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
05Jan
Ski trip
I just finished a wonderful week of skiing at Big White near Kelowna in the BC Interior. The climate is a little colder than the coastal range near Vancouver. The snow is light and plentiful. The runs were long and varied. There were steep bowls w...
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25Dec
Phrases, the key to natural learning
Native speakers of any language know naturally which words belong together. They have heard their own language so often and in so many situations that they can naturally put words together in a way that sounds effective. The foreign learner cannot...
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25Dec
Why learning grammar is harmful
Many language learners have been conditioned to think that they need to learn grammar to learn a language. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I go to learn a new language I avoid explanations of grammar and avoid all questions or exercises based on...
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25Dec
Some myths of language learning
Along with the false friends of language learning, there are myths. These also hold people back. Here I will mention just a few. "You have to have a talent for languages in order to learn." Is it likely that this talent for languages exists only w...
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21Dec
The false friends of language learning
There must be millions if not hundreds of millions of people who study languages. Most of them are frustrated and do not achieve fluency. I believe it is the false friends of language learning that let them down. These false friends are: the class...
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20Dec
Anyone can be a linguist
When I say linguist I do not mean someone who studies complicated theories about language. I just mean someone who can speak more than one language and who enjoys doing it. Usually the two go hand in hand. Native speakers of English are at a big d...
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17Dec
Oh it is so difficult
I had a chat today with a lady who lives in Vancouver. She was complaining about how difficult it is for adults to learn English in Vancouver. But her problem is that her whole life is caught up with her own ethnic group. She has contacts with Eng...
Read more Oh it is so difficult