Archive | Beginning Language Learning

Traveling and celebrating?

They go hand in hand!

Let’s face it—those of us who wander the world like to have fun!

For many of us, one of the first things we do when we land in a new country (after …

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, palms sweaty, breathing heavily as if coming up from a drowning nightmare, asking yourself: “God! What’s the difference between a language and a dialect?!”

So…no?

Okay.

But do you …

No, nope, nu-uh, negative, naw.

In the English language, we have many different ways to say the word “no.”

In life, we’ll come to hear and use that two-letter word a lot.

And most of the time, it gets tossed …

Hello is the first thing on our minds.

Whether we’re battling foreign language anxiety or just general nerves, we’re most concerned with getting past that first five seconds of the conversation.

Because that’s the hardest part.

There’s a lot …

Are you studying a language that requires a rolled R, but you feel like the technique is escaping you?

Turn to pop culture for inspiration.

Method #1: Vibrate your tongue. You may remember some variation of this Rrrrrruffles have …

Being cool ain’t easy.

You have to buy all the latest fashions even if it means there’s only room in your budget for a closet-sized apartment.

You have no choice but to eat all the latest Instagrammable foods, even if …

What is an Asian language?

That question might be harder to answer than you think.

For a lot of people, what first comes to mind are the widely spoken East Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

But what about South …

As you’re reading this, I can assume you want to learn a language.

But why do you want to?

There are as many reasons for learning languages as there are languages themselves.

There’s travel, food, people—and money.…

So you’ve planned a trip abroad.

You want to be able to blend with the locals, so you try to master a new language before take-off.

But there are just… So. Many. Words.

Your head feels like it …