Samstag, 28. November 2009
Free Mandarin Resources
Donnerstag, 26. November 2009
NaturalArabic.com
The Key to Good Pronunciation: Exaggeration
Dienstag, 24. November 2009
Skritter : Learn Chinese and Japanese characters faster and retain them longer
- Learn Chinese and Japanese: in your browser, no installation.
- Write your characters: use a mouse, writing tablet, or touchscreen.
- Track your progress using SRS (Spaced Repetition Learning System): so you review only what you need to review.
- Use textbook lists plus over 4200 simplified and traditional characters included.
Montag, 23. November 2009
Acappella, my other love
Sonntag, 22. November 2009
Getting started in Japanese
Ok, here's what you do to get started in Japanese:
1) Go to
http://www.humanjapanese.com/download.html
and try out Human Japanese, which, as I said above, is the best introduction to the writing system, grammar and vocabulary of Japanese I've seen.
***2) Download Nihonaid from
www.nihonaid.com
which is a program you download that utilizes mnemonics combined with Spaced Repetition Learning to maximize the rate at which you learn first Hiragana, then Katakana, then the Kanji.
3) Sign up for a free membership at
http://kanji.koohii.com/
where you can learn the Kanji online using James Heisig's system and have access to other learner's mnemonic devices for the characters.
5) (Optional) Invest in
Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters
http://www.amazon.com/Tuttle-Learning-Chinese-Characters-Revolutionary/dp/080483816X)
which will not only help you to remember the meanings of the characters, but will also help you remember the Chinese pronunciations of the characters, as these are built into the mnemonic devices given.
Samstag, 21. November 2009
I've posted a video on LingQ's YouTube channel LingQ Plaza
Freitag, 20. November 2009
Free Chinese mp3 songs and lyrics
Donnerstag, 19. November 2009
Vera's Diary for Beginners (in English)
"Seven tips on how to learn languages at LingQ" by Steve Kaufmann
Everyone has their own way of learning languages at LingQ. If you had to advise someone on what YOU consider the most important things to do in order to get the most out of LingQ, ...
Here are my seven points.
1. To get the most out of LingQ you need to listen a lot. Make sure you have a good MP3 player and know how to get your desired content from the LingQ Library onto your MP3 player. Carry your MP3 player with you wherever you go.
2. Create lots of LingQs. As your cursor travels across the text you are reading, when you see a word you do not know, or would like to know better, or would like to be able to use, grab it. If there are user hints, take one. If not, click on New Hint. Do the same for phrases. Make sure you create as many LingQs as possible. 100 a day is not too many!
3. If you have saved a lot of LingQs, you will see them highlighted in yellow on your text, when you read. Treat your reading at LingQ as a powerful way to learn words and phrases and usage patterns, and not just a reading experience. At first you cannot even remember the meaning of the words you saved. After a few months there will be few words or phrases that you do not understand.
4. When reviewing your saved words using Flash Cards, do not expect to learn them all. Just go through them quickly. Do so immediately after you finish reading a text and have pressed "I Know All". Do so again when you receive your email with your LingQs for review. But do so quickly. Do not worry about what you cannot remember. Some words stick and others just won't.
5. Talk to a tutor once a week. It will keep you motivated. If you have a specific problem, or if you really enjoy your discussions with tutors, you can always go for more. However, a once a week commitment makes sure that you stay focused.
6. Write on the Forum in the language you are learning, at least once a week. Use the Post and Submit button, to post your comments and submit them for correction at the same time.
7. Make lots of friends on the Community, the more the better. Find people from your own country, or people studying the same languages as you, or members and tutors who speak those languages. The more friends you have, the more you will be connected to other members of the community. This will sustain your interest and keep you going, and help you achieve your goals.
----------------
You'll find the front page of the Wiki here http://lingq.pbworks.com/
Meertaligheid. Ja of nee? Tweede taal leren
'Nederlandse ouders in het buitenland twijfelen soms of ze hun kinderen meertalig moeten opvoeden. Is het wel goed voor je kind? Hoeveel talen is mogelijk en hoe doe je dat dan?'
http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.wereldexpat.nl/nl/wonen/taal/typischnltv_mariaverhallen-redirected
Dienstag, 17. November 2009
The bilingual brain
The bilingual brain
Speaking two languages is like going to “brain gym,” says Ellen Bialystok, a psychology professor at York University’s faculty of health and a leading researcher on the cognitive benefits of bilingualism.
Dr. Bialystok’s early research on children found that, under certain conditions, bilingual children learn to read faster and score higher on cognitive tests than their monolingual counterparts. Her most recent work, at the other end of the age spectrum, has shown that lifelong bilingualism can delay symptoms of dementia.
“A bilingual person with dementia or Alzheimer’s can maintain better cognitive performance longer because bilingualism gives you a cognitive reserve, like a reserve fuel tank,” she says.
Bilingual individuals also think differently, says Richard Clément, a psychologist and director of the University of Ottawa’s Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute. “They have access to two systems. Not only two semantics systems, or two lexical systems, but actually two ways of thinking.”
This ability gives them “a repertoire of thinking modes” and a better capacity for adaptation, he says. As a result, they are “better adjusted, happier and less stressed” in intercultural situations.
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“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
-Charlemagne
“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.”
-Benjamin Lee Whorf
(both quotes borrowed from http://www.quotesdaddy.com/tag/Language/2)
Wie Sie jede Sprache in 12 Monaten fließend sprechen lernen können
Foreign Language Mastery
Watching T.V. and movies to improve your English (or any other language)
It's also a nice way to really see how people talk and react in quasi real life situations, and especially to associate the meaning of what you hear with what you see, which is the most natural way the brain learns language.
However, as much as I like movies, I recommend using T.V. series more than anything because the episodes are relatively short and you can repeat them. I will usually watch each episode twice, once with subtitles and then once without.
It's not important to understand everything you hear - as long as you understand at least 60% of what you're hearing, your brain is learning.
I personally never use the dictionary except on LingQ when I'm reading, and that's only very quickly just so I can understand the new words in context and then listen lots of times. If a text contains too many unknown words, it becomes boring to look them all up and I'll just read it to get out of it what I can.
If you do look any words up, in your reading or when watching movies, make sure to save them on LingQ so that there's a certain amount of 'accountability' for the learning you've been doing, and so you can see those words in new contexts on LingQ.
Check out this article from Foreign Language Mastery http://l2mastery.com/methods/alg-approach-to-self-study
Sonntag, 15. November 2009
Improving your pronunciation
I use a rule of 5x5x5, although it could also be 3x3x3 or whatever - I just like 5.
1) Learners record themselves reading an article or a dialogue for which they have the native speaker audio as well. Audio content should not be very long, maybe 1 or 2 minutes maximum.
2) They listen to the content 5 times without reading, paying attention to the pronunciation and especially to the intonation, as intonation is more important for overall comprehensibility (I read this in Ann Cook's American Accent Training Program).
3) They listen to and read the content 5 times, once again paying special attention to the intonation.
4) Repeat step 2
5) They record themselves reading the piece again and then compare themselves to the first recording.
Students who've done this have noticed a definite difference in the quality of their personal reproduction of the content.
Having said all of this, I only recommend that people who have a lot of fossilized errors do it. If you've never spoken much English, just hold off a bit and give yourself time to soak up more of the language naturally so that you may never have to do 'drills' like this.
Chinese learning from scratch
A highly recommendable book is Zhang Peng Peng's 'Intensive spoken Chinese', which will help you to understand about 1000 words over the course of 40 dialogues, each of which includes the characters and pinyin transliteration, as well as wordlists.
Following each chapter is also a relevant grammar point, but I just skipped those in my hunger for more vocabulary.
My method was
1) read (the pinyin) and listen without understanding first
2) read and listen and look at the word list on the side of the page to figure out what they are saying
3) read and listen again to see if I understand
4) listen without reading to test my comprehension
This only took about 10 minutes for each dialogue, and I found that I could learn to understand a dialogue with sometimes 30 new vocab words in that time.
Once you can understand without reading, move onto the next lesson and do the same. Then it's just a matter of listening to the dialogues every day over the course of a week or so and after that occasionally repeating, and within about a month or less you can understand 1000 words of Chinese (in context).
Donnerstag, 12. November 2009
The Linguist on Language
http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/
and see his videos at
http://www.youtube.com/user/lingosteve
both of which I subscribe to and refer to daily.
Getting started
I'll reach out as soon as I think of something to say. Till then, ta!