The Linguist: Recent Episodes
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I want to talk about how I learned French, and about the best way to learn French based on what actually happened to me, not what I was taught in school. I...
The post The Best Way to Learn French (What Actually Worked for Me) appeared first on The Linguist - A polyglot's blog on language learning.
I want to talk about learning languages in chunks. It is a concept many of you are probably already aware of, but I want to explain why I think it matters and...
The post Language Chunks Explained: What They Are and Why I Never Study Them Directly appeared first on The Linguist - A polyglot's blog on language learning.
After 60 years of learning languages, I find myself thinking about what I would tell my younger self. Not the specific techniques or the tools, those have changed enormously over the decades....
The post 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Learning Languages appeared first on The Linguist - A polyglot's blog on language learning.
I hear it all the time. “I would love to learn Spanish, but I just don’t have the time.” I have been learning languages for most of the last 60 years, almost...
The post How to Find Time to Learn a Language: My Daily Routine appeared first on The Linguist - A polyglot's blog on language learning.
When it comes to learning a language on your own, it’s fundamental that can set you take charge of your own learning. It doesn’t matter whether you’re studying in a classroom or...
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Which language should I study? This is one of the most common questions amongst language learners. Often, we’re torn between choices. For example, you may love the sound of French, but Chinese...
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What is the hardest language to learn? It’s a question I’m asked often. Here I reveal the answer from my experience and give advice and tips on how to get the most out of your language learning, even if that language is a tough one.
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When it comes to language learning, many people turn to Duolingo for its ease of use and gamified experience. While Duolingo is a popular choice, especially for beginners, it’s essential to ask...
The post Duolingo Review: Would I Use It to Learn a New Language? appeared first on The Linguist.
Good language learners notice what is happening in a language. They notice the sounds of the language, and the structure and the vocabulary. They notice as they listen and read. They notice when they use the language. How can we train ourselves in the ability to notice, in order to become good language learners?
The post The Best Way to Learn a New Language appeared first on The Linguist.
It is tempting to believe that we can just acquire a small number of very useful words and sort of get a jump start in a language. I have never found that...
The post How Many Words Do We Need to Speak a Foreign Language? appeared first on The Linguist.
I studied Chinese in 1968. At the time I was working for the Canadian Government, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce’s Trade Commissioner Service to be exact. Canada was preparing to recognize...
The post Tips to Help You Learn Mandarin appeared first on The Linguist.
French was the first language where I was able to transform myself into a fluent speaker of another language, other than English. I love listening to French when it is spoken well....
The post A Guide to French Pronunciation appeared first on The Linguist.
I believe that listening comprehension is an important skill in language learning. That is what you should drive for first of all. If you develop good listening comprehension, the other skills will come, the speaking will come, even your grammar, your accuracy.
The post Listening Comprehension: An Important Language Skill appeared first on The Linguist.
You are unlikely to learn to speak a new language perfectly, but perfection should not be your goal. Your main goal should be effective communication. I am not perfect in any of the languages that I speak, but I can communicate. And whenever I communicate in another language I'm satisfied. I also know from experience that my ability to speak and to pronounce well will only improve with time, as long as I remain alert to what I hear and read, and how I use the language.
The post How To Improve Your Speaking Skills appeared first on The Linguist.
The myth is that there exists a battle in language learning: introverts vs. extroverts, and that extroverts are the better language learners. I do not believe at all that you need to be an extrovert to learn a language. Language learning comes down to the three keys: number one, attitude. You have to be interested in the language. You have to like the language. You have to believe you’re going to achieve your goal.
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If you really want to learn English fast, here is what you do. This advice is valid for other languages as well. The only difference between English and other languages is that...
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Conversation implies a two-way exchange of language. Therefore, reaching a conversational level implies quite a high level of comprehension of the language so that we can understand what is being said to us. That means in order to converse properly we need to prepare ourselves.
The post How Long to Get to a Conversational Level in a Language? appeared first on The Linguist.
Words, acquiring words, that is the core task in language learning. Over the years, I’ve seen all kinds of theories on mastering new words, because learning words is such a big deal...
The post Don’t Try to Memorize Vocabulary in a New Language appeared first on The Linguist.
When it comes to learning a new language, some learners like dictionaries. They read them. They treasure them. They worry about getting the best possible dictionary. I don’t like using dictionaries. Using them is like one-way love.
The post Create Your Own Dictionary appeared first on The Linguist.
Every language has some issues, often grammar issues, that cause learners difficulty. In the case of Spanish, one thing that gives people special trouble is the existence of two forms of the verb “to be”. Both ser and estar translate into English as “to be”. Ser vs estar, here’s how to get them straight. […]
The post Ser Vs Estar in Spanish appeared first on The Linguist.
I hear all the time that Google Translate doesn’t work. It’s not accurate. It’s this and that. I think Google Translate is a tremendous resource and not only for language learners. It’s not 100% and it’s better for some languages than others, but I find it extremely useful.
The post Google Translate Doesn’t Work? Google and Language Learning appeared first on The Linguist.
Japanese, simply in terms of the vocabulary, the structure being very different from say English, if you're an English speaker, is going to be more difficult. However, there are a number of things that make Japanese easier, in my opinion.
The post Is It Hard to Learn Japanese? appeared first on The Linguist.
French was my first love when it comes to languages. In fact, there’s an expression in French: “On revient toujours a son premier amour." It means you always go back to your first love. I love French; I love all the languages that I learn, but I have a special affection for French.
I highly recommend learning French for beginners. There’s a whole world that you can access so much better if you speak French. The language is spoken in other countries like Canada.
The post French for Beginners: What You Need to Know appeared first on The Linguist.
I recently watched a video which features polyglots Luca Lampariello and Anthony Lauder. In it they make the point that you don’t need to have a large vocabulary in order to be fluent. Anthony has said in the past that even with a few hundred words you can be fluent, or you can be fluent at a relatively low level of proficiency in a language. I don’t agree at all.
The post Levels of Language Proficiency: What Is Fluency? appeared first on The Linguist.
Many of us are watching the Olympics in Brazil. Despite all of the bad reports that we always get in the lead up to any Olympic Games – some British newspaper called the 2010 Vancouver Winter games the worst Olympics in the world ever, then there were all the problems with toilets in Sochi and now pollution in Rio – it looks like actually things are proceeding swimmingly, so to speak.
People ask, if I go to Brazil, can I communicate? What language do they speak? First of all, some may not know that Brazilians speak Portuguese. There’s no Brazilian language, there is Portuguese.
The post How To Learn Portuguese appeared first on The Linguist.
I think Spanish is one of the most attractive languages to learn. We can all be motivated to learn a specific language like Mongolian or Finnish because we have a friend or a particular interest. Spanish is different: there are a number of real big advantages to learning Spanish.
The post All the Tricks and Tips You Need for Learning Spanish appeared first on The Linguist.
Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese, ever wonder what the similarities and differences are between these three languages and how should we go about learning them? To what extent can learning one help you with the others? Let me share my experience in learning these three Asian languages. How I Learned Mandarin, Japanese and Korean […]
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As people who speak multiple languages, polyglots like to use those languages; we like to see how we do. But there is an element of performance. Are you better than me? Am I better than you? For some people that’s fine. I think a lot of us are very happy, in fact, when we hear somebody speak better than we do.
The post The Definition of a Polyglot appeared first on The Linguist.
I wanted give some important tips for learning Russian. First I'll explain about the writing system, then some interesting things to remember about Russian verbs of motion, aspects of verbs and cases.
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I studied Mandarin Chinese 50 years ago. It took me nine months to reach a level where I could translate newspaper editorials from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English, read novels and interpret for people, I did this in the age of the open-reel tape recorder, long before the age of the Internet, […]
The post How to Learn Chinese: My Top 6 Tips appeared first on The Linguist.
Combien de temps faut-il pour apprendre l’espagnol ? Combien de temps faut-il pour apprendre n’importe quelle langue ? J’entends cette question assez souvent. Il n’existe pas de réponse universelle. Cela dépend vraiment de vous.
The post Combien De Temps Faut-Il Pour Apprendre l’Espagnol? appeared first on The Linguist.
In 1987, I decided I was going to put forth a major effort to learn German. I’m going to explain that to you in detail. Long before I decided that I was going to learn German, I did have exposure to the language. My parents were from Czechoslovakia and they spoke German at home, […]
The post Want to Learn German? Here’s How I Did It. appeared first on The Linguist.
Italian is a language that has always appealed to me, as Italy is such a lovely country. I have traveled and hitchhiked through Italy and, at that time, I didn’t speak Italian, so I was relying on my knowledge of Spanish to communicate with people. With so many fascinating places to visit, great food and […]
The post The Best Way to Learn Italian appeared first on The Linguist.
You have all heard me stress the importance of input. You have to get the language in you, meaning you have to acquire words, and you have to let your brain get used to the language. I spend most of my time practicing different forms of input, however, the ability to effectively speak is the […]
The post How To Become Good at Speaking a New Language appeared first on The Linguist.
When I was 16, we had the option to do our first year of university instead of grade 12 in high school. I decided to move on to McGill University in Montréal as I found high school to be a bit boring. Not knowing what to study, I chose a number of courses in French and English literature. My professor at university named Maurice Rabotin was great!
The post How I learned French appeared first on The Linguist.
Experienced language learners accept uncertainty, yet they keep going. They accept that they don’t fully understand. In the above video I refer to two kinds of comprehension, listening comprehension and reading comprehension, but in this post I will simply refer to them as language comprehension. Language comprehension is the most […]
The post To Improve Language Comprehension DON’T Try to Understand appeared first on The Linguist.
Accumulating words is the fundamental task in language learning, in other words it is very important to acquire new words. Many learners are under the impression that this is done through memorization. This is not, however, the most effective way to grow your vocabulary. I’ve never been able to learn new words by deliberately trying to memorize them. The more effective way to learn new words is simply through exposure to the language.
The post How to Expand Your Vocabulary Without Memorization appeared first on The Linguist.
Language learning depends mostly on three factors, the attitude of the learner, the time available, and learner's attentiveness to the language. If we assume a positive attitude on the part of the learner, and a reasonable and growing attentivenes...
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My third language learning goal is listening. It's the third goal in the hierarchy, but in many ways it's the most important because it's the major activity that I do when it comes to language learning, simply because it's so easy to do. So I can get up in the morning and listen, I can listen while doing the dishes, I listen while I exercise. I listen while in the car, the train or wherever I am. I can always listen. I can listen 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there and before you know it, I have an hour of language learning done.
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What is meant by comprehensible input in language learning? Stephen Krashen uses this term, as well as the term compelling input, to refer to the kind of language exposure we need in order to learn a language. The term CI, in language learning, can apply to both. What do they mean?
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Reading is easier than listening. I can work my way through a text at LingQ, look up every word. Let's say I'm in sentence mode, it's a brand new language and if there's seven words in that sentence, I can look up each word and I can kind of figure out what the sentence means. Fuzzy, maybe not totally clear, but I have a sense of what that sentence means. I have a sense of which words correspond to the verb, to the noun and so forth. So the reading is easy. If I just heard those words, I wouldn't be able to do that. So reading is a sort of a step towards being able to understand what you hear.
The post Language Learning Goal 2: Reading Comprehension appeared first on The Linguist.
Which is better for language learners, monolingual or bilingual dictionaries? This question often comes up.A monolingual dictionary explains the meaning of a word in the language that you are learning. A bilingual dictionary provides a translation...
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The number one goal in language learning is to acquire words. Keep that as your goal, your major activity, be conscious of the fact that you are acquiring these words. Even though at times it seems that you can't remember them. You can't remember when you need to use them. You keep on forgetting their meaning. None of that matters.
The post Language Learning Goal 1: Learning Vocabulary appeared first on The Linguist.
How many hours a day will you spend with Spanish? This is perhaps the most important consideration and does not refer to how many hours do you spend in a Spanish language classroom. It means how much time do you spend listening, reading, speaking or writing in Spanish. It can be listening to podcasts while walking the dog, reading, watching movies, listening to songs in Spanish or being engaged in a conversation in Spanish. In some ways, exposure to Spanish outside the classroom can be more intense than exposure inside the classroom, unless you are lucky enough to have one-on-one instruction.
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My hierarchy of goals is what I consider to be more important at what stage in my learning. There are seven of them and I'm going talk about the seven today, and then I've been giving some thought to doing one video on each of these seven goals. In other words, how do we achieve those goals? How do we use those goals to improve our ability in the language that we're learning?
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We live in an age where there are lots of distractions. The multiplicity of media has made it easy to be distracted from whatever task we are engaged with.
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