Why have we thrown GamesforLanguage into the mix of self-teaching language programs? It's the games, silly.
If you want to learn a language, you can find plenty of self-teaching language programs. They are available as books, CDs, DVDs, direct downloads, and online. Some well-known names are Assimil, Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Fluenz, Michael Thomas, Busuu, Rocket Languages, Duolingo, and others.
While all programs help motivated learners improve their language skills, not all are equally effective for learning to understand, speak, read, and write a foreign language. An online program - including ours - won't make you fluent.
But it can help you acquire a good pronunciation and provide you with vocabulary and basic grammar, which you can then use and practice in real conversations. Just think about it: it's really hard to have a conversation if you have no vocabulary use and don't understand the words that you hear.
The GamesforLanguage learning Program has been designed to teach some essentials of all four (4) language skills. Games are a way for making language learning more fun.
But games - with their special ways to engage your brain - can also make learning more effective, as shown by researchers that study how people learn. For example, see Kathy Sierra’s Crash course in learning theory.
Entertaining digital games have auditory features (spoken language, sounds), visual components (text, colors, images, design), as well as kinesthetic elements (writing against the clock, clicking on moving images, etc).
By engaging multiple senses, digital games enhance a learner’s ability to recall and retain new words and expressions. Language learning is about message decoding and communication, and this is not a straightforward process.
Learning a language involves trial and error, a certain amount of confusion, but also plenty of insightful “aha!” moments.
Key Points
Three important points guide our development of the GamesforLanguage Learning Program:
1. Adults can learn a second language more rapidly online when they can relate words, phrases and grammatical structures to their native language. In this way their learning experience is quite different from that of children, who are able to acquire their first language without even knowing how to read and write. This notion is supported by observations of other learners and our own experience.
2. Learning with the help of a story allows you to identify with situations and circumstances you will encounter yourself. This makes the acquired vocabulary not only immediately relevant and useful, but also helps you to memorize it more easily.
3. Learning foreign languages as an adult requires an effort. Playing language games will make this effort fun. Memorizing vocabulary, phrases and sentences, identifying grammar rules and structures all occur "playfully," as you can test and improve your language skills during increasingly more challenging games.
The Program
The GamesforLanguage Learning Program may appeal primarily to teenagers and adults. However, we know that children who have just learned to read and write also enjoy the games.
Our Quick Games work for beginners with little prior knowledge of the foreign language and for anyone who wants some language practice.
Our Courses, on the other hand, are best for learners with some language background. While mid-beginners will spend more time on each scene of a course, more advanced players may be able to move through the scenes quite rapidly.
Throughout each of the courses, you'll accumulate up to 12,000 points by playing various language games. At the same time you'll acquire a working vocabulary of close to 700 essential words and many idiomatic expressions. At the end of a course, you'll also be able to read and understand the entire travel story, which consists of over 2,000 words.
The Structure
Each course consists of 6 levels, with 6 lessons (we call them “scenes”) per level for a total of 36 scenes. So far, the most effective approach has been for learners to do one scene per day (which should take around 15 minutes) and to review an earlier scene for extra recall.
Each lesson builds on the previous one and adds between 16-20 new words to your vocabulary.
The Story
Each scene has a dialogue or narrative of 8-16 lines, which we call “The Story.” It appears right at the beginning of each scene and once again at the end. At the beginning of each scene, the story challenges you to guess the meaning, based on the (English) introduction and context.
When you get to the end of the scene, you'll have learned all the words and phrases in the various games, and understanding “The Story” will now be easy. This is quite similar to what you would experience when arriving in a foreign country with some language background. (For the impatient player, a roll-over option provides the full translation right away.)
The 36 scenes of a course tell the story of a young man who travels to France, Italy, Spain, Germany or the U.S. From talking with his neighbor in the airplane, greeting his aunt who picks him up at the airport, asking for directions to a friend's house, to ordering food and drink, and chatting with friends, our travel hero uses lots of useful vocabulary. It provides a great start on learning how to communicate.
The travel story engages the learner, provides relevant vocabulary in context, and creates a framework that ties everything together.
A next blog post will describe the various games we are using in our program. Our games are not just individual learning clips, nor are they simply an enhancement of a conventional language program. The games ARE the language program. We'll add a summary table that shows the specific skills each game teaches.
Do adults learn a second (or third) language differently from the way children learn their “mother tongue”? This is a question that continues to be debated.
We would argue “yes.” The difference arises from the fact that children begin to memorize the names, or “labels” of objects, actions, emotions, etc. at the same time they grasp the “concepts” behind such expressions.
An apple is a good example to illustrate the relationship between “concept” and “label.” Children learn at an early age that a real apple and a picture of it have the same "label" attached to it.
Picture Books
First books for young children are mainly picture books that show people, animals, fruits, cars, trains, clothes, etc.
By relating these pictures to items around them, and hearing their names (or "language labels") repeated again and again, children begin to understand the “concepts” that unite real objects and their pictures.
They begin to internalize the names/labels and eventually they will start to repeat them aloud.
New “Labels” for known “Concepts”
Now let's consider how adults learn a second language. They have already acquired the names (language labels) of the “concepts” in their mother tongue.
So, when they learn a second language, they have to learn NEW labels for the same concepts. Plus, they have to learn how to pronounce these new labels and how to connect them in a correct grammatical way so that they can communicate.
In other words, a young child learns its first language by first understanding and speaking, and only later reading and writing.
For older children and adults learning their second language, the sequence often changes: Reading goes hand in hand with understanding, speaking, and writing.
The “Learn a Foreign Language Like a Child” Fallacy
You may or may not be familiar with those foreign language courses in books that contain lots of pictures. They were replaced by DVDs, and now, increasingly, by online courses and mobile applications.
But even these online courses often use pictures, so that you can "learn a foreign language like a child.” In our mind that claim is a fallacy.
We're not arguing AGAINST using pictures to memorize new foreign language “labels,” as there is certainly evidence that pictures can help memorization.
We would argue that for adults - who want to express more abstract ideas - PICTURES of objects are less important than learning foreign words and expressions in the context of a useful conversation or a narrative.
In that way, you can establish a direct connection between the "concept" of what you want to say, and the new foreign language words/labels.
In our experience, one can best achieve such a connection by learning foreign words (i.e. linking labels with their abstract concepts) in the expressions of everyday language, or in the case of gamesforlanguage.com in the form of a story.
An Apple is not Enough
To illustrate again: You know the label for this concept in English: apple. In the four languages of our program we have learned: ein Apfel (German), une pomme (French), una manzana (Spanish), and una mela (Italian).
To express the concept of “I would like an apple” it will be more helpful to remember expressions and context than pictures. - Ich möchte (gerne) einen Apfel. (German) - J'aimerais (bien) une pomme. (French) - Me gustaría una manzana (Spanish) - Vorrei una mela. (Italian)
You'll be more likely to remember the concept of “I would like” (which a picture may only express with difficulty) and use it to ask for different items, if you recall the context where you heard, read, wrote, or said it. Ideally, such a context would be part of a real-life experience, and next best, part of a story.
To learn a new language and communicate effectively, you'll have to remember and apply hundreds (even thousands) of expressions such as "I would like." And when you do, you may even not be conscious of just having used a conditional or a subjunctive form.
PS: German readers may know Peter Bichsel's short story “Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch.” He humorously explores what happens when we start to “re-label” things - just because labels are just labels and you can change them in your own language, well ...
Summer camps abroad are becoming an increasingly popular choice for both children (ages 5-18) and their guardians.
The extended summer break provides children a wonderful opportunity to experience new cultures, improve at sports or other activities, and enjoy a well-earned break with friends. Parents see the educational opportunities available and encourage children to take part.
I work at a summer school in Alicante Spain and am fortunate enough to help mentor 14-18 year olds and teach them the Spanish language.
Our ISC Spain program promotes the Spanish language and culture through educational, sport, cultural, and leisure activities.
I am amazed how fast young students learn the language when they visit. It also made me realize how different the children's experience is at a summer school - where they learn or improve a language as part of a cultural event, as opposed to a classroom task.
The benefits of a summer school are huge for students. Their cultural experience ranges from reading city signs to find their way, to absorbing the language by listening and engaging with the local people.
As students mix with locals, they will become interested in their customs and traditions. Taking part in local activities and sports means a unique integration into the community and gives students a chance to establish a network of friends with whom they can communicate in their language.
The environment of learning becomes one with the culture. Here are my seven top tips to help young students and their guardians learn a language when visiting a summer camp abroad.
7 Language Learning Tips
1. Visit all the local shops and services when you first arrive. Make a note of their name in the language and only refer to those services in the native language. 2. Revise and learn three good ways to open a conversation. This will encourage you to talk to people and communicate in the native language. 3. When eating at restaurants, engage with the waiters and ask them to explain phrases you might want to know. They are friendly and happy to help.
4. Take part in local activities and events. Immersing yourself in the culture will help you learn the language and customs. 5. Keep a language guide handy at all times and study it whenever you have a free moment. 6. Always listen to the conversations around you. Try and pick up on what other words mean and associate them to things which are familiar.
7. Befriend a member of the local community and spend time with them. They can help you understand the culture and communicate in the language you want to learn.
A summer camp abroad will be an experience students will remember for years to come, especially if they have forged friendships that continue afterwards. And, the acquired language will have many benefits for their personal and work life.
Learning a language can seem like a lengthy, difficult process and, at times, it can feel like you’re wading through a sticky bog unable to get to the other side.
Like many, you probably focus on the end goal without thinking about – and acting upon – small tasks you can do each day that will help you reach your goal. While it’s good to practice every day to keep everything fresh in your mind, you don’t have to sacrifice other things.
Taking ten minutes here or there throughout your day is enough, especially if you incorporate the language learning process into your every day routine.
1. Change the language on your phone
You probably already know your way around your phone pretty well, so why not change the settings so it’s in your target language?
Seeing the language pop up every time you look at your device – which, let’s face it, is pretty often for most people – can help etch it in your memory, and the regular exposure will keep you thinking about it throughout the day.
2. Listen to a podcast
Most of us have some kind of daily commute, whether it’s to work or to the supermarket, which is the perfect opportunity to practice language learning.
Download some podcasts or get a good audio book to plug yourself into during this time and you won’t feel like you have wasted a single second of your day.
3. Read an article or news story
To familiarise yourself with the grammar and sentence structure of your target language, it's a great idea to read one or two articles in it each day.
They don’t have to be long; just a current affairs piece or something on a topic that interests you. To take this a step further, try reading the article out loud to get used to the sound of the letters and to practice your intonation.
4. Flash cards and post-its
When I was learning to talk, my mum stuck post-it notes with the names of objects all around the house to familiarise me with how words look and to encourage me to learn more vocabulary.
This is a great thing to do when learning a language, too. Of course, this method only really works for tangible objects – you can’t put a post-it on an abstract notion – but it is an effective revision technique as you will be looking at and using these objects on a daily basis.
5. Translate your shopping list
Practicing Talking of supermarkets, writing out your shopping list or your to-do list in your target language is another great technique to incorporate into the language learning process.
Practicing writing things out gets you used to the spelling and formation of words and, if youdon’t know the word for something you need, you can look it up and add a new word to your ever-expanding vocabulary!
6. Listen to some music
If you’re a music fan, weaving songs in your target language into your daily routine can be hugely beneficial as well as fun.
Most songs are written in a casual manner, giving you an insight into colloquial language. Plus, they are great tools for getting to grips with grammar and pronunciation, and they’re easier to memorise than dry blocks of text.
7. Have a dictionary on hand
Pick up a pocket dictionary and carry it with you at all times.
So, if you have a spare moment,you can have a flick through or, if you’re desperate to know what a certain word or phrase means in your target language, you can quickly look it up and add it to your new-found dialogue.
Or just check a word quickly online. Still, it will help you write down the word or phrase for reviewing later.
8. Play a language game
There are so many online language learning games now that there is bound to be one out there that suits your needs and you find fun. Alternatively, if you are a big gaming fan, you can change the settings on your favorite game to your target language.
There tends to be a number of conversations to move games forward and it won’t feel like you’re doing any work at all!
9. Sign up to a forum
The vast majority of countries have a range of forums on a various topics, from relationships, to writing, to computer programming like forosdelweb.
So, if you’re interested in technology and you’re learning Spanish, you might want to sign up to a site like this for a great way view interactions between native speakers, to get involved yourself, and to gain some industry-specific vocabulary - if this is what you are looking to learn.
10. Write about your day
This is one of my favorite daily techniques because you can easily begin to see the progress you have made after a couple of weeks if you keep all your ‘daily reviews’ in the same place.
You only need to write a couple of sentences about what you got up to, things you saw, and things you read or heard and it will keep the creative juices flowing in your target language.
If you do it quickly before bed you can review it the next morning to keep the language fresh in your mind for the rest of the day.
Bio: Lizzie writes for GEOS Languages Plus and other language school sites. Last year she went to LanguagesAbroad to learn Spanish in Spain where she realized that language learning has to become a part of everyday life if you want to succeed. In her spare time you can find her exploring Europe and further afield, watching nature documentaries, and drinking an obscene amount of tea.
Last year my husband and I spent seven weeks in Spain, both to try out our newly acquired Spanish and to retrace the trip of our Spanish 1 traveler "David."
We started out in Barcelona (as described in our blog post), and then visited Granada, Seville, and finally Madrid.
It was great fun to use our Spanish in daily life - shopping at the open market, navigating our way through the city, visiting many of Gaudi's masterworks (see his Casa Milà on the left), making small talk with people we met as we went about our daily activities.
We found that it's fairly easy to acquire new words, especially if they are items you can picture or point to. But it was more difficult to learn and use expressions that have an abstract meaning. And such expressions often include those little connecting words that are called prepositions (eg: to, in, for, by, off, over, about, etc.).
The Challenge of Prepositions
Prepositions sometimes provide a special challenge for language learners. That's because they often have several meanings and don't translate in a logical way into other languages.
For example, if you google the Spanish translation of the English preposition "to" in an online dictionary such as wordreference.com, you'll see that the ten "principal" meanings of "to" require 5 completely different prepositions in Spanish: a, hacia, de, contra, sobre.
Phrases with the English Preposition "to" translated into Spanish
• to fly to Madrid/to Spain - volar a Madrid/a España (a = to) • to go to the airport - ir al aeropuerto (al = to the) • to walk to the house - caminar hacia la casa (hacia = until) • along the way to there - por el camino hasta allí (hasta = until) • a vote of three to one - tres votos contra uno (contra = against) • to apply pigment to a canvas - aplicar pigmento sobre el lienzo (sobre = over)
Making Mistakes
Let me say at this point that it's perfectly okay to make mistakes, and even if you use a wrong preposition, people will usually understand what you're trying to say. In a conversation, folks can easily ask you what you meant and you can quickly correct misunderstandings. And this means you'll have the kind of feed-back that will help you to learn.
How to Micro-Learn
It's a great feeling to master an expression in a foreign language. Once you've got it, it's yours and you can build on it. So it's worth spending a little time learning common expressions that contain prepositions, and there's no mystery about how to do it:
1. Tackle each expressions individually. 2. Practice saying it until it stays in your ear. 3. Write it down, and/or read it, again and again, until you have it in your visual memory. 4. Start using it in conversations and in texting and emails.
Your new expression will soon begin to sound and look right. Once that happens, attach a rule to it. For example: in Spanish, going/traveling to a city or country always uses "a." Then, when you try to say, "I'm flying to England" - you'll know what preposition to use: "Vuelo a Inglaterra."
Why we chose games and a travel story for our language program is a question we are often asked. We answered this question in a recent article on Omniglot.com and are republishing it with a few edits and the revisions which have occurred since:
Our Italian Adventure
Several years ago, my husband and I prepared for an extended stay in Italy by learning Italian with the three 30-lesson courses of Pimsleur's audio CD program.
Arriving in Italy, we could communicate well enough - although not speak fluently. However, we could read Italian only with difficulty and writing was a disaster. We kept spelling everything the French way, French being a language we both speak fluently.
Before our trip, we had also looked at other CD and DVD programs and had tried several, including Rosetta Stone. But as the vocabulary did not match our interests or needs, it was hard to stay motivated and we were quickly bored.
For example, in one of the early lessons of RS, we practiced (multiple times) all of the following sentences: the women are eating rice, the girls are reading, the horses are running, the boy is not driving.
Context Matters
Gamesforlanguage was born from of a simple idea: Learn language in a relevant context. If you can repeatedly hear, read, write, and speak the words, phrases, and sentences of a story, you'll remember them more easily, because you remember the context.
To learn a new language, you have to connect it to your own experiences. With travel being a common denominator for many language learners, we decided to create a travel story of a young man traveling to the European countries of the four languages we currently offer. (English for Spanish speakers was added later, see below.) The everyday, practical language he experiences on his trip is bound to be relevant to most travelers.
All GamesforLanguage courses are free. There are currently 36-lesson courses for French 1, German 1, Italian 1, and Spanish 1, a 72-lesson course for German 2, and a 12-lesson course for Inglés - English for Spanish speakers.
Learning with Games
But Gamesforlanguage.com is also offering something still different. Our games are not just individual learning clips, nor are they simply an addition to or an enhancement of a conventional language program. The games ARE the language program.
Each lesson of our 36 lesson course is made up of games that practice one or more of the four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. Here are some examples: - Memory Game: Memorize new words and phrases by hearing, reading, and saying them. - Snap Clouds: Practice by choosing the foreign word/phrase, hearing, and saying it. - Balloon Words: Train your ear by identifying the sounds of key words. - Say It: Repeat words and phrases aloud after hearing them (and before seeing them briefly). - Deal No Deal: Discover the meaning of the story dialogue by simple elimination. - Writing Clowns: Translate and spell against time. - Word Invaders: Build a foreign sentence by clicking on the right words. (see image)
Other games focus on particular aspects of each language, such as pronouns, articles, adjective endings, basic conjugations, etc.
In addition to the courses, Quick Games and Podcastsof "The Story" can also be played for Free without registering or logging in.
Each lesson now begins with the story dialogue, forcing the learner to guess the meaning from the context of the story and before discovering and learning the new words and phrases.This is quite similar to what a traveler will experience when he or she tries to understand a foreign conversation.
By the time the learner hears the full story dialogue again - just before "Record It" - he or she will easily understand it, after having memorized, heard, read, spoken, and written the words and phrases of the story several times.
Grammar in Context only
In contrast to some other programs, gamesforlanguage.com teaches grammar items only as they come up in the context of the ongoing story. Grammar is not taught in the form of abstract rules.
For example: In the second lesson of our French 1 course, the following sentence is part of the dialogue: "Je suis contente que vous parliez français." We explain the use of the subjunctive form "vous parliez" (instead of the indicative "vous parlez") briefly why it is used: after a phrase expressing emotion ("je suis contente que ..."). That's all. At this stage the learner would be overwhelmed by a more detailed explanation.
Audience & Technology
Gamesforlanguage.com courses is intended primarily for "grown-ups", i.e. teenagers and adults because reading and writing is involved. However, we know that children who have just learned to read and write also enjoy the games. The online courses and Quick Games work on all modern browsers and, since January 2013, also on iOS6 iPads and iPhones.
Since Android started to support multichannel audio for HTML5, GamesforLanguage courses and Quick Games can also be played on Android devices.
Traveling to France? Preparing for the trip may both heighten your anticipation as well as enhance your experiences there. Travel entrepreneur Rick Steves has called this "Prepare for Spontaneity."
A basic knowledge of the local language and culture are essential tools for navigating new places and meeting locals.
In our four language courses we are introducing the learner to various particularities of each language or culture. For example in our French 1 course our traveler Daniel learns about the "bouillabaisse".
Listen HERE to a conversation between him and his aunt. Maybe your French lets you understand how this traditional French dish got its name. If not, you'd certainly understand it by the end of lesson 33!
The 36 lessons - we call them "Scenes" - take our "hero" Daniel (and, by extension you!) for a three week journey to France, where you'll learn the language of daily French life.
For example, in Paris, you'll visit with relatives, take a walk on a famous square, order "un express" and "une tarte aux fraises" at a café. You'll buy a train ticket to Aix-en-Provence.
There, you'll ask directions to a friend's house, and on a walk around the city, learn about Cézanne's occupation before he became a famous painter. In Avignon, you'll take a bus to your hotel, and check in.
Later, after dinner, a friend will show you the famous bridge. (Who doesn't know the song "Sur le pont d'Avignon"?) For your last week, you'll return to Paris.
Each of the 36 lessons is based on a dialog and on part of the story. In each lesson, you'll play your way through a series of games, with which you learn and practice vocabulary, train your listening comprehension, practice speaking by recording and playing back your own voice.
You'll also get essential grammar and culture tips.
Your goal will be to exceed a target score so that you can move on to the next lesson and hear “the rest of the story.”
You'll also be challenged and often able to understand the meaning of the next dialog through the context of the story alone – similar to what you might experience living in the foreign country, or following an original French movie.
So, maybe, next time you're sitting in a French bistro and see the "bouillabaisse" on the menu, you'll give it a try and even know what the name means...
During our recent visit to Switzerland, we had lunch at a restaurant in Saanenmöser, a town located above Gstaad in the Berner Oberland. My sister, who had eaten in the restaurant frequently before, had often enjoyed the filet de boeuf, and she and I ordered it.
My wife, who prefers veal, ordered the côtelette de veau. My sister had alerted us that the waiter would cut the meat to size in front of us, and we did not pay much attention to the quoted price per gram on the menu.
My sister and I selected a small piece each of the "filet de boeuf". My wife was a little puzzled, however, as the "côtelette de veau", which she had translated as a "veal cutlet", turned out to have a bone, therefore was actually a veal chop, and she selected the smallest piece.
A Delicious and Expensive "Veal Cutlet"
We enjoyed our meal (the picture on the left is not my wife's côtelette), but we were certainly surprised when we saw the check: The côtelette de veau, being 240g, including bone and fat, came in at sfr 50.40.
Compared to our two delicious, lean filets de boeuf of 120g and 140g, priced at sfr 33.60 and 39.20 respectively (and, while also expensive, we could accept their pricing), a sfr 50.40 côtelette de veau seemed out of proportion. (I should add that these prices did not include any sides, which had to be ordered separately.)
Swiss Pricing and Guest Choices
We paid our check, but after complaining by e-mail, I received the following explanation from the restaurant owner:
"Thank you very much for your mail concerning the veal cutlet for sfrs 50.40.Meat from veal is not a cheap meat. We pay a price of sfrs. 59.50 for one Kilogram of prime quality with fat and bone. For the cooking, salaries, service, special refrigerator and so on, we have a calculation of 3.5 multiplicator. For this reason the price for 100 gram is sfrs. 21.00. A veal cutlet has from nature (size of the bone) at least 220 grams. It is not possible to cut it thinner.
The range for a veal cutlet in Switzerland is between sfrs. 65.00 and sfrs 75.00. The quality of this “Swiss prime meat Grand Cru” warranted the documentary evidence of origin, is selected by the meat man in the slaughterhouse, and stays in minimum for 6 weeks adolescence. We know the name of the farmer who bred the animal. Lean filet de boeuf costs in this prime quality sfrs. 80.00 for one Kilogram. 100 gram costs with the same calculation sfrs 28.00. Fillet of beef can be cut even in less than 100 gram. The guest makes his choice like for the veal cutlet."
Beware of "False Friends" and Innovative Pricing Strategies
I could not argue with the owner's pricing explanation above. Although, for an American, the relative pricing between a côtelette de veau (with bone) and a lean filet de boeuf just does not seem right.
But did you notice that the restaurant owner also used the term "veal cutlet"? "Cutlet" and "côtelette" are indeed "false friends". You can find the definition for "cutlet" in various on-line dictionaries, but it is invariably defined as a small piece of meat.
The moral of the story: Pay attention to the prices per weight on the menu, especially in high-priced countries like Switzerland, and don't get fooled by "false friends" like "côtelette" and "cutlet".
With high meat prices, (especially premium veal) having the guest make the weight/size choice, may be the only way for certain restaurants to sell their dishes. But travelers better beware. These pricing strategies can quickly add up and surprise you unless you carry a pocket scale.
A recent exhibition of Paul Cézanne "The Large Bathers" at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts reminded us that in Scene 4.5 of our French 1 course our traveler Daniel learns about Paul Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence.
And as we did in our previous blog Heidelberg & Mark Twain, we believe that knowing more about the context of “The Story”, not only makes learning more interesting, but also more effective:
In Scene 4.5 we are practicing the French past imperfect tense with sentences such as
“Le peintre Paul Cézanne allait souvent au Café Clément.”,
“Oui, et voici la banque où il travaillait jusqu’en 1862.”, “
Paul Cézanne était banquier?”,
“Ah d’accord, je ne le savais pas!”,
“Paul Cézanne aimait vivre à Aix-en-Provence.”, etc.
By remembering the context of these sentences, you will be able to recall verbs and forms more easily, and can then apply them as well in different situations.
Paul Cézanne was Fortunate
There is not much mystery about Cézanne's life as a banker's son who became a famous painter and is seen by many
“to form the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism.” And “His father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (28 July 1798 – 23 October 1886),[3] was the co-founder of a banking firm that prospered throughout the artist's life, affording him financial security that was unavailable to most of his contemporaries and eventually resulting in a large inheritance.” [Wikipedia]
Perseverance
It is interesting, though, that his path was not a straight line either: According to this biography, Cézanne's father initially opposed his artistic career; he started to study law, while also enrolled in the School of Design in Aix. The above link continues further:
In 1861 Cézanne finally convinced his father to allow him to go to Paris. He planned to join Zola there and to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts.
But his application was rejected and, although he had gained inspiration from visits to the Louvre, particularly from the study of Diego Velázquez and Caravaggio, Cézanne experienced self-doubt and returned to Aix within the year.
He entered his father's banking house but continued to study at the School of Design.The remainder of the decade was a period of flux and uncertainty for Cézanne.
His attempt to work in his father's business was abortive, and he returned to Paris in 1862 and stayed for a year and a half. During this period he met Monet and Pissarro and became acquainted with the revolutionary work of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet.
Learning – Rarely a Straight Line
Cézanne was fortunate to be able to pursue his dream, but it's also clear that his life did not always follow a straight path.
Learning a language is also a path of many twists and turns. Relating Cézanne's story to learning French: You may have to try out various approaches before you are successful.
As banking or law were not for Cézanne, so the current language method or course you are struggling with may not be the right one for you.
Give it your best effort, but if it doesn't work, try out others – or learn with several simultaneously!
This was based on Scene 4.5 of our German 1 course and our conjecture that Mark Twain liked the name "Heidelberg" because Heidelberg in English means Huckleberry mountain.
Actually, more correctly, Heidelberg is an abbreviation of "Heidelbeerenberg" (huckleberry mountain).
Huckleberry Adventures
We found it interesting that Twain had stayed in Heidelberg with his family for several months in 1878.
Twain had unsuccessfully tried to learn German in 1850 at age fifteen. He resumed his study 28 years later in preparation for a trip to Europe." [Wikipedia: "Mark Twain"]
Mark Twain had published his novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1876 and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in1884.
A little further digging found several German sites which also describe his love of Heidelbeeren. He found them in the forests around Heidelberg and enjoyed Heidelbeerkuchen (huckleberry pie).
By the way, a similar confusion between a huckleberry and a blueberry also exists in German between a "Heidelbeere" and a "Blaubeere". (For further enlightenment, try this link.)
Heidelberg, Mississippi
So the character of Huckleberry Finn had already been well-established by the time Mark Twain arrived in Heidelberg, Germany in 1878, as the travel writer Lucy Gordan explains:
"Supposedly looking for a quiet village, where people didn't know him, neither of which fit Heidelberg because it was already home to active American and British communities, he arrived with his family on May 6 for the day and stayed three months.His biographer Justin Kaplan asserts Twain was aware that Heidelberg derived from 'Heidelbeerenberg', meaning 'Huckleberry Mountain', which may explain his affinity."
"Nobody really knows," writes Werner Pieper in his updated Mark Twain's Guide to Heidelberg , "what made Mark Twain stay in Heidelberg for such a long time. Maybe he was prompted by old dreams from the times he was passing Heidelberg, Mississippi, while working on the steamships? Did he plan to stay here or did he and his family just fall in love with this city?"
While the above allusion to Mark Twain's passing by Heidelberg, Mississippi, during his days as a river pilot may be compelling, a little further digging causes some doubts:
Mark Twain worked on a steamboat, first as an apprentice, then as a pilot during 1857 to 1861.
However, Heidelberg, Mississippi was only founded in 1882 by Washington Irving Heidelberg [google History, Town of Heidelberg] - and even more importantly: Heidelberg is not situated ON the Mississippi, but located in the State of Mississippi, southeast of Jackson, MS, and about 130 miles from the Mississippi river.
Twain visited the river a number of times after his pilot days, most notably in 1882 as he prepared to write "Life on the Mississippi" and maybe on his travels TO the river he came through the little town.
Maybe that's when he came across the name Heidelberg again. So whether he already knew the name Heidelberg or whether he related to it as a translation of "huckleberry" we'll never know.
But we do know that he liked his three months in Heidelberg, Germany, in spite of his continuing struggle with the German language.
And we'll explore in another blog post Mark Twain's love-hate relationship with "The Awful German Language" which he published as an Appendix to his "A Tramp Abroad" in 1880.
Bio: Peter Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. He's 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.
Entertaining digital games have auditory features (spoken language, sounds), visual components (text, colors, images, design), as well as kinesthetic elements (writing against the clock, clicking on moving images, etc).
It appears right at the beginning of each scene and once again at the end. At the beginning of each scene, the story challenges you to guess the meaning, based on the (English) introduction and context. 
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