Archive for March, 2011
Mar
Mar
Huevos Rancheros: learn Spanish while making a tasty egg-based meal!
This is a guest post written by Andrew. Hi, I’m Andrew and I’ve been teaching myself Spanish for about the past 3 1/2 years and am currently trying to maintain that while also learning Japanese (very slowly, I might add). I’m fascinated by new cultures and countries, and language-learning is a means to an end …
Mar
Mar
How do you create commitment?
Recently I talked about commitment. I said it was the most important adviced I have to give. The topic sparked some unexpected interest and discussion, and it’s got me to thinking… I said commitment was the most important thing, but I never really said how to become committed.
The truth is, I’m not completely sure…
Mar
Mar
Stop thinking about mistakes.
What would you think if I said the biggest thing holding you back in your progress doesn’t even exist? Maybe you’d think I was crazy. Or maybe you’d think I was simplifying or generalizing, or just lying to you to make you feel better. Well, I have a feeling you’re going to be surprised.
One…
Mar
Mar
Can you learn a language in eight days?
It’s March 8th, so I want to wish a happy International Women’s Day to all my female readers today. And this year, it happens to coincide with Fat Tuesday, which means that here in Chicago, we also celebrate Pączki Day. (The Polish actually celebrated this last Thursday.) And speaking of Polish, that brings me to…
Mar
Mar
Hard and soft consonants – a look at palatalization
When you decide to learn Russian, you’re immediately greeted with a few interesting challenges right away on day one. You have to learn a brand new alphabet just to read and write in this new language!
Fortunately, it’s really not hard to learn the Russian alphabet, in fact, I think it’s easier and better than…
Mar
Mar
Stop trying to control everything and just let go
You may recognize that title as a quote from the movie Fight Club. As movies go, Fight Club… is perhaps over-quoted, but there’s a reason for that: people quote things that make sense. In that movie, the character played by Edward Norton learns exactly how fickle the world can be, and how useless it
Mar
Mar
Learning Turkish with Tarkan
If you’ve been reading this site, you already know that I love using music to learn. Right from the start, one of the first things I do with a new language is find music to help me learn.
At the beginning of this year, I found several Turkish singers, one of whom was Tarkan. Admittedly…
Mar
Mar
That’s a beautiful language!
Category: General, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish · Tags: pronunciation,sounds
This morning I was talking with David Mansaray about languages that sound beautiful, and about their tendency sometimes to lose their luster. This provides me a great introduction to a related topic that I’ve been thinking about lately.
How our view of a language changes
I remember when I first started learning Spanish. I was…
Mar
Mar
Guest reading: Prawiek i inne czasy
This is the first installment of a new weekly feature I’m going to do here, featuring non-English speakers reading in their native language. You’ll hear native pronunciation, and be able to read along and improve your comprehension. I hope you’ll find these posts useful!
Our first contribution comes from Ewelina Gonera, a native Polish speaker…
Mar
Mar
Negation investigation
While browsing through referers to my web site, I found a thread on a Turkish forum. Cool! The thread is a discussion of Russian, and they linked to my explanation of Russian prefixes.
I decided to browse the thread and see if I could find something I can understand. But even better, I found something…