When I tell people that I speak thirteen languages, they often think that as a polyglot, learning languages is all I do with my time. They’re convinced that I spend the majority of each day studying, and that I have little time for anything else—including friends, dating, travel, and other free-time activities. This is definitely not […]
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Learning a language from scratch can be very intimidating, especially if you’ve never done it before. In school, at least, a lot of the decisions are made for us. In a language classroom, we are told what to learn, how to practice, and how quickly to progress through new material. On your own, the situation is very […]
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Have you ever worried about how to memorize vocabulary? Have you tried to memorize a word over, and over, and over again, but it just won’t stick, at all? It’s happened to me plenty of times. And let me tell you, it’s frustrating. You put lots of effort into getting one short sequence of letters into your brain, and, […]
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One of the most interesting aspects of learning a new language is how it can benefit your life in powerful and often unpredictable ways. I have fond memories of the time when, fifteen years ago, I was sitting on the steps of a fountain in my home city of Rome, Italy. On that evening, I was chatting […]
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Have you ever tried to get in shape by going to the gym? You make the decision that you want to improve your health and fitness, and buy a gym membership to do it. But then what? You enter the gym, and you suddenly take in all of the options available to you. You need to pick […]
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So, you want to learn a new language. It’s a dream shared by many. In fact, I’ve never met a person who didn’t want to learn a foreign language at some point in their life.Whether it be for work, for pleasure, for travel, love, or just the mere challenge of it, nearly everyone I’ve spoken to […]
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“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 your life […]
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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 KnowledgeThough the human brain stores […]
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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. SheehanThe Difficulty of Learning New WordsWords are the building blocks of every spoken language. They are fascinating and yet often difficult to manage, especially if they […]
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