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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5231 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 25 of 35 27 July 2011 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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DavidW, you are right: I know for a fact that neither the FLI or the DLI currently produce their own materials - that's a thing of the past.
So, you think that in Germany, Russia, etc., government officials, company employees and the like just go to the closest Berlitz school? Or are there other intensive schools that may not be official/government run? What do such people do in the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland now that your official school has been closed? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6531 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 26 of 35 27 July 2011 at 6:57am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There's an institute of eastern languages in Moscow that offer intensive 10 month
courses (and probably others): институт практического востоковедения http://www.ipos-msk.ru/ There 'big four' linguistic universities in the ex-soviet union are, I believe, Minsk, Moscow, Pytagorsk, and Irkutsk, but there are many other smaller ones. There are also separate institutes for military students, but I don't know anything about these. I lived for a while in France, in Besancon. There was this place, which you might want to read about: Centre de Langues Appliquées (CLA). In Italy university education in languages isn't meant to be great. I've heard the best is in Venice, they have four contact hours daily in the language. That's about all the info I have.. I would like to know about the different traditions in university language education.. North American, Romance countries, Germanic, [Russian/soviet] etc. if such distinctions exist. Edited by DavidW on 27 July 2011 at 7:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5224 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 27 of 35 27 July 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
In the UK there is the Defence Language School (DLS)at Beaconsfield which has four branches: Arabic, Indo Iranian, English and European (French, Russian and Spanish) - I understand that some of these course are taught to students ab initio if the student shows the relevant aptitude and can keep up with the course. The material has a high military content. DSL materials are not public. Courses exist at various levels to produce staff with up to the skills of Operational Interpreters - so probably a minimum of B2+/C1 level though military linguists work to STANAG 6001. Diplomatic corps (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) staff without language skills attend basic language course on an outsourced basic as far as I know as they ditched the language school in 2007 to save a million pounds from their budget. Higher level skills are taught by other means - nothing is published about the routes. Other roles which require a high level of language ability tend to recruit personnel who already have the relevant skill or, occasionally, cross train existing staff with suitable existing skills. Nato forces share training facilities. Source: Various internet. Enjoy 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5788 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 28 of 35 27 July 2011 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
What you said was not really offensive IMHO coming from someone from the US (it is IMO when it comes from an Englishman*). I just don't understand how someone like Chomsky (to deliberately pick an intellectual I actually really like!) can have such an encyclopedic knowledge about world affairs and yet not get this simple fact (it's not as if you'll find an England in the UN list of member states!). I did not know, "the States" was wrong, I'll try not to use it. To be honest I normally prefer to say "the US" anyway. It can all get a bit confusing, anyhow, can't it? I mean what can you call people from the US apart from "people from the US", or "US citizens" etc? Americans? Nope, (as you know) that includes everybody from Argentina to Alaska. North Americans? Nope, that includes Canada and Mexico. Faced with this most people here in the UK just give up and use "Americans" to refer to people in the US (I try very hard not to, but occasionally I slip up), so I wasn't trying to imply that this was a one way problem, with you ignorant Yanks not making an effort whilst we cultured Brits get it all correct! * My best example of this is that I once heard an Englishman claim that the most beautiful part of England was the Highlands of Scotland! Edited by Random review on 27 July 2011 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7161 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 29 of 35 27 July 2011 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Despite the cultural sensitivity, this kind of subsuming reminds me of when people call the USSR "Russia" or project other terms and concepts anachronistically (e.g. calling the Holy Roman Empire "Germany", subsuming the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in "Croatia", thinking that most of the northern half of North America as being "Canada" since the beginning of time). In some instances, natives don't always help and in some cases support the (mis)conceptions. For example, I notice that the current Russian government (but not say the current Estonian government) holds itself as the legal successor to the USSR which implies continuity and indirectly contributes (at least partially) to the idea that "Russia" can refer to "USSR". At the same time, I've noticed that some Russians get very touchy when hearing about less pleasant aspects of the Soviet era (e.g. Gulag, Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact) and quickly emphasize that they today have nothing to do with such things. Yet when the discussion switches to more pleasant aspects (e.g. the Red Army destroying much of Hitler's armies, the rapid improvement in living standards/industrialization during the first decade of the USSR after the Czarist era), these Russians show much less opposition with the equation/relationship of the terms (i.e. I'm more likely to get chastised for calling the USSR's prison camps "Russian prison camps" than I am for calling the Red Army the "Russian Army" even though there were Belorussians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs et al. in the Red Army). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6123 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes Speaks: German* | Message 30 of 35 28 July 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Whose material do they now use? Are they outsourced to meet their needs, or do the institutions use publicly available material? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5231 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 31 of 35 28 July 2011 at 4:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thank you, Davidw and Maydayayday, for the additional information about intensive institutes.
Faraday, yes, the DLI and FSI now use commercially available material, including but not limited to Pimsleur. Interesting that only people from Great Britain (if I may?) are actively contributing to this identification of institutes. I wonder if people in other countries don't know or if they just don't care? As to the whole nomenclature issue in regards to why even members of the intelligentsia from the USA so often refer to G.B./the U.K. as "England," I suspect that it may come from a degree of unintentional programming in our early education. Our myth of national identity is, in fact, carved out in opposition to England. The first history we learn is along these lines: We, the Pilgrims, left England because we didn't have religious freedom there. Then, we fought from indepedence from England because King George III of England was a tyrant. Then, the English came back and burned Washington in 1814. And so on and so forth. Sure, Paul Revere called out "the British are coming!", but everything else I can remember being taught at a young and formative age was about England, not about Britian or the U.K. I guess that kind of sticks until someone specifically calls you out on it. And, I guess no one has ever done that to Chomsky. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5788 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 32 of 35 28 July 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Er, maybe, depends on whether any of the posters are from Northern Ireland. The full title of the UK is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". But then it gets complex because many people in Northern Ireland consider themselves Irish rather than British, whilst others deeply disagree, and the whole subject can get very, er, heated. I don't pretend to understand it very well. Personally I'd probably stick to United Kingdom, it's the official name of the country for the moment :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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