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 [...]
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How to Learn Any Language: 7 Tips for Staying on Task

We live in the golden age of language learning. The Internet brings us an unprecedented cornucopia of language learning resources, tools, communities, exchange websites and more. We can buy audiobooks, ebooks, access online newspapers and magazines in the language of our choice. We can follow these resources on our iPhones and iPads, and have them […]
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Getting Back Into Korean Learning New Comprehensible Input: Netflix Dramas!

Getting Back Into Korean with New Comprehensible Input: A Netflix Drama!

Meaningful content, compelling content, comprehensible input, these are terms that we often hear from people talking about language learning. Stephen Krashen points out that we learn languages when we receive messages that are important to us, that have meaning. These messages should be of interest and yet not too difficult. As we read and listen […]
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Having Language Difficulties? It's Time to Believe in Yourself

Having Language Difficulties? It’s Time to Believe in Yourself

Many of you have heard me say before that the three keys to language learning are motivation, the time you spend with the language and your ability to notice what’s happening in the language.Some language learners aren’t motivated, so they don’t spend the time or develop the ability to notice and they don’t learn. That’s to be expected. But there are many people who are motivated, who do [...]
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