Archive for April, 2011
Apr
Apr
Guest reading: from Revista Unidiversidad
This week’s guest reading comes to us from Carlos, a native Spanish speaker in Mexico City. Carlos is a translator, among other things, and he has recently started an interesting blog called Overwhelmingly Inspired which I recommend you have a look at.
He reads a fragment taken from Revista Unidiversidad. February, 2011.
Carlos reads Revista…
Apr
Apr
Learning to hear differently
Did you ever find yourself several months into learning a new language, able to read and write quite well, but still strugggling to understand the things you hear? Even when, and hearing them repeated, you realize you knew all those words?
It can be quite frustrating. But you might be relieved to learn that it’s…
Apr
Apr
Turkish progress report – 3 months
It’s been 3 months and so it’s time for a progress report on Turkish. Since this year’s mission involves learning in a completely new way, my usual quarterly targets don’t really work. But progress is being made, and therefore it can – and should – be measured!
So where am I at with my Turkish?…
Apr
Apr
Guest reading: Moab is my washpot
Hey, guys. I’m Roman, a fellow language addict and aspiring traveler, eager to explore the cultures of the world we live in. The first language I acquired was English. It came sort of naturally to me, and only recently I realized what an amazing skill I have, because it allows me to communicate with you…
Apr
Apr
Big goals and long drives
I’ve done a lot of flying in the past year, but prior to that, most of my travel was done by car. I’ve made several road trips all over the US, and many of them at night.
When you drive at night, you can’t see much. Sometimes you drive through a city and you can…
Apr
Apr
What does it mean to learn a language?
What does it mean when you say you want to learn a language? What do you expect to be true before you have learned a language? And what is happening when you are learning a language…? That phrase is pretty powerful, and yet pretty vague. Apparently, everyone understands it differently.
A little
Apr
Apr
Guest reading: O Rádio Apaixonado
This week’s guest reading comes to use from Lucas L Carvalho, a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese. Lucas is 24 years old, a lawyer, and a singer/songwriter with a few songs available on MySpace, so check those out. Lucas loves the English language, and is also currently studying French and Spanish.
He reads us a…
Apr
Apr
Just get interested, the rest will come
When I was a kid, I remember how excited my family got around the time of the Super Bowl. If you’re not from the United States, or just are not into football, you might be able to relate to a similar excitement with the World Cup, or the Stanley Cup, or the Olympics, but the…
Apr
Apr
Yonja: the Turkish social network
As you know, social networks are a large parts of my learning strategy. They’re very useful to the learner because they involve realy people using the language in real ways, rather than the formulaic dialogs and robotic vocabulary memorization that you find in books, flashcard systems, etc.
Today, I’m only going to look at the…
Apr
Apr
Polish, for Russian speakers
A large part of the reason for my ability to rapidly pick up on Polish was the fact that it is a Slavic language, and as such, it shares a lot of similarities with Russian, a language which I already know quite well. I had already overcome many of the most difficult aspects of learning…