Teaching you Progressive Spanish

Hi people. A couple of months ago I released a pilot episode for a podcast series called Teaching You Spanish. I only made one episode and I pretty much left the project abandoned for a while. I was trying to teach you spanish using spaced repetiton, little story lines and role-play, really similar than Pimsleur but I guess a little bit more realistic.

Now, I've decided to revive this project but not longer as a podcast series, but more like a youtube video series. I didn't like doing the podcast pilot, it was just too boring for me and I guess it was too boring for you to listen as well. So I decided to make things more visual, more fluent and more compact. Everything that you will learn here is progressive and sequential and hopefully, it will make you functional in Spanish. Currently I've released two episodes but there are more episodes to come. Hope you enjoy the series, and if you really like them, subscribe to my YouTube channel. Also, I'm open to suggestions, if you really would like to know how to do something in spanish (how to call an ambulance or how to handle x or y situation in spanish, etc.) just tell me and I will make an episode just about that.

I want this to be a fun interactive course in which you could help me decide what is what you want to know next time.

I hope you'll enjoy the series and subscribe for more episodes, thanks a lot for watching :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw3tu65eKMs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grV823SAvbg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGS_pBB0EyY

 

 

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Fastest way to learn languages: TPR

In this video I discuss Total Physical Response a little bit, more specifically this is going to be a review of Learning Another Language Through Actions which is the quintessential book about TPR. Total Physical Response is now considered to be one the fastest ways to learn languages:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpxbAlR1i3c

Here's the video I quote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikZY6XpB214

Thanks for watching :)

 

 

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The Three Main Goals in Language Learning

A lot of people might believe that learning a language is a non-sequential thing but more of a chaotic process in which you're just exposed to the language and then a lot of things start to happen and suddenly... pum... you're already speaking the language.

I know that it might seem to be that way in the eyes of the language learner but in reality, language learning, as any other skill, is a very sequential process. Do you speak the same way that you did when you were a 6-year-old? When you were 6 years old, were you able to understand documentaries about finance or were you able to get dark comedy jokes? No.

Why? because according to the sequence, you weren't able to understand stuff at that level. When you were a little child you started watching baby shows that were incredibly easy to understand (like Barney or Sesame Street), when you were a kid you started to watch shows a little bit more complex (like Batman: The Animated Series), and now that you're an adult, chances are that you watch complex dramas such as Game of Thrones, House of Cards or True Detective. All of them are shows that posses a high level of the language that a young child wouldn't be able to understand.

So that's your proof right there, you learned your L1 in a very sequential way and when it comes to a L2, it happens the same way. So, since learning a language is something sequential, you need goals in order to realize in which step of the sequence you're on.

I made a vide in which I propose what I consider to be the three main goals that you should try to achieve while learning a language:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3GP7ut16I8

Thanks for watching and reading :)

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Pimsleur: The Most Underrated Language Product

I've been wanting to write a post about Pimsleur for so long. My review of Assimil has been my most popular post so far and apparently a lot of people liked it, but there's also another language learning product that I must do justice, and that's Pimsleur.



Assimil is a charismatic language learning product, mainly because the lessons are relaxing, funny and short; so, I guess that's why people like it at first sight. But with Pimsleur... that's not the case at all.

So, that's why I feel even more obligated to talk about Pimsleur than anything else. In all honesty, Pimsleur has been one of the most helpful and amazing language learning products that I've tried, but apparently, a lot of people hate it or quickly disregard it by saying that it's too boring or too repetitive.

A little bit of history:



The Pimsleur Method was created by linguist Paul Pimsleur. Originally, Mr. Pimsleur started his career as a french teacher and his area of expertise was teaching french phonetics and phonemes. He later moved on into doing Second Language Acquisition research, his main interest was to investigate how was it that kids were able to speak a language without actually knowing its structure explicitly. After investigating children and adults alike, he started to develop the Pimsleur Language Learning System based upon the results that he had got. The Pimsleur Language Learning System would become The Pimsleur Method that we know today.

The Pimsleur Method is based on the concept of spaced repetition combined with the exposition of the structure of  the language via interactive dialogue.

However, there are two important things that you must understand about the Pimsleur Method:

1. Paul Pimsleur died of a heart attack in 1971 while still working and perfecting the Pimsleur Method.


2. The Pimsleur Method WAS NOT originally designed to be used as an auto-didactic course, it was designed to be used in a classroom.

Despite of this, a lot of the effectiveness of the original method was able to live on to the audio program that we know nowadays.

Pimsleur's main objective is to teach you, or better yet, to install the structure of the language into your mind. Pimsleur's secondary objective is to teach you the correct phonemes and pronunciation of the language.

That's pretty much all that Pimsleur sets out to do and it succeeds beautifully.

The main two critiques that I've heard about Pimsleur (coming from a lot of language enthusiast but also renowned polyglots) are:

• There's not a lot of vocabulary, there's not a lot of content, the content is irrelevant.


• It's boring and repetitive.

It’s in the first point where I feel that most people actually misunderstand Pimsleur. Pimsleur is not really designed to teach you vocabulary or a lot of fancy words, Pimsleur is designed to teach you the structure of the language and install it in your brain, so when you need to speak it, you can access to the structure quickly and use it correctly.



Teaching a lot of vocabulary is not its aim, Pimsleur teaches you basic vocabulary but, most importantly, it teaches and makes you aware of the structure of the language little by little, so when you learn new vocabulary, you can use it correctly with the structure that you’ve learned. So, for all the people who say that “there’s not a lot of content” “the content is irrelevant” or “the situations are fake” , you’re missing the point of the approach.

The actual words that they use don’t really matter, what matters, is the way that they say them and how you absorb that structure.

This makes Pimsleur one of the most valuable and unique language products out there, there are a lot of products focused on teaching you vocabulary but there aren’t a lot of products designed to teach you the structure of the language in such a subconscious and relaxed way without all the exhausting drills that you would get on a grammar book as a beginner.

The other aspect where Pimsleur shines is in the teaching of pronunciation and acquisition of phonemes. Pimsleur is the best method that I know for teaching you pronunciation, far better than Rosetta Stone or any other Computer Assisted Software. As I already mentioned, Paul Pimsleur was a specialist in teaching french phonemes and phonetics, so, he knew a thing or two about teaching you correct pronunciation, and the way that the Pimsleur method does this is really unique, effective and simple.

Concerning the second point, yeah, Pimsleur might seem boring, but believe me, it’s worth it, 100%. You just have to be patient with it. It might seem boring but as you keep moving forward, you'll realize that you will formulate the structure of the language correctly without thinking too much about it, allowing you to speak more quickly and fluently. It's exactly the same as practicing the scales on your guitar, they might seem boring and even stressful but they are going to help you in incredible ways and they're going to make you a far better player.



Pimsleur provides you the perfect speaking training because you have to respond correctly and quickly, just as you would do in a real life situation, it puts you on the spot and that's exactly what you need when you're developing your speaking abilities.

Concerning whether or not its repetitive… well of course it is! It’s based on a theory called “spaced repetition.” Besides, when you’re a beginner, learning a new skill, correct repetition is exactly what you need.

There's also another important thing: You need to complete all the three levels in order to get Pimsleur's full results. A lot of people only try the first level and then give up and criticize Pimsleur without even getting the full experience. Don't be one of them, if you're going to try Pimsleur, make sure to get the three levels.

But then again, I believe that exaggerated  ads have harm the product instead of helping it.



Clearly, the ad company that made this video didn't even understand the Pimsleur Method.

To make myself clear, I'm not an affiliate of Pimsleur nor I'm receiving any money for writing this post, I just wanted to talk about this language product because it has help me so much and I see that a lot of people underrate it when in reality it's one the best and most effective language products out there.

There's also another language product similar to Pimsleur and that is The Michel Thomas Method.



I would like to talk about it, unfortunately I've never tried it so I can't really review it. I would like to make a full comparison between the two of them, that would be cool, because these methods are unique and quite brilliant.

That would be all for now and thanks for reading :)

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The Ordeal of Learning a Language alone.

So, I've decided to stop learning French and start learning Italian. This month of February I'm focusing exclusively on Italian to see how far  I can go on my own. I don't really need Italian, I don't need to learn it for anything serious so I'm just doing it for the heck of it. But of course, this leads me to think once again about this whole idea of learning a language alone.

I'm a big promoter of self-education and I'm pretty much a self-educated person, so of course: I like the idea of learning a language alone.

And I understand why many people find the idea interesting. I mean, it's not always easy to find a language teacher, a good one or an affordable one, so the notion of doing this entire process alone seems like an incredibly attractive idea.

But this idea of learning a language on your own always forces me to ask a lot of questions.

Questions like:

• What is the maximum level that you can reach alone without proper tuition or living in another country?


• What are the best conditions to learn a language alone?


• What are the cons? (Because, of course, there are cons)


• Which languages should never be studied alone?


• When should we get a teacher and when should we go solo?

One of the initial things that I must say (and this applies to the whole notion of self-education in general) is that is NOT for everyone.

By this I'm not implying that just a limited number of people are capable or have the talent of doing it, no. In fact, it doesn't matter what your capacity is, because learning a language is not a matter of talent, it's a matter of will. That's the first reason why I say this is not for everyone, not everyone has the will to do it. Personally, I've never met anyone, besides myself, who is willing to go to the whole ordeal of learning a language on their own, even if they know it's possible. And I get it, it's not something that is for everybody, that doesn't mean that I'm better or smarter than them, that just means tha we have a different set of hobbies.

But it's not all just fun and games, in order of doing this, you need to be highly motivated, you need to be patient, you need to be disciplined, you need to be willing to construct a new habit, you need to look for material and you need to be consistent, all of that on your own.

As you can see, none of the reason I've just described require any particular talent, but they require a strong will.

And where are you going to obtain your strong will?

Defining why are you learning this language in the first place. Defining your goals and purposes. This is something that I already discussed about in a video, here it is if you want to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w-8k0tUQ1o&list=UUUCihBXpSwutALS1mIn3RBA&feature=c4-overview

I mention this again because it's quite an important factor, it's the thing that you need to be reminding yourself every time that you're struggling to understand something new or every time that you're having a rough time speaking about something. Your purpose is going to be the fountain of your motivation, and if you don't have a strong fountain, you're not going to get very far.

I will attempt to answer some of my own questions, I would also like to know what you guy think about this.

Now, regarding one of my questions:

• What is the maximum level that you can reach alone without proper tuition or living in another country?

Well, I guess this depends on two factors: yourself and the language you're learning. My formula regarding this question is: The more motivated you are and the more popular the language you're learning is, the easiest is going to be to reach a high functional level without proper tuition or living in another country. For example, I believe that everybody is capable of reaching a high functional level in English on their own, because English is the most popular language in the world (and also on the web) and it's incredibly easy to find material to learn it.

Other languages that have this characteristic are Spanish, French, German and Italian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. The more popular the languages are, the easiest is to find material regarding them, the more material you're able to find, the higher the level you can achieve alone.

I believe that I'm capable of reaching a high level of Italian on my own because there are a lot of material regarding that language, however, I don't think I would be able to reach the same level this way studying Serbian. I don't mean that there are no Serbian books, but there are more Italian books than Serbian books at my disposal because Italian is a more popular language than Serbian. So I guess that I'd be able to reach a higher level of Italian than Serbian at the end of the day.

• What are the cons? (Because, of course, there are cons)

Well, you don't have anyone to monitor you but yourself, and let's admit it, that sucks. It's harder to know whether or not you're making mistakes, and if it's a mistake, how bad is it?, and sometimes, we tend to ignore certain small details of the language that later turn out to be huge details. For example: the tones in languages like Chinese or Thai, or the musical intonation of languages like Spanish and Italian, etc. And sometimes, is easier to learn grammar if you have a good teacher that gives you special tips that you can't find anywhere else.

• When should we get a teacher and when should we go solo?

The first thing that I would like to say is that there's nothing wrong with finding a teacher, honestly, I recommend you do that. And still, you can study on your own outside the classroom. For me that's the best way to study a language, you have the best of two worlds. I guess that you should find a teacher immediately if you really need to become functional in a language in a short period of time, if that's your situation, then finding a teacher is a most.

Also, if you feel that you've reached a language plateau (which I did while studying French), finding a teacher is also a good way to keep things rolling. A year ago, I felt that I was going nowhere with my French, I felt that I've reached a wall and that I wasn't learning as much as I once was (Trust me, than can happen to you at any time). Then, I found a French teacher and things started to change, the language became much more interactive and my level actually increased. So, don't be afraid of teachers, specially if they are good. Besides, it's a good way of keeping your skills fresh.

I guess that you should fly solo if you don't have anything that is pressuring you and if you are pleased with the way that you've been learning thus far.

So this has been a little overview regarding the ordeal of learning a language on your own and my experience with it. It's still a topic that I tend to analyze a lot and I also think it's an important notion to take into consideration when we are discussing stuff about education in general.

Thanks for reading :)

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French Grammar Video Lessons with exercises

In this past two years I've been studying French as my main activity, I'm going to present the DELF B1 on April so that's the reason why I've been studying so much. Anyways, for me, the best way to reinforce my knowledge is to teach it, and obviously, the most tricky part of any language is its grammar, so that's the reason why I'm making these series of french grammar videos. So that I can reinforce my knowledge of the rules and help people who are just learning it. Besides the videos, I'm also creating little courses regarding the subjects in memrise.com, so that you can internalize the aspects of the grammar that we are discussing:

These are the videos so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqgrLZmXUb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOyldBYNEY

Exercises of conjugation (1st group of verbs): http://www.memrise.com/course/190829/1-conjugation-of-the-verbs-of-the-1st-group/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goq3p2rcGLk

Exercises of conjugation (2nd groups of verbs): http://www.memrise.com/course/197395/2-conjugation-of-the-verbs-of-the-2nd-group/

That's all so far, hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading :)

 

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When do we actually know a language?

Many polyglots pride themselves by saying that they speak an X number of languages. Unfortunately I have always found this term (the term "speak") extremely vague and inconclusive when it's used in this way. It's in fact more vague and inconclusive when you realize that all of the polyglots have a different definition for it.



When can we say that we speak a language?

Many might say: "It's when you're able to hold a 20 minute conversation with someone", or "It's when you have total mastery of the language and you can pass as a native" others might say: "It's when you talk fluently about many different topics". Others might even say "When you just say a word or a phrase in another language, you're already speaking another language" and, you know... it's technically correct, you are speaking in another language.

And of course, then the ads for special miracle language learning products come: "Speak a language in 3 months,1 month, 2 weeks, " And I have even read "2 days". And of course, as all marketing tricks, they never define the terms that they are using and they keep the actual efficiency of the product as vague as possible.

What do they mean by "speak"? If by that they mean the second definition that I offered, then I'm extremely impressed. But if by "speak" they mean my last definition (which is most probably the case) then the term "speak" means nothing at all to me and holds no importance as an achievement.

So, when can we say that we speak a language?

I don't know.

Personally, I believe that we are asking the wrong question. The term "speak" is a bad measure of success in a language, since it holds no absolute definition, it can mean something incredible or something unimpressive.

Most of the time, when we study a language, we have the goal of being optimal users of this language or optimal readers. But I think that being an optimal language user or reader it's just the culmination of a lot of important language learning and acquisition processes that happened before. Being an optimal language user it's just the natural conclusion of these processes.

But now the question is, what are these language learning processes?

I'm not able to describe all of them, but I'm able to describe to you the one that I think it's the most essential and important, and that is: "To know the language"

To know the language, to be acquainted with it, to know it as a good friend or, putting it with more correct terms, "To have Linguistic Knowledge".

If there's one thing I'm beginning to hate more and more these days, it's without any doubt the use of vagueness when someone is discussing a topic that requires proper definitions.

I wouldn't like to be vague at all in this post and I'm going to define to you what I mean by "knowing a language".

If you're interested, the definition that I'm going to use for this term is the one described in the book "An Introduction to Language" by Victor Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams. This book is heavily used in the first years of MIT's Linguistics and Philosophy curriculum and it's completely amazing, check it out, it's a magnificent introduction to the great field of Linguistics.



So, as I said, I believe we are asking the wrong questions in this paradigm. Instead of asking when do we speak the language, we should ask:

When do we actually know the language?

Linguistics Knowledge is the first thing that you should be after, it's the basis of it all. Once that you acquire Linguistic Knowledge you can move to Functionality, then Fluency and (if you're that crazy for the language and the right conditions are met) Bilingualism.

This is how An Introduction to Language defines Linguistic Knowledge. If you present the following symptoms, that means you know the language you're studying, I'm so sorry.

Linguistic Knowledge is recognized when the following criteria are met:

• Knowledge of the Sound System.


• Knowledge of Words.


• Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences.


• Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge and Performance.

I'm going to explain these points in more detail.

• Knowledge of the Sound System:

"Part of knowing a language means knowing what sounds (or signs) are in that language and what sounds are not."

Ok, so you obviously speak English. English is a language that you know extremely well. So, if I say the word: "Correr", you instantly know that "Correr" is not an English word, it's not a word that belongs to the English language. But how did you know this? How did you know so instantly that 'Correr' wasn't an English word?

Easy, you know which sounds belong to English and which sounds don't. "Correr", that weird double r sound is nowhere to be found in English, so you instantly conclude :  that's not an English word. The same happens with signs while reading. If I write the word "Antaño". You know that's not English, what the hell is that 'ñ' thing? that sign doesn't exist in English, that's NOT English.

If you're studying a foreign language, let's say French. And if you're already able to figure out which sounds and signs belong to the French language and which sounds and signs don't, that's one sign that indicates that you know French.

• Knowledge of Words:

"When you know a language, you know words in that language, that is, which sequence of sounds are related to specific meanings and which are not."

In this context, we are going to define a "word" as "A sequence of articulated sounds that posses a specific meaning".

Knowing a language isn't just about recognizing individual sounds, it's also about recognizing sequence of sounds, recognizing words. Again, you know English, and if I say the word "Chaleco", you instantly know that's not an English word.

But why? I mean, let's analyze the sounds. We have "Cha", this is a sound that exists in the English language: you can find it in words such as "challenge", "charity", "charlatan". Then we have "le", again, that exists in English, you find it in words such as "lesser", "let", "lend", "elegant". Finally "co", which we can find in words like 'cop', 'cooperation', 'coalition', etc.

So, what's going on? How did you know this wasn't English? As I previously mentioned, it's not just about sounds, it's also about the sequence of these sounds. There's no word in the English language that sounds the way that 'Chaleco' does. Although its sounds exist in the English language, English words don't tend to sounds this way. The English language never uses that sort of sound sequence in its words.

If you're learning French and you're able to recognize which sequence of sounds do sound like a French word and which sequence of sounds don't, then, that's another signal that you know French.

• Knowledge of Sentence and Nonsentence:

"When you know a language,you know the sounds, the words and the rules for their combination. Our knowledge of a language determines which strings of words are well-formed and which strings are not."

This is where the interesting part begins. Syntax! Here is where you're able to realize if you indeed know the language. A language isn't just about sounds, it's about the sequence of these sounds (which are words), but it's still not only about words, it's also about the sequence in which these words are used.

If you know a language, you know the correct way in which people tend to form sentences and phrases.

You know English, so check this list of sentences:

1. John kissed the old lady who owned the shaggy dog.


2. Who owned the little shaggy dog John kissed the old lady.


3. John is difficult to love.


4. It's difficult to love John.


5. John is anxious to go.


6. It's anxious to go John.


7. John, who was a student, flunked his exams.


8. Exams his flunked student a was who John.

Can you tell me which sentences are OK and which sentences are kind of weird?

If you answered 1,3,4,5,7 and 2,6,8. Then you  have knowledge of sentences and nonsentences.

But why 2,6,8 are not sentences? Quite simply, because people don't talk that way. You've spent a lot of time with English and that time has allowed you to know that they never say stuff like that. Your experience allows you to recognize that no one speaks with that order, thus, those sentences are malformed.

While studying a foreign language, to be able to tell whether or not a sentence is using a correct structure, it's usually one of the hardest things to do. You require a good amount of exposition to the language in order to do this, and it takes time (sometimes, a lot). But, when you do it, it's one of the most remarkable achievements in language learning.

Knowledge of Senteces and Nonsetences means that you have acquired the syntax of this language (the syntax! probably the most important aspect of any language), if you have managed to do this, congratulate yourself, because this is quite an achievement.

• Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge and Performance:

"So, are you saying that you were the best friend of the woman who was married to the man who represented your husband in divorce?

In the history of speech, that sentence has never been uttered before."

Finally, knowing a language is not just about knowing the sounds, the words and the syntax. But it's also about using all of these elements in order to express yourself creatively. As the dialogue puts it: To create sentences that have never been uttered before. Or, to create sentences that we have never heard before. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge is one of the most vital aspect if you want to express yourself or survive in another language.

I guess that's the most impressive thing about the human language. The fact that it's all about creativity. We're constantly creating sentences out of thin air in order to express ourselves in given situations, sentences that probably have never been said before or that we have never heard. Other animals also posses complex communicative systems, but in those communicative systems there's not a lot of creativity involved. Our langauge demands an enormous amount of creativity in order to use it. A non-creative being will never be able to use a human language properly, never.

And finally, if you're able to be creative with the foreign language that you're learning. If you can constantly form original sentences with a correct use of syntax and you posses all of the other criteria too, then, congratulations, you know the language.

As you can see, knowing a language it's not something easy. A language is an extremely complex entity. Getting to know a language is like getting to know a person. It's going to require time, exposition and different situations or approaches so you can see the multiple faces that this language really has.

After doing all of that stuff, you'll know that you know this language.

Best of luck in your language learning and thanks for reading.

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Teaching You Spanish (Pilot Episode)

I've been wrtiting about languages and language learning for quite a time, discussing different methods, approaches and theories but I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to also help you learn a language in a more direct way: teaching you, and the best language that I have to offer is Spanish since it's my mother language.

Wheter we like it or not (and believe me, I'm not the greatest fan of Spanish), Spanish is of vital importance in today's world, if you're American I would say that is almost mandatory for you to learn Spanish. Almost your entire continent speaks this language and a good chunk of your country to. I guess that it's the first language that you should learn if you're from there.

So I created this first episode, it follows a methodoly similar to the Pimsleur method, which I consider to be the best method for beginners, but I will try to create more realistic or useful situations that you may encounter while travelling to a Spanish speaking country. This series is aimed for eveyone who wants to know the functional aspects that you have to use in a normal Spanish conversation. The Spanish that I will be teaching is Mexican Spanish, and the situations are mainly settled in Mexico, hope you enjoy it and tell me what you think.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/103586277" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

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Reading Methods: Review of LingQ & Learning with Texts

This is the second review that I do of this website, I made the first review when I was just beginning to learn languages on my own so I didn't have a lot of experience about a lot of self-learning techniques or programs or softwares out there . I'm not saying that right now I'm a complete expert on the subject, but I have tried almost all of the most famous self-learning languages courses and websites out there and I think I have a better opinion about them.

So now I'm going to start with LingQ, or to be more accurate LingQ 2.0.



The owner of LingQ is a fellow language learning blogger called Steve Kaufmann, who has quite a reputation on YouTube.

First of all, a lot of people might ask: What is LingQ? Steve Kaufmann defines it as: "Simply the best way to learn languages" mmm... ok, I don't like when people promote something they did in that kind of way and I'm sure that you neither so I'm going to talk to you about LingQ without all the drills and exaggerations.

Ok, LingQ basically promotes itself as a website in which you can "learn languages", but I don't find that accurate. LingQ is not a guide, LingQ is not a course, LingQ is not a systematic method that will teach how to learn languages. LingQ is just a platform where you can find , read and listen to texts in other languages, that's it. Yes, you also have the video calls, professional tutors  and all those things but I think you have to pay for the premium account if you want to get those. Mainly LingQ is a reading platform and a really good one if I may add. Reading a text with LingQ, is pretty much like reading a foreign text with an e-dictionary completely at your disposition. But listen to this, I don't recommend this method at all if you're just starting with a language. If you are just starting try Assimil or Pimsleur better, because in LingQ you already have to know how to read the language and a good decent chunk of basic vocabulary. Otherwise you will not understand a lot of stuff you're reading despite using an e-dictionary and you might get really frustrated because only few texts have complete translations you can look at, so you already have to know the basics.

LingQ is basically a library, a really big online library and let me tell you something: You might hate Steve Kaufmann, his attitude, the way that he promotes himself and his business but I have to admit that he has managed to create the biggest online library of foreign languages texts out there. You have hundreds of texts and books in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Italian... . I have never seen a library with so much content as this one and entirely free, every text has its MP3 audio which is really easy to download and the overall settings are easy to use.



For me this is the greatest aspect that LingQ has, you can find so much free material with audio. I think LingQ is the only website that I know that offers this and for "free".

But sadly there's a huge downside on this website, a huge letdown that made me stop using this site until I found a solution to it.  The point of reading with LingQ is to create definitions of the words that you don't know, every time you read something you don't know, you click on that word and LingQ will tell you the definition of that word in your language. That word will be highlighted in yellow and saved in your database. That's how you learn vocabulary with this method, the more definitions you do, the better, that's the whole point. But when you're using LingQ (the free version) you only get to create 100 definitions and that's it, and believe me, when you're reading  multiple texts in a foreign language 100 definitions is not enough.

You have to go to your database, erase the definitions you already have and then you can return to read. That was a complete pain in the ass for me, I was completely comfortable reading with this method and bum! you have created 100 LingQs that's your limit!, I had to return to my database, erase a few words and bum! I reached the limit again. That just made this method so annoying and uncomfortable that I stopped using it. That's the greatest flaw of this site , and that's why I don't use it anymore. Well I still use it but in another way...



Learning With Text was the solution that I found to this problem, and without any doubt LWT is the best way to use this reading method.

Learning With Text is not a website, is a software, kinda like an app. You use LWT exactly the same way that you use LingQ. But! LWT is completely free to use, and you can make as many definitions as you want to! no limits, the way it should be.



The only thing is that you have to import everything to it,  when you install LWT the whole software is empty you have to import your texts and audio to it, but this is really simple (copy/paste kinda stuff) and you also can choose two online dictionaries to use. And with that, you can study and read so much comfortably without limitations, without erasing words from you database, with a proper dictionary of your choise where you can see multiple definitions, and all of the data is in your computer so you don't really need the web to use it.

The downside of Learning With Text and there's really only one: Is a little bit tricky to download, is completely free, it doesn't take a lot of time to download but the way to download it and install it is a little weird.

There are several methods to install it, you can go to http://lwt.sourceforge.net/ to see them.

This is the method I used (using Windows and EasyPHP):

1. First you go to this link http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickeasyphp/files/EasyPHP/5.3.6.1/


2. Click in EasyPHP-5.3.6.1-setup.exe and a program will download into your computer, install it in Program Files.


3. Now go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt/ and download the zip of Learning With Text.


4. Once you have the zip of LWT, copy it and paste it in C:\Program Files\EasyPHP-5.3.6.1\www.


5. Unzip LWT inside this www folder. You'll have a lwt folder, after that you can delete the zip if you want to.


6. Open the lwt folder, you'll see a file named connect_easyphp.inc.php changed that name to connect.inc.php.


7. Now go to your Windows Start Menu, you'll see an EasyPhP icon, click it to activate it.


8. Now go to your browser and try these addresses: http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt , http://127.0.0.1:8888/lwt or http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt_v_1_4_9%20(1)/, one of them should open LWT for you, when you find it, bookmark it so you don't need to write all those weird numbers again.


9. Now, when you want to open LWT again, just click in your EasyPhP icon at your windows menu and go to the address that you bookmarked and that's it.


10. Another thing, if you want to import audio, just go to your lwt folder, inside create another folder called media, you'll import all your audio there.
    

And that's it, once you've already installed it you can use LingQ and LWT combined.

As I already told you LingQ is a big library and you should use it as such. LWT is the best way to use this reading method and you should use it as such.

Go to LingQ, pick a lesson and import it to LWT so you can study it more comfortable, with no limitations and no cash spend. You can also import to LWT whatever kind of text you want, you can import songs (which are really useful) news and all kinds of stuff.

Do this!,because this reading method really works, if you already know the basics of the language and you use this method; you can pretty much read and understand every text in that language and at the same time acquiring a lot of information, vocabulary and the overall rythm of the language.

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One of the best language learning methods, Assimil: How to use it and review

I have finished one of the most helpful books that I have read so far in my entire life, "Assimil: Le Nouveau Francais Sans Peine". If you are already a veteran of the language learning field; the most probable thing is that you're already aware of this method, but if you're a new comer in this discipline, this is the right place for you and probably this is the right method for you.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="437"] The Assimil Series: Available in a lot of languages[/caption]

The Assimil Series is one of the greatest self-learning books that you could encounter, mainly because of its unique method that consists in an overall exposition of the language you're learning in short lessons which feature either short dialogues, short stories, jokes, or interesting text about the language or about the country in which that language is spoken.

I know that the books are expensive and everything, but... you know... cuf, cuf... you could get them...cuf, cuf...around, cuf, cuf, cuf.

So, almost every lesson of the book looks pretty much like this:



You have your text in L2 ( the language you're learning ) and right in the next page you have the overall translation of that complete text in L1 (your mother language). But the true powerful aspect about Assimil is the audio, the book also has the audio recordings of every single lesson in the book, and that's the most important aspect of this method.

I know what many of you are probably thinking, "so it's basically just a book with a bunch of little texts, jokes and dialogues, but it will not actually teach me the language".

That's where you're wrong, I'm studying French right now and when I started "Le Nouveau Francais Sans Peine" I was a little skeptical about this method, but to be honest, it looked way more interesting and with much more content than the grammar-focused conventional books that I was studying at the time. So I decided to give it a shot, and the results were  amazing, taking in consideration the initial expectations that I had for this method.

This method is amazing because it works in a really mysterious but effective way, and also, (if you use it properly) it will actually make you start speaking and writing the language, better yet, it will help you to express yourself in the language, whether you're making some grammatical mistakes or maybe you're not speaking the language at 100%, you are still able to express yourself and make people who only speak that language understand you even tought you don't speak it 100% correctly, and that really should be your first goal while you're learning a language, to be able to express yourself so that natives understand you even if you're not speaking in a perfect way, that's your first goal, and Assimil really helps you a lot to achieve it.

First of all, there are two things that I would like to talk about this method. Okay the first thing is that, although Assimil tells you in the first pages that this method is for absolute beginners, I still don't quite believe that, but that's just my opinion, maybe you pick up the German Assimil and you'll learn a lot from it and you'll find it great, but I think that before you get to start with the actual book, you first need to check out a little bit your target language.

What do I mean by that? Ok, just check out the basics of the language like:

• Common greetings


• The verb To Be in present


• The verb To Have in present


• Common descriptive articles like: tall, fat, thin, etc.


• How to ask questions.


• Numbers, Days and Months

And that's pretty much it , you know, really basic stuff. But now pay attention at the expression that I used "check out", that doesn't mean that you need to learn them or to memorize them completely. Not at all, just get to know the language, familiarize with it, this is not yet the time to learn the language, it's just the time to familiarize yourself with it a little bit and c'mon don't be lazy, you can check out those 6 things that I listed above in just one week or maybe a couple of days.

Why do I says this? Ok, I believe this deserves an explanation. The thing is that if you don't know zero about the language, when you open Assimil, you are going to be truly expose to the language. You're a going to see texts all written in the language and even if you see the translation next to it; it's highly probable that you will be a little overwhelm by the language and by this method and if you're impatient you'll probably end up saying "Oh the hell with this!, this is just too advance, I will never be able to learn these entire texts, I need something simpler" and you will throw the book away. Big mistake.

But if you have already check out the language, it's probable than in the first lessons you will be able to identify certain words or sentences, and you will say "Hey I know what this means" even tought you still don't understand the rest 90% of the text without the translation, that feeling of "huh I already knew that word" or "huh I already knew what that sentences meant" kinda gives you some sort of motivation to keep moving forward.

How to use Assimil:

Ok, now let's get into the real stuff, how to use this book? In the first pages, the book already kinda explains you how to use it, but it's not really specific about it, it tells what you have to do, but it doesn't tell you in which order you need to do it, or which learning part is the most important. So, if you are having troubles or questions about how to use this method, I will tell you the way that I used it, maybe you don't like it, maybe you want to do it your way, but I'm just recommending this way because that's how I feel that I got the most out of this method.

Okay, first, remember the part of the audio recordings that I said before?

[caption id="attachment_402" align="alignnone" width="254"] Yes, here we go again.[/caption]

Well we're going to begin with that. The first thing that you want to do, when you're already about to start lesson one is... CLOSE THE GODDAMN BOOK!
Listen to the audio recordings, don't read anything and just listen to lesson one over an over again. Okay I'm going to explain myself, the language learning process in divided into 4 parts: Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. Assimil will help you with all of them, but the most important skill that you have to develop in your early stages of learning is: Listening. Yes I know that I have already said this a thousand times in my previous posts, but "Listening" is the form that the language gets inside your mind, inside your brain, and once that happens, everything is going to be so much fluid.

How many times should I listen to the audio?

Well I think this depends in the language you're learning, for example if English is your L1 and you're trying to learn another Germanic-based language like: German, or Danish. Or if your L1 is Spanish and you're trying to learn: French or Italian. I think that mandatory you'll have to listen to it 10 times, and then, once you have already listen to it 10 times, listen to it more times until you kinda actually now what they're talking about. If they are languages from the same group of families you should be able to at least recognize one or two things about what they're saying, when you feel that you understand just a little bit of what they're talking about, okay that's enough and open the book.

But what about if you're learning a language completely different from any other language you know, I'd say that 20 times mandatory.

Ok, that's the first part, now open the book, put the audio of the lesson once again and read (in your mind) while you're listening to the audio, do this at least five times. Then stop the audio, read the translation and all the notes that the text has, and then play the audio once again and try to read it yourself out loud along with the audio, do that at least 5 times.

Now you're going to close the book and you're going to do one of the most important techniques in the early stages of language learning, this is going to help you a little more with your listening and your pronunciation: Shadowing.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="302"] That's right baby![/caption]

When you do shadowing you have to listen to the audio and you have to say everything that the audio it's saying, but now here's the trick, you will NOT pause the audio at any time. You have to follow everything that the guy is saying without stopping and with the best pronunciation possible. That's why it's called "Shadowing". At the beginning is going to be a little hard, but it's all matter of practice.

How much shadowing you should do?

Well, ideally 10 times but I'd say that you should stop, when you understand everything that it's said in the lesson and when you feel that your pronunciation it's similar or almost identical as the recordings.

How many lessons should I do?

One lesson per day is perfect

But what about writing?

Ok, yes I know the method that I described doesn't contain any actual writing developement, but stay calm dudes. Assimil is divided into 2 big parts or "waves", in the First Wave (1 - 49) you should do what I already described to you and in the Second Wave (50 - 99), after you have already done your usual routine, as Assimil explains to you, you have to go back to one of the earlier lessons and you have to pick up a notebook, read the translation of that lesson and translate that translation (xD) into the original language without reading the original language. So is that good writing practice for you?

When you finally finish Assimil you'll have developed a good listening ability, tons and tons of vocabulary, a fair amount of idiomatic expressions, and the ability of expressing yourself in various subjects.

Is not going to completely teach you the language, but is going to make that tedious early learning stage so much easier, productive, faster and effective.

Trust me, I have used it in my French, and recently I met a French teacher (from France) and she told me that she was amazed with my French, the vocabulary that I knew, my reading ability and the sentences that I was able to formulate while speaking, she didn't believe that I have only studied french for less than a year. I'm not trying to show off xD, I'm just trying to make you realize how effective this method could be, and you should definitely check it out, the books are available for a lot of languages: Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, you name it, they are extremely good and trust me they will help you a lot.

I hope that this post was helpful for you and thanks for reading :)

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The 1st Step for learning a New Language: Something YouTube Polyglots overlook.

When you want to learn a new language and you go to YouTube so you can find people who can teach you a language via vlogs or  via 10 minute lesson videos, you'll actually find people who are also learning the language or they have learned the language and they're actually giving you tips of how to learn that language,  and if you search a little bit more, you'll find polyglots that can even teach you (in their own way) how to learn a language,  multiple languages or any language at all. If you have encounter one of them, he's probably from the not so famous community of YouTube polyglots.

Now you can find a whole community of polyglots on YouTube, members that post really interesting and helpful videos about language learning, some of the most popular and influential polyglots on YouTube are: Moses McCormick (username: laoshu50500), Luca (poliglotta80), Richard Simcott (Torbyrne), Steve Kaufmann (lingosteve), Felix (loki2504) and the legendary Professor Alexander Arguelles (ProfASAr).

All of them are a true inspiration if you want to learn languages, they're always giving you advices on the subject or sharing their experiences or showing you their method. Almost all of them, use (as far as I'm concern) the liberal method that I already explained on a previous post. They use a liberal listening-reading-speaking  method, without focusing on grammar.

However, despite all of the videos that they make and all of the good advices that they give, sometimes I think that they miss a really important factor about the people who are watching their videos. Sometimes, some of these polyglots like Kaufmann, try to impose you a predetermined way of how you should learn a language, and I don't blame Kaufmann because his method is actually very good  but, I feel that they miss a really important question.

And this is that important question:

If you want to learn a new language, the first and the most important thing that you have to ask yourself is: "Why do I want to learn this language?" that's the single most important thing that you have to know, why do you want to learn this language?.

You must completely define the reason why you want to learn that language, that's the first and the most important step of all. Why is the most important step of all? Because is going to completely define the organization, style, material, time and methodology that you're going to use for learning that language.

Define the reason.

Now, maybe you don't really know why do you want to learn this language, well I will help you, and I will explain to you the most common reasons for why somebody would want to learn a language.

Why do you want to learn a language?

Well... maybe you like the language, maybe you like or you're interested in the language, in the country, in the people, in the culture. Maybe you fell in love with the women of that country and what better way to hit on them that speaking their own language and being an exotic foreigner :D, or maybe you have friends or family who speak that language and you want to communicate with them in that way. Maybe you want to travel over there for a few weeks or for a few months and you want be able to communicate with the natives.

All of those reasons that I just mentioned, enter in the "SOCIAL REASONS" cabinet: You want to learn the language because you're interested in the social aspect of the language. You're interested in meeting people, maybe making friends. For this you don't need to learn in an official way or anything, you don't need to take exams or anything, you can learn just by using almost completely the Liberal Method. You just want to learn it so you can interact with people in a normal social way.  A lot of people have all of these reasons, however if you want to live in that country or if you want to work in that country or in a company of that country, I'm afraid that for these you'll need official studies or you will need to take official tests regarding that language, what brings me to the second most important cabinet of reasons which is:

The "BUSINESS REASONS"cabinet:

Let's say that you already have a profession, you're already working in some place or looking for a job, and maybe you say, "Hey, I want to learn a new language so I can expand my curriculum", "I want to learn that language because I want to work on that country", nowadays is common fact that people who can speak another language or multiple languages don't struggle to get a job as much as people who only speak one language, so maybe you can say: "I want to learn a new language because I want to get a job". You wont believe how many windows of opportunities  begin to emerge when you learn a new language, is almost like a new work horizon and a new language is a definitive big plus on your Curriculum Vitae. The more languages you know, the less competition you'll have during job interviews.

However, for this cabinet of reasons, you'll mandatory need two things.

First, you'll need official studies of this language or official recognition, now hang on a little bit!, official recognition is not as hard as you may think. First of all, you're probably asking right now, why do I need official recognition in the first place?, Well, when you're in a job interview, you can say: I know Chinese, I know Swedish, I know Russian, I know Spanish; and the interviewer is going to be like "Ok" but he will search on your Curriculum for documented evidence that proves that you can speak that language. He will search for a diploma, for a test, for a course, for any kind of official valid recognition that proves that you indeed speak that language in x level, and if he doesn't find any, he will not take that aspect into consideration.  You need official studies or official recognition so you can prove to the company, institution or people who are going to hire you that you can speak the language.

But, how do you get that?

How do you get official studies or official recognition?, well there are basically three ways: you can study in a Language Institute, finish your studies and earn a diploma, certificate, a bachelor degree, whatever. Other way is to go study on that country, receiving at the end of your studies there; a certificate or a recognition of one of the country's universities.

And the third, possibly the cheapest one but also possibly the hardest one is; to study for yourself and to take one of the official certification exams on that language and to approve it.

I'm going to make a little explanation here; almost every popular language out there has it's own certification exam, English has the famous TOEFL (for US English) IELTS (for UK English) and a few others. French has the DELF and DALF, Spanish has the DELE, Portuguese has the CELPE-Bras, Chinese has the HNK, German has the TestDaf, well I think you get the idea now.

Almost all of these exams are divided into 6 levels: A1 (Beginner), A2 (Intermediate Beginner), B1 (Intermediate), B2 (Intermediate Advance), C1 (Really Advance), C2 (You can even correct a native).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="478"] If you study and if you're really serious about this; you can get one of these :D[/caption]

These are official exams and if you approve one of them you'll get and official certification valid anywhere. Now these exams aren't really cheap, and is really probable that  you will need to travel to a city where you can take this test. So I would recommend to find out where can you take the exam and how much does it cost, once that you know that, you can start saving some money.

You need to study a lot for these tests, you can find guides and other material like books that can help you for preparing yourself. Generally the B1 and B2 levels are the most demanded levels, I don't know how it is in other countries but in France, you need the B2 level if you want to study  over there.

Second, you need to learn the vocabulary of your area of work. For example, maybe you're an engineer, and you know German, you presented the TestDaf B1 and you passed it and now a German Industrial Company at Munich has hired you. Knowing the language is of course the most important thing but while you're working, you also need to know the vocabulary or terminology that is use on your area of work. If you're a doctor you should know medical vocabulary, if you are a lawyer you should learn law terminology, if you're an engineer you should know engineering terminology, etc, etc. Learn the vocabulary, learn the terminology that is used on that area of work in that language.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225"] Yep, you'll have to study on of these, on your respective area of work of course[/caption]

EDUCATIONAL REASONS

But a lot of people may be asking:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="255"] But what about if I want to become a teacher?[/caption]

Well, when it comes to teachers it tends to vary a lot, first of all where did you want to teach? Here? in other country? in Kindergarten?  in Elementary School? in Junior High? High School? College? other kind of institution? everything seems to vary a lot. There are some places that will hire you as a teacher just by the simple fact that you kinda know the language. There are other way more respectable places that will ask you for official certifications (even if it's your own native language). There are other places that will actually demand you a Bachelor on Languages to work there as a teacher, and there are other high ranking places that will demand you a Masters degree (that is actually what every institution should ask for). So yeah, when it comes to teachers it all depends in where do you want to work.

But if you want to become a teacher, working at a respectable place; you need official studies or official certifications, as simple as that.

And of course if you want to become a translator, an interpreter, a professional linguist, if you want to work on an embassy or something like that, you need official studies for that, you need a career.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="392"] You need studies, but it's truly a beautiful job and they worth it.[/caption]

And that's everything that I have to say. Define why do you want to learn a language, it can be for the social reasons (meeting/speaking with natives on a normal social way, or just learning it because you want to learn it), for business reasons (applying a language on your work or career) , for educational reasons (becoming a teacher) or for working reasons (becoming a translator, interpreter, professional linguist, etc).

And now you know what do you really have to do in each one of them.

Thanks for reading :D

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Nice Self-Learning Tool for Languages: LingQ (Review)

So the other day I was just checking out videos about languages in YouTube, and I found this guy.



His name is Steve Kaufman, and he is the founder of a Self-Learning Language Online community called LingQ, he also makes nice videos talking about language learning, if you are interested in this you can check out his channel.



I became really interested about this LingQ community so I decided to join in, is free so you don't have to worry about money, well if you want a premium account you have to pay, anyway, LingQ uses the Liberal Method that I already described in a previous post, so you know, it's a nice community for you to start learning a new language. The languages that they have available for their community are English, Japanese, Dutch, French, Russian, German, Italian, Chinese and Spanish and a few more.



Now I'm not being payed for talking about LingQ or anything, no, I just  found this website, I thought it was really interesting and I decided to share it with you.

What I really like about LingQ is that they have a lot of audio media for you to listen in your target language, always remember: Listen, is the most important part of learning any language and sometimes is really hard to find audio media for you to listen, yeah, you found books, you found magazines, but always remember, listening is the MOST important part, and if you don't have audible media, you're missing the most important part. The audio files in LingQ are easy to download, they're in mp3 format and you can be listening to them in your MP3P, LingQ actually encourages you to do this.

One thing that I didn't like, is the actual LingQ process of learning new words, it's a little tedious for me, to start selecting the words that I don't know, I'm the supporter of the idea that it's not really effective to learn new vocabulary without context that you can see right there. So I always prefer to read a lot, than memorize one for one the words that I don't know. Other thing that I didn't like is that there are just a few text translations of the text in the lesson, sometimes you have a sentence that you don't understand, you can check out the meaning of each word but sometimes that doesn't help because you still don't understand what it actually means within the text, so you try to check it out on the text translation and oh surprise, there's no text translation, and that's a little bit bothering, I don't know how it is in English but there are not too many translations in Spanish.

A useful tool is the Incomplete Text exercise or Cloze text exercise in the Vocabulary menu, that one is really helpful. A quick advice, if you have the free account, you can only choose 100 LingQ, that's your limit, if you reach it, you have to erase some.

Another advice about listening jejejeje: When you enter the Library you will find numerous podcast of your target language, when you enter to them, you'll find at the left the text of that podcast for you to read, and in the right you'll find the actual audio podcast for you to listen. My advice is: listen, do not read. Ignore the text and just hit play and listen, listen and listen. Do this like four times and then you read, and then you highlight the words that you don't know, LingQ will tell you the meaning and then you listen again a few more times.

There's also an Skype-way of having conversations with tutors of the target language in the target language that you're learning, I haven't try it yet, but when I do, I'll tell you about it. You can also send written works in the target language so people that know the language can check out your grammar and correct you if you made any mistakes.

So overall is a really nice Language community and you should definitively check it out.

http://www.lingq.com/

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Language Learning

I will dedicate this category of the blog for language learning, I'm going to start a little experiment with a new language teaching method that I'm developing right now.



I make this method using the Assimil and Pimsleur philosophy and also combining the teaching philosophy of a few teachers that I had, my personal experiences  in learning languages and the philosophy of  a few polyglots that I know , loki2504 is one of them, you should definitely subscribe to him if you if you’re a language lover.



Another great youtuber in the area of languages is FluentCzech his videos are awesome  and incredibly useful



This is a webiste that I recommend alot for everyone trying to learn any language:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

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Learning Languges: Do I need to learn grammar?

When you start investigating  methods of how to teach languages, you will soon find out that, there are these two opposite methods, these two opposite methods that are always in conflict with one an other, which are those methods?, well there’s the method that wants to teach almost the entire language as if it was a really theoretical science with a bunch of rules and with a bunch of grammatical equations like physics or like chemistry. We will call this the Conservative method, and there’s this other method way more liberal, that say’s the hell with rules, the hell with grammar,  just listen to the language, you will eventually know how to speak it, you will eventually know how to read it and all the grammar that it has, you'll learn naturally because that’s  the way that you learned you mother language. Let’s call this the Liberal Method.

And, you know, these methods are right and wrong at the same time, what these two methods don’t realize is that they’re both complementary to each other. Learning the language just with a bunch of rules, with a lot of vocabulary without context, you know, learning it as a really strict science, is not effective, if you just learn the language theoretically you will fail at the moment that you start a conversation, because you don’t really know how people actually speak, you don’t know their common day expressions you don’t know the rhythm of a conversation , and besides of that, the Conservative Method is a truly boring method you will never learn to completely speak a language if you learn it as a science, you can apply this method in the really advance stages of your learning, but do not start with learning every single grammatical rule, there are important rules that you should know right from the beginning, but do not focus in the more advance rules at the beginning of your learning, focus on the simple ones.

And there’s this other method that says, screw grammar, you don’t need it, you don’t need it at the early stages just listen to the language, you will eventually know how to speak it, you will eventually know how to read it and all the grammar that it has, you'll learn naturally because that’s  the way that you learned your mother language.

Yeah is not as simple as that, you need grammar, simple grammar, the simplest grammar ever, but you need grammar,  once that you’re familiar with the really really basic grammar you can procede to the 4 stages which are: Listen, Speak, Read, Write.

Now the great objection that this method has against grammar is the following: You don’t need grammar, because when you were a little baby you naturally learn how to speak your mother language without grammar or without rules, just listen and speak, and that’s how you will learn any other language.

You know that is actually true, except for the final part, “and that’s how you will learn any other language” mmm not exactly, you learned you mother language that way, because you were in the adequate environment to learn it. Every person that you were in contact with, spoke that language, you were listening to that language all the time, you we’re in contact with that language 24/7, and that language was the only way to truly communicate with other people.

Now that I’ve said that, the Liberal Method might actually work if you, for example I’m learning French right now, and the Liberal Method might work for me if I go to France or to Belgium and I stay there for maybe 6 months or a year. I’m sure that if I do that, the Liberal Method will work, I’m going to be in contact with French all the time, I’ll be listening to francophone people all the time and I’ll eventually know how to speak it fluently, I’ll eventually know how to read it, and how to write it. But my point is that you need to be in an environment where you will be in contact with that language all the time.  And if you don’t have this environment you will not learn a language by this method, or maybe you will but it’ll take you decades or even more.

But there is something that it’s absolutely correct about this method, this method strongly encourages you to listen to the language. And that’s the most important thing that you have to do when you’re learning a new language, listen to that language.  You need to listen to that language a lot. Because a the end of the day, a language is an spoken way of communication, you can also write it, of course, but  what is the most common way of communication that you use in your daily life, spoken communication,  you speak with people, that’s the most common way to communicate, and what do you need to speak with people? Know how to speak their language , and how will you learn how to speak, their language?, you listen to that language!

So with that little rant that I just made, you’re probably wandering: okay, but, what’s your point? , which one of these methods is the correct method?

I think that the correct method is the combination of these two methods, why do I think that? Because that was the way that I learned English, with these two methods combine.

You see I listen to a lot of English, because all of the English speaking media  that was around my country: all the video games, all the music, all the films, all the TV, and I learn English grammar in school and that’s it. The grammar that I learn in school was grammar that I could’ve easily learned in just one year. It was simple grammar, but that simple grammar made me understand a lot of English. So your question is why do I need grammar? Because if you study the common grammar of the language, you’ll learn that language so much faster, you will understand it so much faster, you will save years of learning with the Liberal Method if you just stop for a second, and you know, check out the common grammar of that language, and if you apply this two methods together you will learn a language in a fast and effective way.



And for that reason, I created a Language Learning page on this blog, where I'm going to put useful stuff for learning languages and also, try to develop my own teaching/learning method.

Thanks for reading :)

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