For your convenience I have selected a few links to post on this page. I hope you find them useful.
Rocket Languages program seems to be "popping up" everywhere. So, I thought it fitting to put their link first. Click Here!
Who wouldn't want to learn the language of their choice quickly?! Learn to speak ANY language in just a few days!! Click Here!
Although this link is not to a language program, it's information is invaluable! It shows you the techniques to make the most of your studies. Click Here!
If you would like to travel and try out your new language skills stop by this travel site! Click Here!
By Larry M. Lynch
In his article entitled, "How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in One Hour", author Tim Ferris details his techniques or what he calls "deconstructing" a foreign language. His argument is that by deconstructing the language's main elements such as alphabet, key grammatical structures, rules of pronunciation and sentence structure, you can gain a basic understanding of just how it functions. That way you can relatively easily determine if you will be able to pursue fluency in communicating in that language within a reasonable amount of time.
How to Learn Any Foreign Language
His general belief system is similar to my own in that I state in my foreign language learning techniques book entitled, "You Can Learn A Foreign Language: Tested Techniques Anyone Can Use" that if a language is similar in grammar and structure or pronunciation to your own first language (L1), then it should be fairly easy to acquire using English, for instance, as a point of reference. An example would be a native Spanish speaker learning Italian, Portuguese or even French. These are all in the same linguistic family.
On the contrary, if the language that you are considering is vastly different in structure, grammar or pronunciation to your own, then you will likely tend to have increased difficulty in learning it. That is not to say that you cannot learn a foreign language radically different from your own, but simply that learning it will have greatly increased difficulty for you in comparison to one in your first language's family group.
Linguistics and Families
Languages, like people, come in families. In my book, I go into detail about linguistic families and which ones are grouped together. English, for example, is in the same linguistic family as German - not French and Spanish as many language learners initially believe. While there are a substantial number of true word cognates between these three - English, Spanish and French, which often can help considerably with communications, there is a distinct "caveat". What is it, exactly? It is the presence of a considerable number of false cognates. That is to say, words which look and are spelled in similar manner but have very different meanings in the two languages.
In the next and final part of this article, we'll consider anomalies in spoken Chinese. Also, we'll review how to look at foreign language learning "as a sport". See you then.
Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, prolific writer, expert author and public speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 120 countries. Get your FREE E-book, "If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" and English language teaching and learning information at: http://bettereflteacher.blogspot.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Contact the author at the above blog address for more information.
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How to Learn a Foreign Language in One Hour - Part 2
0 comments Posted by Sarahs Paradise at 11:45 PMBy Larry M. Lynch
Foreign Language Learning
In the first part of this article post, we briefly looked at the general belief system for learning a foreign language as opinioned by noted author Tim Ferris as compared to my key considerations. Here in the final, part 2 of this article, we will continue by examining anomalies in the Chinese language which add to its already inherent difficulty in learning it as a foreign language.
An Anomaly of the Chinese Language
But being in the same language family can also have its problems and idiosyncrasies for unwary foreign language learners. Chinese is a good example of this. Although there are nine major "dialects" of Chinese, most of them are virtually unintelligible to speakers of the other Chinese dialects or variants. Speakers of Cantonese cannot "talk" directly to speakers of Mandarin, although they can read the written form of Mandarin since most of the dialects in Chinese have the same written form! They can easily read and understand each other's writing, but cannot speak to one another.
Treat Language as a Sport
Author Ferris advises would-be foreign language learners to "treat language learning as a sport". Learn the rules of the language first to determine if you'll be able to manage it, before investing any substantial amount of time in trying to learn a foreign language which may be somewhat "out of reach" or at the very minimum, a "broad stretch" for you to acquire up to even a mediocre level. His clearly laid out and well-defined points are well taken in my opinion.
Learn a Foreign Language in One Hour
Can you learn a foreign language in one hour? Normally, most certainly not. But you could do enough deconstruction of a foreign language in one hour, more or less, to determine how well or how difficult it would potentially be for you to learn that foreign language. This could definitely go a long way in helping to avoid the disappointments and frustrations of trying to learn a foreign language that was too far out of your league for easy acquisition. And that my dear potential foreign language learner, is certainly something well worth considering.
Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, prolific writer, expert author and public speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 120 countries. Get your FREE E-book, "If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" and English language teaching and learning information at: http://bettereflteacher.blogspot.com/ Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Contact the author at the above blog address for more information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_M._Lynch
By Kelly Winter
It is no mystery that the secret to preventing memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer's disease is to ensure your brain stays active throughout your life. Largely fueled by the concerns and fears of the aging baby boomers, there is a thriving business surrounding this topic and you can now find numerous books, articles, games, courses, websites and other products dedicated to helping you maintain a healthy and properly functioning brain.
Luckily, this is not all just hype and there has been extensive scientific research surrounding this topic. A quick internet search will fetch you volumes of information on related studies so I won't go into technical detail here except to summarize that findings show that when the brain is stimulated to produce new neural pathways (connections between brain cells) on a continuous basis, throughout your life, the brain will continue to grow and improve.
Neurologists have reported that by spending only 20 minutes, 3 times a week, practicing mental exercises you can reduce your chances of developing Alzheimer's disease by 70%. And so, what is an effective brain exercise? It has been discovered that for a brain exercise to be beneficial it needs to meet three criteria; one, it needs to engage your attention, two, it must involve more than one of the senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste), and three, it must break a routine activity in an unexpected, nontrivial way.
Learning a new language is recognized as being a highly effective brain exercise because it strongly meets and even exceeds all three of these criteria.
One, you must focus intently to make progress in your lessons thus making your brain work strenuously. You have to listen to a word or phrase, repeat back the word or phrase and at the same time your mind has to translate the meaning of words from and to your native language. Add memorization, listening, reading and writing to the list and your brain will feel the workout.
Two, you must use sight, sound and speech to properly speak and understand a new language. Although speech is not one of the five senses, it does require the brain to interpret and organize the information from the other senses and to formulate a response using motor-skills thereby exceeding criteria number two.
Three, If you only speak one language than it is probably safe to assume that learning a new language would not be a routine activity for you. Even if you already speak multiple languages, each new language brings new concepts and challenges to the brain.
Besides the obvious benefit of brain longevity, learning a new language will provide other benefits such as confidence when travelling to the country where your new language is spoken and perhaps it could even open doors for certain careers.
There are many ways to learn a new language ranging from formal classroom style courses to self-paced video, audio or online computer courses. My personal preference is online computer courses mainly because when cleverly designed, they are highly interactive, entertaining and transportable (that is if you have a laptop or access to multiple computers). A well designed computer based language courses will offer a variety of learning techniques such as audio, video, text, games and quizzes providing an even greater opportunity to flex your brain muscles.
Kelly Winter is just one of the many baby boomers concerned with keeping healthy, active and alert as she enjoys the next phase of her life. She enjoys travelling the world and has had great fun and success learning to speak Spanish with the rocket language program which offers all the benefits mentioned in her article. Check it out at http://www.rocketlanguages.ca and start to challenge your brain now.
[1] Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Winter
By Jonathan Sayles
The problem with looking for language translations online is the way most websites translate languages. You enter a word into a search box, and every possible translation, or possible similar word will flash infront of your eyes.
As an example, have you ever tried translating something as simple as car? Of course, the language you are trying to translate into will depend on the translations you get, but if you chose Italian, you might achieve the following:- macchina, automobile, auto, tram, vagone, carroza, carro and a few more.
Which is the right one? If you wanted to translate car into Bisaya, one of the Philippine languages you would get awto. However awto would represent all of the different types of car you can have. Convertibles, people carriers, estate cars. There is no real definition.
The main method for finding the translations I use is as follows, if I need to translate a word, I`ll think of similar words. If I wanted to translate lemon tree, and I already knew the translation for tree I would include that in a search on Google. In Spanish it would be "lemon tree árbol" This way I wouldn't be using a language website, but the power of Google to locate articles and websites that might list language translations as word lists.
For singular word and singular phrase translations, this is the master method you can use. If you want to translate a bunch of words related to one specific field, like drinks, you can also use the same method, just increase the amount of words in the search, and include some of those words in the language you already know.
Try this Google search for a list of drinks in the dutch language.
The other method of translating words which are quite rare is to use Wikipedia. Type your word in your language, and if you find an article page, search on the left side for a language link to the language you wish to translate too. For wildlife and nature, Wikipedia is a very useful resource.
Another way of translating the right word is to find someone else that has done all of the hard word already. Categorizing each word into the right places, and translating compound forms and phrases. This is what I`ve been doing for the past three years on my website http://www.jonsay.co.uk/. I used the above methods in the construction of my website, and without them, there is no way I could have done so much work. So far I have categorized a few thousand words in each of the following languages:- bisaya, chinese, dutch, italian, indonesian, japanese, spanish and tagalog, and with german almost ready to go live.
A final tip, get a friend from the country you wish to learn the language for! I did, and they have all been an excellent source of information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jonathan_Sayles