For people who love languages, or would but were discouraged.
- Believe in yourself and have the right attitude
- Put in an hour a day
- Use a system that works... like LingQ
Free08May
8 May 2017
The Best Way to Learn a New Language
Good language learners notice what is happening in a language. They notice the sounds of the language, and the structure and the vocabulary. They notice as they listen and read. They notice when they use the language. How can we train ourselves in the ability to notice, in order to become good language learners?
Read more The Best Way to Learn a New Language01May
1 May 2017
How Long Does It Take to Learn Spanish?
How long does it take to learn Spanish? How long does it take to learn any language? I hear these questions quite often. There is no simple answer. It is really up to you. The US Foreign Service Language institute published some numbers about how many hours required to learn different languages. For Spanish […]
Read more How Long Does It Take to Learn Spanish?24Apr
24 Apr 2017
Why learn French? Six Reasons
To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy language learners resemble each other. They develop a passion for the language they are learning. Each unhappy language learner, on the other hand, finds his or her own reason to be turned off. I got turned on to French flair long ago and my passion for French has stayed with […]
Read more Why learn French? Six Reasons13Apr
13 Apr 2017
How to Learn English Fast
If you really want to learn English fast, here is what you do. This advice is valid for other languages as well. The only difference between English and other languages is that most people learning English have had a lot of classroom instruction, which is not usually the case for learners of other languages. […]
Read more How to Learn English Fast10Apr
10 Apr 2017
Use TPRS to Accelerate Your Language Learning
Storytelling is a powerful engine of language acquisition. Apparently Blaine Ray, the originator of TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling), was also the first person to create these circling stories that are at the core of the three-part mini-stories that we are now developing both for LingQ and the language learning community in general. […]
Read more Use TPRS to Accelerate Your Language Learning03Apr
3 Apr 2017
Learning New Languages Through Mini-Stories: A Multi-Language “Wiki” Project
Learning new languages is easier when we have meaningful content. Content we can listen to and read that is interesting and yet somewhat comprehensible, in other words not too difficult. The three part mini-story is an example of such content; a wonderful form of storytelling for language learners. The TPRS Method Over the past few weeks, […]
Read more Learning New Languages Through Mini-Stories: A Multi-Language “Wiki” Project24Mar
24 Mar 2017
Reading Stories: The Gateway to Authentic Content
A few weeks ago I started learning Greek. Greek will be my 17th language, and the eighth one I have started since the age of 60. Greek has relatively few words, far fewer than I expected, that I can recognize from languages that I already know, at least so far. The Greek alphabet is […]
Read more Reading Stories: The Gateway to Authentic Content18Mar
18 Mar 2017
5 Tips to Help You Learn Japanese
If you are going to learn Japanese, you need to decide why you are learning the language. I learned Japanese because my work took me there in 1971. I lived there for nine years, mostly during the 1970s. I learned in Japan, surrounded by the language, on my own, largely by listening and reading and using […]
Read more 5 Tips to Help You Learn Japanese10Mar
10 Mar 2017
Language and Memory
I am starting to believe that memory is not that important when it comes to language learning. I have recently started learning Greek. Most of the words are completely unfamiliar to me, and not related to languages that I already know. As I start to get a toehold in this world of new and […]
Read more Language and Memory06Mar
6 Mar 2017
A Polyglot’s Review of the Assimil Series
Assimil is a language learning series that enjoys an almost cult-like following among certain language learners. I have used Assimil for two languages, Russian and Korean, and own a copy of Assimil for Romanian, which I have not used. What do I think of Assimil? A Brief Description of Assimil Assimil was first […]
Read more A Polyglot’s Review of the Assimil Series