Category: Language learning

Language and travel plans

By Simon

I’ve been thinking about my language and travel plans for this year and have decided to spend a few weeks in Russia – probably in July – at a Russian language school. Every year for the past ten years I’ve gone to Ireland to do courses in Irish language, singing and music in July, but this year I fancy a change. I plan to learn as much Russian as I can before going to Russia and to focus mainly on Russian throughout this year, while keeping my other languages ticking over.

Apart from the trip to Russia, I’m going to the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin at the beginning of May, and on a choir trip to Oloron Sainte Marie in the south west of France at the end of May. I also plan to do a course in Scottish Gaelic song in Scotland in August and will probably go to the Polyglot Conference in New York in October.

Can any of you recommend a Russian language school?

When is the best time of year to visit Russia?

What are you language/travel plans for this year?

Elvish linguistics learning tool

By Simon

Today we have a guest post by Juan Sandoval.

Recently a few Tolkien linguists – inclining David Salo, the primary linguist from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films – came together and thought of a way to make Elvish a more accessible, learnable language to the many fans who strive but fail to understand its many inherent nuances. While it’s easier to use intuitive software like Rosetta Stone to learn existing languages, currently fictional languages need to be learned through hard years of linguistic research since there is no established population or culture to immerse oneself in.

They’ve addressed this problem by launching a campaign to build a language decryption tool, which will be open-source, available to all language enthusiasts and customizable to any other language. Essentially, the tool packs together a translator, a dictionary, an IPA, the language’s grammar rules, audio, and much more into the very page you’re reading. As you follow along with your finger (or mouse) the phrase is instantly broken down in real-time, allowing you to see what the surrounding context is doing to influence each word. You can see a live prototype here of some of this tool’s functionality.

An ideal mix between structured learning and immersion learning…
As you use this tool, you don’t have to go anywhere else; all the information needed to read the sentence is provided right there. This eliminates the “stumped” factor, and allows the reader to get familiar with the flow of the sentences the more they read content without blockades. This accelerates the process of learning. As we continue reading and looking at the translations side by side with the grammar explained, the decryptions become more vaguely ‘familiar’ to us — so that even if we start out completely new to the language – we quickly develop an intuitive sense of how it all flows. The reader may soon find themselves anticipating what the grammatical breakdown will be, and can check with a simple mouse-hover to see if they’re right. Eventually the reader won’t need to hover over the words at all.

This approach presents a perfect blend between structured learning and immersive learning. All the information of a structured approach is there for you so there is no need to stop and look-up words, or apply algorithms. This makes the reading process itself non-mechanical and visceral, which is how language has been shown to stick better. You learn grammar rules as they come up in situations, much like in natural language.

It takes a teacher …
The text documents you read with this tool are created by someone who knows the language, so essentially this is also a teacher’s toolkit. It is a way for a teacher to be able to compose documents in such a way that the intended meaning & reasons for those meanings are embedded into each word. The software has a custom user interface for inputting grammar rules as you make entries, and seamlessly adds all the right information onto the submitted post.

Help bring this tool to life …
The campaign is close to its goal (90%) and needs just a little more to bring it to life. Please feel free to contribute or spread the word about this tool, to help make learning languages much easier.

Pretending to speak a language

By Simon

In E. F. Benson’s book, Queen Lucia, two of the characters, Lucia and Georgie, speak bits of Italian to each other, which leads their friends to believe that they speak the language fluently, and impresses them, which is the point. When an Italian gentleman visits their village it soon emerges that Lucia and Georgie are unable to engage in conversation in Italian beyond a few phrases.

A similar story appears in the recent TV adaptation on the BBC – in this version Lucia pretends to be ill, and Georgie spends a few days away from the village in order to avoid meeting the visiting Italian speaker, the English wife of an Italian who admits that her knowledge of Italian is also limited, even though she has lived in Italy for 10 years. So Lucia and Georgie’s secret remains undiscovered.

Have you ever pretended to be able to speak a language, or exaggerated your knowledge of a language? Has you subterfuge been revealed?

Why Staying Motivated When Learning a Language is So Hard

By Simon

Have you ever got excited about learning to speak a language?

I mean REALLY excited.

Woman in a kimono

Maybe you met a beautiful girl or a hot guy from another country.

Maybe you heard a song in a foreign language that sounds so good it touches your soul.

Or maybe you bought this new language learning book/program that looks very promising.

And every time, when something got you excited, you are so sure that you will finally stick to it and learn to speak the language you’ve always wanted to speak, once and for all.

This motivation will last for about a week or two, maybe a month if you are really motivated.

Then what happened?

Life happened.

“I will just learn tomorrow.” or “I will get back to it next month when I have more time. For sure.”

Essentially, you stopped learning.

And sooner or later, something will get you excited to learn your target language again!!

But the same faith of losing motivation over time is like a curse that never goes away.

If you are embarrassed, guilty or even ashamed of being stuck in this vicious cycle for more than a few years, I understand, because I’ve been there before.

My language learning progress was laughable.

The good news is, we are not the only one.

I’ve spoken with hundreds of language learners around the world, from beginners to hyper polyglots, we all face the same dilemma.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if you have:

  • The most effective language learning method in the world
  • The most comprehensive language learning materials
  • The most amazing language learning software or app

It’s completely useless if you are not able to stay motivated to use it and learn consistently over time.

So the lack of consistent motivation is every language learner’s biggest roadblock to fluency.

3 Things that Suck Your Motivation Away

1. Too Hard, Too Easy or Too Boring.
Your language learning activities have a big impact on your motivation.

If you do something too hard, too easy or too boring, would you want to do it again the next day?

Most likely, you will be less motivated compared to when you first started.

The key is to find multiple language learning activities that is not only effective for your language learning style and it has to be something that you enjoy doing.

You need multiple language learning activities because if we do the same thing over and over again, it’s inevitable that you will eventually get bored.

So experiment and find language learning activities that are:

  1. Something you enjoy doing
  2. Effective for your learning style

Then put them on rotation and switch things up once in awhile to keep things fresh.

The key to meeting any of your language learning goal is this:

“Do whatever it takes in this hour, for you to want to learn another hour tomorrow.”

-Anthony Lauder, Polyglot

Note: Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get used to a new activity for it to become fun and effective. So you need to fully give it a try and take some time to adjust it so it works for you. If you just try it once and abandon it, you will be missing out without giving it a chance to work.

2. No Clear Define Goal With An End Date
Most language learners usually say, “I want to learn Spanish.” or “I want to learn Mandarin” without any specific goal with an end date, so what usually happens?

Nothing much.

No matter what we want to accomplish in life, without a specific, measurable goal with a time frame to strive for, we will usually just let the drift of life take us away instead of getting what we want.

Learning a language is no different, especially as we live in a world full of distractions which could pull us to many different directions.

So if learning your target language is important to you, make sure you create a specific measurable goal with an end date.

For example, if you want to take your reading skills to another level, then set a goal to read 3 books in the foreign language in 3 months.

Or if you like to finally speak your target language, take on holding a 15 minutes conversation with a native speaker in 90 days with other language learners around the world in the Add1Challenge.

Here are some videos from past Add1Challengers’ 15+ minutes conversation with a native speakers on day 91, many started from scratch or learning their first ever foreign language. So a 15 minutes conversation with a native in 90 days is totally possible.

3. The Feeling of Being Alone

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

– African Proverb

As you know, learning a language is a long journey and it requires consistent hard work over a long period of time.

If learning a language alone is not challenging enough, adding the two motivation suckers above makes staying motivated even harder.

Which is why you should tap into the power of learning with a community.

If you have done any kind of sports like basketball, running or even yoga, the experience of practicing alone compared to practicing with a group of people is like the difference between night and day.

There is magic that can’t be explained in words when we’re learning something together as a community and being part of something larger than ourselves.

Learning together in a community is not only more effective, it is also a lot more fun too.

So seek out language learning communities online that resonates with you and supports you to achieve your language learning goals.

Here are a few communities that I recommend:

Lang-8.com – Lang-8 is a community where you can practice your writing by posting something in the foreign language. Native speakers from around the world will then correct your writing. In return, you do the same by correcting other people’s post in your native language.

iTalki.com – italki.com has a similar function as Lang-8, where you can post your writing and get correction from native speaker. The only difference is, italki.com is also a easy and affordable place where you can find a language tutor. What’s good about that is, maybe your tutor would be correcting your writing and you can get feedback directly from your tutor during your lesson.

Add1Challenge – Add1Challenge is a challenge where language learners around the world strive for the goal of holding a 15 minutes conversation with a native speaker in 90 days. We are 100%, solely focus on supporting and motivating you to stay consistent with your learning. There is an application process to ensure everyone who gets in the community are committed to getting result.

Polyglot Conference – The Polyglot Conference is a conference that takes place once a year. It is a conference where language learning enthusiast gather together to meet other language learning enthusiasts around the world, share language learning ideas and practice our target languages. People who attend the conference do not have to polyglots, as long as you are interested in language learning, you will be welcome.

Polyglot Gathering Berlin – Unlike the Polyglot Conference which take place in a different city around the world every year, the Polyglot Gathering Berlin only stays in Berlin. Nevertheless, the vibe and the atmosphere is just as good as the Polyglot Conference. This is also where I met the Simon, the creator of Omniglot for the very first time.

I hope you learned some tips and trick on how to stay motivated when learning a language from this article.

After 300+ language learners around the world went through the Add1Challenge in the past year, I have learned a lot about what it takes to empower language learners to stay motivated, so they would learn consistently and get results that they didn’t think it would be possible before.

If past Add1Challengers can hold a 15 minutes conversation with a native speaker in 90 days, why can’t you?

So if are sick and tired of not getting the result you want and you are ready to take actions, here is a video where I went even more in-dept about the “3 Keys to Stay Motivated When Learning to Speak a Language”.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Jj1BYoAQ4&w=560&h=315]

Let’s finally learn to speak the beautiful language you’ve always wanted to speak, together!

7000 Languages Project

By Simon

I heard about an interesting project today: 7000 Languages Project – the goal of the project is to create web- and mobile-delivered learning materials for the 7,000 languages beyond the top 100 or so that attract significant commercial support.

The 7000 Languages Project involves creating Langscape, an online portal for learning about languages worldwide, that combines an interactive language map with links to an expanding range of resources on thousands of languages. Langscape is intended to serve multiple communities, including language teachers and learners, researchers, K-12 educators, government and NGOs, and public outreach.

Muddling through

By Simon

to muddle through
– “to succeed in some undertaking in spite of lack of organization” [source]
– “to succeed in doing something despite having no clear plan, method, or suitable equipment” [source]
– “to cope more or less satisfactorily despite lack of expertise, planning, or equipment.”
synonyms: to cope, manage, get by/along, scrape by/along, make do, make the best of a bad job [source]

When learning a language, or other things, are you someone who can set goals, make plans and stick to them?

I do sometimes set myself language learning goals, and often make plans, and even manage to stick to them for a while. However my goals tend to be fuzzy, my plans half-baked, and my sticking-to-it abilities somewhat sporadic. Generally I tend to learn bits and pieces of languages as the fancy takes me, and try a variety of courses and methods, at least until I get bored or find alternatives, and just muddle through as best I can.

When people ask me for advice about learning languages, as they often do, I have plenty of suggestions, but the only one I stick to is to do a lot of listening. So I don’t really practise what I preach. Is my advice less valuable as a result? Perhaps it is.

Do you advise people to try learning techniques you don’t use or rarely use yourself?

Does the concept of muddling through exist in other languages?

Reverse psychology and language learning

By Simon

Yesterday I met Aran Jones, the guy behind the website SaySomethingin.com, and we had a very interesting chat, in Welsh, about language learning. His site started as a Welsh language course, and now also offers courses in Cornish, Dutch, Latin and Spanish. You can learn all these languages through English or Welsh, and you can also learn English and Welsh through Spanish, and he plans to offer more languages in the future. The courses are designed to get you speaking in a relatively short time.

One interesting point we discussed was the way language learning is presented. Many courses claim that you can learn a language quickly and with little or no effort. All you have to do is listen and repeat – don’t worry about learning grammar or vocabulary! Moreover people who encourage others to learn languages tend to emphasize that it is possible, anybody can do it, that you don’t have to have a special language gene/gift/talent, and that it isn’t all that difficult. Just jump in and start speaking! Don’t worry about mistakes!

An alternative approach is to say that language learning is really hard, takes a lot of work, and that relatively few people succeed, and to discourage people from trying it. By presenting it as a real challenge like this you might encourage more people to try. When they find it isn’t as difficult as they expected and that they can succeed, they will have a greater sense of achievement. In other words, a kind of reverse psychology. On the other hand, many people already believe this and are convinced that they can’t learn a language, so it wouldn’t work for everyone.

Another thing we discussed was improving your listening comprehension, especially if you find speech at normal speed difficult to understand. Slowing down your recordings, or asking people to speak more slowly, is a way to deal with this, and can work well. An alternative is to speed up the audio – in some SaySomethingin lessons the audio is at twice the usual speed, for example, and if you listen to it quite a few times you will eventually understand it. Then when you listen to it at normal speed it will be much easier to follow.

Here’s an example of recording in Spanish at normal speed (which sounds fast to me).

Here’s this recording at twice the normal speed.

I do something similar when learning to play classical pieces on the guitar and piano – if I’m struggling with a piece I might try something even more challenging. Then the original piece seems easier when I go back to it. Or I try playing folk tunes as fast as I can, then slow then down to a more normal speed, and they seem much easier.

Back in Bangor

By Simon

Polyglot Conference delegates in Novi Sad

Yesterday morning I shared a taxi to Belgrade airport with two other conference participants. We had some lunch while waiting for our flights, and came across quite a few other polyglots. I flew via Zurich and had a short connection time there – only 20 minutes. There was a bit longer to wait for my train from Manchester airport, so I had something to eat.

It was warm and sunny for the whole time I was in Serbia, but it was cold, wet and windy back in the UK. In fact we were flying over solid cloud cover across most of France and England. Fortunately there were some good views for the rest of the flights.

The announcements on the planes were in Swiss German, English and Serbian. I also heard a number of other languages on the journey, including Hindi, Italian, Spanish and possibly Yiddish.

Polyglottery

By Simon

Novi Sad Catholic Cathedral

Yesterday morning I met up with other conference participants and after a bit of a wander around the city, we had lunch then went to the opening ceremony a reception. In the after we had a little guided tour of Novi Sad seeing some interesting buildings, including the Catholic or Orthodox Cathedrals, and the fortress. There are some rather attractive buildings here, wide, pedestrianised café-lined streets, some nice parks and generally a relaxed kind of atmosphere.

In the evening we all went to a restaurant about 4 or 5km from the city centre for dinner. I walked there with a few others, and the rest went by bus or taxi. We had a nice dinner with lots of polyglot chat, then some people started dancing, and others carried on chatting.

Novi Sad town hall

Today there were lectures and talks on a variety of topics including sound symbolism, the magic of metaphors, language coaching, and acting and humour in a foreign language.

So far I’ve had conversations in about 10 languages and spoken bits and pieces of maybe 10 others. In some cases this was only a few words (all I know), in others it was a bit more. There are even two guys here who are learning Scottish Gaelic, one of whom also speaks a bit of Manx, and another who is learning Irish.