Hi
Language is not the only barrier even when working in a defined
professional field. I have lived and worked in Sweden now for just over 2
years. I teach in (British) English and we use a lot of English textbooks
(from USA and UK). My colleagues and students are very good with English
but there are still times when cultural baggage gets in the way. By this I
mean social mores, idioms, slang etc. I think that dictionaries/translation
glossaries are a must but they should be heavily supplemented/supported
with as many discussions as possible. These help to overcome the cultural
barriers.
I agree with Gero Langer.
At 12:31 2000-11-30 +0100, Gero Langer wrote:
>Hello George,
>
>You wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2000 at 11:17:41 PM:
>> Have you any other ideas regarding the lowering of the language barrier?
>
>I am working at the German Center for Evidence-Based Nursing and we offer
>a monthly working group for nurses at our university hospital where we
>lead them through the ebn steps by solving a clinical problem.
>
>To manage the foreign language barrier we have an online dictionary
>(http://dict.leo.org) at the background of our browser so that you could
>switch between the Pubmed and the dictionary session.
>For the barrier of the scientific language we do the same with a glossary
>of epidemiology terms (in German with English keywords at
>www.ebhc.de/glossar).
>
>But the language barrier is still a big problem - we could only show the
>nurses some tricks to manage it, to loose their fear and to discover the
>fun of finding studies according to their clinical problems.
>
>Best wishes,
> Gero Langer
>
>--
>Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
>Institute for Health and Nursing Science
>German Center for Evidence-Based Nursing
>
Med vänliga hälsningar/With best regards
Gareth
http://www.ki.se/biomedlab/index_se.html
Tel +46 8 728 3734
Fax +46 8 728 3688
e-mail [log in to unmask]
"Words are the seeds of misunderstanding - use them carefully."
"Give us the wisdom to know and not to feel that not knowing is less than
wisdom itself."
Gareth Morgan MPhil MSc FIBMS,
Institutionen för Mikrobiologi, Patologi och Immunologi(IMPI), H5,
Karolinska Institutet,
Avdelningar för biomedicinsk
laboratorievetenskap och
biomedicinska ämnen,
Box 127 73,
S 112 96, Stockholm
Sverige
NB/Obs! Visiting address =
Lindhagensgatan 92
Kungsholmen
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