I recently watched a video which features polyglots Luca Lampariello and Anthony Lauder. In it they make the point that you don’t need to have a large vocabulary in order to be fluent. Anthony has said in the past that even with a few hundred words you can be fluent, or you can be fluent at a relatively low level of proficiency in a language. I don’t agree at all.
Justin Sung offers interesting advice about learning in general on his YouTube channel, particularly regarding the importance of relevance, curiosity and repeated retrieval in learning activity. However, his recent video on…
Experienced language learners accept uncertainty, yet they keep going. They accept that they don’t fully understand. In the above video I refer to two kinds of comprehension, listening comprehension…
Which is better for language learners, monolingual or bilingual dictionaries? This question often comes up. A monolingual dictionary explains the meaning of a word in the language that you are learning. A bilingual dictionary provides a translation…
Ich habe vor 50 Jahren Mandarin-Chinesisch gelernt. Ich habe neun Monate gebraucht, bis ich das Niveau erreicht habe, mit dem ich Zeitungsartikel von Englisch nach Chinesisch und von Chinesisch nach Englisch übersetzen,…
As people who speak multiple languages, polyglots like to use those languages; we like to see how we do. But there is an element of performance. Are you better than me? Am I better than you? For some people that’s fine. I think a lot of us are very happy, in fact, when we hear somebody speak better than we do.
Reading is the ‘killer app’ for education, communication, and language acquisition in my opinion. It bridges gaps between cultures, connects us with history, and enhances our linguistic abilities. In this post I…
I studied Mandarin Chinese 50 years ago. It took me nine months to reach a level where I could translate newspaper editorials from English to Chinese and from Chinese to…
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?
Language learning depends mostly on three factors, the attitude of the learner, the time available, and learner’s attentiveness to the language. If we assume a positive attitude on the part of the learner, and a reasonable and growing attentivenes…
