Thursday, April 23, 2009

Learn Any Language Easy

"We have strong evidence today that studying a foreign language has a ripple effect, helping to improve student performance in other subjects." - Richard Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education under Bill Clinton

One of the biggest regrets of my k-12 education is that I received little knowledge of other languages. Sure in elementary school we'd study the numbers and colors in the language of the culture we were studying, but it wasn't much. In our school district you start languages classes in high school. Being a small school we only had 3 languages course to choose from. I chose Latin because I was thinking about going into veterinary medicine. Well like most students at my school I only took the minimum 2 years of it. This was mainly because I didn't like it because we had 3 teachers in those 2 years and I had better uses of my time, or so I thought.

Like I said I really really wish I had learned languages much earlier in life. Cartoons and other kid shows do teach you numbers and stuff, thanks to those shows I still know 1-10 in Spanish. But I've always had the goal of traveling the world. Not knowing the languages of the countries I visit makes the trip much more stressful, unsafe and more of a hassle than a vacation. So I went on a crusade to find fun and easy ways to learn languages easy.

This blog is my way of sharing all this information with you. In our day and age traveling is much more common than it was 100 years ago, and people are actually moving to other countries more and more. Immigrants in the US have made Spanish the second most spoken language in the country! Now is the time to jump on & hold on tight, learn as much as you can because you only live once!

This is how I learned to
Speak Spanish

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Learn Any Language Quickly

Did you know Spanish is the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world? A few years ago I wanted to find a way to learn Spanish quickly. I looked everywhere to find a program, a book, audio programs, etc. that was both quick and fun. I finally found it with this program! It truly did the trick for me, here's the link...
Learn Spanish Now

Mandarin Chinese is THE largest language in the world. Many believe it is the language of the future. I have friends who have kids as young as 5 taking Chinese classes in school, also many involved in business are learning Chinese to keep up with their ever growing global power in the business & technology worlds. If you'd really like to try your tongue at Chinese I'd check out BBC's language center, it has tons of invaluable resources.
BBC Chinese

German is number 10 on the list of most widely spoken languages in the world (See the List Here). When I think German I think Germany, to my knowledge that was the only country that really spoke German on a regular bases. Sure German's live around the world, but I never thought it was popular in countries like Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, just to name a few. If your interested in traveling to any of these countries, or if you have a personal interest in German for heritage or other reasons, check out Rocket German.
Learn German

French is the language of love, one that is spoken in far more areas than France itself. Did you know many African countries consider French their official language? 72 million people speak French around the world! If that many people speak the language of love then sign me up! I've used my ruff French in many countries throughout Europe (and Canada, though its a very different Dialect). My favorite tool to use to catch up on my French is here,
French-quick & easy

Last but not least, Italian. In my opinion, Italian should be the language of love (though accents in general may qualify for first place). I have had a thing for Italian since I can remember! My time to study it has been limited, but my favorite place to catch up before I travel would be (again) BBC's Language site. Their Italian section even has games, and a quick fix section where you can download emergency Italian lessons for a quick brush-up before you leave. (Great for plane rides!) Here's the link again...
BBC Italian

Good Luck Learning!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Starting off learning a language

Probably the most efficient way of learning a language is to immerse yourself in it, ie. go spend a few months in a foreign country. However for the average Joe this is not possible. Yet many people are working hard to save up for a vacation or have had a life long dream of speaking other languages. I know from experience that it's hard to find the motivation and the tools that will help you learn the correct skills in the shortest amount of time possible (while hopefully enjoying yourself too!) My goal with this blog is to help people accomplish just that- learn a new language, fun, easy, fast!

To start off I'll share my favorite vocab building tip....

freerice.com

No I'm not kidding! This site has Italian, German, Spanish & French vocab words, plus its fun, you can play for 5 minutes or 50 minutes, and the best part may just be it helps people around the world. (The people you're helping may be speaking the exact language you're practicing! Think about that while you're playing, I'm sure it'll bring a smile to your face and add motivation!) All you have to do is go to the site & change the subject to the language you'd like to learn.

Have fun & keep working hard!