Sounding Too Correct : Lessons from Norwegian and Swedish

There are some useful crossovers between language learning and ‘full on’ linguistics, as I think of it, where the one helps your knowledge of the other. I’ve been looking at language change recently, digging into a few papers on a Norwegian and Swedish trend that can add a really authentic-sounding twist to your speech.

The phenomenon is called ha-dropping. No, not h-dropping, which might ‘elp your English sound more colloquial, but ha, or have, in both Norwegian and Swedish – specifically, the have of the perfect tense.

If you’ve spent some time reading and listening to these languages, it’s something that can throw you off the first time you hear it. In short, ha can simply go missing where you’d expect to hear it in English:

De burde solgt det (they should have sold it – Norwegian)

The variant with ha still exists, of course – de burde ha solgt det – and it’s still considered correct. These days, however, it tends to sound a little bookish or formal.

Sounding too correct

It looks like a classic case of redundancy leading to loss. The context is obvious from the use of the past participle, so why bother with ha? It reduces a three-verb construction to just two verbs, and the meaning is still completely recoverable.

But what surprised me most was that it’s not a recent trend (as if young speakers needed any further blame shame for language-changing innovations). One paper traces ha-dropping in Swedish right back to the 17th Century, although the circumstances it occurs in may be extending. In Norwegian, it’s restricted on the whole to ha after modal verbs, and seems pretty stable where it is.

Apart from the fact that it’s a fascinating change in itself, it also highlights one of those cases where you can sound too correct as a non-native speaker. Ha-dropping is intuitively odd for first-language speakers of English, but working it into your Scandi convo might make you sound that little bit more fluent.

Multiple language decks in Anki

Top Anki Plug-Ins, 2025 Edition

I recently sang the praises of the Anki Heat Map plug-in, which has been a great motivator and accountability pal for me. It’s one amongst many Anki add-ons, and one that’s been around at least as long as I’ve been using the app (and that’s a long time!).

The beauty of Anki is its extensibility, of course. And while we’re revisiting some trusty old plug-ins like Heat Map, it’s worth surveying the current field again.

Here are five standout plug-ins for language learners still going strong in 2025.

HYPERTTS – Add Speech to Your Flashcards

Enhance your pronunciation and listening skills by integrating native speaker audio into your flashcards.

HyperTTS allows users to add high-quality text-to-speech audio to their cards, covering a wide range of languages. This is particularly beneficial for practicing pronunciation and improving listening comprehension.

IMAGE OCCLUSION ENHANCED

Transform complex images into interactive flashcards.

Ideal for visual learners, this plug-in lets you hide parts of an image to test your recall. Whether it’s vocabulary lists, grammar structures, or cultural visuals, Image Occlusion Enhanced makes memorisation engaging.

LANGUAGE TOOLS

Automate translations and transliterations within your flashcards.

Language Tools brings automated translation support for 133 languages and transliteration in 33 languages directly into Anki. This is particularly useful for learners dealing with multiple languages or scripts, streamlining the creation of comprehensive flashcards. 

ADVANCED BROWSER

Streamline your card management with enhanced search and organization features.

The Advanced Browser plug-in offers additional search parameters and sorting options, making it easier to manage large decks. You can filter cards by various criteria, ensuring efficient study sessions. Definitely one of those ‘I never knew I needed it until I had it!’ plug-ins.

ANKICOLLAB – The Free Collaboration Platform

Collaborate with fellow learners to create and share decks.

AnkiCollab enables users to work together on deck creation, allowing for shared insights and resources. It’s a valuable tool for community-driven learning and expanding your study materials.

All these plug-ins come with some prestige and history, having been around for a while. In other words, they’ve proven their worth to countless users already. Incorporating any of them can transform your Anki experience, making language learning more interactive, efficient, enjoyable, and even more sociable.

Happy studying!

A robot reading a script. The text-to-speech voices at ElevenLabs certainly sound intelligent as well as natural!

ElevenLabs : 5-Star Tool for Language Work and Study

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know how impressed I’ve been at ElevenLabs, the text-to-speech creator that stunned the industry when its super-realistic voices were unleashed on the world. Since then, it’s made itself irreplaceable in both my work and study, and it bears spreading the word again: ElevenLabs is a blow-your-socks-off kind of tool for creating spoken audio content.

Professional Projects

In my work developing language learning materials for schools, arranging quality narration used to involve coordinating with agencies and studios — a process that was both time-consuming and costly. We’ve had issues with errors, too, which cost a project time with re-recordings. And that’s not to mention the hassle keeping sections up-to-date. Removing ‘stereo’ from an old vocab section (who has those now?) would usually trigger a complete re-record.

With ElevenLabs, I can now produce new sections promptly, utilising its impressive array of voices across multiple languages. The authenticity and clarity of these voices are fantastic – I really can’t understate it – and it’s made maintaining the biggest language learning site for schools so much easier.

Supporting Individual Learning

As a language learner, ElevenLabs is more than worth its salt, too. It’s particularly good for assembling short listening passages – about a minute long – to practise ‘conversation islands’—a well-regarded polyglot technique for achieving conversational fluency.

Beyond language learning, the tool can be a great support to other academic projects. I’ve created concise narrations of complex topics, converting excerpts from scholarly papers into audio format. Listening to these clips in spare moments (or even in the background while washing up) has helped cement some key concepts, and prime my mind for conventional close study.

Flexible and Affordable Plans

ElevenLabs offers a range of pricing options to suit different needs:

• Free Plan: Ideal for those starting out, this plan provides 10,000 characters per month, roughly equating to 10 minutes of audio.

• Starter Plan: At £5 per month, you receive 30,000 characters (about 30 minutes of audio), along with features like voice cloning and commercial use rights.

• Creator Plan: For £22 per month, this plan offers 100,000 characters (around 100 minutes of audio), plus professional voice cloning and higher-quality outputs.

For messing around, that free plan is not too stingy at all – you can really get a feel for the tool from it. Personally, I’ve not needed to move beyond the starter plan yet, which is pretty much a bargain at around a fiver a month.

Introducing ElevenReader

And there’s more! Complementing the TTS service, ElevenLabs has introduced ElevenReader, a free tool that narrates PDFs, ePubs, articles, and newsletters in realistic AI voices. Available on both iOS and Android platforms, the app doesn’t even consume credits from your ElevenLabs subscription plan.

Seriously, I can’t even believe this is still free – go and try it!

Final Thoughts

ElevenLabs has truly transformed the way I create and consume spoken content. It truly is my star tool from the current crop of AI-powered utilities.

The ElevenLabs free tier is enough for most casual users to have a dabble – go and try it today!

Irish countryside (photo by Brian Lary, freeimages.com)

Pop Music for Gaeilgeoirs: Learning Irish Through Song

If you’ve ever tried learning a new language, you’ll know the importance of immersion—hearing, reading, and speaking the language in real-life contexts. For learners of Irish, pop music offers an engaging and foot-tapping way to deepen your skills.

With a new generation of gaeilgeoirs, Irish-language pop music is flourishing, providing a soundtrack for learners that’s not only catchy but also incredibly useful for building vocabulary, understanding grammar, and developing a natural rhythm for the language.

The TG Lurgan Phenomenon

One of the most exciting movements in this fledgling Irish-language pop music comes from TG Lurgan, a YouTube channel that has captured the imagination of language learners and music lovers alike. TG Lurgan is part of Coláiste Lurgan, a summer school in Connemara that has taken an innovative approach to promoting Irish through music.

The channel is famous for its Irish-language covers of popular English songs, ranging from Ed Sheeran to Billie Eilish. By translating global hits into Irish, TG Lurgan creates an accessible bridge for learners familiar with the original versions. This familiarity helps you focus on understanding the Irish lyrics and comparing them to the English equivalents.

Take their rendition of “Someone You Loved” (“Duine ar Strae”) or their vibrant cover of Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” (which, dare I say, sounds even better than the original). These tracks are expertly produced and often come with subtitles (or, at the very least, lyrics in the description), making it easier to follow along and grasp the language. The benefit here is twofold: you’re improving your listening skills while enjoying the process of learning.

Beyond YouTube, many of their tracks are also on Spotify, so you can playlistify your favourites to work with (and to).

Other Artists to Explore

Beyond TG Lurgan, there’s a growing pool of talented Irish-language artists creating original music across various genres. Here are a few worth adding to your playlist:

– Seo Linn: Known for their collaborations with TG Lurgan, Seo Linn also release their own upbeat, original tracks in Irish. Songs like “Ár nAmhrán” (Our Song) and “Tú” are great for learners seeking modern and melodic material.

– KNEECAP: If you’re looking for something edgier, this Belfast-based hip-hop group combines Irish with English in a bold and irreverent way. Their music introduces slang and colloquial expressions that you won’t find in traditional textbooks. They’re likely already on your radar thanks to the eponymous drama which proved a recent hit!

– Clare Sands: Mixing traditional Irish elements with contemporary sounds, Clare Sands’ music is both atmospheric and accessible. Her bilingual tracks are particularly good for learners who are easing into Irish.

Why Pop As Gaeilge Matters

Pop music is a fantastic way to bring Irish out of the classroom and into your daily life. It reminds learners that Irish isn’t just a language of the past but a vibrant, living tongue with relevance in the modern world. By engaging with Irish-language pop, you’re not only improving your skills but also supporting a thriving cultural movement.

So plug in, sing out, and let Irish music bring your learning journey to life!

Old English : Texts for Newbies and Brushers-Up

It’s not foreign languages, but a variety of my first language that has been central lately. Old English keeps cropping up – in my research, in the classroom, and as a general object of geeky interest – so I’ve been digging out all the old texts for reference.

I’ve used a right mix of them over the years. From traditional grammars and readers, to more modern guides that take the same approach as modern language learning, I’ve got something from each and every one of them.

If you’ve not learnt Old English formally, some of these are texts you wouldn’t necessarily have come across. That said, they’re still great for self-teaching, as well as dipping in and out of. So here you go – my go-to bookshelf of Old English primers and reference works.

Learning Old English

First off, two solid texts that have formed the basis of a couple of university courses I’ve followed.

Introduction to Old English by Peter Baker, 2012

In its third edition now, Introduction to Old English by Peter S. Baker is one of the more contemporary primers in Modern English. It has some great material situating the language in its socio-historical place, making it a really comprehensive introduction.

A Guide to Old English by Mitchell, Bruce and Robinson

But if it’s pedigree you’re after, this is the one. Published by Wiley-Blackwell, like the more recent Baker text, this guide – already in its eighth edition! – is a staple of introductory courses. It follows a solid expository-exercises layout but also features a section of elementary readers for practice. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Teach Yourself series. It’s probably not the first place you’d think of when it comes to ancient languages, though – until you look at their back catalogue and see that Latin and Ancient Greek have featured there for decades. Old English is a slightly more recent edition, and it’s recently been given the Complete range makeover you see in this edition.

Some might class it as a bit of a hobbyist guide, and for sure, it does take an approach that is closer to a modern language course. But that’s precisely what’s so good about it – and so appropriate if you’re coming to it as a learner of other languages. Accessible and chunked up into very digestible portions. A winner.

Finally, if you’re hankering to see it all in action, give this a go. It’s a bilingual edition of the Old English classic Beowulf. Each page spread features the original, and a side-by-side modern translation by Seamus Heaney. Read it from cover to cover, or dip in and out when the mood takes you. A brilliant first text once you’ve covered the basics.

Whether you’re diving into Old English for academic purposes, out of linguistic curiosity, or simply to connect with the roots of Modern English, these resources offer a fantastic starting point. Happy reading and learning!

Anki Heat Maps – Honesty Corner

When it comes to building and reviewing habits, honesty is the best policy. And there’s one Anki plug-in that has been that tough-talking, truth-speaking friend I’ve needed over the years.

Review heat map has been going for as long as I’ve been using Anki (and that’s a long time already!). I think it was a German conversation partner on iTalki who pointed me in its direction originally – it was so long ago, that that origin story is lost in the mists of time.

But because of that admirable length of service, I have years of usage data in there – and it really shines a light on my consistency (or lack thereof) in that time.

Anki Honesty

I’d not looked at mine in a while – in the desktop app they’re hiding below your decks – so it was about time to check in. And while I knew I’d been a bit on and off in 2024 (preparing for a PhD was a slight distraction!), I didn’t realise I’d been quite so neglectful.

Anki heat maps over time

Anki heat maps over time

It’s not all bad, though. There’s actually something very encouraging about this. Progress is bitty, yes; but it never stops completely. A couple of times, I’ve had over two weeks without checking in. But I’ve always got back into it (usually in a mammoth catch-up sesh, working through 200+ cards – although even those catch-ups took perhaps just 10-15 minutes each).

Taking stock like this also serves as a motivational kick – I can do better. And so it’s back in my goals list for 2025 – make Anki part of the start of your day. Getting a year completely blued out, like 2021, will be so satisfying.

Know Yourself

Heat maps can show us that sometimes, we fail to take our own advice. We fall off the wagon. It’s clear that there are times that I repeatedly let my daily tactics slide, despite my own efficiency evangelism!

That said, knowledge is power. Looking over those heat maps, I see when those times of slippage occur. Without fail, they’re always times of being over-busy, stressed out, or – conversely – times of extreme leisure (think: holidays!). More than anything, the stops and starts in my heat maps show that life sometimes gets in the way.

But you can always get it back on track.

Review Heat Map is a pretty essential addition to your Anki toolbox, to my mind. And it’s available for free from the Anki plug-ins site!

Lots of Flashcards floating down from buildings to the street below

Mastering Verbs with Anki: A Step-by-Step Guide

Verb conjugation is a sticking point for many language learners at some point. Of course, some languages let us off the hook with minimal paradigms, like Chinese, or Norwegian. As for the rest of them, there’s no getting around endings, stem changes, auxiliaries and the like.

Memorising entire conjugation tables by rote might work as an overview. But retaining reams of conjugation tables in memory, then using them naturally in context, is a different story.

That’s where Anki can help. By customising your cards to include not only disembodied parts, but also real-world, conjugated, in-use examples, verb drills will be less wading through treacle and more in-the-moment fast recall.

Here’s how.

Custom fields for verbs

It’s all about customising your note types to contain contextualising info, and not just a simple dictionary form and translation. A good ‘verb note’ should probably contain the main dictionary elements – infinitive, simple past and past participle, for example – but also a space for a sample sentence (or several, if you like).

To add these custom fields to a note type in Anki, start by opening the Manage Note Types menu. You can find this by clicking Tools > Manage Note Types in the top menu. Choose an existing note type you want to customise (or create a new one by clicking Add) and select Fields. In the fields editor, you can add new fields by clicking Add and giving the field a name, such as “Dictionary Form,” “Conjugated Sentence,” or “Notes.”

Making a custom note type for verbs in Anki

After you’ve done that, you can start adding items to your decks in this new format.

Adding an Anki card using a custom note type for verbs

We’re not quite done yet, though. Your new, custom note is up and running in terms of storing data – just not displaying it in cards, yet.

To include these fields on your flashcards, hit the Browse link in main Anki window, select the note type in the left-hand menu, then edit the card templates by selecting Cards in the right-hand pane. Insert your named fields into the template using curly braces, e.g., {{Dictionary Form}} or {{Sample Sentence}}. You can use basic HTML to style your data, too.

Customising a card view to use a new note type specifically for German verbs

Experiment with different strategies for where you place the info. The front side might contain just the English prompt, with the target language all on the flip side. Alternatively, you might want to keep your cards solely in the target language, with the infinitive on one side, and the parts / context material on the back.

Form and Use

The beauty of the customised note types approach is that a deck can contain multiple types. So, for verbs, enter your vocab using the note type created in the steps above. For other items like nouns, adjectives and so on, add using a basic card. Either that, or customise for those parts of speech, too – there’s no limit!

Mastering irregular verbs is all about context. Anki gives you the tools to leverage context in any way you please, through its extensive customisation tools. By taking advantage of Anki’s spaced repetition when learning verbs in full sentences, you’ll not only memorise their forms, but also their use. It’s especially effective when you make Anki cards one of your daily tactics.

Ready to take control of your verbs? Start building your deck today, and let Anki do the heavy lifting!

Fireworks at New Year - the best time for resolutions!

Realistic Resolutions for 2025

Days away from the turn of the year, many of us feel the potential to start new projects and revitalise old ones – a roadmap to the ‘you’ you want to become. And as with all roadmaps, New Year’s resolutions are always better when you start with a good plan.

The best kind of plan, in this case, is a scaffold. A scaffold is a set of looser rules to guide you, rather than a straitjacket to lock you into one, unbending path. Where this helps is when life inevitably gets in the way – there will be times you have to miss a streak or fall short of your weekly goal. Broad guiding principles provide just enough give to prevent bumps in the road from feeling like total failures.

The best guiding principles are ones that are realistic about the limits of our distractible, whimsical, faddish human brains. They respect our energy and concentration levels, as well as acknowledging when and how we work best.

Below are some of the most sure-fire scaffolding tricks I’ve personally used to guarantee realistic resolutions for 2025!

Daily tactics for Realistic Resolutions

The old adage little and often really is your best friend. Daily tactics are just this – short, snappy and non-negotiable habits that keep you learning and improving all the time. They can be super short, in fact – five minutes completing a lesson on an app, for example – but they must be easy enough to perform regularly. Think about putting together a little regime of three or four tactics that you can perform each and every day.

Tactics can evolve over the year, too, as they’re easy to tweak if something isn’t quite right. The most important thing is to have your core of easy tide-me-overs, and stick to them.

Lark or owl?

Talking about regularity of habits, an important question to ask yourself is when are you at your most effective and energetic? My biggest mistake when making any kind of self-development lists in the past was over-optimism about my energy levels. I’d see myself getting up at dawn for a learning session, working all day, then scheduling classes and activities at night. I love learning – so why wouldn’t I plan learning into my entire day?

You can guess what this leads to: burn-out.

Over time, I’ve come to accept that I’m a lark, through and through. My energy is morning-loaded. After a certain point (usually about 6pm), I am done for the day. What this acceptance gives me is a more realistic attitude towards procrastination. Before, I’d kid myself that I could postpone task X or Y until the evening, and allow distractions to creep into my morning. Embracing my inner lark reminds me that the only thing I’m doing in the evening is recharging!

Would-Like-To-Do Lists

Finally, a bit of self-kindness is key to tackling goals without stress. As a friend of mine always says, don’t make to-do lists. Make would-like-to-do lists. These are things you’d love to see yourself mastering in the long-term, but not do-or-die obligations on yourself.

Think of them as a mood board for the future you – ideas for a new you, some of which will make it, and some of which will change over time. There’s no ‘must’ about self-development – it’s a network of roads and your route can change at any time.

The main thing is that you have an open positive, and explorative mindset!

Someone cooking beans by a campfire. Preparedness reading can be great for your languages!

Dystopia Warning: Reading Preparedness Booklets for Language Learning

Dystopia warning: there’s a lot of doom-mongering in the news lately. Much of it (we hope) is newspapers sensationalising for clicks. Now, you could just limit the flow of all this in the name of sanity. But, since all that reading material is there, why not turn that negative into a positive?

That’s my thinking with one type of foreign-language literature reflecting the current Zeitgeist, anyway: the preparedness booklet. This is a type of public information pamphlet that pops up from time to time when the news gets hairy.

If you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you’ll remember these as the ‘nuclear survival’ leaflets that, to be honest, frightened, rather than reassured people. These days, they’ve resurfaced, thanks to a rather dicey new geopolitics.

This time round, however, they’re less When the Wind Blows, and more about general preparedness for anything from power cuts to cyberattacks. They’re also a lot more accessible than back in the day, since they’re largely downloadable PDFs rather than locally distributed leaflets now.

Oh – and they’re also completely free.

Reading Preparedness Booklets

So why are these rather alarming publications so good for language learners? Well, first off, in terms of vocabulary, they are all about basic items. That’s the kind of stuff that’s useful to know in many situations, let alone emergencies. Food, water, utilities… All great stuff to know how to talk about when visiting a target language country.

Also, they’re accessible in terms of language, too. They’re meant to be read and understood by everybody, which means the language is clear, direct and unfussy. That’s great for a bit of intermediate reading practice.

If I’ve convinced you that a bit of prepping lit is good for your languages, then here are some links to preparedness booklets I’ve come across in other languages:

Hopefully we’ll never need these for real. For now, at least, they’re great reading practice, and offer some insights into public life in your target language countries.

Have you found any more of these online? Please let me know, as I’m always glad to add them to the list!

New Year Bells

That was 2024 : (Almost) a year of language learning

As things wind down for Christmas, it’s always worth pausing to take stock of what went well over the last twelve months.

Language learning can be both a high-focus undertaking as well as a lower-key, background constant, especially if life is busy. But sometimes, just listing what you’ve managed to do in twelves months will reassure you that you’re on track.

For me, it’s been an incredibly busy year. It’s been one where I’d have loved to find more time for languages, and felt that pang of underachiever guilt. That’s probably me being far too harsh on myself — it’s been a year of product launches, presentations, and from September, a PhD too!

Adding it up

When I add it up, though, I haven’t done too badly despite the calendar crush. Here’s what I’ve managed to keep up in spite of it all:

Granted, that’s less than I’d have wanted. It’s a focus on fewer languages than I wanted, for sure. But it’s not a bad haul at all, given how packed the year was with other stuff.

And there’s a pattern here.

Recipe for success

My 2024 language achievements fall into three categories:

  • Occasion-based motivators (building language skills in the lead-up to holidays)
  • Social motivators (learning languages with people – your class, or a favourite teacher)
  • Everyday habits / daily tactics (five minutes on a language app, for example)

They’re all things that make squeezing an hour in here, half an hour in there, worthwhile. The rewards are things I value: lovely experiences, having fun, making friends, having a quick gamified language escape on the bus.  And they’re the reason I’ve not fallen off the wagon despite my protestations of I’m too busy all year!

It’s a nice reminder that language learning works best when it works with you. Ideally, your learning should be frictionless. If you feel resistance, then you should think about reframing your approach to your person interests (books and podcasts that grab your fancy in your ‘non-languagey’ life definitely help). If in doubt, use the motivator mix above to make your recipe: event goals, people goals and everyday mini-habits.

As the year ends, it’s clear that language learning isn’t about perfection—it’s about persistence. Whether it’s for travel, connection, or the joy of discovery, the key is finding what keeps you coming back. So, take a moment to reflect on your own journey this year. You might be surprised at just how much you’ve achieved, even when life was at its busiest. Here’s to more languages, more moments, and more fun in 2025!