Top Specialty Schools in Chicago, IL
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Cooks For Your Kitchen
By mtim559yahoocom July 04, 2014
Thank you for making our Annual Staff Reception such a wonderful evening. Everyone had such a nice time and the food was just so tastefully done. We would be delighted to have you cater our events year after year. ...read more
Cooks For Your Kitchen
By marryy736 June 19, 2014
This was a really fun night, food was awesome and I highly recommend! we need top have more nights like this we will be calling again. ...read more
Cooks For Your Kitchen
By edwardd956h June 19, 2014
This is the best catering service in Chicago hands down, you cannot beat the prices and so much food, and everything was outstanding. Thank you for all your help from beginning to end. ...read more
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Benefits of Learning Mandarin for Kids
Parents invest in sending their kids tomandarin classbecause many believe that it is an important language of trade that will benefit their children’s career opportunities in the future. Economist Albert Saiz finds that native English speaker graduates who speak a second language, on average, earn 2 per cent more than those who don’t. Different foreign languages attract different language bonus - the more in demand a foreign language is, the higher the language bonus. Knowing the language of our major trade partners is an asset. Graduates with foreign language skills will greatly improve their career opportunities at home and overseas. They would also improve their academic opportunities by having a chance to study at overseas educational institutions, an excellent experience to broaden their horizon and enrich their resume. Graduates with international experience are valued by employers. It’s not just people who work in international trade or diplomatic services who would reap benefits from having foreign language skills. Jim Rogers, a successful businessman, urges people to learn at least one Asian language because it will give them a competitive advantage. He himself sent his children to learn mandarin at an early age to future-proof them. The benefits of learningmandarin for kidsdo not just lie in future opportunities. Studies support that children who are bilinguals or multilinguals are academically ahead of their peers. Learning a second language helps improve children’s academic performance, especially in English and Mathematics. According to a research, languages such as Chinese expresses mathematical concepts more clearly and thus making it easier for small children to learn maths. Children who learn mandarin are also reported to perform better in identifying musical pitch and hence may perform better than their peers in building musical skills. This is not a surprise since Chinese is a tonal language. Learning the language will train children to identify the different tones. In essence, all the skills children are gaining through the process of learning a foreign language can transfer meaningfully to other areas. Children who learn a foreign language are also shown to have better problem solving skills, creativity, and multitasking skills. This is not a surprise since children are required to think in a different way while learning to speak a foreign language. This mental training delivers multiple cognitive advantages to young learners, in addition to having advanced cross-cultural skills and linguistic skills. ...read more
By Asian Language School June 19, 2018
Japanese for Beginners
Japanese is the language spoken in Japan by some 127 million people. It is known asnihongoin the native language, literally translated as the language of Japan. There are also more than 3 million Japanese immigrants living overseas, who may or may not be able to speak Japanese. Brazil having the most Japanese diaspora at 1.6 million, followed by the United States at 1.4 million. Japanese language is distinct from other East Asian languages, such as Chinese and Korean. Although Japanese borrows a large amount of vocabularies from the Chinese language, and its writing system containskanji, which is imported from the Chinese language, the language itself is not similar to Chinese. Firstly, Japanese writing is both syllabaric and logographic. It contains native Japanese writing calledkana, which is further divided intohiraganaandkatakana.Hiraganais for native Japanese words, whereaskatakanais for loan words. Starting from the 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a large amount of foreign words. For example,koohii(coffee),terebi(television),tenisu(tennis) – these are all written in katakana.Kanais syllabaric whereaskanji, the imported Chinese words, is logographic. For Japanese learners who are accustomed to alphabet-based writing system, it can be a challenge to learn the Japanese writing as it contains three different scripts. That’s whyJapanese for beginnersintroduces the language by usingromaji, an alphabetized Japanese language.Romajiis very easy to use and can be used to representhiragana,katakana, as well askanji. Beginner learners can go straight into learning how to speak Japanese without spending time to learn the Japanese script by usingromaji. However, if you intend to live in Japan, learning the Japanese script is a must. To pass Japanese Language Proficiency Test, you are expected to be knowledgeable of all the three scripts (hiragana,katakana, andkanji). Japan being known as a very polite society, this culture is reflected in its use of language.Keigois honorifics used in the Japanese language. It contains respectful language, humble language, and polite language. The respectful language orsonkeigois used to show respect to the person being spoken to, for example, a shop assistant will usesonkeigowhen speaking to a customer. The humble language orkenjougois used to show one’s deference to the person being spoken to, for example, a subordinate will usekenjougowhen talking about himself when speaking to his superior. The polite language orteineigois used in formal contexts and is the first form taught to beginner Japanese learners. Knowledge ofkeigois essential forbusiness Japanese.Keigois usually taught in intermediate and advanced Japanese courses. ...read more
By Asian Language School June 16, 2018
Chinese for Beginners
Mandarin Chinese is the official language in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. It is also considered to be one of the most useful foreign languages to learn today. The Chinese language is significantly different from English. Here is a quick introduction toChinese for beginners: 1. Chinese versus Mandarin Chinese language contains many dialects, which includes Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Shanghainese (four out of eight major dialect groups in China). Mandarin is the common language in China and is spoken by 70% of the population. When people speak of learning Chinese, most likely they are referring to the Mandarin language. In Guangdong and Hong Kong, however, Cantonese is the primary language. 2. Chinese Characters Chinese characters are logographic, meaning that a symbol is used to represent a word. Each character corresponds to one syllable. Sometimes, it takes two Chinese characters to represent one word. Each character also contains a radical, which is used to classify the character in a Chinese dictionary and to provide a meaning indication. A small number of Chinese characters were formed from pictures or icons, but most of the characters were formed from a combination of these symbols. Chinese characters are written following specific stroke orders and the stroke order count is used to classify the characters in the Chinese dictionary. Chinese characters can also be found in the Japanese language (known as kanji) and the Korean language (known as hanja). People who take upChinese classusually find learning the characters to be the most difficult part of learning Chinese. 3. Traditional versus Simplified Chinese Characters Chinese characters spans tens of thousands in numbers. Knowledge of as many as 2000 Chinese characters is required to understand 80% of communication in Chinese. In order to improve national literacy, China developed simplified characters in the 1950s to make it easier for Chinese people to learn the language. Today, the simplified characters are used in China and Singapore, whereas the traditional characters are still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. 4. Pinyin versus Chinese Characters Pinyin is the romanisation system developed in the 1950s to help teach Mandarin. It uses Latin alphabet and tone marks. Pinyin can be found in Chinese textbooks for beginner learners, often written alongside the Chinese characters, and is used to learn Chinese pronunciation. Pinyin is also used to input Chinese characters into computers and mobile phones. Although Pinyin uses Latin alphabet, just like foreign languages that are Latin based, it has its own unique pronunciation. 5. Tonal Language Chinese is a tonal language. The same syllable can be pronounced with different tones that convey different meanings. Mandarin contains four tones (called the first tone, the second tone, the third tone, and the fourth tone) and one neutral tone. Some characters can have more than one tones, and sometimes the tone for a character would change depending on the tones of the syllable before or after it. ...read more
By Asian Language School June 11, 2018
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