Just to be a bit of contrarian, I believe that passive vocabulary is more important than active vocabulary. Passive vocabulary is the focus of most of my active language learning. If I have a large vocabulary, the rest will come. For me, it is mor…
This is a perennial question at LingQ and elsewhere. Here is my take on it. The first rule of language learning is to do what you like to do. This way you are more likely to continue, and put in enough time. Having said that, I strongly recommend …
I was asked the perennial question about learning two languages, and also about how long it takes to learn a language, at our Forum at LingQ. Here is what I had to say. Hi Guillermo, Your enthusiasm is great, and a guarantee that you will succeed….
A former Mayor of Vancouver has launched a program called “greeting fluency” in which he wants to encourage people in Vancouver to learn to greet one another in different languages. Being able to say “hello” and “how are you”, without any chance o…
The Economist is running a poll on the most important language to learn. Esperanto is on top. More than anything this shows how skewed this kind of internet polling can be. If you asked 100 random people on the street I doubt if many would know wh…
I finally returned from my trip to the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia. I loved the layed back tropical paradise atmosphere of Roratonga, the green and clean nature of New Zealand, and the energy and optimism of Australia, and friendly peo…
Babel No More by Michael Erard is described on the front cover as “the search for the world’s most extraordinary language learners.” The book is well written, like an adventure or treasure hunt. A number of well known speakers of many languages, h…
To me the major task in language learning is the acquisition of vocabulary. If this is done through massive listening and reading, it will naturally bring with it a constantly improving familiarity with the language, making it easier and easier to…
Kids in Britain should learn languages from the age of 5, according to the Minister of Education. Given the attitude towards languages in Britain, and how languages are usually taught, this propsal, if implemented, would lead to more job opportuni…
A language needs to be learned as a whole and should not be analyzed or compartmentalized. I will expore this in a video which I will publish here later. First a definition of holism, from Wikipedia Holism (from ὂλος holos, a Greek word meaning al…
