How To Improve Your Speaking Skills

How To Improve Your Speaking Skills

You are unlikely to learn to speak a new language perfectly, but perfection should not be your goal. Your main goal should be effective communication. I am not perfect in any of the languages that I speak, but I can communicate. And whenever I communicate in another language I’m satisfied. I also know from experience that my ability to speak and to pronounce well will only improve with time, as long as I remain alert to what I hear and read, and how I use the language.

Can Older Adult Learners Acquire New Languages?

Can Older Adult Learners Acquire New Languages?

I often hear this question from adult learners. Sometimes my followers on Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter bring this up. In fact, not so long ago I had the following request from one of my followers.

“I want to do some research on the problems of older language learners and see what I can do to help them.”

I replied by asking. “What do you consider to be an older language learner?” His answer “over 40”.

Learning Czech and Accumulating 100 Words a Day

Learning Czech and Accumulating 100 Words a Day

I studied Czech a few years ago so my statistics at LingQ for that language are not current. However, the statistics from my recent Polish challenge illustrate the fact that we can learn or add to our “known words” total well over 100 words a day. In fact in the case of Polish (since I know other Slavic languages) it is over 300 words a day. You can learn 100 words a day, if you are willing to put in the time.

How to Learn Any Language Effortlessly

How to Learn Any Language Effortlessly

When I wrote my book The Linguist: A Personal Guide to Language Learning, I began with what I called ‘The Parable of the Crooked Tree’. The author of the parable was Zhuangzi, an early exponent of Taoism, a school of Chinese philosophy from over 2,000 years ago. I referred to Taoism on a number of occasions in my book. Zhuangzi’s basic principle in life was to follow what was natural, what was effortless and not try to force things.

I speak 20 languages

I've been learning languages for over 50 years and I've tried all kinds of approaches.

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Steve Kaufmann about LingQ

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