When Summer’s here, kids should be having fun. But as a parent, you don’t want your child to lose all the (foreign or native) language skills he or she learned during the school year.
Whether they’re studying in school or taking lessons, without consistent practice, children can experience learning loss during the summer.
While they may dread actual academic assignments, it's easy to find some creative ways to help them practice. Here are seven ideas to reinforce your child's language learning during the summer.
Keep a Summer Journal
Journaling is a great way for kids, especially teenagers, to write down their thoughts and feelings, remember things and develop their language and writing skills.
A journal is also a great tool to help them practice their foreign language skills.
Challenge your son or daughter to journal. He or she can do so in their native language, or in Spanish, French or another language they’re studying. This gives them an opportunity to work on grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure.
“Writing practice is the ultimate way to really learn new vocabulary and practice verb construction,” according to Jane Smith from Omniglot. “Practicing new words in writing is a perfect way to ingrain them in your mind and remember how to use them again. You will also understand how to integrate them into full sentences.”
Remind your kids to write in their language journal every day and look up any words they need that they don’t know. It doesn’t have to be a long entry. Just a little bit of daily practice can make a big difference.
If your child is a older, you may want to consider finding an online pen pal. Sites like Global Penfriends pair kids from around the world to communicate via email. Regular correspondence can be a great way to develop language-writing skills.
Plan a Day Trip
It's very likely that there's a cultural center or community of Spanish, French, German or Japanese speakers near your home. This provides a good opportunity for foreign-language practice.
Take your son or daughter there to interact with people in their native language. With your supervision, allow him or her to speak and listen to others.
Grab a bite to eat in the neighborhood and encourage your child to practice his or her language skills while ordering.
If there’s a cultural center, you can find shows and events to go to during the summer. Your child will have an opportunity to hear the language and learn a little more about the culture.
Read
Hopefully, your child’s school has some sort of reading program to encourage reading during the summer.
To reinforce a child's foreign language studies, encourage him or her to pick up an age-appropriate book in the language they’re learning. Reading is one of the most underrated tools when it comes to learning a language.
“Like reading in one’s native language, reading in a foreign language helps us become more comfortable with the words and grammatical rules that enable us to express our own thoughts,” according to BrainScape.
“Seeing the text of new words and concepts visually helps to reinforce our memory of them, while having the ability to stop, think, or look up words in a dictionary allows for more individualized pace of mental absorption.”
Best of all, urge them to read books for pleasure. For kids it’s a great activity to cool down after playing outside in the summer heat. Or, read to them. No surprise: 83 percent of children across all age groups say they love it when their parents read aloud to them.
Cultural Cuisine
Many children love to help with cooking. Make it a special project to prepare a foreign dish together with your son or daughter. Your child can research the recipe and culture and share fun facts, traditions and vocabulary with the rest of the family.
Not only will your child get to practice his or her language (and cooking) skills, your family will get to try and enjoy a new dish.
Games and apps are great to make sure your child gets consistent language practice.
Even if you want to limit the amount of time your child spends on electronic devices, you can let him or her have a limited time to practice with language apps or games.
Games and apps are a low-pressure way for your child to avoid learning loss.
Music and Podcasts
Download foreign-language songs your child likes, and stream stories or podcasts. Your child may not be able to understand everything, but hearing the language will help to reinforce the skills and vocabulary he or she has already learned.
Write down words your child doesn’t recognize so you can look them up later. Summer drives are perfect for listening. Keep music or story CDs handy whenever you head out.
Watch a Movie
Pick an age-appropriate foreign language movie. You can leave the subtitles on to follow along, or turn them off for an added challenge.
Just like listening to music, watching movies can help to reinforce your child’s language skills. It's especially good for picking up on sentence structure and other language patterns. Again, write down unfamiliar words to look up.
Some of these ideas may work better for your child than others. The key is finding the activities your child enjoys. How do you help your kids practice a language during the summer months ? Let us know in the comments below.
Maile Proctor is a professional blogger and content editor. She writes articles on lifestyle and family, health and fitness, education, how-to and more. Maile earned her Bachelor’s in Broadcast Journalism from Chapman University. When she’s not writing, she enjoys hiking in San Diego, California.
Disclosure: Gamesforlanguage has no business relationship with any of the linked sites (except Gamesforlanguage.com) and Maile Proctor, other than publishing Maile's article.
Learning a language generally involves learning four skills: listing/comprehension, reading, speaking and writing. We typically learn our first, native language by listening and speaking and then add reading and writing later in school.
When we learn other languages as adults we typically do so with "comprehensible input," by listening and reading, and we practice some writing early on as well (unless we use audio-only methods like Pimsleur).
When we learn a new language, we often neglect to truly develop our writing ability in that language.
Our language-learning efforts often focus only on trying to understand what others are saying and trying to be understood when we speak. As we advance, many of us strive to be able to read the newspaper in our target language.
When it comes to writing in another language, though, we often only reach the level where we are comfortable writing text messages, emails and short notes.
The Writing Challenge
There is a lot a language learner can gain by taking the time to practice writing. Obviously beginners will not be able to practice writing essays and articles yet. At the early stages, it is best to focus on writing simple sentences and paragraphs.
It is easy to receive feedback on short writing samples by using the app or website Hi Native for single sentences or the website Lang-8 for entire paragraphs.
When you are at the intermediate level, you can start to write longer texts. Composing an entire article requires a lot of thought. The task becomes less daunting when you start with an outline. One of the drawbacks of writing in a foreign language is that it is harder to find native speakers to offer quality feedback.
Native speakers themselves are often not highly skilled at offering constructive feedback on long texts, because they themselves may not have studied essay-composition skills and article-writing and editing skills. That means you may need to rely on a professional language teacher for feedback.
Your Language Learning Motivation
It is a good idea to consider your motivations. Some language learners will be more motivated to become skilled writers in their target language, while others will not.
Those who wish to study at a university in a foreign language, work at a professional level in a foreign language and integrate into society in a different language will be highly motivated to reach the highest level possible in their writing abilities.
Although those who do not have such ambitions will be less inclined to spend the time to improve their writing skills, that doesn’t mean that they should ignore writing practice altogether. After all, there is a lot to gain from writing practice.
The Benefits of Writing Practice
When you practice letter writing and article writing in a foreign language, you get a clearer picture of your limitations in grammar and vocabulary. As you revisit the texts you’ve written in a foreign language, it is easy see the progress you make.
Your past mistakes get cemented in time and you see at what point you learn to overcome certain mistakes that you habitually make. There may be a certain word that you continue to misspell, or a particular verb that you never seem to conjugate correctly.
Perhaps you notice a common trend of mixing up two words that sound alike or sound similar, such as it’s and its or affect and effect. By conquering these differences, you build a stronger grasp of the language you are learning.
Writing also allows you to focus on how to organize your thoughts and how you seek to logically draw arguments and conclusions. This is a challenge enough in our native language(s).
The extra challenge of doing so in a different language helps build up your skills in that language in ways that can spill over to your other abilities in the language, such as improved conversational skills and better reading ability.
Bio: Dimitris Polychronopoulos is the founder of yozzi.com, where he welcomes guest posts and guest interviews in his eight strongest languages: English, French, Greek, Italian, Mandarin, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Yozzi is a platform where you can offer feedback to help others improve their writing skills in their target languages.
A recent post about German expressions that you may hear in Germany during the summer months includes the word “Affenhitze.” (Literally, it's “monkey heat,” or very hot, you get the picture.)
Talking about the weather is always a good conversation topic, especially when traveling. For many travelers from the U.S. to Europe (or vice versa), being able to correlate the Fahrenheit scale to the European Celsius is a mystery.
There are conversion charts, thermometers often show both scales as on this picture, and your smartphone will have an app for conversions of areas, weights, temperatures, etc. (And yes, there is the simple approximation: deduct 30 from ºF, divide by 2 to get ºC, or double ºC and add 30 to get ºF.)
But after reading this post, "approximate" won't do for you any longer and you can also impress your friends, by NOT using a mobile gadget. You'll now be able the make all conversions quite easily in your head by just remembering a few key numbers. And, feel free to forward the post to anyone who could use it! But first a little history.
Fahrenheit
The Fahrenheit scale was proposed in 1724 by the Danzi/Gdansk born, Amsterdam-based physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. Today Fahrenheit is used as the official temperature scale only in the United States, a few Island states in the Pacific, the Bahamas, Belize, and the Cayman Islands.
The scale is defined by two fixed points: • 32 ºF as the temperature when water freezes, and • 212 ºF as the temperature when water boils at sea level and a defined atmospheric pressure.
Just remember: On the Fahrenheit scale, water freezes at 32 ºF.
Celsius
The Celsius scale, which the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius proposed in 1742, was actually the reverse of the scale we are using today: • 0 ºC as the boiling point and 100 as the freezing point of water, and • 100 ºC as the boiling point of water.
Read about the Celsius history, and how the reversal to 0 ºC as the freezing point and 100 ºC as the boiling point of water came about, in this Wiki entry. Just remember: On the Celsius scale, water freezes at 0 ºC.
But enough of physics.
The Fahrenheit/Celsius Correlation
We now know: Water freezes at 32 ºF and 0 ºC. Water boils at 212 ºF and 100 ºC.
The difference between freezing and boiling is therefore 180 ºF and 100 ºC on either scale. Dividing both differences by 20 (180:20=9; 100:20=5) gives you the first easy relationship to remember: Each 5 ºC correlates to 9 ºF
If 0 ºC = 32 ºF, then 5 ºC = 9 ºF + 32 ºF = 41 ºF You got the idea?
What would then 20 ºC be in Fahrenheit? Easy! Remembering that 4 x 5 ºC = 20 ºC, you apply the same logic to the Fahrenheit conversion: 4 x 9º + 32º = 68 ºF This leads you to the second correlation you may want to remember: 68 ºF correlates to 20 ºC Once you remember this one, it's not difficult either to calculate and even remember the next one 50 ºF correlates to 10 ºC
How do I know? Well, remembering that 5 ºC correlates to 9 ºF, you can either add 2 x 9º = 18º to 32º, or deduct 18º from 68º, both result in 50 ºF.
In the last few weeks European temperatures have often exceeded 30 ºC, and the 90s ºF are not unusual for many parts of the U.S. these days.
What are the ºC/ºF equivalents of higher temperatures? Easy! Just add 2 x 9º = 18º to the 68 ºF (= 20 ºC) that you remembered from above and you'll get: 30 ºC correlates to 86 ºF.
Add another 5 ºC or 9 ºF and you get: 35 ºC correlates to 95 ºF.
The Fahrenheit – Celsius Table
Here is the table for the easy 5 ºC increments, and you can obviously interpolate among those. But as long as you remember the key relationships (5 ºC ~ 9 ºF, 0 ºC ~ 32 ºF and 20 ºC ~ 68 ºF) , you can always figure it out again easily.
It's summer now, but you may also want to know in the winter how cold -10 ºC is in Fahrenheit? No problem, right?
Here is a good one to remember as well: -40 ºC correlates to -40 ºF
By now, I'm sure you are able to figure out why this is correct.
The Fahrenheit – Celsius Formula
For the more mathematically inclined readers, here are the two conversion formulas which the mobile apps are using: ºC = [(ºF – 32 ) / 9] x 5 and ºF = ºC x 9 / 5 + 32
Some Final Thoughts
For those readers who use European cook books that include ºC temperature recommendations, it's worthwhile to know that 200 ºC is 328 ºF and 250 ºC is 418 ºF.
I've written these two conversion sets in each of my European cookbooks. Of course, as with anything, you have to practice a bit. And, if you are learning a foreign language, why not practice the conversion numbers in your new language?
To brush up on the numbers, just click on the French, German, Italian and Spanish number posts and games! As the Germans would say: You could “zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen” - which converts easily to “kill 2 birds with one stone”...
And please, forward this post to anyone for whom the Fahrenheit/Celsius relationship has always been a mystery!
Bio: Peter Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. He is a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact or below.
Conjunctions join words, groups of words, clauses, or sentences, and show how actions, events and ideas are connected. They are essential for conversations and are the staple of any speech or argument.
Memorizing French conjunctions individually is not that difficult, but using them correctly in sentences takes some practice. Most of them occur in our French 1 travel-story course, where you can practice them in various games.
French, like English, has two types of conjunctions: coordinating and subordinating.
French Coordinating Conjunctions
These join words or groups of words that are of equal value. The most commonly used French coordinating conjunctions are: et (and), ou (or), mais (but), ni...ni (neither...nor), car (because, as), donc (therefore, so).
Our Quick French Language Game, Basic French Conjunctions, will let you practice the most common ones. Click on the link or one of the images below.
et (and)
• De rien, et bon voyage. (You're welcome and have a good trip.) • Il est fatigué et dort un peu. (He is tired and sleeps a little.)
ou (or)
• Vous pouvez prendre les bus 3, 4 ou 6. (You can take the buses 3, 4 or 6.) • Aller simple ou aller-retour? (One-way or return trip?)
(And don't confuse the conjunction “ou” with the acverb “où”, which is pronounced the same, but has a grave accent on the “u” and means “where” and in some cases “when.”)
mais (but)
• Oui, mais c'est mon premier voyage en France. (Yes, but it's my first trip to France.) • Je ne suis pas certain, mais je crois que c’est ça. (I'm not sure, but I think that's it.)
ni (neither... nor...)
• Je n'aime ni la glace ni le chocolat. (I like neither ice cream nor chocolate.) • Ni moi ni la police ne pouvions te joindre. (Neither I nor the police could reach you.)
car (because, for, as)
• Je suis inquiet car elle n'est pas encore rentré. (I'm worried because she isn't back yet.) • Je reste à la maison car je suis malade. (I'm staying at home because I'm sick.)
donc (therefore, so)
• Je pense, donc je suis. (I think, therefore I am.) • Je n'ai rien vu, donc je ne sais pas. (I didn't see anything, so I don't know.)
French Subordinating Conjunctions
These connect a dependent clause to a main clause, showing a relationship of time, place, or cause and effect between them. When using a subordinating conjunction, you'll have to think about which tense or mood of the verb to use.
The most commonly used French subordinating conjunctions are: quand (when), si (if), que (that), comme (as, since), quoique (although)
quand (when)
• Quand je me suis réveillé, il était midi. (When I woke up it was noon.) • Julie m'a fait visiter la ville, il ne faisait pas beau. (When Julie showed me around town, the weather wasn't nice.)
si (if)
• Tu peux leprendre si tu veux. (You can take it if you want.) • S'il fait beau, on ira se promener. (If the weather's nice, we'll go for a walk.)
que (that)
• Je crois que c’est ça. (I think that's it.) • Je suis content que tu nous rendes visite. (I'm glad that you're visiting us.) • Il faut que tu reviennes bientôt. (You have to come back soon.) • Dommage que je parte demain. (Too bad that I'm leaving tomorrow.)
Note: With expressions such as “je suis content(e) que”, “il faut que”, “dommage que”, you would use the subjunctive mood for the verb. This will be the subject of another post.
comme (as, since)
• Elle est partie comme j'arrivais. (She left as I arrived.) • Comme il arrive demain, il faut préparer une chambre. (Since he's arriving tomorrow, we have to get a room ready.)
quoique (even though, although)
• Je veux l'acheter quoique ce soit très cher. (I want to buy it even though it's very expensive.) • Quoiqu'il soit pauvre, il est très généreux. (Even though he's poor, he's very generous.)
Conjunctive Phrases
French also has a large number of phrases that function as conjunctions. They usually end with “... que” and mostly require the subjunctive. Here are just a couple of examples:
avant que (before)
• Il n’attend pas longtemps avant que le train arrive. (He doesn't wait long before the train arrives.) • Avant que la réunion ne commence, le Directeur veut vous parler. (Before the meeting starts, the manager wants to speak with you.)
parce que (because)
• D’accord, mais c’est bien parce que c’est vous. (All right, but only because it's you.) • Je suis en retard parce que mon réveil n'a pas sonné. (I'm late because my alarm didn't go off.)
jusqu’à ce que (until)
• Juste le premier chapitre, jusqu’à ce que je me souvenais. (Only the first chapter, until I remembered.) • Reste ici, jusqu'à ce que je revienne te chercher. (Stay here until I come back to get you.)
Maybe next time you read a French article or listen to a French podcast, you'll pay special attention to the conjunctions. Reading and listening to French will help to internalize how conjunctions work and how they are used by native speakers.
Our easy language games will give you a good start by teaching you the individual basic conjunctions and how to build short sentences with them.
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of GamesforLanguage.com. She is a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.
English speakers have it easy! The ubiquitous “the” makes any English noun definite. But getting the right Italian articles is a little more complicated.
Not only do you have to know the gender – OK, “a” and “o” endings will give you a clue, as long as you also remember some exceptions – but then you have to select among a number of singular and plural forms.
The masculine Italian definite articles are the ones that cause the learner most trouble. Don't despair, however, we'll give you the major rules, as well as a fun game, Italian Articles, so you can remember the rules more easily!
Italian Definite Articles for Masculine:
Singular: il - lo - l'
il: singular nouns that begin with a consonant • il pranzo - the lunch • il giorno - the day • il succo - the juice
lo: singular nouns that begin with s+consonant,y, z, pn, ps, gn • lo scrittore - the writer • lo studente - the student • lo yogurt – the yoghurt • lo zio - the uncle • lo pneumatico – the inflatable • lo psicologo – the psychologist • lo gnocco – the (small) dumpling
l': singular nouns that begin with a vowel • l'album - the album • l'indirizzo - the address • l'orologio - the clock, watch
Note: The first letter of the word that follows the article determines the form of the article. • lo zio - the uncle • il vecchio zio - the old uncle
• l'album - the album • il nostro album - our album
Plural: i and gli
i: plural nouns that begin with a consonant • i pranzi • i giorni • i nonni
gli: plural nouns that begin with s + consonant, y, z, pn, ps, gn • gli scrittori • gli studenti • gli yogurt • gli pneumatici • gli psicologi • gli gnocchi Note: the plural form of “yogurt” doesn't change
gli: plural nouns that begin with a vowel • gli amici • gli edifici • gli ospiti
Note: The first letter of the word that follows the article determines the form of the article • gli amici - the friends • i miei amici - my friends
• gli studenti - the students • i tuoi studenti - your students
Italian Indefinite Articles for Masculine
Compared to the definite articles, the masculine singular indefinite articles are pretty easy: un: for all masculine gender nouns • un amico - a friend • un libro - a book • un succo - a juice
uno: for those beginning with s+ consonant, z, y, pn, ps, gn • uno studente - a student • uno spazio - a space • uno zio - an uncle
Italian Definite Articles for Feminine
The feminine Italian definite articles are either la,l', or le, as shown below.
Feminine Singular - Femminile Singolare: la and l'
la: for all feminine nouns (except - see below) • la scuola - the school • la ragazza - the girl, girlfriend • la chiave - the key
l': for a noun that starts with a vowel • l'ora - the hour • l'idea - the idea • l'edicola - the kiosk, newsstand
Femminile Plurale - Feminine Plural: le is used in all cases.
• le fotografie - the photos • le settimane- the weeks • le notti - the nights
• le ore - the hours • le opere - the works • le uve - the grapes
Italian Indefinite Articles for Feminine
una: for all singular feminine nouns • una camera - a room • una domanda - a question
un' : for any feminine nouns beginning with a vowel • un'idea - an idea • un'ora - an hour
Partitive Articles and Combinations with Pronouns
Enough grammar rules for now! It's always a good idea to pace yourself and not bite off too much.
We'll cover the “del, dei, dello, della, glielo, glieli, etc.” in another post and have you practice them “playfully” with our language games.
Applying the rules and practicing the Italian articles with their singular and plural forms with as many nouns as you can remember is a worthwhile exercise. Once you got these down pat, it's time to internalize a few other Italian grammar rules.
When Summer’s here, kids should be having fun. But as a parent, you don’t want your child to lose all the (foreign or native) language skills he or she learned during the school year. 
A journal is also a great tool to help them practice their foreign language skills.
Hopefully, your child’s school has some sort of reading program to encourage reading during the summer. 
Games and apps are great to make sure your child gets consistent language practice. 
