Have you heard of MosaLingua? I found it, while I was looking for an iOS app to practice and improve my Italian. (There is also a web version, which you can access here for several other languages.)
I had put Italian aside for a couple of years, because I wanted to focus on Spanish (and was afraid of interference between the two languages).
It's been a nice way to ease myself back into Italian. I've actually found that using a different program for Italian (than for Spanish) helps me to minimize interference between the two. (I have a visual memory. When I'm recalling a word, I also remember the visual context in which I learned it.)
WHAT IS MOSALINGUA?
MosaLingua is a range of flashcard-based vocabulary apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.It has a great, uncluttered design, easy to use layout, and a number of cool features.
The vocabulary you learn is extensive and highly practical. Moreover, you can choose what to learn and at what level.
Your learning is driven by a spaced repetition system for refreshing your memory. Ideally, whatever you learn will be reviewed 8 hours later, then 2 days, 8 days, 1 month later, at which time it should be in your long-term memory.
Currently, there are apps for 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Brazilian Portuguese, and for any language combination between them (eg. French for Italian speakers; German for Spanish speakers, etc.).
There are also individual applications that teach Business language, Medical vocabulary, and, for those learning English, Test preparation for TOEFL [Test of English as a Foreign Language] and for TOEIC [Test Of English for International Communication].
CONTENT SETTINGS, LEVELS, CATEGORIES
When you start, you're asked to set a learning objective: Travel, Speak and socialize, Work and do business, Improve grades, Pass an exam, Other. You can change your objective at any time.
Within an app, you can change the teaching language. I, for example, have the option to learn Italian from any of the 5 other languages. At the moment, my "preferred language" setting is English.
My husband Peter is currently using Spanish as the teaching language to practice his Italian. He actually says that it helps him to not mix up the two languages (as he usually does). In a couple of weeks, I'll start learning Italian from Spanish to find out whether it works for me as well.
When you begin, you can take a "Level test" (find this in "Settings"), or you can choose a level of difficulty to start with. You can change the difficulty level at any time. Italian has 12 levels.
Next, choose what type of vocabulary you'd like to start with. For Italian, there are 16 Categories and 4 Episodes of a Travel Story: Fabrice's Trip to Cambodia. The categories include many which you'd typically find in a travel guide, e.g. Eating, Accommodation, Transportation, Shopping, Tourism, Emergencies, Time and Weather, etc. But there also are others, such as Hobbies, Socializing, People, Telecommunications, etc.
Optional Packs for the more advanced users offer further possibilities. There are many materials included in the fee-based Italian apps, as the above screenshot shows. You'll find over 3,000 Flashcards, organized in 16 main and 100 subcategories and 10 levels of difficulty, Tips for studying, 37 Dialogues, 200 "Bonus" items, and more.
Just for registering on MosaLingua's website, you can download an ebook: "The 6 essential tools to learn a language," as well as 5 Phrasebooks (French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese), and more.
LEARN and PRACTICE
Now, you're ready to start learning the 5 flashcards that show up.
You'll follow these Learning Steps: • Listen & Pronounce: Then Repeat and Record. • Memorize: An English cue and a picture help you remember the word or phrase. • Write: You translate words, or arrange words into short sentences. • Self-Assessment: You test yourself with an English cue and a picture.
Your self-assessment determines the recall schedule. (You can choose: Again, Difficult, Good, Perfect.)(As I already knew the first batch of Italian words, I clicked on "Perfect,"only to be alerted that this "assessment" will not provide any information for the recall schedule. So, I set a more difficult level and switched to "Good" for the next few times.)You'll practice these flashcards again eight hours later or the next day, before you start learning with new flashcards.
DIALOGUES
There are 34 Dialogues. The audio of each is about 60 to 90 seconds long. They depict specific situations, such as Introducing yourself, Taking a taxi, Talking about your trip, Buying a bus ticket, On the phone, etc.
As with individual words and phrases, you can listen to the full dialogue with several options: Audio only, Audio with target language subtitles, Audio with English subtitles.
With each of these options, you learn a little differently. Following a conversation by just hearing it, allows you to focus just on the sounds, while your brain figures what the rush of words means. It's exhilarating to suddenly start getting the meaning of what you hear.
Finally, you can choose to go through the dialogue sentences to memorize them, with the option of adding any of them to your learning stack. Under the section "Dialogues," you'll find "Travel Stories." With these, you not only learn travel language, but also follow the adventures of Fabrice on his trip to Cambodia. At this time, there are 4 Episodes in Italian. The approach is the same as with other Dialogues.
GRAMMAR LATER
There are few explicit grammar lessons in the early MosaLingua lessons. Co-founder Luca Sadurny explains: "In my opinion, it's best to start to learn a language by listening, memorizing vocabulary, repeating loud sounds, words and sentences. ... Especially at first, when you learn grammar it can be a real drag when learning how to speak. ... But, [grammar] will prove to be useful later on."
We actually do agree with Luca on this. Focusing on grammar rules too early will inhibit you from speaking. Once you have absorbed the basics of the language and acquired sufficient vocabulary, you'll begin noticing and remembering some of the grammatical patterns. And then you'll want to know more about some of the grammar rules. From time to time, at the end of the day's practice session, some grammar tips do appear, and, I assume more frequently as I progress.
Also, under "Categories" and "Lessons: Tips for Success," you'll find a section on "Italian Conjugation." It explains the conjugation of the auxiliary verbs "to be" and "have," as well as the conjugation rules for the various tenses of regular verbs. Some of the tips are not available in the "Lite" version.
ADVICE and TIPS
The MosaLingua Italian iOS app, which I am using, offers lots of advice and practical tips. (There is also a web version you can access here.) Two quick examples out of many:
• At the end of the list of words in Level 0 (The Basics), you can tap on "Our advice on how to initiate a conversation with a stranger." You get practical tips, as well as 12 easy conversation starters. These are flashcards with audio, and a translation. For each, you have the option to add it to your learning stack.
• Or, after a flashcard practice, I'm told that I've put them into my long-term memory: "Long-Term Memory? What does it mean to have flash cards in your long-term memory? It simply means that the review sessions for these flash cards will be 30 days apart."
BONUS MATERIAL
As an inducement for continued study, MosaLingua offers "Bonus Material," which only unlocks after you have reviewed more cards and progressed. They include historic facts about Italy, quotes of Italian celebrities, Italian proverbs and jokes, as well as further learning advice, memorization techniques, and much more. As I've just started and have only studied about 50 flashcards to date, there's a lot of bonus material still waiting for me.
Language facts I recently unlocked: • Around 59 million people are native speakers of Italian. • In total around 85 million people speak Italian around the world. • Italian is obviously the official language of Italy, but it's also an official language of Switzerland. • You'll find many Italian speakers in Malta, Vatican State, Croatia, Slovenia and France (especially in Corsica). • In addition, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina. (Source: Wikipedia)
Quotes: • Un viaggio de mille miglia inizia sempre con un singolo passo. [by Lao Tzeu] (A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.)
• Ho un'ottima memoria per dementicare. (by Robert Louis Stevenson) (I've a grand memory for forgetting.)
Such quotes, which are easy to memorize and help to remember some of words. You then also have the option to click on an icon and "put this flash card in your learning stack (menu 'Memorize')".
COST
The apps are available on the MAc App Store (for iOS) and Google Play (for Android). For updated information about cost, go to mosalingua.com.
MosaLingua has a freemium version, so you can tryout the program for a limited time. Business language apps, and app bundles are also available. Check for special offers or discounts.
WHAT WE LIKE
• The fun, clean design • The feature to record and play back your voice to check your pronunciation • Spaced repetition system for memorization • Option to set level and choose categories of vocabulary • Option to add and remove and word or phrase from the learning stack • Frequent advice and practical tips • The dialogues to start practicing listening comprehension
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
• For some, the many options may seem a little overwhelming at the beginning. Once you get familiar with it, however, you'll discover many more ways to learn and practice (and to buy other packages).
• While the iOS and Android apps are excellent, some users may prefer a larger screen and full keyboard. (A Desktop option is in development.)
• The travel stories are like a "dubbed" film: eg. in Cambodia everyone speaks Italian. A story happening in the target language country could better address what is particular about Italian culture and language.
• MosaLingua is based on memorization, which is not the only way we learn. For example, longer stretches of listening and reading - without memorization - help the brain to recognize and process linguistic patterns. (We'd advocate more stories.)
• No online program or app is going to make you a fluent speaker. You need to line up other resources to practice speaking: a tutor, a language-exchange partner, local language meetups, friends who are native speakers, etc.
Both the iOS and Android apps are well made and easy to use. They offer motivated learners a great way to learn and practice their target language on the go, while commuting or waiting.
And anyone traveling to one of the countries whose languages are offered can quickly pick up some essential travel language with the apps and/or with the free phrase books you can download.
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 or below.
Disclosure: The link above to Mosalingua is to a partner's program with revenue-sharing, should you decide to purchase.
Maybe you've already traveled this summer and regretted that you didn't understand the language(s) spoken in the countries you visited?
If you can capture that feeling, it'll motivate you to start learning before your next trip!
Or you're planning to travel to a foreign country this fall and believe that it's too late to even begin? Not so. I won't tell you that you'll be fluent in 30 days. But practicing some essential phrases and sentences is a good start.
Listen and repeat what you hear. That way you'll become familiar with the sounds and the rhythm of your new language. Doing some of this regularly for even just a month will go a long way to make your trip more enjoyable.
If you keep your goal in mind, learning a new language can truly be an exciting project. Besides boosting your confidence and improving your memory, it'll open up a new world to explore, a new way of looking at life.
Blue Latitudes and Captain Cook
While recently reading Tony Horwitz'sBlue Latitudes - Boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before,I was vividly reminded how different traveling was then: No phrase books, no tapes, no CDs, no online audio, no apps with which to prepare for encounters with the various native peoples of Polynesia, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
Cook's three epic journeys between 1768 and 1780 count among the last great voyages of discovery. (image: replica of Cook's "Endeavour" in Whitby Harbor)
The book makes for fascinating reading, not only because it tells of the explorations Cook made (as well as the damages, health problems, diseases he and his men left in their wake) but also because it recounts the difficulties of communication he and his men encountered.
An example from Cooks landing in Botany Bay in Australia in 1770 (page 151): “Most of the natives fled as the English boats came close to land. But two men stood their ground. They called to us very loud in a harsh sounding Language of which neither of us or Tupaia [a Tahitian native who had wanted to sail on with Cook] understood a word,' Banks wrote. 'Parkinson recorded their words as 'Warra warra wai'. Cook, meanwhile, attempted his usual peacemaking, throwing 'nails, beeds, etc. ashore.' ... Englishmen aboard the First Fleet would later learn that 'warra warra wai' meant 'Go away'."
Traveling Today – an Opportunity to Learn
Yes, we travelers today are in a different category than the great explorers of the past. We mostly follow well-traveled paths. But we are explorers in our own right. We want to experience new cultures, discover new vistas, meet new people.
From that perspective, learning a new language can be a fresh and fun experience. It should stretch our mind and engage our whole person. One way to do this is to tie language learning to planning our trip.
As we map out and organize our trip, we anticipate being there. We imagine walking through the old parts of Berlin; gliding through the Venice canals in a vaporetto; looking at the stunning view of the Eiffel Tower from the Trocadéro hill in Paris (see left picture); taking a night tour of the Alhambra in Granada.
School Memories?
Some of us remember our school experience. As a teenager, learning a foreign language sometimes seemed "tedious" and totally unrelated to our lives.
Why memorize lists of strange sounding words and learn phrases we would never use? And, give me a break, why learn the grammar rules of a foreign language?
Worst of all, we had to stand up in front of the class to give a presentation in the language we were learning. Lots of anxiety there.
Now we have numerous options as self-learners to refresh a school language or acquire a new one. If we do it right, it can be both fun and relevant.
A Running Start
Have you ever encountered visitors to the U.S. that don't speak any English? Their experience of America is bound to be limited to looking at sights and taking tours in their own language.
If they're traveling on their own, of course, they would pick up some English along the way. But if they had learned some essential words and phrases before their trip, they would have had a running start.
It's the same for us when we travel. Not everyone in another country speaks English (or wants to). The better we speak the local language, the more deeply we experience the country and its people. Being able to communicate allows us to venture off the usual routes and engage in conversations with those we meet.
New Ways to Learn
The internet has opened a whole new way of learning a foreign language. Sure, whenever available, it's great to attend classes and take private lessons when offered in the community.
But, language apps, online learning programs, and online tutors, are quickly supplementing and even replacing books and live classes.
Self-learners have access to a large variety of resources in many foreign languages: You can listen to language audios and podcasts, read e-books and hear the audio version at the same time, watch videos or movies, read news online, participate in language groups and forums. The list goes on.
So, when you have a travel destination, get started on learning some basics in the language that's spoken there. It's a fun adventure in itself. At the very least, buy yourself a travel guide and study and practice the key phrases it provides.
We'd also encourage you to learn the numbers from 1-100, as they will prove very useful for shopping, making an appointment, paying at a café, etc. (For French, German, Italian, and Spanish, you can practice numbers and many common words and expressions with our Quick Games.)
Don't wait! Start learning and practicing today. Do it with enthusiasm and with imagination. Find a way to motivate yourself to stick with it. Then travel and speak up!
Bio: Ulrike & Peter Rettig are co-founders of Gamesforlanguage.com. They are lifelong language learners, growing up in several European countries before moving to Canada and the United States. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.
Disclosure: Some links above are to a partner's program with revenue sharing, if you decide to buy or subscribe.
On the weekend of July 23 and 24, 2016, we attended the first North American Polyglot Symposium (NAPS) in Montreal, Canada. (You can find the YouTube clips of most of the presentations, interviews etc. with this NAPS link, and many thanks to Joey Perugino, Tetsu Yung and all the others for organizing the event.)
There were some familiar faces from last fall's international Polyglot Conference 2015 in New York City, but also many new participants.
Among many others, we met Steve Kaufmann from LingQ and Lilia Mouma from Mango Languages. Both are excellent sites to learn and practice many different languages.
What are “Polyglots”?
Merriam-Webster's simple definition of a “Polyglot” is someone who "knows or uses several languages."
There were certainly many multilingual speakers at the Montreal event. But the program also appealed to those just starting out with a second language. One common misconception about polyglots - and we humbly count ourselves among them - is that we can speak all our languages fluently or equally well.
The fact is that we don't. Some polyglots may have grown up bilingual or trilingual. But in the languages we have acquired as adults, we often have a non-native accent and make mistakes that native speakers can easily detect.
It was great to meet and talk with many of the well-known polyglots, language bloggers, and linguists who attended.
If there was one theme that came through many of the presentations and talks, it was this: There is no magic pill, no “one” learning system or method that works for everybody and all the time.
Nobody can learn a language FOR you. You have to find the way that works best for you. Often that means some trial and error. You have to keep adjusting your method to the language(s) you want to learn, the goal you want to achieve, or the time you can commit.
Motivation
One of the speakers commented - was it Jimmy Mello? - that polyglots are not “normal” language learners. We often don't learn another language because we HAVE to, but because we WANT to. True!
Our motivation is fueled by a genuine interest in how a language works, its history, its connection with other languages, etc. Our wish to converse with native speakers in their language is also a huge motivator. To be able to do so gives you a real feeling of happiness.
Nevertheless, we also know that without frequent exposure to the target language in listening, reading, and speaking, our skills will not develop. They may even go into hiding.
Polyglots know that in order to learn a language, you have to put in the work. Yes, some may be more gifted in hearing and producing the sounds, or memorizing the words of a new language. But without practicing your skills often, consistent progress will be slow.
We heard from four young English speakers (14-17 years old) how they got interested in languages. They talked about learning multiple languages as different as Romanian, Turkish, Arabic, Thai, and Chinese. They described how much fun it was to be multilingual. They also shared their struggles with anxiety, fitting in with others, finding what works for them. Their stories were inspiring and motivating.
Why Stories from the Start?
Many language courses - be they books, CDs, online programs, or apps - are structured around learning particular vocabulary topics: “survival words & phrases,” such as greetings, numbers, directions, shopping, time, days, months; or “categories,” such as colors, food items, parts of the body, animals, professions, objects found in the home, etc.
Clearly, these words and phrases are important to learn and know. However, if they are just introduced as a list and without context, they are difficult to retain. Besides, if you just learn a list, you won't know how to use them in a conversation.
That's why GamesforLanguage.com has chosen a “Story-Approach”: Each new word is introduced as part of an ongoing story – a young man traveling to the country of the foreign language to be learned: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. (this last one, English for speakers of Spanish).
Will the young traveler use all the vocabulary from the various topics mentioned above? Probably not.
But the 700 words that make up the phrases and sentences in each GamesforLanguage course will not only be more useful, but also easier to remember and apply. And that is what's important to most learners: acquiring vocabulary that they can use in daily life.
For learners who already have some background in one of the five languages, GamesforLanguage provides a fun and effective way to “brush up” on the language they want to relearn.
Why Polyglots Learn With Stories
The conventional thinking is: Before you can start reading or listening to a story in your target language, you first have to learn the basics. That's when your effort and work starts to pay off. You can now read articles, listen to audios, or watch movies that you really enjoy.
But you may not even have to wait that long. Even polyglots have to stay motivated to continue learning and improving. Several speakers at the Montreal conference related some of their personal tips and tricks.
For example, Jimmy Mello, who runs a language school in Brazil, LISTENS to Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in his new target language, as soon as he begins to learn it. He already knows the story in his other languages - Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, English, etc. By using the same story every time, he can focus on the sounds of the new language, while already knowing what many of the words mean.
The same is obviously true when READING “Le Petit Prince” or reading/listening to any other story that you may already know in a language you've acquired. Children's books make an especially good choice: The language is simple, the sentences short.
Steve Kaufmann talked about how he keeps current with some of the languages for which he does not have a conversation partner: He reads books and listens extensively to audiobooks with topics that really interest him.
Keep Learning With What's Engaging and Interesting to YOU
In the talks and discussions during the Polyglot meeting, a recurrent topic was that we all have to develop our own way of acquiring and maintaining our target language.
At Steve Kaufmann compared the language learning experience to an inverted hockey stick: the beginning you may find your progress quite rapid and exciting as you are learning new words and phrases.Then comes the flat and nearly horizontal phase, whenprogress seems to be slow. This can even happen when you already speak your target language quite well. You may have reached a fluency plateau and need to find ways to get beyond it.
Each one of us may have to discover our own path to traverse these plateaus. But finding interesting and engaging ways to use and practice your language - whether reading, listening, speaking, or writing – will keep you both motivated and getting better.
For some, this may be attending traditional classroom courses. Others prefer online learning, reading and listening, or watching videos and movies, and extraverts may enjoy and practice speaking much earlier than others.
The good news is that if you're a self learner who really wants to learn a language, you don't have to “moan and groan” about course homework: You can choose you own requirements and enjoy them to boot.
Bio: Ulrike & Peter Rettig are co-founders of Gamesforlanguage.com. They are lifelong language learners, growing up in several European countries before moving to Canada and the United States. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.
Over the last few weeks, Europe has slowly been adjusting to the vote by the British people to leave the European Union.“Brexit,” a new word which combines “Britain” with “exit,” has become the generally used term in many languages to describe this event.
It's interesting to read how different news organizations in various countries are explaining and commenting on the vote and its likely effects on Great Britain,Europe, and the world. But for us language enthusiasts, it's also an opportunity to discover terms and idioms that relate to Brexit in another language.
Here are 18 German terms that may help when you're in a Brexit discussion with German speakers. We'll give explanations and some historic background. You'll also find a separate list of all the German terms at the end of this post.
Volksabstimmung - Referendum
On June 23, 2016, Great Britain held a people's referendum (Volksabstimmung). The Brexit vote actually was the second referendum for the British related to the European Union. (Many German newspapers actually also use the term "Referendum.")
In 1973 the conservative government achieved the entry (Beitritt) into the European Economic Community (Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, or EWG), the precursor of the European Union (Europäische Union, or EU). This could only happen after the departure of French President de Gaulle, who had twice vetoed Great Britain's entry into the EEC.
At that time, the left wing of the social-democratic Labour Party had opposed joining the EEC and, in order to prevent a breakup (Auseinanderbrechen) of the party, prime minister Harold Wilson decided to hold a referendum in 1975.
In that first country-wide referendum in Great Britain's history, over 67% of the population voted for remaining in the EEC.
History does not repeat itself exactly: Prime Minister Cameron attempted to counteract the rise of the Europe-critical UK Independence Party (UKIP), which was fueled by immigration, the economy, and other concerns, by holding new negotiations with the EU and finally by the referendum.
For many observers, the Brexit vote also marks the culmination of a gradual estrangement (Entfremdung) between Great Britain and Europe over several decades.
Briten Rabatt - Rebate for the Brits
From the beginning of its membership in the EEC and later in the EU, Great Britain had been able to negotiate special arrangements.
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher is remembered for her words: “I want my money back!” at the EEC meeting in Fontainebleau, France, in 1984. The Germans called the agreement that followed, the “Briten-Rabatt.”
This special rebate meant that two-thirds of Britain's net payments to the EEC were to be returned to Great Britain. This was justified then, as the UK, with its smaller agricultural share, did not benefit as much from the EEC's agricultural subventions as other countries. In spite of this rebate (6 billion Euros in 2014), Great Britain has remained one of the largest net payers in Europe.
Other special rights (Sonderrechte) allowed Great Britain, as well as Denmark, to not join the currency union (Währungsunion) in 1999, which had been part of the Maastricht agreement of 1992 and a goal of the EU.
This allowed Great Britain to remain fiscally more independent and not follow the decisions of the European Central Bank (Europäische Zentralbank, or EZB) – seen by many as an advantage during the recent economic turmoil, the Greek bailout, and other looming bank and debt crises.
Great Britain did not become part of the European Schengen Area (Schengenraum) which instituted open borders between European countries.
Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit - Workforce mobility
A word composed of “Arbeitnehmer” (worker or employee) and Freizügigkeit” (mobility, permission to move around) was and is a key discussion point for many in Great Britain and the rest of the EU. The realization that the ability to work in other European countries may become severely restricted seemed to concern especially many of the young in Britain.
The attempt to limit the immigration to Great Britain by EU residents (currently around 3 million, including over 800,000 from Poland) was an important argument by Brexit advocates. While British politicians will attempt to secure work mobility for their citizens in the EU, similar to the rights of non-EU members Norway and Switzerland, it's hard to see how this would be achievable without reciprocity for EU citizens in the UK.
(Norway and Switzerland provide residence reciprocity for EU citizens, as long as they have an employment agreement or sufficient other means to live on.)
Brexit Befürworter - Brexit supporters/advocates
The German word for supporters, "Befürworter," is another typical German composite word, meaning to “have words for something,” or “favoring or advocating something.” Brexit advocates argued that the EU's zeal to regulate (Regulierungswut) was hindering Great Britain's economy.
They may overlook the fact that Britain's economy is one of the least regulated in the world and not consider the advantages of easy access to a unified European market (or assume that such access will continue even after the Brexit).
Austrittsverhandlungen – Exit negotiations
Since 2009, Article 50 of the EU agreement gives each member the option to leave the EU "in accordance with its constitutional rules." A member needs to apply for the exit (Austritt) to the Council of Europe (Europarat), which consists of the leaders of each member country.
These negotiations could take as long as two years, and, theoretically, Great Britain could leave the EU after such time, even if the negotiations were not concluded. Most observers believe the latter unlikely, as access to the European market would then stay in limbo. (Or, within the two year time frame, Great Britain could withdraw its exit request.)
Any agreement would have to be approved by a qualified majority of the European Council and could also be subject of a veto by the European Parliament.
At the time this post is written, Great Britain has not yet made an official request to leave the EU. In fact, Theresa May, in her first telephone calls after becoming Great Britain's new Prime Minister, with German Chancellor Merkel and French President Holland asked for more time to prepare for the Brexit negotiations.
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.
Play these 4 fun Italian Language Games a few times before you travel to Italy or to a region where Italian is widely spoken.
The four games in this post are just a taste of Italian, of course. It takes more to become fluent in Italian, but they're a start. And we hope that they'll inspire you to learn more.
For us, knowing at least some everyday vocabulary, essential travel phrases, and the numbers 1-100 has been a must for our travels in countries where we don't speak the language.
Some Simple Tips
• Always say the words and phrases aloud. The more you do this, the better you'll remember them. It will also greatly improve your pronunciation over time.
• Focus on practicing any expressions as "chunks" and try not to think about them as individual words. Like that, you'll directly link sound to meaning.
• Whenever you can, associate words and expressions with an image in your mind. That way you'll remember them better.
• It's essential to repeat words and phrases many times. Hearing or saying something just once or even twice doesn't cut it.
• Speaking involves using various mouth muscles to produce the right sounds. The term "muscle memory" well describes how we learn to produce sounds that are not in our native language. And ultimately, our brain has to attach the correct meaning to a particular sound sequence.
• Whatever your preferred method for learning may be - saying the Italian out loud and writing words and phrases out by hand helps you to internalize the language.
1. Basic Everyday Italian Phrases
Learning greetings and pleasantries in a language is a start, especially if you practice them so you can say them spontaneously and with good pronunciation.
There are lots of situations you can use them throughout the day - when getting your morning coffee in a café; visiting the local market; browsing in a store; having lunch or dinner; hanging out in a bar; socializing with new friends, etc.
Click on Basic Phrases or the screenshot right to play this Italian Quick Language Game. "What is it?" may be a question you can ask the waiter when a menu item is unfamiliar to you.
2. Italian Question Words
Quick questions help you to orient yourself in a city; to get information about when shops and museums are open; to ask for the price at markets; to start conversations with people you've just met, etc.
Common English questions words - with the exception of "how" - begin with a "wh-" sound (which, where, when, why, what, who, whom).
Italian interrogatives have greater variety of sound and form. There are contractions, such as: dov'è (of dove + è = where is). Chi (who/whom) combines with the prepositions a, di, con, and per - which go before. There are three ways to ask "what?": che cosa?, che?, cosa? - which are mostly interchangeable.
Here is a Game to practice the 8 Italian question words. ( Or click on the "Memory game" screen shot, above left.)
3. Practice Numbers with these Italian Language Games
Mastering the numbers gives you a great tool for dealing with dailytasks in another language. But you need to practice them enough to understand them easily and to say them automatically.
Numbers come in handy for setting appointments, paying in stores or restaurants, making reservations, purchasing tickets, etc.
The Italian numbers from 1 to 20 can be easily memorized. And, once you know the round numbers 20, 30, 40, to 90, you won't have any trouble with the numbers from 21 to 100.
One thing to remember is that from 21 on, you contract the compound number slightly when the second number starts with a vowel, which is the case with "uno" (one) and "otto" (eight). So you say "ventuno" and "ventotto" in contrast to "ventitré" or "ventinove." This is consistent right through 99: "novantuno" and "novantotto" versus "novantatré" or "novantanove."
Here's a game to practice the numbers 21 and beyond in a fun way. (Or click on the "Word Invaders" screen shot, above right.)
4. Making a Phone Call in Italian
It's quite a challenge to make a call in a foreign language. But hey, if you do it often, it'll become routine and give you quite a boost in confidence.
When we were staying in Rome, I was the one who regularly called in to make a tennis court reservation at a local club where we played. At first I was nervous and read off what I was going to say. Even then I made mistakes.
After a couple of weeks, though, it became automatic and I actually enjoyed doing the call. It also prepared me for making other and more difficult calls later.
Every call you make is going to be a little different. But with a little practice, you learn how to prepare and how to deliver what you want to say.
Here's a Game to learn and practice how to ask for someone on the phone, and possible responses. "Non c'è" is a common phrase meaning that someone isn't there. Click on Pronto or the screen shot of the listening game above left.
Free Italian with Gamesforlanguage
If you enjoy our approach and these games, look for more Quick Games for French, Italian, Spanish, and Inglés on our site.
Or why not try our FREE Italian 1 travel-story course: Marco in Italia.With its 36 fifteen-minute lessons you'll learn close to 750 new words in the context of useful situations and as part of sentences.
But, even more importantly, you'll practice the phrases and sentences of a travel story – useful, real life language that you'll be able to put to use when visiting Italy, or a country or region where Italian is widely spoken.
These include the canton of Ticino (Switzerland), the peninsula of Istria (Croatia), the island of Malta, the state of Monaco, and the micro-state of San Marino. Any of these would make fascinating travels, by the way!
And, just maybe, you'll also get enchanted by Italian songs such as by one of our Italian favorites: “Dimmi Quando...”. This early 60s song, first performed by Tony Renis – who also wrote the music – was translated into many languages and later sung by Pat Boone, Connie Francis, and others. You can learn more about this song and the lyrics with their typical Italian constructions, by clicking on the above blog post link.
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.
Do you think you need a language learning time-out? It's something that many language learners need at some point. There all kinds of reasons:
• The initial enthusiasm for learning a new language wanes. • The app or program that was fun and interesting becomes boring. • You don't reach your daily goal of learning X new words. • You start skipping your language class, etc.
Setbacks happen, and the reasons are legion. But getting back on track doesn't have to be hard.
So, how can you rekindle your enthusiasm? Here's what has worked for me:
Take a Time-out
Put the books and the dictionary away. Turn off any reminders you may be getting from your online courses. This could be a few days or a couple of weeks.
Become aware of your thoughts about your original language “project.” • What made you want to learn your new language in the first place? • Has anything changed? • Are you still looking to study or work abroad? • Do you still want to converse with foreign language friends or family members in their language? •Are you still planning a trip to the country or a region where the language is spoken?
If the main reason you started learning the foreign language is still valid, then it's time to look at your study goals.
Review and Adjust Your Practice Goal
Did you set yourself a too ambitious practice goal? Did language learning consume too much of your spare time? How much daily study time is enough?It's a good question that only you can answer for yourself.
Forcing yourself to cram a lot of new foreign vocabulary every day is not only tiresome, it's also not very effective. That's especially true if you're preparing for a test or exam. Various studies have shown that a relaxed mind can learn languages faster.
You could try a more modest and attainable short-term goal, for example 15 minutes a day for 21 days. See how that works. Then set a new goal.
Rather than just studying and practicing, you should plan to include other language-related activities, e.g. watching a foreign movie or video, reading a foreign newspaper article online, reading comics, children's books, etc.
But before you re-start your learning program, you could learn from other language learners.
Get inspired by Blog Posts, Books, Ted Talks, YouTube Videos, etc.
A little extra inspiration can never hurt. Learning foreign languages is a topic that is generating many blog posts and books.
Polyglot Benny Lewis is well known for his “Fluent in 3 months” Blog and book. Or watch his Tedx Talk Hacking language learning where he talks about how he learned 10 languages after the age of 21. He claims that adults are better language learners than children.
Or have a look at Gabriel Wyner's book, Fluent Forever, which is already a classic.
A YouTube video that's fun to watch is the interview of Alex Rawlings on the program BBC Breakfast (see picture left). At 20, he won a national competition to find the UK's most multi-lingual student.
And if you google “foreign language learning” or join a Reddit language group for your target language, you'll discover many inspiring ideas and tips.
Or, if you have done all of this BEFORE you started on your language learning journey, read some of the posts or books again. You're sure to discover new insights that you may have missed earlier!
Then, armed with these new insights, take a fresh look at your learning and practice tools.
Try out Different Apps, Online Programs, or Tutors
This is key: To get your enthusiasm back, you need to find resources that engage your interest and motivate you to continue learning and practicing.
If you're so inclined, you could use some of your time-out to get a taste of other apps or online programs. You could even schedule a couple of trial lessons with new tutors.
What works for me is using a number of different online programs just for variety.
Recently we discovered LanguageZen (click on the link for our review), and I have been using it a lot for translating sentences.
In the evening, just before going to sleep, I often read a few pages of a Spanish novel.
And no, I don't use ALL of them every day, but at least ONE of them every day.
I always find that when trying out a new online program - as I'm currently doing with LanguageZen - it rekindles my enthusiasm for the language I'm learning.
And sometimes when you change your online tutor - as my wife did recently with iTalki - it provides a new impetus.
When you have reviewed, maybe adjusted your goals, got inspired by the experiences from other learners, settled on your learning and practice tools, it's time to continue with your language learning project again.
The Daily Habit
No matter what you want to become proficient in: math, reading, yoga, karate, basketball shooting, writing, meditation - the key seems to be, any way you google it: “daily, steady practice.”
I recently came across a great Twitter post: "It's literally impossible to do no progress in a language if you practice regularly. Just because you can't always measure the progress, doesn't mean it's not there." (Kévin Abroad | Youtube, Portuguese/French teacher and plyglot YouTuber.)
Keeping Your Enthusiasm Alive
Daily language “practice” – and I don't mean only lessons, but any activity which engages you with your target language - will improve your proficiency a little every day.
Eventually that will show up big time, when you are able to read a foreign novel, understand the dialogues in a foreign movie, or participate in a conversation in your target language.
Steady practice will strengthen your self esteem. It'll help you develop the discipline that could easily spill over into some of your other activities as well.
A time-out is the perfect opportunity to decide and plan which language habits to incorporate into your daily life.
While these habits may be different for every learner, they will be essential for making steady progress in your target language.
And feeling that you are making progress will keep your enthusiasm alive.
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.
Disclosure: Several links above are to sites with revenue-sharing arrangements should you decide to buy or subscribe.
Are you planning to travel to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or another country where you can use German? (Image left: Neuschwanstein castle, Bavaria, Germany)
Then practicing your German with these German language games may be for you!
In our travels we have found that knowing question words, some basic vocabulary, common travel phrases, and the numbers 1-100 has been very useful in countries where we don't speak the language.
You won't speak German fluently, of course, after reading this post and playing the four games. But you're sure to remember some of the words and phrases, and how to pronounce and use them correctly.
A Few Simple Tips
Say the words out loud: Always say the words and phrases aloud, or if you're on a bus or standing in line, mouth them silently to yourself. Then when you're on your own, say them OUT LOUD from memory. Practice chunks: A good way to learn phrases and expressions is to practice them as "chunks" not as a series of individual words. Practice idiomatic phrases: These often have a meaning that's quite different from the sum of the individual words in it. Practice idioms as whole phrases and attach a mental image to them. Repeat and recall: Repetition is essential. We rarely learn something just by hearing and saying it once or twice. Practice the sounds: To pronounce foreign words, we have to learn which mouth muscles to use for the right sounds. Each particular combination of sounds has to get lodged in our brain. And, our brain has to connect sound to meaning. Write out the words: No matter how you like to learn German, speaking words and phrases out loud and writing them out by hand will help you remember them.
1. Question Words
Interrogatives are a basic tool for giving and getting information, either in casual conversations or when you're shopping, asking for directions, or inquiring about opening and closing times, train schedules, local events, etc.
In English, common question words - with the exception of "how" - tend start with "wh-" (when, where, why, who, what, which). Common German question words begin with a "v" sound, which is how you pronounce a German "w."
English and German have look-alikes that have different meanings. For example, English "who" is German "wer"; English "where" is German "wo." Also, German has individual words for "where," "where to," and "where from."
Here is a Game to practice German question words. (Click also on "Snap Cloud" screen, above left.)
2. Basic Everyday Phrases
The basic phrases in our game include greetings and pleasantries that you would use often and in many situations - in a café, at a bar, at a party, in a store, online, on Skype, etc.
(Click on "Deal no Deal" screen shot, right)When you learn conversational phrases and expressions in context, you're focusing on communication. You don't have to think about grammar.
Going by train in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland is one of the pleasures of traveling there. (Click on "Dialogue" screen shot, left)
The network of train and bus connections is huge and with it you can reach many towns and villages that are off the beaten track.
Knowing a few specific terms is very helpful because outside of the cities not everyone is fluent in English. You'll definitely want to understand and say the German for such terms as "ticket," "one-way," "return trip," "change," and other terms involved with buying a ticket.
When you travel to another country, knowing the numbers is a good skill to have. But you need to be able to understand them as well as to say them. Numbers come in handy for talking about schedules, shopping, paying in a café, buying tickets, making hotel reservations, etc.
Knowing the numbers 1-100 is a good start. German numbers up to twenty are easy for English speakers. Then, you have to remember that the numbers from 21 to 99 are turned around.
In German you say "one and twenty", "two and twentey", right through to "nine and ninety". It's a matter of saying them enough so they become automatic.
Here's the Numbers 1-20 game to practice the numbers in a fun way. (Click on "Word Invaders" screen shot, above left)
Even if you don't have the time or motivation to learn a language to fluency before traveling, knowing some key vocabulary and phrases will go a long way to making your trip more enjoyable. It will also be quite helpful in many circumstances, and who knows, perhaps get you out of some tricky situations.
You want to learn more German?
If you're having fun with our approach and these games, you'll find additional Quick Language Games for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Inglés on our site.
Or why not try our FREE German 1 travel-story course: Michael in Deutschland. With its 36 fifteen-minute lessons you'll learn over 600 new words.
But, even more importantly, you'll practice the phrases and sentences of a travel story – useful, real-life language that you'll be able to put to use when visiting Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or one of the other countries or regions where German is widely spoken, such as, South Tyrol (Italy) Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium.
And, just maybe, you like German songs, such as the one my husband often hums in the morning: Guten Morgen liebe Sorgen .... This song was an ear-worm in Germany in the 90s. You can learn more about it and its funny lyrics by clicking on the song title link above.
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. She's been 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 on our site on contact.
If you ever want to practice the Italian you have just learned and enjoy the local cuisine as well, you can combine both in this beautiful place called Venice.
“Romance” is certainly the word that came to our mind when my husband and I visited this city during a recent mini escape and collected our visual impressions in this Lingohut Travel log (click also on the image).
Venice
Venice, capital of northern Italy’s Veneto region, is built on more than 100 small islands in a marshy lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Its stone palaces literally rise out of the water.
There are no cars or roadways, just canals and boats. The Canal snakes through the city, which is filled with innumerable narrow, maze-like alleys and small squares.
One of the pleasures of being in Italy is hearing and trying out the language. Spoken Italian is so melodious and expressive! You can learn and practice Italian vocabulary here.
As you can see just below, many common words can be easily recognized by English speakers. But oh, what fun to sound them out!
1. Useful Vocabulary
• il canale - the canal • la barca - the boat • l'isola - the island • la città - the city • il palazzo - the palace • la piazza - the square • la strade - the street
Osteria Ale Do'Marie
It's in Venice's old town that we discovered our favorite food during our journey through Italy. I would like to share two places with you. Let me start with the best lasagna and eggplant parmesan we have ever put in our mouths: It was at Osteria Ale Do' Marie. I had never eaten a sea food lasagna before in my life, it was decadent! This place is off the beaten path and visited mostly by locals.
We found this place by accident in the middle of the day while strolling the narrow alleys of Venice, that is when we had the pleasure of meeting Alex Barcaru, the owner. He is such a friendly charismatic young man, always making sure his customers are well taken care of.
During our visit to the restaurant we also got the honor to get to know Diana and Andrei, two very personable and knowledgeable waiters. They were so helpful in sharing what the dishes had and how they were fixed. Stick with their house wine you will not be disappointed. Buon appetito!
Taverna da Buffo
Another must stop is the Taverna da Buffo nestled in one of Venice’s many squares with a canal running alongside is an ideal romantic place to enjoy a meal with your love or a terrific spot to meet good friends.
While you sit there eating a delicious meal, from time to time a street performer will stop by and serenade you. To me it was complete ecstasy, the square was serene and charming. There is nothing better in life than to sit with the love of your life in this surreal environment.
Enough about the ambiance, let’s get to the important stuff, the food. It was out of this world. After trying many pizzas, I was thrilled to find the perfect one at Taverna da Buffo. This thin crusted wood fired oven pizza, with delicious topping and just the perfect amount of mozzarella was mind blowing. As we all know, the mozzarella in Italy can't be topped. My husband will tell you that his fish was scrumptious and one of the best he has ever had. That is saying a lot for him, since he is a fish connoisseur.
We spent three of our evenings in Venice in this quaint square having romantic dinners at Taverna da Baffo. The first night he ate the “Branzino,” a delicious sea-bass and the other evenings he enjoyed the “Rombo” turbot, a local fish. In his words “Wow.”
2. Useful Vocabulary
• osteria - pub, bar • pesce - fish • forno di legno - wood oven • frutti di mare - sea food • artista di strada - street performer
A different version of this blog post was published on LingoHut.
Bio: Kendal Knetemann is a co-founder of Lingohut, where free language lessons, activities and articles are making language learning uncomplicated. Communication is our thing! Help us grow, share us with your friends and like us on Facebook
What are the best daily habits for learning foreign languages? Everyone has some favorites, but adding a couple of new ones is always a good idea. It makes learning interesting.
There's no shortage of advice on the web about learning foreign languages. If you can just convert some of that advice into a few habits - they'd be sure to make a difference on your path to fluency.
To learn a language, you can choose from many online and offline language learning options available today. Select the one that engages you the most and has you go back again and again to learn and practice.
But ultimately, how effective any of the programs will be, may depend on how well you can incorporate some language learning habits into your daily life.
Here are my 12 best daily habits to maintain and improve my languages.
1. Have a Small Notebook Handy at All Times
I do a lot of my language learning using online programs and recources. Still, I always keep a small notebook with me, which I use in multiple ways. It's a place where I keep track of my learning. I also write down words and phrases I want review later.
When I'm in the mood, I write a short journal entry in my target language.If you do some writing, and have a mind to get corrections, you could copy and post what you've written on Lang-8, or italki. It's free. In return, your corrections of what others have written is much appreciated.
When I come across new resources, books, sites, songs, etc. I write them in my notebook.
Yes, you can do most of this on your phone. Still, I find that writing by hand engages my mind in a different way from typing or tapping. The biggest benefit is that it strengthens my memory.
2. Try to Formulate as Much as You Can in Your Target Language
During times you're free to do so, try to think and talk to yourself in your foreign language. For example, when I set the breakfast table, I say the names of any items in the room. Anything I want to look up, I'll write down in my notebook.
Likewise, you can talk to yourself about things that you're doing, going to do, or did in the past - all in your target language. As you go about your day, you can spontaneously translate common phrases you hear or think, such as: "Let's go" "That's fun" "I'm late" "What's that?" "What's up?" "I don't know" "I got a text" etc.
The more you think in your new language, the easier it will become. With time, you'll be doing it automatically.
3. Say Your Target Language Out Loud Whenever You Can
This is an important habit to get into. No matter how much you (silently) read and listen to your foreign language, you have to produce the sounds to speak with any fluency.
Real conversations with others are, of course, the best way to practice. But if you push yourself to say as much as possible aloud, your target language speaking skills will benefit enormously.
There are many ways to do this: • Read a few sentences aloud from your target language book. • Or, as you practice with an online program, repeat and say words, phrases, and sentences aloud. • Reading newspaper headlines? Read them aloud. • Listening to a song? Sing along.
4. Listen to Songs in Your Target Language
Popular songs in your target language can be a fun and effective way to learn and practice. Music opens your ears and connects you straight to the sound. There's no need to worry about grammar or pronunciation, you just go with the flow.
Even as you listen and imitate the melody and lyrics, you are practicing the sounds, rhythm, and various idiomatic phrases in the language you are learning.
You can find many songs with translations on YouTube. And even better, Language Zen, for example, uses songs for teaching Spanish very effectively, by breaking the lyrics up into chunks, and then building up the song again, all the while integrating the music. I'm looking for programs that do the same for other languages.
5. Set Your Phone to Get Notifications or Headlines From News Sites
If possible, set any news alerts or headlines you get in your native language into the language you're learning.
Notifications are another option. Now, with the European Soccer Championship taking place in France, I've signed up to get updates in French from the newspaper Le Monde. (Depending on your interest, you can also subscribe to different Le Monde Newsletters.)
I also stay abreast of what's happening in Switzerland with German newsflashes from "20 Minuten."
Daily emails with news headlines in your target language are another option.
I get them from Huffington Post with news from Spain, Québec and France, Italy, and Germany - each in the local language. Of course, you can do this with other newspapers and in other languages too.
6. At Breakfast or Dinner Do a Quick Practice with your Partner or Children
Involving a partner, a friend, or even your children in some fun language practice is a huge benefit.
My husband and I go over a daily list with Spanish words, at breakfast or dinner, alternating who gets asked. For that, we use my little notebook with words we want to learn, and go over hard words that I've starred in pencil. Needless to say, we laugh a lot doing that as we practice sounds, find associations, think of translations into other languages, etc.
When our sons were still living at home, we spent a few minutes at each meal telling anecdotes in German. They've often told us how much they appreciate the effort we put into helping them become bilingual. They are now busy adults, who still find time to do the same with their young children. Children are so open to learning! A friend of ours plays a little "I see, I see what you don't see" language game in French with her kids during meals. Even her two-year-old chimes in by imitating some of the words.
7. Play Language Games
There are many language game apps you can buy for a few dollars, such as Mindsnacks, Drops, Worddive, etc. You can also play the free online Gamesforlanguage Quick Games, or Quizlet games, or games on Lingohut. Many of these games you can play at various times during the day, when you have a few minutes.
Interactive games have features that can help you learn vocabulary and grammar points intuitively and painlessly. Replaying the games helps you to memorize. Games are also a great way to learn pronunciation and improve your listening comprehension.
In addition to games for individual play, there are games you can play with your friends.And, it doesn't always have to be apps or online games. For example, you can play various Kloo Games with your children and friends and improve everyone's French, Italian, Spanish (and English).
When you're having fun through a game, you're less likely to be anxious about grammar and pronunciation.
8. Record Your Voice and Play It Back
Listening to podcasts and watching TV shows is important for your pronunciation. But you become much more aware of your own speech when you record yourself.
Use your smartphone to record yourself and just chat away in your target language. Then, play your recording back. You’ll hear your own pronunciation, and become aware of what sounds you should practice. Recording your own voice and playing it back is a powerful and deliberate step towards improvement.
9. Set up Some Time With a Tutor, an Exchange Partner, a Native-Speaker Friend, etc.
Talking with native speakers is one of the most important ways to improve your fluency. Make it a habit to seek out various people to practice with.
Ways to do that is to schedule sessions with a tutor, meet friends over a cup of coffee, attend language meetups in your town, go to a local shop or market where you can use your target language, join a cultural club, etc.
The benefit of doing so is that you'll start thinking about the upcoming session. That often involves getting yourself ready, if only by practicing a few phrases and sentences in your mind.
10. When You're Cooking, Running, or Exercising, Listen to a Podcast or an online Radio Program
This gives you a choice to listen to whatever interests you. If you listen to a subject that you know something about, the context will help you guess unknown words.
Even if you're not totally focused on listening because you're also doing something else, your brain takes in more than you think: sounds, intonation, words, phrases, the rhythm of sentences, etc.
The important thing is that listening this way puts you into the environment of the language, it immerses you.
For example, for German, I use the Podcasts on the online news magazine Der Spiegel. For Dutch, I listen to Podcasts on the online newspaper NRC.
11. Watch Videos, TV Shows, and Films in your Target Language
If you like watching films, TV shows, or YouTube videos, then make a habit of watching some of them in the language you're learning.
At first, quickly spoken language may sound like gibberish. I had that experience when we lived in Rome for a few months. But after a while, I started hearing individual words and getting more and more of the meaning. The flow of the language seemed to slow down.
Foreign films are a great way to practice listening comprehension and to learn about culture. Setting the subtitles option to the same foreign language is often a big help. I prefer this to subtitles in English.
12. Go over a Few Words and Phrases Just Before You Go to Sleep
As we reported in a recent post – Foreign Language Learning While You Sleep? - Swiss researchers have found that hearing such words and phrases WHILE YOU SLEEP, could improve your memory.
Unfortunately, there is no practical way yet to replicate such test results at home. However, other research seems to confirm that reviewing foreign words and phrases BEFORE you go to sleep will also enhance your memory of them.
Apparently, your brain keeps working on what you just reviewed while you sleep and starts moving the words and phrases into your longer-term memory.
Any of these 12 habits can add some routine to your language learning. Try some of them and tell us what you think. You can always reach us via Contact
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. She is a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada and speaks German, English, Dutch, and French fluently. She intends to become as fluent in Italian, Spanish and Swedish. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Disclosure: Certain links above are to a partner's program with revenue-sharing, should you decide to purchase or subscribe.
Language Zen is a language learning site that features Spanish for English speakers. Its home page promises: “Language learning without frustration. Personalized to you.”
Frustration is sometimes unavoidable when you're learning and are annoyed by your mistakes. However, learning a foreign language with a program that adapts to your learning style and skill level is clearly the way to go.
At the center of Language Zen's program is the algorithm that keeps track of what you've learned and has you redo the phrases and sentences where you made mistakes.
What you learn are the most frequently used words, which Language Zen gathers through “data mining” - analyzing thousands of TV transcripts.
A special feature of Language Zen is that you can learn with songs and use the song lyrics for learning vocabulary. The program promises: “The system gets smarter the more you use it. If you learn something through a song or a special course, it will carry over to the rest of the system.” Let's see how it works!
ASSESSMENT TEST
Once you've registered and clicked on “Start Learning,” you can do an Assessment Test to determine your level: Beginner, Beginner Plus, Intermediate, Intermediate Plus, Advanced, Advanced Plus, Fluent, Near Native.
To find your level for the test,you're asked to “Slide to the right until you don't understand one or more of the Spanish words.” [see screenshot, right]
The test is based on translation, always into the target language. For my level, I slid into Advanced Plus.
The test of 20 sentences that followed included various verb tenses and idiomatic ways of saying things. I did not come across any uncommon or specialized language.
For the translations, I could speak or write the answer. An option for a “literal” cue provided some help. Then, for each answer I got corrections and brief explanation. So I was already learning during the test.
After completing the test, I was indeed assessed to be Advanced Plus. But that doesn't tell me that everything I did was perfect. It simply means that I'll do my best learning in the advanced language environment.
Language Zen is a bright,uncluttered, inviting site, and easy to navigate. On the Bar on top, you see: Learn, Courses, Music, Review, Blog, Premium
LEARN (or Start Learning)
When you start, you learn at the level you've reached.
There are three types of exercises: 1. Write or speak the translation of a sentence into the target language. Once you've done that, you'll hear the right answer and get corrections. From time to time, you'll get a grammatical hint. 2. Listen to a sentence in the target language and choose the correct translation out of five. Again, you'll see and hear the correct answer so you can check. 3. Match the meanings of 5 words or phrases. At the end of each section, you'll see your progress.
COURSES (or Special Courses)
Here you have a list of 13 specific topics: Greetings, General Education, Travel Essentials, At a Restaurant, Getting Around, Telling Time, The Family, General Shopping, Watching Sports, Dating, Flirting with Girls, Flirting with Guys, and Investing in Startups.
With the 4 hours I had done in the “Learn” section, I could see the percentage of words that I knew in each of these courses (without yet doing any of the courses).
The last course “Investing in Startups” caught my eye. The Info Tab tells you: “Language Zen is starting its first raise. As a treat for our investors and potential investors, we've built a course to help you talk about investing in the next great Latin American startup.”The learning method is similar to what I've been doing in the “Learn” section.
Learning from your mistakes is part of the method:For example, I translated the sentence “I like working with VCs” with: “Me gusta trabajar con VVCC.” (Because I had previously learned that you make abbreviations plural by doubling the letter, as in EEUU (United States).
However, the correct answer is: “Me gusta trabajar con VC,” which is something I will now remember. Deeper into the course, I also learned the Spanish for VCs - “inversores de riesgo."
I really like getting the corrections, sometimes with a brief explanation of why my answer was wrong.
Recording the answer is a really cool option. When you speak your translation, it appears automatically as written. You can still correct the written form before you “check” it.
However, as with many voice recognition features, this one sometimes doesn't work that well for me.
I spoke the sentence “¿Cuánta pista tienen?” (How much runway do you have?) - and the program wrote: “autopista kennedy.”
My husband, who was listening, commented that maybe my Austrian accent in Spanish didn't go over that well. But then, who doesn't have some kind of accent when learning a foreign language?
I've noticed, though, that the program has become more accepting of my voice, with fewer strange transcriptions. That means it's learning too!
MUSIC (Learn from Music)
I love learning with songs. Because, there's lots of repetition, songs become a surprisingly effective way to learn vocabulary, idiomatic phrases, grammar structures, and the pronunciation of difficult sounds.
For many language enthusiasts learning the lyrics of a foreign song is a great way to engage both with the music and the language. (No wonder that La Paloma Lyrics - Learning Spanish With a Song, is still one of our most-read blog posts!)
For Spanish, 15 songs are listed. Next to the song titles, you see the percentage of its words that you have already learned in another context on the site. Each song has three Tabs: Info, Play, Learn
1. The Info Tab lists the Artist, Album, Genre, and Accent: Spanish (Peninsular), Dominican, Honduran, Colombian, Mexican, American, Andalusian (Peninsular), Chilean, Puerto Rican.
By the way, it's a good idea to listen to different accents and dialects in a language. Doing so, trains your ear to hear subtle differences in sound. If you do this consistently, you'll understand native speakers of your target language much better. Especially, if they aren't your standard-accent radio announcer.
2. The Play Tab takes you to the song. You can listen to it in Spanish and see each of the lines as they're sung either in Spanish or in English.
3. The Learn Tab teaches you individual phrases that occur in the song (by having you translate or pick a translation out of multiple choice). I noticed that some of the sentences from my other course lesson also showed up, scattered in between.
You can also just do a “lesson on the lyrics,”where you learn individual phrases that go to make up the lines of the song.
As you go along, you get quick grammar tips. For example: As you see the sentence (line of the song) “Lo oigo todo es tiempo” a small box opens and tells you: “When someone or something receives the action of a verb, that someone or something is known as the direct object of a sentence."
As you progress, you'll hear snippets of the song, where the words you're learning occur.
You slowly start building the sentences of the song. The short phrases are quite easy in themselves, but as you start putting them together into longer sentences, you learn colloquial structures that go beyond literal translation.
If you click on "More", on the bottom of the box, a page of explanation opens, giving you an extensive description of a direct object, including a list of pronoun objects, and a note about word order.
REVIEW (What you've learned)
Learning a language effectively depends a whole lot on how you review. Language Zen has some nice features in that department.
On “Review” you can pull down three options: Progress, Words, Facts
1. Progress:
This opens a Dashboard that tells you your status: close you're to your weekly goal in hours; what you've learned in numbers and on a graph (Words, Facts, Phrases, Meanings); your streak in days; what level you're on; how many points you've earned.
2. Words:
This lists all the words and their meanings that you've learned so far.You can sort by: Words I “Know / Don't Know” and “Need / Don't Need” to Practice that are “Of Any Type” or 11 other grammatical categories such as /Verbs /Nouns / Prepositions, etc.
When you see the letter P beside any of the words, it means you need to practice it; a puzzle piece beside it means there's a grammatical fact attached to it.
3. Facts:
Under "Facts", you'll find a list of grammatical points that are explained in the lessons, such as “Por vs para,” “Expressions with Tener,”etc.
You can sort this list the same way as in the Words section. Also, you are given the skill level for each. Clicking on any of the items gives you a brief explanation and examples.
For example, in the screenshot as on the left: “they are”, the use of the verb “estar” to express “conditions” (rather than “qualities,” for which “ser” is used) is explained.
COST
Language Zen can be used for free, with ads on the site and limited daily learning.
There are also Premium monthly subscription options. Check the Membership Feature Comparison page for the various subscription options. (An option for companies and schools includes “custom professional content” and “group usage metrics.”)
What we Like
• You learn most vocabulary in the context of phrases and sentences. • The vocabulary seems practical and useful. • The “Special Courses” let you learn and practice what you need or want. • Translations are always into Spanish. • When translating a English phrase you often get several Spanish options. • Choosing the “literally” translation option is often helpful. • You can select a slow voice option. • Recording your answer gives you an opportunity to speak. • The voice recorder seems to learn and adapt to your voice. • You choose the level to start (or rely on the assessment test). • The recall algorithm of words I missed, seemed to work well. • You get grammar points at times, but they are not overwhelming.
Other things to consider
• The learning and practice is translation based. • I did not find any dialogues of conversations (beyond some of the song lyrics). • The “Learn” and “Course” module translations are quite demanding; interspersing a song and just reading the lyrics can be relaxing. • Language Zen has found a very effective way of using its teaching method for song lyrics. We find the method both engaging and demanding. • It really requires you to be on your toes to get the translations correctly – one sure way you are learning! • There are no iOS or Android apps yet but we understand that an Android app is in the works, to be followed by an iOS app. • Conversations and stories, using a similar method as for the song/lyrics module, are also in development and will be added shortly.
Brief Comparison with Lingualia
In April we reviewed the Spanish program (online and apps) of our partner site Lingualia. Lingualia also uses a learning algorithm and adjusts to your skill level. Here are features in which Lingualia differs from Language Zen:
• Lingualia's exercises are all in Spanish (without any English/Spanish translations). • Definitions are in Spanish and you are often given Spanish synonyms and antonyms for words you're learning. • Each lesson starts with a rapidly spoken dialogue. You can listen to it as many times as you want. • If needed, you can click to activate Google translate for dialogues and example sentences (and have to live with the often literal and incorrect Google translations). • Grammar points are taught in the form of exercises, with explanations in Spanish. • Texts in Spanish and questions for reading comprehension are mixed in. • Both the iOS and Android Lingualia apps work well with the online account.
Both sites are good examples for how different programs can be used for developing and practicing different skills.
Which one is more effective for you, may well depend on which method and topics engage you the most. You'll want a site to which you come back again and again to learn and practice - the only sure way to progress.
If translating, special courses and vocabulary, Spanish songs and lyrics, etc. are your thing, then Language Zen will work very well for you.
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of :GamesforLanguage.com. She is a life-long 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.
Disclosure: The link to Lingualia is to a partner's program with revenue-sharing, should you decide to subscribe. Gamesforlanguage had no business relationship with Language Zen when the review was written, other than having received a short free subscription for the course.
Have you heard of MosaLingua? I found it, while I was looking for an iOS app to practice and improve my Italian. (There is also a web version, which you can access here for several other languages.) 
It has a great, uncluttered design, easy to use layout, and a number of cool features. 
When you start, you're asked to set a learning objective: Travel, Speak and socialize, Work and do business, Improve grades, Pass an exam, Other. You can change your objective at any time. 
Now, you're ready to start learning the 5 flashcards that show up. 
There are 34 Dialogues. The audio of each is about 60 to 90 seconds long. They depict specific situations, such as Introducing yourself, Taking a taxi, Talking about your trip, Buying a bus ticket, On the phone, etc. 
There 
