Learning Portuguese as a foreign language

The best way to credit your skills in the language is applying for the diplomas of Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PLE). There are five different degrees to which one may access, according to the level -which is verified through a series of tests of each student’s language skills-.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages -a document that “provides a common basis for the development of language programs, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks…, across Europe”- provides the basis for the different levels of PLE.

To take the exam, the student must choose one of the following levels:

• Certificado Inicial de Português Língua Estrangeira (Beginners’ Certificate of Portuguese as a Foreign Language)
• Diploma Elementar de Português Língua Estrangeira (Elementary Diploma of Portuguese as a Foreign Language)
• Diploma Intermédio de Português Língua Estrangeira (Intermediate Diploma of Portuguese as a Foreign Language)
• Diploma Avançado de Português Língua Estrangeira (Advanced Diploma of Portuguese as a Foreign Language)
• Diploma Universitário de Português Língua Estrangeira (Bachelor Diploma of Portuguese as a Foreign Language)

Different levels, different examinations

The exams at all levels have a very similar structure, always based on tests that evaluate writing, reading, speaking and listening comprehension.

In addition, the exams of the highest levels include tests that evaluate the grammar skills that each student has achieved, as well as the use of different structures.

With a score of 55/100, the student obtains an Aprovado (pass); with a score between 70 and 84, the student obtains a Bom (good), and with scores of 85 or higher the student merits a Muito Bom (very good).

Even though their structure is very similar, each level has an increased difficulty. For example, in the second level there are two separate tests for the reading and writing skills. The Intermediate Diploma of Portuguese as a Foreign Language already includes the structural competence evaluation. As for the two upper levels, the length and complexity of the tests enhance even more, in a way that the students can fully demonstrate their skills.

You can learn through the web, where there are several websites on the Internet that offer courses on different languages, with videos and sound. Also, you can learn through a teacher, taking individual lessons and, also, learn at your job.

Each of these learning alternatives have their pros and cons, but all of them are valid options, according to the life style of the student:

1. One of the pros of self-taught courses is that the student learns whenever he/she wants and has to self-evaluate the knowledge he/she gets. This kind of course is available for all languages and on different levels of knowledge, for beginners as well as for advanced students. We can find these for sale in bookstores and town libraries.

2. As for television, we can find there courses on specialized channels or on open channels with special programming.

3. Surfing the web is one of the most common options nowadays. You can find featured offers presenting different options for language learning.

4. Learning with a teacher at a place devoted to language learning is the traditional method and you can find institutes throughout most of Europe. They offer vespertine courses so workers can attend, and they have the advantage of allowing you to share a physical space with other students who live situations similar to yours. The teacher is the guide in charge of the coordination of the group.

5. Learning at your job helps you change the daily routine. The arrival of the teacher is awaited to cut the usual work day and it’s also a method of personalized teaching. Businessmen admit that knowing different languages is very important in order to succeed in the business world. That’s why lots of large companies offer free or aid-funded language courses.

The different methods could be combined, alternating them through different stages of the learning process. It all depends on the place where you live, how much time you have available to learn and what other activities you perform during the day.

The speed of the learning progress will depend on each student. Having a fixed time to study every day or week is a big help. The ideal is to have two to four hours per week. It is important to reinforce your progresses with tests that will help you check your learning. And above all… Enjoy while you’re learning!

Arabic is official language in more than 20 countries and there are more than 300 million people speaking this language. Most of them are living in the Middel East but you will find people speaking arabic around the world. It’s also official language at the United Nations, Arabe Ligue, the Organization of Islamic Countries and the African Union.

2. There’s is a big demand for employees speaking arabic as a foreign language

Only a few companys have staff speaking arabic but with the growing influence and economy of the Middle East there are many opportunities to reach to new markets, finding new business partner, business opportunities and clients. Many companies are still in need of employees speaking arabic.

Those who decide to study arabic can easily find jobs in fields like journalism, business, industry, education, finance, translation and many more.

3. The Arabic spoken countries are fast growing markets

The integration of the economies of the arabic spoken countries into the world market open up many opportunities. The middle East with it’s fast growing population will become an even bigger market, importing more and more goods and services.

With an GDP of more than 600 Billion Dollar, this region has much to offer to the world market. In order to create good business relations, its necessary to speak arabic and to better understand arabic culture, arabic business partners.

4. The Arabic culture has contributed a lot to our civilization

Arabe scientists, philosophers and mathematicians have contributed a lot to our civilization and to our daily life. A lot of roman and greek knowledge has been preserverd for the world in different important arabic libaries.

These contributions include the numbers we use (Mathematics), Navigation, Astrology, Architecture and Literature. Learning Arabic helps you to continue studying these fields and to learn more about our past.

5. Learning arabic helps to bring our different cultures closer together

As you learning arabic and you get in touch with arabic culture, you (can) help to destroy common prejudices, inform and get inform about the lives and thoughts of people, from the Middle East and elsewhere, speaking arabic.

Don’t forget, even if learning Arabic is difficult it’s fun. You start with a completly different alphabet, a different pronunciation, you will get in touch with different types of humour, food, theatre, music, traditions and cultures.

Japan is a rich country and has the most diversified economy in Asia. The big japanese companies are among the most powerful, most eficient, most known of the world. Everybody knows Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, Casio, Canon, Minolta, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi. If you work in the fields of trade, engineering, technology – you probably or work for a Japanese company or your company is in close competition with a japanese company.

2. Learning Japanese creates opportunities

Japanes Consumers spend more than 100 billion Dollar a year to purchase goods and services. The typical japanese family has more than 100.000 Dollar in Savings and a monthly budget of nearly 4000 Dollar. Speaking the language of your potential future clients would be are real advantage to other competitors or even a necessity if it comes to enter the japanese market. If you learn Japanese you are a very interesting employee for different companies. Usually people speaking several foreign languages earn more money that people only speaking English. Buy the way, when you learn a language, you also learn more about the people speaking it – so you can avoid trial & error with future japanese business partners.

3. Japanese opens you the door to Asian Culture, Asian Languages

In the past, Japan had always a huge influence on other asian countries inclusing China, Corea and India. Asian thinking, behaving and business is different to the western world – you can learn a lot about it when you start with Japanese. Many Asian countries have close economic and cultural ties with japan – speak japanese and you can benefit from that. Japanese pronunciation is much easier than Chinese – you can learn the language quicker and it helps you to learn later on Chinese. If you are interested in Asian Religion, Ethic, Fashion and Culture – why don’t you start learning Japanese right now?

4. Japanese is the 3rd most used language in Internet

The third biggest linguistic comunity in the Internet is Japanese (after English and Chinese). More than 88 million japanese are conected to the internet (that’s more than 9 per cent of all Internet Users). If you speak japanese you can contact them, find friends, partners and more. You have access to a wide field of information available online. Even learning Japanese you can use Chat, Video, Japanese Online Newspapers to improve your Japanese.

5. Learning Japanese makes you different

Most students who want to learn a foreign language chose Spanish, French, Italian or German - only european languages. Chose a different one and you make yourself much more interesting when it comes to apply for internship, part-time job or your first job after University. So le’ts go: Start Learning Japanese.

For the other countries of the European Union, relations with Germany and Austria are fundamental in the coming years. Germany has always been described as the strongest engine of the EU. Trade with Germany is essientiel to many countries of the EU, creating new buisness opportunities and relations with German companies can be beneficial to many european regions. Did you know that 24 % of all residents of the European Union speak German as their mother tongue, and a third of all Europeans can communicate in German?

Business Opportunities

Even if German is “only” language number 12 among the most spoken languages, but it’s influence goes fare beyond, partely due to it’s strong economy (Among the Top 4 Economy of the World), but also to it’s big influence in literature, philosphy, art and so on. The German Economy is the biggest Economy in Europe, creating more that a quarter of the GDP of the European Union. It has been until now the number one exporter (before China) and number two in imports.

Also Austria, which is german spoken, playes an important role as a link between eastern european countries and wester european countries, as 40 % of it’s border conect it to eastern european countries. More than 1000 foreign companys are based in Austria to profit from these links and advantages, communicating in German. Don’t forget, that also in Switzerland, more than 63 % of the population speak German.

Job opportunities

As more and more companies open branches in different european countries, learning German has become a intelligent professional strategy. With german companies like Daimler, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, BMW, Siemens and Volkswagen – all global players – learning German is the right choice to give a boost to your carieer.

German Companies are always looking for qualified employees. If you speak German you could easily get an interesting and good paid job. Did you know that German is one of the three most used languages in Internet, and that ECommerce in Germany is one of the fastest growing and by far the biggest in Europe?

Academics

German is the second most used language to write scientific papers and thesis, especially in fields like Ingeniering, Chemistry and Physics. That’s why more than 40 % of all Scientists recommend their students to learn German.

German Culture

Many of the important writings of european culture have been written in German.

• Literature: Goethe, Schiller, Thomas Mann, Kafka
• Classic Music: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart
• Art: Kollwitz, Durero, Klee, Kaninsky
• Psychology: Freud, Jung
• Philosophy: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno
• Science: Einstein, Kepler, Röntgen, Planck, Virchow

Reading books in their original languages is the best way to appriciate every detail, understanding even more clearly its meaning. Germany is the third biggest producer of books: 60 000 Books are published every year in German, that means 1 out of 10 books published every year is written in German.

]]> http://www.eu-student.eu/important-reasons-why-you-should-learn-german/feed/ 1 http://www.eu-student.eu/why-you-should-learn-portuguese/ http://www.eu-student.eu/why-you-should-learn-portuguese/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:09:05 +0000 admin http://www.eu-student.eu/?p=64 Continue reading →]]> Good Reasons to learn Portuguese

Portuguese is spoken by more than 200 Million people, it’s official language in Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome und Principe and Macau. It is the 6th most spoken language in the world.

To learn Portuguese is very important if you want to get to known the portuguese culture, speak to people around the world and create a closer link to locals who don’t speak English. If You plan to travel to one of the many countries, where they speak portuguese – it really facilitates communication.

Once you speak portuguese, you have much more job oportunities, you can get interesting jobs in the administration, import & export, health sector, travel sector or as a translator/interpretor.

Portuguese is also official language in the European Union and MERCOSUR, the economic alliance between different countries of Latinamerica including Brazil. As portuguese is spoken in so many places, you will have many occasions to use the language.

While learning portuguese, you make the first step in learning other latin languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian) which are very similar. Portuguese is a very romantic language, especially if you learn the pronunciation used in Brazil (also called Brazilian Portuguese).

Portugal has a very rich literature. To mention some of its famous writers you should have a look on Gil Vicente, who captured the humanistic spirt of the renaissance or more recently José Saramago who received the Nobel Prize in Literature en 1998. Learn portuguese and you can read amazing books in their original language.

If you already speak Spanish (or Italian) it makes it really easier for you to learn Portguese because these languages have so much in common. Most Portuguese even understand you if you speak spanish with them.

Did you know that learning portuguese is much easier than learning French, Russian or Chinese? So what are you waiting for? Start learning Portuguese today !

Esperanto means Hope and today more thant 2 million people around the world speak Esperanto – this very special language helps people from countries all around the world to talk to each other, it facilitates communication.

Esperanto was not create to remplace other languages. The idea was to create an easy-to-learn language so that everybody could learn this “foreign”-language and talk to everybody in the world. Most of the Esperanto-speakers love languages and speak several languages plus esperanto. Additionally you can say that Esperanto is not linked to any particular country – it would be equal to everybody.

Today many business man, diplomats, scientists and touristes from all around the world have to learn several languages – don’t forget there are more than 6500 languages in the world – if everybody would first learn esperanto you could already communicate with everbody even if you do not yet speak spanish, russian, chinese and arabic.

How many translations are done from english into spanish, spanish into french, french into german. If everything would be translate form one language in esperanto everybody would quickly have access to that information. Image a new novel from a famous spanish writer – the book would be translated in esperanto and everybody in the world you read it immediatly – those who want have more – learn spanish and read the original.

Learning languages is helpful to young and old people, it’s not only the fact to use that language later on, during the process of learning you have to use your brain, learn to memorize vocabulary, understand grammar rules – all things good for your mind. Learning esperanto has some additional advantages:

• you can learn esperanto very quickly. Statistics say you learn esperanto (due to it’s easy structure) 4 up 10 times faster than other languages
• it helps you to better understand how to learn a language – it makes it easier for you to learn later on other foreign languages
• If you speak Esperanto you can travel to 98 countries and sleep at least one or two nights for free at the home of Esperanto-Speakers if you speak Esperanto with them. You can get the Esperanto-Passport.

Did you know that 30% of all the members of the european parlament support Esperanto?

Learning esperanto is an introduction to languages (old languages and modern languages). Therefore it’s helpful to students and professors to better understand how languages work and how to learn other languages.

You find very usefull informations about Esperanto on the official Esperanto-Website:

http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html

For those interested in Learning Esperanto and to listen how you pronunce words in Esperanto – watch this Esperanto Video:

Those who decide to study not only a Bachelor Degree but also Italian have more oportunities for advancement (Academics, Business). Many students combien their studies in fields like politics, law, international relations, journalism, art, sciences or webdesign with learning a foreign language.

If you take in account that between 70 and 120 million people speak Italian and that the Italian Economy is among the biggest ones in Europe, learning Italian is much more usefull than most people think.

Better your Communication skills

We dont now in which field you are planning your career, but we would like to underline that learning Italian is usefull in your job and also in your free time. If you learn Italian you can communicate to all persons speaking this language.

If you’re out for business, we can assure you that if you speak Italian to your future business partners in Italia it will improve business connections more than anything else. It creates a much more personal link between you.

Learning Italian could also improve your Spanish, French or Portuguese skills, as these languages have much in common.

Travel to Italy

If you plan to visit Italy and get in touch with the italian culture, learn more about italian music, theatre and literature – knowing Italian is essentiel. If you travel through Italy you could speak to locals in their language, meeting Friends and find Restaurants and places you would never find if you try to speak English with them.

Learn Italian and get a Job

You now how important business is for our daily life, most companies need good relations to other companies abroad. International Trade is essentiel to our way of life. Many italian products are sold in our countries as Clothes, Food and italian Cars. You will agree the your future boss will be ready to pay you more if you speak more languages than other employees.

Speaking fluently a foreign language (and Italian is one of the easier one’s to learn) – makes you more qualified for higher positions – the number of people fluent in more than one language is increasing every year – don’t miss your opportunity.

Do you want to become a diplomat?

If you plan to work for your government as a diplomat, in the foreign relations department or in international trade you should now that only the best candidates are choosen. As you will work with people from other countries on a daily base, knowing foreign languages is important. Therefore only candidates speaking one or more foreign languages are choosen. If you start learning Italian you make also the first step in learning similar languages (Spanish, French). International careers include: traveling to other countries, participating in international conferences, learn more about other cultures and, who knows, fall in love abroad.

Access to more Information

If you are interested in Italian or Roman history, Italian food or in Fashion – you can find much more information in Italian, wheter in the Internet, Television, Books or Magazines. Be the first one to read new trends in fashion, don’t wait for the translation.

Enjoy Italian Art and Italian Culture

Reading the translation of an italian book is not the same as reading it in italian. Languages are different and translators have to modify books partly in order to translate the expressions. Reading a book in it’s original language makes you much richer in experiences that a translation could ever do. Italy is now for it’s fantastic operas, theaters and literature – knowing italian is fundamental to understand it fully.

As you see, there are many reasons to learn Italian – so start learning today – Now!

1. The World is Changing

You have heard it before – Globalisation, Outsourcing, Free Trade. The world is changing, even if the USA and the European Union continue as important actors and the world scene, the have to compete with other countries, mas of all – China. Since China has joined the WTO – it’s growing economy, solid comercial balance and big foreign money reserves – interacting with China is more and more important – To the benefit to everybody. But how can you interact and do buisness with someone and in such a huge country like China if you don’t even understand the language?

2. Because everybody does

Okay, to be honest – not everybody is learning Chinese (apparently it’s not that easy ). But did you know, that the number of students learning Chinese is the fastest growing among all foreign languages? Quiet often demand in Chinese classes are higher that Chinese teachers available, because not only students, also many business(wo)men an employees start learning Chinese.

3. To maintain your competitiveness

In some years, many students will learn chinese, but nowadays, speaking chinese is an real advantage when it goes to find a job after earning your first university degree. If you learn chinese, you are different and you can benefit from many new opportunities – linked to the growing trade with China.

4. Manufacturing in China

China has more than 1.3 billion inhabitants, an unbelievable working force – with lower cost than in western europe and northern america. Even if China is home to millions of factories, creating goods for the whole world, many of these companies are managed by or in cooperation with foreingers. If you learn Chinese, you can faster cooperation between your local companies and chinese factories.

5. China can soon become the biggest consumer market in the world

China is not only the factory of the world, producing many of our daily goods, it’s also an fast growing market with more than a billion consumers – foreign companies rush into the Chinese market it the hope of huge benefits. By creating one marketing campaign, you can reach more people than in any other country of the world. Todays China is very different from yesterdays China. As in any other country – the young generation want to have it’s own MP3-Player, IPhone etc. This growing trade with Chinese makes it for foreign companies more and more important to have qualified employees, speaking chinese and able to comunicate with locals in China and abroad.

6. More than 1.3 billion people speak Chinese

If you learn Chinese, you can comunicate to more people than ever before. You can learn more about a fascinating culture – get in contact with people, make friends, create opportunities. Can you image a language that opens more doors than Chinese? We don’t. Enjoy learning Chinese !

Russian is very usefull in international communication. It is used for all comunication between former soviet countries, those forming the CIS and Russia. If you learn russian it makes it easy for you to travel to all these countries, talking to local people and get in touch with new cultures.

Russian is one of the six official languages at the United Nations. If you would like to work for the UN, speaking Russian and English would be a very good advantage.

Russia went through very important reforms in the recent years, changing and consolidating it’s economy, political system and legal system. New relations with Europa, USA and Asia have been established. Russia is becoming again one of the big players in the global economy and companies trading with Russia need interpreter and translater speaking russian to discover new markets and improve business.

World Literature is full of great russian writers, poets and authors : Pushkin, Dostoievski, Tolstoi, Chejov, Akhmatova, Lermontov, Turgenev, Yesenin, Bulgakov and many others. Learning russian helps you to better understand their masterpieces of literature and the very essential meaning of their books.

Russian is spoken by 285 Million people, it’s the fourth most spoken language in the world. Can you image the possibilities you have once you’ve learned russian? You could make lot’s of new friends, study in Russia, make business with russians – it’s a great opportunity to meet new people and learn more about the russian culture.

Learning russian makes you special! Most of the students decide to learn spanish, french, italian or german – if you have russian in your CV (curriculum vitae), you have something more than the others, it creates you new opportunities and probably you get easier the job you were looking for.

Russian economy is growing every year by 7-9 %, it’s gaining influence in the world economy, is rich in natural ressources and companies around the world need qualified employees.

If you learn russian, you can watch russian movies, listen to russian music and read russian books and magazines. As as we mentionned before – you can travel in russia (the biggest country in the world). You can easily find russian words in other languages and probably you have used at least one of them (Vodka ).

If you are ready to start – than check this website about the Russian Alphabet – here you can listen to the sound of each letter plus 330 words. Enjoy!

Don’t ignore that by learning russian, a foreign language, you will grow with the task – intellectual and social. “Speaking a second language and you have a second soul” – Carlomagno.