A few days ago, in an effort to brush up on my spanish and learn some legaleese I bought a course used by the government to train diplomatic personnel. I give it a thumbs up! It's entertaining and fast-paced. Soon I'll be able to communicate something useful to nonenglish-speaking clients (I start at the firm in about a month--yipee!). I'll be able to say, "You have a 5th Amendment right to remain silent, or that's a violation of your Constitutional...." in no time. I wouldn't recommend the course for anyone who has a difficult time picking up other languages, because it would likely be too challenging and quick-paced.
I hope to post on, at least, Chaucer's Cantebury Tales, The Jordan Tracks, and Ways of the Christian Mystics later this week.
Hi Joe. I promise to respond to your comments soon. Do you want me to do it in a post or by email? I'd prefer to post, but I'll let you decide. By the way, I want to make you a jazz cd. Do you know whether you might like vocal or instrumental jazz better?
2 comments:
Hi Voracious,
That is something I really need to do -- learn Spanish, that is. Living here in Texas it is almost to a point where we need to speak Spanish. This is especially true in my field, social work. Much of the job openings in this field require bilingualism.
Also, I am interested to hear what all you have to say about The Canterbury Tales. It has been nearly seven years since I was a senior in highschool learning to recite a big chunk of the prologue. It's funny but I can still say it word-for-word. (Whan day Aprill...). A friend and I used to say it to each other in public to make it sound like we were speaking a weird language to one another. hee hee.
Nice blog!
I could certainly see why Spanish would be an important language to be familiar with, especially in your career field and in Texas to boot.
The course is good for anyone with some familiarity with learning foreign languages or with a working knowledge of Spanish. It may be a little high-brow--that concerns me--not the everyday spanish that I need for my job. It moves rather quickly and concentrates an awful lot on pronunciation, leaving a lot of vocab to kind of memorize on one's own. I don't mind that; though, I fear the first time I'll be able to practice with anything other than the robot voice on the cd, that I'll actually have to be talking to a real person who's asking me for help. I wonder what will be the dominant language in the US 20 years from now...Spanish or English.
Don't you just love the Cantebury tales. I think the one I'm gonna write about first is the Prioress's Tale.
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