mandatory. In China, authorities require top executives at securities firms to pass written and oral exams in Mandarin, and managers expect meeting to be conducted in their language. The language is necessary to communicate with staff, the government and investors. Chinese is one of the toughest languages to learn. The meaning of each sound changes depending on tone. Students have to memorize thousands of characters, instead of 26 letters. The simplest Chinese word is the character for “one” which is a single horizontal line, the most complex requires 56 strokes. The Miami Herald. September 2007.
Learning tips
Learning experience outside the classroom:
• Exposing yourself to multimedia input from the internet.
• Using the language in public. Example: Visiting a museum with friends and discussing the paintings and sculptures in Spanish. Having lunch at a Mexican restaurant afterwards. Ordering in Spanish, of course.
• Communicating with native speakers during social and business occasions.
• Getting involved in a community group (church, cultural association, theater group, etc).
• Traveling to study a language or as a tourist, when the language ceases to be abstract and becomes a way of communicating.
Quote
“No language”, as the linguist John Edwards has written, “can be described as better or worse than another on purely linguistic grounds”, all “languages are always sufficient for the needs of their speakers.”
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