Want to Learn a Foreign Language?

July 19, 2012

Today is the birthday of Korean pop star Lee Tae-Min (Taemin). Generally, not many people I know would care about that, but as of a handful of months ago, my little sister introduced me to K-Pop. I found that I really enjoyed the music of a band called SHINee, of which Taemin is a part of.
 
I found myself wanting to know what the songs were saying to me. The more and more I was exposed to it, I began to look up words in books and dictionaries my sister owned so that I could understand better.
 
The Korean language is much different than other Asian languages, and extremely different than English. Sometimes, people who natively speak English can find it a challenge to learn Asian languages, as they have two "versions" of their language to learn.
 
Currently, I’m taking classes in Mandarin Chinese at my college. To learn Chinese, I had to study both the Pinyin (Chinese in with Latinized characters) as well as Hanzi (standard Chinese characters).
 
The Library is a great place to get started or continue your study of a foreign language. Sometimes, it can be extremely difficult to start to learn. But with tools at your disposal, your journey can only get easier and easier. Try our Research Database, Mango Languages, where you can learn Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, or many other languages! We even have some items available in our catalog to check out.

Kayla H.
Edgerton Branch