speak another language fluently

During my morning research I came across a free foriegn language website that offers text and audio on a few popular languages.

I am going to give it a try on Monday at work. I will post more about it after my research.

http://fsi-language-courses.com/

Here is a link with free lanaguage phrase books.

http://www.heygidday.com/library/languages.htm

I bought a computer program that teaches how to read, write and speak different languages. It even allows you to practice by using a headset to your computer. So far it’s cool and I’m leaning the basics.

I also bought a Learn Spanish tape set to listen to on the train to work. Every little bit of time counts.

When I was in high school I had a girlfriend who was Latin and White. However looking at her you would never know of her Latin side. One day we were on Fordam Road in the Bronx (NY) looking for dresses for our prom.

We went into a posh dress store and was looking around. There were four Latin American woman running the store that were talking about the two of us in spanish and following us around the store. The two women talked about us as if we were bums off the street coming to steal the store in one swoop. What they didn’t know was that my girlfriend understood every word they said.

However at the time it was happening I didn’t notice something had gone wrong until I saw my friends face go stiff. I saw her face flush and knew something was wrong. She took a moment and we picked out our dresses and took them to the counter.

We both pulled out our mone. We both was carrying close to $800 combined to get our dresses and shoes. So money wasn’t an issue.

Before I could pay she stopped me and told me in English what was being said about us right in front of the cashier and sales people. How the thought we were going to steal and couldn’t afford to shop in the store. (Hello this is the Bronx..) T

hen she politely in fluent spanish how although she liked their merchandise, she refused to waste her money in a store that allowed customers to be treated so rudely. She told them if it weren’t for the people (like us)in the community who believed in support local stores that their store they would be out of business. She dropped the dresses on the counter and we left.

Needless to say we left everyone in the store with their mouths open and faces on the floor. The remaining customers ended up dropping their purchases and leaving as well.

That was the first experience that taught me the value of understanding another language. How a person’s expressions and words could mean different things if you don’t know any better. Had I been alone I would of been none the wiser.

My second experience was during my corporate career. I met a temp who was a opera singer. She traveled the world during her peak time and temped to cover other expenses during her off peak times.

One day I over head her on the phone speaking to various people in other languages and thought how beautiful it sounded. I wondered how wonderful it must be to connect with other people. I wanted that ability to understand the combination of sounds, words and meanings that relate to another group of people other than my own.

And now that I have friends of other races I want to be able to communicate with them on their level. I want to be able to talk with anyone if I choose to and feel comfortable doing so.

I was looking on www.meetup.com for language groups. I found several in my area that offer lessons for beginners as well as social events.

I am going to look into them.

The one regret I have from my childhood was that I never took learning Spanish or French seriously. If only I knew then what I know now. I would have went to summer school to learn it if I had too.

One a personal level, I want to speak, write and read another language fluently because the spoken word is a beautiful thing. To be able to communicate with different people in their native tongue is a blessing. I also feel that with the way of the world, speaking different languages will be the main stream and an essential skill in the years to come.

I plan on traveling to learn different cultures. The first step to doing this is knowing the language. Knowing how to speak a person’s dialect will put them at ease when dealing with you.

In a business sense, I would like to learn it so I can communicate and reach my clients who don’t speak english. Most high paying jobs in certain sectors require a secondary language.

I want my children to grow up speaking more than one language. I want them to give them the gift of communication.