Online Language Review

Whether you are a student in high school, college, language class or just studing on your own, I thought these were some very good tips to help you in your quest to learn!

By Tom Tessin

Are you currently taking a foreign language class in college? If you aren't yet you most likely will need to take a few foreign language classes to get your major in college. There are many general education classes that are needed when in college, and foreign language is one of them. Foreign languages can be very difficult for some people to learn. When in college, it is even harder to learn a language because you learn the language at such a fast pace. Read below for some tips on how to pass your college foreign language class.

Professor - Your professors are supposed to be your friends so make sure you can ask them questions. If ever you have a question be sure to always ask until you understand. Whether you ask in class, or after class be sure you find out the answers.

Be there - College is expensive and if you don't show up you're going to only be wasting money. You want to make sure you go to every class when you have a foreign language. If you miss one day you will most likely be missing out on a lot. It's like math you have to learn the basics before you can go any further.

Textbook - Any kind of book in college costs an arm and a leg these days so you want to make sure you read it. Go through the textbook and go page by page and chapter by chapter. If you keep up with reading the textbook you will go much further than you think.

Sounds - You want to make sure you get a feel for the sounds. When learning a foreign language we often get confused at first with the different sounds. Try to pick them up and speak with the accents. It will take some time but it will flow much nicer and make you feel a whole lot better.

Verbs - To create good sentences in a foreign language you need to make yourself aware of a lot of verbs. Take a few days a week and just study verbs for 20 minutes each time. The more verbs you know the better your speaking will get.

Tenses - Be sure that you familiarize all the tenses. You want to make sure you know the past, present and future tense. If you don't learn these properly your sentences won't make sense. Once you get the feel for the tenses you will be on a roll.

Conjunctions - Learn all the conjunctions of the foreign language. Be sure you understand the subordinating, coordinating, and verb conjunctions. Once you know these a foreign language will make much more sense to you.

There is a lot to know about learning a foreign language. The most important thing is to have patience, have fun with it and have motivation. Foreign languages can be very frustrating but once you get the gist of it you'll be glad you took the time to learn it.

Find articles like these and more of Tom's work all on his student blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Tessin

By Ioana Mihailas

A descendant of Old Norse, Swedish belongs to the East Scandinavian group of languages, a subdivision of the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages.

Swedish is mutually intelligible with Danish (also a member of the East Scandinavian language group) and Norwegian (which belongs to the western Scandinavian language group). It is spoken by approximately nine million people worldwide, most of whom reside in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Estonia. Sweden is an official language in Sweden and Finland, as well as in a small region of Estonia – Noarootsi.

Chronologically speaking, we can distinguish three periods in the evolution of Swedish language: Old Swedish, New Swedish and Modern Swedish.

- The first refers to the language spoken on the Swedish territory in the Middle Ages. The most relevant sample of this language was found in a law code, Västgötalagen, written around 1250.

- Gustav Vasa's Bible is one of the first documents written in New (literary) Swedish and dates back to the 16th century.

- Since then Swedish language has gone through various changes and, under the influence of writers and intellectuals, as well as due to the industrial development and internationalization, it has developed into becoming Modern Swedish, the language spoken by the Swedes today.

“Rikssvenska” (or Standard Swedish), is the official language of Sweden. It is used in media, officialdom and administration and it was created in accordance with the dialects spoken around Stockholm.

Swedish uses a 29 letters alphabet, 26 of Latin origin and three specific letters: ö, ä, å.

Its vocabulary is predominantly of Germanic origin. Borrowings from German and English are quite common together with many French words that became part of the language in the 18th century.

Both Swedish syntax and morphology resemble the ones of the other Germanic languages. Swedish verbs fall into five conjugations; the nouns are divided into five declensions and are inflected according to number, case and definiteness; the adjectives agree with the nouns and pronouns; the number words are cardinals and ordinals etc.

Although apparently a difficult language, Swedish may prove easy to learn for a person who speaks a language of Germanic origin and it is sure to create no problems for someone speaking another Scandinavian language.

Swedish is a working language of the Nordic Council and one of the official languages of the European Union.

Considered one of the countries with the highest living standard, Sweden is famous for its worldwide appreciated industry represented by companies like Volvo, IKEA, Tetra Pak etc.

Ioana Mihailas is a linguist for Lingo24 document translation companies, a top provider of technical translation services in London.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ioana_Mihailas

Pronunciation guide to the Swedish language

As I said, the most difficult thing to start with, is the pronunciation. Therefore, you don't have to memorize all this at the beginning. You could just skim through it so as to get a rough idea of the basics. And then, as you expand your knowledge in Swedish, you could go back and try to make your pronunciation more Swedish. What you especially should look at is the tone and stress chapter and the phonems printed in bold.

The Swedish language has got two kinds of phonetical accents - the acute and the grave accents. The acute accent is the same as in many other languages. The tone is falling as in the English word speaker. This accent is employed in words of one syllable and in a few words of two or more syllables.

The grave accent is the one characteristic for the Swedish language, and it occurs in most words of more than one syllable. Here, the tone is falling too, on the first syllable, but the second syllable starts on a higher pitch than does the first, and a strong stress occurs. Most Swedish polysyllabic words have the main stress on the first syllable and the grave accent on one of the following syllables.

I will mark polysyllabic words employing the acute accent with an apostrophe (') behind the stressed syllable.

('segel = sail, the noun)Words using the grave accent are marked with a star (*) on the main stress syllable, and if needed, an apostrophe behind the syllable with the higher pitch

The following curve illustrates the pitch of the grave accent with the Swedish word *tala = to speak.

Here are some a couple of endings, all of which use the acute accent, stressed on the last syllable. It's not important that you memorize these endings at the beginning. Just learn to recognize them as you come across them.

-ang, -ant, -at, -ent, -eri, -ess, -ion, -ism, -ist, -log, -nom, -tris, -ur, -ör, -ös

Vowels: (all comparisons to English refer to the British pronunciation)

a [a:] as in father - ta = to take[a] as the the o in brother - katt = cat

o [o:] o exact English counterpart, but somewhat like the u in German rufen - ko = cow[o] like German u in und - hon = she

u [u:] no English counterpart, tongue position as for y but lips even more rounded - hus = house[u] somewhat like English er in letter, but lips rounded - brunn = a well

å [å:] similar to English saw - båt = boat[å] almost like English song - sång = song

e [e:] like the first part of the English here - se = to see[e] like English net - fett = fat

i [i:] similar to English ee in see, mouth more straightened - fil = file[i] almost like i in did - in = in

y [y:] similar to French rue and German müde, but lips more rounded and protruded - sy = to sew[y] the same but shorter, somewhat like German müssen and French lu - sytt = sewn

ä [ä:] before r similar to the first part of English hair - där = there. Else less open like French chaise - träd = tree[ä] before r like a in English carry - stjärt = bottom. Else like [e] - lätt = easy

ö [ö:] before r almost like i in bird - för = for. Else similar to French deux - söt = pretty[ö] before r like [ö:] befor r but shorter - dörr = door. Else like [ö:] but shorter - röst = voice

Consonants (I only write those whose pronunciation differs from the same letter in English)

d [d] as in English but put your tongue against the upper part of your teeth.

g [g] as in great when preceeding a,o,u,å or unstressed e[j] as English y in yes before e,i,y,ä,ö and after l and r

j [j] as y in English yes

k [k] as in English k before a,o,u and å[k] Somewhat like the ch in choose without the initial t-sound, or similar to German Ich

l [l] almost like English l, but with your tongue more to the front in your mouth

q [k] as English k

r [r] a roled r

t [t] similar to English t but with your tongue against the back of your teeth

w [v] as English v

x [ks] never [gz] as in English example, always [ks]

z, s [s] as English voiceless s

Certain combinations:

[s] ch, sk (before e,i,y,ä,ö), sj, schsi and ti (before -on), skj, stj, -ge and rs

Either you could pronounce it as sh in shall, but you could also use another sound similar to German ch in nach but softer.

[j] gj, lj, hj as y in English yes

[k] tj, ch (sometimes) see k above

[g] ng as in English sing

[gn] gn as it says

[gk] nk as it says

[k] ck as ck in English sick

[n] rn as n but with the tongue slightly further back in the mouth

[t] rt as t but with the tongue slightly further back in the mouth

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By Martin Cheslak

The Polish language is often considered one of the most difficult for non-native speakers to learn, and one of the reasons cited is the difficulty foreigners have in pronouncing Polish words and phrases.

However, this shouldn't have to be so. Polish is, after all, a very phonetic language, and almost every single word is pronounced exactly as it is written (there are a few exceptions, but not many).

The Polish alphabet is very similar to the English one, with only some extra accent marks and unique letters. However, some of the letters which are the same in both Polish and English are pronounced differently, and this can lead to confusion among English speakers learning Polish.

The 32 letters of the Polish alphabet, with both upper and lower case, are: Aa, Ąą, Bb, Cc, Ćć, Dd, Ee, Ęę, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Łł, Mm, Nn, Ńń, Oo, Óó, Pp, Rr, Ss, Śś, Tt, Uu, Ww, Yy, Żż, Źź, Zz. Notice that Qq, Vv, and Xx are not present in the Polish alphabet (more information about this in the second part of the article).

There are quite a few more vowels in the Polish language than in English. The Polish vowels are: a, ą, e, ę, i, o, ó, u, y. There are also several digraphs (two or more letters pronounced as one sound) in Polish, some of which have very unique pronunciation.

Once you learn how to pronounce the 32 letters of the alphabet and the digraphs above, reading Polish will become very simple and straightforward (understanding what you're reading may take some more work, however). For the sake of simplicity, I've presented a table below with an explanation of all the letters and digraphs and their pronunciation.

A a The Polish "a" is a lot softer than the English "a" sound, and sounds a little higher than the "ahhh" sound you make at the doctor's office (there is no corresponding English sound; you should listen to a Polish speaker to learn it correctly) Ą ą Sounds like the American English "ow" in the word "own" with a deep French accent (again, this is a uniquely Polish sound) B b Pronounced exactly like the English "b" C c Pronounced as the "ts" sound in English Ć ć This letter is pronounced as the "ch" in the word "cheese". Beware: people will tell you that "ć" and "cz" are pronounced the same; any native speaker will tell you this is not true! D d Pronounced just like the English "d" E e Pronounced just like the American English "e" in the word "let" Ę ę This sound is absolutely impossible for a foreigner to comprehend unless they hear it in person... it starts like the English "eh" and ends with an "wwww" sound with a thick French accent (please ask a Polish speaker to pronounce it for you to learn it correctly) F f Pronounced just like the English "f" G g Pronounced like the English "g" in the word "green" H h Pronounced like the "h" in "hello" I i Pronounced exactly like the American English "ee" in "bee" J j Pronounced like the "y" in "yesterday" K k Pronounced exactly like the English "k" L l Pronounced just like the English "l" Ł ł Pronounced exactly like the "w" in English M m Pronounced just like the English "m" N n Pronounced just like the English "n" Ń ń Pronounced like an English "n" but with the mouth spread wider apart (like the Spanish letter "ñ") O o Pronounced like the American English "o" in the word "more" Óó Pronounced as "oo" like in the American English "cool" P p Pronounced exactly like the English "p" R r Is pronounced with a roll of the tongue and lips in a circle, sounding like an engine running... "rrrrr" (much like the Spanish "r") S s Pronounced just like the English "s" Ś ś Pronounced like the American English "sh" sound T t Pronounced exactly like the English "t" U u Is pronounced "oo," exactly the same as the Polish "ó" letter. W w Pronounced like the English letter "v" Y y Pronounced like the "i" in the American English word "dim" Ż ż This sound is not present in English. It sounds like a combination of a rolled "r" and a "z" Ź ź This sound is also not present in English or the Western European languages. It sounds like a "ż" with a higher pitch; it is sometimes incorrectly transliterated as "zh"... this does not reflect the actual translation. Z z Pronounced just like the English "z"

Find more articles about the Polish language on the website of SlovoPol Group at http://www.slovopol.com. SlovoPol also provides professional low-cost Polish and English translations. Martin Cheslak is the author of this article, and has all rights to its distribution, except those granted to articlesbeyondbetter.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Cheslak

By Martin Cheslak

In Polish, every letter or digraph is pronounced separately, even when the same letters are written one after the other. For example, if a Polish word contains "nn" or "ll", both letters are pronounced separately. The stress is Polish is also very regular: almost every Polish word is pronounced with the stress on the second-from-last (penultimate) syllable. In some foreign words the stress will fall on the third-from-last syllable, but this is rare.

There are several digraphs (two or more letters pronounced as one sound) in Polish. It is important to learn these digraphs, because they will be pronounced the same way every time you see them, and the pronunciations are not always intuitive. The table below presents how to pronounce each digraph separately.

ch Pronounced exactly like the Polish "h" letter (equivalent to the English "h" in "hello")

ci Pronounced exactly like the Polish "ć"

cz Pronounced with a lower tone than the Polish "ć". To pronounce it, start saying "ć" then stick your lips further out

dzi Pronounced like the American English word "gee"

dź, dz Pronounced like the "j" in the American English word "jeans"

dż A deeper sound than the "dź", it is pronounced like the "j" in the American English word "jungle", but with the lips further out

ni Pronounced like the Polish "ń"

rz Pronounced just like the Polish letter "ż"

si Pronounced like the Polish "ś"

sz Pronounced with a lower tone than the Polish "ś". To pronounce it, start saying "ś" then stick your lips further out

zi Pronounced exactly like the Polish "ź"

Major Exceptions to Be Aware Of:

There is a phenomenon in the Polish language known as devoicing. Devoicing happens when one of the letters b, d, g, w, or z occur at the end of a word. When this occurs, the consonant is softened and changes its pronunciation. For example, the letters b, d, g, w, and z would change their pronunciation to p, t, k, f and s.

The letters q, v, and x are not present in the native Polish alphabet, yet you may encounter them while reading a document in Polish or while traveling through Poland. The reason for this is that they are used only in words which are direct foreign loanwords, such as English words which have not had their spelling changed to follow Polish grammatical rules.

In certain situations, you will need to know how to pronounce these letters. The "q", which is rarely encountered in Polish, is pronounced as the English letters "kw". The "v" can be pronounced two ways: usually as a English "v" in English loanwords, but as an English "f" is words of German origin. The "x", which is fairly common in some written Polish documents, is pronounced as the English "ks".

Find more articles about the Polish language on the website of SlovoPol Group at http://www.slovopol.com. SlovoPol also provides professional low-cost Polish and English translations. Martin Cheslak is the author of this article, and has all rights to its distribution, except those granted to articlesbeyondbetter.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Cheslak

By Ioana Mihailas

The official language of Poland, Polish is spoken by over forty million people worldwide. Speakers of Polish are commonly found in Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia - countries where they emigrated to during the two world wars. Polish is also spoken in some small regions of Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Belarus.

A descendant of Old Polish, Polish belongs to the West-Slavic group of the Indo-European languages together with Czech and Slovak. The first document written in Polish was called "Gniezno papal bull" and it included several hundreds of Polish names.

Polish language makes use of the Latin alphabet but it also uses some diacritics. Its difficult and diverse reading rules, as well as the tendency to conglomerate numerous consonants in a row in one word, makes it difficult to be learned by foreigners.

Polish nouns, pronouns and adjectives decline in seven cases. Polish verbs have three tenses, three moods and three voices and, as a peculiarity, they have a feature called "aspect". The "aspect" can be perfective or imperfective, depending on whether the action is completed or not.

The Polish language has several dialects but the differences between them are insignificant to such an extent that a non-native speaker could not make a difference between them. The most important Polish dialects are: Great Polish (used in the west), Lesser Polish (spoken in the south), Silesian (used in the South-West) and Mazovian (spoken in the East and in Central Poland).

The language of personalities like Henryk Sienkiewicz, Ludwik Zamenhof (the inventor of Esperanto), Krzysztof Kie[lowski and Roman PolaDski, Polish is a language that has always been associated with culture and history. Far from being an 'old' language, Polish continues to develop and adapt to modern times, mostly by borrowing new words from English and German.

Ioana Mihailas is a linguist for Lingo24 Translation Services. Please feel free to visit our website http://www.lingo24.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ioana_Mihailas

By Ioana Mihailas

Dutch language started to take shape at the middle of the 5th century AD. The language spoken by the inhabitants of the Netherlands back then was called Old Dutch and it developed from Lower Franconian (Niederfränkisch), a dialect of Low German.

Middle Dutch was the language used during the 12th and the 15th century and since the year 1500 we can speak of Modern Dutch, a language very similar to Standard Dutch, the language currently used by the Dutch people. Standard Dutch is called "Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands" meaning "general civilized Dutch".

The name of the Dutch language comes from the word Dietsc / Duutsc (language of the people), as people used to call it in the Middle Ages.

Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname and other Dutch colonies, as well as in small parts of Germany and France. It has an official status in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles and it manages to sum up around 23 million native speakers worldwide (15 million residing in the Netherlands).

Dutch used to be the official language of South Africa until 1961, contributing to the development of Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa.

Dutch has several dialects, the most important being Flemish, spoken in Flanders (Belgium). Compared to Standard Dutch, it uses older words and a softer pronunciation.

Like the other Germanic languages, Dutch uses the Latin alphabet. As a particularity, it contains the group of letters "3" that stands for the more common "y" which is used only in foreign words.

Dutch language has three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) but they are quite often reduced to two (common and neuter). Cases are used mainly for pronouns, while common nouns and adjectives are not case inflected.

The Dutch vocabulary is predominantly of Germanic origin and it is one of the richest in the world, containing approximately 190,000 words.

Other particularities of the Dutch language are the extensive use of doubled letters (mostly due to the formation of compound words) and the devoicing of all consonants at the end of the words.
Ioana Mihailas is a linguist for Lingo24 Translations Service London, a provider of high quality technical translation services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ioana_Mihailas

By Philip Nicosia

The Dutch language is spoken by more than 22 million people, most of them in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. Given this statistic, Dutch can be considered as one of the more popular languages in Europe.

Before the 17th century the Dutch language was not yet standardized. There were many dialects in existence that it was beginning to pose a problem.

After the 17th century, after the standardization of the Dutch language has taken place, it became so much easier to identify the distinctions between the standard Dutch language and its dialects. But the developments surrounding the Dutch language has continued well into the 19th and 20th century. Because of the influences being exerted by other languages like German, French, and English, the standard Dutch language is undergoing a change.

One of the more noticeable change in the Dutch language over the past century is with regards to pronunciation. The voiceless pronunciation of certain letters or syllables are now entering the standard language and is a unique feature that was more commonly heard from a dialect found in a province in Holland. These voiceless pronunciations commonly revolve around “v” as “f”, “z” as “s” and “g” as “x”. This current trend mirrors the desire for a change in spelling Dutch as near to its phonological sound as possible. This would mean that each particular sound is represented by a single letter or that a grapheme is only made in one particular way.

There is also a shift in how three diphthongs are being pronounced. The diphthongs in reference are ei, ui, and ou. The current shift for these are now moving towards aai, ou, and aau. This change was first seen among women who are middle aged and well educated and who come from the upper middle class. These women are identified with the world of the academia, politics, arts and literature.

From these beginnings the practice eventually spread out to women from other demographics. But lately even men have started employing this language change. It is also becoming employed by children, even those under the age of ten years and from very diverse backgrounds.

Already, this change can be heard in large parts of the Netherlands, but most especially among women of Turkish or Moroccan descent.

There are also some changes being seen in the area of morphology. One very significant change is inclusion of plural endings ( -s) even for nouns. This change is mostly seen in words that end in –e – for example, hoogte – de hoogtes, which was usually hoogten.

Even the suffix –baar is becoming more and more prevalently used in modern Dutch usage more often in the use of neologisms. In turn, the suffix -(e)lijk is becoming less and less used and in fact is being ignored in favor of the aforementioned –baar.

There is even a rising use of “concentrations” in modern Dutch. This is most commonly seen when using multi part compound nouns.

LearnMyLingo.com delivers a variety of quick language learning programs right to your desktop including Dutch and a free language learning guide, 8 ways to learn a language quickly and easily.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Philip_Nicosia

By Rosie Wang

Reason 1 - Over 1.2 billion people speak the Chinese Language. It is spoken by one out of every five people on earth, more than any other language in the world.

Reason 2 - The Chinese civilization is over 6000 years. Learning the language is the key to explore and appreciate the cumulative knowledge and experience of one the world's oldest and exquisite cultures.

Reason 3 - China is becoming a dominant player in the international economic and financial system of this century. With China joining the WTO, it has created huge demands for a greater understanding and trading with the world's fastest growing nation.

Reason 4 - The United States government has designated Americas relations with China as one of the most important foreign policy issues. Ever-broadening U.S. - China relations in various business fields has increased the importance of Chinese presence in American communities.

Reason 5 - Chinese is one of the four "critical languages" for Americans. Understanding and proficient in the Chinese language are of critical importance to the United States in economic advantages and opportunities.

Reason 6 - Chinese communities have played important roles, including science, business, education, arts and various services in local communities of all countries around the world. Being able to communicate with and better understand these community members is a benefit in our multicultural society.

Reason 7 - Learning Chinese not only satisfies our desire to grasp a foreign language but it can also be the greatest asset to career advancement. There are increasing opportunities for government and business careers as well as for scientific, scholarly and cultural exchanges.

(http://www.chinese-online.info)

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rosie_Wang

By Kip Owens

The Chinese language has over 40,000 characters, but only 10,000 are commonly used. To fully understand the language (at least in reading and writing), you need to learn Chinese Characters. Chinese is considered one of the most beautiful, but complex languages in the world. There are over 1 billion people that live in China, not including overseas Chinese Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and parts of Malaysia -- Which makes Chinese the most spoken language in the world. With the growing economic prosperity of these areas, more and more schools are offering Chinese language programs.

Chinese is a very diversified language, with twelve different dialects of spoken Chinese The national dialect of China is Mandarin, or "pu tong hua" which translates into "the people's language." I would recommend learning it to many people, with over 50% of China's population able to speak Mandarin. The language is based on ideaograms, or based strongly on symbols and characters. Loosely it is based on combinations of 214 elementary pictographs called " Chinese radicals."

The Chinese language is one of the oldest languages in the world. In fact, the earliest traces of written Chinese go as far back as the early Zhou Dynasty, or over 3,000 years ago. While the Chinese culture itself has seen constant changes over its long life, the grammar, vocabulary, and writing system have mostly remained preserved.

The grammar and sentence structure of Chinese is very different from English. For example, in English, someone may say "I will run," "I am running," "I have ran," but in Chinese someone can say, "Wo zuo"(which means "I run") with time as an adverb such as today, tomorrow, in a little while, etc. Chinese sentences take up less space than the English translation. This is because sentences only need to consist of several characters.

Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese language and can be a bit difficult to learn, but there are many sites online that can help get you started.

A great source of articles for learning beginner Chinese is the Chinese crunch blog. There are 10 mistakes that all beginner Chinese students make that slow them down and are very frustrating. Read on to learn how to recognize and avoid the 10 common mistakes people make learning Mandarin Chinese.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kip_Owens

By Mukil Krishnasamy

Mandarin Chinese is the main language in Mainland China and is used on a day to day basis by more than 50% of the population. While there are a number of dialects spoken throughout Chinese provinces, the number of users of Mandarin Chinese is constantly growing, along with the growing status that now recognizes Mandarin as China's official national language.

People right across the world learn Chinese language for a variety of reasons including to improve their chances of employment, to help them negotiate internal business agreements or to enhance their travel experiences. While in the past, you may have been concerned about which Chinese language to learn and master, take heart that Mandarin is the second language of over 40 million people of Chinese descent throughout the world and so it is the natural choice when it comes to deciding to learn Chinese. It is not only spoken in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Singapore but also used widely throughout countries in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world where Chinese-speaking communities are present.

Chinese is a truly fascinating language to study and it is relatively simple to learn to speak Chinese at the fundamental level. Chinese is based on a simple structure language and character structure, and it uses varying tones to give different meanings to a word. As soon as you start to learn Chinese, you will realize though, that it is so much more than just a language though. When you learn to speak Chinese you get a window into understanding Chinese culture and way of life.

Mukil Krishnasamy is an expert in language learning skills. Learn Chinese and Learn To Speak Chinese with the guidance of the Language Advisor. You can also find free online courses at http://www.language-advisor.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mukil_Krishnasamy

By Sunil Tanna

Italian is spoken by around 63 million. Italian speakers can be found in a number of countries, including of course Italy, where the majority of Italian speakers live. Other countries where Italian is an official language include San Marino, Switzerland (where it is one of four official languages along with French, German and Romansh), and the Italian national community in Slovenia. In the Vatican City, Italian is also widely spoken, although Latin is the official language. Additionally, you can find Italian speaking communities in many countries around the world.

Learning Italian is a very useful if you plan to do business in Italy or another Italian speaking area. Additionally, Italian is to greater or less extent used in various fields as a Lingua Franca,including in some areas of the Roman Catholic Church, in fashion, in some areas of the arts (particularly design and visual arts, as well as opera), and to some degree in sports such as motor racing and soccer.

If you decide to learn Italian, the most obvious option is probably to go to Italian classes. Classes do suit many people, but of course they are not to everyone's tastes. Additionally, for some people, going to classes can impractical, either because they can't fit classes around their schedule, or because there simply are no classes in the area in which they live.

An alternative option is home study. Home study allows you to work at your own pace, enjoy flexible schedule, and of course learn in the comfort of your own home. Once upon a time, home study courses were mainly books and tapes, and while these options are still available, today, you can also find many computer-based courses.

By S. Tanna. Discover how to learn Italian at home at http://www.downloadfocus.com/cat_language_italian.php

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sunil_Tanna

By Shareen Aguilar

The Italian language is among the Romance languages that is popularly studied and spoken by many other speakers. Regardless of the native language of a person, learning how to study Italian is always the first, second or third choice in language learning. This is because there are already many Italian speakers in mainland US and apart from that, the Italian culture has clashed with that of the US just fine. Eating spaghetti is an Italian custom, so while you're at it, why not complete what you need to know about the Italian language itself.

Though we notice Italian speakers conversing in their native language in a fast pace, it doesn't mean you have to do the same in each of your Italian exercises. It's not a problem though, in terms of pronouncing Italian words since each syllable (similar to the Spanish language) is pronounced just as how they appear. Any beginner can learn this part of the Italian language well. But there is a trick. Most newbies usually consider speaking very fast since the native Italians that they hear in a normal conversation has this trait. Don't be fooled any further, emphasize your consonants and vowels on every Italian word you use if you want to be understood.

Italian food is scattered everywhere and are popular in the American market. If you get the chance, try to read Italian ingredients, produce and beverages just as how an Italian native would read it. Read it out loud, as if you are teaching yourself the best way to pronounce it. You will realize that this activity, if done more so often, makes you comfortable in speaking the Italian language in public. When the right time comes, when you are all prep up in speaking Italian with Italian speakers regardless you are in your own country or in mainland Italy, you know that you are prepared and up for the exciting experience.

Shareen Aguilar is a writer for Learn Italian which has Memory Improvement Books and Memory Game Software for better Italian language memorization.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shareen_Aguilar

By Shareen Aguilar

The Italian language has developed from its ancestor, Latin, during the 13th and 14th century. Though Italian shares about 85% of similarities to the Spanish and French languages, it is still easier to pronounce. Each word is pronounced exactly as how it is spelled.

However, the Italian language has many sub categories and these are called the Italian dialects. Each town in Italy has different Italian language but the good thing about it is that the Modern Italian language has spread to countries like Somalia. A misunderstanding often happens between an Italian speaking person (not a pure Italian) and an Italian native. This is because the Italian native may have been born in a different district in Italy and the language he could be using is not the standard Italian language but one of the Italian dialects from towns that lie on the outskirt of Italy.

There is still a chance to learn the standard Italian language easy and fast. By using very simple memorization technique, a person can master Italian words even if it just takes a 10 to 15 minute session each day. Below is an example.

The pink ballerina elephant leads the dance and closes the show and receives a whale of applause from the elephant audience.

This method is called Link-Word. This is a memorization technique use to enhance a person’s memory. The idea is to link all the Italian word and its English meaning in one absurd story. Only that the Italian word is replaced by another English word that sounds much like the Italian term.

Italian = Balena

English word used = ballerina

English translation = whale

What’s good about this technique is that it can be used by anyone, of any age. It is a brain exercise which is safe for anybody to try. And it’s all natural too.

Shareen Aguilar is a writer for http://learn-italian-program.com which has Memory Improvement Books and Memory Game Software for better Italian language memorization.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shareen_Aguilar

By Valentina Capra

Do you want to learn how to speak Italian? Italian is the most beautiful and harmonic language in the world. Who doesn't love the sound of this fantastic language?

How many people enjoy themselves eating in an Italian restaurant, travelling around the world and visiting museums full of Italian masterpieces of ancient and modern art? How many people plan to buy a house in Italy close to the sea or in the countryside and spend most of their holidays in the sun or to start a new business in this fantastic country?

A lot of people have the false belief that Italian language is difficult to learn but my experience as a teacher of foreign students is that with the right method everyone can easily speak and understand Italian.

Italian pronunciation is fun and easy and the Italian words are written in such a way that everyone can immediately pronounce them.

Furthermore, foreign people already know hundreds of Italian words having learnt them in a natural and unaware way by watching TV, going to Italian restaurants or even going shopping in the market and buying Italian products.

Who has never heard the word pasta, pizza, opera, caffè, cappuccino, lasagne, bella and ciao? Yes they're all Italian.

If you are passionate about Italy and its culture but you work and you don't have time to go in an Italian school, attend private lessons and you want to learn Italian fast, the perfect solution for you is to try Rocket Italian a new and effective course of Italian, which is easy and pleasant for all levels, from beginners to advance.

Click here to Learn How to Speak Italian today!

Valentina Capra is a qualified Italian Language teacher, who teaches private and group lessons in England. Her methods of teaching students is the best and quickest way to learn Italian, possible.

Learn how to Speak Italian at http://www.rocket-italian.org/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Valentina_Capra

The Italian language is a beautiful language, as they say. You can learn how to speak most of the common words, which will get you around when you take a trip to Italy. You will need to know all this when shopping in an outdoor Italian Marketplace.

1 Learn some common greetings. It will show people that you are friendly.

Good Morning = Buongiorno (Bone-Jor-No) Good Afternoon = Buon Pomeriggio (Bone-po-mer-i-jo) Good Evening = Buona sera (bon-a-say-ra) Good Night = Buona notte (Bon-a-no-tay) Hi/Bye = Ciao (chow)

(informal) 2 Remember that after you say hello, you will leave eventually, so learn the next important word.Goodbye = arrivederci (a-reev-ay-der-chee) (formal) ciao (chow) (informal)

3 Have dinner or lunch out, or make a date to meet a special someone, and you may want to learn these words to pay the bill and not be cheated.

1 = uno 2 = due (doo-ay) 3 = tre 4 = quattro 5 = cinque (chin-quay) = sei (say) 7 = sette 8 = otto 9 = nove (no-vay) 10 = dieci (dee-a-chi)

4 Never forget these other words, or you might get into a problem area and not be able to get out.

No = no Yes = si (see)

5 Always be polite. That is always a nice way to make friends, and be invited back.
Thank you = grazie (gra-tsee-e) You're welcome = prego Buongiorno is used from the morning until 2pm (1:00 -14:00). Buon pomeriggio is used in the afternoon (14:00-evening). Buona sera is for the evening Buona notte is either after 24:00 or when you are going to bed. If you don't understand, try to say this: Non parlo italiano. This is only basic Italian. Don't stop learning the language. It is beautiful and melodic.

Tips The vowels have the exact same sound every time:

a = ah e = ay i = ee o = oh u = oo "ci" is pronounced "chi" "chi" is pronounced "kee"

There are rarely any "sh" or "g" sounds in Italian.Roll your tongue when making "r" sounds. This is important because your words won't sound Italian if you don't roll your tongue.

Usually when there is a z, there is a "t" sound before it. For example, ragazzo (boy), sounds like (ra-gat-zo)

Listen to it being spoken. That is a quick way to pick up key words and phrases.

By Franck Silvestre

Let's face it, learning the French language is not easy. You already know it, otherwise you would be able to pick the phone and speak with me today. The very best way to accelerate your learning curve is to learn with a native speaker.

The Internet made it easy to learn anything. You can literally learn French over skype without moving from your home.

Let me give you some tips to be sure that you learn French fast this year.

Learn Basic French Tip 1. Fixed Schedule

Make sure that you dedicate at least one hour per week to your French lessons. If you can have two hours or more, you will make more progress, but one hour per week is a good start.

Skype is not expensive, so you are not going to pay a lot of money to learn.

Learn Basic French Tip 2. Native Speaker

No need to say that you want to talk with a native if you really want to learn modern French. You don't want to learn words that nobody use. And you don't want people to laugh at you either.

Learn Basic French Tip 3. Learn French Software

I advise you that you get a French software to revise what you learn with your tutor. Rocket French will help you to revise because it is really well structured and beginner friendly.

I recommend it to my mentee.

To learn French, you need to be organized and spend at least one hour per week on skype. You need to speak with someone else. This is a the secret to learn any language.

Want to Learn French Fast? Visit http://www.learnfrenchexpert.com/

Franck Silvestre is a French native who helps others who want to learn to speak french online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Franck_Silvestre

By Franck Silvestre

If you have ever wanted to learn the French language, the best way to do this it to learn French in Paris. That's right, travel to Paris and immerse yourself in the culture. This will teach you the French language faster than any home study course or night class.

The reason that it is easier to learn French in Paris is because you can actually feel the emotions behind the words that are used. You can hear the proper dictation of the way the French words are pronounced. You can see the facial expressions the French use to get their point across. This is the best French language education you can get.

When you are learning the French language from the great people of Paris, you will be having a lot more fun than if you were taking a dry online course or night class. You will be able to go out an enjoy the nightlife and tour the museums. You can immerse yourself completely in the French culture.

When you learn French in Paris you get to experience the sights and sounds of Paris as you learn. You are essentially receiving two educations when you are learning the language of Paris.

So if you have the desire to learn to speak French, there is no better way than to learn French in Paris. When you travel back to your home country, your friends and family will be amazed at how well you can speak the French language. So what are you waiting for, book your travel plans to Paris today!

Want to become fluent in French FAST? Visit http://www.learnfrenchexpert.com/

Franck Silvestre is a French native. Visit his website if you want to learn How To Speak French online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Franck_Silvestre

By Chrisitne Breen

Learning a foreign language especially if you want to learn to speak French, is terrific endeavor. French is widely spoken in a crazy variety of places so no global traveler should really go without learning this language. The opportunity to learn French is precious, since this is the language of many UN missions. To learn French is to advance socially and morally.

If you are a native English speaker, one of the best reasons to learn French is to help you understand your own language. The most important thing you need to learn French is the desire to acquire the language. The best way to learn French is to have a French course that will teach you to speak French in an easy way.

There are many ways to learn to speak French. You can buy a book and try to teach yourself though without hearing the words spoken you cannot learn it correctly. You could also buy very expensive audio tapes or a cd set with books but last time I checked those are several hundred dollars! If you can find a local class that meets when you can attend, isn't too expensive or too far away and moves at a pace that works for you then that would be a good choice. But how many of us have a local French class that we can attend?

The best way to learn to speak French is to put yourself around native French speaking people. Just making the effort to learn French is half the battle.

Find out the best way to learn to speak French at your own pace!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chrisitne_Breen

A French immersion experience is the most expensive way to learn the French language. It is not a viable option for everyone; there are choices such as online lessons, school tuition, software, etc., for an inexpensive way to learn French. But if you can afford it, learn immersion style in France.

French is one of the languages that always come on top of the list of the languages that one would like to learn. The fact that it is considered the language of love and romance with a rich cultural history coupled with the fact that it is the official language of more than 30 countries all around the world explains why most people are eager to learn it as a second or third language.

There are many ways in which one can choose to learn the French language. The standard option is to go sign up for regular language classes at a language training institute. Since this is not an option for most people in today’s fast paced life and work culture, many other flexible options to learn the language have sprung up in recent times. The most popular of them are the online or PC based French language courses that offer an interactive and flexible option to learn the French language.

But, the best way of all to learn the French language for people with time, resources and inclination is to undertake what is popularly known as a French immersion course. A French immersion course will mean that you will have to travel to France from your country of residence for a short while and undertake a French learning course there. The most obvious advantage with this way of learning French is that you will be tutored by native French speakers in a course developed by them, so it will be without doubt the best French language course you could ever take. Travelling all the way to France and staying there for the duration of your course will mean that you will have to encounter and relate to native French speakers day in and day out throughout the course of your stay.

There is no equal to this real life French experience, as you will learn to speak the language from native speakers in their own country, interact with them everyday and gain a firsthand understanding of French life and culture. A French immersion course will provide ample opportunities each day to improve your French language skills - be it haggling with a vegetable grocer over the price of tomatoes, or asking someone for directions to go visit your favorite tourist spot in Paris, or even asking the French girl or boy that you happen to meet to accompany you on a date! You will have no choice but to exercise your new found French muscles to the full during your stay in France!

An important point to note is that though most preferred France is not the only French immersion destination. Canada with its own take on French culture and large French speaking population is another great place to have your French immersion experience. Another exciting option is to visit one of the popular French speaking Caribbean islands on a vacation and also club your French immersion experience with it. Whatever be the place you choose to have your French immersion experience, you are guaranteed to master every nuance of the language and have a load of fun along the way!

Part 1 of 2

One great Internet resource for learning French is http://www.languageguide.org/francais/. Read on to learn how you can use this site to learn vocabulary, grammar and reading/discourse skills in French.

One of the Internet's simplest tools for French language learning is http://www.languageguide.org/francais/. The layout of the site is straightforward and the tools it offers are effective for learning language quickly, without getting bored.

The Pictorial Vocabulary Guide Rating

There are three main sections on the French Language Guide website. The first is the Pictorial Vocabulary Guide, an incredibly simple and helpful dictionary. The Pictorial Vocabulary Guide is simple to navigate; it is divided into seven larger groups of vocabulary domains. The vocabulary groups build from simpler to more complex domains.

When you click on any particular domain within one of the groups, a new page will pop up, displaying pictorial representations of the vocabulary to be taught. For example, the les vêtements d'homme, when clicked on, will open a page displaying images of men's clothing items. As you scroll over the pictures of the clothing items with your mouse, each word will automatically be pronounced in French. There is no need to download any sound files: they are directly embedded in the page and activated at once when you scroll over them. As you scroll over the item, you will also see a small box appear with the written form of the French word. This method is wonderful, as it allows you to quickly and easily see a picture, see the written form of the word, and hear the correct pronunciation of that word. Since the vocabulary is separated by domain, you can easily choose which group of words you want to learn and tackle that domain.

The Grammar Section Rating

The section division of the French Language Guide site is the Grammar division. At the top of the Grammar page, there are links to a Grammar Introduction and to a Pronunciation section. Both these sections--Grammar Introduction and Pronunciation--are well organized with subdivisions and are extremely helpful. They describe the basics of French grammar and the pronunciation of all the sounds in the French language, supplementing the informative text with clear audio files. Just as in the Pictorial Vocabulary Guide, you need only scroll over the French words to hear them pronounced: no file downloading is required.

After the introductions, the grammar section offers four areas of grammar with a number of lessons in each area: verbs, miscellaneous, pronouns and adverbs. Click on one of the lessons in any of these four groups; Relative Pronouns, for example, and you will open a page that explains in detail how that particular grammatical concept works in French. As usual, the clear written text is supplemented by scroll-over-activated audio files, making it easy to learn and remember French grammatical concepts.

The Reading Section Rating

In learning a new language, it is essential to learn how the language functions not just in words, phrases or sentences, but at a higher discourse level--particularly the narrative level. Until you are able to understand the read and spoken flow of a story in a foreign language, you don't really know that language. That is what makes the Readings section of this website so useful. This page offers beginning readings (each rated "easy," "medium," or "hard") as well as advanced readings. If you click on a particular reading/story, such as Deux Amis, you will open a page of text that is accompanied by an audio version of the story. Many of the vocabulary words in the story will be underlined with a small dotted line; when you scroll over these particular words, you will see a small pop-up box that gives an English definition of the word, along with example sentences in English or French.

An Excellent Resource Rating

Overall, the French Language Guide is a fabulous resource to utilize in your self-directed French language learning. It is not comprehensive, of course, but few language resources are. But the help it offers is straightforward, easily accessible, and effective in that they employ both readable and audible content. Use this site faithfully, and your ability to use French vocabulary and grammar will be greatly enhanced.

Learning French OnlineIf you want to jumpstart your French language learning, the internet offers many excellent resources. These reviews of web resources will help you decide which ones may best help you improve your French grammar and vocabulary and enhance your knowledge of Frenchlanguage and culture.1. Learning French Online: a Review of LanguageGuide.org 2. Learning French Online: a Review of BBC's French Language Resources
http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/reviews/11153.aspx

1. Learning French Online: a Review of LanguageGuide.org

2. Learning French Online: a Review of BBC's French Language Resources

Part 2 of 2

The British Broadcasting Corporation offers online resources for French language learning. Their layout is a little more complex than some language learning sites, but is still navigable. BBC's French resources are interactive, fun and useful in language learning.

Overall, BBC offers a plethora of fun and helpful language learning resources, especially for French. The only negative aspect of their offerings is the slightly disorganized format in which the resources are presented. For example, one resource offered by BBC is "Ma France," an interactive video series for intermediate level French students. There are three separate links to "Ma France" on BBC's main page, making the interface a little confusing. But once you get the hang of how to access your favorite elements of their site, BBC can provide you with hours of French learning through listening, reading and evaluating your progress with the tools they offer.

French Steps: a 12-Week Beginner's Course Rating

French Steps is one of BBC's resources featured on the main French page. It is an excellent tool for jumpstarting your French language learning, used either alone or in conjunction with other resources. On the left sidebar of the French Steps webpage, you'll see the curriculum is divided into six "Stages." Each of these stages includes several lessons, organized by domains of life and vocabulary. For example, Stage Four includes the lessons "Restaurant," "Shopping" and "Food."

Each lesson in French Steps offers a video for you to watch (the "video" is simply a series of screen shots, each with optional French and/or English subtitles) and several exercises to reinforce the content taught in the video: these exercises are: 1. Guess the words, 2. Build sentences, and 3. Speak and write. Once you have completed all twelve weeks of lessons, you will have a good beginning grasp on the French language, as well as having developed a good ear for French pronunciation, thanks to the video/audio content.

Talk French: a Supplemental Video-based Course Rating

Talk French is another video-based resource offered on BBC's website. Although it supplements a BBC program, many people will not have access to this program (since it's not broadcast in the U.S. and many other countries). However, this web resource is useful in its own right.

Talk French is divided into nine different sections, each of which contains several clips, an interactive word game and a printable worksheet for further practice. The video clips show you French speakers in their daily locales; as the video clips progress, you can pause and stop the video whenever you wish or go backwards or forwards. Subtitles in French and English, which appear on the right, can be turned off if you don't prefer to see them. The interactive word games let you play with the French concepts that the video clips introduced to you; you will be able to match pictures with phrases, put things in correct columns or rearrange words. Finally, the worksheets can be printed out; they give you a chance to write your own sentences and do more written practice of the French concepts you're learning.

Ma France: an Intermediate Video Rating

If you already know some French and simply want to brush up on what you know and improve your French language skills, BBC's 24-video series Ma France might be perfect for you! In these videos, which were shot in Lyon, Provence and the Alps region, Stéphane Cornicard will serve as your French-speaking guide. Each video is accompanied by downloadable English and French transcripts and by fun activities, such as various card games, interactive roleplays, and cultural quizzes.

Other French Language Resources Rating

Besides the three video-based courses offered on BBC's website, there are a number of other resources you may want to take advantage of. One is an interactive test that gives you immediate feedback on your level of competency in French. Another resource is the Quick Fix page, which offers you lists of useful phrases in mp3 format, along with a text version of the phrases that you can download and print; the Quick Fix phrases are divided into various domains (accommodations, food and drink, beach, etc.). In addition to these resources, the BBC page also offers more language games, grammar tips, an online French/English dictionary, and external links to other French language-learning resources.

Overall Review of BBC's French Language Site Rating

Overall, the BBC's French language learning site is an excellent resource. While French vocabulary lists, online dictionaries and grammar tips can be found elsewhere, BBC offers three great video courses that are definitely worth the investigation of any serious self-directed student of the French language.

Learning French Online

If you want to jumpstart your French language learning, the internet offers many excellent resources. These reviews of web resources will help you decide which ones may best help you improve your French grammar and vocabulary and enhance your knowledge of Frenchlanguage and culture.

French in Action is a dynamic, excellent language learning curriculum that will help you drastically improve your reading, listening, speaking and writing ability in French. It is easy to use in self-directed learning, has elements that are online and will provide hours of language learning fun!

French in Action is an excellent curriculum set for self-directed French language learning. The program includes a textbook, a workbook, and video and audio components (the video and audio are accessible for free online). The French in Action program, first produced in 1987, is published by the Yale University Press and is truly an excellent language learning resource. It enables a learner to observe everyday French “in action” through a video series that develops an interesting, romantic storyline. I will outline each element of the curriculum here. These tools can be used separately or, for best learning, in conjunction with one another. Depending how much of the material you choose to use, you will spend a small sum of money or you may spend nothing!

The Videos

The French in Action video series can be streamed online from the Annenberg Media website; there are fifty-two videos, each one a half hour long. The video series tells the story of a young university student named Mireille, her life, friendships and romance. The videos are completely in French, but they begin very slowly and they repeat concepts and phrases over and over. I recommend watching each episode a couple of times, until you start to grasp what the lessons are about. A professor makes regular appearances throughout the video series, guiding learners through new vocabulary and grammar structures. Since these videos can be watched completely free and can be accessed online, they are an excellent resource. They also offer invaluable access to French culture, particularly to the “pinnacle” of French culture, that which is set in Paris! The language and culture you can glean from this video series is truly phenomenal, and the story line in also quite engaging.

You can find the French in Action videos at the Annenberg Foundation’s website.

The Textbook

You can find the French in Action textbook for a very reasonable price at amazon.com or abebooks. Be sure to look for the Second Edition and be sure to buy both Part 1 and Part 2—there are two textbooks to make the size manageable. The textbook includes several helpful elements. Each chapter of the text corresponds to one half-hour video, and contains the entire written transcript of the video! Needless to say, this is invaluable in being able to match the sound of the French language with the written form of the language. In addition, each chapter contains many pictures (black and white) and a handful of exercises. It is helpful to have the text as a supplement to the videos.

If you want to listen to the spoken text without having to watch the video, you can stream it online. Each chapter has to be accessed separately online. For example, to access chapter two of the text, you would go to: http://otter.middlebury.edu/ns-media/frenchmedia/action/02-00.mp3. Where you see the “2” in that web address, you would simply enter the number for whichever chapter you wished to hear the entire text. This is a great way to hear and see the language at the same time and get familiar with the spelling of different French sounds!

The Workbook and Audio Files

The third element of the French in Action is the workbook. Like the textbooks, there are two workbooks to cover the 52 videos of the series, and if you look for the workbooks on Amazon’s or ABE Books’ websites, you should look for the Second Edition and make sure to buy both Part 1 and Part 2 if you plan to go through the whole series! For each video and corresponding chapter of the textbook, the workbook offers dozens and dozens of short exercises that will help to improve all your language skills—speaking, reading, listening and writing. Many of the exercises are to be used in conjunction with audio files. You can buy the audio files, but they are very expensive. I recommend streaming them online; however, to do this, you can only access the files one at a time. This is not difficult to do, once you get the hang of how to change the numbers in the web address to get to the next file. Say, for example, that you want to do exercise 3.43 (basically, this is exercise 43 for lesson 3). You would go to the following web address: http://otter.middlebury.edu/ns-media/frenchmedia/action/03-43.mp3.

Recomendation Rating

I recommend using all three elements of the French in Action curriculum in conjunction, for maximum French language and culture learning. However, even if you choose just to watch the half-hour video segments, you will begin to improve your French language skills, I highly recommend this excellent French language learning series: it will hold your interest and make you successful in your language learning endeavor!

I found this website, it looks like a good resouce for anyone looking to learn a new language, brush up on some of their new language skills or just for review. I would be interested in getting some feedback on this site from you.

This site has links to lessons for Spanish (levels 1,2,3, & 4 and above), French (1,2,3 and above) Italian Marostica, una città incantevole, As well as German, Chinese, Japanese, ESL/EFL, Tagalog, Russian & Latin

Internet Activities for Foreign Language Classes

Getting Started....the Web in the Classroom

How to Write Activities for The Web

Reading Strategies For Web Activities

Internet Options in the Classroom (hardware, software, one computer, no Internet connection)

Web Lesson Evaluation Form

Favorite Teacher URL's - Use these web sites to write your own Internet activities. There are 480 links to authentic documents on the web. They include Geography, Newspapers, Foods, Sports, Music, Literature, Museums, Artists, Leisure, History, Holidays/ Celebrations, Weather, Search Engines, and Comics.

Sample Web Lessons

The following Internet-based lesson plans were created for foreign language classes by participants in the Technology Workshops of the California Foreign Language Project and the California Language Teachers Association. These sites were designed to be used as worksheets for the students to complete while accessing the corresponding reference web sites online. Teachers may print out the sheets, copy them, and distribute them to the students. (For your convenience, each web address on the online worksheets is also a link to the corresponding reference page.)

By Takanori Tomita

If you are visiting to Japan for business, and try to speak in Japanese, you need to be careful. Being polite is very important in Japan, especially for business.

In Japanese, using the plain/informal verb form is fine when you are having conversation with your mates. However, Japanese business mans may think that you are rude or unsophisticated. Knowing what level of formality is appropriate is an important part of speaking Japanese.

So today, this article tell you how to speak politely in Japanese and explain about the polite/neutral verb form.

Making the polite/neutral verb form is very easy!!

All you have to remember is the following four verb endings:

1 For affirmative present verbs, add - Masu

2 For negative present verbs, add Masen

3 For affirmative past verbs, add Mashita

4 For negative past verbs, add Masen deshita.

For example, "eat" in Japanese is "Tabe" and if adding these to the end of the verb, it will be

Tabe Masu (eat)

Tabe Masen (don't eat)

Tabe Mashita (ate)

Tabe Masen deshita (did not eat)

"Tabe" is verb, and adding Masu, Masen, Mashita and Masen Deshita makes difference.

So when you are asked a question like "Did you eat Japanese food yesterday?" in Japan,

and if you want to say "I ate Japanese food yesterday" in Japanese.

Kinou, Nihon Shoku o, Tabe Masen deshita.

"Kinou" means "Yesterday", and "Nihon Shoku" means "Japanese Food"

But, you can just say "Tabe masen deshita" in a conversation and still right. You can also listen to this Japanese audio lessons as well.

Takanori Tomita's website - Learn to speak Japanese language

Masu, Masen, Mashita, Masen deshita - http://learn-japanese.podomatic.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Takanori_Tomita

- Did You Know That There Are 3 Different Japanese Symbols?

By Takanori Tomita

Especially for those who have started to learn Japanese, you should know the difference between three different Japanese symbols or writing form called:

1 Kanji

2 Hiragana

3 Katakana

Japanese people use 3 different Japanese Symbols

About Kanji Symbols: Normally, many Westerners think that kanji symbol is the only writing form we use in Japanese. It is true that we use kanji symbols more than hiragana or katakana symbols when writing something in Japanese. However, unlike Chinese people who use only Kanji symbols, we mix up all Japanese scripts.

About Hiragana symbols: Hiragana symbols are normally used by supporting Kanji symbols' meaning. For example, if you write "I love You" in Japanese, you would use the kanji symbol for Love, but the rest of characters are written with Hiragana symbols. Of course, we just use only Hiragana symbols to write a word or phrase in Japanese as well.

About Katakana symbol: Finally, Katakana symbol is often used to represent foreign words, or names which have adopted into the Japanese writing system. Therefore, if you can read the Katakana symbols, you can normally work out what a word or phrase means in English. Nowadays, the majority of companies write their names both in English and Katakana symbols.

Each Japanese symbols are used something like this in Japan.

If you travel to Japan, you would see how each Japanese Kanji Symbols, Hiragana and Katakana symbols are used.

For example, Japanese Magazine normally use 80% of Kanji symbols, and 10% of Hiragana and Katakana symbols.

This picture is a part of a Japanese Magazine. In this case, they use Kanji symbols and Katakana symbls for the title. But, otherwise, they used all 3 Japanese symbols.

Because this page of the Japanese magazine is talking something about the name of the company in Unites States which is foreign name, they used the Katakana symbols for its name.

Takanori Tomita, a Japanese translator who is specializing in Japanese symbols. He lives in Tokyo, Japan. This article is (c) Takanori Tomita 2006. Permission is given to reproduce this article in whole with the URLs correctly hyperlinked.

For more information about Japanese symbols, please check Learn Japanese Language and Symbols

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By Andrew Takuya

Have you always been wanting to go Japan but were worried that you could not understand a single word? Are you able to speak Japanese with your Japanese friends, colleagues or clients? Are you going to work in Japan? You thought of learning how to speak Japanese but due to your busy schedule, you do not have the time to learn. You may have thought that learning to speak Japanese can be time consuming, difficult and expensive. Do you know you will be able to speak and understand basic Japanese in two months time if you are serious in learning how to speak Japanese.

Learning a new language can a challenging task. To fully understand the theory and culture of Japanese is also amazing. So, if you want to speak Japanese language in two months time, you need to prepare a few things.

- A good Japanese language guide that include translation, transcript, audio and explanation of Japanese culture.

- Set aside some time to learn Japanese every day.

- A Japanese serial drama.

To really understand the Japanese language, you need to set about an hour of time aside everyday. This is to make you understand the Japanese Culture and learning the right ways to speak and write Japanese. When you learn Japanese language on your own, you may meet up with some difficulties in remembering or understanding the words. Hence, being able to get some help from some Japanese teachers, natives or friends would greatly help to correct your ways of learning how to speak Japanese. After a month of learning, you should start to watch Japanese serial drama in their language, find those with subtitles that you can understand. If possible, you can get a few friends to learn together so that all of you will be able to motivate and practise speaking Japanese language with each other.

Do you want to know how to say goodbye in Japanese? Get a free 6 days e-course on How To Learn Japanese in two months time.

You can order your food and do your shopping in Japan at ease when you are able to speak Japanese. CLICK HERE to learn Japanese Language and have great fun in Japan.

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By John Hubert

Knowing how to learn Japanese online is no easy task. There are a myriad of online courses out there that claim to be the best, but just how effective are they all? Obviously unless if you've tried them all out, knowing the answer to this question can be difficult.

Japanese is a fundamentally difficult language for native English speakers. It is grouped as one of the languages that is most unlike English, compared to other more similar anglo-saxon or latin based languages, therefore learning it can be extremely difficult for the complete novice.

The thing to understand if you want to learn Japanese, is that you must first learn the kana. The kana consists of both the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets, and mastery of these two forms of writing is essential to developing a good understanding of Japanese.

The Hiragana is used predominantly for native words which don't have a Kanji, or for words which are preferably written in Hiragana. As a new student trying to learn Japanese, it's important you master the Hiragana to be able to read and write basic forms of Japanese. Once you learn the hiragana, you'll start to notice that you can read some more basic Japanese words and phrases.

The next kana you'll want to learn is known as the Katakana. The katakana is used more for loan words and foreign words, and for writing in emphasis. The katakana is important to learn as it will allow you to communicate and read foreign words in Japanese with ease. You may even find yourself picking up the Katakana quite easily, since a lot of the imported Japanese words are from American or other English speaking countries. Whilst they take on slight modifications, you should be able to recognise these modifications with appropriate training and practice.

Some words in Japanese are also a little more complex to understand than others, however one of the great things about Japanese is that its quite phonetic. The way you read a word is the way it sounds, and once you learn and master the basic kana characters, you'll be able to quite easily read these characters aloud, in any word, and get the correct pronunciation first time, without having to hear it. Of course in saying there, there are some simple rules you must follow, however learning these rules is quite straight forward.

So whilst your goal of trying to learn Japanese online won't be an easy journey, know that starting off with a simple goal, such as trying to learn the kana, is what will allow you to see slow and steady progress each and every day to your eventual acquisition and understanding of the Japanese language.

John Hubert is a researcher of the Japanese language and runs a site on how to Learn The Kana. This site explains in details various ways on how to Learn Japanese Online.

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