Archive for June, 2010
Jun
Jun
The world’s most influential languages
I’ve seen languages ranked by many diverse criteria, including number of speakers, economic power of countries where the languages are spoken, and so on. But I’ve always felt like there were large numbers of people being forgotten and important details being overlooked.
How many people speak the language?
Population figures are relatively easy to find,…
Jun
Jun
Learn Russian as it is really spoken… from LOLCats?
One of the most difficult barriers in language study is the disconnect between the words and pronunciations you learn in a book and those you hear in daily speech.
In English, we write “I am going to…” but we say “I’m gonna”. We write “what do you think?”, but we say “Whaddya think?” This same…
Jun
Jun
Lithuanian courtesies
In anticipation of a coming trip to Lithuania this fall, I wanted to learn a little about the language. I decided this would be a good opportunity for me to put my list of the 10 most important things to know, to get by in any language to the test.
Last week, we learned some…
Jun
Jun
Italian greetings!
I’ve covered a lot of grammar already, as well as a lot of other useful things to know about Italian. But I have gone almost halfway into this year without touching on the basics from my list of the 10 most important things to know, to get by in any language… something I’ve already managed…
Jun
Jun
I wish I had a gift for languages
A common excuse I hear from people is “I’m just not good at languages like you”, or “sure, it’s easy for you, you have a gift for languages”…. But the truth is, I don’t. I’m not even sure such a thing exists… but if it does, I certainly don’t have it.
That’s not
Jun
Jun
Italian courtesies
We’re coving the 10 most important things to know to get by in Italian. Monday we looked at Italian greetings. Today, we’ll look at what I call the common courtesies.
2. Italian courtesies
When I use the term common courtesies… here, I am referring to the basic courtesy phrases we all learn as children.
Jun
Jun
Italian questions
We’re coving the 10 most important things to know to get by in Italian. Monday we looked at Italian greetings. And Wednesday we looked at the common courtesies. Today, we’ll look at the third thing on the list: asking questions.
3. Questions
I already wrote a somewhat more detailed post about the Italian question words…
Jun
Jun
Always pushing boundaries
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt…
I talk about fear a lot. Perhaps more than one might expect on a blog about learning languages. But I talk about it because I think fear is such an important thing to conquer. It is the thing that holds us all back from
Jun
Jun
Language profile: French
This isn’t quite a first look…, since I already have some experience with French, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still do a basic exploration of the language as I would do with any other language I don’t know.
French is an official language in 29 countries. It is spoken by 136 million people
Jun
Jun
Lithuanian questions
In anticipation of a coming trip to Lithuania this fall, I wanted to learn a little about the language. I decided this would be a good opportunity for me to put my list of the 10 most important things to know, to get by in any language to the test.
We’ve already learned some Lithuanian…