Flora Lewis an American journalist writing for the New York Times once wrote, “Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” At the Thunder Bay Public Library, you can learn a new language as well as learn new ways to think about things.
On Tuesday evenings the Mary J L Black Library is offering an introductory yet ever popular class in basic Ojibwe Language and traditional teachings. You can learn to read and speak in Ojibwe using the double vowel system. Registration is required, and is currently at capacity. Further information can be obtained by contacting the Instructor, Esther Diabo.
The Library has a large collection of French books and eBooks, music, movies and magazines for children. The online interactive Tumblebooks site has read alouds in French at various levels and you can check out the newest children’s French books at kids.tbpl.ca.
Contes en famille (French Family Story Time) is a drop-in program at the Waverley Library on Saturdays at 10:30 am for children of all ages and their parent or caregiver. The upcoming dates are November 14 and December 12, so make a note. You will play, talk, sing, and share books and stories all in French.
On Tuesday evenings this Fall the Waverley Library has been hosting a weekly Spanish conversation group. Fluency in Spanish is not a pre-requisite. Anyone is welcome no matter how great your Spanish is. It’s simply an opportunity to get together with other people and practice your Spanish in a relaxed atmosphere. This fun series is taking a break until the New Year when it will reconvene at the Waverley Library. For more information call Viviana Spicer at 356-1034.
Instantly available on Hoopla is Rapid French By Earworms Learning, which contains a lexically rich and useful set of words and phrases which are settled into your memory bank by gentle repetition to music. Also available in the same format are Rapid Italian and Rapid Turkish.
As always you can access the online databases at www.tbpl.ca/virtualcollection with your Library card number and pin. Scroll down to Powerspeak Languages where you can learn a new language interactively: French, Spanish, German, Mandarin and English as a Second Language. In January 2016, TBPL will be offering a new online language learning resource with more languages, also accessible on your phone or device.
While browsing the databases, scroll down to Universalis, one of the largest certified francophone encyclopedias. Or French eBooks, where you can log in, browse and borrow from a large selection of eBooks in French. EBSCOhost provides a variety of fiction and non-fiction eBooks available either for reading online or downloading to eBook readers and devices in English as well as other languages.
Or how about practicing the universal language of meditation? Monday evenings at 7:00 a group gathers to practice Zen meditation in the Brodie Study Room. Call the Brodie Library for more information.
As you can tell, TBPL has much available in the area of languages: Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese, to name a few. A new language may open another window. “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” (Frank Smith, contemporary psycholinguist and author).
Caron Naysmith
The "@ Your Library" Column appears in the Sunday edition of the Chronicle Journal newspaper. The Column is written by staff at the Thunder Bay Public Library. Library staff also write for other publications, and those columns will occasionally be posted here as well. This blog helps us share our writing with a broader audience, and provides our readers with a forum for feedback. We welcome your comments!
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