Why learn a lenguage?

                                                                                         

Learning a new languages have many advantages, you can be more efficient in the work place and the company may pay you more! On my personal experience learning a second language has been a great opportunity for me. Why? Because I can communicate with more people! I’m bilingual, I can get a better job; especially here in the U.S. where Spanish has become one of the most popular languages lately. I don’t understand when Hispanic families don’t want their kids to learn Spanish, it really bugs me! They can teach it for free when they are little because once they get older is more difficult for them to learn it, their parents don’t even know all the opportunities they take away from their kids. When I was in high school I did the AP Spanish test and I scored 4 points, the maximum were 5, but I got 12 college credits for free, and GCC count them as my foreign language credits; and with those credits I will be getting my certificate in language. Another reason to learn a language is that you think very differently! You can have more perspectives and you develop more criteria, less prejudice about the people who speak that specific language you are learning, you learn different cultures, learning a new language stimulates your brain, global market appreciates more people who is efficient in two or more languages, your creativity increases, recently I was reading that it can help you improving your decision making skills, and you can develop new long term friendships. Learning a new language is kind of hard at the beginning but then it will get easy and then you will enjoy all the benefits of knowing that language! Check out this video! ☺

Why learn a language?

What makes a word real?

Can we make up a word and make it real? I think so, and I’m strongly agree with the TED video discussion by the professor Anne Curzan. I think that we have the ability to create many things, not just words. Making up words such as “YOLO” = (You Only Live Once), and “LOL” = (Laughing Out Loud) are just some examples of the wide variety that we have. Curzan stated that dictionaries are a great source to look up for a word and that dictionaries are edited by people, and she said, those people are constantly observing us on how he interact with language and how we use it in order for them to be updated. Language is evolving constantly, because if we think about it we don’t speak how people used to speak back in the 40s or 50s, and that is what is happening now a days too! Language is evolving, and new words are born! Not only in our interaction with our friends, movies have a great impact on making new words.

One specific movie that I remember is The Lion King with the word “Hakuna Matata” = (No worries for the rest of your days) and after more than 20 years, people still use it today! It is incredible! they use it as their daily mantra!, they have done tattoos from that word, that now it has a symbol!

Another site that we can check out is urbandictionary.com this is an “informal” dictionary to look up for the new “make up” words that society is using today! You can even search for your name and it will provide a variety of definitions its actually pretty cool check it out! this site proves curzan's theory about word pover "if that word has meaning, that word is real". Anne Curzan "What Makes A Word Real"