By far, the best habit I developed was to keep an FCIL notebook. I made many efforts over the course of the semester to gradually build my comfort level with whatever stage of French and Spanish reading proficiency I happened to be in. I rotated sites regularly – currently, I’m reading press releases issued by the International Maritime Organization. Press releases provided general context for the specific laws of foreign jurisdictions, if and when I chose to explore them further. One of my favorite strategies turned out to be reading short press releases in French and Spanish issued by intergovernmental organizations on topical areas of interest to me. Also, the search portals of United Nations entities have banner options designed to make toggling between English- and foreign-language content easy.
#GO FORTH AND CONQUER PDF#
In an effort to stick with the original text as written by members of the international law and policymaking community, I bookmarked every dual- or multi-language secondary source that I encountered, such as the Canada Gazette, available in PDF form with English and French text on the same page. But when my patience wore thin, I would highlight swathes of text and copy/paste it into Google Translate. My standard procedure was to read a text online and write down the words I didn’t know to look up later. The fourth goal required the most time and patience. When it came time for me to write a post about searching for FCIL resources, I ruefully considered titling the post, “How to Succeed in Finding Foreign Law Without Really Trying!” But to my chagrin, I sometimes had to look at the model answers before devising my own. I selected questions that had model answers so that I could check my work against them. I tested the waters of FCIL search in French and Spanish by using research questions made available through the FCIL-SIS Syllabi and Course Materials Database. Of the four goals, I struggled the most to meet the third one.
#GO FORTH AND CONQUER FULL#
It was sometimes difficult to follow the phrasing and grammar of UNSC resolutions, but those long sentences were full of procedural vocabulary and always cited to the relevant authority. An early task reading Security Council resolutions in French and Spanish equipped me with commonly-used vocabulary describing legal and institutional procedure. I found this easiest to do within various United Nations search portals. Using tried-and-true search strategy – via the banner, tabs, sidebars or site map – combined with familiar search tools like filters for date or content type, one can successfully browse content even with a limited foreign language vocabulary.įor the second goal, a researcher needs to draw on a range of FCIL-related vocabulary in order to create advanced search queries. Successful browsing – even in a foreign language – is greatly aided by conventional design elements in a search portal’s layout and functionality. I can honestly say that I only truly accomplished the first goal. I had mixed results in meeting my four goals. My revised timeframe? To achieve reading proficiency in both languages by this time next year. However, I was very naïve in setting essentially a four-month timeframe to accomplish this objective.
I’m well on the way to meeting my objective of bibliographic proficiency in French and Spanish, provided that I maintain a consistent study schedule. To comfortably “read” (get the gist of) primary law and secondary source material.”.To be reasonably confident that my search queries have returned relevant results, and.To comfortably construct search queries in these websites,.To comfortably browse French-language and Spanish-language websites containing FCIL resources,.I’ll fulfill my objective if I can attain four self-set goals: “ I aim to achieve bibliographic proficiency in French and Spanish by the end of this semester. In an earlier post in the series, I wrote the following: In the final post of this series, I return to my original FCIL research focus: documenting my self-set learning objectives, progress and takeaways. In my previous post in the Acquiring Foreign Languages series, I shared some advice about making time to study a foreign language, developing an effective study routine, and preparing for Foreign Language Proficiency Exams.