I'm learning Italian through this free website called LingQ. Try it yourself, if you want. You'll either love it or not get it. The whole idea behind it is that there's a natural way to learn languages, free from textbooks, mean teachers, and boring grammatical instruction.

Instead, all you need to do is read and listen, using the LingQ web interface. It has a vast library in many languages, including most of the major European languages and some Asian languages as well. If you're a beginner, you can start with simple, yet oddly engaging dialogues, that little by little introduce new vocabulary and grammar constructs, without ever telling you what you're learning. You learn like a child learns, in essence. You choose the content and your own pace.

It comes with a pop-up dictionary, and built-in flashcards so you can review the vocabulary you save.

There are no grammar lessons whatsoever, so the developer of the site, Steve Kaufman, recommends that you get yourself a small grammar that you can thumb through at your leisure. But rule number one is that whatever you choose to read and listen to, it should be engaging. You should be interested in the subject matter, and not the grammar behind it.

Who wouldn't enjoy this?

If you decide you need it, for a small monthly fee, you can work with a tutor, and have your writing corrected.

So, according to Kauffman, after you read and listen for a period of time, while gradually increasing your vocabulary and listening comprehension, you will be able to speak the language much better than you would had you started the old-fashioned way, you know, back when you memorized the vocabulary on page 62, and did all the drills on page 65 for homework. Come on, you know that that has not worked for a single living person on the planet. I defy anyone reading this blog to tell me you learned a language from textbooks in high school, and then were able to converse it in. Be honest!

So, Steve Kaufman himself is a living example that this method works. He speaks a buttload of languages. I want to say ten. He's learned Russian in about two years, which you can see in his videos on YouTube.

My criticism is that his Russian, one of his most recent undertakings, is painful to me. I may be chastised for saying this. His pronunciation is Canadian and not Russian. And this is where I think that despite what anyone says, getting some guidance from a native speaker would help.

But that's also part of the process, he says. He freely admits he doesn't speak Russian perfectly. He exposes his flaws to all of us, so we can see that making mistakes isn't so bad. He says that we can not only learn as children do, but even faster, because we already know so many words in our own language. Kids have to learn all that from scratch!

The process, the daily habit, is much more important. Just keep listening and reading, he says. Speaking should not even be a priority, in fact. In time, the language will settle, and the words will come out on their own. Don't rush it.

So I'm learning five languages right now, but only Italian in this way. Learning Italian is the most enjoyable. I'm up to dialogue number eight out of fifteen, and we're getting down to the nitty gritty. It is about a woman who is obsessed with her brother's girlfriend, which although not quite as gripping as the Sopranos, has enough of a story line to keep me tuning in.

Its one drawback is the one thing that makes it effective: you really have to want to learn the language. If you treat it like a language class, where so-and-so teacher is obligated to make the lessons interesting, and then you do your homework and the threat of a bad grade is motivation enough to make you study, you might get an A in the class, but you're not going to learn to speak the language.

But if you like reading about things that interest you, and you're diligent enough to look up and review new vocabulary with the flashcards and listen along to the dialogues, a lot, there's no reason why anyone can't learn another language.

It seems too simple, doesn't it?

I confess, however, that I am not following the instructions completely: I'm copying and pasting the dialogues, sound files, new vocabulary into SuperMemo (flashcard software), because it uses a time-spaced-repetition algorithm that I like. LingQ for some reason also works too slowly on my machine.

I started learning Italian on May 4th of this year. I'm listening and reading, and learning just a few new words every day, and I still can't say squat, but that's okay.

In an attempt to improve my as yet fledgling Old English, i'm going to grow a Beowulf moustache, like Nick Nolte's corrupt Irish cop in the legendary Q & A. It is possible that instead of helping me learn Old English it will instead turn me into a towering, racist psychopath, but if so at least i shall have increased the sum of human knowledge and thus served Science.

i started learning German in 2006 but gave up after a few months: partly, i just didn't have the energy to do anything after work; but i was also disheartened to find my old knack with vocabulary didn't seem to apply to German. However, i found i had similar problems when i went back to Italian - whereas i could once glance at 10 words and retain their meaning for months, by 2006 i found words would fade within hours.

At the time i thought i was growing old and my brain was naturally in decline. But looking back now, i think this deterioration is the result of years of massive, sustained boredom at work. i began temping full time in October 2004 and thereafter specialised in minimum wage data entry, till i began this slightly better job in 2007. The overwhelming, unrelenting boredom of these jobs - from 0900 to 1700 5 days a week, casting a deathly shadow over each evening and weekend - had strange effects on my personality. Aside from the obvious and expected consequences: listlessness, self-pity, misery, occasional bouts of homicidal rage, i think it has also damaged my brain.

Boredom is the mental equivalent of cutting off the circulation to a limb. At first you feel strangely dopy and disconnected, light-headed; after a while it becomes almost painful, like a stress position; this becomes an odd sort of anguish, difficult to explain to anyone who has not suffered such colossal, inescapable boredom: it is the mental equivalent of gangrene setting into a limb. It is the pain of the mind dying.

Even when the proximate cause of the boredom is taken away, it takes hours to recover. What energy one experiences is of a volatile, unpredictable, and suddenly-collapsing kind, as if the organism is wildly and ineffectually rebelling against death. The more sensitive the mind the more it is thrown off balance by boredom.

If the brain's operation can be affected by whether one has eaten breakfast, or slept properly, or even the weather or if music is playing, then i think it's fair to say that years of nearly constant boredom will also leave their mark. In my case i think my years of temping have damaged my brain so i can no longer learn languages, or at least not without a disproportionately massive outlay of energy. If this seems exaggerated, i invite the reader to climb into a small box, have the lid nailed shut, and stay there for 8 hours a day for 3 years, and see how this effects your physical health. Why should the brain be any different?

I love this show. The songs stick with you -- I find myself singing them throughout the day. And you know what is weird? I only half pay attention to it because I'm usually on the computer or doing something else when it's on -- but I am learning Spanish! Every time I watch, I understand more.

The first time I watched this I could only understand a little bit (I took Spanish in high school). But now I understand a lot of it. I guess this is how immersion works -- it just rubs off on you.

We're going to get the French version next.

I just finished the Italy part of "Eat Pray Love" (it's written in three parts: Italy, India, and Indonesia) and I was so inspired that she was able to speak Italian after studying the language for just a few months in Italy. Isn't the exciting?

I want to be multilingual. I have taken Spanish and French in school, and I understand some words (a lot of words actually). It's amazing how fast they come back to you when you start studying again. I would like to take Kate for some long trips traveling around Spain and France and be able to practice our languages. Mexico, too.

You know what's neat about languages? Even knowing a little bit helps. People in Paris are always so much nicer when you at least try to speak the language. Even if you speak in English but you preface it with, "Excuse-moi, parlez-vous anglais?" ("Excuse me, do you speak English?") Ask that first and most Parisians will happily speak to you in English.

It's also so nice to be able to say a few words to the people at the farmer's market. And it's really fun when you start understanding what people are saying around you.

You know what else is neat about languages? The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn more languages. I studied some Japanese in college and it was a breeze (ahem -- speaking, not writing or reading) after taking French.

I have to go shower now. We are going to the Farmer's Market today -- like we do every Saturday. I'm meeting my friends -- Victoria and Jungleen and Annie -- bringing them kombucha scobys and kefir grains. The great thing about giving away cultures is that if yours ever poops out, you can always get it back again from your friends.

Speaking of that -- Paula, I finally have enough kefir grains to share. I stopped rinsing them and now they are expanding. I will send them to you this week.

I have no idea what I'm going to make for dinner this week. I guess I will see what they have at the market. The Japanese dinner was a hit, by the way. I think my homemade miso soup was better than the miso soup you get at most restaurants.

It's hard to find good options for learning a foreign language as a homeschooler. To me the best way to learn foreign languages is through immersion, or being in a situation where everyone is speaking that language exclusively. In school, there are daily classes that can be taught as immersion classes. This is harder to set up as a homeschooler. Homeschoolers frequently use tutors, but their cost can be prohibitive especially for daily lessons which result in the best progress. For beginning foreign language learners, homeschooling families can find a teacher and form their own classes. There are audio and software language programs available, but they vary widely in quality.

We used the typical homeschool resources for learning a language, audio and computer programs, a homeschool co-op class, and a tutor. I had a background in French from school, so could help some with basics. My daughter and I worked on French together, and I found it slowly coming back to me also.

Resources:

We got to the point where we started looking for a more intensive program and found the Contacts: Langue et Culture francaises program by Jean-Paul and Rebecca Valette. It is the equivalent of the first year of college French, and includes a text, audio tapes, and a lab book. We went through the course at our own pace and found it very good. (Please be aware there are some errors in the lab book, though.) After that, we felt the need for a regular immersion class and took a year of immersion classes at a local university extension school which included four hours a week of class for the first semester and a lot of reading, grammar, listening, speaking, and writing in French. The second semester was mainly web-based. It included keeping a blog in French, participating in online discussions in French, lots of reading, watching videos, more grammar and four 5-hour Saturday immersion sessions which included eating lunch together and chatting in French while we ate. We found that our French performance increased greatly that one year.

I recently got Tell Me More French Performance by Auralog and am pretty happy with it. Because it has 10 levels and three modes of working in it, I find I can start at the point where I feel comfortable, and change the working mode to suit my mood.

Another good program is "French in Action", a PBS series that is available for purchase through Annenburg. It is expensive, but can often be found in libraries.

I found Friends Abroad, a website for finding international penpals who are interested in learning another language, last year, and found several French-speaking penpals through the site. The site is set up so you can "correct" the other person's English email before you send yours in the chosen language. They receive both your email and a corrected version of their email. Friends Abroad also has a "chat" or IM option and a talking option through Skype. Friends Abroad members must be at least 16 years old, so it isn't an option for young children. My daughter started using it when she turned 16. For ways to insert accents in your typing see Dawn Ontario's How to Produce Accents page. The page also explains an easy way to type French accents in Microsoft Word under "Microsoft Word Shortcuts".

This year my daughter has two French penpals through Friends Abroad. They write to each other two to three times a week. I have also had a penpal through Friends Abroad for over a year. We were fortunate to be able to meet and spend a wonderful evening with her and her lovely family on a trip to Paris last year.

If you are trying to learn a language on your own, there are several software programs available. These can be supplemented by watching French movies (with or without subtitles). We find French videos at the library and on cable movie channels. Also many English language dvds now come with the option of viewing them in French or Spanish. Le Monde.fr, France 3. Fr, and TF1 have short videos online.

We found several resources for listening to and reading French on the Internet. Radio France International (RFI) has a special section for learning language here with a variety of activities including Le journal en français facile with news broadcasts given at a slightly slower speed. BBC Afrique also has news articles and news broadcasts in French. One Thing in a French Day has podcasts in French with text that you can read along with. Chante France is an online radio station with French pop artists.

There are also several online French reading opportunities. Le Figaro and Le Monde are French newspapers that have online access. A search on Google France for French language blogs in an area that interests you (such as cooking) will bring up blogs in French. There are also links for some French blogs in my blogroll.

We've found we can cobble together a French learning atmosphere using a variety of resources. The most important thing we discovered was to practice speaking, reading, and writing French on a regular basis and to have regular opportunities to hear native spoken French.  We found resources we enjoyed so we were motivated to continue using them.

Reference Resources online:

WordReference.com is an online English/French and French/English dictionary (It's also available in Spanish and Italian.) that is very helpful when you're writing in French on the computer. It also has a forum you can join. You can then post questions about words or phrases you can't find. They have always been answered very quickly for us by native French speakers. Wikipédia is a French language version of Wikipedia. You can listen to pronunciation of French vowels and consonent sounds on learnfrenchinboston.com. frenchabout.com has a lot of helpful information on French grammar.

FrancaisFacile.com has online French classes that begin with a placement test so you will start at the appropriate level. BBC has beginning and intermediate French language classes online. The "Ma France" units have interactive videos with comprehension questions.

Reference Resources Books:

Schoenhof's Foreign Books is a wonderful retail foreign bookstore in Cambridge, MA. that also has a website. The website is being reconstructed, so may not be working perfectly right now.

Here are some of our favorite reference books.

Dictionaries and Thesauruses:

Harrap's Shorter French Dictionary published by Chambers Harrap Publishers * Huge, but very complete.

Larousse Advanced French-English/English-French Dictionary by Editors of Larousse

Larousse Concise Dictionary: French-English/English-French by Editors of Larousse A good paperback size. *

Le Petit Larousse Illustre 2007 edited by Larousse (This is more like an illustrated desk encyclopedia - it is completely in French.) *

The Cambridge French-English Thesaurus by Marie-Noklle Lamy and Richard Towell

Grammar:

Ensemble: Grammaire en action by Raymond F. Comeau and Normand J. Lamoureux This is a complete course in French grammar. We used it as a text in our university extension class. *

The Ultimate French Review and Practice by David M Stillman and Ronni L Gordon *

Advanced French Grammar by Monique L'Huillier *

Verbs:

Bescherelle: Complete Guide to Conjugating 12000 French Verbs edited by Bescherelle (English version) -- These are the best for conjugating verbs. If you have Bescherelle, you don't need other French verb books. *

Bescherelle: La Conjugaison Pour Tous by Frederique Hatier (French version - completely in French)

Vocabulary:

Mastering French Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach (Mastering Vocabulary Series) by Wolfgang Fischer

Using French Vocabulary by Jean H. Duffy

French for Reading by Karl C. Sandberg and Eddison C. Tatham *

Tune Up Your French: Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Spoken French by Natalie Schorr *

Reading Practice:

Pauvre Anne by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray This is an "early reader" level book in French. There is a series of the readers by these authors.

Ensemble, Littérature by Raymond F. Comeau and Normand J. Lamoureux This is wonderful with glossaries on each page and a CD for listening to several selections in the book. We used it for one of our texts in our university extension class. *

Easy French Reader by R. de Roussy de Sales

French for Reading by Karl C. Sandberg and Eddison C. Tatham *

French Stories / Contes Français (A Dual-Language Book) by Wallace Fowlie *

Fun Books to read:

Le Petit Nicolas by Sempe-Goscinny There is a series of the Nicholas books. *

Les Aventures de Tintin by Herge *

Many comics in book form are available in French and there are also French comic series such as Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Nathalie. We bought several when we were in France including a Garfield and a Nathalie, but there is a large selection online here. You have to buy a minimum of five books. Canadian online bookstores are another possibility. Fichtre is an online Canadian bookstore that specializes in French comic books. For more on using comics for learning to read, please see my previous post on "Homeschooling — Comic books and Learning to read" .

I had something I used to believe...see, as a kid who got involved in video games early, I became acquainted with Japanese early on (no, I'm not a complete weeaboo japanophile). For some reason though, I thought that Japanese - and all foreign languages - were just English using different alphabets. It might be really hard to learn how each kana or kanji were pronounced, but I was sure that, at the end of the day, I could find out how to say exact English words using those sounds.

I really should have known better. I mean...I used to live in Canada and I used to live in Korea. I've had a brush with French and with Hangul...and neither are just English with different characters. Actually, scratch that...the evil French alphabet enabled me to believe my fantasy - after all, a latin alphabet is a latin alphabet. Maybe I should've grown up in Russia?

Somehow, I got this idea that other languages *did* have their own words (which explained why you couldn't understand a Japanese person or a French person speaking unless you knew that language), but that also they made sure to have characters that could easily pronounce English words. Japanese tricked me once again; katakana can be used to approximate the sounds of foreign words (America becomes Amerika? Mcdonalds becomes Makadonarudo? Totally awesome!)

So...when I was a stupid kid...I wanted to learn Japanese so I could translate video games. That way, I could play games before they came out in America and be super cool!

Or so I thought. I failed to realized that the process of hacking and cracking into a video game's innards to take out the script and then translate it to English isn't so easy (unfortunately, when I was a kid, I thought that computer programming ALSO followed an English-type language). Even though katakana can be used for foreign words, it's not like the Japanese people just speak English (or Engrish, for that matter) all day. Unfortunately for a stupid kid, they speak Japanese.

I think I heard something from a video game that doesn't really apply to this specific issue, but it does apply to the generic issue. You can't take the genes for an "elephant's trunk" and put it into a giraffe and then get a giraffe with a trunk. There *are* no genes for an "elephant's trunk." What you CAN do with genes is chemistry...like take the nitrifying tendency of one plant and augment another plant with it.

In the same way, you can't say, "Go go English grammar." But what you can do with languages is linguistics. Look for similarities and common vantage points with seemingly different languages. I decided to stop pursuing Japanese a long time and hopped over to Mandarin, and although I'm nowhere near fluent, it's easier if I try to relate some concepts to English equivalents. I simply need to realize that I can't directly view Chinese as an English-type language, so when there ARE differences, I have to be aware of those.

I think the key to learning a language, then, isn't memorizing characters or things like that (although...you won't get very far if you don't do that)...the key is to learn the system by which the language is founded. Fortunately, as English-native-speakers, virtually every language makes more sense than this cultural hobknob we have so cheers! Yes, tones suck. Yes, measure words suck. Yes, anything that has to do with 把 grammar will make me pull my hair out. But eventually...eventually...it makes sense.

I will be meeting his parents and brother for the first time- Hurray! ("Hoera!" as they say.) Of course everyone speaks English there, but I am extremely into learning languages and have never quite become fluent in any other than my native tongue of English, so this is my big chance :) His parents are quite a lot older and I'd love to someday have a conversation in Dutch with them to take the pressure off them trying to speak English with me. His brother is an English teacher and I am sure that as soon as we meet I'll get to ask him my pressing grammar questions. So far, I'm self-teaching with a pretty good book called Beginner's Dutch by Gerdi Quist and Dennis Strik. I recommend it if you can't get into a class or get a private teacher. It's quite basic when it comes to teaching the grammatical elements of the language- I really think that any person with no experience with grammatical terminology (even from the basics of "noun, adjective" etc., to subject/object differentiation) could follow this book very easily. That said, it is also not too basic for me, even though I have plenty of experience with language study, including German, which has a very similar grammatical structure as Dutch. It's a terrific start for building my vocabulary with practical words and phrases to know for everyday life.

My only gripe would be that apparently this book can, in some places, be purchased with a CD with which you can listen along to certain exercises. I bought my copy at Barnes & Noble and they didn't have any copies with a CD nor did I even know, when purchasing the book there, that a CD-version was an option. (I think B & N itself didn't know when they put this book on the shelf, and that bothers me.) It only does so much good to read and write in another language. Listening is key to pronunciation and conversation abilities. Luckily, I will have real, live Dutch people to listen to in a few weeks.

So happy to have moved trip number 2 up!!

Greek BYKI 3.6"For beginners to advanced learners, Greek Before You Know It is the simple and effective way to master Greek with Perfect Recall, guaranteed! Whether for business, travel, school or personal enjoyment, you'll quickly learn to understand and speak 1,000 common Greek words and 250 essential phrases."

Click this link to find out more and buy:
Greek BYKI 3.6

They also have a downloadable course which helps you learn thousands of words in Greek quickly and easily with a huge number of activities and games. Dialogues with native speaker audio, pronunciation practice, and advanced speech analysis will help you make really good progress with your Greek in next to no time. The downloads which I think they offer for nearly all the languages are only $19.95 and you can get them right away.
For more Modern Greek resources see my page here.

Transparent also provide similar software and download courses for over 100 other languages including English with many resources suitable for kids as well as adults. Their courses contain everything you need to learn at home and are perfect resources for EFL/ESL teachers and travellers heading off to foreign lands to take up a post. I think these sort of courses are also very nice for shy students who are a bit worried about their speaking - you can practice pronunciation quietly on your own and gain a lot of confidence and accuracy that way.

They have a Total Immersion English programme and also two products especially for Spanish speaking students of English. You have to look a bit for the English version. On the left hand side of the page you will see a short list of languages and then below it "Other Languages" - go there to find English and all the others listed.

Transparent Courses include:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belorussian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Malay, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Braz.), Portuguese (Eur.), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Yiddish, Zulu

Of course, Pop-up Dictionary is also a perfect complement to all those languages. Bon Chance, Κάλη Τύχη, Good Luck.....(know any more ways of saying Good Luck? - please post below. Thanks!

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

Cats are cute but watch out for their grammar - that should read "you lose it" - or better still, "you have lost it" !!

Many students have enough trouble using prepositions correctly when they just mean time or place, let alone when they are being used metaphorically as they are in Phrasal Verbs. They have no rhyme nor reason apparently and yet any English kid can use them perfectly.

One of the problems is the way they are taught. English grammar books love to give you lists in alphabetical order. There could hardly be a worse way to try and learn Phrasal Verbs. For instance, if you look at all the PVs that begin with "Take" or "Put" they do not have much in common - the point of phrasal verbs is that the preposition changes the meaning of the main verb. You will only get more confused studying them that way. Fortunately there is a great website that teaches them properly (arranged according to the preposition not the verb) and gives you everything you need to understand and learn these pesky problematic PVs. Appropriately it is called

Phrasal Verb Demon 

I highly recommend it. Put it in your favourites and try and go there several times a week. Nothing will take away the necessity of spending time learning these verbs - you need to keep at it over a long period to really get the hang of them - but you can make the time you spend much more effective and satisfying. You need not only a definition but also (very importantly) at least one synonym for each verb. And there is no better tool for helping you deal with that than Ultimate Vocabulary. This is the kind of thing that makes that software tool so valuable.

You can also make good daily use of the dictionary resources I tell you about on the Daily Words page 

I'll try and add some good exercise resources from other sites soon and make a special page for Phrasal Verbs here.  However in the meantime, check out my Vocabulary page - you will find some good PV resources towards the end.

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Sorry there haven't been any Daily Words for a while. I've been away on a working trip which went on a bit longer than I anticipated mostly because of the weather. You might have seen that we had heavy snow in Greece - that meant no boats so I got stuck on a neighbouring island (which was good fun in good company) but left you all without your Daily Words. Oh dear!

So here they are:

promote           to contribute to the growth or prosperity of: to further

select            v. ~ sb/sth choose sb/sth, esp as being the best or most suitable

sole              n. flat sea-fish that is eaten as food

unique            adj.  being the only one of its type

version           n.  account of an event, etc from the point of view of one person

controversy       n. ~ public discussion or argument, often rather angry, about sth which many people disagree with

decade            n. period of ten years

detect            v. discover or recognize that (sth) is present

distort           v.  pull or twist out of its usual shape

formula           n. (chemistry ) set of symbols showing the elements that a substance is made of

Whilst I was away I had the chance to think about my own Greek studies which are progressing at snail's pace. I must be a bit slow because I have only just realised that by using Pop-up Dictionary there is nothing to stop me (or anyone else learning any other language) using these daily lists to learn the words in another language. And it's so easy to do - all you have to do is select the right dictionary from English to the language you are learning, select the word with your cursor and press Ctrl-Ins-Ins on your keyboard and there it is. You can then add the word to your test selections and make it part of your daily learning program. Now I've just got to find the time to actually do it.

All the same I look forward to the day when I can make use of a tool like Ultimate Vocabulary for Greek or any other language I might learn. I've never seen anything like it for making vocabulary learning interesting and productive. You can have all sorts of word adventures and explore roots and families and usage in such a way that the words truly become yours.

Download Ultimate Vocabulary Success Edition here (Free 90 day trial)

Download a free 21 day trial of Pop-up Dictionary here

All the Daily Words posts are collected together on the Daily Words page.

So I have all my materials, including CDs of not just this title, but The Master and Margerita, which is supposed to be quite good. I have not yet started this linguistical transformation yet, because I have just a few more pages left of The Da Vinci Code, which has the most contrived dialogues I've ever read in my whole life, and yet I cannot put it down, and I'm converting to paganism, if you want to know.

Anyway, I just wrote the book title in Russian over there on the right so I look way smarter than I am, but if you want to know how to say it, to impress your friends, you'd say Sobachie Sertstie. More or less.

Apparently, this system of reading in one language, listening in the other really works, according to experts in "the know." The hitch is that maybe you don't know it works at first, because at first it sounds like crazy gobblety gook. But then, apparently, after hours and hours of reading and listening, reading and listening, your brain connects the pairs, so «У-у-у-у-у-гу-у-у-гуу! О, гланьте на меня, я погибаю» really does sound ike, "Ooooooh! Look at me, I'm dying!"

My problem is that I can't find a context to use a sentence like this in my every day life. That's where I take issue with this language learning methodology. When am I going to walk into a café, step up to the counter, and say, "Look at me! I'm dying!" So I'm hoping after a few more pages, I'll find more useful phrases.

***

So I am very flattered to have received a few requests for race reports. I am very touched that rather than watch me race, people would rather read the report. Which reminds me of an exchange that occurred not that long ago, just when I was going to tell a friend the true story of how I acquired a certain pair of cycling tights, which I thought was very interesting. She stopped me mid-sentence and said, "Oh, just put it in your blog," before riding off over the horizon.

At first, I felt slighted, but then I realized that perhaps possessing and updating a blog can streamline conversations into upmost efficiency. Imagine this hypothetical exchange:

"Hi, Katie, how are you doing?"

"Well, that's all in my blog."

Perfect. We can dispense with these frivoulous niceties and get straight to the meat of the matter. Except that no one ever even asks me how I'm doing anymore. Maybe they're all reading my blog.

It works.

***

Back to these race reports. The reason why you don't see any here is because I haven't raced this year yet, but I will, very soon. As I've said earlier, I have a new coach, Minto Proudfoot, and you won't find him anywhere because this is a top secret name, because I do not want to intimidate my competitors. We've been working a lot on skill development. Minto believes in enhancing our strengths, which would be, in my case, blocking. So that's all I want to say at this time, lest I get banned before I even show up. See you at the races!

Here you can listen to an Italian language podcast by us. Today we are going to learn how to say the names of fruits and vegetables in Italian. Please, let us know what do you think about it, and stay tuned for more interesting news!

Learnin Languages Online Team

[audio=http://tutonline.wordpress.com/files/2008/02/podcastita1.mp3]

We had an industrial canteen and often stray dogs used to gather in the vicinity of the building, no doubt attracted by the waste food. The Canteen was one of my responsibilities. One day, I dropped in to see how things were going on there. I was accompanied by the Security Officer, the Canteen Manager and a few other staff. All of them were veterans -considerably older than me.

On our way, I saw a few stray dogs hanging around the building. In the strictest voice that my 23 years could muster, I told them in Gujarati " There are many dogs here". There was a horrified silence and they looked at each other in shock. I realized that I may have said something wrong. I asked why they were not speaking at all.

The hushed silence was broken by one of them telling me " Sir, you have just told us that all of us are dogs"!

I remember the incident 34 years later with amusement. At that time, I felt awfully embarrassed !

Spanish is said to be the fourth most widely spoken language in the world which makes it a pretty big deal.  There are lots of benefits to learning this language.  One, it's said to be pretty easy compared to some of the others.  Two, as it is so widely spoken, when abroad, there is more chance of someone being able to speak Spanish than a lot of others.  Three, depending on your job or location, it can help you advance in your career and basically become more valuable.  And four, it is said to be a great language to learn if you are planning on progressing to others.

I still haven't gotten around to learning a language.  Maybe 2008 will be the year.  I have no excuse really, I can join a class, learn on line, listen to audio tapes, etc, etc, etc.  Plenty of choice!  I wonder how long it would take to become fluent in a new language.

For a small price you can also download an animated video of the story including the text. I personally downloaded a few in different languages and they are very nice! Very helpful to practice and teach. Tales are from different part of the world, here is a sample video you can also practice with!

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Un ottimo modo per migliorare la vostra comprensione di una lingua è l'ascolto di favole per bambini, che abbiano un testo abbastanza semplice e comprensibile. Potete scaricare mp3 gratuiti di fiabe in diverse lingue da questo sito, se desiderate la versione inglese basta che selezioniate la lingua inglese per la fiaba che desiderate scaricare. Potete anche scaricare e stampare la versione scritta della fiaba qui.

Quello che vi suggerisco come insegnante è di ascoltare senza foglio la registrazione un paio di volte, per poi procedere a seguire la versione scritta mentre ascoltate. Dopodiché potrete andare a cercare sul vocabolario le parole che non capite. Se dovete migliorare la vostra comprensione auditiva, vi consiglio di non procedere a una vera e propria traduzione, però. In seguito, potrete provare ad ascoltare di nuovo l'audio senza leggere, provando a vedere se riuscite a seguire meglio di prima la storia.

Per un prezzo contenuto, il sito dà anche la possibilità di scaricare la versione animata comprensiva di testo. Personalmente ne ho scaricate alcune in diverse lingue e sono molto ben fatte e utili per imparare e insegnare, visto che l'animazione aiuta notevolmente la comprensione del senso. Ecco un esempio in inglese con cui potete fare un po' di pratica

A few good reasons for learning languages online:

 If you always wanted to learn or improve your sills in a foreign language but must spend a lot of time at home or at work, online learning can be a good option, because you don't have to move from home or from your office or don't need anyone to come to your place. You can do everything through your pc and internet connection.

 Once you are at your pc, you don't waste much time, you can use most effectively the time your tutor has for you. Headphones make listening and understanding easier and you can focus more on the listening.

 Learning online is more effective than usual one to one lesson, since it is a step ahead in the active use of the language, speaking over the phone will take some time if you start learning with a live method, while online you are doing it straight away and this will improve your confidence in using the language much quicker!

 You can choose our service because we can provide highly qualified teachers to students everywhere in the world instead of having to choose the first Italian teacher near you.

 We can provide all reference material to you, including simple video tutorials build up for the single student to go through the theacher's lesson on his/her own, listen to the teacher's pronunciation any time and practice his/her skills with the interactive exercises included in the video. This way you won't have to go through pages and books too much and you will be able to improve on your own without worrying of going wrong.

Try our discounted 1st 1 hour lesson without commitments to test it!

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Alcuni semplici motivi per cui scegliere di fare lezione online

 Se hai sempre desiderato imparare o migliorare la conoscenza di una lingua, ma non hai avuto finora la possibilità di trascorrere del tempo per te fuori casa o dall'ufficio, l'apprendimento online può essere la soluzione ideale. Potrai infatti frequentare le lezioni personalizzate nella comodità di casa tua o dell'ufficio, senza doverti assentare o perdere tempo a raggiungere un altro posto, oppure senza dover fare venire qualcun altro da fuori. Hai semplicemente bisogno di un computer e di una connessione a internet. Puoi scegliere anche un'ora serale per la lezione se ti è più comodo senza problemi.

 Quando si apprende al computer, si tende a disperdere ancor meno il proprio tempo a disposizione con l'insegnante, che troverà più facile, così, focalizzarsi sulla strategia migliore per stimolare il tuo progresso. Inoltre, l'uso delle cuffie è un vantaggio per l'apprendimento della lingua, perché consente una migliore attenzione e qualità dell'ascolto.

 Hai un vantaggio nel scegliere il nostro servizio perché siamo un team di insegnanti con lunga esperienza e altamente qualificati, quindi non sei costretto a dover scegliere il primo insegnante disponibile nella tua zona, ma puoi permetterti di avere un servizio di qualità, ovunque tu ti trovi, anche all'estero.

 La lezione online è molto più efficace di una semplice lezione privata, in quanto permette un livello di apprendimento diverso nell'uso della lingua già da subito stimolando l'approccio attivo nell'allievo senza che nemmeno se ne renda conto. Questo è in grado di dargli una sicurezza nell'uso della lingua molto più velocemente che durante una normale corso di lingua tradizionale.

 Ti forniamo tutto il materiale didattico necessario per l'apprendimento e le singole lezioni. Inoltre, prepariamo dei semplici ed efficaci video riassuntivi personalizzati con il materiale della lezione in modo che l'allievo possa ripassare da sé, riascoltando la pronuncia e la spiegazione dell'insegnante, comprensivi di utili esercizi interattivi per testare e migliorare il proprio apprendimento. In questo modo, infatti, lo studente può venire corretto senza sentirsi a disagio e arriva alla lezione successiva con maggiore sicurezza.

Prova la nostra prima ora di lezione scontata senza impegno per verificare tutto questo!

Images credits:
Classroom Clipart. "computer boxing" [Online image] 17 January 2008.
 http://classroomclipart.com/images/gallery/Clipart/Computer/computer_boxing.jpg

Numbers images
Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Practice your understanding and have fun with Italian comedian Roberto Benigni in the movie "Johnny Stecchino". He plays the role of a guy who pretends to be disabled to get the insurance. Italian dialogues with English subtitles.

Snags saw the commercial and turned to me. “Can you get me that?” he asked. “We already have it,” I told him, as I got up to dig it out of the clutter that covers the countertop of the bar in our basement.  I had bought the Muzzy program two years ago, when Snags was three or four years old and attending daycare.  Part of the daycare curriculum taught the children Spanish, assorted words here or there related to whatever theme of the week was being addressed, words that they could never hope to string together into an actual sentence.  And even if they could, well, the teachers teaching it were more or less teenage babysitters, fresh out of high school, some even still in it, and attending child care courses at the local community college so they could babysit hordes of children over the summer and get paid miserably for it.  In that setting, the proper pronunciation of Spanish was a pipe dream. 

Now, aside from saying no hablo Espanole and being able to count from uno to diez, I don’t speak any Spanish myself.  But my husband speaks some, enough to know the daycare teachers were totally butchering the pronunciation of all they tried to teach.  It drove him insane when he’d try to correct Snags’ pronunciation of carro de bomberos (Spanish word for fire truck) only to have Snags argue back, “No, Dad!  You’re WRONG! You say it like this… that’s how Miss Karen taught us!”

So when the Muzzy fliers started arriving in the mail and the commercials started showing up on TV, I was intrigued.  I thought, if I bought the program, that not only could Snags learn to speak Spanish, but if I watched the DVDs with him, then I could too!

It turned out, for me anyway, that learning Spanish was not quite as simple as popping in a DVD and watching a cartoon involving a fuzzy green monster.  And Snags, well he was in his Bob the Builder phase, so Muzzy, he more or less got stuck back in the box he came in and shoved under a pile of junk on that basement counter.

But now Snags is in Kindergarten, and his interest in learning is ever expanding.  He ponders places like Ancient Egypt and dead languages, like Latin.

Latin. The language my husband studied for three whole years when he was in high school.  I laugh at him now, picturing him conjugating Latin verbs on words he would never use outside of a textbook and classroom.  He argues with me, claims his study of Latin was useful.  “It helped me get a higher score on my SATs!” he says.  Maybe so, but he’s 40 now, the SATs are long behind him, and Latin, it’s STILL a dead language. 

But Snags, he’s intrigued.  As he climbed the stairs with the first of the Muzzy DVDs clutched in his hand, he turned and asked me:  “Will this teach me that dead language? That one that dad knows?”

“That dead language?” I laughed.  “You mean Latin? No sweetheart, it won’t.  It’s supposed to teach you Spanish though.” 

Veremos!