The Linguist - Page 2 of 74 - For people who love languages, or would but were discouraged...

09Feb

9 Feb 2021

How to Improve Your English Speaking Skills

People learning all kinds of languages find them selves in a situation where they feel frustrated that they aren't able to say more. And they feel that their comprehension is better than their ability to speak. So I want to talk a little bit about what we can do to improve our speaking skills with specific reference to English.

02Feb

2 Feb 2021

How Long Does It Take to Learn Spanish?

Learning 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 […]

26Jan

26 Jan 2021

How to Learn a Language On Your Own

Techniques

*** This post is a transcript of a video on my YouTube channel. Studying English? Here’s the transcript as a lesson to study on LingQ. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re at a school or entirely on your own, to my mind, to be a successful language learner you have to be […]

19Jan

19 Jan 2021

Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese

Learning Chinese, Learning Japanese, Learning Korean

Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese, ever wonder what the similarities and differences are between these three languages and how should we go about learning them? To what extent can learning one help you with the others? Let me share my experience in learning these three Asian languages. How I Learned Mandarin, Japanese and Korean […]

12Jan

12 Jan 2021

My Language Learning Goals for 2021

Motivation

Let me share a little bit about what I would like to see in the year 2021. First of all, in so far as learning languages, I'm going to continue with Persian and Arabic. And at some point I will refresh and try to get back into Turkish.

05Jan

5 Jan 2021

The Best Way to Learn a New Language

Learning Techniques

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?

29Dec

29 Dec 2020

Languages are for Exploring

Motivation

I've started reading about the history of Iran. Also at LingQ we have Sahra in Iran who has created a series of 26 episodes which I'm now going through. I've gone to episode seven of the history of Iran with circling questions.

22Dec

22 Dec 2020

How Do I Maintain My Languages?

Techniques

I often get asked the question, how do I maintain my languages? You know, I've learned so many languages, more or less up to 21. I don't know them all equally well, obviously. So how do I maintain them?

15Dec

15 Dec 2020

How to Memorize Vocabulary – Is It Even Necessary?

Learning Techniques

In my opinion, the best way to memorize vocabulary is NOT to memorize vocabulary. I have always found that trying to memorize vocabulary is an extremely low-efficiency activity. No matter how hard you try, some words are going to stick and some words will not stick until much, much later.

08Dec

8 Dec 2020

Change is the Only Constant in Language Learning

Motivation

I may not be aware of having changed, but then if I go back to when I started with Arabic, it was just noise to me. The writing system was meaningless to me, and now I'm able to read, I'm able to hear and understand a lot. So there is this gradual, almost imperceptible change.

I speak 20 languages