Why New York is great for learning any language
Thursday, 4th June 2009
Cactus' David Mas, originally from Spain, explains why New York should be at the top of everyone's list when it comes to language learning destinations.
Learning a foreign language nowadays is a great addition to your CV. But learning a language is more than just taking classes and learning the grammar and some vocabulary. One of the best ways to learn a language, and really improve your skills and understand it is being totally immersed on it. That means, being involved in the culture and the way of life of the language which you are interested in learning.
When the time arrives for you to figure out where you should go in order to improve your foreign language skills, it can be a difficult decision. What is the best location? Well, there is a place where you have the chance to learn almost every language (or at least all the most popular ones, and some others too) and at the same time, to practise it on the street. New York.
New York is a city where you can find classes in almost every language in the world (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Polish…), since there are people from everywhere. So I would say that is not a bad option at all when you want to learn a foreign language besides English.
If you want to learn a language in New York, you are almost guaranteed of finding a skilled native speaker teacher. You will also find that a lot of people are interested in learning the language for different reasons to usual.
Possibly the most important point about learning in New York, however, is that you can really practise it on the street. You will read signs on the streets in almost every language, although Spanish is particularly prevalent – you can find shops whose signs are totally bilingual - you also have the possibility to go to whole neighborhoods where it feels like you’re no longer in an English speaking country!
To sum up, it may not be an obvious choice in comparison to China, but choosing New York to improve your Mandarin Chinese skills, for example, is not such a bad idea. You will have the chance to practise it, whilst at the same time enjoying all that this fantastic city can offer you.
Tags: korean, america, mandarin, new york, language course, part-time evening course, tailor-made, italian, culture, german, french, spanish
Posted by David Mas under Attitudes to Language Learning, Experience Cultures,
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