Yesterday, as I was poking around one of the Forums at Fluent in 3 Months, I came across a post with the topic of Time Management in Language Learning.
A forum member asked about goal setting. One answer to her question especially caught my eye because it expresses a familiar feeling: "Yes I have [set a goal] but I rarely keep to it. I don't know why, but when I set a goal, I do everything to not reach it. ... I feel compelled and I rebel."
A lot of language learners can probably empathize with such a statement. Rebellion of that sort may have to do with personality, with former school experience, with family dynamics, with the enormity of the project, etc. In any case, it means you have to deal with your own feelings of resistance to something you actually want to do.
Based on experience, here's my best advice for overcoming this kind of inner hurdle: Approach your language learning from an activity that you truly enjoy. It is bound to fuel your enthusiasm
Reading
If you're a great reader, dabble with texts and their translations. Google’s Language Immersion for Chrome or a program like LingQ work well for that. Just think, the better you get, the greater access you will have to anything written in your new language.
Watching Videos and TV
If you like to watch moving images (I don't want to say "if you're a TV addict"), find online news videos, or follow a soap in your new language. You'll learn a lot of vocabulary by guessing from the context of the story, gestures, facial expressions, sound of voice, and such.
In addition, becoming familiar with a few basic grammar items will help a lot (such as pronouns, question words, etc.). I've posted a couple of links to soaps and videos, as examples, on our Facebook site.
Listening to Music
If you are crazy about music, download songs, listen, sing along, google the words and memorize them. There's plenty of evidence that this is a fun and effective way to learn a language.
Playing Games
If you like playing games, you're in luck. You'll find a host of language apps and sites online that include games. Obviously, I'm hooked on games, and there are plenty of sites that I like, including our own GamesForLanguage. Here are a couple of others to try out: Digital Dialects, Mindsnacks, and Drops.
Writing
If writing is what you love, then start by writing out words, phrases, and short sentences. Duolingo, the popular, free crowdsourced language learning website, has you writing right from the beginning.
Community style programs, such as Busuu or Lang-8 include writing exercises and offer a chat feature with which you can communicate with native speakers.
Talking
If you love to talk, tell stories, and are not shy about speaking up in a foreign language, get yourself into a situation where you can be your chatty self. Finding a language-exchange partner who's on your proficiency level is the best way.
Meet with or skype with each other, and do this often. Here are two online resources: "Conversation Exchange" (a site we successfully used in Barcelona) and "My Language Exchange."
Textbooks and Grammar
Should I add this category? I for one really like to figure out how a language works. It’s not a bad idea to have a way to check some grammar points, be it in a textbook or on an online grammar site.
Just remember, progress with language learning is not linear. It's more like a zig-zag, a back and forth. Some things you won't get for a while, others you'll master immediately.
Still, whatever you put in will get you a step ahead - be it a stint of learning vocabulary, practicing pronunciation, watching a news video, reading headlines, or scrolling through a foreign language Twitter feed. Even a few minutes count.
If you approach your language learning in a way that you personally enjoy, chances are your you'll maintain your enthusiasm at a high level.
Are you learning a new language? Soon you may be eager to begin watching videos or TV programs, with no translation provided.
The goal of this type of immersion is to start processing language like native speakers do. It’s a fun and challenging way to learn. Your mind goes into full gear and you're pushing yourself way out of your linguistic comfort zone.
Immersion Learning
To make your immersion learning productive, you’ll want to become familiar with some of the essential elements of your new language. The following 10 basic grammar items are crucial for beginning to understand spoken language on TV. Using audio and written examples for each, I practiced these before starting to watch a Spanish telenovela.
10 Basic Grammar Items
1. Subject pronouns. (Are they always used or mostly dropped?) 2. Regular verb endings for first, second, and third person. 3. Definite and indefinite articles. (Are they used or not used?) 4. The 5 most common question words. 5. The 5 most common prepositions. (eg. the equivalents for: in, on, to, with, from) 6. The different vowel sounds in the new language. 7. The consonants whose sounds don't exist in English. 8. The common words that express negation. 9. The sentence melody of statements. (Practice to imitate the melody.) 10. The sentence melody of questions. (Practice these too.)
As your listening skills advance, you may want to add other steps. In the meantime, these 10 grammar steps will help you make the jump from sound as “gibberish” to sound as “words that have meaning.”
Recent innovations in technology have shown that language learning is becoming more and more popular. The other day I stumbled across a delightful “language learning” YouTube video. There are hundreds maybe thousands of such videos on the Internet and they get lots of visitors.
This particular one, called “language learning evolution (part 1)” was made by a 22-year-old student from Taiwan, who describes how he has learned several languages. The video runs about 13 minutes.
Essentially, his message is: “go slowly, language learning takes time” and “speak, speak, speak.” (He doesn't mention specific courses or methods.) It's personal, fun to listen to, inspiring, and yes, it's cool! I hope it indicates a trend in language learning!
My Own Language Learning Experience
When I was a teenager, my family had emigrated twice and I had attended school in each of the countries. I spoke three languages fluently. Was that cool? No way!
I had an accent, a kind of European mix that kids noticed and sometimes made fun of. On top of it, I was totally clueless about what's been called “the secret (social) rules” of my new home country, Canada.
The whole dating scene was a mystery to me (at age 13 “everyone” went to weekly dances in church basements and community centers). I may have been able to speak English pretty well, but I was not fluent in the kind of social small talk that teenagers on this side of the ocean engaged in.
Did I hide that I could speak other languages? For sure! I didn't want to be different. I had two personas, and my social one did NOT include being trilingual.
When friends came to my place, I tried to keep my parents linguistically in line. But they did slip up from time to time and lapsed into German, the language they spoke with each other. That embarrassed me a lot.
To top it off, my mother did not have the vocabulary for scolding me in English. So she usually reprimanded me in her native language, Dutch. My friends already knew and would tease me: “Now she's getting mad, she's speaking Dutch! What did you do?”
Are Attitudes Towards Foreign Languages Changing?
It wasn't just my peers who thought it was uncool to speak in another language. Riding the bus, my mom and I would speak Dutch with each other. On occasion, someone would turn to her and say: “You are now in Canada. Why don't you speak English!”
I imagine that one could hear a similar comment today, in any country - even though the Internet allows easy access to foreign cultures, social networks, and a large array of language programs - all across language barriers.
As children and adolescents grow into adults, they may discover that speaking another language not only is “cool” but also opens doors professionally. A second language is an asset for studying, working abroad, or traveling.
To the extent that Generation Y (also called the Net Generation) can take advantage of the language learning offerings of the web, they may even get a head start in overcoming the language attitudes of former generations.
What do you think, can the web help change attitudes about people speaking other languages?
Recently, I came across a report by Inc.com, entitled: “5 Innovative Language-Learning Tools.”
So far, I've learned five languages either through immersion, or with traditional methods (grammar-translation, audio-lingual) and materials (textbooks, classroom, CDs).
Now I was curious to see what new technologies were available for my next language learning project: Spanish.Here are some of the innovative features listed in the Inc.com report for five language programs:
For Pronunciation Practice
- audio clips - speech recognition technology - function to record your own voice and play back to compare
For Vocabulary Acquisition and Practice
- flashcards, vocabulary games - feature to build your own vocabulary lists - community page for sharing word lists - review manager (for managing vocabulary practice)
For Improving Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing Skills
- online audio, tv, radio programs, interactive video - spoken and written exercises - visual text - chat feature
For Social Interaction
- spoken and written exercises which can be submitted for peer review - a community platform to find language partners - crowdsourced content
Language Learning with Social Interaction Online
For me, communicating with others is the goal of my language learning. If that is also true for you, then from day one, you’ll want to focus on learning the language of communication.
It means that the vocabulary you practice should relate to your interests, and the topics you cover should be ones you enjoy conversing about. The well-known Australian linguist David Nunan calls this: “learning real language for use in the real world.”
To that end, the features mentioned in the Inc.com report that provide social interaction seem the most interesting and most innovative to me. (Voice recognition systems to help with pronunciation hold great promise, but the ones I have tried were more frustrating than helpful.) Engaging online with native speakers anywhere in the world is a great way to practice. But you have to push yourself to take a few risks.
Yes, it's stressful to speak in a foreign language in a real situation. But just think: Your language partner is in the same situation as you.
Learning Italian?When you get into a conversation with Italians, you have little time to think about the many particularities of the language: noun gender, different types of articles, prepositions, etc.
Here are ten easy rules that you can become aware of when reading, listening, or writing Italian. With time, you'll start recognizing items or patterns that follow these rules and they'll become automatic even when you speak.
These rules cover just a few Italian grammar points, but they're a start and easy to remember. You can used them to build on.
1. Nouns ending in -o are normally masculine.
• il ragazzo (the boy) • il libro (the book) • l'albero (the tree) Notable Exceptions: Feminine nouns ending in -o: • la mano (the hand) • la foto (the photo) • la radio (the radio), l’auto
2. Regular masculine nouns that end in -o change their ending to -i in the plural.
• i ragazzi (the boys) • i libri (the books) • i cavalli (the horses)
3. Nouns ending in -a are normally feminine.
• la ragazza (the girl) • la scuola (the school) • la casa (the house)
Notable Exceptions: Masculine nouns ending in -a: • il problema (the problem) • il cinema (the movie theater) • il programma (the program)
4. Regular feminine nouns that end in -a change their ending to -e in the plural.
• le ragazze (the girls) • le scuole (the schools) • le idee (the ideas)
5. Instead of il, the definite article lo (the) goes before masculine singular nouns beginning with z, s+consonant, ps, gn.
• lo zio (the uncle) • lo studio (the study) • lo psicologo (the psychologist)
Note: Feminine nouns starting with z, s+consonant, ps, gn, have the definite article "la". • la zia (the aunt) • la strada (the street) • la psicologa (the psychologist, f)
6. The definite article gli is the plural form of lo, instead of the masculine plural i.
• gli zii - the uncles • gli studi - the studies • gli psicologi - the psychologists
7. The definite article is used with possessive adjectives, except with singular nouns denoting family members.
• il mio libro (my book) • la tua amica (your friend, f) • i miei amici (my friends) • le tue case (your houses)
But: • mio padre (my father) • tua madre (your mother) • mio zio (my uncle)
Note: With plural family members, you use the definite article: • i miei parenti (my parents) • le tue zie (your aunts)
8. To make a sentence negative, put non before the verbal expression (incl. object pronouns).
• Non voglio mangiare. (I don’t want to eat.) • Non ho finito. (I haven’t finished.) • Non lo conosco. (I don’t know him.)
9. The preposition in (to/in) is normally used with continents, countries, regions, and large islands.
• in Africa (to Africa/in Africa) • in Francia (to France/in France) • in Toscana (to Tuscany/in Tuscany) • in Sardegna (to Sardinia/in Sardinia)
10. The preposition a (to/in) is normally used with cities and small islands.
• a Roma (to Rome/in Rome) • a Capri (to Capri/in Capri)
Last week, I read an article on the difficulties that the majority of Spanish high school students are facing in understanding spoken English.
According to data taken from the latest European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC), only 12% actually understand simple expressions about everyday topics.
Given such data, a simple question arises: What is wrong with ESL programs in the current educational system in Spain? From my own experience, two main reasons immediately occur to me:
1. Firstly, the quantity of English input that a student receives in class is extremely low. On average, the amount of time spent engaging in listening activities is 30 minutes per week.
2. Secondly, and as importantly, the quality of the English that students hear is quite poor because: (a) Portable stereo systems have inadequate sound quality and can hardly be heard in the back of classrooms. (b) Exceptions aside, the pronunciation of non-native teachers is sometimes not quite up to standard. This fact, together with not hearing native speakers often enough, makes it hard for students to improve their listening skills.
Consequences of Dubbing
In addition, there are a few extra-academic factors, which definitely have an influence on the listening skills of high school students. One mentioned in the article is the dubbing into Spanish of movies and television shows.
This alone represents an additional obstacle to ESL students because, as a result, they are not being exposed to the English language as much as it would be desirable outside of class.
Benefits of Digitalization
However, I'm convinced that with the advent of media digitalization, the option to choose between Spanish and English audio tracks on multimedia content is giving students the chance to improve their language competence. I
It might actually be interesting to research a bit further: Will those students, who regularly watch content in English, do better than the 12% percent of students who understand simple expressions?
Bio: Pablo Montoya is both the writer and a speaker of our Spanish 1 course; he is also assisting us in developing our ESL course for Spanish speakers.
Anyone scanning the Internet will find a huge number of online language games and learning programs. In addition, there are lots of apps available for phones and tablets, including iPhones and iPads.
Those are all a tremendous resource for language lovers! And a lot has happened since we asked the question: Why Games?
Flashcards Do Work!
Many of the online programs and apps are based on a flashcard model, and teach words and short phrases only. Flashcards exercises are indeed an excellent way to drill and recall vocabulary. They are also perfect for grammar items, such as verb conjugations, adjective endings, noun genders, contractions, etc.
In digital form, flashcards can space recall optimally, and often use pictures and combine visual and auditory information. You’re in charge of your learning and you can easily track your progress.
Are Flashcards enough?
However, one may reasonably ask: Can you really learn to SPEAK a language by just memorizing words and word forms? For most of the European languages – and those are the ones we know best – we believe, the answer has to be no!
The reason seems quite obvious: Conversations and narratives are not just a series of isolated words or phrases. In order to create meaning, you have to choose the right words and put them into a particular sequence. Often, it's the sequence that is crucial for the meaning. As a starter, you need to show whether you're making a statement or asking a question.
Add to this the need to find the correct gender of the noun (and, depending on the language, also the correct ending), the right tense and verb conjugation, the position of a preposition, etc. - and it becomes clear why speaking a foreign language is not an easy process.
The Language Games Challenge!
The challenge to those of us who are developing online language games or apps is this: How to create compelling games that can teach much more than a series of words and phrases - games that build the confidence to communicate?
It's the repeated use and practice of phrases and sentences in a meaningful context, that will ultimately enable you to speak with some fluency. Words and grammar rules are not enough. Conversations are a process of dynamic communication. By the time you have deliberately constructed the perfect sentence, the conversation may have already moved on.
In future blog posts, we’ll review some of the available language games, and please, share with us your experiences!
“Input based language learning” - as the polyglot Steve Kaufmann likes to say - can have a powerful "snowball effect"... "the more you understand, the more you learn."
My Spanish Experience
This has definitely been my experience these past two months of learning Spanish. Before setting off for a month in Barcelona, I armed myself with the basics of the www.gamesforlanguage.com Spanish 1 course:
• A vocabulary of about 700 practical words • An understanding of how those words behave in the context of communication • A grasp of how those words sound, alone and in context
I then “snowballed” my input learning: I took in whatever Spanish was spoken in my immediate surroundings; I listened to Spanish radio, watched crime series on TV, bought El País to read at breakfast, and searched the net for online news in Spanish.
And, I started reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s novel “El juego del angel,” on my Kindle, when I got back home to Boston. I’ve been surprised at how good my understanding of printed Spanish has become in such a short time. I’m also very pleased at my progress in understanding Spanish on radio and TV.
Hearing and seeing words or phrases many times really helps improve my understanding of Spanish. I actively guess the meaning of words from the context provided and/or from other words that I've learned.
That’s all great. And, if you want to learn to speak or write - in other words, produce the language - you have to deliberately take that step. Yes, you can wait until you understand lots more vocabulary.
But you won't own it until you start producing it. In my opinion, the sooner you start producing (speaking and writing) your new language, the better it is.
Our one month stay in Barcelona gave me the opportunity to speak right away, to apply and adapt the phrases and sentences I had learned and practiced before.
Why stop at five (5) Languages?
Before Spanish, I had acquired five languages, all in different ways. My 1st and native language (German) just happened. (We all know how that goes). My 2nd and 3rd languages (Dutch and English) were full immersion experiences, but at different ages (9 and 11).
My 4th language (French), I learned in school and studied at a Canadian university. I was able to read Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, etc. easily in French, but even with years of school and college lessons, I was not able to hold a French conversation. That only came when I had someone to speak with.
I started learning my 5th language (Italian) with an audio-only course, which trained my listening and speaking skills. I had little understanding how the language was written, so I automatically wrote Italian using French spelling. It also took me a long time to learn to read Italian well enough to experience any “snowball effect.”
Learning Spanish Was Different
My recent experience learning Spanish was a different one from learning my other languages. I used both “input learning" (reading and listening) and “output learning" (speaking and writing) to prepare for our stay in Spain.
Reading and listening are not at all passive ways to learn a language. Your mind is actively engaged in decoding sounds and printed letters; you’re constantly guessing, looking for clues, trying things out.
Similarly, when you speak and write a language, it’s a learning process. You are not just producing what you know, you’re analyzing, interpreting, you’re trying out - all with the goal of communicating something as clearly as possible.
Three(3) Practical Tips
To learn how to speak in a foreign language, you have to actively make the effort to speak, and you have to speak a lot. Getting yourself into a practicing mode for speaking a language is not hard. Assuming that you are also doing plenty of listening to your new language, here are three (3) practical tips: (Do this every day, if you can.)
• Take a short text and read it aloud, several times. • Take a couple of new useful phrases or sentences, and say them aloud many times during the day. • Role play short dialogues, and act out both voices. Ham it up!
If you can find an exchange partner for practicing conversations, all the better.
En route by car from Córdoba to Madrid (both “must see” tourist destinations), we turned off the main highway and followed signs to the town of Almagro (“red clay” in Arabic), where we decided to stay the night.
The Fuggers in Almagro?
After a tourist-heavy day in Córdoba - which was especially congested and noisy because it happened to be Mother’s day - we welcomed the more tranquil stay in Almagro.
It’s a small and stately town with an unusual history. We learned, for one, that in 1525 the Fuggers, a German banking family, due to the financial woes of Charles I of Spain, became the beneficiaries of cinnabar mines near Almagro and Almadén. (Cinnabar is a mineral from which mercury is extracted.)
The Fugger warehouse in Almagro has now been restored and tells about the rise and fall of the Fugger empire during the 16th and 17th centuries. (Above, the courtyard of the restored Fugger warehouse.)
When in Spain - Speak Spanish
Looking for a place to have dinner, we were happy to stumble upon a small restaurant that was open. At 8:15 pm, we were on the early side. Only one other table was occupied. Two Swiss German couples were chatting away about the events of their day.
When the restaurant owner approached them with menus, asking “¿Inglés o español?”, one of the men answered in a voice with a distinct Swiss German accent: “Estamos en España. Español, por favor.” This was a welcome answer. The owner went out of her way to explain to them the various local dishes in Spanish and helped them select a suitable wine from the region.
Similarly, most of our own efforts to speak Spanish have been met with open friendliness. This has been particularly true whenever we went off the beaten tourist path.
Most importantly, though, we found it easy and pleasant to interact with locals - in Spanish, of course: Asking for information about the town; asking for directions to the various sights and landmarks; buying gifts to take back home; looking for a restaurant to have dinner (on a Monday night when many restaurants are closed); chatting with the waiter on the magnificent Plaza Mayor (above), where we were having drinks; and with the owner of our delightful restaurant, who took obvious pleasure in explaining the local dishes to us in detail.
As part of our recent trip through Spain, we tried to combine “must see” tourist destinations (such as Granada and Seville) with smaller towns that are off the beaten track.
On our drive from Seville to Córdoba, we decided to stop at Carmona, a town of about 25,000 inhabitants and the first major town, about 25 miles east of Seville.
Our travel guide only had a short entry, but we were glad that we got off the main highway. The town is located on top of a hill overlooking fertile plains and it has an interesting history.
"Europe's Oldest inhabited Town"
As we walked through Carmona’s Puerta de Sevilla, we found a dense cluster of houses and winding streets that led to a plaza in the middle of town. We actually walked to the plaza only later - after we had taken a tour in a brand new electric mini-bus.
The tour and bus were the idea of an enterprising young attorney, Alfonso, who had realized that in the current economy, his legal skills could not provide sufficient income for his young family.
Alfonso took us and a Canadian couple on a leisurely half-hour drive through the town. As the mini-bus slowly wound through the narrow streets, he gave us a synopsis of the town’s history. He noted that Carmona is one of Europe’s “oldest continuously inhabited towns.”
(This tour was, by the way, one of the few times that we listened to a talk in English; our Canadian co-passengers did not understand Spanish.)
Moors, Washington Irving, And Movies...
During their long occupation, the Moors fortified Carmona, but also built palaces and fountains.
The town was captured in 1247 by Ferdinand III of Castile and served as an important crossing point between Seville and cities to the east. The bell tower of the 15th century church of San Pedro, is often called "little Giralda" as it is a replica of Seville's Giralda. (above)
Apparently, as we later learned from a sign outside the city, Washington Irving had visited Carmona less than two centuries earlier, in 1829. In “The Route of Washington Irving,” (published by the Fundación El legado andalusì), there is a long entry about Carmona, describing it aptly as a town with a “welcoming atmosphere.”
Today, the town is often used as a setting for movie shoots, 26 last year alone. We actually passed a movie set on our tour, but the crew was resting after a 50+ horse scene which had taken place the previous night in the narrow streets.
Clearly, the difficult economic climate has also had an impact on Carmona. While we were there, we saw a demonstration of town residents who expressed their anger especially with Spain’s drastic cuts in education. (see picture)
Before we left Carmona, we sat down at a café in the town square to have a “cortado” (espresso with a dash of hot milk). At the next table, a group of local men and women were talking about events in their lives; our waiter was friendly and chatty, and we were happily soaking it all up.
If you're a great reader, dabble with texts and their translations. Google’s Language Immersion for Chrome or a program like LingQ work well for that. Just think, the better you get, the greater access you will have to anything written in your new language.
Recently, I came across a report by Inc.com, entitled: “5 Innovative Language-Learning Tools.” 
