07/07/06 Learning the Language

Learning the language. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Getting your message across can be difficult enough sometimes even when you are conversing in the same language. But adding a different culture and language can compound the issue. For agriculture producers being able to communicate with your workers, fieldmen etc. is extremely important. A new website has been launched to help you communicate more easily. Gregorio Billikopf, a farm advisor with the University of California has been developing an interactive website designed for the Ag community. BILLIKOPF: There are lots of farm operators that all the time are asking me where can I buy something that is good for agriculture and where I can learn a little bit of Spanish. And since I had the opportunity to use some tapes before I had a chance to go to Russia to help people with labor management questions there, and I wanted to learn just a little bit of Russian so I could at least greet people and be able to share a little bit of things through informal communication, I decided that it would be a good idea if the University provided something especially something free that people could make copies, give it to their friends and so on. The website features downloadable lessons in communicating in both Spanish and English. BILLIKOPF: We have material that you can download in mp3 and convert into CD's in order to be able to listen to the audio CD's in your pickup or anywhere you want or make copies for your workers to listen to. As long as you are giving it away, you can make as many copies as you want. And so I would recommend that the farmers who want to learn Spanish spend a lot of time listening to the tapes first, at least once or twice before ever trying to pronounce any of the words. Just really try and focus on the sounds of the English or Spanish language. In addition to the language section Billikopf has made available a number of other resources for the Ag industry. BILLIKOPF: It includes several free books you can download on how to manage agricultural workers to lots and lots of articles and research papers. So depending on your interests you can go into many different area of the website. This website is geared towards agriculture, however there are thousands of non-agriculture people who come and visit. The actual web address is quite long and Billikopf recommends just doing a web search for "agricultural labor management" and look for University of California. http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/ That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.