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…
The most popularly spoken Slavic languages are Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian in the east, Polish, Czech and Slovakian in the west and then the the languages of the former Yugoslavia in the south.
If you are going to learn Japanese, you need to decide why you are learning the language. Why did I learn Japanese? My work took me there in 1971. I lived there for…
In 1987, I decided I was going to put forth a major effort to learn German. I’m going to explain that to you in detail. Long before I decided that I…
El aprendizaje de un idioma depende fundamentalmente de tres factores: La actitud del estudiante, el tiempo disponible y la atención que ponga éste en el idioma. Si asumimos una actitud positiva, razonable…
My hierarchy of goals is what I consider to be more important at what stage in my learning. There are seven of them and I’m going talk about the seven today, and then I’ve been giving some thought to doing one video on each of these seven goals. In other words, how do we achieve those goals? How do we use those goals to improve our ability in the language that we’re learning?
What is meant by comprehensible input in language learning? Stephen Krashen uses this term, as well as the term compelling input, to refer to the kind of language exposure we need in order to learn a language. The term CI, in language learning, can apply to both. What do they mean?
Every language has some issues, often grammar issues, that cause learners difficulty. In the case of Spanish, one thing that gives people special trouble is the existence of two forms of the…
I hear all the time that Google Translate doesn’t work. It’s not accurate. It’s this and that. I think Google Translate is a tremendous resource and not only for language learners. It’s not 100% and it’s better for some languages than others, but I find it extremely useful.
