Guest Blogger – Karen Schweitzer – 15 Free Language Learning Podcasts

Have you always wanted to learn a new language but could never find the time in your busy schedule. Language learning podcasts are a great way to learn at your own pace when it is convenient for you. Here are 15 free language podcasts to try out in your spare time:

Multilanguage Podcasts :

LanguagePod101 – The LanguagePod101 offers short and easy podcasts for learning 11 different languages. The podcasts are a good way for language enthusiasts to learn a few minutes each day.

Open Culture - Open Culture features free podcasts for 37 languages. These easy-to-listen-to podcasts feature languages from Arabic to Yiddish. This site also provides a free program for teaching yourself to learn a different language.

Free Language - This free online language learning site offers podcast lessons for language learners. The podcasts listed on the main page are for Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish but throughout the site there are several more.

Radio Lingua Network - The Radio Lingua Network offers free Coffee Break podcasts for French, Spanish, and German language learners. There are also several other one-minute podcasts for other languages. The Coffee Break podcasts are designed for beginners and last from 15 to 20 minutes.

World Languages Podcasting - World Languages Podcasting features conversations in several languages. The free podcasts are the perfect way for learners to refresh their skills or learn a foreign language. Transcripts can be purchased for $1.99.

Language Specific Podcasts :

LearnItalianPod - The LearnItalianPod features podcasts for beginner to advanced Italian language learners. Each episode lasts between 15 and 20 minutes.

Learn Thai Podcast - This podcast features several Thai phrase lessons through audio and video. The podcast that can be listened to on your computer or downloaded to an mp3 player. Learners can also download transcripts of the lessons.

ESL Pod – The ESL Pod is a free English learning podcast that provides phrases and expressions at a slower speed for easier listening and learning. The podcasts explain the expressions and phrases along with how they are used.

DailyFrenchPod – This free podcast, offered by the French Training Service, features hundreds of audio and video lessons. The French learning podcasts last anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes and contain fun, easy lessons that can be listened to on the website or downloaded.

Learn to Speak German – The Learn to Speak German blog provides free German lessons from Germany and Switzerland. Lessons cover a wide variety of subjects, including formal to informal phrases, weather, holidays, and much more.

Edufone - Edufone has top-notch Spanish lesson podcasts that are taught by native speakers. Users can browse through the podcasts to find specific lessons for their level of understanding.

CSLPod - The CSLPod offers free Chinese language lessons for beginner to advanced language learners. Lessons focus on grammar usage and provide slower language speed for maximum comprehension.

A Spoonful of Russian - A Spoonful of Russian has audio and video podcasts for anyone interested in learning Russian. The podcasts are delivered through direct conversations on normal, everyday topics. This podcast is a great way to fulfill any curiosity about the Russian language or refresh former skills.

SwedishLingQ - The SwedishLingQ provides free Swedish language podcasts that last anywhere from one to ten minutes. The podcasts cover everything from basic greetings to intermediate conversations.

ArabicPod - This Arabic podcast features language lessons for beginner to advanced learners. Users can search through the podcasts by keyword, difficulty, or level.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online colleges for OnlineColleges.net.

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Memorista.Com

One of my readers, Francis, wrote to me a few days ago to let me know about a site he felt could be useful to language learners. Memorista.Com is a site designed for teaching basic vocabulary through the use of mnemonics (i.e. memory aids) and is ideal for people starting off with a new language or who want to pick up some basic vocabulary for a business trip or vacation.

While similar sites exist, the thing that sets Memorista apart from the others is its customizable training and testing. Registered users can create their own mnemonics if they feel the ones provided are useful to them and can make use of the testing feature to help them commit the new vocabulary to memory. The training and testing cover basic vocabulary from a variety of topics, including food and drink, accommodation, travel and basic expressions.

At present, the Memorista site contains mnemonics for around 100 basic vocabulary items for five languages : Spanish, French, Italian, German and Polish. However, the site administrators have plans to expand the vocabulary coverage and add more languages over the coming months.

Using Twitter in Your Language Learning – Useful Resources

As promised, here is the third and final part of my series on how to use Twitter in your language learning. I have listed a number of accounts below which may be beneficial to language learners who have Twitter accounts. These include “words of the day”, grammar tips and other language-related tidbits.

All of the following were active when I compiled this list. Please note that these accounts be deleted or altered by the account holders at any time.

English :

http://twitter.com/thewordoftheday
http://twitter.com/wordspy
http://twitter.com/wordoftheday0
http://twitter.com/MyWOTDcom
http://twitter.com/awordaday
http://twitter.com/dailyvocab
http://twitter.com/English_Words

Japanese :

http://twitter.com/learnkanji
http://twitter.com/japanesebot
http://twitter.com/societyJapanese
http://twitter.com/japanlanguage
http://twitter.com/ADV_JPN_GRMMR

Chinese :

http://twitter.com/easyMandarin
http://twitter.com/1on1mandarin
http://twitter.com/mandarindaily
http://twitter.com/chineselanguage
http://twitter.com/learningchinese
http://twitter.com/chineseclass101

Korean :

http://twitter.com/koreaNthusiast

Arabic :

http://twitter.com/arabiclanguage

French :

http://twitter.com/frenchlanguage
http://twitter.com/LL_French
http://twitter.com/ParleFrancais
http://twitter.com/FrancaisToday

Spanish :

http://twitter.com/spanishlanguage
http://twitter.com/spanishbot
http://twitter.com/LL_Spanish
http://twitter.com/ReVerbSpanish
http://twitter.com/monicats
http://twitter.com/escuelai
http://twitter.com/spanishonly

Italian :

http://twitter.com/italianlanguage
http://twitter.com/ItalianLearn

Portuguese :

http://twitter.com/brazillanguage

Dutch :

http://twitter.com/dutchlanguage

German :

http://twitter.com/germanlanguage

Polish :

http://twitter.com/polishlanguage

Russian :

http://twitter.com/russianlanguage

Latin :

http://twitter.com/latinlanguage

Esperanto :

http://twitter.com/speakesperanto

Other :

http://twitter.com/irishlanguage
http://twitter.com/swedishlanguage
http://twitter.com/hindilanguage
http://twitter.com/norwaylanguage
http://twitter.com/FinnishWords

This wraps up my series of articles on using Twitter as a language learning tool. I hope these articles have been of some use to you and have given you new ideas for spicing up your language learning. If you know of any other Twitter accounts which may be useful to language learners, feel free to let me know.

Edited on July 31, 2009.

The A to Z Challenge

I’ve finally finished writing that blasted essay! It’s finished, printed out and hopefully on its way to the examiners in Leicester so I can finally concentrate on my blog and language learning again. Not that I didn’t enjoy my Classical Archaeology course…I just hate having to find the energy to write an essay after a busy day at work.

And now on to my next project. I’ve decided to set myself a new challenge, one I’m nicknaming the “A to Z Challenge”. The basic idea is to sample 26 different languages, one for each letter of the alphabet, and spend a week or two getting used to the sounds of the language, learning some basic grammar points and reviewing the available online resources for learning that language. The idea was inspired by Keith Brook’s “37 Language Project”, who is working his way through 37 different languages to find out which is the perfect language for him.

I’ve already finished selecting the 26 languages for my challenge. I’ve taken special care to avoid choosing closely-related languages and have tried to cover as much geographical territory as possible by selecting languages from Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa and Oceania. I’ve also tried to select a different set of languages to the ones Keith has already reviewed but some overlap is likely.

The idea behind this challenge is not to learn a new language in depth but rather to get a feel for the language and figure out what sets it apart from the other languages on the list and what challenges a learner might face. I don’t plan to spend too much time on this challenge as I still need to devote most of my free time to perfecting my Mandarin, Japanese and Dutch. At the end of the day, it’s VERY unlikely that I will have the chance to use most of the languages on the list.

The list of languages for “The A to Z Challenge” can be found here. I will post my thoughts on Language A within the next few days.

Guest Blogger – Katie Wilson – 4 Effective Ways to Learn a Foreign Language on Your Own

The following article was written by Katie Wilson, a writer for Online Universities.

There are times when I’ve often wished my parents had different mother tongues. Admittedly they would have found it difficult to understand each other unless one or both of them were multi-lingual, but we kids would have had the benefit of having two mother tongues and growing up learning two languages. It’s easiest to learn a language when it’s spoken at home, when you’re surrounded by people who speak it all through your childhood, and when it’s part of your growing up process. Although it takes more time and effort and much more motivation to learn a foreign language when you’re all grown up and leading a busy life, there’s no reason why it cannot be done, even when you have no one to help you out. All you need is the interest, the determination, and the means to do it. So if you want to master a new language, here’s what you need to do:

1. Experience it: The best way to learn a new language (the spoken version) is to live amongst people who speak it on a daily basis. So if you’re moving to Spain, you’re definitely going to pick up more than a smattering of Spanish in a few months. Necessity is the mother of invention, and when you need to communicate, your brain is motivated to learn. The more time you spend with people who speak the language you intend to learn at home, the faster you’re going to pick up this new tongue.
2. Sing it: Have you ever realized how easy it is to memorize songs when the melody is catchy? It’s something you do unconsciously; you don’t really focus on learning the words, but when you listen to a song again and again, the lyrics become embedded in your brain. If you want to learn a new language, listen to songs written in the tongue. It’s a slow learning process and not complete in itself, but it is an effective linguistic learning tool.
3. Watch it: Movies and television programs, especially those that come with subtitles are great ways to pick up a new tongue. You could tape your favorite programs, watch them, see if you understand, and then use the subtitles to learn what the characters are saying to each other. You can pick up common phrases, slang usage, and the local flavor of the tongue when you learn from movies and television programs. Formal learning materials teach you the right sentences without injecting any of the local flavor into it (the way the sentence is spoken by natives).
4. Use it: And last, but certainly not the least, you must practice what you’ve learned. You must speak the language on a regular basis if you want to develop your vocabulary and remember it. Yes, you may make mistakes and even be laughed at, but that’s all the more reason for you to persist with your efforts. Practice makes perfect, so use every opportunity you get to show off your newly acquired skills.

This post was contributed by Katie Wilson, who writes about the online universities. She welcomes your feedback at KatieWilson06_at_gmail.com.

If anyone wants to know more about guest blogging opportunities at Aspiring Polyglot, please email me at aspiringpolyglot_at_gmail.com.

Essay Woes

I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth. I’m just busy writing (and re-writing) an essay which I have to send off by Friday. Expect plenty of updates once I’ve finished piecing together my academic masterpiece.

Since I need to keep this short, I thought I’d forego a proper post and just share a few sites and articles that I bookmarked over the weekend.

• How I Learned Chinese in Only 2 Years – How one language learner was able to learn Mandarin in only two years. His tips for learning Mandarin can easily be applied to other languages so it’s worth a read, even if you have no plans to learn Mandarin.
• Sushi & Sumo - A language learner’s quest to learn Japanese by watching Japanese TV series.
• Laoshu505000’s Youtube Channel - This guy is simply amazing. He seems to have a real gift for languages and has a language learning collection which makes mine pale in comparison (and I thought I was the only person who collected random phrasebooks).

That’s all for now. Back to my essay…

Links, Links, Links…

I’m still working on a post about the importance of learning Dutch so today I’m going to take the easy way out and share some links that I think are worth checking out.

• How Difficult is Chinese? -Liz has posted a great post about the challenges faced by people learning Chinese on her blog Pocket Cultures. Thoughts on learning Chinese were submitted by John Biesnecker, Ivy, a Singaporean blogger, and your’s truly.
• Mountain Songs - A fantastic website with hundreds of Chinese poems. The poems are mostly written in Classical Chinese and are accompanied by English translations and beautiful photos of the places they describe.
• Extreme Mandarin – A Chinese vocabulary blog with a difference. Yersi’s blog covers a wide range of topics, including Dungeons and Dragons, koala bears and cash.
• Chinese Sans 汉字 – John, author of Chinese Quest, has written a post about the limitations of learning Chinese (or Japanese) without learning the written language. I agree with what he has to say…I cannot make sense of anything written exclusively in pinyin.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for some original content later this week.

My Language Notebook

My Language Notebook is a fantastic little tool for language learners. I was asked to review the software and after a few days of playing around with it, I feel I should recommend it to anyone who enjoys making notes when learning from a textbook or online course. I created a few “projects” earlier this week using news articles from the BBC Chinese website. The notes feature was particularly handy for explaining unknown characters and giving certain background information on political figures or places mentioned in the articles.

The software is very simple to use and has a user-friendly interface. I have to admit that I was a little confused about categories and entries when I first started using the software but you’ll soon get the hang of it if you play around with the features or check out the Help section. Entries can be added and edited easily and the software seems to support most languages and scripts so it’s certainly not limited to languages using the Roman alphabet (I’ve used similar software in the past which did not have support for Chinese or Japanese text). You can also add audio files if you so wish (I didn’t use this feature as I don’t have a microphone for this laptop).

Here’s a screenshot of the “new entry” screen. I had to copy this from the My Language Notebook website as I’m currently having problems with my image editing software. As you can see, it’s extremely easy to add an entry with accompanying translation and notes. If you aren’t copy/pasting text from another source, you have the option to type everything in. You can choose from various character input sets, including Arabic, Georgian and Tibetan (personally, I found it much easier and quicker to use the Microsoft IMEs I normally use).  Editing entries is also very straightforward.

One final feature I wanted to mention is the option to download and share projects with other MLN users. You need to create an account if you want to share any of your projects online but anyone can download projects from the website. There aren’t very many projects available on the website at present but you can find resources for some of the less-commonly studied languages, such as Manx and Breton.

If you would like to test the software for yourself, you can download it for free from the website. Please note that free downloads are for home use only.

The Green-Eyed Monster Strikes Again?

I watched the series final of University Challenge on BBC2 last night after reading about Gail Trimble, the leader of the Corpus Christi team and the woman who many believe to be the cleverest contestant ever to take part in this long-running show. I used to watch University Challenge every week until I moved to the Netherlands. BBC2 is part of the television package we subscribe to but my partner doesn’t enjoy watching UC so I rarely get the chance to watch it (he’s away on business this week so I seized the opportunity to watch this woman in action).

Anyone who has been watching UC for the past few months will know that Gail Trimble has shown herself to be an extremely knowledgeable woman, one who should be proud of being a positive role model in a Britain which seems to be more interested in Big Brother and WAGs than in academia and intelligence. What I find extremely disappointing, almost depressing, is that many people seem to despise her intellect and are quick to remark that her knowledge is useless in the “real world” and assume that she’s lacking in social skills simply because she is a PhD student specialising in Latin literature. The Sun newspaper seemed to be proud of the fact that Gail had flunked a pop culture quiz that they had prepared for her. I don’t know about you but I’d be a lot more impressed with someone who can recite Latin poetry or name the capital city of Burkina Faso than with someone  who knew who won the last season of Celebrity Big Brother. Gail has been labelled as “arrogant” and “cocky” by some, while others criticise the way she looks and the way she would flick her hair behind her ear whenever she got a question right. Part of me wonders if  she would be subjected to such vitriol if she had been a man…

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen in language learning forums, where people seem to be intent on undermining other people’s achievements. One incident that immediately comes to mind is a thread accusing Ziad Fazah of being a fraud and of not being the talented polyglot that he claimed to be. I don’t know him and I have to admit there’s surprisingly little information about him on the Internet but I can’t see why the man warrants such hatred. The mere fact that it’s hard to find information about his linguistic prowess could be a sign of modesty on his part. I saw a few clips of him being tested on his knowledge of several languages, including Mandarin and Russian, which saw him stumble and make mistakes which people felt a talented polyglot shouldn’t be making.

Unfortunately, the videos have been removed from Youtube so I can’t link to them but my initial thoughts when watching them for the first time was that maybe the man was nervous and made silly mistakes under pressure. As I’ve said before, I don’t know him so I cannot vouch for his abilities as a polyglot, but I can sympathise with him if he’s the type of person who hates being the centre of attention. I certainly fall to pieces when I feel I’m being quizzed on my knowledge of a language and am prone to making silly mistakes when I’m feeling nervous. I’m quite a shy person by nature and will rarely take the chance and start a conversation in a foreign language with a complete stranger. This lack of confidence is a real obstacle for me as a language learner and is the reason why my spoken language skills are so dire. I don’t know if this is the reason for Ziad Fazah’s apparent fall from grace as the world’s most talented polyglot but it can certainly explain why some people can learn to read and understand a language well and still find it difficult to have a conversation with a native speaker.

Ziad Fazah is not the only polyglot who has been ridiculed or criticised. Steve Kauffman and Professor Argelles are other popular targets and there are also a few language learners whose Youtube channels are constantly flooded with comments about how their pronunciation “sucks” (constructive criticism at its best).  I really wonder if these people have nothing better to do with their time than spout their envy and hatred in this way. While I’m always a tiny bit skeptical of people’s language abilities, I admire those who make the effort to use the language as much as possible and who show a real passion for learning languages. Perfect pronunciation and grammar are worthless if you don’t get to use the language. If only I had Steve’s confidence or Dashan’s amazing command of the Chinese language…

Why Language Classes Don’t Work

I stumbled upon Tim Ferriss’s blog today and came across one of his language learning articles, Why Language Classes Don’t Work : How to Cut Classes and Double Your Learning Rate. Tim makes some very good points about why language learners are unable to learn a language by attending formal classes. According to his article, he has tried learning more than 20 languages, and is conversationally fluent in 6, so he’s been able to determine what works and doesn’t work when it comes to learning a new language.

One of the reasons he gives for why language classes don’t work is that teachers are often seen as being more important than the material and textbooks being used. I agree with this view, to some extent. If you have quality language learning material at your disposal, it’s entirely possible to learn a language without a teacher to guide you. A lot of people have had success learning a language outside of a classroom setting and some find self-study to be a lot more productive than attending classes. Having said that, I think the success of a language class depends on the teacher and the attitude the teacher has towards language learning. Some teachers are able to inspire their students and while they may not necessarily teach them everything there is to know about the language, they can motivate their students to go out and learn for themselves. Sometimes it helps to have someone to guide you along the path to fluency, though a supportive language partner can also fit this role.

Thoughts on Translation

For the past few months, I’ve been translating news articles and biographies for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology (you can see the institute’s website here). This has been a fantastic way for me to develop my translation skills while learning more about ancient Chinese archaeological cultures. The translation work has been on a completely voluntary basis (i.e. I don’t get paid for doing it), something many translators are reluctant to do.

I worked as a freelance translator during my year-long stay in Taiwan but I’ve since had to put my translation career on hold due to economic reasons and the lack of in-house translator jobs in the Netherlands. Translating documents on a voluntary basis is a good way for me to sharpen my skills and, more importantly, build a portfolio of sample translations for prospective employers and/or clients. At the very least, it’s an excellent way to put my Chinese language skills to good use. Use them or lose them, as they say.

I’m currently working on two documents for the institute and it never ceases to amaze how much of a learning experience translation work really is. Translators do not know the meaning of every word they come across so research skills are as vital as language skills. Translators working with specialised texts are often expected to know their subject and be familiar with the jargon used. Working with texts dealing with archaeological themes introduces you to such words as 贝壳丘 (midden) and 殉葬 (being buried alive with the dead), words you’re hardly likely to come across in your average Chinese class or textbook!

As a translator, you’re constantly learning new words, new meanings and building upon your existing knowledge of the subject(s) and language(s) you ‘re specialising in. Language is always evolving and so must the translator. Every text I translate is a learning experience and helps me learn more about the way we humans use words and language to convey ideas and disseminate knowledge.

For those of you who are looking for a fun way to develop your language and translation skills, you might want to consider translating news articles or blog posts for your own use. This is an excellent way to learn new words and expressions and reinforce your understanding of the foreign language’s grammar. What are your thoughts on this? Do you use translation practice as a way to improve your language skills or do you feel it’s a waste of time?

Watch this space for more thoughts on translation and my catastrophic attempts at translating Japanese and Dutch articles.

Language Learning Tips – Personalised Phrasebooks

Today I discovered that one of my long-time readers felt it was a shame that I deleted many of my old blog posts when I deleted my blogs Aspiring Polyglot (version 1) and Dragon Fruit. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to retrieve many of them due to something called robots.txt (this prevents blogs and websites from being archived) but I have managed to find some of my deleted posts thanks to an RSS archive that had saved some of my more recent posts.

Here is one of the posts I managed to salvage from obscurity. I’ve edited it slightly but hope that it is still useful after all this time.

I originally got this idea from Bill Handley’s book Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language, where you would keep a notebook of key phrases and sentence structures you find essential or useful to know. While this may encourage learning in parrot fashion and would certainly never make you fluent on its own, I think this is quite a good way to get to grips with basic conversational skills in your target language and is a good first step towards mastering the spoken language. This is certainly true if you learn how to substitute words efficiently as it allows you to build up your language skills methodically and at the very least you will have a small arsenal of phrases and expressions to use while you struggle towards fluency using other methods.

I have several such notebooks, one for each language I’m working on, though I don’t always have the time to re-read over the phrases I have already entered. In a way, these notebooks are my own personalised phrasebooks and cover those phrases I feel I need for everyday life. My Dutch notebook includes a selection of phrases I feel might be useful to know for future jobs as well as a selection of more ‘colloquial’ expressions.

In creating my own personalised little phrasebooks (which are far from complete), I tend to use a variety of sources. I usually scan my self-study course books for phrases and structures that I feel I will be most likely to use and ignore anything I know I won’t have to use in a hurry. I also keep a note of any phrases or expressions used in podcast lessons or audio courses as these are more likely to be representative of the spoken language (this is not always the case with the language used in textbooks). Sometimes I jot down expressions I might hear on TV or on the radio and occasionally run these through Google to see if I can find some examples of their use. Blogs can also be a good source, although you run the risk of picking up bad language and grammar mistakes this way.

Do any of you use a similar method for boosting your spoken language skills? If so, what sources do you use and how do you record them?

Happy New Year, 新年快乐, 明けましておめでとうございます…

Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope 2009 has gotten off to a good start for everyone. 2008 was a rather bad year for my partner and I (we had several deaths in the family) so here’s hoping that 2009 is a much more pleasant and happy year. So far so good…

We had a great Christmas and New Year and really enjoyed our time off from work. My mother was here until early this morning and I’m glad I was able to take off so many days from work and do things with her (lots of shopping and sightseeing!). She’s now back in Gibraltar so I guess I can get back to blogging and looking forward to her next visit, whenever that may be.

Some news/update/thoughts :

• iKnow! has added some Mandarin courses to its ever-growing selection of language courses. The courses are aimed at intermediate/upper-intermediate students and seem to be only available in traditional Chinese. Nevertheless, they look pretty good and jam-packed with useful vocabulary and example sentences. A special thanks to unzum for bringing these new courses to my attention!
• I watched the film adaptation of The Kite Runner during the Christmas break and enjoyed listening to spoken Dari (which is closely related to Persian). I don’t have any immediate plans to learn the language but I did do a little research and came across this fantastic Dari resource : LearnDari.Net. You can find video lessons (with transcripts) here.
• I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions yet though I have been giving some thought to my language learning objectives and wishes for 2009. I find it very hard to set myself concrete goals so I’ll probably settle for general goals, like my fellow language blogger Geoffrey Barto.
• I’ve added a few more language blogs to my blogroll, including Street-Smart Language Learning and John Biesnecker’s blog. If there are any language learning blogs you feel I’ve overlooked and should add to my blogroll, then feel free to leave a comment with links to them!
• A silly observation but I think the warning slips inside Kinder Surprise eggs are fantastic for language nerds such as myself. Not only do they give warnings about the small parts in every major European language, they also give warnings in Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Chinese (traditional and simplified) and Arabic!

That’s all for now. It’s time for me to go and give some real thought to my language learning resolutions for 2009.

A Never-ending Journey

I stumbled upon an old post at the How to Learn Any Language forum the other day which I feel really captures the frustrating truth about language learning : language learning is an endless journey. I want to post a few quotes from Janalisa’s post as I can certainly sympathise with her on numerous points and feel that her comments don’t only apply to East Asian languages but to language learning in general.

So, upon arrival at my new college, I marched into the Japanese professor’s office and explained that I had been studying Japanese on my own and wanted to continue studying it here. He didn’t seem to believe that I had actually managed to learn anything, but to humor me, I suppose, he tested me anyway. He was flabberghasted when I passed the test quite easily. “Well, it looks like you should be in our third-year class,” he said with amazement. I went to the third-year class and found it quite easy– I was the most advanced student in the class save one girl who had grown up in Japan. So then I was quite proud of myself, and I thought I knew Japanese.

But my confidence was short-lived. At some point I discovered that there were such things as Japanese newspapers, and that I could not read them. And there was such a thing as Japanese news broadcasts, and I could not understand them. And so I started reading newspapers. I read them until my eyes were sore, until my brain was so full I thought it would explode, madly looking things up in dictionaries and making endless stacks of flashcards. I listened to NHK radio until my head rang with it, until I could make out every syllable and the previously unrecognizable sounds I heard actually began to have meaning. I spent a summer in Japan living with a host family, and they were all impressed that I was actually able to communicate, calling my Japanese “fluent”. And after some time I found that I could actually read the newspapers, understanding all but a word or two. Well now, surely I had done it. And I thought I knew Japanese.

This is the same way I felt when I was studying Mandarin at university. You don’t realise how much of a language you don’t know until you step outside the classroom and are expected to communicate in that language with native speakers. All of a sudden, you’re faced with dialects, slang, collquialisms, flexible grammar…this is where language learning really begins. Outside of the classroom, there are no rules. Not everyone is going to speak using the standard pronunciation you spent hours mastering and the books, signs and newspapers you come across will not stick to the limited vocabulary you learnt from your textbooks.

This phase of language learning can be both the most exciting and the most frustrating. Any progress you make will make you feel great…until you come across another stumbling block and are left once again with the feeling that you will never master the language. A lot of language learners give up at this stage as they feel that they’re making no progress and thus feel it would be a better use of time and effort to move onto another language or hobby.

Then one day, since I knew Japanese so well, I thought it might as well reap the benefits of all my hard work by reading a novel in Japanese. Oh, the sweet bliss of ignorance! Why did I have to leave it behind by picking up that darned novel? But I did– I cracked open that book and found to my great disillusionment that I could not read it with the ease and pleasure with which I could read novels in English. In fact, it was a struggle just to get through a few pages. Unknown words assaulted me, unfamiliar characters reared their ugly heads in every paragraph. And so I had no choice– I had to admit that maybe I actually didn’t know Japanese after all.

I know this feeling all too well and still feel this way sometimes with Mandarin, even after years of studying the language. Novels can be notoriously hard to read, especially in the case of Japanese and Mandarin, where looking up an unknown character in the dictionary entails checking what radical the character uses and counting the stroke number before finally locating it in the dictionary. This becomes very tedious and you end up setting the book aside after a few paragraphs or pages. I know I certainly did!

I tried reading one of the Harry Potter novels a couple of years ago only to be faced with an endless barrage of unknown characters and words. The most frustrating thing was that I knew I could read newspapers and academic texts with relative ease and had been working as a translator for a Taiwanese company and yet a book which is presumably aimed at children was making me question my abilities and making me reach for the dictionary at every turn. Do young Chinese readers have the same problems I have when they read these books? Could a ten-year-old really know more characters and have a wider vocabulary than an adult who had been learning Mandarin for eight years? Perhaps Harry Potter had been a bad choice, given that the original English version has a lot of made-up words and that puns and word play do not always translate well into other languages.

And I thought I was smart. I thought I had something special. I thought I had a gift for languages. Other people even thought so. Hah! Why, then, after all these years (about eight of them, I estimate), have I still not managed to learn Japanese? You’d think I’d have it down by now, but I must humbly confess that I don’t at all. I suppose the greater mystery is the question of why I even bother, why I remain so determined to complete this seemingly impossible task. But one thing’s for sure: It’s determination that’s gotten me as far as I have managed to get, and regardless of how much talent I might have, without determination I couldn’t have gotten anywhere at all. I don’t presume that I have any special talent to speak of, but I certainly am determined. I will learn Japanese if it’s the last thing I do.

Herein lies the key to success in language learning : determination. Without it, you’ll either be stuck at the same level for a very long time or will just call it a day and move on to the next challenge. I think it’s also important to keep in mind that you will never know a language completely as, let’s be honest, no one can know every single word or expression in a language, not even in their own native tongue. Why, then, are we so surprised or angry that we come across words we don’t know the language(s) we’re learning? If we can accept that we will never know everything there is to know about Mandarin, Japanese or whatever language we choose to learn, we’d probably be a lot more content with the progress we have made and will be able to enjoy our language learning experiences all the more for it.

For those of you who want to read Janalisa’s original post and contribute to the discussion, click here.

Keep Learning Your Native Language

In our efforts to learn foreign languages and expand our vocabularies in these, we often overlook the richness and beauty of our own native tongues. We’re often too busy flipping through flashcards, compiling word lists or jotting down new words in notebooks to realise that there’s still a lot to learn in our own language. English has such a wide vocabulary, derived from countless sources, and there are thousands of words which are rarely, if ever, used in everyday life. I was reading Umberto Eco’s Foucalt’s Pendulum quite recently and was amazed by the number of words he used which had me running for the dictionary. Reading certainly is a learning experience…

I get a certain pleasure from discovering new words and figuring out their etymologies, even if they are words I’d never get to use in everyday life or even on this blog. I’ve bookmarked a few sites that are perfect for learning new words (see below). These are all for learning English words but I’ll try and post links to ‘words of the day’ for other languages in the coming weeks.

• A Word a Day – This site posts new words based on a weekly theme, such as ‘unusual conjunctions’ and ‘words borrowed from Irish’.
• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day – No weekly theme here but it does give example sentences as well as interesting facts about the day’s word.
• Dictionary.Com Word of the Day - This gives plenty of example sentences as well as a brief etymology of the word in question.
• WordThink – A quick and easy ‘word of the day’. Not very detailed but still fairly useful.
• FreeRice.Com – Not a ‘word of the day’ but still a fantastic resource for learning new words. There are a number of quizzes to test your knowledge of rare English words and for every correct answer, a small amount of rice will be donated to the needy via the UN World Food Program. This is a good way to expand your vocabulary and contribute to a worthy cause.

If anyone else knows of a ‘word of the day’ website that should be added to this list, then feel free to leave a comment with a link to the site in question.