Now the Manx business community has the opportunity to employ a new CD-Rom from ‘EuroTalk’ which has been specially designed for use within this sector. Aimed at speakers with a basic grasp of the language, ‘Talk Business’ gives the businessman, or woman, the chance to apply even a limited knowledge by using basic requests, or moving into the realms of more advanced discussion.
‘Talk Business’ has been designed to work in a similar way to ‘EuroTalk’s’ other recently produced CD-Roms using the Manx language, ‘Talk More’ and ‘Talk the Talk’, teaching phrases and dialogue which can easily be adapted to fit individual needs. The only difference here is that the vocabulary used is specifically geared towards the business user. With ten topics to choose from ‘EuroTalk’ will soon have a student discussing business meetings, trading, IT, the internet, advertising, careers, negotiating, banking, marketing and business phone calls.
Incorporating three levels of achievement, as do the company’s other CD-Roms, games and puzzles are used to test an individual’s skills in a relaxed way. It’s also possible to take part in dialogues featured on the disc, record a person’s voice to compare with native speakers and print a valuable phrase book in conjunction with what you have learned. Although ‘Talk Business’ is classed at an intermediate level this shouldn’t put off aspiring students, who can take advantage of a number of other Manx language CD-Roms supplied by ‘EuroTalk’.
‘Vocabulary Builder’ is aimed primarily at young school children, but is inevitably enjoyed by adults too, particularly if their own children are learning the language. Providing a good grounding before heading towards ‘Talk Now’, a true beginner level disc for adults, the principle behind this CD-Rom is to learn in a more natural way by listening and learning to recognise words, before progressing towards speaking and practising pronunciation, with the advantage of downloading vocabulary to an MP3 player.
‘Talk the Talk’, however, is aimed primarily at teenagers and young adults with appropriate vocabulary, although it is at the same level and similar in style to ‘Talk More’.
All discs are both PC and Mac compatible and can be used with the latest operating systems including Vista.
Based in Fulham, London, products from ‘EuroTalk’ are used all over the world and their extensive list includes both lesser spoken and endangered languages. In 2002 the company won a ‘Queen’s Award for Innovation’ in recognition of the company’s contribution to interactive language learning.
(Courtesy of Money Media)
Valerie Caine © March 2010
