The Gift of Language Learning For the Families of Today
We are all fairly savvy to the fact that we live in an increasingly global society in which our neighbor is from Ecuador, our colleague is from France and the person who teaches our child is from Sweden! We realize as adults how difficult it is to learn a new language after our youth, but we keep reading that it is the perfect time for our own children to begin the language learning!
Time & Newsweek ran feature articles years ago about the window of opportunity for second language learning being somewhere between birth and ten years old. It is so true, and yet so many parents continue to insist English only for the first years of life. It is all a matter of educating the parents of today, helping them to realize that a growing number of brain studies indicate that young children learn languages easily and retain them longer if they are exposed to new languages early in life. Experts agree that while a baby is learning one word for an item, it is just as easy for his young brain to learn a second word for the same item.
Tell a new mom about the studies out of York University showing that children who received instruction in two languages scored twice as high on language tests than their monolingual peers, and that new mom will look at you with amazement. Then go on to inform this mom that these bilingual children also read sooner and demonstrated advanced problem solving capabilities. (Dr. Ellen Bialystok, 2001)
I recall sharing with a mom who had two preschool age children the fact that children learning through a bilingual format will outperform their monolingual peers in grade school as they experience advanced cognitive development. She could not keep her disbelief hidden as I then went on to share with her the fact that the added benefit of learning a second language before middle schoolis that her children will speak the new languages with native or near-native pronunciation.
We have witnessed through the programs on television for children how quickly they pick up a new language as they yell at the tv set their new found words! We watch as our children learn new things so quickly between the ages of birth and five, acting like little sponges and soaking everything in their environment in. Why then should we not think that a new language could be next on the list of important things to bring into the life of a child? Give this gift early enough, and your child will read sooner, score higher on standardized tests and have better opportunities in life. With many linguists, educators and experts agreeing that sooner is better, begin the bilingual fun now!
By six months old a baby has the ability to learn all of the hundreds of languages of our world. Around eleven months old the brain begins to specialize and, as we all can vouch for, it becomes increasingly difficult to pick up a new language year after year. Up until the age of five a child still has the ability to learn five languages simultaneously. By middle school we all know learning a new language is no longer as easy as it used to be in elementary school. Children whose brains have been wired to learn languages early in life will experience advanced success in learning any language of their choice later in life.
Finding a fun and easy way to bring the language learning into your daily routine is often the challenge. Many a new mom tell me that they have no time to add an extra class to attend with their children much less find one more hour a week to fit a language class in. The key can then be to find multimedia products that use a bilingual format for introducing the language to children ages birth – five. Find CDs for the car and DVDs that incorporate all of the senses and many of the learning styles. Experts agree that the two languages should be presented in a bilingual format because as the your child is still acquiring skills in his native language, the new language should be presented in a seamless bilingual format alongside his native language. This allows for better retention most often, higher self esteem and fun for the entire family.
This season give the gift of a second language journey that is easy and fun for you and your child. Sing, dance and play together as you enjoy learning each new word on the path to becoming bilingual. Prepare your child for successful travel through our very global society and what is sure to be a very diverse future.
Beth Butler is the founder of the BOCA BETH Program for young children. Gather your child onto your lap, and take a peek at her fun Spanish and English movies or shake your feet to a bilingual beat for FREE at http://www.bocabeth.com
Then call toll free to order 1.877.825.2622
How Do I Know If A Language Translation Service Is Any Good?
To start with, the difficulty for you is that there is no easy way of knowing whether one translation service is better than another. They all promise accurate translations yet they are not all created equal. Some proclaim unending quality while others promise low prices. The latter is the first obvious danger signal. The simple truth is that good translators are not cheap, nor should they be. The translation service also needs to add on its cut, ranging from 10%-50% on top of the translator’s price depending on whether they review the translations.
So, if the prices are too low, it is most likely the translator’s cut that has suffered. This will undoubtedly mean that you’ll only get inexperienced or poor translators. If all you want is to understand what a document is about, then you’d probably be better off saving your money and using one of the free online machine translation systems. If, on the other hand, the material is for your clients then it might be worth getting the job done properly. The bottom line is that in choosing a translation service, price should not be your ultimate deciding factor but rather one piece of the overall translation pie.
It is easy to calculate how much you spend on translations.
What’s not so easy is determining how much poor translations will cost you!
So set price aside and consider these skill sets when evaluating a translation service. That way, you can be certain you’re comparing good apples with good apples as opposed to bad apples with rotten apples. Ask yourself:
Q) How does the translation service select its translators?
A) Do the team members undergo a rigorous selection process? Are they required to prove native proficiency in THE language into which they translate? If not, you should seriously consider looking elsewhere. The money you save in affordable yet meaningless translations will more than be eaten up by the opportunities you lose because of them.
Q) Are you sure the translators only work into their native language?
A) That Spanish-born and -raised English to Spanish translator may be the perfect choice if the target market is Spain. But what if you want to target the UK? No matter how good her English may be, that Spanish professional no longer looks like the right person for the job, does she?
Q) Does the translation service specialise in the type of material you want to translate?
A) If you broke your leg, you’d want the best orthopaedic surgeon to set it – you wouldn’t rely on a dermatologist to get the job done right, would you? Your translation needs shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best and most suitable expert either. If you’re a financial services provider, for example, look for a translation service that specialises in financial material.
Q) Does the translation service specialise in some languages, or does it offer every language under the sun?
A) You know the saying: “Jack of all trades, master of none.” If a translation service claims to be an expert in all languages, scrutinise that claim.
Once again, it is easy to calculate how much you spend on translations. What’s not so easy is determining how much poor translations will cost you. Why take your chances with a cheap translation service that produces lacklustre results when you could have a leading translation service with guaranteed results? When you think about it, the choice seems obvious.
Stranslations (http://www.stranslations.com) offers professional language translation services in English, French, Spanish, German and other major European languages.
The original version of this article can be found here: http://www.stranslations.com/selecting_a_translation_service.asp
The Spanish Language – A Languages Of The World Primer
Spanish is one of the many so-called Romance languages that grew out of “Vulgar Latin”. It originally developed in Cantabria in northern Spain before spreading its influence throughout much of the Iberian Peninsula during the “reconquest” of Spain from the Arab inhabitants. As a result, the language was heavily influenced by Arabic during this period.
From the 16th century onwards, Spanish spread throughout the new empire to much of South and Central America as well as to the Spanish East Indies (primarily the Philippines). In the 20th century, Spanish moved beyond the confines of the old Spanish empire, being introduced into Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea and parts of the United States that had not previously been Spanish-speaking.
Related languages
Spanish (known as Castilian in Spain) is most closely related to the other Iberian romance languages, primarily Asturian, Galician, Portuguese, Argonese and Catalan. In fact, the only native Iberian language with which Spanish has no real connection is Basque. Outside the Iberian peninsula, Spanish also has significant lexical similarities with Italian, French and Romanian. The lexical similarity between Portuguese and Spanish is estimated to be 89% with only pronunciation differences complicating mutual intelligibility. Italian and Spanish are a little less similar (82%) but are generally mutually intelligible to some degree.
Status today
Spanish is one of the official languages of the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations, and the European Union and is the leading official language in 22 countries worldwide, with almost all of them being in the Americas.
Indeed, of the major Spanish speaking countries, Spain is the only one outside the Americas. With up to 400 million native speakers, Spanish can claim to be the second most widely spoken language in the world. Including non-native speakers, it is estimated to be the fourth most widely spoken language on the planet. That said, calculating numbers of non-native speakers is notoriously difficult and statistics involving “most widely spoken languages” should be viewed more as general indicators of a language’s importance.
With the increasing Spanish influence in the United States where it is already widely used by many federal agencies, its importance will clearly grow substantially over the coming years and decades. In fact, the United States already has in excess of 40 million native Spanish speakers, ranking as the fifth-largest Spanish-speaking community worldwide behind Mexico, Columbia, Spain and Argentina.
Stranslations.com offers professional language translation services in English, French, Spanish, German and other major European languages.
The original version of this article can be found here: http://www.stranslations.com/translation_service/languages_of_the_world/spanish_language.asp
The Catalan Language – A Languages Of The World Primer
Catalan is a Romance languages that grew out of “Vulgar Latin”. It initially developed along the northern and southern sides of the eastern Pyrenees and by the 9th century was an identifiable language in its own right.
As Catalan political and military power increased during the “reconquest” of Spain from the Arab inhabitants, the language was pushed south through Catalonia and into Valencia and across the seas to the Balearic Islands.
When Catalan political and military power subsequently ebbed, however, the language suffered. In 1700, following the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Louis XIV of France banned Catalan from being used in official documents in what Catalans call “Northern Catalonia” (corresponding approximately to the current French department of Pyrenees-Orientales).
At around the same time, the kingdom of Spain prohibited the use of Catalan for official purposes including in education. It was not until the cultural revival in the late 19th century that the language began to recover, only to be battered once again by the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s linguistic policy of Castilian first (known as Spanish outside Spain) meant that there was little place for Catalan, which was widely repressed. After Franco’s death in 1975 and the coming of democracy the language once again flourished, aided somewhat by active promotion by the local Catalan Regional government (Generalitat).
Related languages
Catalan is very closely related to its linguistic neighbours (Occitan, Castilian, Aragonese, French). Of these Occitan and Catalan are probably the most mutually intelligible although many Castilian speakers have little difficulty understanding Catalan with the reverse almost invariably true. As with most romance languages there is a fair degree of mutual intelligibility with Italian, French and Portuguese but as accents and pronunciation vary dramatically from the Balearic islands to Andorra there is no hard and fast rule.
Status today
Catalan is an official language of Andorra and has joint official status in Catalonia where it is widely used in political and cultural life. It is also spoken in parts of south-eastern France, Aragon, Murcia and in the city of L’Alguer in Sardinia. Valencian, which is spoken in Valencia, and the various linguistic variants spoken on the Balearic Islands are, to all intents and purposes, the same language with accent and pronunciation being the most notable divergences. A rough equivalence would be the differences between US and British English. For local political reasons, however, there is strong resistance to being classed under the Catalan banner and indeed during the ratification process for the 2004 EU constitution, the Spanish government supplied separate Catalan, Balearic and Valencian translations even though they were actually identical.
Accurate estimates of the number of true native speakers are difficult to come by but official sources claim close to 10 million people are able to speak the various variants. This breaks down into 6 million in Catalonia, 2.5 million in Valencia and 0.75 million on the Balearic Islands. An additional 2 million people claim to be able to understand it. The position of Catalan has been strengthened in recent decades by the popularity of local Catalan-speaking television stations and by the fact that it is compulsory in schools across Catalonia and Valencia.
Stranslations.com offers professional language translation services in English, French, Spanish, German and other major European languages.
The original version of this article can be found here: http://www.stranslations.com/translation_service/languages_of_the_world/catalan_language.asp