Archive for May, 2010
May
May
Badoo – a great place to practice your language skills
The most important thing part of learning a language is using it. Communicating with people. Unfortunately, finding ways to use a new language is not always obvious to the one learning it, so today I introduce Badoo.
May
May
Do it now, with Italian imperatives!
The verb form used when giving instructions, issuing commands, or otherwise telling someone to do something is called the imperative mood. Today we will look at how to form the imperative mood with Italian verbs.
May
May
What do you think of this blog?
A request for votes with a bit of a twist, and some questions about my blog.
May
May
Language bloggers debate head-to-head, no holds barred! Woohoo!
Do you want to see what happens when one language blogger tells another language blogger his opinion? Get ready, because it’s going to be no holds barred, non-stop, uncensored language-learning debate action!
May
May
Let's learn the Greek alphabet!
Alphabets are scary things — when you understand an alphabet, you are sufficiently equipped to intuit many things about the text written in it, even if you don’t actually know a word of that language. However, when you don’t understand the alphabet, you find yourself saying, “It’s all Greek to me!”
May
May
Differentiating the Russian prepositions в and на
One of the many (seemingly neverending) details about Russian that can be confusing to a native English speaker is understanding the choice of prepositions in Russian. But once again, you’ll find that the concept is actually quite easy once you learn to think like a Russian!
May
May
Parts of speech: Italian prepositions
Prepositions are those short words which express conditions, directions, specifications, places and times, such as of, over, to, from, etc. They are parts of which native speakers seem to instinctively understerstand, but for which rules are hard to find.
May
May
New host, new name
FluentEveryYear.com is now www.yearlyglot.com. All the old links will still work, and you don’t have to update anything.
May
May
Texting abbreviations in Italian
The 160-character limit on SMS messages has had a worldwide impact on the use of language, leading to many creative ways of saying more in less space. But even without an imposed limit, people still use shortcuts in chat and in other places too. I recently found a listing of SMS abbreviations for Italian, and I’d like to share them.
May
May
Overcoming fear of the unknown – knowledge is power!
Human nature is to fear the things we don’t know or don’t understand. When people act in a strange way, or talk in a strange language, it is easy to become fearful or distrustful of them. But once you start to learn, the fear is erased, and often replaced with curiosity and even a thirst for more.