Sunday, October 25, 2009

Educational Entertainment?

I threatened to put these links up some time ago, but today I'm going to follow through and do it. Have you ever wished you could speak another language? Have you tried to learn a new tongue? Numerous studies have shown that the learning process moves ahead more quickly when set to music. (That's why you've heard your orthopedist humming, "Thigh bone's connected to the hip bone...") Language-learning also benefits from the use of song. Therefore, I offer you a catchy little tune in a variety of languages so you can decide which one you'd like to work on first. Which is your favorite?

German (the original, I presume)
French
Spanish
Brazilian (also known as Portuguese?)
Hungarian
Swedish
Hebrew
And, for translation purposes, English


Are you overwhelmed by the thought of learning a whole new vocabulary? Syntax got you down? This little gem will help you to sound like you speak another language, without the extra bother of memorizing new words. Here are a few samples:

Jamaican Creole
Canton
Nepali
Tagalog
And for my brother, who loves the food, Basque.

There you go, off on another armchair adventure courtesy of The World Wide Web and yours truly. But please be careful -- blue cheese does not go well with Gummi Bears.



The Speech Accent Archives belong to George Mason University. Quite a fascinating study.

2 comments:

Miss Kitty said...

Cool post! I used GMU's Speech Acent Archives in a sociolinguistics experiment last semester; it's an amazing resource.

Katharine said...

That's great, Kitty! I'm also anxious to hear how you have used the *other* site to enrich your professional experience. Well???