Archive for April, 2010
Apr
Apr
Pesci d'Aprile – Italian April Fools
Today is April first, and in the many parts of the world, that means it’s All Fool’s Day. It’s a day when people go to great lengths to play tricks on each other, and pull other humorous stunts. So it’s a good time to learn how an Italian might talk about those things.
Apr
Apr
Connections, conjunctions, and conversational glue for Esperantists!
Sooner or later, on the path to fluency, you have to cross the bridge from simple subject-verb-object statements and questions to complex descriptions of causes and comparisons. Today I want to cross that bridge in Esperanto.
Apr
Apr
The internet is your reality simulator
The internet is full of potential for use in endless unexpected ways. Today, we’re going to talk about two uses which are really not terribly amazing, but which are incredibly useful to the language learner.
Apr
Apr
Esperanto one week later – am I fluent?
One week ago, after taking a brief look at Esperanto, I made the comment that it looks so easy that I could see how it’s possible to be fluent in one week, which led to my one-week Esperanto challenge. Now, one week later, how did it turn out? Am I fluent?
Apr
Apr
Prefixes in Italian
Prefixes are one of my favorite parts of grammar, because understanding them helps in building the web of knowledge that makes learning a language easy and interesting. I’ve already talked about the super-logical system of Russian prefixes. Now it’s time to find out how much we can learn from Italian prefixes.
Apr
Apr
Andrea Bocelli now gives me Italian and German!
One theme I really like to emphasize is using music to learn. In fact, one of my most popular posts was the one about learning Italian from Andrea Bocelli. Using music to reinforce your vocabulary is great because it makes learning fun. That’s the most important thing, because if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to do it.
Apr
Apr
Quanto si può imparare dalla lingua italiana in due mesi?
Io ho stato scrivendo sulla lingua italiana in questo blog due settimane. Quanto ho imparato? Molto! Il mese scorso, ho scrivato alcuni paragrafi nell’italiano. Questo mese, io scriverò tutto il post sul blog in italiano!
Apr
Apr
What to do when the free lessons run out
At this point, depending on what language you have selected, some of you might be coming to the end of your LiveMocha programs. If that’s the case, you are now faced with the dilemma of finding new learning materials, and of keeping yourself motivated.
Apr
Apr
Busuu – another social tool for language learning
I have already shared several free online language learning resources in previous posts, but there are always more to try. Recently, someone pointed me to a new one which I hadn’t heard of yet, called Busuu. I tried it out, and today I want to share with you my thoughts.
Apr
Apr
My "complete world traveler" language list
I’ve often dreamed about being able to go anywhere and talk to anyone, hoping that one day I would eventually become something somewhere in-between a polyglot and an omniglot, and travel freely throughout the world on my own terms. After doing a little bit of research, I’ve come up with a list of eight languages that allow you to cover most of the world.