BlogPosts Tagged "Vocabulary"
22Jul
How Many Words Do We Need to Speak a Foreign Language?
It is tempting to believe that we can just acquire a small number of very useful words and sort of get a jump start in a language. I have never found that to be the case. Of course we need to learn key words like “I”, “you”, “he” and “she” and the like, or “where”, […]
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07Jan
How to Learn Chinese: My Top 6 Tips
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 English, read novels and interpret for people, I did this in the age of the open-reel tape recorder, long before the age of the Internet, […]
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06Jun
Patience In Language Learning
Patience In Language Learning was uploaded onto Steve’s YouTube channel on August 10, 2015 Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. As you know, I like to talk about language learning. If you enjoy my channel, please subscribe. I try to put out a video at least once a week on tips or experience that I have […]
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21May
How Many Words Do We Need to Know?
Learning Words – How Many Do We Need To Know? was uploaded onto Steve’s YouTube channel on October 25, 2014 Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again. Today I want to talk about words. It’s a subject that comes up all the time, how many words do we need to know? I guess I have two […]
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01Nov
Why I Don’t Worry About Common Core Vocabulary
Why I Don’t Worry About Common Core Vocabulary has been transcribed from Steve’s YouTube channel. You can download the audio and study the transcript as a lesson at LingQ. I’ve had family visiting, my son and his family from the UK, my brother from Toronto. I was kicked out of my office, so I’m doing it from […]
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25Oct
How Not To Forget Foreign Languages
The question, don’t you forget your languages or how do you maintain your languages? That’s a very common question.
How do you not forget languages? The simple answer here is I don’t forget languages. I have not forgotten a language and I think there are several reasons for this.
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11Oct
Learning Czech and Accumulating 100 Words a Day
I studied Czech a few years ago so my statistics at LingQ for that language are not current. However, the statistics from my recent Polish challenge illustrate the fact that we can learn or add to our “known words” total well over 100 words a day. In fact in the case of Polish (since I know other Slavic languages) it is over 300 words a day. You can learn 100 words a day, if you are willing [...]
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29May
The Importance of Grammar Rules
Grammar rules, their importance and how we should deal with them, are a constant debate in in language learning. Some people say grammar is a waste of time, that we can just ignore it. Other people say that you have to first learn the basics, as if that is possible to do. I am somewhere […]
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17Apr
Why We Need Language Teachers
Many people, at some time or another, say they want to learn another language. Few manage to get beyond a beginner level. Most of these unsuccessful learners have language teachers explaining the language to them, drilling them and correcting them. Successful language learners don’t need anyone to explain the language to them, correct them, nor […]
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20Mar
Monolingual or Bilingual Dictionaries for Language Learners?
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...
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