The need of knowing foreign languages has sped up over the years and more and more people are learning foreign languages in order to cope up with the demands of society. People from all walks of life and almost all ages are trying to learn languages other than their native tongues in order to communicate better with the world.

Most people who learn foreign languages are those that who can use the languages that they learn in their careers. The train station staff in Edinburgh are set to be offered lessons both in foreign languages and sign language in order to help passengers find their way. A new Rail Learning Centre has opened at the Edinburgh Waverley train station earlier this week and it open to all rail union members including station staff, train drivers, and trolley staff.

All the train station workers who are union members will be able to communicate with more people who need their help in getting information about trips and directions. The Rail Learning Centre provides library books and computers as language learning materials for employees to use during their free time.

The foreign language courses to be taught to the station staff include French, Italian, German, and Spanish so that the staff will be able to communicate with foreign tourists Numeracy, literacy, and IT courses are also offered at the center and staff will also have the chance to enroll in cookery classes at a local college.

Staff who enroll into the sign language course will be able to learn how to assist customers who are hearing impaired and be able to tell them what time the train leaves and on what platform does the train leave from. Any places left on the course will be offered to family members of the train station staff.

The learning centre costs around £10,000 and is part of a partnership between the four rail unions Unite, RMT, TSSA, ASLEF and ScotRail. Jim Baxter, a Scottish Union Learning Fund project worker, has said that it is absolutely fantastic to be able to deliver a shift-friendly, free learning workplace. He also said that the whole point is to break down the barriers and get people back into the whole way of learning way of thinking again. Baxter also mentioned that learning sign language enables the staff to feel confident when they are dealing with people who have difficulty with their hearing and it empowers the staff by giving them the confidence when they are doing their job.

The Rail Learning Centre will also hold a “Brush Up Your Skills” basic literacy and numeracy course and will also add letter and CV writing. Each ten-week course at the center is run by professional tutors and sessions will be held during one day each week. The two-hour sessions takes places twice on the particular day of each week to allow staff to attend the course whatever shift they are working.

Other learning centers are already operating at Dumfries, Ayr, Dundee, Stirling, and Inverness also in the Yoker and Shileds Road stations in Glasgow.

Mr. Baxter is responsible for the running of the learning center project and has also said that the centers which provide language discs, thesauruses, and dictionaries are now “part and parcel of the railway”.

The facility was officially opened by MSP Karen Whitefield who is the convener of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee. She has stated that “The old idea that we leave learning behind when we finish school or college is long gone – lifelong learning is here to stay, bringing real benefits for workers and their employers.”

Steve Montgomery, the managing director of ScotRail has said “We are committed to helping employees access learning opportunities.”

With projects like the language center, more and more people will benefit from learning foreign languages. More people will be able to communicate with each other and help make other people’s lives a little bit easier.

A couple of months ago, Adam Jacot de Boinod left a comment on our blog, inviting us to visit his site about two interesting books he has written. After visiting his blogs and reading his books, I can say that they are really original and interesting. One of his books, The Wonder of Whiffling, talks about unusual and interesting English words, you can read more about it in his blog www.thewonderofwhiffling.com and on his other book, The Meaning of Tingo, he describes how several cultures and languages have specific words for certain situations you couldn’t imagine they exited. You can read more about it on www.themeaningoftingo.com.

The author describes the book Wonder of Whiffling as “a tour of English around the globe … where you will discover a great variety of “words you’ve always wished existed but never knew, such as fornale, to spend one’s money before it has been earned; cagg, a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; and petrichor, the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell”.

Below I have posted a picture of his books:

If you have the opportunity of reading them, don’t miss it.

Over the course of many years, many have learned foreign languages through foreign exchange programs where language learners spent a week or more in host families’ homes in other countries to learn languages and in return welcomed exchange counterparts into their own homes. Foreign exchange or swaps are considered to be among the best ways to learn languages and culture since the participants will be fully immersed in the natural environment where the languages being learned are spoken.

In the United Kingdom, foreign exchange programs are under threat from the new regulations of child protection. Exchanges are collapsing in the UK because many parents do not want to undergo strict criminal record checks which the British government is imposing for anyone who looks after a stranger’s child overnight.

Claudia Freeman, the head of languages at the Perse School in Cambridge, is one of the many language educators that think that foreign exchange is one of the most effective ways of learning foreign languages. Freeman stated that it is “absolute madness” to enforce the strict regulations and is worried about having to cancer trips abroad because of the child-protection legislation introduced after the murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Freeman cites a letter from the Department for Children, Schools, and Families advising her that “host families in England involved in providing accommodation for foreign students on school exchange visits are strongly advised to undergo enhanced CRB checks … which become mandatory next year. This is in line with guidance to schools on volunteers involved in activities requiring an overnight stay”.

All over the UK, schools that conduct foreign exchange are faced with the same issues. Freeman is having a hard time finding accommodation for teenagers from European countries who will be learning languages in the UK. Freeman said that the government seems to want to do away with school exchanges completely and schools are being pushed to study trips in youth hostels where there have been attacks and murders such as the case of 13-year-old Caroline Dickinson who was a Cornish teenager raped and murdered in a youth hostel in Brittany in 1996.

Sam Cunning from the Hall prep school in London is among the many teenagers who would want to learn and improve their foreign language skills. Sam and his class were supposed to stay with families in Lille in the next spring in order to learn French language and culture and in return will accommodate their hosts for an exchange visit. However, the said trip is cancelled said the school’s French language teacher Rob Clarke. Clarke said that about seventy parents need to be CRB checked which is just not practical. He also disagrees that new checks on host parents are necessary since in the past fifteen years of exchanges there have never been reports of any impropriety.

Foreign exchange programs have brought many changes in its participants and have made them learn more than just their target languages. Duncan Byrne, a language teacher at the Aske’s Boys School said that the most important thing about the foreign exchange trips is that the participating youngsters can make friends for life.

The new regulations might totally put an end to exchanges with host families and pave way to hostel programs which may no be totally safe. If and when the regulations will be implemented, there is little chance for the youth to be exposed to other languages and cultures without having to go through a lot of scrutiny.

What can you say about the new child protection regulations and their possible effects on foreign exchange programs? Share your views with us.

It is that time of the year again when people are feeling the magical air of Germany’s Oktoberfest. It is one of the most colorful and authentic German festivals that has captured the hearts of people from all over the world. It is also one of the best times to visit Germany’s lively city of Munich not only for the Oktoberfest but also for German language learning.

The Oktoberfest is not the only event that happens in the city of Munich but it is the most recognizable and popular event that has brought people to the city and even inspired other cities worldwide to recreate their own version of the festival. Munich is the capital of Bavaria and was founded in the earlier part of the twelfth century. The city has gone through a rich history brought about by various influences from different cultures. It became a developed city just a couple of decades after its founding and it went through many changes in culture, governance and architecture due to the Counter Reformation, Gothic Revival, the Renaissance and several wars.

Munich has recovered gracefully after the Second World War and nowadays, its local citizens enjoy a prosperous economy and a high quality of life. Unlike other cities in Germany, Munich has a relatively low crime rate and has a high employment rate. It is also a wonderful tourist and educational destination since it has a wide array of attractions and many notable educational institutions. Tourist spots, universities and German language schools are among the most in demand in Munich!

The Oktoberfest is by far the most attractive event in Munich. It begins at the end of September and it is one of the largest folk festivals in the world. It is a huge fair that occurs for a span of two weeks and it showcases a lot of colorful parades, live music, and Munich’s best beers. About six million people attend the Oktoberfest annually that’s why it is a very popular and important event. You could visit Munich during this time of the year and even hone your German language skills in a German language school! You would learn to appreciate the event more if you could communicate with the natives in their language plus, you will have the chance to become bilingual!

If you would like to see more of Munich aside from its glorious festival, you can learn more about German culture through its other famous attractions. The Cathedral of Our Lady or Frauenkirche is the most famous landmark of Munich and it can be found in the city center. If you have a thirst for knowledge and would want to be in one of the oldest and largest science museums in the world, the Deutsches Museum might just give answers to your questions. If you would like to visit the places where famous people such as Mozart, Wagner, Mann, Rilke, Klee, Brecht, and Kandinsky among others used to live and became inspired with their works, Munich has it all for you!

Munich also has parks and green areas such as the Hirschgarten, the Tierpark Hellabrunn zoo, the Olympic Park which caters different sporting events, and the Allianz Arena that holds exciting football matches. Munich is a wonderful place that has combined the traditional with the modern and it surely will be a great place to learn German.

Whether it is the time for Oktoberfest or not Munich is still very much worthy of your visit to learn more about the German language and culture. Learn German in Munich and find out for yourself why the city’s motto is “Munich loves you!”

Foreign language learning is taking place in almost every country in the world and more countries are enforcing foreign language learning in their schools to equip their young citizens with languages they may need in the future for their education and career.

France has taken on the challenge to produce more multilingual citizens and French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an emergency plan to make schools produce more bilingual students. Many French children generally spend years learning foreign languages in their schools yet the results are often bleak.

President Sarkozy mentioned in a speech that outlined wider education reforms that “a foreign language is meant to be spoken,” and he suggested that foreign language instruction should be shifted away from written grammar and memorization to emphasize oral skills.

The students in French public schools start learning a second language in middle school and they often receive up to six tears of foreign language instruction. Nonetheless, a lot of high school graduates struggle to express even the simplest of thoughts in English, German, Spanish or other foreign languages that are in schools.

President Sarkozy has duly noted that French students rank 69th out of 109 countries on the TOEFL which is the English language test for foreign students who wish to study in the United States. The ranking may not be surprising considering that the final high school exams are written however, the exam for Latin is oral.

The curriculum that is heavy on grammar may be accounted for the low rankings and another reason for such is sometimes the language teachers themselves since many of whom are not native speakers of the languages they teach and they often have strong French accents. President Sarkozy whose own command of the English language is weak, has pledged to change the way foreign language is evaluated, to bring more native speakers into schools, and to encourage foreign exchanges.

The move to improve foreign language instruction in France comes as French continues o lose ground to English. French was once the language of diplomacy and the lingua franca in much of the world but English has taken over internationally. The rise of the internet and its numerous English language sites has drawn attention to the need for improved English skills among French youth.

Christian Tremblay, the head of the European Observatory of Plurilinguism – a group dedicated to promoting the learning of foreign languages throughout Europe, has acknowledged that the French language learning system is “very average” and he also said that he was skeptical that President Sarkozy’s proposals to improve the system would radically change the situation.

Tremblay said in an interview that “The ‘great language syndrome’ is still very much alive and well in France. At home, in families, and in society at large, there’s just not the idea that languages are something essential. That’s really what we have to change.”

A good proposal, proper implementation, and a more positive mindset may be just what France needs in order to improve the foreign language abilities of their youth.

It is not surprising that many people from different parts of the world are learning languages which are very different from their native tongues. Having knowledge of various languages are proven to be very useful not only for educational and leisure purposes but for business reasons as well.

In Harare, Zimbabwe, Pedzisayi Mashiri, the director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe has called on to the Chinese community to learn local Zimbabwean languages if they want to make more progress with their business ventures in the country. Mashiri has said that it would be proper for Chinese business people to learn the local languages since this could help communicate with the locals easier.

Although Zimbabwe has high literacy levels, there are some locals who cannot speak languages other than their native ones. So, even when the Chinese can speak English, they may find communication difficult in some parts of the country.

“Since we are learning the Chinese language in Zimbabwe, I think to strengthen the inter-cultural communication it would be proper for them to also try to learn local languages such as Shona and Ndebele,” Mashiri said.

The Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute which aims to propagate and expand the learning of Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching internationally through affiliated Confucius Institutes. The Confucius Institute offers demand driven courses for people who are either in business or politics.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe was established in 2007 and is a vehicle for expansion and also strengthens the relationship between China and Zimbabwe. It is the eighty-fifth Confucius Institute in the world and was jointly built by the Office of Chinese Language Council International and the university.

At the moment the relationship of both China and Zimbabwe is excellent and the relationship is secured through a long history in various fields. At present, due to having language as a vehicle for intercultural communication, the relationship between both countries has been consolidated because the institute now receives post graduate scholarships for their students.

Since 2007, the institute has sent seven students from the University of Zimbabwe who are studying for their PhDs in various fields such as linguistics, engineering, psychology, and theater and through that kind of educational program, the relationship between the two countries has strengthened more.

If the Chinese would really want to expand their businesses and cultural interests in other parts of the world, it is essential that they learn the local languages of the places where they want to expand. It is good to know that people are not the only ones learning Chinese but that the Chinese are learning other languages too!

There are a lot of iPhone applications available today and for language learners, there is a new app that you can use to improve your language skills. The Byki software by Transparent Language has lessons for language learners who use iPhones and iPod touch units.

Byki creates flashcard vocabulary lessons and it has also added a Twitter search that users can see native speakers’ Tweets and find out how people online use the words and phrases in conversations.

The manager of user experience for Transparent Language, Christopher O’Donnell, says that “By using social media, a human face is put on language and takes people away from the textbook sort of trite and authored phrases and makes it more like real life and it makes language more accessible.”

Transparent Language began its services in 1991 and provides language-learning software for government agencies, educational institutions, consumers, and businesses. Their developed Byki software stands for Before You Know It, and is based on learning any of seventy foreign languages by employing spaced interval repetition, which is also known as the flashcard method. The languages currently offered by Transparent Language include French, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, and Spanish. Recently introduced languages include Swedish, Polish, Norwegian and Tagalog.

The Byki iPhone app allows users to learn languages through its flashcard method and with the Twitter add-on; users can click an icon on their screen and see in real time how the words and phrases can be used colloquially. For example, a certain Portuguese word has a common definition but then it is used in various ways by Portuguese speakers from different locations. The type of language learning a person undergoes is not only of the formal type but also of the colloquial ones. After all, everyday talk involves more colloquial terms in the language instead of the formal ones.

Language learners might enjoy this app, but then it’s not available for free! The Byki software application can be downloaded on the internet for $7.99 per language and is available at the Apple iTunes Store and can be stored on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The internet has helped do many wonders to people’s lives and it has made the world a smaller place. Due to technology, a lot of changes have occurred and more and more people become connected to each other. However, no matter how the world seems small with the internet, there is still something that keeps us from freely communicating with each other – the language barrier.

There are many ways to bridge the language gap and the best way is to learn as many languages possible. Having the ability to speak a language aside from one’s native tongue can already do wonders in communicating with other people; you will not be limited to talking only to those who speak your mother tongue! But also there are other ways you can go when trying to understand different languages such as using the software Translateit!.

TranslateIt! is a software that reduces language barrier problems. Once the program is installed in the computer, it allows users to make use of the mouse-over translation technology. If a user is reading a message in another language, all he or she needs to do is to hover over the word then the translation appears right on the screen almost instantly!

The TranslateIt! software does not require users to open additional windows or do copy and paste actions. Translation of verbs or expressions is also supported by the software through highlight and translate functions that work in much the same way and only requires that users highlight the unknown portions of the text to obtain the translations.

TranslateIt! can be considered a great software and is very helpful in building up vocabulary in the target language. It can be used to translate words in Outlook Express, Microsoft Word, and ICQ. The program is available for MAC and Windows operating systems and works with a large number of programs including the internet browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera, and FireFox. The downside with the software is that it does not work with all of the world’s languages, it is only limited to English, Spanish, German, and Russian.

So what’s the verdict with the TranslateIt! software? It is a helpful tool for those who are still learning the basics of a foreign language such as vocabulary, and simple verb conjugations. The disadvantage is that it can translate words only in few languages and it does not help developing your speaking or listening skills of a foreign language since it deals mostly with text.

There are a lot of language learners who choose to learn Spanish simply because it is one of the most spoken languages in the world and a huge population of the planet can communicate in Spanish either as a mother tongue or a second language. Spanish is an appealing language to learn and it is one of the most learned languages nowadays. People have seen and experienced the advantages of learning Spanish and they are encouraging more to learn the language.

Many would ask, what is the best way to learn Spanish? No one may have the exact formula since learning a language depends on the person learning and his or her learning style. However, there are many ways and means to learn a language and the following tips may help you in your quest for the Spanish language.

• Choose a good Spanish Language Course. Choosing a Spanish language course for yourself is one of the first things you can do in order to jumpstart your Spanish language journey. You can choose learning Spanish in language schools in your area, or language schools abroad; learn Spanish online through distance learning university courses or self-help lessons; or you can learn Spanish at home with software and supplemental tools that can help you learn the language. Once you have chosen what type of Spanish language course you are going to take for learning the language, be sure to have the motivation and determination to follow it from the beginning to the end. Don’t jump to the next lessons or levels unless you have finished the prerequisites.

• Use the language. One way of instilling Spanish into your system is to use it and by using it means not only listening and reading Spanish but also writing and speaking the language! Gather all what you have learned about Spanish and use them to communicate with Spanish speakers either those people that you meet in your community, you meet in a place where Spanish is the common tongue of the people, or through online communities that support and promote the propagation of the Spanish language.

• Practice. One of the most common advice people give and take in learning foreign languages is to practice more often. Do not be scared to make mistakes while learning Spanish, after all you are still learning it. Just be open to suggestions and never lose the determination to become fluent in Spanish. Practice more each day!

Learning a new language may take some time but if you are determined to learn Spanish quickly, you will as long as you are dedicated to learn it fast and well!

The world and its people are becoming more interconnected each and everyday. You can hear and see it on televisions, newspapers, magazines and the internet! Globalization has made the world smaller because more and more people interact with each other and share information. That makes things lighter and easier for many people. In order to be able to ride on with this continuing flow of global exchange, powerful tools of communication – such as foreign languages – are required!

Language learning has become popular due to the onset of globalization and people who speak more than one language tend to have more opportunities than those who are monolingual. In order to learn languages, language programs are included in most academic programs. Also young students are exposed to a new language and its culture. Languages are easier to learn for children from infancy until twelve to thirteen years.

How are children in elementary schools in America going to learn new languages if foreign language programs are suffering from budget cuts?

Learning languages at a young age will set great foundations for future language endeavors. Children can distinguish and learn up to five languages simultaneously.

Therefore, it is important to start learning a foreign language in early ages.

Now that the global financial crisis has hit America with a bang, a lot of cuts are made in educational programs. A lot of parents and educators do not agree with these decisions, as they see the significance of learning languages.

There had been many reports that the United States is in a dire need of learning critical languages. But how should this be possible then?

Aside from learning critical languages for security reasons, languages are also need for other aspects and fields. Not only in the own country, but also abroad, as well as in commerce, finance, tourism and education it is necessary.

If education administrators and politicians proposing budget cuts could just foresee the importance of learning languages, they might change their minds about this and perhaps even support those programs instead.