Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Feb
Feb
You can be fluent in one year or less
Hello, and welcome to my new blog “Fluent Every Year…“. I am creating this web site in order to share my experiences and learning techniques. After having studied Spanish, German, and French in high school, and later reaching fluency in Spanish I thought I had learned a lot about languages. But my proudest accomplishment
Feb
Feb
My language choice for 2010 is…
I was really torn about which language to focus on this year. The two I was most interested in were Italian and Polish. Italian, because it’s really the link between all other so-called romance… languages; and Polish because I live in Chicago, where there are more Polish people than anywhere else in the world, outside
Feb
Feb
The most important step you'll take toward fluency
I’ve chosen to learn to speak Italian fluently this year, but I have yet to complete the most important step I’ll perform this year. There are a lot of important steps involved in becoming fluent in a new language: learning vocabulary, figuring out those strange new grammatical constructs, opening your ears to hear the language,…
Feb
Feb
Finding the sounds of Italian
Category: General, Italian · Tags: alphabets,Google,learning materials,using the web,YouTube
Some people have the fortune of a life that allows lots of travel, and for them, the best way to learn a language is, without a doubt, immersion in a country that speaks the language. For most of us, though, our careers or families keep us planted in one spot for most of the year.…
Feb
Feb
The sounds of Italian
Now that we’ve got our alphabets learned, let’s take a deeper look at the sounds of letters and letter combinations, and learn a little bit about spelling.
Feb
Feb
Really getting started
Okay, so we’ve spent a week learning little more than the Italian alphabet, and you’re starting to wonder how anyone can be fluent in a year at this pace, right? Obviously, they can’t, but I still insist that this was the most important week you will have spent on the way to your goal. Everything else is just learning! Okay, okay, don’t panic. I’ve still got a lot of tricks up my sleeves to share with you. We’re definitely going to make it more interesting and fun.
Feb
Feb
Make time for learning
It can stay exciting, if you keep the right attitude. But just as that emotional burst you get from your excitement can keep you going all year, the disruption you get from distractions and competing obligations will be there to slow you down or make you give up altogether. We’re not going to let that happen!
Feb
Feb
The best free dictionary money can buy!
By now, you know how to pronounce words, and you’ve gotten started learning new words. But you probably don’t feel like you know anything really useful yet, and that’s not fun. So let’s change that.
Feb
Feb
You’ll never be fluent by translating in your head
When thinking about learning a new language, it’s common to think about it in terms of “what’s the word for this” and “how do I say that“, as if all that differentiated one language from another was the words they use to say things. This is a very common fallacy. It’s also wrong.
In reality, there’s much more involved. It’s not just knowing the words, but also knowing how they are pronounced. How they sound. How they are combined. Grammar. Usage. Implications. Subtleties.
Feb
Feb
What is noun gender?
Like all romance languages, Italian has two genders: masculine and feminine, and these genders are reflected in both singular and plural forms. So this means that every noun is either masculine or feminine; either he or she. In other words, there is no “it”.