In today’s multi-ethnic society it has become a necessity for men, women and children of all ages to speak multiple languages. In almost every part of the country citizens conduct their business on a daily basis with someone for whom English is a second language. For the majority of these citizens Spanish is their native tongue.

The Hispanic culture is the fastest growing ethnic tradition in the United States. In certain parts of California, Texas, Florida and Washington D.C. Spanish is spoken more frequently than English, and while recent legislation has made it necessary for those immigrants who choose to live in a country not their own to learn the native language this process takes time, and in the meantime they continue to go about their lives on America’s golden shores.

What does this mean? It means that every American can benefit from learning to speak at least a little bit of Spanish. Many elementary and high schools teach language to their students as a curricular requirement; however, the methods which they use to teach are inefficient, and most students will walk out of the classroom on their graduation day knowing little more than they did when they walked in four or five years previously.

How, then, can these students learn and retain their new language? How can an adult learn these things? Most importantly, how can they learn to do these things quickly enough to be able to use the language in their daily lives?

There are a number of virtual and audio programs intended to help people learn to speaking Spanish quickly by emphasizing basic vocabulary needed for day to day living, and these are invaluable resources; however, they are insufficient for developing fluency and should be considered as a resource rather than a sole means. In order for anyone to learn and understand quickly they must employ what has become known as the immersion method.

What does this mean? People, regardless of age, remember best what they see every day. If a person who is studying Spanish sees it only when they are studying Spanish they are not going to remember it quickly. On the other hand, if they speak it every day, listen to Spanish music on their radios, Spanish broadcasts on their televisions, read Spanish newspapers and write simple documents, such as grocery lists, in Spanish the language will quickly come to be an integral part of their subconscious.

The Auckland University-based Confucius Institute is banking on a pool of new language assistants to help reach its goal of having 50,000 Kiwis learning Mandarin in schools by next year.

The institute, supported by the Chinese Government, was established in 2007 to make Mandarin the foreign language of choice in NZ. Its popularity continues to lag behind others such as French and Japanese…

Access the full article at New Zealand Times by Lincoln Tan.

1. If you are an English speaker, or any other alphabetic language speaker, Chinese is totally different from your native language. You may think each Chinese character is different from other ones, so it must be very difficult to learn Chinese characters.
2. Yes, there are a great number of characters, but as the matter of fact, some characters are seldom used. Only about 3000 characters are used in Chinese everyday life and cover 99.9% of characters appearing in books and newspapers. Among these 3000 characters, only about 1000 are mostly frequently used.
3. Chinese is an ideographic language. It means that people can guess the meaning of the character according to how it is written. Even though after the thousands years of evolution, nowadays people can still figure out the meanings from the appearance of some Chinese characters(about 5%), such as the character “山，shān, Mountains”.
4. The current Chinese characters used in China mainland is called “Simplified Chinese characters” which have been approved since 1956, they have less strokes than the characters used in Hongkong and Taiwan. All Chinese characters are made up 6 basic strokes, {ヽ │ ー ╯ ╰ ˊ}.
5. Characters are divided into 2 groups, single-component characters and multi-component characters.
6. People usually start to learn Chinese characters from single-component characters since their simple structure. For example, these characters “一，yī, One”, “二, èr, Two”, “三, sān, Three”, “十, shí, Ten”, “人, rén, People”.
7. Most Chinese characters are multi-component characters(major 2 components), with left-right structure and top-bottom structure. The characters of these two structures count for 86% of all Chinese characters. Very often for a character, one component is called “meaning root” which indicates the meaning of the character, another component is called “sound root” which indicates the pronunciation. For example, “妈，mā, Mother, the left part 女’ means woman/female, the right part ‘马’ sounds as ‘ma’.” “烫，tàng, Hot, the top part ‘汤’ sounds as ‘tang’, the bottom part means fire.”
8. Some Chinese characters can be used as radicals which indicate not only the sound but also the meaning, like “人，女，力.” For example, “他，tā, He/Him, its left part 人=亻 means people/man”, “她, tā, She/Her, its left part means women”.
9. Many Chinese characters are associated. General speaking, learning Chinese characters is not as difficult as you may first think, why not start your journey to learn this ancient language?

Learn Mandarin Chinese Spring Festival (Beginner)

1. DVDs and CDs hat will help you learn Spanish now. Purchase software that offers exercises on speaking the Spanish language and explains its grammar.
2. Find a fluent Spanish speaker and practice speaking with them. Practice frequently speaking with someone who is fluent in the language. Learn how they use slang and well as proper grammar and syntax.
3. Travel abroad to a Spanish-speaking country. Immerse yourself in the culture of a foreign language to take part in an accelerated learning process.
4. Watch Telemundo or another Spanish-speaking television network. Incorporate Spanish-speaking television shows into your television viewing habits when trying to learn Spanish now.
5. Find websites and other online tools to help learn Spanish now. Use the internet to search for Spanish learning websites and online lessons to help in your quest to become bilingual.
6. Listen to Spanish or Latin music. When you want to learn Spanish now it is a good to include some Spanish songs to help broaden your exposure to the Spanish language.

Titan Flynn, 7, watches as Anie Pelletier plays the bonang with the other members of Kyai Brojo Marto, a gamelan orchestra, Saturday during the Lunar New Year celebration at the Language Exchange of Northern Colorado in Fort Collins. (Dawn Madura/The Coloradoan)

Access the article at Coloradoan.

A KEY player in the lively debate over changes to how Chinese is taught here is quick to see the funny side when asked about his own adult daughters.

‘My elder daughter is studying English literature and the younger girl is in England studying law,’ says Dr Chin Chee Kuen with a smile, of his children aged 21 and 18…

Access the full article at AsiaOne Education.

Banks like Wells Fargo and companies like Lind’s Market Financial have gone bilingual, long ago. In 2002, Wells Fargo began to accept Mexican Matricula cards as valid identification to open an account…

Click here to access the full article written by Angelica Perez.