The Chinese government’s plan to improve English fluency in the city consists of 5 parts:

- Toddlers will begin learning the language in kindergarten, to better prepare them for more advanced classes in later grades.
- Every public servant under the age of 40 with a college degree must learn 1000 English sentences.
- By 2015, all government employees must learn at least 100 English sentences, whether they have a college degree or not.
- 60% of service employees, like waiters and hairdressers, must pass English tests covering vocabulary related to their jobs.
- By 2015, a certain number of guides in each museum in the city must be proficient in English as well.

The Australian notes that these new policies represent a sea change from the way foreign language education was viewed in China just decades ago:

The drive demonstrates the dramatic changes that China has undergone in the past few decades and how its focus in world affairs has shifted.

In the 1950s, schoolchildren had to learn Russian to get ahead, while in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it was safer to speak no foreign language at all rather than risk retribution under Chairman Mao’s rule.

According to China Daily, Beijing isn’t the only city in which the government is pushing its citizens to learn English.  The city of Shanghai just started an 8-year-long program to help its officials become proficient in English. X’ian is also planning to encourage residents to learn English. Local resident Wang Ninguang told China Daily:

“English is becoming the second language in China. It’s good to have more people who speak English in the metropolis for their ability to communicate internationally, but it is impractical for the government to expect everyone to learn it.”

Mather has been delivering milk since 1960. When he began his route, he actually used a horse and carriage to make his rounds. The first wave of immigrants from India had begun to settle in the region, and Mather made an effort to learn their language so that he could communicate with them. He told the Daily Mail:

“All I did was listen carefully to what they said and then make a mental note in my head. Next time I just repeated the words. I don’t know how long it took me to learn. I’ve known the language for about 30 years and once you pick up words you remember them. I’ve got a very good memory, once I’ve been somewhere I never forget it, it’s the same with language.”

That’s quite a feat, even more so considering how different Gujarati is from English in terms of both syntax and the sounds used.

In addition to learning Gujarati, Mather also made an effort to provide his customers with the specialty products they needed to prepare traditional foods. His customers obviously appreciate his efforts. He gets invited to weddings and festivals, and has made many friends in the community. He has no plans to quit, telling the Daily Mail:

‘They want me to quit now but I want to carry on because I love my job and the people I serve. I think my Gujarati is alright. It gets me by. I’ve made friends with it and that’s the most important thing. I’ll keep going as long as I can and my Bengali’s not so bad so I’m having a go at that.’

To encourage the next generation to speak Estonian more frequently, the government has required that schools teach a certain amount of their classes in Estonian instead of Russian. That means that schoolteachers who speak Russian as their first language are having to improve their Estonian skills.  This can be difficult, as Estonian is closely related to Finnish and has very little in common with Russian.

Every so often, their skills are tested by a visit from an inspector of the The National Language Inspectorate, the “language police.” The inspector talks to each teacher in turn, in Estonian, looking for mistakes.  Naturally, this is quite stressful for the teachers, who are used to giving exams (and occasional failing grades), not receiving them.

The New York Times notes that organizations like Amnesty International have criticized Estonia’s response as heavy-handed, but Ilmar Tomusk, the inspectorate’s director, says his department is just trying to do its job:

“There are some myths about our work, about how we discriminate,” he said. “For a democratic society, it is quite common that public servants should know the state language. If a public official is in Russia, he must know the Russian language. If he is in Estonia, he must know Estonian. There is no discrimination.”

The study, conducted by Bangor University, focused on 90 volunteers. 30 volunteers were native Chinese speakers, 30 were native English speakers and 30 spoke both English and Chinese. They were asked to decide whether pairs of English words had similar meanings, but some pairs consisted of unrelated words that nonetheless sound very similar to each other when translated into Chinese.

The bilingual volunteers performed just as well as on the tests as the native English speakers, but when they encountered pairs of words that were unrelated in English but that sound alike in Chinese, their brain waves changed. To the scientists performing the study, this indicates that on some level they were translating the words into Chinese, even though that wasn’t necessary to complete the test.

In Science Daily, Dr. Guillaume Thierry, one of the study’s authors, explained the conclusions the scientists were able to draw from the study:

“Bilingual individuals retrieve information from their native language even when it’s not necessary, or, even more surprising, when it is counterproductive, since native language information does not help when reading or listening to second-language words.”

The bilingual adults in this study all learned English relatively late, after age 12. Some scientists  feel that this is one of the study’s limitations, and question whether or not the same results would be obtained with children who learned another language at an early age.

For example, Michael Chee of Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School told Science Daily that:

“One limitation of the study is that many older generation English learners from China learned English by memorizing lists of words in what seems like a brute force method of learning. It would be interesting to see if the same results would be obtained if persons learning English earlier were studied.”

There are 41 different languages available-everything from Amharic to Yoruba. Materials include study texts, MP3s and exams to help you gauge your progress.  The amount of material for each language varies, though, and languages that are less commonly spoken have less material.

Free, self-guided foreign language study courses are always a good thing. Sure, you won’t learn as fast as you would if you immersed yourself in the language or temporarily relocated somewhere where it was spoken, but many people lack the time or the finances to go that route.

Hat tip to Lifehacker, who unfortunately sent more traffic over than the website’s servers could bear.  On April 23, the following message was posted-please keep it mind if you go to the site to download study materials any time in the near future:

Traffic from lifehacker overloaded the server earlier today. As a result the admins from the isp have pulled the plug on downloading any course materials. We’re currently working to restore access. Please be patient. When the courses do become available again, please refrain from immediately downloading whole courses at a time. Just download the first few files as samples then return later for more. Hopefully, that will allow everyone to be able to sample the language that they’re interested in.
Thanks!

Podcasts on iTunes are a cheap (sometimes free) way to pick up foreign language skills. Chinesepod is especially noteworthy if you are interested in learning Chinese, Spanish, French, or Italian as it also allows you to interact with native speakers who can correct your pronunciation.

CD-based courses like Rosetta Stone may or may not be a thrifty choice-in less expensive countries, you can actually sign up for a travel-based program that lets you immerse yourself in the foreign language you wish to learn for less than you would spend on a course from Rosetta Stone. However, if you’re going to a destination where travel is expensive or you just want to become a proficient speaker in your spare time, these can be good choices. Also, check out your local library. Many libraries offer access to language learning software to patrons for free.

Phrasebook apps for smart phones may seem convenient, but old-fashioned books are often easier to use.

How does the Frugal Traveler suggest you learn a foreign language? Craigslist! That’s right…sandwiched in between all of the other useful and/or weird postings on Craigslist are people who are willing to trade language lessons. Usually, these are native speakers who want help brushing up on their English in exchange for teaching you to speak their native tongue.

Aside from price, trading language lessons over Craigslist has a couple of different advantages. First, you get help with your pronunciation from a native speaker. Second, the “textbook” version of a language can differ from the way people actually speak it in a thousand tiny ways. Learning from a native speaker might leave better prepared for your travels. Who knows? You might even make a new friend.

If trying to learn a language with a different grammatical structure than the one you were born speaking makes your head feel like it’s going to explode at first, there may be a very good reason: you’re having to use a different part of your brain than you normally would.

In American Sign Language (ASL), the meaning of a sentence can be determined either by word order or by “tags.” So, the same sentence can be signed two ways-either using word order or using tags. In a study performed at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, researchers found that individuals fluent in ASL used a different part of the brain to comprehend a sentence signed with tags than they did to understand the same sentence signed using word order.

The researchers showed 14 deaf individuals, all native ASL signers,a video of a study coauthor signing the same sentences in two different ways. While the study participants watched the video, the researchers used functional MRI scans to monitor their brain activity.

To the authors of the study, the fact that different areas of the brain were used to process the different types of syntax implies that we comprehend language using neural structures that originally evolved for other purposes. As coauthor Aaron Newman told Science News:

“We’re using and adapting the machinery we already have in our brains. Obviously we’re doing something different [from other animals], because we’re able to learn language. But it’s not because some little black box evolved specially in our brain that does only language, and nothing else.”

Unfortunately, “Baby Einstein” and other instructional videos don’t actually appear to help infants and toddlers learn language.  A new study performed by researchers at the University of California in Riverside followed a group of 1 to 2-year-olds around for 6 weeks, assigning one group to watch “Baby Wordsworth” instructional DVDs. At the end of the study, there was no difference in language acquisition between the kids that watched the DVDs and the kids that did not.

In an article describing the study, the Time Magazine reports that there are two theories as to why instructional DVDs don’t work for toddlers. The first theory is that the DVD’s somehow “overstimulate” the child’s brain, so they aren’t able to pick up new words. The second theory is simply that the DVDs replace child-parent interaction, which is the main way that babies learn to recognise the sounds of their native language and pick up new words.

Time quoted Rebekah Richert, the psychologist who led the study, who explained that:

“What we are finding in our study is that the DVD itself is not a substitute for that kind of live social interaction. For children under the age of 2, social interaction is key to their ability to learning something like words.”

Of course, if you need a little bit of time to yourself, there’s nothing wrong with using the TV to distract your toddler temporarily while you regain your sanity. Just don’t pop in the “Baby Wordsworth” DVD and expect your toddler to start writing poetry.

Also, if you’re feeling a bit ripped off, the LA Times notes that Walt Disney Co is offering refunds on Baby Einstein DVDs through Thursday.

That may sound incredibly cheesy, but consider this striking statistic: language learners who have either a significant other or a parent who is fluent in the language they are trying to learn will become fluent themselves in about the half the time it takes someone without a parent or romantic partner who speaks the language.

In the article, Philip Sweet, a professor of German at Radford University in Virginia, explains why becoming involved with someone who speaks another language can help you become fluent so much more quickly:

“Emotion is the printing fluid of memory. If you’re with somebody that you’re in love with, it makes a lot of things – really everything – that you’re doing exciting. Those phrases that you hear … you’re more likely to remember them.”

The article follows two Italian/American couples who met in Italy. Both couples found that their fluency in each other’s languages blossomed along with their relationships. In fact, when Italian Alessandro Cannali moved back to the US with his American-born wife, he tried to take an English As a Second Language class but was advised he was already too fluent, and would need to take an English class for native speakers.

Of course, if you’re already happily settled with a fellow native English speaker, there’s no need to indulge in an illicit affair to learn a new language. Being “in love” helps, but according to Chiara Crippa, the managing director for an Italian school called Italiaidea, you can just as easily fall in love with the culture:

The student doesn’t need an Italian sweetheart, Crippa insisted. Infatuation with the country’s language, food or music will suffice if it pushes a student to learn, for example, indirect object pronouns.

I love you in Bulgarian: Обичам те
I love you in Catalan: T’estimo
I love you in Chinese: Cantonese: 我愛你 – Mandarin: 我愛你; 我爱你
I love you in Croatian: Volim te
I love you in Czech: Miluji tě
I love you in Danish: Jeg elsker dig
I love you in Dutch: Ik hou van jou
I love you in Estonian: Ma armastan sind
I love you in French: Je t’aime
I love you in German: Ich liebe Dich
I love you in Greek: Σ’ αγαπώ
I love you in Hungarian: Szeretlek
I love you in Irish Gaelic: Tá grá agam ort
I love you in Italian: Ti amo
I love you in Japanese: 大好き
I love you in Latvian:  Mīlu tevi
I love you in Polish: Kocham cię
I love you in Portuguese: Amo-te
I love you in Romanian: Te iubesc
I love you in Russian: Я тебя люблю
I love you in Slovene: Ljubim te
I love you in Spanish: Te amo
I love you in Swedish: Jag älskar dig
I love you in Turkish: Seni seviyorum
I love you in Welsh: ‘Rwy’n dy garu di

Good luck!