Yearlyglot

Okay, I know I’ve said Esperanto is more religion than language, and I’ve complained about how few people there are with whom to use Esperanto. But today I’m going to put aside those biases and bring attention to a few specific details of Esperanto which give me an unfavorable opinion of it as a… continue reading

Have you ever thought about what’s actually going on in your mind when you listen to someone talking? If so, you may have already noticed that your brain is guessing at the words to come next before you even hear them!
It works with reading too. If I write “six of one“, I can… continue reading

Learning a new language is like moving to a new city. This analogy isn’t originally mine — I got it from the Word Collector blog — but I really love the idea, and I want to expand on it.
Learning a city
The average person grows up living in one city. You start out… continue reading

Last week, it was my great honor to receive a copy of Language is Music, a captivating book written by Susanna Zaraysky, about learning languages that seemed to steal the thoughts from my head and the feelings from my heart and pour them all out far more succinctly than I ever could.
About the… continue reading

Showing respect in English usually just means inserting the word “sir” or “ma’am” somewhere into the sentence. In most other languages, however, there is some additional grammatical work involved in displaying an appropriate level of resepect. Perhaps the most common way of doing this is by use of the T-V shift.

With a little bit of creativity it is possible say a lot with just a little knowlegde. You just need the basics. If you have a solid understanding of these 10 concepts, you can survive on your own and figure out the rest as you go.

I said recently that you can do more with a 100% comprehension of half the vocabulary, than you’ll ever do with 50% comprehension of all of it. Today, I want to give some real life examples of how you can be creative, and make yourself understood with a solid understanding of essential vocabulary.

Perhaps one of the biggest sources of difficulty for English speakers when learning a foreign language is the fact that modern spoken English is rich with slang expressions — especially in the US, where our language is so heavily influenced by pop culture. Thinking in slang and hyperbole can be a steep impediment to overcome.

It seems I am constantly being asked why I learn foreign languages. Every time I chat with somone online in their language, their first question is why I learned it. Every time someone finds out about my web site, they want to know why I’m doing it. If you think it’s hard explaining one language, try explaining a new one every year! Although I have a feeling it will make a handy conversation starter at the holidays.

If you want to learn a foreign language, but you don’t know which one to learn; or if you want to learn several languages and you don’t know which one to start with; or, if you think learning a foreign language is too hard, and you want something that will be easier, the Spanish is definitely the best choice.