Category: Language learning

Polishing off your Polish

By Simon

There’s apparently been a significant increase in the numbers of people learning Polish in recent years, especially since 2004, according to this article, and many of them come from the UK or Ireland.

Many language schools that used to teach mainly English and German to Poles are now offering courses in Polish as a foreign language. Such courses are popular with people from the UK and Germany who have been going to teach in Poland since the 1990s, and also with people with Polish partners, and people of Polish origin wanting to get in touch with their roots. Translators and interpreters are studying Polish as there is a great demand for Polish speakers in EU institutions.

Polish is described as a notoriously difficult language that starts out fiendishly difficult and then gets harder, and it’s apparently quite common for students to quit after a few lessons. Some do continue studying later after getting their courage back though. Not surprisingly speakers of other Slavic language find Polish least difficult to learn, Germans find the grammar relatively easy as it has much in common with German grammar, and speakers of Romance languages don’t find the grammar too hard. It’s English speakers who usually find Polish hardest, and Australians are apparently dreaded by Polish teachers.

Are any of you learning Polish?

Cree language challenge

By Simon

The inhabitants of the Norway House Cree Nation (Kinosao Sipi), a small community in northern Manitoba in Canada, have been challenged by their chief, Marcel Balfour, to become proficient in Cree (kinose’wi si’pi’hk) by the year 2020, according to an article I found the other day.

The band’s council have decided to make Cree the official language of the community, and will encourage residents to speak it as often as possible. At the moment about three quarters of the people there can understand Cree, some 50% or 60% can speak it, at least to some extent, and its mainly the elder generation who are most comfortable with the language. Balfour himself is not fluent but is determined to become so.

The article doesn’t mention how much community support the initiative has – without such support, it is unlikely to succeed.

buusuu.com

By Simon

buusuu.com, a website that describes itself as an “online community for learning languages”, provides online lessons in English, Spanish, French and German, as well as opportunities for language learners to learn from one another.

They are currently celebrating their first anniversary and are offering a 10% discount on premium memberships.

They have also added video language lessons recently, and they have an interesting feature about Silbo Gomero, the whistled language of La Gomera in the Canary Islands.

English villages in Taiwan

By Simon

The Taiwan government is planning to spend millions of dollars “improving Taiwan’s English-language environment”, which will include the setting up of two English-language villages, according to this report.

They will improve English language signage and aim to host more international concerts and exhibitions.

The idea of the English villages is to make it easier for the local residents to practise their English. The first village will probably be set up in Hsinchu Science and Technology Park, which has a large number of foreign staff. The villages will have English language signs, local businesses will be encouraged to provide English-language services, and will be given star ratings for the quality of those services.

Taiwan already has at least one English ‘village’ where children can be immersed in the language, according to this report.

Are there similar ‘villages’ in other countries?

Language learning and accents

By Simon

Today we have a guest post by Jeff Foster.

Without a doubt, I am a language enthusiast. My goal is to become fluent in 3 languages by the time I graduate from high school. Those languages are Spanish, Italian, and Russian, in addition to English obviously. Using my Spanish class in school as a base of vocabulary and grammar structure, with Skype and other texts to enhance my overall knowledge. Combining all of these things has allowed me to gather a pretty good knowledge of the language. For Italian, I selected Rosetta Stone and I am thoroughly disappointed with it. While it does give you a good feel for accent, pronunciation, and very basic sentence structure, it lacks grammar, vocabulary, etc. For Russian, I am currently using Teach Yourself Russian, a book for learning Cyrillic and a few words.

Anyway, looking ahead to the future I would love to learn as many languages as possible, namely German, Scottish Gaelic, and possibly Arabic. I’ve had particular trouble with the accents. According to this article, accents can be acquired in a variety of ways. For example, my school advisor, after living in England for one year, many years ago, still carries a strong British accent. Many people make fun of him, saying that he fakes the accent.

What is your opinion? Is it possible for someone to somehow retain an accent, even long after leaving the country?

Benefits of learning Latin

By Simon

Studying Latin can improve you SAT scores and can help you get into a good college, according to an article I found today.

Increasing numbers of students in the USA are studying Latin for a variety of reasons – to increase their chances of being accepted by a good college, to help with their English, and due to an interest in Roman culture and history. Learning Latin also helps you stand out from others who study more mainstream subjects.

Students of Latin apparently become more dedicated to their schoolwork, especially when preparing for the National Latin Exam, anbd they study and help each other more. They also show increased emotional consideration for their teachers and fellow students, as well as greater cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Listening is the key

By Simon

A researcher in New Zealand has found evidence that extensive listening to a foreign language makes a big difference to your ability to learn and understand the language, according to this article.

It doesn’t matter that if you don’t understand anything at first – your brain will automatically make the necessary neural connections it needs to process the unfamiliar sounds and combinations of sounds, just as it does when you’re acquire your native language. Without such connections it is very hard to remember new words. The more you listen to the language, the easier it becomes to learn new words and to understand the language.

This is something I’ve long suspected, and I use this technique in my own language learning. For example, when my first attempt to learn Welsh about 10 years ago wasn’t very successful. I worked my way through Teach Yourself Welsh a couple of times listening to the lessons and reading the notes. At that time I didn’t have any opportunities to hear or speak Welsh, and soon forgot most of what I’d learned. A few years later I started listening to Radio Cymru regularly, and when I had another go at learning the language I made much more progress.

Learning languages – the Myngle experience

By Simon

Today we have a guest post by Hala Masreya from Egypt.

This post is for everyone who is interested in learning languages. My name is Hala and I am currently active as a teacher on a language e-learning platform called Myngle. I would like to share with you my experience as an online language teacher.

I first started teaching languages online 7 years ago. Some of my friends wanted to learn Arabic but had difficulties finding the time, the place and the qualified teacher to do so. I decided I could teach them over the internet but, due to the lack of innovative technology, this wasn’t all that easy.

A year ago I discovered Myngle. Using VOIP and online classrooms I really enjoy teaching online. With online one-to-one classrooms, you can give your full attention to a student and see on which points he/she need to focus. Students really seem to appreciate this new way to learn and the great thing is that I am now teaching students who I’ve met in real life and then returned to their own country.

Apart from being a teacher I am also a student. Since I started to take language classes online I have learned to speak Italian and Latin, both from very qualified and friendly teachers and now I see why the students like it so much!

Learning a language online generates a lot of advantages:

– you can take classes wherever and whenever
– you can choose the teacher/student that appeals to you the most
– you can take contact with native speakers and all the cultures of the world

And I especially enjoy Myngle: here students and teachers are really enthusiastic they are constantly engaged in improving users experience and making e-learning better and easier to use.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and I hope to see you soon as my students on Myngle!

Animated Chinese character dictionary

By Simon

Arch Chinese is a very useful site I came across the other day. It includes a Chinese character dictionary which provides animations showing how to write six thousand traditional and six thousand simplified Chinese characters, and gives you pinyin pronunciation (with audio recordings), stroke counts, English translations and examples of words and phrases that use each character. You can search characters by pronunciation, radical, English words, etc.

It can also character worksheets in PDF format, converts pinyin with tone numbers to pinyin with diacritics, and keeps track of the characters you’ve studied. You can even add your own characters and phrases, and import and export word lists to/from the flashcard function.

Alphabet and language games

By Simon

I found some alphabet and language games today on PurposeGames, including one which involves matching writing systems to their names (which come from Omniglot), a multilingual one, an Arabic alphabet one, a Phoenician alphabet one, and many more. You can also create your own games on this site.

Do you know of any other sites with similar games?

Do you know of any other sites with similar games?

I’d like to add these kinds of games to Omniglot eventually.