Why floundering is good.

We tend to learn better if we struggle a bit on our own, according to this article. “Trying to figure something out on your own before getting help actually produces better results than having guidance from the beginning” says the byline to the ar…

How to speak like a native.

Thanks to Susanna Zaraysky who sent me this. Time reviews a book, in an article called “How to speak like a native”, about achieving native fluency, which basically seems to concur that this is a futile goal, and which debunks the accent reduction…

Five Days to

We need to make mistakes to learn. Although I am mostly an input based learner, I do want to speak, and eventually to speak well. If I am corrected while speaking I tend to forget the correction quite quickly. When I get a report from our tutor a …

Polyglot meet up in Toronto

Well I flew down to Toronto, just under five hours in the air. Slept poorly in a stuffy hotel room. Went through a fire drill in the middle of the night, just to keep me on my toes. But then, as is almost always the case, things looked a lot bette…

Toronto, lots of concrete.

I just arrived in Toronto, courtesy of Global Television. I had to give up my Easter Weekend, and I had to miss two games in an old-timers’ hockey tournament. I am going to take part in a televions program about people who speak many languages. it…

Calling all Canadian hyperglots.

Global Television is looking for Canadians who speak at least 6 languages for a TV program. Please let me know if you qualify or contact Michael Elard . He is the author of the book Babel No More, which I reviewed a while back.

Meet ups in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane

Brisbane location to be announced. (March 21) Melbourne March 9 in the lobby 7 pm Lygon Lodge Comfort Inn Studio Apartments Address 220 Lygon Street, Carlton, Carlton Melbourne, 3053 Sydney March 16 in the lobby 7 pm AEA Bridgeport Apartments 38 B…

Is Pimsleur effective?

Many people like using Pimsleur. I consider it a poor investment of time. I think the difference is in how different people study and what their goals are. My goal is to acquire as many words as possible, in the shortest period of time, so that I …

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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