Learning a Language In-Flight
Have you ever been headed to an exotic, far-off destination and suddenly felt unprepared because of a language barrier? Well, why not learn the language in-flight? Several airlines have teamed up with learning companies to provide a different–and educational–kind of in-flight entertainment. Virgin Atlantic was the first airline to introduce in-flight language learning courses when they joined up with Linguaphone and Univerb in 2004, as part of their V:port in-flight entertainment system. Virgin Atlantic’s program currently offers instruction in Spanish and Japanese, with Chinese coming soon.
Air France will offer language instruction courses in 23 languages on its Boeing 777-300’s beginning in April of this year. Singapore Airlines made a deal with Berlitz International, a fairly well-known American language school, as a part of their Krisworld in-flight entertainment system. Quick and simple in-flight courses cover 11 languages, so you can learn important phrases in languages including French, German, Cantonese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.