Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Dove studiare inglese in USA?

Salve a tutti!
Quest'estate volerò in mexico per "piacere" e poi avevo l'intenzione
di risalire negli Usa soprattuto per studiare e "usare" l'inglese
classificabile come un intermedio "scarso".
Visto che non ho preferenza alcuna sulla destinazione, in che città mi
consigliate di andare a studiare? Una volta arrivato, è facile
iscriversi ad un corso di lingua (come ad esempio a Londra)?
Grazie!

francy ha scritto:

Ciao,
non sono mai stato negli states, cmq guardando per un corso d'inglese
ho visto che ne fanno parecchi in Florida. Come posto è molto famoso
per le spiagge e la vita notturna.
Attenzione al periodo: esiste una stagione degli uragani!
Per quanto riguarda la California, penso che ce ne siano pure lì.
Prova a dare un occhiata a questo link : 
www.languageschoolsguide.com
 
                                        Ciao


Non penso che la California sia la miglior scelta.
40% of California residents and 49.7% San Francisco Bay Area residents
speak English as a second language.
bye
ari

speak English as a second language.
oh, and what's their first language? 


Most of them have Spanish as their first language. 
Then comes Chinese, I suppose.
Max

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Yes.  Spanish is the most common first language.  In SF we also have
the largest Chinese community outside of China and the largest Filipino
community outside of the Philippines.  San Jose which is about an hour
drive south of SF has a very large Vietnamese community.  These are the
four biggest groups, but it's a real mix over here.  We have people
from all corners of the globe.  Ballots that are sent out to California
voters are printed in several languages.  I can't remember all of them,
but I know Spanish and Chinese are two of them.  So, basically...this
is not a good place to learn English, but a very good place if you want
to learn another language.
bye
ari

 to learn another language.
I guess it greatly depends on which borogh you leave or work in, who
you hang around with... :)

 you hang around with... :)
New York has boroughs, San Francisco has districts or neighborhoods. 

 borogh
Semmai "borough", o meglio ancora come dice Tony :)

 wrote in message
news:yht0frk7q8nc$.dlg@news.lillathedog.net...
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According to that logic, the same could be said of learning Italian in
Italy.
When I first arrived in Italy, in the Veneto, I met many Italian
military personnel who were not from the Veneto, and who told me that
the local people had terrible accents, greatly influenced by the
dialect. I got the same advice when I later spent a few years in
Naples. If this were true, then there would be no place in Italy to
learn good Italian, since local speech in all areas is influenced to
some extent by the dialect. There were many people who spoke mostly in
dialect, many who spoke poor Italian, and many who spoke excellent
Italian. In addition, there is now a large population of immigrants
which did not exist when I was learning Italian (currently 35% of the
population in Vicenza, where I first learned Italian - Chinese, North
Africans, West Africans, Romanians, Croatians, Slovenes, etc.). Part
of learning a language is being able to distinguish between these four
groups. No matter where you go in the US or in Italy, you will find
speakers who fall into these same categories, and it doesn't take any
great effort to distinguish between an excellent speaker and a poor
speaker. If you have a problem making this distinction, then you need
a little more work on your English before taking the plunge into total
immersion.
Joe from Massachusetts

 New York has boroughs, San Francisco has districts or neighborhoods.
By the way, what are the kills? Great Kills, Fresh Kills, Arthur Kill, Van
Kull Kill? They probably are in the borough of Staten Island
-- 
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
(Janis Joplin)
13/03/2006 16.40.41

 Semmai "borough", o meglio ancora come dice Tony :)
I found a map in which are specified "neighborhoods" also in New York: they
should be smaller divisions within the boroughs, like "quartieri"
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/neighbor/neigh.shtml
-- 
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
(Janis Joplin)
13/03/2006 16.42.42

 
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/neighbor/neigh.shtml
Yes, every city has neighborhoods and New York also has districts. I only 
intended to point out that when referring to San Francisco you don't speak 
about boroughs.

 speaker. 
It's quite easy to spot immigrants, of course, but many of them are
quick to learn a fairly good Italian. Sometimes they would be make a
better model than many native speakers speaking a sloppy Italian
influenced by the local vernacular! :)
It's also easy to spot vernacular speakers, anyway!
Yet, it might be not that easy to spot learned Italians with a
regional accent: nearly all of them, or should I rather say... all of
us. :) 
Not easy, I mean, for a student who comes to Italy to learn Italian.


 some extent by the dialect.
Well, I believe in the South of Italy dialects influence a lot the Italian 
spoken there, also because southern Italians speak always in their dialect.A 
few years ago I happened to be in Sardinia with some of my friends, and I 
met loads of people from all over Italy, mainly from the South. We were the 
only ones who spoke Italian. The others were always speaking in their own 
dialects.
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
--
"There are only two kinds of people who really are fascinating - people who 
know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." (Oscar 
Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray) 

 As for my area (Forlě and Romagna in general), I would say that if

If you check out the newsgroups (italia.citta.discussioni) for many of
the cities in the Veneto, you will find that the local dialect is used
more than Italian. In fact, some people complain that they feel like
outsiders because they can't participate in the newsgroups because
they don't know the dialect. I don't think these are elderly people on
these newsgroups. Maybe in Forlě and Romagna the dialect is little
used by young people, but this is not the case in the Veneto, although
I am sure it is not as prevalent as it once was.
Joe from Massachusetts

 dialects.
In Sardinia they have a language of their own, quite different from
Italian.

 used by young people,
Yes, the only expressions in Romagnolo I often use towards my friends are:
(I don't how to write them correctly, so I'll give just an idea about how I 
pronounce them)
"S'al fa?"  (cosa fa?)
"(i)ndò?" (dove?)
"a ne so" (non lo so)
"a ne so miga me" (non lo so mica, io)
"mo sa di(t)?!?" (ma cosa dici?!)
"Sa vut che t'dega?!" (cosa vuoi che ti dica?)
To tell you the truth, I'm one of the few ones who use those sentences. 
Generally, if I don't know the person I'm talking to (even if they're from 
Forlì), I always speak in proper Italian.  I guess if I were from Rome or 
Naples, I wouldn't care.
;-)


 Italian.
Yes, I know.
I was referring to people from Sicily, Rome and Puglia, actually.


 weak or strong according to your interlocutor's education.
No, I beg to differ on this point.
Bye, FB

 No, I beg to differ on this point.
And what would be your point?
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
P.S. Bear in mind I was talking about my own area, not yours. :PP
P.P.S. I've finally found some audio files in which I can hear Cino Ricci, 
who, in someone's opinion (whose opinion? Dunno... :-D) is supposed to sound 
like me.
http://www.corriere.it/speciali/americascup/commenti/cino.shtml
I've listened to two of those recordings, but I don't find his accent too 
strong.


 P.S. Bear in mind I was talking about my own area, not yours. :PP
I see, but does someone have a stronger accent because he's not very 
educated and vice versa?
Bye, FB

 educated and vice versa?
Uhm... mi stai cominciando a far venire qualche dubbio.
Beh, di solito qui le persone che hanno avuto una certa istruzione tendono a 
evitare accenti troppo forti, anche se la calata è spesso riconoscibile. 
Adesso che ci penso pero', se vai ad un supermercato al banco salumi, gli 
addetti di solito hanno una bella esse (non indago se tali dipendenti hanno 
il diploma o la laurea). Percio' mi sa che tutto dipende molto dalle persone 
con cui si ha a che fare nella vita di tutti i giorni.  Se uno per lavoro 
parla sempre con gente del "popolo", alla fine si riduce a parlare come 
loro. Se invece non si hanno contatti con il pubblico, ma solo con poche 
persone, magari si riesce anche a conservare un certo italiano "pulito".
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.


 > As for my area (Forlě and Romagna in general), I would say that if

I learned some Italian there, too, after I left the Veneto.  :>)
As far as the dialect goes, I think there is a perception in the
Veneto, from Trieste to Venezia to Padova and Vicenza and the cities
in between, that they share a common language, not merely a dialect,
and take great pride in it. The dialect in each city differs, but
there is more commonality than difference. It is interesting that the
dialect is almost non-existent on the Verona NG. I wonder if the
status of
the dialect on a city's newsgroup is an accurate reflection of the
status
of the spoken dialect in the city?
I think the same goes for the dialect of Naples. Some describe it as a
"Romance language spoken by 7 million people". Most Neapolitans I knew
took pride in the dialect, although they always spoke Italian to me.
The dialect is often used on the newsgroup there, but not as much as
in
the Veneto.
Joe from Massachusetts