BENGALURU: Global Languages at the Bengaluru Central University has introduced four new languages this year - Thai, Hebrew, Polish and Dutch. This is in addition to the other languages it teaches, which are French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Arabic. Techies and students seem to be the most popular takers for such courses.
This year, 150 students signed up for the foreign language classes, as opposed to 120 last year. “Most of them are from the IT background, translators and students who wish to learn a foreign language based on the country they want to pursue their higher studies in. Engineers about to visit a different country for a project also join to get an idea of the language and culture,” said centre co-ordinator Jyothi Venkatesh. German has about 60 students and Japanese has about 30 students, which are the highest compared to other languages.
Nidhi K V, a third-year student at Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Hesarghatta Main road, has plans to pursue a Masters in science in a European country. The biotechnology student has signed up for German classes to gain competitive advantage since the language is spoken widely in those countries. “They give us projects that require us to present any topic related to European culture, like clothes or food. We have to do the whole thing in German. This improves our conversational skills and helps learn the language sooner,” she explains.
Agreed Anthony Johnson Yesudas, a freelance aerospace engineer, who is now pursuing Spanish after French, Germany and Portuguese. “The classes at BU are useful as the professors are trained and efficient. The different levels, such as A1, A2, diploma and advanced diploma, also help since they gradually up the difficulty level, making the language easier to learn,” he says. Yesudas used to work with the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and works with clients or companies situated in Europe. “So learning new languages is a must for me,” he adds.
The course for the new languages started this March and is conducted on weekends for three hours at Bengaluru Central University. The four-month course costs about `8,000 and students are given certification after completion.