Online Language Tools

"You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once." ~ Czech proverb

I only know one language - English - and after taking three years of French in high school and two years of German in College, that really bothers me. Have no idea how I nominally passed those courses, but ultimately they were pretty much a waste of time for me. Is it too late to get serious at age 61 on actually become fluent in a second language?

This time I have motivation. My grandson, Ilan, at one year old, is learning both English and Spanish at the same time. He is attending an all Spanish-speaking daycare, being immersed in it during the day, and then speaking English and Spanish with his parents when with them. If my grandson can learn 2 languages simultaneously, shouldn't I at least be able to learn one additional language . . . even if past my prime? ;)

And, by the way, whatever happened to Esperanto? When I was a young man, along with promoting birth control to keep the world population down, it was all the rage. Guess it went the same place that metric measurement in the U.S. went during the early eighties.

Anyhow . . . below find some online language tools I discovered on a recent search. In the end, I suspect I would be better off to use the RosettaStone methodology.

What do you think?

Diane Whitmore's Language Website (Freeport H.S.)

Omniglot

Nice Translator

BabelFish

Google Language Tools

Meta Language Translation

Online Language Dictionaries

Free Online Language Courses

Commercial Language Learning Courses

Second Language Software Reviews

Power of Words

No question about it, words carry connotations as well as literal meanings. Beyond that, they also can convey meaning based on the manner in which they are said and the way they are pieced together in sentences.


NPR: Power of Language

Words . . .

• Can be used to clarify or confuse.

• Can be used to pull us together or divide us.

Care to add to the list?

Photo Credit

A Lasting Friendship: Maine and Argentina

Forwarded by Dave Perloff

In 2001 high school students from Auburn, Maine and Avellaneda, Argentina began a correspondence and a friendship that continues today.

Spanish teacher Pam Davis and English teacher Claudia García found each other through epals.com, an online service that matches teachers and classes around the world, and with a grant from the Perloff Family Foundation, the Edward Little High School students began studying Argentine culture and exchanging emails, pictures and mementos with their pen pals in Argentina.

At the end of that first school year, the American teacher traveled to Argentina to meet her new friend and visit the Argentine students and their school. With her she took a new laptop computer, a gift from the students at Edward Little High School. The Argentine students had so many questions, both about American life and about their pen-pals back in Maine. The next September, a new group of students continued to write and share experiences, and with another grant from the Perloff Family Foundation, the Argentine teacher was able to visit Maine and teach at Edward Little High School for two weeks. Claudia was the first Argentine the students had ever met, and a very real connection to their new friends there.

Both teachers have traveled to each other's countries again since, and several of the American "alumni" of this experience have gone on to major in Spanish in college and to travel to Argentina.

This past year, with a new group of students, the correspondence has taken a new step: video tours and letters. (With two cameras supplied by the Perloff Family Foundation and lots of support from the school systems involved, the American and Argentine students can see one another's schools, hear jokes, give the latest news and finally see and hear each other as they communicate.)

Both teachers and all students involved in this correspondence would like to thank the Perloff Family Foundation and especially Dave and Sandy Perloff for their interest and their support of new ideas in public schools!