Music

Phung Nguyen moved to the United States from Vietnam with her American husband.   She studies English at the Immigrant Learning Center. Sometimes her teacher uses songs to teach.  Phung loves music.  Her husband told her that she can listen to Vietnamese and American music on the computer for FREE.  And she can copy songs onto a CD or mp3 player.

                

Phung needs:

1.     a computer with a sound card

2.     broadband access to the Internet

3.     an inexpensive headset or speakers

4.     computer software for listening to music (e.g. Windows Media Player or Real Player)

Phung’s computer came with a sound card and speakers.  She pays extra to her cable television company for a fast broadband Internet connection.

                          

The operating system on Phung’s computer is Windows xp, so it has Windows Media Player. She typed “media player software” in a search engine to try other free media players.

Phung typed “Vietnamese music” in the search engine, www.google.com, and found many web sites.  She clicked on some that said free, like http://www.ezmp3s.com/index.htm and http://www.allcoolmusic.com/.  She printed out the Terms of Agreement and her husband explained them to her.

Phung joined http://www.thebestvn.com to listen to Vietnamese music.  She had to give her email address and create a password.  She read the terms and conditions in Vietnamese. Her husband could read them in English at http://www.vmdb.com/about-terms.jsp.

Her classmate, Adriano, likes the free web site http://www.guarani.com.br/guarani/traducao/passadas.htm because he can listen to a song and read the words (lyrics) in English and Portuguese. 

Jean Pierre, another classmate, has an Apple computer and an ipod. He can buy popular songs for about a dollar each at http://www.apple.com/itunes/  He read about how to make music CDs at  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cd-burner.htm  and showed Phung how to make CDs.

Now Phung listens to music from her computer every day.  She copies her favorite songs to her new mp3 player.  She organizes the music by type and artist. She can quickly find the songs she wants.  Phung listens to her music while she travels to work on the bus and train.  She copied her favorite songs to a CD and sent it to her cousin.  He listens to it in his car and at home.