I Cannot See, But I Am Multi-lingual!    [29-04-2011] How many languages do you speak? Speaking foreign languages is very important to live in a global village. If you speak foreign languages fluently, you have no problem with traveling around the world. You can enjoy reading foreign books and watching foreign movies easily, too. You can also make foreign friends easily. Speaking foreign languages will help you better understand the world, too. In Britain, there is an amazing blind girl who speaks four languages fluently! Say hello to Alexia Sloane. She is 10 years old and she lives in Cambridge with her family. Sadly, she lost her sight after a brain tumor when she was only 2 years old. However, despite the fact she is completely blind, the amazing girl has not let her disability hold her back and she has become fluent in four languages by the age of 10. She can speak English, French, Spanish, and Chinese fluently. She doesn’t stop there. Now she is learning Arabic and Russian! According to her, Spanish and French were quite easy to learn. However, Chinese was hard because she had to get the tones perfect. “At the age of 6, I said to my mother I wanted to learn another language and she said, ‘How about Chinese?’ so I did. I want to learn Arabic and Russian next,” said Alexia with a big smile. On October 1 last year, Alexia won the “Most Courageous Child Award” at a local community event. Then, two weeks ago, she was given the chance to go to Brussels in Belgium to translate at the European Union headquarters. She interpreted two hours of an environment committee meeting and became the youngest interpreter to work at the European Parliament! Of course, she did a wonderful job at the meeting. “Brussels was absolutely fantastic and fascinating. I translated from Spanish to English and from French to English. There were some difficult technical words, but I managed them. I am determined to become an interpreter and nothing is going to stop me,” said Alexia. “I love learning languages. My way of looking at is that without language, we wouldn’t know anything about the world.” Alexia’s mother Isabelle, who is a teacher in Cambridge said, “Alexia is an inspiration to us all. She cannot see at all, but she is very passionate about learning languages. She is a very talented girl. However, her brain tumor is still there and could grow again. So her health is always a worry.” Let’s hope Alexia will stay healthy and become fluent in many more languages. We hope you will become a wonderful interpreter, Alexia!     출처: 어린이 영자신문 키즈타임즈 (www.kidstimes.net)