Mind Your Language, S'il Vous Plait

Advantages: useful to learn, good fun, tests your brain, teaches you grammatical rules
Disadvantages: tests your brain, teaches you grammatical rules

...I have always had an interest in foreign languages, which I think stems from us having French students staying with us during my childhood. We had a three-storey terraced house, with the tiny top floor ideal for a student flat, so my parents had a stream of (mainly) French teenagers using our facilities for a few weeks at a time. Add to this the fact that my Mum was studying French at college, so I was rather surrounded by the language and kind of took it all in really, without noticing. This gave me a bit of a head start when French lessons began at secondary school and as I did well, my confidence increased. As often happens, when you do well in something, you put the effort in, so learn effectively and the circle continues! I began German lessons at school, then Latin, although French was always my strongest subject, along...

KarenUK 14.02.2001 · Read review
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Review of LANGUAGES - LATIN

Francais or Deutsche

Advantages: good skills, good fun
Disadvantages: hard at first but keep at it!

...I am currently studying French and German for my GCSE's in 2002. When I started Secondary School I started to learn German, I had the choice between German or French and I chose German because I had lived in Germany for four years and I knew the basics of the language so I thought I would benefit from living there. It was beneficial and when we were put into sets, I was placed into the top class and have stayed there ever since. I would say that German was a hard language to learn with all the past tense, future, where the verb goes but the vocabulary is easy to learn. German has some long words in it but you soon get used to them. Then when I was 13 I started to have French lessons as well because the teachers wanted to see how I coped with two languages. I found French easy straight from the beginning. I'm not sure why but I...

jenny_carr 25.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of LANGUAGES - LATIN

Mountain Language

Advantages: Clear and important political message
Disadvantages: Direct, dim, and disturbing

...Mountain Language (1988) By Harold Pinter (1930- ) Mountain Language is a very short one-act play by the English playwright Harold Pinter. The first scene shows a young woman and an elderly woman as they go to visit one of their relatives who was accused of speaking the forbidden mountain language. The older woman was bitten by one of the dogs in the prison, and yet the officer and sergeant torture her and her companion with stupid questions and harass the latter sexually. We see in the second scene that the elderly woman was in the prison to visit her son. The woman tries to talk to her son with the mountain language she is used to, for she doesn't know the capital language, yet the officer starts jabbing her with a stick. Still, she manages to tell her son that his wife and three kids are waiting for him. In the third scene...

sottovoce82 26.12.2007 · Read review
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Review of Mountain Language - Harold Pinter

Latin? She Must Be Joking!

Advantages: It's helpful and very satisfying.
Disadvantages: You must study grammar.

...gone. I decided I wanted to learn it properly. Which book to choose? I looked for a lively textbook, but there are not too many. I didn?t want to spend much in case I found I?d bitten off more than I could chew. The Teach Yourself Latin for Beginners is ideal on both counts. There is an audiocassette, which I haven?t heard. It teaches pronunciation, but there?s still debate about that, and the guide in the book is quite adequate. There?s also an excellent website, well worth a visit : www.lingua.co.uk Click on LATIN QVARTER to see a sample lesson and lots of information. Is Latin any use? So?. Why bother to learn ? Well, it?s not the ?dead language? that people say it is. It?s all over the place, in literature, medicine, crosswords, some church services, in graveyards, in Shakespeare?s plays, in legal documents, in doctors...

Schmutzie 21.07.2003 (22.07.2003) · Read review
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Review of Teach Yourself Latin for Beginners

Why Latin is a useful subject

Advantages: Is a good base for learning most languages
Disadvantages: is difficult but so what?

...When I tell people that Im doing Latin for A level all i hear is "you're mad!!Its a dead language!!What's the point in doing it??"What's the point in doing latin??Hello, its what most modern languages are based on!!If you do latin it is so much easier to learn other languages, simply because you'll have a better understanding of the language you're learning. It's the foundation of so many languages!!Would you build a building without foundations??It might stand for a while but it'll never be perfect. Its the same with languages...if you know the foundations your understanding of the language is so much better!!!So many people nowadays cant even write decent english, and the problem would be far less if people actually understood the language!How many people do you know who actually know what the genitive is??Luckily in English you can...

rowanmk1789 26.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of Latin

The Best of British - 'Black Boots on Latin Feet'

Advantages: Smooth without being sappy,melodic without being poppy.Really are a refreshingly different band.
Disadvantages: In one or two of the songs,the spanish guitar solos can be a little self indulgent and go on a bit

...Ezio are one of the best understated British talents of our time and it really is a shame that they dont have a massive following. They have been performing since 1990 in the university town of Cambridge. The band took their name from one of the band members Ezio Lunedei. Black Boots on Latin Feet is their second (but Debut) album (produced by Rupert Hine in 1995). Although the album is new, the band have a mature vibe with lyrics that are honest and reflective (songs like '30 and confused' really struck a chord with me, accurately reflecting the experience of this significant age). The album is refreshingly different to almost all other British bands and is the perfect counter-act to the Brit Pop scene of the time that was aimed at a much younger market. The feel of the music is melodic and smooth but musicians will see how...

SpookyMoon 29.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Black Boots On Latin Feet - Ezio

Is Speech and Language Therapy for you?

Advantages: *
Disadvantages: *

...As many of you know, I am at university studying to become a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT). I decided that this is what I wanted to do a couple of years ago and so far, overall, I'm enjoying the course. What is Speech and Language Therapy? When I tell people I am at university, they immediately ask what I am studying. When I say 'Speech and Language Therapy' some people say 'so you can help me to talk', this really annoys me as there are so many more dimensions to this career. It also disappoints me that so many people are ill-informed, so I'd like to think this review might help some people that don't know exactly what s a SLT is. Also I hope to provide information on to people who think they might have interest in enrolling on a course.. However, there are also lots of people who appreciate the type of course I am...

bluejules 10.03.2008 · Read review
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Review of Becoming a Speech and Language Therapy Student

Learn more than just a language.

Advantages: Brilliantly comprehensive.
Disadvantages: Bit dry and academic sometimes.

...different spoken, and even more so if we look at local pronunciation in different parts of Germany and England, local dialect and nuances. The history of alphabets is absolutely entrancing to me; Greek, Roman, Slavonic, all so different, yet all utilising voices and writing...okay, I'm sounding geeky now! The part on the classification of languages will appeal as much to historians as linguists in that it 'charts' how languages have been classified, by whom, and when. The idea of classifying due to 'similarity' is an interesting concept that I had never really thought about until I first read this book. That and the fact that similarity is often (not always) geographically based. ~~Part Two - Our Hybrid Heritage~~ #How to learn the basic word list #Bird's-eye view of Teutonic grammar #The Latin Legacy #Modern descendants of Latin...

paulhanton 24.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of The Loom of Language - Frederick Bodmer, Lancelot Hogben

Try a new Language!

Advantages: fun, something new and different,
Disadvantages: can be expensive

...+ What is Sign Language? + Sign Language is the language for the deaf and is also preferred by the Hard of Hearing community as well. The language is non-verbal and uses the hands and facial expressions to communicate with others. The language has developed over hundreds of years as well as creating new signs for new things in the world. Also the language keeps up with the new technology as our world develops over the years There are 5,000,000 - 10,000,000 who are deaf or Hard of Hearing in the UK. Around 50,000 use British Sign Language (B.S.L) in the UK. Many of the deaf community prefer using BSL as there first language. Many people will need to encounter a deaf person at least once in their life so communication needs to be at its best for both sides of the conversations to be understood. This is why more people need to know...

emi_angel 28.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Sign Language Courses

Watch your language

Advantages: A telling critique of the manipulation of language for political ends
Disadvantages: Not quite as convincing about the "mangling" of language

...John Humphrys is one of a number of writers and media luminaries who have lately turned their attention to modern trends in the use of the English language. Like most of his confrères, he finds much to deplore. Humphrys' book 'Lost for Words' is aptly subtitled 'The Mangling and Manipulating of the English language'. In 'mangling' and 'manipulating' it encompasses two distinct themes. The first is how clumsy or convoluted usage can rob words of their meaning and impede clear thought. The second is how cynically contrived usage can mislead people and manipulate their thinking. On the first of these themes he is interesting and often amusing, but he says little that is new, and I am not sure that he always gives a fair hearing to the counter-arguments. On the second he is both knowledgeable and powerfully...

torr 09.02.2007 · Read review
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Review of Lost for Words: The Use and Abuse of the English Language - John Humphrys