5 Reasons Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language

5 Reasons Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language

During the modern age, with globalization at its height, knowing one or two secondary languages has become more than a simple feat of high class and intelligence but also a strict requirement in many occasions. Whether it’s for professional, social or personal reasons, learning at least one foreign language is a must for anyone that wants to keep his or her head up high in today’s society. Let’s take a focused look on 5 of the main reasons that should turn you towards learning a foreign language.

1. Professional Requirement

This is probably the main reason for which one would learn a foreign language. Many professions require the knowledge of at least one or two foreign languages, depending on the field of the job. Most jobs may ask that you know an international language such as English, French, Spanish or German or a business-specific language such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian and so forth. If you’re a native English speaker you may have it a bit easier, since English is the main international language (and one that is present the most often in job descriptions) but knowing a secondary might also prove vital.

2. Social Bonus

Yes, knowing a foreign language (or more) is definitely a social bonus. There’s definitely a steep hill to climb between being presented as someone that doesn’t know any foreign language whatsoever against being presented as a polyglot. Another case when knowing a foreign language can be literally a social blessing is when meeting a foreigner whose language you can speak. They’ll be extremely impressed by your ability to talk with them through their own native tongue, although you’re on home grounds and this fact can single handedly create a great impression around you. If the foreigner happens to be part of a business meeting, this impression can turn to a successful business partnership, bringing you both professional and social satisfactions.

3. Family Communication

It’s often the case where a couple formed out of persons of diverse nationalities understand each other through a commonly known international language such as English. However, they’ll soon want to start learning the other person’s mother tongue, not only for a better communication, but also out of respect for them.

4. Personal Satisfaction

Learning a foreign language is one of the highest intellectual goals that one could have, on a personal scale. Think about a difficult puzzle, or math problem that takes months if not years of constant studying in order to be solved. The process of solving it may be a hard, arduous one but the yell of joy at the end is well worth it. It’s the same case with learning a foreign language: the learning process is not easy and you’ll have many small issues and problems to tackle along the way. You’ll have to focus on various aspects of the problem, such as spelling, grammar, reading, pronunciation and so forth. If you keep the problem in sight however and if you don’t lose interest in it, the chances of solving it are extremely high and the intellectual fulfillment that you get at the end is incomparable to anything else.

5. Keeping Your Mind Healthy

It’s been scientifically proven that by learning a new language, the process stimulates your brain in such a way that it will make you more keen on understanding and learning other subjects, including “real” disciplines such as math, physics, chemistry and so forth. Learning a new language requires the memorizing and understanding of several thousand new words and concepts, which offers your brain a good training for future occasions where memorizing is a must. After studying a foreign language you’ll have better results with studying for exams, with information assimilation and generally, with keeping your mind healthy and “active” even at older ages.

18 Strategies For Enhancing Language Skills

The following strategies are offered for enhancing language skills and managing language challenges. This listing is by no means exhaustive, but rather is meant as a place to begin.

Alice Thomas and Glenda Thorne

1. Take the mystery away.

The first and perhaps most important strategy is to teach students about the components of language, common language challenges and language strategies, and to help students understand their own language strengths and challenges. This process is sometimes called demystification – taking the mystery away.

2. Simplify directions.

Students with receptive language challenges may need directions broken down into their simplest form. They may also benefit from a comic book-type illustration of steps to take for the completion of a task.

3. Give written copies of directions and examples.

Students with receptive language challenges may need directions given to them at a relatively slow pace. They may need directions repeated to them. They most often benefit from having a written copy of directions that are given orally. Examples of what needs to be done are also useful.

4. Provide frequent breaks.

Students who have receptive language challenges may use up a lot of energy listening, and, therefore, tire easily. Consequently, short, highly structured work times with frequent breaks or quiet periods may be helpful.

5. Give additional time.

Students with receptive and expressive language challenges are likely to have a slower processing speed and should be allowed additional time for written work and tests.

6. Sit Close.

A student may want to sit close to the teacher so he can watch the facial expression of the teacher when s/he is talking. This may also help to diminish interference from other auditory distractions.

7. Allow voluntary participation.

Students with language processing challenges should not be put on the spot by being required to answer questions during class discussions, especially without being forewarned. Rather, their participation should be on a voluntary basis.

8. Teach summarizing and paraphrasing.

Reading comprehension is often enhanced by summarizing and paraphrasing. This helps students to identify the main idea and supporting details. It may be helpful to provide key words such as who, what, when, where and why to orient attention to the appropriate details.

9. Teach a staging procedure.

Most students find a staging procedure beneficial when writing paragraphs, essays, poems, reports and research papers. First they should generate ideas, and then they should organize them. Next, they should attend to spelling and grammatical rules. They may also list their most frequently occurring errors in a notebook and refer to this list when self correcting.

10. Encourage renewed investment of energy in older students.

Older students who have experienced reading failure from an early age must become convinced that a renewed investment of energy will be worthwhile. According to Louisa Moats, an expert in the field of reading, older students who are very poor readers must have their phonological skills strengthened because the inability to identify speech sounds erodes spelling, word recognition, and vocabulary development. Phonological awareness, spelling, decoding, grammar, and other language skills can be taught as a linguistics course in which instructors use more adult terminology such as phoneme deletion and morphemic structure. Phonemic drills may include games such as reverse-a-word (Say teach; then say it with the sounds backwards – cheat.)

11. Give Foreign Language Waivers

Students who have experienced problems with their primary language are more likely to have difficulty with a foreign language. Foreign language requirements may need to be waived for these students.

12. Use echo reading for fluency development.

For fluency development, it is helpful to have a student in the lower grades echo read and also read simultaneously with an adult. The adult and the student may also take turns reading every other sentence or paragraph. Additionally, the adult may model a sentence and then have the student read that same sentence.

13. Amplify auditory input.

Multisensory techniques can be used to increase phonetic skills and to memorize sight words. For example, a student may sound out a word or write sight words on a dry erase board using different colored markers, all while using Hearfones, a Phonics Phone or a Toobaloo device to enhance auditory input. These devices amplify and direct the student's own voice straight back to his ears, causing increased auditory stimulation to the brain. These devices can be purchased from CDL's A+ WebStore at www.cdl.org.

14. See, say, hear and touch.

Multisensory strategies are helpful for learning letter names. Examples include: 1) spreading shaving cream on a table top and having the child write letters in the shaving cream while saying the letter name out loud; and 2) cutting out letters from sandpaper and having the child "trace" the sandpaper letter with his or her finger while saying the name of the letter.

15. A picture is worth a thousand words.

The expression, "A picture is worth a thousand words," may become especially important for the visual person who has difficulty expressing himself verbally. For example, a student may make diagrams, charts, or drawings to help him remember what he has read. If he is good at art, the student may draw or paint pictures to explain his ideas.

16. Teach active reading.

To help with comprehension, it may be helpful to underline key words and phrases with a pencil or highlighter and to paraphrase them in the margins, thereby making reading more active. If the student is not allowed to write in the book, he can write the main words or ideas on Post-It notes.

17. Guide students to read between the lines.

When first teaching students to infer while reading, the teacher should first guide the thinking by using a whole class activity. After the class as a whole has identified a logical inference, the teacher should facilitate the examination of the process by which they arrived at their inference. Leading questions may be, "What is the author saying to us? How do we know the author meant this?" Remind students that authors provide clues (imply) so readers can infer.

18. Provide individual evaluation and intervention.

Many students with language challenges benefit from individual evaluation and remediation by highly qualified professionals. It is critical to use assessment tools designed to pinpoint specific skill deficits and to provide individual or small group remediation/intervention using explicit, evidence-based strategies and methods that directly address each student’s individual needs.

Anybody can learn the Spanish language

There are many reasons why someone might want to learn Spanish. Perhaps you are planning a holiday or business trip to a Spanish speaking country or maybe you are thinking of emigrating. It could be that you don’t really need to speak Spanish at all but you just want to say that you can. Being able to communicate in another language certainly gives you a great sense of achievement.

My reasons were a little mixed. For a long time I had wanted to learn another language, and for some reason I was always drawn to Spanish. I am not entirely sure why this was. I think one reason was because the little I knew about Spain at the time somehow appealed to my sense of good living. Sun, sand, siestas, late night dinner parties and dark skinned beautiful women! Of course there is far more to Spain than this, but for me, Spain and the Spanish language held more appeal than say French or German did.

Although I had wanted to learn Spanish for a long time I guess the main reason why I finally decided to do something about it was because I was planning a long trip to Central and South America. I was about to pass through as many as 19 different countries where the official national language was Spanish. Well that was a back in 2002. Since then Spanish and all things Spanish both in Spain and in Latin America have literally taken me over. I wouldn’t have believed it then but now Spanish is a part of my every day life. I can speak, read and understand Spanish to the point where I don’t have to think about it too much.

When people ask me if I can speak Spanish fluently I am always a little hesitant to say yes. The truth is that even though I can communicate in Spanish with relative ease I still don’t feel that I know enough. I am not really sure if I ever will! There are always new words and phrases to learn for example and of course these vary from country to country.

I think one of the biggest tests for me is being able to sit in front of the TV with una cerveza (a beer) and watch a Spanish soap opera (una telenovela) or a Spanish movie and completely understand everything that is going on. After all, if I can do that in English why shouldn’t I be able to do the same in Spanish? Well I have to say I am definitely not there yet but almost! I highly recommend ‘Pasion de Gavilanes’. It’s a hugely popular telenovela from Columbia. I’ll talk more that this and others in later articles.

So, how did I get from not knowing a single word of Spanish (apart from - gracias and amigo), to being able to read a Spanish book, speak to a Spanish-speaking friend or watch a Spanish telenovel? Well the answer to that is what I intend to write about in the coming articles. I am not going to lie to you and say that the journey was an easy one. The truth is that learning a new language takes time and requires a great deal of patience and commitment. However, what I really want to convey at this point is that anybody can do it if they rally want to.

In the next article I intend to write about preparation. By that I mean thinking about what it is you want to achieve and how you intend to go about achieving it. You are not going to learn Spanish overnight and I think it makes sense to prepare yourself for the challenges ahead. Learning a new language should be fun and there is no reason why it shouldn’t be as long as you realise your limitations.

By no means do I consider myself to be someone that has a natural flare for languages. When I went to school (all those years ago!) the only subject I failed in was French. For some reason I just couldn’t get my head around it. Before I started learning Spanish I knew nothing of other languages. I started right from the beginning. I guess what I’m trying to say is, is that if I can do it then believe me anybody can.

A Latin Dictionary Saved My Life

In many ways, I have never been much of a student, especially if you are talking about being a student within the confines of a classroom. I've always loved learning, don't get me wrong, but get me inside a classroom for months on end and there is little that can be done to keep me interested in even the most fascinating subjects. I have no real idea how I managed to make it through four years of college. My Latin class in particular almost had the power to ruin my college career. I am convinced that I might have quite school had it not been for my Latin dictionary. It saved my education, and hence, my life.

I realize the previous statement may sound extreme, but it is true. I was so fed up with the stresses of my Latin class in college that I nearly dropped out of school. I guess I didn't have things in the best perspective, but that is how deeply I was being affected by the class. In the sixth week of the fifteen week class I called my father on the phone and finally told him of the truth of my current plight. He simply listened and then laughed at me and muttered two words. "Latin dictionary," he said. I had no idea how much I needed to hear those two words nor how much they would change my semester and literally the rest of my life.

I have absolutely no idea why my Latin professor didn't suggest that I buy a Latin dictionary. I'm actually a little bitter about it now that I think about it. Anyway, I rushed off to a bookstore the next day and purchased the cheapest and biggest Latin dictionary I could find. I had little money, but I felt like bigger must be better when it came to a dictionary.

Over the days and weeks ahead, I poured over that dictionary as I studied for my Latin class. Having that resource taught me an amazing amount that I just wasn't getting in the classroom. I pulled my grade up from a failing score to a B in the remaining weeks of the class. But that's not all that happened: I had a renewed love of learning. Yes, the Latin dictionary was responsible for my pursuit of learning and of new knowledge in many areas. It did little to make me enjoy time in a classroom, but it did inspire me to pursue many of the things I now love.

All About French- Speaking Countries

The French Language

Roughly around 200 million people around the world speak French. This number includes people who speak French as a native language, as a second language and students of all ages who do not live in a francophone (French-speaking) country but have learned French. In fact French as a foreign language is the second most commonly taught language worldwide after English. It is also the only foreign language that can be useful throughout the world as well as in the United States. French comes in second after English on the list of the world’s 10 most influential languages. Proof of this is the pivotal role French holds. It is one of the official working languages in dozens of powerful international organisations such as the European Union (EU), United Nations (UN), World Health Organisation (WHO), World Trade Organisation (WTO), and a host of other worldwide institutions.

The French language of today is a direct result of long periods of evolution. France, throughout its long history, had been invaded by different ethnic tribal groups. The most distinguished of these are the Franks. They adopted the Latin being spoken at that time. Thus, the French language is a descendant from Latin. It is also known as one of the Romance languages which include Catalan, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. They are called such because their parent tongue Latin was the language of the Romans. Over the years, the early French language has undergone changes in words and grammatical structures. It has evolved into today’s global French.

Frenchspeak - Here, There and Everywhere

The French-speaking world spans the entire globe with its language heard in all the continents. Aside from English, French is the only language spoken as a native or first language on 5 continents.

In Europe, French is the official language of France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Belgium and Switzerland. France with a population of more than 60 million is one of the most modern countries in the world. It is one of the predominant leaders in the European Union. French is a co-official language in Switzerland. This picturesque country is one of the world’s richest countries. It is the centre of many international associations. Belgium, in the half past century, has emerged as a progressive European state. Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is home to the headquarters of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

In Africa, the French-speaking countries include Algeria, Burundi, Benin, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Comoros. Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Guinea, Madagascar, Morocco, Rwanda, Togo, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles.

In the Americas and the Caribbean, French is spoken in Canada, Haiti, French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe (these last three are French territories).

In Australia and the Pacifics, Vanuatu and the overseas French territories French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Wallis and Fortuna are French-speaking.

In many other countries, French plays a significant role either as an administrative, commercial or international language. Some of these countries are Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Egypt, Greece, India, Italy, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Poland, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom (Channel Islands), United States particularly Louisiana and New England, the Vatican City and Vietnam. Clearly, the French language is spoken everywhere.

Convinced now to learn global French? It is quite easy. Browse through this site’s French Language Program and master French in the best place – the comfort of your own home.

Bonne chance! Good Luck!

An Introduction To Spanish Grammar

When learning a new language, it is always useful to be familiar with its main grammatical units. This constitutes the first necessary step in order to understand and create meaningful speech.

Here are the main grammatical elements in Spanish and some useful information about them:

Nouns:
A noun is a word which is mostly used to refer to a person or thing. All nouns in Spanish have a gender, meaning that they are either masculine or feminine. For example, “niño” (boy) is masculine and “niña” (girl) is feminine. The best way to identify gender is undoubtedly experience, although here are some general guidelines which may be useful at the beginning: usually nouns ending in –o are masculine and nouns ending in –a are feminine. Of course there are always exceptions.

For example, “mano” (hand) and “radio” (radio) are feminine. On the other hand, words of Greek origin ending in –ma, such as “dilema” (dilemma) or “problema” (problem) are masculine. When you are learning new vocabulary, it is recommendable that you learn a noun together with its corresponding article. That will help you to remember their gender. For example “la niña”, “la mano” or “el problema” and “el niño”.

Adjectives:
Adjectives are used to qualify a particular noun, to say something about it. It is important to remember that in Spanish they are usually placed after the noun. Since adjectives are always related to a noun, they have to agree with them in gender and number.

This means that if you want to say something about the noun “niño”, which is masculine and singular, the adjective that you use will also have to be masculine and singular. Thus, you can say “niño alto” (tall boy), “niño pequeño” (small boy), etc. If, on the other hand, if you were talking about a girl, you would have to say “niña alta” and “niña pequeña”.

Pronouns:
Pronouns substitute for nouns. For example, you can say “la niña está aquí” (the girl is here) or “ella está aquí” (she is here). In this case “ella” is substituting for “la niña”. The subject pronouns in Spanish are “yo” (I), “tú/usted/vos” (singular you), él (he), ella (she), nosotros (we), vosotros/ustedes (plural you), ellos (they).

The singular and plural “you” are used differently depending on the dialect of Spanish that you are using. It is important to remember that subject pronouns are frequently omitted in Spanish, since the ending of the verb already indicates this. Thus, native spears would say “estoy aquí” (I’m here) rather than “yo estoy aquí”.

Verbs:
Verbs indicate actions. Usually when you enumerate a verb, you use what is called the infinitive, for example “hablar” (to speak). In Spanish there are three different types of verbs, depending of how their infinitive ends. These different categories are called conjugations.

Thus, there are verbs ending in –ar, such as “hablar”, in -er “comer” (to eat) and in –ir “dormir” (to sleep). As mentioned before, verbs in Spanish have different endings depending on who the subject of the action is. These endings will vary from one conjugation to the other. For example, with the verb “hablar”, the singular “you” is “(tú) hablas”, whereas with “comer” it is “(tú) comes”. This can obviously be complicated for learners at the beginning, but once you get used to it, you will have no problem communicating effectively.

By degrees: The different German dialects

German is one of the most popular languages in the world. In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records has listed the German language as one of the three languages that are learned the most by people. It is also included in the ten most spoken languages in the world. In the European Union it is the second most known foreign language.German is also one of the agreed upon official languages of the EU and is also chosen, along with English and French, as one of the three working languages used in the European Commission.

German is also considered as a pluricentric language much like English and French. With the wide scope of usage for this language, it would be quite expected to think that a person who knows German would be able to go to any part of Germany and be expected to communicate effortlessly. Unfortunately, this is quite far from the truth. In reality, the German language has many dialects that are spoken in a large part of the country (and even in other countries).

The German dialects are not mutually intelligible to each other. This means that people who only know the different German dialects and not the common German language will not be able to understand each other.

How did the dialects evolve into this? Each dialect has evolved to contain typical words that are not considered as cognates of the words used in standard German this makes it quite difficult to understand in areas where the dialect is not spoken or an area where a different dialect is used.

There is a so-called dialect continuum in countries where German is spoken. During normal situations the dialect that is used by a neighbouring region is understood quite well even if it is also distinctly different from the dialect that is used in the adjacent region.

The so called Low German dialects that are used in the Northern part of Germany are considered mutually intelligible but it still remains not understood in other parts of the country. Of the other remaining dialects, the German dialects used in Switzerland, Southern Bavaria, Austria, and the West Bank of the Rhine are notoriously known for being very hard to understand outside the regions in which these dialects are used. On the other hand, the so called Central and Eastern German dialects are seen to be more understandable in other parts of the country.

Low Germanic dialects are those dialects that were not affected by the High German consonant shift. The Low Germanic dialect is comprised of two subgroups – Low Franconian and Low German.

The High Germanic dialects are broken down into Central German and Upper German subgroups. The Central German dialects include Ripuarian, Moselle Franconian, Hessian, Thuringian, South Franconian, Lorraine Franconian and Upper Saxon. Upper German dialects include Alemannic, Swabian, East Franconian, Alsatian and Austro-Bavarian. The Upper German dialects are also used in certain parts of the Alsace, as well as in southern Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and in certain parts of Switzerland and Italy where German is spoken.

Capitalizing on the Benefits of a Foreign Language Translation Firm

In today’s ever-expanding world of business on an ever-shrinking planet, not only is it easy to market your organization’s products and services globally, but it is also just good business sense. With the prevalence of the Internet in every aspect of our English-speaking culture and society, it makes sense to reach out globally and put your products and/or services out for the whole world to take advantage of. Though it seems like the Internet has reduced the size of our world, marked cultural and language barriers still exist which make marketing a product or service from an English-speaking organization to a foreign market an immense challenge. In order to succeed globally, you must consider foreign language translation as a necessary faction of your organization. Whether you are considering opening offices internationally, or you just want to make your services available to foreign markets, consider employing the services of a professional foreign language translation firm in order to make every aspect of your business (both electronic and paper-based) understandable and user-friendly to whatever nationality you decide to promote your business to.

In order to fully make the most of the foreign expansion of your business, you might want to open offices in other countries in addition to providing services and products via the Internet. This might require you to hire staff members in those countries who are not native English speakers. Though this will no doubt be a benefit in helping your organization immerse itself into another culture, and help your products and/or services gain a foothold there, it will also prove challenging in trying to adapt your organization’s policies and procedures to a group of employees that will not be able to read manuals and documents in English, and not understand some of the informal grammar. For this reason, hiring a foreign language translation organization is a sensible business decision.

A foreign language translation firm typically employs native speakers from many different countries. Not only do their employees have an inherent grasp on one or more foreign languages, but they are also fluent in the English language. In addition, it is possible to hire staff that are specialists in particular areas of business, which helps to facilitate translations and allows the translators to convert your materials into understandable, relevant, and culturally sensitive documents. For your business, translators can adapt software, training and development materials, web sites, and internal organization documentation. Foreign language translation firms utilize the latest software that will translate documentation into nearly every language on Earth, as well as translate documentation into English, so that the lines of communication will be open and unhindered. Many different fields of industry utilize foreign language translation firms, including the medical field, the legal field, the computer industry, and of course, the business and marketing fields.

If you are considering the global development of your business, educating yourself on the cultures of those countries you plan to approach is very important. There are often strict differences among countries, even if they are neighbors to one another. There are also often strict differences between English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries. Being sensitive to other cultural standards will help you to understand the business climate of whatever country you want to expand your business into. This is of utmost importance for successful expansion into non-English-speaking countries. For that reason, taking advantage of one of the many online foreign language translators that are available is a sensible method of education for yourself and your organization. There are several web page translators that are available online for free. Taking the time to research the demands of your potential customers will pay off for you in the long run.

For worldwide expansion of your business, there is no more sensible decision to make than to employ a foreign language translation organization to tend to the conversion of all of your English-based business documents into whatever foreign language you need. And taking the time to research the non-English speaking markets you wish to expand into will help you understand the cultural climates you intend to take your products and/or services into. Foreign language translators make the transition into the global business community easier for your business. www.foreign-languages-school.com

China – Its Global Economy and Favored Chinese Language

China is emerging as one of the strong global economy since the last two decade and is the world’s biggest holder of foreign exchange reserves with the reserves touching 1.2 trillion US dollars few months back (March, 2007). Many countries around the world are interested in business with China and are actively involved in learning Chinese language to understand and enhance the business opportunities.


Napoleon Bonaparte has once said that “China is the sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep for when she awakens she will tremble the world.” Nearly two century after the visionary statement of the legend, China’s dormant economy emerged so drastically that economic power that country holds now directly affects and facilitates the pace of global market.


People around the world and countries are now deliberately moving forward to exchange business relation with world’s fastest growing nation, a nation which is experiencing huge transition from a central-planned economy to a global-oriented market and has become a dominant player in the international economy and financial system. Hence for better business understanding, business opportunity and cultural exchange, learning Chinese language has become an all time high with approximately thirty million people are studying Chinese in universities, colleges or private courses.


Chinese is considered to be one of the world’s most popular languages and is a simple structured and tonal language where a single word can have different meaning depending upon the way it is pronounced. There are number of dialects in Chinese spoken in different province but the popularity is gaining by Mandarin language and this has also been recognized as the official language of China.


To follow the suit, the United States is investing huge sums in establishing Chinese learning schools and passing bills to encourage the Chinese language programming in schools across the U.S. and cultural exchanges to improve the ties between the two countries.


Despite learning Chinese language in home countries, people often prefer to travel to China and spend time there to get acclimatized with their tradition, culture and to gather experiences of being like a Chinese. With huge demands of Chinese language, major cities in China are overcrowded with Mandarin learning schools and many of which provides superb accommodation facilities, native Chinese speaking teachers and well qualified individuals to teach Chinese as foreign language.


Furthermore, students can choose Chinese language with a hope of getting easy employment in areas like banking, trade, financial, diplomatic work, academics, news media, content management, tours and travel and many more. Each of these fields is very challenging and gives one an enough exposure to Chinese society, culture and tradition.


Hence, if you are feeling the urgency of learning Chinese language and align yourself in the fast track of business by learning Chinese language, this is the right time to start. If you cannot afford to go to China to learn typical Chinese language, there are plenty of online resources such as free online Chinese learning course, audio guidelines and other scripts which can make you perfect in Chinese language and help you actively participate in various business processes.

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Sir Winston Churchill once observed that Americans and the British are 'a common people divided by a common language' ...

Never was that as true as when describing the Cockneys.

You've certainly heard their accent, made famous in everything from movies based on Dickens and George Bernard Shaw novels to computer-generated gekkos telling real gekkos how to go forth and sell car insurance. The Australian accent has its roots in Cockney culture, as they comprised a large percentage of prisoners who were shipped there by the British when they viewed the Land Down Under as an ideal penal colony. Cockneys are the crafty characters from east London who admire those among their lot who can make a living simply by 'ducking and diving, mate,' which is their version of wheeling and dealing on a working-class level.

To be a 'true' Cockney, one must be born 'within the sounds of the Bow bells.' That's a reference to the St Mary-le-Bow Church in the Cheapside district of London 'proper.' Their sound carries to a distance of approximately three miles, which defines the Cockney digs better than any zoning ordinance could do.

The term 'Cockney' first appeared in the 1600s, but its actual origins are vague. Its first known reference was related to the Bow bells themselves in a period satire that gave no reason for the association.

Some believe that 'Cockney' came from the second wave of Vikings, known as the Normans. These were descendants of the Northmen ('Norman' was the French word for 'Viking') who settled in that part of northern France that came to be known as Normandy when King Charles the Simple ceded it to the Vikings in exchange for ceasing their annual summer sackings of Paris. William the Conqueror was a Norman, and when he took England in 1066, a considerable amount of French influence permeated the Anglican language.

Normans often referred to London as the Land of Sugar Cake, or 'Pais de Cocaigne,' which was an allusion to what they saw as 'the good life' that could be had by living there. Ultimately, this gave rise to a term for being spoiled, 'cockering,' and from there, Cockney was a short derivative away.

Cockneys are famous for dropping the 'H' from the start of words and infamous in the mind of every grammar teacher for their coining the word 'ain't' to replace the formal contraction for 'is not.' However, their most unique feature is their distinctive and catchy rhyming slang.

Legend has it that, during the course of their 'ducking and diving,' they would occasionally run afoul of the law. It was not uncommon for groups of Cockneys to be transported together to and from custody and courtroom, obviously in the company of policemen. So that they could speak openly to each other and deny the officers any ability to understand what they were saying, Cockneys devised a word/phrase association system that only the truly-indoctinated could follow. This became known as their rhyming slang.

It's simple, really. For example:

Dog-and-bone = telephone
Apples-and-pears = stairs
Troubles-and-strife = wife

So, if a Cockney wanted you to go upstairs to tell his wife that there's a phone call for her, he'd ask you to 'take the apples and tell the trouble she's wanted on the dog.'

As a general observation, their technique is that the second word of a rhyming phrase is the link between the 'translated' word and the first word in the rhyming phrase, which becomes the word used when speaking. Sometimes, though, to emphasize the word, the entire phrase might be used. Thus, if you are absolutely exhausted and want to make a point of it, you would exclaim, 'I'm cream crackered!' This is because 'knackered' is an English term for being tired; cream crackers, incidenally, go well with tea.

There are even dictionaries for Cockney rhyming slang, from pocket versions tailored for tourists to online listings. Two good sites for the latter are London Slang and Cockney Rhyming Slang. As with most slang, its vibrance is cause for constant expansion and/or modification of terms, so the Cockney rhymes are always a work in progress.

One note of caution: nothing sounds worse than a visitor attempting to over-Cockney their speech. If you're thinking of touring an East End market or pub and want to pay your respects by using the local vernacular, be prepared with a few simple terms and deploy them with a smile only when the occasion permits. Otherwise, not being sure if you're 'taking the Mickey' out of them or just ignorant, the Cockneys will most likely view you as a 'right Charley Ronce' and turn away.

Given that 'ponce' is common English slang for a fool --- which had its origins in describing a 'fancy man,' now known as a 'pimp' in modern times --- you may first need a 'British' translator to tell you what word the Cockney was using. By that time, you'll no doubt agree that Churchill wasn't 'alf Pete Tong (ie- wrong).

In fact, he didn't even need to refer to another country in order to be right.