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
Free
15Dec
15 Dec 2020
How to Memorize Vocabulary – Is It Even Necessary?
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.
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08Dec
8 Dec 2020
Change is the Only Constant in Language Learning
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.
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01Dec
1 Dec 2020
The Seven Secrets to Language Learning Success: Part 2
Last week I wrote about the first four secrets to language learning success: spend the time, do what you like to do, learn to notice and words over grammar. Today’s post reveals the last three secrets.
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24Nov
24 Nov 2020
The Seven Secrets to Language Learning Success: Part 1
People often ask me how I learned 15 languages. I will tell you what works for me; you’ll have to decide if this can work for you. Here are the first four secrets to language learning success...
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17Nov
17 Nov 2020
How Can We Achieve Good Pronunciation in a Language?
So how do we get to good pronunciation in the language? Well, I think there are three elements. One is the attitude towards the pronunciation and I'll explain that. The second thing is the most important things that we can do that will give us good pronunciation and the third thing is remedial things. If we have what we consider to be poor pronunciation, what can we do?
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10Nov
10 Nov 2020
Listening Comprehension: An Important Language Skill
I believe that listening comprehension is an important skill in language learning. That is what you should drive for first of all. If you develop good listening comprehension, the other skills will come, the speaking will come, even your grammar, your accuracy.
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02Nov
2 Nov 2020
Interview with Olly Richards, Polyglot and Creator of Language Learning Readers
My name is Olly Richards and I blog at a website called I Will Teach You a Language dot com. That's where I kind of started this whole journey. Over the years, I have kind of shifted into teaching languages and creating books and courses to teach people. I have an approach that centers around stories. I call this method Story Learning. That's how I'm kind of branding it these days. So to help [...]
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27Oct
27 Oct 2020
Three Stages of Listening to Get to Fluency
A lot of this content, as in the case of our mini stories, has a lot of high-frequency verbs. You're certainly going to come across the high-frequency words and verbs often and, therefore, it's easier to get to know them. As you listen to this stuff whereas when you started everything was just noise and you think you'll never learn this language, particularly if it's written in a different [...]
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20Oct
20 Oct 2020
How to Avoid Giving Up in Language Learning
I'm not saying that I'm an expert on anything. I can only share with you my experience of language learning. I want to talk today about how we can make sure that we stay the course. The secret to success in language learning is to stay with it, not to be discouraged, so I kind of looked at some of the things that I'm doing. What is it that maintains my enthusiasm that keeps me going?
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13Oct
13 Oct 2020
Learning Languages in the Moment
I'm driving up here with my wife and we're listening to a podcast about the Byzantine Empire. So I'm enjoying the drive. I'm enjoying listening to the Byzantine Empire podcast. Why am I listening to a podcast about the Byzantine Empire? Because I've been learning Arabic, Persian and Turkish, so I'm kind of exploring that part of the world. I've read books now on the history of Persia or of [...]
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