dispatches from the new world of work

Dinero Rapido

My son is learning Spanish and when I go to the ATM with him, I always let him pick "Espanol" in the first screen and then we try to figure out all the vocabulary. He's gotten good at "Dinero Rapido $60" which means "Quick Cash," that's for sure.

I love learning languages, and I take advantage of every opportunity I get to learn them. New technology affords quite a few.

Try a few of these language lab mind stretchers: switch your cell phone to another language (mine's in French to help me brush up on French telecom words); thanks to DVDs, you can watch a movie with subtitles (or dubbed) in another language very easily, it's fun; if you're making a routine 1-800-number-type call and they give you the option to pick another language, just do it for the hell of it. And did you know your iPod will speak to you in a few different languages? Achtung Baby!

Halley Suitt posted this on 01/23/05.

Comments

what will really be interesting is translation services for podcasting.. ..there some cutting edge stuff happening in Japanese ..and I have to wait nearly 3 weeks before I get the drift of the podcast !!

Posted by /pd at January 23, 2005 3:24 PM

Dinero rÃ¡pido? Un poquito difÃcil, no te parece?

Halley, I love learning new languages, too. Always loved it. I speak Basque and Spanish since child and then learnt French and English. ItÂ´s so enriching!

I intend to learn Chinese or German. Chinese is very attractive, so different.

Posted by felix gerena at January 23, 2005 4:23 PM

Bravo for encouraging folks to learn foreign languages. I was a terrible language student in school and later became fluent in several languages when I discovered the thrill of actually using them in context. One learns much more quickly when you use the language to get fed, get money (dinero rapido indeed!)or otherwise engage with the locals. Context is everything. Death to memorizing conjugation tables in textbooks! Despite all the talk of English as the international language, people always appreciate even poor attempts to speak their language. It signals respect and a genuine interest in a people and their culture, something we Yanks could do more of.

Posted by sdetm at January 24, 2005 3:40 AM

I spent a few months in Turkey once, and yes, I can speak enough of the language to buy food and tell a taxi driver where I want to go. After days spent trying to communicate in Turkish, which is NOT a romance language (i.e., there is no similarity to French/Italian/Spanish), I would go to the movies. They were in English with Turkish subtitles. And, seeing the subtitles, I learned some Turkish words. Though I'm not sure they helped me in my usual contacts with Turks. I know how to say honey/sweetie/baby/darling in Turkish. I guess that's an indication of what kind of movies I gravitated to. (Though I saw Amistad there. When the people on screen were speaking an African language and the subtitles were in Turkish, I was sadly SOL.)

Posted by cathy at January 24, 2005 10:05 PM

With most languages in the world just disappearing thanks to globalization, it just feels good to know there are people out there who care about keeping languages alive. And as a matter of fact: When watching movies in different languages, you'll soon find out how different the same passage may sound and feel and even look in english, or spanish, or german or french.
And then: try reading the same book, Harry Potters a great to start with, and available in mostly any language you please, including Latin and Ancient Greek!

Posted by ninosc at January 27, 2005 6:10 PM