But what does it MEAN?

If you think you've got it rough, speaking English at work, spare a thought for the United Nations interpreters who have to translate politicians...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11377609

It's another great article from the BBC World Service!

Life (and immigration) isn't always fair

One thing that's surprised me a lot this month is that I'm getting calls from a lot of people who want to improve their English...because they want to leave Spain and go live in another country. If you're among them, be warned that Canada now has new rules about language proficiency. These rules do not necessarily help people who have already achieved a high level of English... like, you know... English literature professors from the United States!

http://tinyurl.com/2cbf45y

I have a friend who works for CIC, the Immigration authority. I'll see if I can find some more information about the exam.

"Norwegians in Brooklyn"

If you decide to get a private English teacher this fall, I strongly suggest that you ask the person if she or he has ever tried to learn another language. It's not because you should have someone who speaks perfect Spanish (although it certainly helps.) Language teachers who have experience learning a language can often understand those strange little situations that happen to language students - such as what it's like to develop an accent that people don't expect you to have.

James Fallows, a writer for "The Atlantic Monthly", lived in Beijing for a number of years, and understands what it's like to learn a language, since he speaks fairly fluent Chinese. He's also been tracking and organizing stories about how different English accents can happen in the places where you least expect them. The story about the Chinese guy who talks like Deer Hunter actor Christopher Walken is priceless....

http://tinyurl.com/37ay65a

Many tongues

So right now, it's 7:34 in the morning. I'm listening to BBC Five Live and packing to go to a race north of Bilbao, and I just thought of something. Again, this is an idea. I don't know if there's any scientific support for it.

I wonder if children who grow up in areas like the Basque Country or Catalonia, where they're expected to speak more than one language, have an advantage when it comes to learning English. I know a lot of people from those areas who have become quite fluent in English, and I wonder how much of it comes from already knowing more than one language. Not because there are connections between the languages, but because they develop the skills that help them deal with new information and new languages.

My friend Stuart, who's from Wales and lives in the middle of Guipúzcoa, says that the people in his town always joke about when they're going to get the first African Lehendekari - after all, he says, African people are so adept at learning languages, they're among the few immigrants (or residents of Euskadi!) who master speaking Euskera. And in Canada, French Canadians have always been far ahead of anglophone Canadians when it comes to being able to dominate both of Canada's official languages.

Thoughts?