Tag: languages

Podcasts can be a perfect gateway to your own interests in the target language culture

Perfect podcast picks for language learners

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The podcast has been a wonderful invention for the linguaphile. Just ten, twenty years ago, language aficionados would need all manner of equipment to tune in to overseas broadcasts. These days, thousands of them are just a click and a download away. All you need is a pair of headphones to immerse yourself in your foreign language, whenever, wherever.

However, as with many facets of modern life, the problem is often too much choice. How do you set about finding suitable native language podcasts as a learner? Some material might seem linguistically beyond your level, for example. And the topic matter is not always guaranteed to switch on your interest, either. News and current affairs programmes in French, for instance, may provide scant fun if you have enough of politics in your regular exposure to home news.

Personal interest as motivator

The best strategy comes in combining both those needs: accessibility and interest. If you hit upon some foreign-language content you are really interested in, a couple of magical things happen:

  1. You feel more motivated to focus on the language through personal interest
  2. You use your existing knowledge of the topic to make educated guesses about the language you don’t know

In short, if current affairs are not your thing, avoid the news podcasts. Even excellent learner resources like Deutsche Welle’s News in Slow German will be useless if you don’t get excited by the news. But if you’re learning French and love Motocross, then you’ll try really hard to get all the details from anything you find on the site Moto Verte!

I’ve seen the personal passion-motivator work for reading, too; as a language teacher, I’d regularly bring in target language magazines I’d picked up abroad. Suddenly, kids who were hard to reach in German class were poring over complicated texts in computer and football magazines, intrigued by the content. What’s more, they were managing to understand it through sheer determination. Personal interest sparks learning – almost by stealth.

Starting point: national broadcasters

When hunting podcasts, you do have to do a little digging to unearth the interesting content hiding behind the ubiquitous current affairs programmes. Fortunately, national broadcasters all over the world create heaps of it, on all sorts of topics. One of the best places to start on the search for the perfect podcast is by finding out the national broadcaster in your target language country; the Wikipedia list at this link is an excellent place to start.

After finding out which organisation produces content in your country of interest, you could just check out their website. Broadcaster websites aren’t always the easiest to navigate, though. And they can be a little overwhelming if you’re still not very confident in the language.

Instead, head to iTunes (or your podcast app of choice), and search for the broadcaster name under podcasts. It should throw out lots of options, like this search under Spanish broadcaster RTVE:

Podcast search on iTunes for RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster

Podcast search on iTunes for RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster

Some broadcasters are better than others, admittedly. Spanish learners are in luck, as RTVE has programmes from all walks of life. I love food (come on, who doesn’t?!) as well as health and fitness topics, so one of my personal favourites is weekly journal Alimento y salud (Food and Health). These are fields that many of us know a lot about from our own lives. So even when the language is fast and furious, I can usually fill the gaps with an educated guess.

The format is lively, too; recently, the programme ran a fascinating feature on space cuisine for orbiting astronauts. Great for individual learners, but also worth considering as an interesting listening task for classes!

Off the beaten podcast path

Podcast hunting is perfect for sourcing free, engaging material for off-the-beaten-path languages, too. This can be a major boon, given that listening material specifically for learners can be prohibitively expensive. The student CD to accompany the intermediate Norwegian course Stein på stein, for example, is over £20 – and that’s not including postage from Norway. Instead, a bit of mining can uncover a wealth of listening material for no cost at all.

That free material can be challenging, for sure. After all, it’s intended for native speakers, first and foremost. But if you hit on something you love, it can really switch you on to the target language.

As a Norwegian learner, I’m lucky that Norwegian broadcaster NRK has a great range of special interest programmes. One in particular – Språkteigen – is all about the quirks of language. I honestly can’t think of a better programme for a language geek to be practising Norwegian with!

Podcasts are an invaluable, immersive resource for language learners. I hope some of the tips above provide a good starting point for your own mining. And maybe, along the way, you’ll hit that gem – the foreign language podcast that you become a real fan of. There are few better ways of getting really switched on to your target language culture!

A row of fitness bikes for physical engagement in the gym

Let’s get physical: Language learning through fitness

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If you subscribe to one of the many theories of learning styles, traditional classroom or book-based language learning might seem a bit unimaginative. They hit all the familiar targets: visual, auditory – tactile, even, if you use devices or props like Talking Dice. But one kind of learning – kinaesthetic, or physical, movement-focussed – seems conspicuously absent.

Movement can be fun. And sometimes, it seems that kids get all that fun. There are already schemes that pair physical movement with language for young learners, like 5-a-day.tv. In the style of a fitness video, target language is inserted into the routine so the kids have fun moving, and learn at the same time. By all accounts, these techniques are really effective motivators in the primary language classroom. So why shouldn’t adults have a go, too?

Like a superset at the gym, you’re combining two activities here for maximum efficiency. Rather than body blitz and more body blitz, though, these technique engage your body and brain together. Two for the price of one – never a bad deal, and the very essence of hacking your learning!

Get physical with YouTube videos

One of the best things about YouTube fitness videos is that you can follow along even if you don’t grasp every word. Finding them is just a case of trawling YouTube search with some choice keywords in the target language. You could try ‘ejercicios en español’ or ‘Fitness auf Deutsch’, for example. Here are some of of the stand-out channels and playlists I’ve found:

French

German

Spanish

Some of them seem quite gender-specific, but there should be enough variety on YouTube to cater for every taste.

Videos too complex for a class you’re teaching? Maybe devise a simplified routine using parts of the body and direction words, for example – it could make a nice three-minute warm-up to a lesson.

Filling empty time at the gym

If you go to a gym regularly, you’ll be familiar with ’empty time’. It’s those minutes while you’re on a treadmill or machine, robotically repping out your exercises with the brain otherwise disengaged (or in daydream mode).

It’s easy to think of ways to fill this with language learning, and you most likely already do this if you gym – podcasts, foreign language music and such like. But there are other ways to push yourself too, not always necessitating headphones. Great if you find you’ve left them at home when you get to the gym!

Treadmill challenges

Last year, I realised to my horror that I knew loads of Norwegian vocab – but was rubbish at numbers. To be honest, it’s something I hear a lot from other linguaphiles – numbers are dull, boring, everyday kinds of words that just aren’t interesting to spend time learning.

Well, cue the treadmill and some creative gamifying! I find that the rhythm of a moderate jog – that regular thud-thud-thud of your shoes on each tread – is a great timer for some self-testing. I challenged myself to say (under my breath, I’m not an attention-seeker!) a certain number pattern to that rhythm.

For example, I’d start simple and practise 1 to 20 in order. Then I’d switch to recalling them backwards, from 20 to 1. After then, I’d do the tens, then I’d do even numbers up to 50 or so, then odd… There are myriad variations to keep your otherwise disengaged brain occupied.

And the great thing about it is its mindful nature; as you practise, recall becomes almost automatic, and the physical exercise almost easier as your focus is not on getting tired, but reciting your numbers. Very Zen.

More than just numbers

You can adapt this technique to any vocab item. Pick a topic – colours, say – and challenge yourself to say a new, non-repeated word on every footfall. Take it beyond single words – talk about yourself, or tell a story, with a word every tread. Great for practising connectives like ‘and’, ‘then’, ‘but’ and so on, as you form super-long sentences while you work out.

No gym? No worry!

You can take the principle of these ‘footfall challenges’ into any setting. Walking to the shops? Practise your numbers 1-20 as you go. Climbing the stairs? Count them in your target language. It’s a great way to make use of time when you’d otherwise be thinking about nothing in particular.

App coaches

There are hundreds of fitness apps available for mobile devices these days. Every aspect is covered, from nutrition to health monitoring and fitness coaching. Thanks to localisation – the inclusion of alternative languages into app interfaces – you can also enjoy some language practice every time you use these.

Most of the time, accessing foreign language interfaces in your fitness apps requires that you switch your phone’s operating language to the one you’re learning. Scary, I know – but it’s a brilliant technique to increase your immersion in a language generally. My phone has been speaking to me in Norwegian for the past year, and I’ve learnt a stack of vocab from it in that time.

I’ve found the following apps brilliant in ‘foreign language mode’:

  • MyFitnessPal: a food intake / exercise diary app – vocab like ‘saturated fat’, ‘carbohydrates’ and ‘remaining calories’ is now indelibly etched on my brain!
  • Runtastic Push-Ups: a great coaching programme that takes you from 2-3 push-ups to 250 over time. It will bark instructions at you, sergeant-style, in several languages, and provide Rocky-style inspirational quotes. Also check out runtastic’s other coaching apps here.
  • Apple Health / Activity and Samsung Health apps: these are bundled with recent versions of each operating system, and are the default steps / health trackers. Switching your phone language means all your data becomes a learning opportunity!

For sure, there are lots more ways to combine learning with other areas of your life like this. It’s both time-efficient and fun. And it can create a more rounded approach to learning by including physical, kinaesthetic aspects. And, by embedding languages into things you already love, you’re more likely to keep learning.

 

Avoiding English can be hard in a very anglocentric world

The English trap: avoiding your native language abroad

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It’s too easy to be lazy in an anglocentric world. It happens to the best language learners in the world: you come out with your best Deutsch / français / español on your trip, only to get the reply in English. GRR! – for a moment – before we give in to the easy option.

I’ve found that the trick to beating this is a bit of Bond-style subterfuge. This is one area of life where dishonesty can be the best policy, as you try to obliterate all traces of your original linguistic identity. Specifically, you need to eliminate any native-English intonation from your speech.

Easier said than done, admittedly. There are some quite large targets to hit, though, and here are some of the easiest to de-anglifying yourself on your language trip!

Down with diphthongs

In most varieties of English, vowel sounds clump together and are rarely pure. Just think of the word ‘too’. That ‘oo’ isn’t a straightforward, single sound, but for speakers of most varieties of English, contains at least two stages – the ‘oo’ followed by a glide down to what is almost a ‘w’ sound at the end. These kinds of multisound syllables are called diphthongs, and are very characteristic of English.

By contrast, languages like Spanish and Italian have much purer vowel sounds. Spanish tú (you), for example, sounds much more clipped and singular than the homophone too.

So, when trying to disguise your English accent, be aware of your natural tendency to diphthongise. Keep your pronunciation clipped and terse, if that helps.

Have a back story

Sometimes, out-and-out fibbing is the only way. Be ready with a “sorry, I don’t speak English” to force the speaker to use the target language. Have a back story, if that helps – why don’t you speak English? Where are you actually from, if not from the UK / USA / Australia etc.? (Make sure it’s unlikely the speaker won’t also know the language of that country, else it could get pretty embarrassing.)

It’s an untruth, but see it as a little white lie that  might grab you some more language practice opportunity. And it might also prompt the speaker to switch back to a more careful, clear form of the target language to use with you (you poor non-English-speaker!).

English penalties

Can’t beat the temptation to switch? Then turn target language speaking into a game. Keep a tally of the times you give in and lapse into English each day. Go a step further and devise a list of penalties for hitting X/Y/Z digressions. Nothing too self-punishing, please – maybe buying dinner for your travel buddies or relinquishing control of the travel itinerary for a day. Keep it positive!

If all else fails – be honest

We’re not all cut out (or bothered) to be masters of disguise. You can always take the heart-on-your-sleeve option: simply explain why you don’t want to use English. You can prepare this in advance of your trip – just a few phrases will suffice, such as:

  • I’m learning X
  • I need to practise my X
  • Can we speak X?

Most of the time, you’ll also elicit some sympathy and a smile or two from the speaker, too. And who knows? You might even make friends.

You’ve paid a lot of hard-earnt cash for your chance to go abroad and speak. Protect that investment, by hook or by crook!

 

Eurovision 2017 Logo

Add some Eurovision sparkle to your language learning!

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The Eurovision Song Contest may be over for 2017 (congratulations, first-time winner Portugal!), but it can still be a sparkling, magical resource for teaching and learning modern foreign languages.

Eurovision and languages have gone hand-in-hand for me since my early days of crazy fandom. Aged 15, I became intrigued by this exotic musical competition full of unusual-sounding tongues. It fuelled my nascent passion for languages, and it’s a dual obsession that continues to this day. Eurovision is why I can say ‘love’ in 20+ languages. It’s why I know all the country names so well in French. And even with the explosion of English-language songs since 1999, it can be a wonderful learning resource for ‘normal’ folk, too! 

Here, I’ve collected a few ideas for getting started with Eurovision as a language-learning resource. Admittedly, the links here will be old-hat to dyed-in-the-wool fans like me. But if you’re just a marginally less insane lover / learner / teacher of languages, you might find something useful in here for your own learning.

Eurovision can be fun, serious, silly, touching – but most of all, memorable. And it’s that memorability that gives the material salience and staying power when you’re learning a language!

Videos and lyrics

As talking points for a lesson, Eurovision clips are perfect. They’re short – the three-minute rule makes sure of that – and they are wonderful time capsules of fashion, too, giving you loads of material for discussion. Do you like the stage / set? What do you think of the clothes? Would that song be a hit today? You can go on and on.

The official YouTube channel of the Eurovision Song Contest is the first stop for video clips of songs from past contests. If you can’t find the exact entries you want there, a quick search on YouTube along the lines of “Eurovision YEAR COUNTRY” (like “Eurovision 2017 France”) will always throw up some good results.

Waxing lyrical

For a bit of text support, there is a fantastic lyrics site with every Eurovision entry to date on it: The Diggiloo Thrush (you may have to stop tittering at the name before you look it up).

I’ve used Eurovision lyrics to mine for fresh vocab. For instance, I’ll take a song I like in a language I’m learning, look up the text, and note any new words in my vocab bank (I use Anki currently for this). If I really love a song, I’ll also try to learn it, so I can sing it in the privacy of my own shower. T.M.I., I know, but whatever it takes to learn!

Eurovision gapfills

If you’re teaching others, you can use lyrics to make interactive activities for your students, too. Copy and paste your chosen song text into a document / Textivate game or similar, removing some of the words to make a gapfill. Play the song to the students and get them to fill in the gaps as they hear them. It’s a brilliant way to focus the ears on the sounds of the target language.

There are lots of ways to approach this with different objectives. For instance, you could remove all the non-content words, like ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘then’ and so on. That hones the attention on all those little connective words that we need to make our language flow. Alternatively, take out the content words (you’ll find ‘love’ quite a lot in Eurovision songs!) to practise concrete, topical vocab.

Language awareness

A game I liked to play with my own language classes, back in the day, was ‘guess the language’. I’d prepare clips of Eurovision songs in a range of languages including the one(s) the class was learning. Of course, you can throw in some sneaky difficult ones. Dutch is great, if they’re learning German, or Italian if they’re learning Spanish, to throw them off the scent.

It’s an engaging and competitive way to get students thinking about how languages are related to one another, and where the language they’re learning fits in to the bigger picture. It’s ‘meta-knowledge’ in the sense that it’s about what they’re learning more generally – language – than knowledge of the language itself. But it’s an excellent way to show the target language within its global context.

Eurovision: national reactions

National press can go crazy over Eurovision, generating a raft of headlines and articles for consumption. Right after a contest, you can easily find web articles from countries that did either well or badly, by simply going to the homepage of the national broadcaster. This article from Norwegian broadcaster NRK, for example, describes the high mood of the team after scoring a top ten placing in Kyiv this year.

Why are these articles useful? Well, they’re usually quite simple to read. They’re about a well-known, universal field – music and entertainment – so they won’t contain too many complex notions like other news articles might. Also, they’re full of those vocab items like dates, numbers and such like, which are simple, but a pain to learn. Excellent practice!

Where to find broadcaster links? Well, Wikipedia provides a very handy list of EBU member stations at this link. Also handy for looking up programming in your target language, even when Eurovision isn’t on!

Eurovision is a marvellous, fun, colourful, diverse and happy medium for language learning. What’s more, all of the material is freely available online for you to get creative with. With over 60 years of history, there’s a treasure of resources to play with, so get out there and bring some Eurovision magic into your language learning!

Time is precious

Time to learn? Fitting languages into busy lives

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As a language geek, I’m often asked: “how do you find the time?”. My answer: most of the time, I don’t.

Most self-directed learning is an imperfect process. Adults don’t have time to subdivide their day into neat lesson-shaped slots, as others did for us in school. Learning has to fit around sometimes very hectic lives.

Using ‘dead’ time

A strategy I use every day is making use of what I call ‘dead’ time. It’s time standing, sitting, waiting, otherwise just doing very little. These are our ‘engine idling’ moments. Here are some of the things I do when waiting for a train, bus, haircut, or friends to show up for coffee!

Anki decks

The odd few minutes here and there are ideal for Anki flashcards. I make self-testing on Anki a daily tactic, but, like most humans, I’m susceptible to procrastination. Getting this ticked off during ‘down time’ is much better than leaving it until just before bed!

Reading practice

With smartphones, it’s the easiest thing in the world to tap up some news articles to read. You don’t even need to read the whole article – just looking at the headlines in your target language is some great minutes-long language gym. Right now, I’m actively learning Norwegian, and maintaining German and Spanish. A nose at NRK.no, Spiegel.de and ElPais.com is the least I can do to keep them ticking over.

Don’t even have time for that? Then subscribe to a Read Later service like Pocket (my favourite) to queue material for later. These services facilitate perfect browsing and bookmarking for even the busiest linguists. Several services can also recommend potentially interesting articles after learning your preferences.

Socialise

There are myriad social groups for all kinds of interests on Facebook, and other social media. Find a couple that grab you, and lurk for a while. Read what others are posting in your spare moments. When you feel more comfortable, try commenting in the target language yourself. It can be quite a thrilling experience to join a thread for the first time in a foreign language!

Another trick is to search twitter for #yourcountryname. For instance, I sometimes check #Norge or #norsk for Norwegian – you’d be surprised what comes up, and it’s almost all in the target language!

Casting a wider net

Podcasts and spare moments are positively made for each other. The match is so obvious, I’ve left it ’til last. But the trick is not to be a perfectionist. If you only have time for five minutes of a podcast in your target language, it’s still worth it. Don’t think (like I used to) that it’s pointless unless you can sit down and listen to the whole thing.

That said, some language podcasts are made with our fleeting minutes in mind. For a daily dose of listening practice and current affairs, I love ‘news in easy language’ services. Some recommended ones include:

🇫🇷 French: News in Slow French
🇩🇪 German: Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten (News in slow German) by Deutsche Welle
🇮🇹 Italian: News in Slow Italian
🇳🇴 Norwegian: Språkteigen (a show about language – not aimed at new learners, but it’s often easy to guess unfamiliar words as the topic is so familiar!)
🇪🇸 Spanish: News in Slow Spanish
🇨🇳 Chinese: Slow Chinese

Any other favourites, or biggies I’ve missed? Please share in the comments!

Don’t overdo it

Even the most avid efficiency-seekers amongst us shouldn’t downplay the importance of dead time for a bit of rest. Not even the geekiest brain can (or should) be switched on, full steam ahead, 24/7.

I recommend Headspace for ensuring you turn the volume down regularly. It’s a programme of short meditations that fit perfectly into the ‘between moments’ described in this article. The first ten are free, so it’s worth a try!

Fill your spare minutes, but be kind to yourself.
Balance is key for an active, healthy linguaphile brain!

Study material for a course

Course books for linguists: save cash with revision guides

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When you commit to learning a foreign language, it’s not unusual for a first step to be seeking out good course material. There are plenty of very well established courses, the best including audio material. The staple Teach Yourself series, for example, was always my favourite place to start when starting out on a new language project.

Unfortunately, it can be an expensive business. Course books, audio CDs, dictionaries, grammar reference guides – it all adds up. Fortunately, there’s a cheaper alternative if you’re after simple beginner materials. And they come with some unique advantages over traditional courses, too!

The wallet-saving secret:
Revision guides intended for first-level language exams at high schools.

It was through writing reviews for several revision guides in recent years that I realised how useful the could be beyond their target audience. For a start, they’re comprehensive; the best guides from publishers like CGP include:

  • Thematically organised vocabulary lists and phrases
  • Grammar reference broken into bite-sized chunks
  • Audio material for listening practice
  • Word glossaries at the back, which double up as handy simple dictionaries

Moreover, they’re cheap. Aimed at schoolkids, they’re meant to be an affordable route to getting the best grades. CGP’s GCSE French (Edexcel) revision guide is just £12.99. For comparison, the full Colloquial French course is £19.99 for the book, and £10 for the CD on Amazon.

Horses for courses

OK, it’s not a completely fair comparison, like for like. A revision guide, by definition, is concise and snappy. It’s meant to remind, not to teach. Conversely, a full course will give you lengthier explanations and more extensive examples.

But sometimes, less can be more. If you want an at-a-glance list of useful words or grammar points, then maybe you don’t want all the extra fluff. Revision guides give you all the content, with very little padding and hand-holding.

What’s more, the CGP guides come with useful extras like online library versions. You might prefer not to lug the physical book everywhere. No problem: just access it via an internet-connected device. You’ll find it much harder, generally, to get the electronic version of a full-blown course as a free addition to the hard copy.

Weighing it up

Here are some key advantages and disadvantages to bear in mind when choosing cheap and cheerful course materials over more ‘grown-up’ stuff:

Revision guides Full courses
Cheaper
Concise but comprehensive
Can include audio material
At-a-glance learning material, no ‘fluff’
Many include online versions at no extra cost these days
Great quick reference
Often fun, colourful publications rather than boring old black-and-white		 More extensive examples and explanations
Audio material usually more comprehensive and varied
May include more ‘grown-up’ topics and more relevant examples for mature learners

Going off-course

One final point for consideration is language availability. As schools are the target market, you’ll only find guides for languages commonly taught in schools. As an example, the CGP GCSE guides are available only in French, German and Spanish. Not much luck if you’re after cheap materials in Basque, Finnish or Norwegian.

If you can find a good fit for your language, though, consider revision guides.
Made for kids, great for all beginner linguaphiles!

A dictionary won't always help you learn words in their natural habitat: the sentence.

Sentence building: Go beyond words with Tatoeba

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Learning and assimilating vocabulary in a foreign language isn’t simply a case of learning lists of words: context matters. Just like a careful zoologist observing animals in the wild, it’s important to study words in their natural habitat: the sentence.

Conversely, a lot of reference material for language learners fails to provide this context. If you’re looking for single words in your foreign language, there are myriad look-up tools available. Unfortunately, only a few take steps to set the word in situ; Google Translate, for example, is surprisingly better than many online dictionaries at providing context. If you type in a single word, many entries come with a list of translations and a useful list of cross-referenced, related terms too. Arguably a lot more useful to language learners than the actual machine translation feature!

Google Translate is great for single word look-ups, too!

Google Translate is great for single word look-ups.

However, there is little else online in terms of whole-sentence reference, Apart from “basic phrases in…” pages. Indexed, systematic lists of example sentences, complete with translation support, are harder to find.

Habeas corpus (linguisticus)

One open-source resource, though, is changing that. Tatoeba – from the Japanese ‘for example’ – is a vast, and rapidly growing, corpus of thousands of sentences in scores of languages. Moreover, it’s expanding continually through user contributions. And you, as a native speaker of your own language (even if it’s English!), can help expand it further.

With many of the entries including native-speaker audio, it is a fantastic (and still quite untapped) resource for language learners. It’s full of colloquialisms, handy turns of phrase, and authentic language use. There are many ways you can work it into your own learning; here are just a few ideas for starters.

Words in context

Learnt a new word, but not sure exactly how native speakers use it? Type that single word into Tatoeba, and if you’re lucky, a whole load of sentences will come up. It’s a fantastic way to put your new vocab into context, something which definitely helps me to commit new words to memory. If sound is provided, it’s an instant way to practise / improve your pronunciation too, much like the brilliantly useful Forvo website for single words.

Putting your vocab in context with Tatoeba.

Putting your vocab in context with Tatoeba.

Build your own sentence lists

With your free Tatoeba account, you can save your own word lists to store favourite sentences. Simply click the list icon next to a sentence – you’ll quickly start to build quite extensive, custom ‘vocab in context’ learning resources.

There are also collaborative lists, which means you can work together with others. This might be with classmates, or perhaps even a teacher you’re working with remotely on iTalki. Conversely, it’s also an excellent way for teachers to collate and share useful phrase lists as teaching resources.

Combine with Anki

Anki Flashcards is a firm favourite of many linguaphiles for drilling vocab. You can combine it with Tatoeba by exporting your lists from that site as CSV files, then importing them directly into the Anki program. For now, the Tatoeba export will only extract the text, and no associated sound files. But if you’re willing to fiddle, here’s a short guide on including available sound files in your Tatoeba-Anki port.

If you’re a polyglottal sucker for punishment, you can even export the lists with a translation other than your native language, in order to practise two languages at once. See the screenshot below for a rather scary Norwegian-Greek export setup – I’m sure you can think up even more testing pairings!

Changing the language pairing in a Tatoeba export.

Changing the language pairing in a Tatoeba export.

Find ready-made Tatoeba Anki decks

If all the to-and-fro of exporting puts you off, then don’t despair – some Tatoeba decks have already been imported to Anki as shared desks. Check here for a list of them (several including sound files).

Contribute

Finally, the best way to grow the resource is to become part of it. You can add, correct, record and otherwise extend Tatoeba as a member. If you’ve found it useful, it’s an excellent way to give back.

Tatoeba is one more tool in the linguaphile’s online arsenal, and can be worked into a learning routine in many ways. Feel free to share your own experiences and tips in the comments below!

 

Spanish flag

Spanish Grammar Bites: The personal ‘a’

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I love language quirks. Little things that your foreign language does, well, just differently. The Spanish personal ‘a’ is the perfect example of that for me.

Learning these little foibles isn’t just a case of speaking correctly – it sets you apart as someone that really knows the language well.

The rule

In essence, the rule is:

When a verb takes a direct object, if that object is a human being, put a before the object.

This might seem a bit strange at first, as ‘a’ means ‘to’ in Spanish. Two examples make this a bit clearer:

  • Veo el castillo (I see the castle)
  • Veo a la mujer (I see the woman)

You’re literally saying ‘I see to the woman’ in Spanish, which might strike a non-native speaker as a little odd. When translating sentences like this into English, there’s no equivalent – you’d simply leave it out. It’s very particular to Spanish, though, and getting it under your belt will mark you off as someone who is a real language master!

In context

Seeking out an example of this in context, I found a nice little headline featuring a personal a:

¿Te gustaría encontrar a tu doble? Would you like to meet your double?

Because your double is (hopefully) another human being, and it’s the direct object of encontrar (to find), it has to be preceded by the little a.

Flippin’ el – watch out

The personal a comes with all the baggage of the usual a, too. Specifically, note that a will combine with a following el (the – masculine singular) to become al, too. So, we have:

  • Veo a la mujer (I see the woman)
  • Veo al hombre (I see the man)

Spanish personal a: video

Here’s a quick ‘n’ easy video to illustrate the grammar point – definitely one of my favourite Castilian quirks!

A clipboard for marking off your routine language learning tasks

Routine-building: productivity tricks to turbocharge your language learning

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Good intentions are cheap. A new learning project can fill anyone with enthusiasm and optimism. But without one extra thing, good intentions quickly sink. That thing is routine.

Life has a habit of getting busy, and people get distracted. Days run into weeks, and before you know it, you haven’t done any French / German / Spanish since last month. It happens to the best of us, even those who consider themselves fairly well organised. That’s why creating a scaffold of systematised routine around your learning goals can help keep you on track.

Keeping up momentum

Ideally, you should be setting yourself daily learning goals in order to keep up momentum with your studies. This might sound like a hefty commitment, but needn’t be more than a few minutes a day if you’re fitting learning around a busy life; you’ll benefit from the regularity of it (and not get bored by mammoth learning sessions either).

But it’s sticking to this daily routine that can be problematic. It’s too easy to forget, to get sidetracked, or make promises to catch up that you never honour. Fortunately, there are several great tools for tackling these problems, and none of them need cost a penny.

Never forget: Wunderlist

We’re lucky that today, apps can pick up the slack for our sometimes overtaxed brains. One app that I entrust the job of reminders to is the wonderful Wunderlist.

The magic of to-do apps like Wunderlist is in the facility to set automatically repeating tasks with reminders. For instance, I aim to run through my Anki Flashcard vocabulary every day (it just takes 10 minutes or so). In Wunderlist, I add a to-do for that, setting it to repeat daily, with a reminder in the evening. I set up similar to-dos for my weekly tasks, like listening to a podcast and taking notes, or reading news headlines in the target language.

Creating a regular language routine with Wunderlist

Creating a regular language routine with Wunderlist

Why is Wunderlist better than the plain old to-do app that comes with your phone OS? Well, it can do some very fancy things very well, if you want to stretch your learning. Learning a language with someone else? You can have shared to-do lists, and to-do list folders. Learning several languages? You can have multiple lists, and list folder to help you organise. You can even use it as a basic project manager, assigning subtasks to your more general to-dos (perhaps breaking ‘Learn French Vocabulary’ into ‘5 irregular verbs’, ‘5 phrases from Book X’ and so on).

It’s also cross-device, so you can manage your tasks on any device with an Internet connection. Perfect for when I’ve just done my words on the bus, and want the satisfaction of marking it as ‘done’ immediately!

Moreover, as a sweetener, you can add emoticons like flags to your to-dos quite easily on a device (see my screenshot above). It’s the little things! 😉

Tick-box challenge: Evernote

I’ve mentioned the excellent 12 Week Year plan in a previous post. This productivity method, rooted in the business world, outlines short-term goal-planning techniques as a means to boost efficiency. However, it can work brilliantly for language learners.

The approach uses a weekly list of ‘tactics’ that you need to complete in order to stay on track. Ticking off your daily / weekly tactics as you complete them can give you a real sense of achievement, and you find yourself motivated to keep your completion rate high, and beat your previous form. It turns to-do lists into a kind of personal challenge – learning, instantly gamified!

I find Evernote – available in its basic version for free – is perfect for making these weekly plans. You can add dynamic tick boxes next to your list items in the app, which makes tracking your progress really easy. Like Wunderlist, it’s available on many devices and platforms, too.

To give your learning an Evernote boost, first decide on the things you want to do each week in order to progress. Then add them to a note in the app, including a tick box next to each one. At the end of each week, tot up the percentage of boxes you ticked, and make a note of your score before writing a planning note for the following week. Brian Moran, writer of The 12 Week Year, suggests 85% as a good completion rate to aim for.

Ideas for entries might include:

  1. Add 20 words to Anki Flashcards every week (one tick box)
  2. Drill with Anki Flashcards every day (seven tick boxes)
  3. Read 3 full-length articles in the target language each week (three tick boxes)
  4. Have two half-hour language exchange conversations with a partner (see iTalki for more about finding language exchange partners)
Example of an Evernote productivity list to help create a routine for your language learning

Creating language routines with Evernote

Routine browser links: Chrome

Setting yourself a reading goal is a great challenge for language learners. There is a ton of material published across all sorts of subjects online, and the trick is to find stories that spark your interest.

But how can you keep your list of regular reading organised and accessible? Well, browser bookmarks are a start. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll enthusiastically bookmark a page, never to dig into your bookmark list again (let alone every day, which is my goal).

There is another way to bookmark, though. It’s called the bookmarks bar in Chrome, and many other browsers have a similar feature. Instead of tucking your most visited links away in a menu or folder, it puts them right at the top of the browser window, always visible. If you find a really useful site, you can drag the address from the URL field to the bookmark bar to pin it there.

So how to take advantage of this? I have a couple of news sites that I try to check every day to practise target language reading. All of them are my first bookmarks bar links, so the moment I open the browser, they’re there, reminding me that I need to check them. No forgetting, no hiding, and a bit of guilt if I ignore them. It becomes almost second nature to click them as soon as you fire up the browser – the ultimate habit-former. Magic! You can only fit a few in your bar, so reserve it for those sites you feel you’ll get a daily benefit from.

The Chrome bookmarks bar can be an excellent way to build routine into your language learning

The Chrome bookmarks bar

 

Cross-pollination

Learning a language is a commitment, and commitment takes routine. I’ve come across these routine-building techniques through my work in a business environment, rather than the classroom. But I’ve become a huge fan of cross-pollinating these kinds of productivity hacks with language learning.

The greatest lesson I’ve learnt in this is not to box off your language learning, but let it be informed by, and inform in return, the rest of your life. Creating routine is a great place to start that melding process!

Which language do you choose out of 7,000 in the world?

Language choice: finding your Wonderland

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With nearly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, how do you choose which one(s) to study? It’s a question I often hear, but one I don’t really think about much. For me, language learning has always been an end in itself, first and foremost. I love dabbling, exploring, playing around with new languages.

But for someone new to the linguaphile world, it’s an understandable question. Can there be some logical approach to choosing a language to learn, all things being equal?

Number of native speakers

The most obvious practical consideration is language use; after all, language’s primary function is communcation, right? Just how much of the world will open up to you if you learn a language?

Ten of the world’s languages have over 100 million native speakers: in order, Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Lahnda (Western Panjabi). The polyglossically-minded might try to tackle all ten. This would grant you linguistic access to a staggering three-and-a-half billion of the world’s population. You could be transported to a random, populated spot of our world of 7.4 billion people, and have a nearly 50% chance of being able to speak the language!

Building bridges

However, random transportation isn’t really a thing. And a glance down that country list shows how far-flung and distantly distributed all these languages are across the map. Chances are, you don’t live next door to many of them.

Here, then, comes the just-over-the-fence / just-across-the-pond option. It’s the reason why so many British schoolchildren grow up learning French, German or Spanish. Pick a close neighbour, and learn about them – what better way to build bridges? (And boy, has there been a better time to build bridges?)

Being on the doorstep, there’s not only a ready supply of teachers and access to resources, but the chance to travel not too far to practise your skills. France is likely to be one of the first foreign countries British students set foot in. Spain is a short flight away and a hugely popular holiday destination for British families. In some parts of England, you can pick up Welsh language TV. There’s a lot to be said for learning a neighbouring language!

Then again, bridge-building does require a soupçon of warmth and goodwill towards neighbours, and this can sometimes seem in short supply.

The economy, stupid

You could be more mercenary, and decide that you’re going for the powerful countries. Cynically speaking, money is power these days, so you’ll looking at the languages of the top ten countries by GDP. That gives you English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Hindi (along with India’s other languages), Italian, Portuguese and Korean. Learn one of those, and you have the language skills to land a job in a country that’s doing pretty well for itself.

The trouble is, global politics changes so quickly. Devote ten years to learning English, and you might find that China has become the new superpower. Stick all your eggs in a German basket, and you might find that Poland has become the European economic powerhouse in a decade or two. Picking a language on its prospects as a world business language can seem a little like playing roulette.

Language as cultural key

Moreover, I’m not a cynic. There’s far more to life than money, and there’s even more to a country than GDP. Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on exactly why a country or culture holds a certain fascination for you.

The reasons could be entirely romantic; ever since I was a kid, I’ve been intrigued by Nordic culture. I admit that has less to do with reality, and more to do with snow-and-ice depictions of reindeer, Norse gods and Vikings. The release of Disney’s Frozen did nothing to cure my Nordic romanticism. But realistic or not, therein lies the attraction for me, and it was the hook that got me into learning Norwegian and Icelandic.

There’s no shame in letting imagination lead your language choices. You’ll be more engaged, and greater engagement helps you to access that state of flow in which learning can (sometimes) feel effortless. If you can handle the disillusionment when your imagined wonderland turns out to be quite everyday (Norway isn’t full of Vikings, disappointingly), then you might also spark a lifelong love affair with the your target language culture.

Language as Heritage

Linked to these romantic ideas, but closer to home, we have heritage reasons for language choice. Again, motivation is likely to be high with this rationale – there’s the feeling that you can get close to your roots, your ancestors, your soul, when learning a language with regional links to your family.

Barely 50,000 people speak Scottish Gaelic as a first language today, but all the economics and utility in the world won’t take the shine off learning it if you know your forebears may have used it.  And sometimes, the passion can lead to rebirth, as seen in the re-blossoming of Welsh, and the beginning of a Cornish language revival.

Meta-language

Still can’t decide? Well, maybe you don’t have to. You could take a broader brush, and study language in general.

A good way to get a general feel for a lot of languages is to study their reconstructed development from proto-language. There is something awe-inspiring about reading how our ancestors (probably) spoke. You can get a sense of the depth of history when you see how a word you use every day developed from a root that emerged thousands of years ago.

There are some excellent books on Indo-European, for example, which go into great detail about vocabulary and grammar:

Others, like Routledge’s The Indo-European Languages, or the even more specific The Germanic Languages, give snapshots of the modern members of the language family, while highlighting their relationships to each other. Either way, you’ll get a fascinating glimpse into how language, and culture, spread and diversify. Seeing links between languages can also help strengthen your understanding of how a given, single one works.

As for me…

At school I learnt French and German, then German and Spanish at university (bridge-building and economics, you might think). But then – I must admit – practical, dry, real-world reasoning went out of the window. Language is the whole point now – there’s doesn’t need to be a reason beyond because I like it. I’m just drawn to particular countries and cultures, and this is what guides my choices.

Often, it’s down to which places are cheapest to travel to – Polish is definitely attractive at the moment! Other times, you’ll be bewitched, and keep going back despite the expense (thanks, Norway and Iceland). I love travelling, being abroad, trying to communicate and making friends in a foreign language. And I’ll grab every opportunity I can to do that!

Find your Norway / Iceland / Poland / Wonderland and pursue it. All the practical reasons in the world won’t trump passion.