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Jan. 7, 2006 Yesterday while watching CNN News (Friday, January 6, 2006) I caught a segment from Jack Cafferty and Wolf Blitzer (Cafferty Files) speaking about some newly requested funding for language studies. He mentioned that President Bush has asked Congress to appropriate $1.3 million dollars to push children to learn foreign languages. I believe that is a good thing! Language studies are great, but what about those that have barely mastered English? During this speech before Congress George W. Bush went on to say (CNN News, Friday, January 6, 2006) “…When someone speaks Texan to me I know they understand the culture…” I was flabbergasted. I never knew that Texan was a language. I guess Texan may be considered another romance language according to our President or would that fall under the exotic category? What a hideously dumb thing to say. What was he thinking? I wanted to be sure that I hadn’t missed something important with the Texan language so I googled “language studies” and found many web sites that offer language studies. For instance; www.sipuebla.com offers students to learn Spanish via immersion in the Mexican culture, www.ecfi.it does the same only teaches one to speak Italian in Florence, Italy, and there were numerous more. One interesting web site even offered a free language download at www.byki.com. By far the most interesting and most comprehensive was a web site I found was www.pimsleurapproach.com. They promised that you would learn to speak a foreign language in just 10 days or your money back! They offered what they call popular languages like; Spanish, Japanese, Chinese-Mandarin, Russian, French, German, Italian, and English. They said that their studies had been used by many people working in the CIA and FBI. Exotic languages ranged from; Albanian to Arabic-offering both an Eastern and Egyptian version, to Armenian with and Eastern or Western version, to Chinese-Canton specific, to Croatian, Czech, Danish, Persian, German-specific Swiss dialect, Greek-emphasis on Modern, Haitian, Hebrew-emphasis again on Modern, etc. In all of my searching I never once came across “Texan“. What do you think-is Texan a language? Sources; CNN News, Friday, January 6, 2006 www.sipuebla.com www.ecfi.it www.byki.com www.pimsleurapproach.com ------------ About the author: Michelle Malsbury was born and raised in Champaign, Illinois. She attended Parkland College and the University of Illinois (1979-82) before graduating from the University of Phoenix with her degree in Business Management. Currently she is two courses away from earning her master's degree in Organizational Management while concurrently pursuing her lofty writing ambitions. Her plans also involve obtaining her PhD in 2006/07. Michelle moved to south Florida in 1982 and resides between the Keys, Miami, and Apalachicola, allowing her to experience the seasonal fluctuations between the southernmost and nearly northernmost beauty in the state of Florida. Travels have taken her from Europe through the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and across much of the United States. She enjoys outdoor activities like sailing, waterskiing, hiking, bike riding, working out, and fishing as well as reading, music, theatre, playing with her two amusing pets (Abu Chez, her 6 year old Australian Blue Heeler and Zack, her two year old yellow tabby cat) and writing. Michelle is a regular featured author on the web site www.useless-knowledge.com and member of their 100 + articles published club. Here she enjoys exchanging points of view with her comrades on an array of topics. "Three Years With Adonis" is the first to be published of several books that she has written and is now available in all the better bookstores, but can also be found and ordered at Amazon.com, Booksamillion.com, Barnesandnoble.com, or ordered directly from her web sites, www.3yearswithadonis.com, www.threeyearswithadonis.com, or www.MichelleMalsbury.com. In addition to "Three Years With Adonis", she has authored four other books and three screenplays while continuing to explore all that life hands her. Email Michelle Malsbury: zackywacks@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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