Category Archives: language learning

How to create a language immersion environment (or a day in the life of a polyglot)

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

Today’s blog post is about how to create a language immersion environment at the place where you live, which will permit you to learn your target language(s) naturally by ‘absorbing’ them in your daily life. Learning a language to fluency is perfectly possible even if you cannot travel to the country where it is spoken and spend some longer periods of time there. I personally learned all of my languages from abroad and never in the countries where they are spoken (with exception of my two second languages), and I have done so via an immersive environment which I created for myself. This is not difficult and to illustrate how it can be done, I will describe a ‘typical’ week in my life in the following paragraphs. 🙂

To start with, I have to say that I am a freelancer with several, very different, jobs, so each day I have to perform quite different tasks which permit me to integrate my language practice to a greater or lesser extent into my daily routine, depending on which task is due on a particular day. One thing I virtually never ever (!!) do is sitting at a desk studying a language from a textbook! My daily language learning routine is completely integrated into my daily life and cannot be separated from it – I virtually live my life in the different languages I speak 🙂 . In this way, I also manage to practice (and learn) my languages for about more than 20 or 30 hours each week.

So how do I integrate my language learning into my daily life? On a typical day, one of the first things I do each morning is to study my current main target languages from a textbook for about 15-30 minutes, sometimes longer, even before getting up properly. While getting ready for the day, I usually learn some new vocabulary in the otherwise ‘lost’ time (= while making breakfast, getting dressed, etc.) – in my opinion it is the most time-efficient way of learning vocabulary . 🙂

Often, when my work for that day permits it, I also hone my language skills while working:  Especially good for language practice are days on which I have to perform ‘manual’ tasks which leave my mind free to wander, like illustrating, or designing or making/assembling new products. This often gives me the opportunity to listen to language tapes in various languages for several hours at a time while working.  Sometimes, my work also involves customer service for a small business I work for, and this correspondence will then be in any language the customer has chosen to write in – another opportunity to practice my skills. So if your work permits it and you want to integrate more language practice into your daily life, try listening to language tapes while you work instead of to the radio or to music (unless they are in one of your target languages of course 🙂 ). On other days, for example when I have to work on machines which are too loud to permit the use of audiotapes, I usually learn vocabulary while working. So during an average workday, I can often integrate quite a substantial amount of extra learning practice, though not always.

In my free time, I continue learning and using my languages, both directly and indirectly.  A language learning practice I really do every single day (!!) is listening to the Word of the Day online, in about 40 languages (in every language for which I have found a daily post!) . This takes me about an hour, on the average 1-2 minutes for each language. This might not seem like much, but this adds up quite substantially over the course of a month and a year: 1-2 minutes per day per language means at least (!!) 7-15 minutes of language practice per week in each of these c.40 languages, and again at least 30-60 minutes of practice per month for each language, etc.! Then, I have recently joined duolingo, which is quite fun, and where I have signed up for the intensive streak of 5 exercices per day, but I usually do more than that since it is quite addictive 🙂 . So there I spend another hour or so practising languages, learning new ones as well as using it to brush up old ones.

Internet: This is another great opportunity if you want to immerse yourself in your target languages. Whenever I use twitter, I log in using a different language each time. 🙂 Both my twitter and facebook feeds are multilingual themselves (!!) – I pursue my hobbies in my various languages! So I do not only follow and read posts about learning languages, but I subscribe to pages about my various interests in a variety of languages, so that my newsfeed is totally multilingual. To illustrate this, if your interest is kittens for example 😉 , search for facebook pages about kittens in the languages you are learning .and subscribe to them, if your interest is politics, subscribe to political pages from various countries, etc. So in this way you can both pursue an interest that personally captivates you while practising your target languages at the same time. This is what immersion is all about, namely that language learning cannot be distinguished from ordinary life any more and that you start to live your life in the languages. 🙂

My final language practice of an average day takes place at night. I don’t have a TV, so I never watch movies every night like most people do. Instead, I enjoy reading. Often, I spend another 30 minutes or an hour working through a textbook (on nights with plenty of time) or just reading (in any language). But each night before going to bed, I read the Harry Potter books for at least an hour, usually in one of my intermediate-level languages to take them to a higher level eventually. (See a previous blog post of mine on how you can use the Harry Potter books or any other novels to boost your intermediate language skills). So on an average day, I manage to immerse myself in my languages at the very least for 3 or 4 hours, if not more. 🙂 And this time is NOT spent studying at a desk 🙂 .

I rarely watch movies, but if I do, I get myself a DVD and watch it in my target language. If I am proficient in the language, I use no subtitles, but if it is in one of my intermediate languages, I usually turn on the subtitles in the target language (NOT in English!!) so I can read along if I don’t understand something. I find this really helps to improve my skills. Another thing I do very frequently is just listening to films (usually documentaries, which I prefer) while working on the computer. Mostly I don’t need to see the pictures or the footage, and this is a great way of honing my listening comprehension. 🙂

As you can see, language immersion does not require you to actually live in the countries to be immersed in the language, you just have to create an environment in your daily life in which you live your life in the language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to improve your intermediate reading comprehension through parallel reading of literature

DSCN2439

Today’s blog post is about how you can magically improve and boost your intermediate reading comprehension through parallel reading of literature, e.g. the ‘Harry Potter’ books 🙂 .

All you need is a book in your target language and the same book in your native language (or in another language you are very proficient and advanced in) as well as two bookmarks, so you can read them in parallel. This will make a dictionary redundant.

I personally collect the ‘Harry Potter’- books in all languages, but not as a “collector’s item” but actually to read them in these languages. The ‘Harry Potter’-books are great to improve your reading comprehension especially in ‘minor’ languages, since they are often available even in smaller languages where it is otherwise virtually impossible to get hold of literature in the language unless you travel to the country and bring them home with you. But you can use virtually any book in your target language for which you can get a copy also in your native language. However, popular books like bestsellers, the ‘Harry Potter’-series or ‘Le Petit Prince‘ (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, that are collected even by people who cannot speak the languages, are best since they are widely available in many languages (even though they may often be quite expensive!).

So how does this method, parallel reading, work? Basically, you have both books open at the same page and read them alongside each other. However, in order to be efficient to improve your existing intermediate reading skills, you ought to read the text in your target language first, and only check the book in your native language when you really don’t understand something. Done persistently and regularly, this will soon boost your reading skills and you don’t need a dictionary for it.

Another way in which parallel reading can be highly instructive is in comparative reading of both texts. For this, you read each sentence in sequence, first in your target language, then in your native language, all the while comparing how each expression is translated and rendered in your target language. This will not only teach you useful expressions, but it will also teach you something about the translating process. It will also make you familiar with the way sentences are structured in your target language, which can be highly valuable.

Where can you find popular books like the Harry Potter-series or Le Petit Prince in many languages? If you have any second-hand or antiquarian bookstores near where you live, it is always worth a visit going there first to see if they might not have the title you are looking for, as they might be considerably cheaper if bought used, apart from being better for the environment, especially since you need the book also in your native language. If you don’t have any such bookstore near where you live or they do not have your title, try to search on Amazon: type in the title plus ‘in [insert target language of your choice]’, e.g. ‘Harry Potter in Spanish’ or ‘Harry Potter Spanish version/edition’. This ought to bring up some results for many, though unfortunately not for all, languages. 🙂

Do you also collect a certain series of books or a book from a certain author which you like to read in a foreign language? Tell us about it in the comments! 🙂

Vocabulary: ‘Rice’ in Indonesian and Asian languages

indon rice

Today’s blog post is taking us to Asia again, to Indonesia and Japan and China, and to the various words for ‘rice’. Unlike in western languages, where there is just one word for any type of rice, in many Asian languages, there are different terms for ‘rice’ depending on what condition the rice is in, i.e. whether it is raw grains, cooked rice or still a rice plant.

In Balinese (Basa Bali) the various term for ‘rice’ are:

Pantun = rice plant (indon. padi)

sawah or manik galih = rice field/paddy

beras or baas = raw rice, rice grains

nasi = cooked rice

ketan = sticky rice

The Indonesian word for ‘rice plant’, padi, is the origin of the English term for paddy field. 🙂

There are also different words for ‘rice’ in Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin).

In Japanese, these are:

稲 ine =rice plant

米 kome = rice grains, uncooked rice

白米 hakumai = white rice, polished rice

籾 momi = rough rice

玄米 genmai = brown rice, unpolished rice

ご飯 gohan = cooked rice

餅米 mochigome = sticky rice

水田suiden = paddy field, rice field

And the Chinese terms for different kinds of rice are:

米饭 Mǐfàn = cooked rice

大米 Dàmǐ = raw rice

糯米饭 Nuòmǐ fàn = sticky rice

稻田 Dàotián = paddy field, rice field

 Does your language also have different terms for rice? Tell us about them in the comments! 🙂

 

Vocabulary: The bedroom in Catalan and Basque

Today we continue our series of comparing vocabulary of a geographic region. We are going to Spain again, and to be more exact, to the minority languages spoken there, Catalan (Català) and Basque (Euskara). Both Catalan and Basque are also spoken in the South of France in the areas bordering Spain. Basque is an isolate language that is unrelated to any other language and it is believed to be one of the few surviving pre-Indoeuropean languages of Europe. Catalan is a Romance language and is basically a mix of both Iberian-Romance and Gallo-Romance influences, since it shares vocabulary and grammatical features with both Spanish and French.basque bedroomcatal bedroom

Arabic survival phrases

693px-Mekhnes_Place_El-Hedine_Mosaique2

Today’s blog post is taking us to the Middle East and Africa, namely to the Arabic-speaking world. If you live in Europe, chances are high that you will sooner or later come across some refugees from Syria, Iraq or other Arabic-speaking countries in the next few months with whom you might want to exchange some pleasantries. 🙂

Here are some basic phrases to get your conversation started:

Hello! = أهلا  Ahlan!

Thank you = شكرا shukran

Goodbye! = ma’a s-salaamah مع السلامة

Good morning! = sabah alkhair صباح الخير

Good afternoon/evening = masa-a alkhair مساء الخير

How are you? = Kayf halik (said to a man)/kayf halich (said to a woman)كيف حالك؟

I’m fine = Alhamdullilah (lit. ‘thanks to God’) الحمد لله

And you? = wa inta (said to a man)/ wa inti (said to a woman)  و أنت

Where are you from? = Inta min wain (said to a man)/ inti min wain  (said to a woman)  أنت من أين؟
I am from….. = ana min….. انا من

What’s your name? = ma ismak (said to a man)/ ma ismich (said to a woman) ما اسمك
My name is…. = Ismih…. اسمي

 

 
 
 

 

 

How to achieve native-like pronunciation

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

Today’s blog post will be about how you can achieve native-like pronunciation when learning and speaking a foreign language.

1. The first step to achieve native-like pronunciation in your target language is to get a feel for the ‘rhythm’ of your target language, i.e. for the intonation of the words in a sentence, which words are stressed and where (stress), and for the sounds of the language in general. For this, listening attentively to your target language regularly and frequently, especially when you are starting a new language, is essential. Try to imitate the pattern of the rhythm of the language as closely as possible.
2. Another very important part of developing a native-like pronunciation has to do with phonetics, namely where exactly the vowels and consonants are formed in the mouth and which position your tongue is in when you pronounce a given sound in your target language. So how can you find out how to pronounce a given sound? Listen to a word, which contains a sound you have difficulty with, several times. Try to imitate the correct pronunciation of the vowel or consonant by trying to pronounce the sound with different positions of your tongue or in different areas of your mouth until you get it exactly right. Once you know the correct position of your tongue to form the sound in question, practice it until you really master the correct pronunciation of the vowel, consonant or syllable.
3. Apart from the correct pronunciation of the sounds themselves, how long the vowels and consonants are spoken also matters a lot (= vowel length and consonant length). For example, languages like Finnish or Polish have very short vowels, and when consonants or vowels are doubled, they have to be spoken much longer; likewise, Czech and Slovak have very short vowels and long vowels and these have to be clearly articulated and differentiated. By contrast, languages like English, French or German have medium-length vowels, and if you pronounced them very short, it would sound strange (to a native speaker).

So basically, native-like pronunciation can be achieved by paying attention to and practising the combination of the particular rhythm of the target language, its word stress, its phonetics and the length and ‘quality’ (e.g. aspirated or non-aspirated) of its vowels and consonants. The best way to achieve this aim is to listen to your target language(s) as often as possible, in every possible way (audio recordings, music, movies, radio, conversation) and trying to imitate what you hear. 🙂