Something to read

As usual, for any of my vacations, I tried to start to read something today. And while digging for some book in my little library I found a book I bought many months ago but as a matter of fact I didn’t read it.

It’s a classic indeed, and it’s in British English, but not only that, the language is very difficult and I think that’s the reason why I dropped the book in the moment I started to read it months ago. Shakespeare has always been one of the biggest writers for me (and for half of the population =D) and even in Portuguese it’s not very easy to read his works.

But I know that I’ve got to do a lot of reading if I intend to learn English in it’s totality, although that’s impossible because languages are in constant change  always. I think you got my point, though.

I’ve to say that what I learned about English it’s thanks to my own perseverance. My urgency to speak English dates back when I was little actually, and although my family don’t speak other languages at all I feel great to teach them some tips sometimes and to contribute with other people’s English practice.

I won’t change the subject drastically so let’s back to main idea of the post. Reading in English has always been grateful for me. Be it news, blogs, books or watching TV, it’s always a pleasure to discover different words and the same feeling takes place when I’m in my french classes.

I think reading in another language can not only give you a bigger idea of what you need to learn in that language, but it gives you the chance to read more books Just think of it, not all the books in the human history are in Portuguese, or English, or French, but English has a lot of books and if you are a reading addicted the chance to get closer to all the books ever made is better.

There are both British and American authors for example which books cannot be found here in Brazil. So, the possibility to read something about them is also greater.

Another great example of the greatness of the English language (please Portuguese speaks do not be mad about this, because I do love our language ) is when you got to read international news. For instance, there are wonderful and with great credibility journalism websites such as BBC’s and CNN’s. For those who enjoy and give a chance to international news and that think they’re important in our everyday lives these sites are what it lacks to your bookmark.

Of course they’re widely known, but I say one never knows

Those who want to learn a different language in Brazil, or anywhere in the world, have no excuse of lack of material and guidelines, etc. The web is here for everyone, well, not everyone, well you may count the 40 million Brazilian people with internet access, that’s a good amount.

Later I might write about why we should learn another language. For now, that’s it.

Learning

To learn is always good. Actually is one of the greatest tools someone can use to survive in the world. If not the ultimate one. Across human history we’ve seen in History books, lectures and documentaries, that not only the human race had to learn how to eat proper food, how to developed books for example, and these actions resulting in the ability to save their learning in all possible ways.

Internet itself is a great tool for a person to learn the theoretical knowledge in life. Guides and tutorials teach people to do the most simple thing to the harder one, although the level of ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ may vary from people to people.

Today I gave myself entirely to the Internet to learn. Read blogs, read news, chat and read people’s answers, etc. I learned how to set the header of this blog, to set the Flickr RSS feed, and also how to configure some applications, and web applications (not sure if I can say that) like Google Reader. It was quite easy, but I know many people may not find it easy like I did.

So, while browsing some blogs using Live Bookmarks on Firefox 3.0 I found a post which linked to this. 10 simple videos which intends to change your view of the world. Mine is not bad, if I may say, but more knowledge is always welcome. I did not watch all the videos yet, but I’ve got to give special attention to the fourth one “Toys That Make Worlds” lectured by the famous north-American games designer Will Wright.

Not very slowly, Wright talks about perspectives about the gaming world and how people do and will interact with these virtual spaces. Yet I’m not a huge fan of gaming in consoles, when the ‘interaction factor’ is presented in these games, I just fall for it. And though many people may stand back to this kind of entertainment, I confess it is one of the greatest tools for learning.

But back to the main subject of this post, I think videos are also a good way to teach people. Back to the beginning of the television, their inventors said it’d be the revolutionary equipment of daylife. People would learn, study, entertain themselves, do a lot of things in front of their tvs. In fact this is quite true, but what lacks in tvs are the ‘interaction factor’ mentioned before, that is given wisely by the game industry.

The only thing we need to do now, is learn how to filter the information that comes to us. Of course we choose what we read, see, or listen, but the Internet is tricky and many times unwanted stuff comes to you. We have also to focus on the construction of a web which patterns of understanding be easily accessible to anyone. We have to make of each of us teachers and inventors, and pass the information on as our ascendents did in the past, using only their voices.

To say good bye, I’m amazed with the changing of subject this text had. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not, only the readers will say. See ya!