Promoting Thai Music to the World! This web site is for people who want to learn Thai through music. Every Wednesday, we showcase new songs for you. With Flash audio streaming you can listen to the songs straight away. You can read the lyrics in Thai, or in Roman letters if you cannot read Thai yet. Many of the songs have been translated into English.

That’s a beautiful statement and it summarizes perfectly the value of a global education.  You see, it’s not about the global economy.  The highest purpose of a global education has nothing to do with beating anyone or getting ahead or being more marketable because you’ve been abroad and speak another language or two.  Those are perks, absolutely, but they’re not what matters most. 

Getting a global education–a global perspective, really–is the ultimate way to become a part of something far, far bigger than your own career or community.  Becoming an engaged and compassionate global citizen means that you are connected to the world by virtue of your own humanity and awareness. 

Noviembre 9, 2007

Alicia Partnoy tells the very real stories of her capture and imprisonment in a government- run concentration camp. Partnoy spins tales of survival in a climate of oppression and death.  The Little School is a book of short stories devoted to telling the true history of the 30,000 “disappeared” Argentines at the hands of the government from 1976 to 1979. Thousands of Argentines were taken captive in retaliation for civil disobedience to the government. In this book, Alicia Partnoy takes on the challenge of refuting the official statements made by the government denying the disappearances. Partnoy takes one of life’s most pure experiences and shows the inhumanity of the Argentinean government as they keep, and even torture, a woman who is with child. The stories told from Graciela’s perspective shine a light on the true dignity that the prisoners displayed throughout their ordeals. While many people read books as a way of escaping into another world, Partnoy writes the stories in The Little School as a way to confront the very real ways in which she and others managed to band together in small acts of compassion toward each other and disobedience against their captors in order to mentally escape their confinement.
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mal7236 on Noviembre 13, 2007 5:17 am

El libro y la película son tan similares. Refleja cuál es ocurre a esas élites que no desaparecieron. Alicia (en la película) recibió su bebé GABY de una madre Desaparecida ( como “Graciela” la amiga de Partnoy en el libro.) La realidad de cómo Alicia vino tener su bebé está horrorizando. Especialmente cuando ella aprende que Ana era un sobreviviente /desaparecida de la Guerra Sucia. Robar a bebés del Desaparecidos. Estas situaciones ocurrieron durante la GUERRA SUCIA. No fue hablada alrededor. Quizás porque la gente no deseó perder a sus nuevos bebés. Pero estas familias son culpables guardar a estos bebés pues es terrible que el Goverment lo causó. Alicia desea saber la verdad. Ella es la esperanza de la historia. La esperanza del país de aprender la verdad de la historia de su país.

Comentario por Margarita Hernandez on Noviembre 13, 2007 10:59 pmA mi me parece que la palabra “historia” en la película significa la memoria de la gente, los recuerdos de lo sucedido al igual como el testimonio de Partnoy en The Little School. Los testimonios de la gente es algo que se debe incluir en la historia oficial, porque es la gente que vivió el sufrimiento, quien conoce la verdad. Pero al igual no todo puede ser verdad en los testimonios de la gente, por esta razón se convierte en literatura.

Perhaps the most useful skill you can carry is knowledge of the local language.

It can open up a startling range of opportunities, ease the strain of logistics and planning, and allow you to develop a deeper connection with the place and, more importantly, the people you are visiting.

With a little advanced planning,  http://www.vagabondish.com/how-to-learn-new-language-week-before-trip/and an introduction to the basics, it can be surprisingly easy to pick up a language on the road. http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/10/09/7-tips-for-learning-a-foreign-language-on-the-road/

A good phrasebook, and the dedication to use it, are the first steps to mastering a new tongue. Beyond that, an organized set of study materials can make all the difference between stumbling though a few disjointed commonalities and articulately expressing your ideas and opinions.

While most travelers understand this, who wants to buy and carry around a pile of language books? Fortunately, there are a number of excellent internet sites devoted to language study, most of them providing their services for free.

1. BBC Languages  http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/

The BBC offers comprehensive online courses in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, and Greek, with slightly briefer introductions to several other languages.

This incredible, totally free, service is the best option for starting a new language from the beginning as the curricula are well designed, very complete, and easy to follow; all important features of a self-study program.

2. MIT OpenCourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures/index.htm

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a great effort to supply all of its course materials online for the free use of MIT students and the global internet community.

The Languages and Literatures department features courses in languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Spanish in addition to many interesting literature and culture topics.

While the usefulness of the materials provided varies depending on the course, they all include a detailed study plan to aid the self-learner in structuring a home course.

3. Internet Polyglot

The Internet Polyglot provides study materials for twenty-one languages. The unit-based materials available are ideal for a student already familiar with the basics of the language and interested in practicing specific areas and applications. http://www.internetpolyglot.com/

4. The Open University LeaningSpace

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/filter.php?grouping=topic&detail=9&order=date

Similar to the Internet Polyglot, the LearingSpace provides unit-based study materials with a primary emphasis in French and Spanish.

5. Language Learning Podcasts

In the last few years, there has been an explosion of podcasts devoted to learning a language. These resources provide important sound cues and practical pronunciation guides, and are an invaluable tool for a self-study program.

To find podcasts, iTunes users can navigate to the “education” category of the iTunes Music Store. Other listeners can browse popular podcast databases like Odeo or The Podcast Directory.

A highlight of some of the more popular language podcasts includes Learn Greek, The French Podcast, ChinesePod, A Taste of Russian, and the Cherokee Language Podcast.

6. Madinah Arabic Language Course

http://www.madinaharabic.com/Arabic_Language_Course/Arabic_%20Language_%20Course.htm

For those interested in learning Arabic, the Madinah Course is the best online course available for free. Focusing on both spoken and written Arabic, this course takes the student from the first introductions through the advanced beginner level.

7. Livemocha

Livemocha is a social networking community focused on learning foreign languages. It provides free online courses in German, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, and Hindi with plans to expand to other languages in the future.

In addition to the online courses, available from introductory to intermediate levels, Livemocha provides an active community of language learners and native speakers willing to work with you and give help when needed.

This community based approach makes Livemocha one of the most useful tools for the self-study of language. http://www.livemocha.com/

8. Something Completely Different

http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp

Travelers interested in learning a more obscure, or even endangered language, should begin their research at the Ethnologue, an online database of all of the world’s 6,912 known living languages.

For more specific study, check out the Sanskrit Self Study program, an introductory course for learning Tibetan, Yucatec Maya language study materials, the great book Introduction to Zulu, or the Comparative Bantu Languages Dictionary.

Learning a new language requires time and dedication and can be a challenge no matter how good the tools available.

Still, these online resources are accessible anywhere you can find an internet connection and will make all the difference when trying to tame that new tongue, at home or abroad.

Just wanted to mention another language learning social network — italki.com.
italki has many a community resources including a social question and answers function, the ability to share free files on language learning, and of course, the ability to find language partners to practice speaking with. Like these other resources, it is free.

I’m using LingQ (www.lingq.com) and I’ve been really happy with it. It’s still in development but I’ve found it to be a wonderful resource.

I’ve been using this site for a long time.
http://www.ielanguages.com/

Last year I spent 3 months backpacking around Thailand. I learned some Thai trough this website -> http://www.learningthai.com/ It was a big help.

I also use http://www.askoxford.com to brush up on a language before traveling. They offer free listening and comprehension activities which include recorded dialogues followed by multiple choice exercises.

You can now learn languages in Second Life. For example, Languagelab.com
Information at: http://www.languagelab.com/index/

Ver Video de Bebe y escuchar oir su canción “Malo” en los 40

1) Estos textos (Sicarios, Leopardo y Sumas y restas) para mí representan una posición radicalmente antifeminina (antimujer). Creo que en esta perspectiva juegan papeles importantes la clase social de los protagonistas, la situación sociohistórica colombiana que se retrata en los textos (la de Medellín en los años ‘80), y por su puesto, los papeles tradicionales de hombres y mujeres en Latinoamérica. El misoginio se ve en los espacios reducidos que ocupan las mujeres en los textos y en la películta; también en la falta de perspectiva que tienen las mujeres. ¿Dónde están en estas obras? ¿Qué espacios ocupan? ¿Tienen autonomía? Además, el misoginio de Fernando también lo tenemos que considerar como una característica independiente de su homosexualismo.

2) Hay que considerar también el flujo de la acción y la falta de comunicación entre los diferentes personajes. La muerte, la tragedia, llegan rápidas e inesperadamente. Nunce se sabe, nunce se puede  saber lo que va a hacer el enemigo (o el supuesto amigo); los personajes no pueden depender de tradiciones sociales ni de una moralidad común para interpretar el mundo. Todo es acción y reacción sin reflexión. Fernando, el más tradicional de todos los personajes que hemos visto, parece fuera de lugar en la sociedad. El representa un enlace con el pasado, pero su cinismo y su insistencia en que ya es viejo nos da a entender que es un dinosaurio, que lo que él representa va a extinguirse pronto.

3) Quedan pocos rastros del pasado, de una identidad colombiana compartida entre todos. A la mismo vez, el pronóstico para el futuro no nos ofrece mucha esperanza. ¿Cómo lo ven Uds.?

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2) Si, estoy de acuerdo que Fernando me parece un viejo que no quiere seguir…pero pensando en mi trabajo final, sus acciones en la pelicula de matarse a su mismo son muy debil…..agarrando la pistola de Alexis y intentando suicidarse despues de matar el perro??? Come on. Y luego el lo tira un radio de su balcon. Sus acciones son igualito a Alexis y Wilmar..muy tipico de un adolescente…….el les dice a ellos a pensar antes de reaccionar pero pienso que el tampoco piensa antes de reaccionar. Su papel en la pelicula parece como un abuelo a quien todo el mundo lo olvida en un rincon mientras el grita locuras. Yo se que Alexis le dice q lo ama pero en la pelicula Alexis rie demasiado de Fernando. El le comenta a Alexis que su generacion nunca conocera la misma felicidad que la suya pero de nuevo, lo caracterizo como alguein quien no ha disfrutado su pasado ni su vida. En la pelicula no me convence que tiene pensamientos buenos y nostalicas de su pasado. Me gustaria escuchar mas de los dos terminos de amor y muerte y como relacionan a la relacion homosexual entre Alexis y Fernando. Nunca hablamos de eso en clase.