Terry Davis, General Secretary of the the Council of Europe, organisers of the European Day of Languages, has a simple message today: ‘Learn, speak, listen– and understand each other’. His statement on this the 8th anuual European Day of Languages says:
‘Learning another language is a good way to make sure that tolerance, respect and understanding among people are not lost in translation. Language learning helps to avoid stereotyping individuals and helps to develop curiosity and openness towards other people and other cultures. Language learning helps us to see that interaction with people from different social identities and cultures is an enriching experience. This is the approach advocated by the Council of Europe in our White Book on Intercultural Dialogue, published earlier this year, and it is also the underlying motive of the European Day of Languages, which was declared by the Council of Europe in 2001. I have a very simple message to all Europeans of all origins, ages and backgrounds: learn, speak, listen– and understand each other.’
The European Day of Languages (EDL), a Council of Europe initiative, is held annually on the 26 September to celebrate language and cultural diversity. The Day was first celebrated in 2001, the European Year of Languages and involves more people every year.
The European Day of Languages is:
* A Europe-wide celebration of all the world’s languages
* A day to kick-start language learning
* A chance to raise awareness about the value of language skills
Regional Language Network (RLN) London has launched a toolkit to share motivating activities and ideas with businesses and schools interested in working in partnership to encourage language learning.
The toolkit includes samples of activities carried out by recognised Business Language Champions, together with supporting materials and advice which can help in building long-term partnerships between schools and businesses.
The toolkit is the latest addition to the Business Languages Champions programme, which highlights the value of language skills in the workplace for young people. The programme recently earned praise from Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who invited a group of pupils and teachers from Hornsey School for Girls in North London to meet with him to share their experience of working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Business Language Champions organiser, Pinky Sidhu, said ‘With our toolkit and future activities we expect to inspire and motivate more and more partners to get involved and make a difference.
Most Britons do not like the sound of their own voices - and would like to sound like the Queen if given the chance to change the way they talk, a survey has shown.
And after the Queen’s, the accent most would like to have is Irish followed by Scottish.
Overall the Queen’s English is the most popular accent in Great Britain.
The poll of more than 2,000 Britons by voice-to-content company SpinVox revealed that 73% of people did not like the way their voices sounded.
SpinVox linguistic expert Tony Robinson said: “It seems Britain is being gripped by an epidemic of accent envy and accent self loathing.
“After decades where dialect diversity has been celebrated, the majority of Britons now aspire to received pronunciation - and to share the sound of their voice not only with The Queen but with celebrities like Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant.”
Had he been president of Indonesia, not France, Charles de Gaulle might have modified his famous saying about cheeses and asked how to govern a nation with over 700 different languages. The answer, as elsewhere in South-East Asia, was to impose a “national” tongue.
As the region’s countries became independent, most wanted their citizenry to speak the same indigenous language. But choosing an acceptable candidate sometimes proved difficult, laying the ground for “language wars” that still rage.
A new collection of essays* from the Singapore-based Institute of South-East Asian Studies (ISEAS) reviews the region’s struggles to build monolingual nations. Several themes emerge: first, globalisation is forcing governments to reconsider restrictions on daily use of English; second, with the economic rise of China, governments increasingly see their ethnic-Chinese populations as assets rather than threats; and third, democratisation and decentralisation may revive local and tribal languages. Each of these trends may undermine the quest for a unifying national language.
It is not new that English is the global language for business. What is new, however, is the pace of globalization, which is making cross-border commerce, acquisitions, and exchange of best practices more common, and the need for English proficiency more vital throughout organizations.
In the past, large companies such as GE have designed proprietary e-learning tools to teach so-called business English across the global enterprise. The trouble with this approach is these programs tended to be expensive to develop, difficult to assess and inflexible—unable to adapt quickly to the constant addition of new terms, idioms and acronyms that constantly crop up in business English. “It’s a huge issue,” says Rodney Nelsestuen, a research director at TowerGroup, who adds that today’s business pace is so demanding, the push for efficiencies so intense, it’s simply not acceptable to slow things down with questions in mid sentence about language.
In response, companies are increasingly turning to a scalable, online solution from GlobalEnglish, a 10-year old, privately held company that now claims 450 clients among the Global 2000, including Citigroup, HSBC, BNP Paribas, ING, Finansbank in Turkey, Banco Bradesco in Brazil, Emirates Bank in the UAE and Raiffeisenbank Russia. “BNP Paribas has told us, ‘We’re not a French bank, we’re a global bank,’” says GlobalEnglish CEO Deepak Desai. “As they make purchases of banks in Poland, Czech, Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, they need to use English. ‘Those people aren’t going to learn French,’ [BNP executives] tell us, ‘and we need to find a way to communicate and compete.’” Any bank making an acquisition or a series of acquisitions needs to be able to take best practices and push them across the enterprise, whether the employees are in Brazil or Korea, Desai argues. “You have to be able to explain it, and that has to be done in English.”
If it is not taught in English, then it is not an MBA. At least that is the belief of George Yip, the dean of Rotterdam School of Management.
Yip raises his eyebrows at the suggestion that a number of European deans are poised to offer electives in their native language. “I would have thought teaching in English is a complete requirement,” he says.
Yip is right – up to a point. If he is to attract the best international students, teaching in Dutch would be a nonstarter. But there is another argument. Fluency in two or more languages offers globetrotting executives a competitive advantage.
Thierry Grange, the dean of Grenoble Ecole de Management, says: “What about the 25 per cent of Americans who speak Spanish? If you want to improve your fluency as a Spanish-speaking American then Spain is a good place to do your MBA.”
Tibetan is a language spoken by six million people throughout the Tibetan plateau of Central Asia, bordering on South Asia, an area equivalent to the size of Western Europe. This includes areas currently governed by China, the traditional regions of Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang as well as Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan; Ladakh and the Baltistan area of Northern Pakistan and India; Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan. There are 150,000 exile speakers around the world. Tibetan belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group, a sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan family.
Spoken Tibetan comprises a very large number of dialects. The principle ones in Tibet are Kham, Amdo, and U-Tsang or Lhasa dialects. The dialect of Tibet’s capital city, Lhasa, now also known as Central or Standard Tibetan, serves as a lingua franca, and also forms the basis for the exile dialect. A standardised version of the language is gradually evolving. The boundaries between dialects classed as Tibetan and those not included are not always clear. For example Dzongkha (a dialect of Bhutan), Sikkimese, Sherpa and Ladhakhi, are considered to be separate. Not all dialects included in the class of Tibetan are mutually intelligible. However the written form is the same everywhere.
Learning Spanish is best achieved in the language’s cultural context, which is why thousands of students every year choose to study Spanish in Barcelona. University courses in this international, bicultural city are offered at a wide range of universities that place great emphasis on a quality education for today’s globalized world.
The University of Barcelona (also known as the UAB or Barcelona University) is one of the most prestigious and forward-looking educational institutions in Barcelona. Spanish courses at the UAB are available to students of all levels in standard, intensive and individual formats, and include week, month and semester-long programs.
Because of the prestige associated with these internationally recognized universities, many students consider them the best option for Spanish courses. Barcelona places great emphasis on promoting itself as a center for international studies, and much work has been done in the city to increase its appeal as such.
Thus, taking a language course in Barcelona represents a good choice for one’s education as well as for one’s future employment possibilities. Language courses in Barcelona are known and respected in international business circles, a world community that is very aware of the value of Spanish (Barcelona is arguably the world’s preferred destination for business-oriented Spanish courses).
There are also a wide range of Spanish language schools in Barcelona that offer comparable quality to that of a Spanish course in Spanish universities. Language courses at these smaller language schools often offer the advantage of increased flexibility and ease of registration.
As a city in which to have a study abroad experience, Barcelona is appealing to international students in many regards. Not only is it a large, cosmopolitan and stimulating city; it’s also graced with a coastline and numerous beautiful beaches (Madrid, in contrast, is a fantastic city but lacks this type of refreshing escape).
The historic center of the city is full of fascinating architecture and winding streets hiding charming restaurants and sidewalk cafés. Las Ramblas is one of the city’s most famous boardwalks; this wide pedestrian avenue is constantly alive with curious visitors, street performers and vendors of all types.
Nightlife is known to be excellent year-round, although it’s perhaps at its liveliest during the summer months. The city’s largest and most emblematic disco is Razzmatazz (formerly known as Sala Zeleste). Another interesting night spot is Dow Jones, a crowded bar where prices for drinks imitate the rise and fall of the stock market and can be tracked on overhead monitors.
Barcelona holds countless other sites of cultural and recreational interest, such as the world-famous Sagrada Familia cathedral and the huge and beautiful Parque Guell (both designed by the late architect Antoni Gaudi).
Getting around Barcelona is made easy by the city’s excellent and dependable public transportation system, which includes an extensive metro network that stays open until 2:00am on Friday’s and operates continuously on Saturdays. A leisurely walk through the city, however, is a pleasure that shouldn’t be overlooked. Wide streets lined with intriguing monuments and unique architecture (the hand of Gaudi is prevalent) make Barcelona one of the world’s most enjoyable cities by foot.
Lie Chan who works for Barcelona University, a website that offers Spanish courses at Barcelona University.
A bid by French police to investigate the alleged attempt to blackmail a member of the Royal Family was hampered by their inability to speak English, a court heard yesterday.
The Royal, identified only as A, was on holiday in France when he learned that two men wanted £50,000 for an incriminating tape, it was alleged.
A’s friend, a lawyer known as C, informed Lt Arthur Maccotta. The Old Bailey heard that C phoned the two accused, Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan, to set up a meeting in France. Lt Maccotta, giving evidence through an interpreter, said he and his boss listened in to the call. Jerome Lynch, defending, asked: “But you couldn’t understand any English?” He replied: “No, but I have full confidence in what C was saying.”
Equalities guru Trevor Phillips has called on employers to bear the cost of migrant workers’ English classes.
Forty years on from the notorious Enoch Powell speech that slated the then government’s immigration policy, the head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has said he believed “it is right” that migrants have access to free English lessons when they come to the UK to work.
Speaking to mark the 40th anniversary of Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, Phillips questioned to what extent employers, migrants and settled communities should share the costs of increased immigration.
“The government has recently acknowledged this by suggesting that while English lessons might be made free for those who intend to settle here, it is right that those who come just to work – the ‘easymigrant’ – and their employers should bear the cost of their English classes. I believe that this is right.”
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