“Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar.” (Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.) ― Gloria E. Anzaldúa When I visited New York for the first time in 2015, many things were just as I had imagined: the frenetic pace, the impressive Manhattan skyline, the buzzing nightlife. What I […]
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Every person alive today comes from a long, unbroken line of humanity, since well before the advent of recorded history. Our ancestors, themselves the products of a long evolutionary chain with its own twists and turns, lived their own, unique lives which led unknowingly to the life you’re leading at this very moment. You owe […]
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This post is the second half of a two-part article containing ten tips to help you acquire vocabulary in any target language. To view the first five tips, check out 10 Tips for Learning Vocabulary in Any Foreign Language – Part 1 here. 6. Draw Connections Between New Words and Previous Knowledge Though the human […]
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“O, the sheer magnificence of words that come together like waves upon a beach, each telling its own story is a life worthy to be read” ― John M. Sheehan The Difficulty of Learning New Words Words are the building blocks of every spoken language. They are fascinating and yet often difficult to manage, especially […]
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A few weeks ago, I received a very exciting email: It came from Rachel M. Paling, a famous language coach and language learner who created the method called Neurolanguage Coaching® and one of the first-ever language coaching certifications in existence, accredited by the International Coach Federation and known as the ELC Language Coaching Certification®. The […]
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There are many languages throughout the world with writing systems that are considered very difficult to master. These scripts are so complex that most people are discouraged from learning them even before they start. Perhaps the most difficult language in this regard is Japanese. To a complete beginner, the Japanese script looks a lot like […]
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Have you ever set a New Year’s resolution to learn a foreign language? Have you ever sat down and studied a language on January 1st, full of hope for new and bright learning opportunities, only to drop everything after a few weeks? You started off so strong, so passionately, and then, much to your dismay, […]
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“Mandarin Chinese is the most difficult language to learn to read and write.” Have you ever heard anyone say that before? I have. I was eighteen when an acquaintance of mine first told me tales of Mandarin Chinese, a language I had not yet been exposed to. “It’s impossible!” they said. “All those characters are […]
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“It’s all Greek to me” Have you ever heard that phrase before? It’s a relatively common phrase in English, used when you don’t understand a bit of spoken or written language that has been communicated to you, regardless of what language it’s actually in. Many languages have equivalent phrases, though the foreign language mentioned can […]
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English is a truly incredible language. It is spoken nearly everywhere in the world, and according to the most recent statistics, more than 300 million people speak it as a foreign language. And yet, despite this widespread popularity, few non-native speakers actually achieve a high level in the English language. This can be for a […]
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