This IAP I took Italian I, and it was basically awesome.
You might be wondering about MIT's language department, considering that....it's MIT, and languages don't involve math and all. First of all, I can reassure you that MIT does have humanities classes, and a lot of them are pretty awesome. In fact, MIT has one of the best political science programs around. For example.
But this entry is about languages. Unfortunately, MIT's selection is pretty limited, but the classes are still great. (We only offer Chinese, ESL, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and only one level of Italian is offered, and only over IAP.)
The very first humanities course I took here my first semester was 21F.716, Introduction to Contemporary Hispanic Literature. We read a different book each week (Bodas de Sangre, La Nada Cotidiana, La Plaza del Diamante, El Beso de la Mujer Arana, and a few others) and discussed them. As you might have figured out, the class was held entirely in Spanish, so it was pretty advanced, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Knowing Spanish has made learning Italian both easier and more difficult at the same time. It's easier because Romance languages have a lot of similarities, so I'm already used to conjugating verbs and making nouns and adjectives agree in number and gender. Plus, Italian and Spanish are even more similar than almost any other pair of Romance languages. There are words which are identical except for the spelling, conjugations which differ only slightly, and very similar idiomatic expressions. At the same time, this makes it difficult: because a lot of things are so close to each other that I often forget which is which. A perfect example: the word "and" in Spanish is "y" (pronounced like a long E), while the word "and" in Italian is "e" (pronounced like a long A). You can imagine that I mix these two up quite a lot. Throw in de/di, se/si, and so on, and you can see how this might get annoying.
But, the class was still awesome, and I will hopefully be using my knowledge when I visit Rome for 2 days this spring. Or, maybe I should say, hopefully I learned enough to get around Rome for 2 days this spring....
Anyway, like all good language courses, there is a listening component. And like all introductory language courses, there's that awful video series of 2 people (one male, one female) traveling around the country where the language originated making overly dramatic but grammatically simple statements. But we didn't use these materials in class- they were part of our homework assignments. So how did we access them?
The LLARC- the Language Learning and Resource Center is a familiar place to all who study language at MIT.
Right outside the LLARC there's a lounge, which is obviously cool because it has laser discs on the walls. I mean, come on. That's awesome. Also, there's a television which is always set to some foreign language channel or another.
The LLARC has audio tapes for all of the various language textbooks used at MIT:
And individual tape recorders you can use to listen to them. Here's what it looked like when I was doing Italian listening assignments:
There are also video monitors and computer stations for watching videos and doing computer based learning activities, and the walls are decorated with foreign film posters. There are also a couple of conference rooms which you can use to watch a foreign language film with some friends, or your whole class.
The textbook videos, along with a whole selection of other materials in each of the languages offerred, can be checked out from the front desk:
Plus, French comics!
Learning language through media is pretty awesome. Every day in Italian class, our professor would show us another Italian music video, and we would challenge ourselves to see how many words we recognized in each one. Then she'd hand out the lyrics and we'd go over them together, learning to translate the whole thing. Once we even watched a commercial for coca cola (which was hilarious), and a scene from 90210 which had been dubbed into Italian.
But by far the most awesome and class favorite video was Lunapop's 50 Special. It's about a guy who wants a Vespa. It's amazing. Watch it once, and you'll be hooked. Promise. I mean, it's Italian pop music! What's not to love?
Who ever knew YouTube would be such a great learning tool? (Don't tell Snively. He'd never see the sun again.)
Plus, completely not related: This is totally going to start up a huge gender/affirmative action war, but dude. Hilarious.
Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)
love,
the blogger with the most typos of anyone, ever
PS -- so glad you did an in-depth entry on the LLARC. dang, I loved that place.
Posted by: Sam on February 19, 2008
Also I have to agree - yup, that xkcd is hilarious. Though did I miss something or was the one from like ~1 week ago really depressing? ("It turns out you can't take responsibility for someone else's happiness" or something...):-(
Posted by: Lauren on February 19, 2008
Lauren: Yeah, that xkcd from awhile ago totally freaked me out. I was like, "um, webcomics are for me to look at and chuckle for 3 seconds, WTF?!"
Posted by: Laura on February 19, 2008
Posted by: Steph on February 19, 2008
Posted by: Mollie on February 19, 2008
Yay for foreign languages!
Posted by: BB on February 19, 2008
(I just fixed them. Plus another 3 no one has noticed yet. Or at least, that no one had commented on yet...)
Posted by: Laura on February 19, 2008
Posted by: 0 on February 20, 2008
It's just I was so excited to deprive someone of FIRST POST! I needed something to write. And "tok" was the first think I saw.
Posted by: Sam on February 20, 2008
i'm from india and i was wondering if they let you take self taught languages? e.g. hindi - if i wanted to study it by myself could i get credit for it?
thx,
kamya
Posted by: Kamya on February 20, 2008
I dont think so.....are you in yet?
Posted by: 0 on February 20, 2008
...um...okay, so only a handful of people got that...moving on...
Italian in a four-week period would seem pretty intense, but in terms of what languages I'd be interested in learning on the side, Italian is right up there (along with Spanish, Latin, and a few others). Too bad the foreign language I've studied for four years isn't a Romance language...
And I remember that xkcd comic very, very well. Not the first time Randall's pointed out the institutionalized bias against women. Of course, I laughed for a solid 5 minutes. Seriously, the two smartest kids in my math class right now are girls.
Speaking of that, did anyone catch Susan Hockfield on Charlie Rose yesterday? Quite an interesting interview, I must say.
Posted by: asm on February 20, 2008
(for whom English is the second language-like students from Pakistan, India, China etc)
in SAT 1 & SAT 2. If a student,who is extremely well in studies, possess excellent academic record, good in outer activities & so on - but with not so good scores in SAT (around 1700 in SAT 1 & 2250 in SAT 2), is eligible for getting admission or not. Because the student has not prepared for the SAT exams, he could not do well. Are all these aspects taken into consideration or the applicant is simply rejected.
Posted by: Rafiq on February 20, 2008
Posted by: 0 on February 20, 2008
Although I did read that comic and laugh, because that's exactly like our robotics team - "Karen can't do electronics, she's a girl!"
Most of their concerns came from my lack of hand strength, and inability to fully crimp the disconnects, but I showed them still
I've been taking French for six years, and it's nice to see that MIT has such a great foreign language department! We have a listening lab at school too, with computers and tapes and things, and it's really helped my French to be able to listen to native speakers.
Posted by: Karen on February 20, 2008
Posted by: bob on February 20, 2008
Posted by: 0 on February 20, 2008
Posted by: AG on February 20, 2008
Posted by: 0 on February 20, 2008
I love spanish and am glad language seems so be so enjoyable at MIT.
At my school it can get pretty boring.
Posted by: Davorama on February 20, 2008
And the video is great! Really highlights the difference between American music videos and Italian: Americans are usually really depressed, or really angry, or just too poppy to endure. But Vespas, quirky haristyles, mad basketball skills, and animated bluebirds? That's the best video EVER! Happy yet enduring...at least in the looping soundtrack of my head... Thanks a lot!
Posted by: E. Rosser on February 20, 2008
Oh, and PLEASE. XKCD is not merely a thing to be chuckled at. It is a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - NONE of which is incessantly funny. That said, I had pretty much the same reaction to the one you mentioned. =O
Posted by: Hawkins on February 21, 2008
Posted by: Nate on February 23, 2008
Could you please tell me the tentative dates by which the RA's can hear from the MIT admissions office?
Thank you!
Posted by: 0 on February 25, 2008
-sam r.
Posted by: Sam R. '12 on February 25, 2008
I am pretty happy to hear that you enjoyed such a course... if you need a helping hand or so, just give me a call
I hope you'll enjoy your trip to Rome, even if I am from Milan (the two cities are historical enemies)
If I manage to get admitted in the class of 2012, I'll be extremely please to meet you for a brief chat in Italian... in the meantime, buon lavoro a tutti ragazzi!!!
Posted by: Claudio A. on February 25, 2008
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