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.
People often ask me how I learned 20 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…
French was my first love when it comes to languages. In fact, there’s an expression in French: “On revient toujours a son premier amour.” It means you always go back to your first love. I love French; I love all the languages that I learn, but I have a special affection for French.
I highly recommend learning French for beginners. There’s a whole world that you can access so much better if you speak French. The language is spoken in other countries like Canada.
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,…
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…
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…
