Benny Lewis's Blog, page 90

What’s it like to start learning a language?: Lauren’s 6 Week Update

I’ve now been studying Russian for 2 hours a day for 6 weeks.

In some ways, I can’t believe it’s already been 6 weeks. In other ways, I can’t believe it’s only been 6 weeks! I’m so pleased that I’m able to actually communicate in my “Tarzan” Russian with my teachers – some of which are starting to feel more like friends.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what it’s like to learn Russian from scratch.

In today’s post, I’m going to answer them.

Following along those same lines, in today’s video I want to show you what learning a new language really looks like. To do that, I’ve compiled clips that track my progress from the terrible, clueless Russian I had on Day 1 to my still-untidy but way-more-effective Tarzan Russian on Week 6.

Language learning is messy. It doesn’t really look like the 6 minutes you see in my video updates on Youtube. Those 6 minutes don’t (and really can’t) show you the long minutes of silence it takes to look up the right phrases, or the hundreds of awkward attempts to pronounce new words that every language learner goes through.

At the beginning of a language mission, when you for the first time utter strange words in a new language, it’s slow, and more than a little painful.

But each time you have your next conversation, you get a little better, then a little better. My mentality has been simply to try to suck a little less each time I speak Russian. Before you know it, you’ve leaped forward in your progress!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRwrCWwBNKk

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Enjoy today’s video (subtitles added on Monday). Now onto the questions you’ve been asking me for the past 6 weeks!

Question 1

I’m curious to know if learning Esperanto first has helped Lauren at all with Russian?

Definitely yes!

When I was learning Esperanto, I encountered several moments of frustration when I realized that the words I would use to express something in English were expressed in a totally different way in Esperanto. When you learn a new language for the first time, this is a mental hurdle you have to jump. You need to develop a new way of thinking. It’s uncomfortable.

This happens for every new language, of course. Not just Esperanto; not just Russian. And because I got used to this while learning Esperanto, now that I’m learning Russian I’m not surprised or frustrated when the language expresses something very differently from the way I would in English. In fact I’ve come to expect that things will be different.

Plus, Esperanto introduced me to cases (through the accusative), and I’m really, really glad that the first time I ever heard of cases wasn’t with Russian. I think I would have had a lot of misplaced frustration with Russian if I’d never seen cases before.

Question 2

Is Russian hard?

Yes and no.

Like I said, starting out, I fully expected Russian to be completely different from English. I prepared for it. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some unexpected similarities!

For example, In English we use the words “I’m afraid” in two different ways that don’t relate to each other at all. We said “I’m afraid” as in “something scary is happening” and we say “I’m afraid” as in “I’m sorry to say.”

Russian does the same! I expected Russian to use different words for these two concepts, but surprisingly, the Russian word for “I’m afraid” (боюсь) can be used in both instances!

The same is the true of the word “better” which in English can be used to say something is superior, but also to say “I better start jogging more!” And you can do the same in Russian with the word “better” (лучше). Esperanto doesn’t even let you do that without rephrasing the sentence.

One last example. In Russian, you don’t need the words “is” or “are” or articles like “a”/“an”. So if you want to say I’m a writer, you just say “I writer” (Я писатель). If I want to say “Benny is an engineer,” I just say “Benny engineer” (Бенни инженер).

That being said, there are definitely parts of Russian that have been hard for me. There are long strings of consonants that take a lot of practice to pronounce. I can’t for the life of me pronounce the word “for” (для) – as you’ll see in the video – an unfortunately common word. And Russian does have a very complicated case system, which I’ll start tackling in Month 3.

Question 3

Just curious how you keep the motivation to study so constantly? I’ve been trying to learn many different languages on and off but I get burnt out quickly and stop for a long time so this keeps me from really grasping any of them.

Motivation is a major problem for all language learners.

For me, the fact that I have to upload progress videos on the blogs every 2 weeks is excellent motivation. Otherwise, if I skip studying for a few days, I feel really crappy about it, and avoiding that feeling has also been a great motivator.

For you, I think relying on your own willpower alone to keep up with studying is really hard. I wasn’t able to do it before I announced an official project for the blog. And I know of other big polyglots who also share in that struggle.

So I’d suggest finding someone or something else to hold you accountable. There’s a great Facebook community called the Add1 Challenge that’s been very effective at helping learning stay accountable for their language projects. It’s a place where people learn together in teams and share goals to keep each other motivated.

Another technique I like is just to book a bunch of italki sessions. Once they’re booked, I can’t back out unless I want to disappoint my teacher. Also, I like to work with multiple teachers who all have different styles. When I’m feeling unmotivated I reach for my “silly conversation” teacher, since that doesn’t really feel like work.

Question 4

In the blog, Lauren talks about using several teachers. Is this advantageous to using only one teacher intensively? In some subjects this would just lead to confusion. I’m a piano teacher and I wouldn’t recommend people learn a musical instrument that way – does it work the opposite way around in languages?

I prefer to work with multiple teachers.

Right now I’m working regularly with 4 teachers, all from italki. Some of them hold more structured classes, and they introduce me to parts of the language I probably wouldn’t have thought to start learning on my own.

But other teachers I call up just have “casual chats” with. I really like having the mixture, so that if I’m feeling low energy I can just have a silly conversation with a “casual chat teacher”, or if I’m feeling extra motivated I can dive into detailed conversations about Russian with my more structured teachers.

Question 5

How do you explain what you intend to do to your tutors, do they know in advance you just want to work on greetings for instance ? I have a hard time getting my tutors to actually do what I want.

The first few minutes of any italki session are always a bit of a mystery. I never know what’s going to happen. Most of the time, though, teachers use the first session to chat with you and gauge your level. And then after that they’ll usually ask about how you’d like to progress in the lessons.

I like to start my Skype lessons with a homemade “bingo card” of new words or phrases that I want to practice that hour. Very often, I don’t actually get a chance to practice those phrases, though, because the conversation never flows in that direction. When that happens, it’s my fault.

If I want my teacher to cover a certain topic with me, or if I want to practice in a certain way, I will tell them in advance via italki’s chat feature, and they will always do what I’ve asked. But in the case of my bingo cards, my teachers don’t know I want to practice those phrases. And since they’re not mind readers, it’s my job to steer the conversation in that direction. If I don’t, I won’t practice the phrases that day.

I’d recommend for other learners not to be shy or passive about your lessons. If you want to learn in a certain way, say so! And it’s perfectly okay to switch to English to express this to your teachers if you need to.

Question 6

How are you finding Assimil’s book? I’ve used it for French and I’ve considered getting the Russian one once I get back to learning it.

At first I really struggled to keep my interest in the Assimil lessons. Especially when I compared them to my lessons on RussianPod101, which are funny and use plain language. I knew Assimil was helping me, but I didn’t find it very fun.

However, the deeper I get into my project the more I’m enjoying Assimil! It’s a bit technical, but as I understand more about Russian and start to learn “grammar-ese” the technical bits don’t bother me as much. These days I’m reaching for the technical explanations more and more.

Something I’d like to do for the next update is to try out into several other coursebooks on Russian, and share some insights for you here on the blog. There are so many books to choose from, and not much information online about how they’re different or how they suit different learning styles. So I’m planning to be the guinea pig and test out a handful of other popular Russian coursebooks.

Until next time!

The post What’s it like to start learning a language?: Lauren’s 6 Week Update appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

How to Use a Memory Palace to Boost Your Vocabulary

The clever use of mnemonics is something I talk about a lot when I try to get beginner language learners into acquiring new words quickly. It’s vastly superior to the “rote learning” technique we tend to use in school. That’s why I’m glad to have a post that takes this to a whole new level, through memory palaces, presented by memory trainer Anthony Metivier.

Over to you Anthony!

Do you want to become fluent in a new language, faster?

I’d like to show you a proven language learning technique you can use to memorize and recall difficult new words and phrases: mnemonics.

A mnemonic is a learning device that helps you recall difficult information. One of the most powerful types of mnemonics is the Memory Palace. You can use a memory palace to memorize hundreds of words and phrases from your language of choice at will.

In this blog post, I’ll explain why mnemonics work, but in a way that you may not have encountered before. I’ll tell you about Memory Palaces and how to construct one expressly for boosting fluency in your target language.

Plus I’ll explain how Abraham Lincoln can help you learn faster.

The Scientific Case for Mnemonics

In his book Learning German with Mnemonics, German teacher Peter Heinrich reports positive results amongst students who used mnemonics to learn and memorize German articles like der, die and das. As he points out, articles can be difficult to learn because as phonemes, they have no particular meaning.

But by using an image like a boxer to associate with all words that take the masculine article der, a skirt with die for feminine and fire for the neutral article das, students can make faster progress, because “der Bus” becomes a boxer pounding on a bus, die Flasche becomes a Coke bottle wearing a skirt and das Band becomes a ribbon covered in flames.

Heinrich found the retention rate of learners not using mnemonics was 47 percent, whereas students learning German verbs, adjectives and other points of grammar using mnemonics had an 82 percent retention rate.

Additionally, in a now famous study on mnemonic techniques, Professor Richard C. Atkinson demonstrated the ineffectiveness of rote learning by writing words repeatedly. He concluded “Mnemonic strategies have therefore had particular success in the learning of a language.”

Memory techniques don’t apply only to languages that stem from English. James Heisig has helped many students learn Japanese using mnemonics—using an approach similar to Benny’s for how he learns new words.

If Mnemonics Work, Why Don’t More People Use Them?

A key reason more people don’t use mnemonics is because the books advocating this method of language learning are filled with examples that come from the imagination of the author rather than teaching the reader how to create their own. Few books teach you how to come up with your associative-imagery to encode the words and phrases you learn into your memory (an easy technique I will show you shortly).

On top of that, mnemonics are rarely taught in the context of language learning or a Memory Palace.

A Short History of the First Memory Palace

Sometime during 556-468 BC, the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos of Ceos attended a banquet to give a speech. Someone called him outside, and at that moment the roof caved in and crushed everyone left in the building.

Because Simonides used a special memory technique to hold the names of all the attendees and where they had been sitting, he was able to identify all the bodies. Simonides’ achievement helped the bereaved families properly bury their dead.

And with this heroic act of memory, the idea using a building or Memory Palace to place, store and retrieve information was born.

What is a Memory Palace?

A Memory Palace is an imaginary construct in your mind that’s based on a real location. If you can see your bedroom in your mind, then you can build a Memory Palace.

Within your Memory Palace, “stations” are locations like a bedroom or sitting room and the space between them is called a “journey”. As you build your Memory Palace, you will leave words and phrases at these stations and then pick them up later on when you take a journey through your palace.

Please don’t rob yourself of this powerful language learning device by saying you’re not a visual person. In whatever way feels natural, just think about where your bedroom is in relation to your kitchen. Consider how you would move from the bedroom to the kitchen. Take note of the doors, hallways and rooms along the way.

As an example, this image is a simple drawing of a high school I attended:

Each station in this Memory Palace has a number. These numbers are for creating a top-down or numbered list of the stations in the Memory Palace.

How to Create a Memory Palace In 4 Easy Steps

Step 1: Choose a familiar building and draw a floorplan. This can be your home, a school, church or movie theatre. It can be any building so long as you know it well enough to draw a floor plan.

Step 2: Form a linear path through the floorplan. Do this before you number your stations. Memory Palaces work best when you don’t cross your own path or lead yourself into a dead end. Don’t cram every possible station into your first palace. Include the obvious locations like a bathroom, bedroom, living room, kitchen, as well as an entry point.

Here’s an example of the same Memory Palace with arrows:

Notice that my journey is simple and linear. Because I know this location well, it is almost nothing for me to think about as I move from station to station. You should select buildings with which you have a similar level of familiarity.

Step 3: Make a top-down list of those stations in linear order. This step is useful for testing purposes. Here’s an example of how you can create such a document:

Step 4: Review your palace: At this point, you should have: (1) a floorplan of a familiar building, (2) a linear path drawn on the floorplan that does not cross itself, (3) designated a starting point and exit point, (4) numbered the stations, (5) written the top-down list, and (6) walked through the Memory Palace (floorplan) several times so you can see or recall each station.

Congratulations on constructing your first Memory Palace!

How to Use Your Memory Palace

Now, it’s time to learn how to place words and phrases on each of the stations in your Memory Palace. To make these words and stations memorable, we’re going to use the three classic principles of learning and memory. These are:

Paying attention in a special way to target words and phrases.
Encoding the sound and meaning of information using imagery and action so each word or phrase becomes memorable.
Decoding imagery and actions so you can move words and phrases into long-term memory.

To encode your information, create images that are large, bright, colorful, weird and filled with intense action. You can stick the images to a station in your Memory Palace and revisit them at any time.

Tip: exaggerate this imagery so that you can retrieve them by drawing on sounds and meaning.

For example: If you’re learning Spanish and you discover that “tengo para dar y regalar” basically translates in English to, “I’ve got plenty to share,” would you find that phrase immediately memorable?

Probably not.

But what if I told you I’d seen a strange performance of a tango dance with Darth Vader tangled up in a parachute? And in his frustration he’s trilling an “r” with his tongue through his breathing grill while trying to share an egg with his dancing partner. She herself is a giant egg and also tangled up with Darth Vader in the parachute. She says, “no thanks, I’ve got plenty.” Darth Vader responds, “No really, I’ve got plenty to share.”

Are you be able to see that scene in your mind? It’s such an unusual image that chances are you can.

Next, imagine this scene taking place in your bathtub. Really concentrate on the elements. This is the kind of outlandish image and sound-based story you need when you bring your mind back to your bathroom tub and decode it. The equation here is:

Tango + para(chute) + Dar(th Vader) trilling “r” and handing off a r”egg”ular = “tengo para dar y regalar”.

With a few visits to the story and practice decoding it for sound and meaning, followed by use in a speaking session, the phrase will quickly pour itself into long term memory.

Notice how in this example I’ve tied sound to meaning using the images and actions. It’s not just that Darth Vader trilling his “r” and handing off an egg helps recall the sound of the word. The action also helps regular the meaning of the word in the context of the phrase.

Obviously, this example doesn’t provide a one-to-one correspondence. I also haven’t incorporated “y,” but I needed to, it would be as simple as having Darth Vader wearing a “y” shaped neck brace that shouts “eee” at the situation. But in general, small words like “y” tend to take care of themselves if you let them. And if you create similar scenes and images on your own, they’ll be close enough to jog your memory. The more you practice, the better you’ll get.

Now remember, this is an example from my mind. In order for these procedures to work for you, you have to come up with your own images and actions.

The reason this story works for me is because I’m a fan of Star Wars, I love tango music and it’s just the image that my imagination brought to me. If you let yourself relax and your imagination flow, you’ll find that with a minimum amount of practice, you can create memorable and useful images like these too.

Enter Abraham Lincoln!

We can take things further and make the combination of a Memory Palace station like a bathtub much more useful using another technique: a bridging figure.

The concept of a bridging figure will help you supercharge your Memory Palace and accelerate your learning. This figure is someone who takes an imaginary journey through your Palace and interacts with your images for each word. Ideally, your bridging figure should be a person you already remember.

For example, I use Abraham Lincoln for words that start with “A.”

In this example, you can see Abraham Lincoln assisting me with the memorization of four Spanish words using a journey in my old office in Berlin.

Bed – Abajo: Abraham Lincoln smashing to”ba”cco into a banjo “down below” his feet.

Desk – Abrir: Abraham Lincoln tearing a hole in the “rear” of his pants to reveal an “ear.”

Wall – Abuela: Abraham Lincoln says “boo” in Grandma Ella Fitzgerald’s ear. My Grandpa shouts “lo” (abuelo) and pulls Ella away. She says ,”los” as they pair up (abuelos).

I recommend focusing only on the words that interest you the most and that you think you’ll use. In other words, you don’t have to memorize an entire dictionary like Dr. Yip to get great results with reaching your vocabulary building goals.

Practical Tips for Using Your Memory Palace to Master a Foreign Language

Build a well-constructed Memory Palace using the principles you’ve just learned.
Relax. Memory techniques work best when you’re mentally and physically free from stress.
Memorize a selected list of words, ideally in alphabetic order.
Catalog the words, meanings and mnemonics either by hand on paper or in an Excel file or the equivalent.
Remove yourself from your written record or Excel file and all other materials that might cause you to cheat by looking up the meanings of each word.
Write out the words and meanings based on your memory on a piece of paper. Don’t worry if you miss a word or your associative imagery fails to trigger the sound and meaning of a word on your list. You can fix this later.
Check the list you produced from memory with your record.
Use these words in conversations, write them into a ten-sentence email and keep your eyes and ears open for them as you read and listen to your target language.

The Power of the Memory Palace for Language Learners

A Memory Palace is a powerful language learning device that you can use alongside other techniques to learn and speak a foreign language.

Constructing a Memory Palace takes just a few hours and as you become more proficient building them, this method of learning will help you grow your vocabulary faster.

Once you have stored words and phrases in your Memory Palace, draw on them often as part of your speaking practice. You may stumble and pause while accessing these words and phrases, but don’t worry: this is something we do in our mother tongues too.

If you practice and relax, the words and images you’ve created in your Memory Place will come back to you when you need them, and they’ll make the process of learning and speaking a foreign language feel easier and more enjoyable.

So if you’re ready and excited to build a Memory Palace and start using it to stock up on words and phrases, you can tap your mind for familiar locations starting right now. Happy memorizing!

About Anthony Metivier

Anthony Metivier is a Canadian author and memory trainer. If you want more help with Memory Palace construction and use, Anthony has a free memory kit and video series that expands on these ideas in detail: Memory Palace Mastery worksheets and free video course.

The post How to Use a Memory Palace to Boost Your Vocabulary appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Learn to Speak Persian: Your Complete Guide

Not to be one to neglect languages that don’t get so much exposure (regardless of number of speakers), I wanted to invite someone to give us a detailed overview of Persian, how to learn it, and why it’s easier than you think it is. 

So I invited Tom Allen of Tom’s Bike Trip to come to the site and tell us everything he knows about it! Over to you Tom:

Persian is a language almost as beautiful as its region of origin. Unique, poetic and influential, Persian opens the door to one of the most distinctive Middle Eastern cultures.

Learning Persian won’t just enhance your travels within the Persian-speaking world and its global diaspora, as it has done for me. Persian has remained unchanged for centuries, so unlike in many other languages, you can experience world-famous Persian literature in the exact language it was written.

In this article, you’ll discover many more reasons to consider Persian for your next foreign language project – as well as few myths about its supposed difficulty. I’ll also highlight a few of its features and quirks, and provide some starting points for learning Persian (known to native speakers as Farsi) yourself.

Let’s start by looking at three common myths about Persian…

Myth 1: Hardly Anyone Speaks Persian

Persian refers, logically, to the language of Persia. But Persia hasn’t officially existed since about 80 years ago, when the King of Persia, Reza Shah, demanded that his country be referred to henceforth as Iran.

(Hands up if you thought Persia and Iran were two different places? I’ll admit that I did until quite recently.)

But the old name of the language stuck. So the official language of Iran, to the English-speaking world, is still Persian. ”Iranian”, on the other hand, refers to the nationality of Iran’s people.

To complicate matters further, Persian is known as Farsi (فارسی) to its native speakers in Iran, Dari (دری) to those in Afghanistan, and Tajik (тоҷикӣ) to those in Tajikistan. That’s because these countries were once part of the Persian Empire, and have since developed their own dialects.

Confused yet? All you really need to know is that Persian is the language of modern-day Iran, as well as a fair bit of the surrounding area. It’s also spoken in communities the world over, and the majority of its 100 million or so native speakers call it ‘Farsi’.

Yes – 100 million native speakers. That’s about the same number of people who speak German.

Myth 2: Persian is Only Spoken in Iran

I once believed that learning Persian would be pointless because of the limited opportunities to use it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As well as its widespread use in the Middle East, Persian is still used throughout the Iranian diaspora, which is enormous. Practically every major city in the Western world has a strong Iranian community thanks to waves of migration during the 20th century.

Here in the UK, for example, I can wander around West London and pick out Iranian grocery stores, restaurants, jewellers, travel agents and barbers. There are also strong communities in Paris, Vancouver, Sydney, and New York. Los Angeles and Toronto are such hotspots that they’ve earned the nicknames ‘Tehrangeles’ and ‘Tehranto’ among Iranians.

This means that you’re unlikely to have to visit Iran itself to find native speakers to practice with… unless you really want to.

Myth 3: Iran is Really Dangerous

Many people (especially in the US) believe that Iran is a part of the world to be feared and avoided. This is a misguided view, as I’ve discovered on numerous extended visits to the country.

In fact, it’s inspired me to make a film in order to show Iran in precisely the opposite light, as a place full of incredible landscapes, diverse cultures and hospitable people. (Click here to watch the film and see what I mean.)

My first visit to Iran was in 2008, when I couldn’t speak a word of Persian outside سلام / salaam (hello) and خیلی ممنون / kheyli mamnoon (thank you very much). But in 2013, after learning a few introductions and some basic grammar and vocabulary, I spent two months of language immersion travelling alone in Iran. I met native speakers by Couchsurfing in the cities, hitch-hiking between them. I also crammed new vocabulary by using Anki flashcards in every spare moment.

The people I met were so warm that I was never left alone (even when I wanted to be alone!). By the end of the trip, I was speaking entirely in Persian from one day to the next, and had made many friends to whom I’d never spoken a word of English. After years of failed language learning in the past, these two months were a revelation.

Good Reasons To Learn Persian

Travel is not the only reason to learn a language, of course. There’s also art, literature, music, film, and more. Persian cultural expression over the centuries has given birth to some of the most famous philosophical literature and romantic poetry ever written in any language.

Rumi, Saadi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, and Omar Khayyam are ancient Persian writers who command respect among the English speaking world, as well as being revered by modern-day Iranians. Many Iranians of can quote you any number of verses by rote. Imagine the pleasure of being able to read the work of these writers in its original language. It’s especially pleasurable because Persian is a fluid language that lends itself well to artistic expression.

In Persian, unlike English, today’s literary form of the language hasn’t changed for centuries. A modern speaker can still read and understand an original text written a thousand years ago.

There’s modern culture too. Iran’s film scene in particular is intensely strong. With the Hollywood staples of sex and violence banned, filmic artistry through dialogue and story has flourished. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi recently won the Best Foreign Language Oscar for his film A Separation.

How Difficult Is Persian?

If you take the Foreign Service Institute’s rankings at face value, it’s very difficult. Persian is rated 4 out of 5 (5 is the most difficult).

However, these ‘difficulties’ fade as soon as you reframe them as positives. Plus, I’ve found plenty of innovative workarounds that make Persian simple. Let’s look at a few of these…

Shared Vocabulary In Persian

It’s true that there’s not a lot of crossover between Persian and Indo-European languages. But that’s not always the case. Consider the following phrase:

“My name’s Tom – what’s your name?”

In French, we get:

“Je m’appelle Tom – comment t’appelle tu?”

In German, we get:

“Ich heise Tom – wie heist du?”

In Persian, we get:

“Naam-e man Tom. Naam-e to cheest?”

Which bears the most resemblance to English? Well… Persian.

There are plenty of examples like this. Take the first person singular form of ‘to be’ – as in “I am” – which is identical to English.

Am = ام / am

And “name” is also practically identical too:

Name = نام / naam

Indeed, Persian is so supple that this is everything you need for a sentence:

نامم تام

Naam-am Tom

My name is Tom

The -am part also means ‘my’.

Similarities continue into family introductions:

Mother (mater) = مادَر / maadar

Father (pater) = پِدر / pedar

Brother = بَرادَر / baraadar

Daughter = دختر / dokhtar

نام مادرم لیز

Naam-e maadar-am Liz

My mother’s name is Liz

Hey, we’re speaking Persian but we’ve barely left the lexicon of English. So much for lack of cross-over…

Side Benefits Of Learning Persian Vocabulary

It might be tempting to think that learning all that new vocabulary will be a time sink. Think again! Learning Persian vocabulary will give you a kickstart with other Middle Eastern languages.

Though linguistically unrelated to Persian, the influence of Arabic via the Qu’ran has resulted in Persian absorbing a ton of its vocabulary. Perhaps a quarter of words overlap. You’ll learn them by proxy, and start to notice the same words popping up in other regional languages, including Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu and others.

This is the equivalent of being able to use all thw Norman and Saxon vocabulary in English to give yourself a headstart in other European languages. It’s also like learning one romance language and being able to import vast amounts of its vocab to the others.

Indeed, if you’re fluent in English, you already know a slew of Persian words, including bazaar, candy, caravan, caviar, lemon, kebab, naan, orange, pyjama, paneer, pashmina, pistachio, samosa, shawl, sitar, spinach, sugar, tambourine, and typhoon, among others.

How (And When) To Learn The Persian Script

First things first – as a beginner, you can ignore Persian script. First, learn to speak and understand Persian. You’ll find that beginner resources transliterate everything into the Latin alphabet anyway.

Learning the script will be a boost once you’re beyond the basics. It is a bit intimidating to get started with it. But look at it this way: you won’t be learning the Persian alphabet, but the Perso-Arabic alphabet.

Consider that once you’ve learnt it, you’ll be able to read and write the script for no fewer than 21 other languages as well as Persian – including, of course, Arabic itself — with just a few small differences between each. It’s the equivalent of learning English once and then being able to read and write the same basic alphabet used across most of Europe and the West.

Beginner Tips For Learning The Perso-Arabic Alphabet

When you don’t know the first thing about Persian script, a sentence such as اَز آشِنایی با شُما خوشوَقتَم – az aashnaayee baa shomaa khoshvaght-am – looks like a load of squiggles and dots. But… so would ‘I’m pleased to meet you’ if you didn’t know the Latin alphabet – which is exactly what the phrase above means in Persian.

Let’s look a bit more at why the script isn’t half as intimidating as it first looks – and, hey, let’s learn a few bits of it in the process.

Tip 1: Persian is Spelt Phonetically

When applied to the Persian language, the alphabet is phonetic – what you hear is what you write, and what you read is what you say. That’s a language-learning luxury!

There are a couple of caveats to this, which we’ll come to, but at the beginner level, if you can pronounce the word, you can almost definitely spell it in an understandable way, and vice-versa. This makes things way easier than, say, French, with its rules for decoding the pronunciation.

Tip 2: Persian has a case-free alphabet

The Persian alphabet has no upper or lower case. capital letters simply don’t exist. so you only need to learn one version of each letter. anyway, capitalisation is only a convention, serving no purpose for comprehension. (you can still understand what i’m writing here without capital letters, can’t you?)

Tip 3: Persian is just joined-up handwriting

Each letter in Persian has a couple of different forms. But they’re just minor variations of the same letter to allow them to join up. Some handwritten Latin letters change slightly when joined up, but are nonetheless easily identifiable.

Let’s look at an example letter. Take the basic form of چ / ch. Its three variations are: ﭼ , ـچـ and ﭻ, as in چِرا / chera (why), بَچه / bache (child), and هیچ / hich (none). These have basic shape and dots, but are slightly adapted to join to the adjacent letter. Can you now pick out the ch letter in each of the above words? Not too difficult, right?

It only gets simpler – ر / r and ز / z have only two forms each, for example, as they never join on the left.

That’s not all! The typed and handwritten forms of Persian script are basically the same thing. Same letters, same style. Imagine all printed English being formatted in a ‘handwriting’ font, and you’ll understand what I mean.

As soon as you understand that the Persian script works the same as joined-up handwritten English, but written right-to-left and without capital letters, the task of learning it suddenly becomes much less daunting.

Tip 4: The 32 letters come in groups

When you start learning Persian script, you’ll quickly notice that Persian letters fall into a smaller number of groups, which can really help break learning it down into more manageable chunks.

The aforementioned چ / ch is one of a group of four very similar letters, of which the others are ح / h, ج / j and خ / kh.

Notice that the only thing that changes is the position and number of dots – one, two or three, either above or below the main shape. There’s no other difference. This combination of a few basic shapes combined with six standard dot patterns comprises almost the entire Perso-Arabic alphabet. Simple.

The same goes for other groups of letters, like ر / r, ز / z, and ژ / jh; and ب / b, پ / p, ت / t and ث / s.

Tip 5: Many of the letters are redundant

Curiously, several letters in the alphabet have the same sound when the word is pronounced. This includes three letters for ‘s’, two for ‘h’, two for ‘t’ and a staggering four for ‘z’.

Why is this? Simply put, it’s because of Arabic, in which these different letters do have different pronunciations. When Persian borrows these words, these various letters are all approximated to the same sound.

The legacy remains in the spelling of these words when written. But when you’re learning and you accidentally use a س / s where you should have used a ص / s, people will still understand what you’ve written (And you can ask them to correct you).

How do you learn the right spellings? The same way you learned how to spell thousands of English words that use different letters for the same sounds (cereal/serial, anyone?). It’ll happen through use and repetition. You’ll learn it when it you need to.

Understanding Vowels In Written Persian

As I said previously, Persian is written phonetically. But where are the vowels?

Take a common learners’ word like متشکرم, meaning ‘thank you’. It’s pronounced moteshakeram. But when you spell the word out, you get م ت ش ک ر م. That’s m-t-sh-k-r-m. Where are the vowels?

In written Persian, these vowels are added as extra marks above or below the consonant they follow. Specifically:

To add an ‘a’ sound to ‘cat’, you’d write َ above the c
To add an ‘e’ sound to ‘beg’, you’d write ِ below the b
To add an ‘o’ sound to ‘top’, you’d write ُ above the t

These are the three ‘short’ vowel sounds in Persian.

So the above word, moteshakeram, with the short vowels added back in, would become مُتِشَکِرَم.

But these short vowel sounds aren’t represented by letters – they’re shown as additions to letters. And so Persians don’t bother adding them because it interrupts the flow of writing.

Thnk abt it. If I rmvd hlf the vwls frm a sntnce, you’d stll be able to rd it, wldn’t you?

Of course you would. And that’s because you already know the words. You know what vowels to insert, and where. So do Persians when they’re reading Persian. That’s all there is to it.

How To ‘Deal With’ Missing Short Vowels In Persian

This is the perfect moment to reiterate Benny’s time-honoured advice to speak from day one. Ignore the difficulties of the script and get stuck in having a conversation.

As I mentioned before, beginner phrasebooks and language guides transliterate the words into the Latin alphabet to get you started. Even when they use Persian script they usually add all the short vowels back in to aid pronunciation (just as Persian children’s books do).

If you concentrate on speaking and listening first, and reading and writing later, two things will happen.

You’ll pick up the flow and the rhythm of the language, meaning you’ll often be able to guess what the pronunciation of a new word would be.

You’ll expand your vocabulary – and then you’ll easily recognise those same words in their written forms because you’ll already know how to say them.

Finally, remember that there are only three short vowel sounds that are missing. Persian actually contains six vowels in total. The other three ‘long’ vowels all have their own written letters – ا (‘aa’ as in farm), ی (‘ee’ as in ‘beech’) and و (‘oo’ as in ‘zoo’). You’ll be able to read these phonetically.

So if you can’t figure out a missing short vowel, take a guess, because you’ve got a one in three chance of getting it right.

And if you don’t get it right first time, who cares? Embrace your mistakes.

The message is simple: none of the ‘difficulties’ of the Persian script should put you off learning Persian. It’s all about your attitude.

Persian Pronunciation Tips And Common Mistakes

Don’t make the mistake of thinking Persian is anything like Arabic when it comes to pronunciation. Persian is actually super-easy on the tongue if you’re a native English speaker. Aside from خ (kh) and ق (gh), there’s really very little in Persian that’ll present a challenge to your vocal chords.

The single biggest pronunciation challenge to native English speakers is actually the differentiation of ‘a’ (as in ‘cat’) from ‘aa’ as in ‘farm’.

We usually think of these sounds as being the same letter, but they are two distinct letters and corresponding sounds in Persian which will change a word’s meaning entirely. They cannot be chopped and changed.

Tips and Hacks For Beginner-Level Persian Grammar

Grammar isn’t something you should worry about to begin with for any new language.

But when you do come to study tenses and verb conjugations, you’ll find that basic Persian is simple.

There’s no noun gender. There’s not even any difference between he, she or it. Gender discrimination in Iran? Perhaps, but not in the language!

(An interesting consequence is that native Persian speakers, when learning English, often mistakenly use ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ or vice versa, simply because they’ve never had to think about the linguistic difference before)

Persian is also a ‘pro-drop’ language. You can usually drop the pronoun or subject (I, you, he/she/it, they, this, that, etc) from a sentence because it’s implied from the verb, once you’ve conjugated it.

So instead of saying:

من انگلیسی ام

man engelisi am

(literally) “I English am”.

You’d simply say:

انگلیسی ام

engelisi am

(literally) “English am”.

Asking questions is also really simple – just raise the intonation and emphasis on the penultimate syllable:

از کانادا ای.

Az kanada-yee.

You are from Canada.

از کانادا ای؟

Az kanaDA-yee?

Are you from Canada?

Easy or what?

While you’re getting used to the flow and sound of the questions, you can also put آیا / aya at the start of a sentence to make it a question. Think of it as a universal pre-emptive question mark:

ایا از کانادا ای؟

Aya az kanada-yee?

Are you from Canada?

Verb Tenses In Beginner-Level Persian

You’ll be surprised how far you can get with just two tenses in spoken Persian.

Persian speakers almost always use the present tense in place of the future tense, which you’ll almost never hear spoken outside of a news broadcast. We do it too, saying “I’m going out” when in fact we’re still sitting on the sofa. We mean “I will go out”. But it’s obvious what we really mean from the context.

And while there are of course a variety of past, future, progressive and other tenses in Persian, just as in every language, the present and simple past are a perfectly good catch-all for anything that’s happened, is happening or is going to happen.

Once you do go beyond the basics and start looking at grammar, you’ll find that other tenses simply build on the same two basic sets of conjugation rules, with the addition of four basic verbs you’ll also use in almost every sentence in Persian:

budan / بودن (‘to be’)

shodan / شدن (‘to become/to get’)

daashtan / داشتن (‘to have’)

khaastan / خواستن (‘to want’)

On the whole, you’ll find that Persian grammar rules are incredibly simple in comparison with other so-called ‘difficult’ languages, like Russian or Arabic.

Hacking Word Order In Persian

Persian is agglutinative which means, the verb comes at the end, and suffixes abound. As such, words sometimes get stacked up behind each other in elaborate suspense-filled strings. By the time you reach the end of a sentence, you may have completely forgotten what the beginning was about.

Man dishab baa dokhtar-khaale-ye-man o bazi az hamkaar-esh be sinema raftam.

(literally) I, last night, with the daughter of my mother’s sister (i.e. cousin) and some of her colleagues, to the cinema, went.

Don’t worry about this when you’re speaking. While it’s technically correct to say man dishab birun raftam (literally ‘I, last night, out, went’), nobody would bat an eyelid if you followed English word order and said man raftam birun dishab (‘I went out last night’) instead. Word order in Persian is actually very fluid. That’s one of the reasons Persian lends itself well to poetry.

Yes, it takes time to adapt to a reversed sentence structure, because it involves reversing the order in which you think. But Persian is so much more forgiving in this respect than English, in which playing with word order for the sake of ease might make people think you were impersonating Yoda.

Most native speakers of Persian, on the other hand, will understand and encourage you regardless of what order the words come out, as I found during my own travels.

Getting Started: Resources For Learning Persian

Let’s have a look at some of the resources out there for getting started, from phrasebooks and language guides to sources of natively-spoken and written Persian and beyond.

You’ll find that learning resources aimed at American learners are particularly prevalent. Why? Because of the number of offspring of Iranian emigrants in the US who want to learn or re-learn the language of their motherland.

Phrasebooks and Language Guides

Start with the Lonely Planet ‘Persian’ pocket phrasebook, which also contains a basic grammar reference. For each word and phrase you get the colloquial form transliterated into English, and the literary form written in Persian script.
Move on to Teach Yourself Complete Persian/Farsi, which takes you from beginner level through to Level 4 (B2). Also consider Colloquial Persian. Both emphasise everyday colloquial use, as opposed to academic or literary.
The BBC’s Languages section has a handy introduction to Persian.

Digital Learning Aids

The entire dictionary section of the Lonely Planet phrasebook has been turned into a deck of flashcards for Anki
Google Translate has a very useful and mostly accurate Persian setting, which is available as an offline dictionary in the app.
Rosetta Stone has Persian courses from Level 1 through 3 – though this’ll teach you ‘correct’, formal, newsreader-style Persian, which Tehranis will find hilarious.
Pimsleur also has Persian audio lessons, though again in the formal style.
PersianPod101.com, while quite aggressive on the sales pitches, has lots of audio content, again fairly formal in style.
ChaiAndConversation.com has a free podcast series for beginners in colloquial Persian if you’re aim is to communicate with native speakers.

Courses and Tuition

italki has lots of native Persian teachers), both based in Iran and elsewhere, as well as being great for finding language partners.
Livemocha has plenty of beginner Persian content, among its other benefits to the language learner.
Courses at higher education institutions (such as SOAS in London) are widely available in the West, but do tend to teach formal Persian – great if you want to understand the written form, but hearing colloquial spoken Persian for the first time will come as quite a shock!
If you’re really keen, you could always go as a foreign student to study Persian language at the University of Tehran.

Language Exposure

Watch Persian-language TV. Manoto’s version of Come Dine With Me is great listening practice. For something more formal, try BBC Persian and Voice of America.
There’s Iranian-made TV as well – IranProud.com curates an ongoing and growing collection of serials and movies.
Watch films. Iranian cinema is remarkable – famous directors include and .
For specific titles, check out The Apple, Taste Of Cherry, The Colour Of Paradise, and more recently A Separation.
Read. Again, there are the classics, including the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the Rubiyat of Oman Khayyam, and the works of Rumi, Saadi, Iraqi and Hafez. You’ll also find abridged children’s versions of these. And reading practice isn’t hard to come by online.
Much famous Western literature, old and new, is translated into Persian too. Try iranibook.com and ketab.com for online Persian-language bookstores.

Real-life Conversations With Native Speakers

Travel to Iran. Many nationalities are eligible for a visa-on-arrival at Imam Khomeini International Airport. It’s one of the most hospitable places you could ever hope to travel. (Don’t believe me? Watch my film!)
Couchsurfing is ubiquitous in every major city in Iran. You’ll have no trouble convincing people to talk to you in Persian.
If you can’t get to Iran, try Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or even north-west Afghanistan.
Just as with any other language, you don’t necessarily have to travel there to find native speakers. If you live in a big, global city, you’re very likely to find an Iranian community already there. Check out Couchsurfing and filter by language – or start tracking down locals via your nearest Persian restaurant, where Iranian emigrants will often go for a taste of home. (Plus, Persian food is awesome.)

Good luck! موفق باشی!

And don’t forget to check out the short film of my Iranian adventure in 2014, where I really got the opportunity to put my Persian to use. If you’ve never been to Iran, it might just reshape your perception of the country altogether…

About Tom Allen Tom Allen is a full-time traveller, writer and award-winning filmmaker, and runs the popular bicycle-touring blog TomsBikeTrip.com. He’s spent many months in Iran on language-immersion trips, as well as on more exotic adventures in the country by foot, kayak and bicycle. You can watch a short film of his most recent trip here.

He’s currently crowdfunding a feature-length version of the same film. Check out the campaign’s progress on Kickstarter and pledge your support if you like what you see.

The post Learn to Speak Persian: Your Complete Guide appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

LOL International: Txt Spk Around the World

LOL was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011.

Even so, some of us struggle to understand text speak in our own language. The British Prime Minister David Cameron somehow believed LOL meant “lots of love”.

Being fluent in a language is all about fitting in. And that includes when you’re chatting on Facebook or texting your friends. Depending on how you use the language, learning txt spk may be even more relevant than learning to write formally!

So what do you do when you’re learning a new language and your language buddies start to text you?

Needless to say, it can be complicated.

English expressions are popular in some countries – and even lol will be understood in some places. But most of the time, each language has developed its own text abbreviations.

So, team FI3M and myself have put together a guide to help you dip your toe in the world of international texting. It’s in no way comprehensive. But it will help you see how creative people can be with language. It also provides a starting point for learning more about texting in your target language.

If you want to know how to text in Spanish, French, Arabic, Thai – or even Japanese – you’re in the right place!

How to Text in Spanish: Handy in a Hurry

Spaniards are known for speaking quickly, so you can imagine they do the same when texting! When typing to your amigo in Spanish, why write out the entire words when you could text?

Here’s how to text in Spanish:

pq “porque” – because/why
x “por” – for
salu2 “saludos” – greetings/farewell
kn “quien” – who
ja+ “jamás” – never
d= “da igual” – It doesn’t matter / makes no difference
tb “también” – Also/(me) too
Qs3! “qué estrés” – What stress!
tqm “te quiero mucho” – I love you a lot

You can even write XD…, which may look like a smiley of a character from South Park laughing, but also works as “por dios…” (for the love of god…).

If you really want to drive your Spanish teacher crazy, then start using the following spellings with ks and ws, which are genuinely used by Spaniards, but you won’t find them in any dictionary:

kiero “quiero” – I want
aki “aquí” – here
weno “bueno” – good
wapo “guapo” – handsome, and wapa “guapa” – pretty

As well as fun text shortening, there is an aspect of SMSing in Spanish that I find incredibly practical. You can avoid implying a particular gender by replacing the a & o with a character that looks like both: @

So tod@s or amig@s is a nice gender-neutral way of saying everyone or friends!

​How to Text in German: Abbreviate Those Long Words!

While German may be notorious for its long words, your Deutsche friends will love to abbreviate when texting. A few fun examples include:

RUMIAN “Ruf mich an” – call me
STIMST “Stehe im Stau” – blocked in traffic
8tung “Achtung” – watch out
BBB “Bis bald Baby” – bye bye baby
BS “Bis später” – CU

And of course, there lots of affectionate ways to spice up your texts!

DAD “Denk an dich,” – short for “Ich denke an Dich” – thinking about you
DD “drück dich” – hug
HDL “Hab Dich lieb” – short for “Ich habe Dich lieb”, which is “I love you” used more often for family members
HDGDL “Hab Dich ganz doll lieb” – I really love you!
ILD “Ich liebe Dich” – I
TABU “Tausend Bussis” – A thousand kisses

How to Text in French: Be Playful With Numbers

I love using numbers in my text words, like L8R, 2DAY, B4, G2G and GR8, so I was very pleased to see that in French you can do the same, such as:

D100 “Descends” – Get down
12C4 “un de ces quatre” – One of these days
2ri1 “de rien” – You’re welcome
6né “Ciné” – Cinema
@2m1 “À demain” – CU2moro (See you tomorrow)
b1sur “Bien sûr” – Of course
C1Blag “C’est une blague” It’s a joke/Just kidding
Koi29 “Quoi de neuf ?” What’s up?
p2k “Pas de quoi” – You’re welcome

Don’t Get Your 555 Mixed Up

In my homeland, Ireland, you dial triple nine (999) in an emergency. This is the equivalent of 911 in the US.

Over in Asia, triple five isn’t an emergency number, but it is an expression of emotion – albeit different depending on where you live.

In Thai, 555+ means “Hahaha” (In Thai: ‘5’ is pronounced as ‘ha’).

In Mandarin, 555 is an expression for crying (pronounced Wǔwǔwǔ – sort of like “boo-hoo” or “wah” in English)

How to Text in Mandarin: Use Numbers to Replace Letters

In Mandarin people use numbers a lot, as the pronunciation for numbers sometimes sounds similar to the pronunciation for various characters, and in many cases you can write the number quicker.

For instance, we have

88 = bābā which sounds similar to “bye bye”
881 is also “bye bye” but sounds even more like the original, with pronunciation bābāī
56 “wúliáo” = 无聊 – boring. Interestingly the tones and even pronunciation are off on this, since 无聊 is actually pronounced wǔliù, but it shows the power of txt spk. If you’re close enough, people understand you!
1314 = 一生一世 (forever/a lifetime. This is a very romantic phrase)
1314921 = 一生一世就愛你 (Love you for a lifetime)
3Q = San Q (Thank you)
8客气 = 不要客气 (You’re welcome)
520 = 我爱你 (I love you)

How to Text in Arabic (Or: What to Do When Txt Spk Is the Only Way to Communicate)

The Arabic alphabet isn’t always available on mobile phone keypads, and even if more people are adopting smartphones, there is a huge issue in that Modern Standard Arabic is used formally, but people actually speak completely different “dialects”.

This means that when you are learning a language like Egyptian Arabic, sometimes the best way to express it is to use the “Arabic chat alphabet” (using

Latin letters). This is used in emails between young people, and in notes for giving speeches, as well as for text messages. It tends to express all sounds of the dialect in a way that Arabic script (which is perfect for Modern Standard Arabic) actually misses in some cases.

To give you a taste of how it looks, you would translate the start of the Declaration of Human rights as follows:

El e3lan el 3alami le 72u2 el ensan, el band el awalani el bani2admin kollohom mawlodin 7orrin we metsawyin fel karama wel 7o2u2. Twahablohom el 3a2l wel damir, wel mafrud ye3amlo ba3dihom be ro7 el akhaweya.

I even used the Arabic Chat Alphabet as my code-system in my Anki decks when studying Egyptian Arabic vocabulary.

Note: In Russian they also often use Latin letters to represent Cyrillic when texting.

How to Text in Irish (Even Smaller Languages Do It)

Even my own country’s language, Irish, has its own fun text message terms worth knowing! A few include:

An8 “anocht” – 2nite
grma “Go raibh maith agat” – thx
Cá will 2? “Cá bhfuil tú?” – Where are you?
NASAA “Níl ach saol amháin agat” – YOLO
OMD “Ó Mo Dhia” – OMG

How to LOL in Mongolian (and 12 other languages)

kk is common in Mongolian…
…as well across the world in Brazilian Portuguese! This is presumably the cackling sound you’d make when you laugh. The first time someone texted me “kkk” in Brazil you can imagine my confusion… You can also say rsrsrsrsrs (repeating rs as many times as you like – “rs” is from risos for “laughs”). And since they don’t have enough already, it’s also common to see huehuehue in Portuguese.
French: MDR mort de rire (dead [dying] of laughter) and EDR Écroulé de rire (Collapsed with laughter). if you notice the progression, this is like LOL vs ROFL.
Spanish: jajaja (since the j is aspirated in Spanish, this is like typing hahaha in English). Alternatively you can also use jijiji or jejeje.
Thai: 555+
Japanese: wwwww (short for “warai”, which means “laughing”. The more w’s, the louder and longer the laugh)
Swedish: asg (short for asgarv – which means “roars of laughter”)
German: gg – grinsen (to grin)
Jamaican: DWL (dead wid laugh)
Greek: χαχαχα, Arabic: ههههههههههههه and Hebrew: חחחחחחחחחחחחחח Each of which are sounded out “hahaha”.
Irish: GOA (gáire ós árd)

Why Not Start Texting In Your Target Language?

Don’t be afraid to use the text shortcuts you’ve learned in this article when typing to your language exchange partners and friends. It’s how natives themselves write.

I’d even go so far as to say you should learn these fun terms before you learn many other words. Texting, and quick chats in Facebook, Whatsapp and other social media is the future, and it’s fun to LOL once in a while in your target language.

Give it a whirl, and let me know your favourite txt spk in the comments!

The post LOL International: Txt Spk Around the World appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Learn Better Pronunciation While Speaking Your Native Language

I’ve written about what you can do if you are trying to practise a foreign language and the person you speak to wants to use English with you, and even what to do when they are really pushing it, but sometimes you can’t avoid having to speak English with someone who happens to speak a language you want to learn.

In these situations, all is not lost! You can pick up from some of their mistakes to give you valuable information to help you even when they speak English.

To explain how this works, Gabby Wallace is going to explain what she does. Over to you Gabby!

Want to know how to sound and seem more like a native speaker?

You can learn a ton about speaking other languages by listening to other people speaking English. This technique works a treat as long as English is their second language.

A keen ear and a little bit of thought will take your foreign language pronunciation and communication style to a native-like level.

Back when I was a monolingual English speaker, I’d hear someone speaking English with a thick accent and I’d think: “Hey, that’s sexy,” or “Wow, he’s really hard to understand.”

Since I started speaking more languages, the way I think about accents has changed. Now when I hear a heavy accent, I think, “That’s so interesting! That’s first language interference. I can learn from this!” I ask myself, “How can I apply his mistakes so that I can better understand the rules of his native language?”

Here’s what I’ve learned to do…

Use Other People’s Mistakes to Improve Your Pronunciation

When a Hindi-speaker working at a Boston salon asked me if I wanted my eyebrows waxed in the “Sim ship,” I was at first confused and annoyed that I couldn’t understand. Then I thought about it and realized she meant “same shape.” Logically, her first language was interfering with her pronunciation in English. And because of that, I can assume that her language doesn’t use the long a vowel like in the words “same” and “shape” in English do. This is also why when you get a call center representative from India, they can be difficult for Americans to understand. Anyway, I said “yes, please” to the beautician and my eyebrows turned out “amizing.”

Here are some examples of similar experiences:

One of my Brazlian friends said he was from “Hio de Janeiro” and that he wants to drive a big “Hange Hover.” Lesson? In Portuguese, the “r” at the beginning of a word is pronounced “h”.
Brazilians also say “cohect” instead of “correct,” and “ahange” instead of “arrange.” A double rr in the middle of a word also equals an “h” sound.
My Brazilian friends invited me to be their friends on “Facey Bookie.” Brazilians have trouble with words that end on a consonant, because this doesn’t exist in Portuguese. English-origin words like “Facebook” and “Internet” are pronounced with an extra vowel sound at the end in Portuguese.
A Tunisian friend and I got into a “meaning of life” conversation. He told me he just wanted “a-penis.” It took me an awkward moment to realize he meant “happiness” and that the “h” in French is not pronounced.
An Arabic-speaking friend told me he suggested I eat crab, except the “b” came out as a “p” sound. After a moment of feeling offended, I realized the “b” and “p” sounds are the same in Arabic.
My Japanese friends add extra syllables to words. “McDonald’s” becomes “Macu Donarudosu.” It’s useful as you can instantly speak hundreds of words of English origin in Japanese simply by sticking to the consonant-vowel pattern in the Japanese syllabary.

When I noticed these pronunciation mistakes, I took note and used them to help with my language learning. You can do the same.

What if you don’t live in a big international city and have a hard time making foreign friends? In Benny’s post, How to Practice a Language for Free without Traveling, he explains how to find foreign language groups locally and online. This can be a great way to make international friends and communicate in English and your target language.

English Learners Can Use This Trick Too…

Conversely, if you are learning the English language and would like to have an American accent, observe how Americans sometimes butcher words in your native language.

For example:

A typical gringo mistake is to make “gracias” sound like “grassy-ass.” The long American “a” (which always sounds like the a in “awesome.”) interferes with the Spanish “a” (which sounds like more like the a in “ant”). English has more vowel sounds than Spanish. For speakers of other languages, this is important to note.
My Brazilian friend used to make fun of me because I would put the wrong emphasis on the verb “celebrar.” I transferred my English habit of emphasizing the first syllable and would say “CELebrar.” It should have been “celeBRAR.” He could have also made a mental note that in English, the proper pronunciation is “CELebrate.”

No matter what language you’re learning, pay attention to how speakers of your target language make pronunciation mistakes in your native language. Use those mistakes to learn rules about your target language. You can do this when you travel to your target language’s home country, or from your couch. I learned a lot about languages while I was living in the US. I use online resources to support my language learning from anywhere.

This trick isn’t limited to pronunciation…

Use Other People’s Word-Order Mistakes to Improve Your Foreign Language Grammar

Because many people still learn language in a traditional classroom, they pick up the bad habit of directly translating words and phrases from their native language to their target foreign language. You can use this to your benefit. Find out how these words are used in their native language, and you may discover some of the most commonly used words and how to use them like a native.

For example:

Japanese speakers will say “foreign country people,” an awkward way of saying “people from other countries.” The direct translation from Japanese causes this — gaikokujin — literally, foreign country people. Remembering the direct Japanese translation into English actually helps me remember the word in Japanese.
I’ve heard a native French speaker say, “I would like a coffee hot.” In French the adjective comes after the noun.
My Brazilian friend’s mother asked me, “Do you want to come to the shopping with us?” I learned that Brazilian Portuguese speakers use “shopping” instead of the word “mall.” False English cognates in Portuguese such as “the shopping,” have helped me to learn how to speak Portuguese more like a Brazilian.
When dancing forro, a kind of Brazilian salsa, my partner told me, “congratulations.” English speakers would never say that after dancing. I was totally confused until I learned that Brazilians use their equivalent, “parabens,” as a compliment, like “that was great!”

Take advantage of other peoples’ traditional classroom learning. Use others’ mistakes to inform when and how you use vocabulary and grammar in your target language.

Clearly, speaking like a native is about phonology and correct vocabulary use. Yet, even more importantly, it’s about the cultural context and how you behave. To learn more about this topic, check out Benny’s post on getting mistaken for a native speaker.

Learn from Differences to be more Native-Like in Your Communication

Another trick you can use is to notice how people from your target language culture have distinct communication habits. This includes the use of fillers (the sounds, words or short phrases used to fill silence in conversation) and turn-taking in conversations.

Even though I’m not fluent in Japanese, I can continue a conversation and show my understanding by using fillers. I was in a bar talking with a Japanese business man who did not speak any English. I understood a lot of what he said, but didn’t know how to respond in Japanese. I simply used the fillers I had picked up from observing Japanese conversation — “so, so, so” to agree and “ehhh?” to show surprise. The conversation went like that for a good 15 minutes or so, and then I had to admit to him I didn’t really speak that much Japanese.

I once facilitated a debate in an English class that included students from Japan and Spain. The native Spanish speakers were verbally trampling the Japanese, and were visibly frustrated that the Japanese speakers were not participating much in the debate. Often, native Japanese speakers get a reputation for being quiet. The reality is these students were quite fluent in English — it’s just that their speech timing and conversation patterns allow more silence between speakers to show respect.

I’ve adapted the way I communicate in Spanish and Japanese. When I speak Spanish, I don’t hesitate to jump into conversation quickly. However, when I speak Japanese, I allow a bit more room to breathe between speakers.

Native English speakers will have to leave their comfort zone — either interrupting more or becoming more comfortable with silence — depending on their target language.

Keep in mind that adherence to cultural norms and the way you speak says a lot about your communication, perhaps as much as what you say.

What Will You Discover?

You can learn a lot about your target language even if you can’t speak it yet. Observe how native speakers of your target language make “mistakes” in English. When you notice something that seems strange to you, find out if you can apply it when you speak their language. It’s an interesting way to become more native-like in foreign languages and to better understand your foreign friends!

Join Gabby for more free and unique language learning tips on her website, including a free online language learning toolkit.

The post Learn Better Pronunciation While Speaking Your Native Language appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Lauren’s One Month Russian Update

How much of a new language can you learn in a month if you only study about 2 hours a day?

It’s been a month since I started learning Russian, and I’m amazed at how quickly my brain and mentality have adapted to becoming a language learner.

I’m also amazed at how much I’m really starting to enjoy this project, even at its most frustrating moments!

See for yourself how things have gone in the second 2 weeks of this project:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fN-x9DXgrw

What Learning a New Language Feels Like

At first, it feels terrifying, overwhelming, impossible.

But I’m here to tell you, this feeling passes.

I can’t help but smile now when I think back to the first time I ever spoke Russian to another person – after having only studied Russian phrases for a few hours. It was a mess. But it was also a massive step forward. At that stage, getting onto Skype to have a conversation was terrifying. Preventing myself from backing out was a constant battle. Thoughts of “I’m not ready yet!” and “I need to study for x more hours first!” dominated my mind.

I had a list of words on the computer screen in front of me, but I had none of them in my memory. I had no idea what exactly many of the words I was saying meant. I had even less of an idea as to how the words related to each other in the sentence. At that stage, the Cyrillic on the screen looked exhausting, and every attempt to read and pronounce a new word was like climbing a little mountain.

But after just one month of learning, all of that fear and negativity is gone.

Now, I actually like getting on Skype to chat with my teachers! That’s a phrase I thought I’d never utter. But you know what? My teachers are nice, fun, and extremely patient. They laugh at my stupid jokes and I learn so much from them. It never matters how “ready” I am to have a conversation – it always works out well.

How my Learning Has Changed After One Month

Here are some of the biggest differences I’ve noticed in myself as a learner now that a month has passed.

Cyrillic is No Big Deal

Romanized versions of Russian words are out of my life. I can now “sight-read” Cyrillic. I specify “sight-read” because now I can look at a Cyrillic word and know how it’s pronounced pretty much immediately – whereas before I would have to sound-it-out Kindergarten style. I’ve also eliminated romanization from my notes and replaced them all with Cyrillic so that when I think about a word in Russian, I only see Cyrillic in my mind’s eye.

Craving More Reinforcement on What I’ve Learned

I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve been exposed to so much Russian that I find myself wanting more chances to be “tested” on what I know. I can do this in my Skype conversations, but this month I’ve also introduced Anki into my routine to help meet this need. Rather than using one of the pre-made flashcard decks already in Anki, I’m creating my own Anki deck based on the 30+ pages of notes I’ve made for myself.

I love this idea, because I’ve been cultivating my notes carefully, adding more and more phrases totally suited to me – that I work on a blog about language learning, that I live nowhere, that I travel all the time, etc. This is a way for me to make sure all of the phrases I took the time to write down will stay in my active memory and be available for recall when I need them.

Grammar Comes Naturally

So much makes sense to me now when I see written Russian or hear it spoken. I’ve naturally picked up on gender differences between words, how to use verb conjugations, and I even have a foggy idea of how the future and past tenses work in Russian! You really can get a feel for these things through natural exposure to the language. I haven’t yet studied any Russian grammar formally, but I think next month I will start digging into how exactly the past and future tenses work, because I’m genuinely curious about it!

Skype is no Longer Terrifying

No one could have been more nervous than me to have their first ever Skype conversation. I’m a naturally nervous person. But now it really doesn’t scare me anymore. I would say that it took about 3 weeks for me to really start to feel comfortable using Skype so regularly, but now – I’m there.

Focused Vocabulary for Reaching A1 Level (Breakthrough Russian)

To help avoid becoming overwhelmed, my strategy for this past month has been to focus on reaching the first stage of Russian Language proficiency – the A1 level, which demands that I can:

Learn to use everyday expressions and very basic phrases

Learn to introduce myself

Learn to ask simple questions

Learn to answer simple questions

If you’re using a similar strategy to me, I’d like to share with you how I tackled each of these points, and hopefully you may find this helpful in your own language projects.

It’s impossible for me to describe everything I’ve learned over the past month (I have over 31 pages of me-specific vocabulary and phrases written down so far!), but I’ll to go over a few “categories” of words that I’ve learned and that ’m using regularly. These basics have allowed me to have very fulfilling conversations with my Skype teachers in Russian!

For everyday expressions

To keep things interesting for myself, I try to go for breadth as much as possible in my greetings and goodbyes. I didn’t want to have the same ordinary “Hi, nice to meet you, how are you” conversation over and over, so I’ve learned as many variations of this ordinary greeting as possible! Here is a small sample to give you inspiration:

“Hello” both formally and informally – (здравствуйте / здравствуй / привет)

“Nice to meet you” in various forms – (приятно познакомиться / очень приятно)

“Good morning/afternoon/evening” – (доброе утро / Добрый день / добрый вечер)

“Please”, “You’re welcome”, “Thank you” and “Thank you very much” – (пожалуйста / пожалуйста / спасибо / спасибо Большое)

“How are you?” – (Как дела?)

Several possible answers to this question, including “everything’s fine” “great” “normal” and even “not good”, among others. (все хорошо / отлично / нормально / не oчень

“Excuse me/I’m sorry” – (извините)

Flow phrases

I’ve also learned several phrases I’m calling “flow phrases” to use in response to something my teacher says. For example:

“Of course!” – (конечно)

Of course not!” – (конечно нет)

“Really?” or “Really!” – (правда)

“Well”, “but”, “and”, “or”, “so” – (ну / но / и / или / так)

“Skype survival phrases” – Because I’m working on Skype, early on I learned a few phrases that you need especially when you’re using this tool. If you plan to use Skype for your own language project, I’d recommend you invest time early in learning some of these phrases. Here are just a few of the ones I use most often:

Can you type that? – (Ты можешь напечатать?)

Slowly? – (медленно?)

I’m sorry I’m late – (Извините, я опоздал(а))

I understand. I don’t understand. – (Я (не) понимаю)

Do you understand? – (понимаешь?)

I know. I don’t know. – (Я (не) знаю)

Do you know? – (знаешь?)

Introduction and biographical phrases

I’m now able to ask and answer common questions about myself, and to ask questions to my teachers about their lives as well. This took a lot of practice, because some common questions that my teachers asked came as a bit of a surprise to me! (For example, “How old are you” comes up again and again!) Here’s a shortlist of the phrases I’m hearing and using most often:

How old are you? – (Сколько тебе лет?)

I’m 27. – (Мне двадцать семь лет)

What do you like to do? – (Что ты любишь делать?)

To read … to work … to write… to travel… – (читать … работать … писать … путешествовать)

Where are you from? – (Ты откуда?)

Where do you live? – (Где ты живешь?)

Why are you studying Russian? – (Почему ты учишь русский?)

During my Skype conversations, I again tried to make things more interesting for myself by going beyond these simple answers. For example, I had a lot of fun trying to explain my complicated living situation (I don’t live anywhere!) in Tarzan Russian. And because the question “How old are you?” comes up so often when I first meet a new teacher, I had a bit of fun with it one day by replying that “I’m old – I’m almost 30!”

To me, that’s one of the great benefits of the “groundhog day” approach I took during my first few weeks. By having the same “first” conversation over and over again with new teachers, I became so confident in the simple answers that I felt ready and comfortable playing around with my answers a bit and trying to explain more complicated concepts!

Recap: Here’s Exactly What I’ve Done So Far

RussianPod101

For listening and pronunciation practice

-Completed all “Absolute Beginner” lessons

-Started the “Beginner” series

Italki

For spoken practice with native speakers

-Completed 11 conversations on Skype

Assimil Russian

For exposure to written Russian and light grammar

-Completed 22/100 lessons

Anki

-To test myself on everything I’ve learned so far.

I’ve created a custom flashcard deck with audio from the words and phrases in own homemade cheat sheet. You can create your own Anki decks yourself, or if you want to include native audio in your deck, you can hire a native speaker on odesk to create the deck and audio for you.

Memrise

To help learn new vocab

-Completed 75/543 words in “Beginners Russian” deck

Reading and Writing Russian Script

To learn Cyrillic

-Completed the entire book

My Own Cheat Sheet

A collection of words and phrases, relevant to me, that I’ve compiled from all the above sources.

Do you have any suggestions for my Russian strategy? Any questions about my experience? Please share them in the comments!

The post Lauren’s One Month Russian Update appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

How to Remember Difficult English Spellings

This article is an extract from my forthcoming guide, Why English is Easy. Sign up to my email list (at the end of this article), and you’ll be the first to know when the guide is launched.

Do you struggle with English spelling?

You’re not alone. English, for various historical reasons, has borrowed words from many other languages. As a result, its spelling and pronunciation is a bit… all over the map!

Unfortunately, English doesn’t have a simple list of rules to follow that helps you pronounce any new word that you may come across. And this makes your life as an English learner really, really difficult.

But the fact is, English speakers themselves (myself included!) will often spell or pronounce words incorrectly at first. So don’t worry if you have the same problem. You’re in the same boat as a native.

Nobody is Great at English Spelling – Not even Natives!

English has borrowed from so many other languages to form its vocabulary and spelling rules that the end result is confusing to pretty much everyone.

Sometimes you’ll see a word in English, and it will be spelled exactly the way you expect based on the spelling rules of your native language… but then much more often it will be completely different from what you’re used to or could possibly guess. As I mentioned previously, there’s no list of rules to follow.

English spelling is incredibly inconsistent, and this makes it really tricky for learners.

For example, the few spelling “rules” that English does use have so many exceptions that the rule is pretty much worthless.

Maybe you’ve heard the rule “i before e except after c”? This is supposed to help you remember how to tell the difference between ie/ei words like “field” and “receive”. But then you’ll notice that words like “weird”, “seize”, “ancient”, “weigh”, “science” and dozens more don’t fit the rule at all! How confusing is that?

I recommend a different strategy. In this post I’ll show you some mnemonics you can use to help you remember the correct spelling of tricky English words.

But first, be aware that this is a problem that pretty much all native speakers have to deal with. A common occurrence in English speaking countries, that’s much more unlikely in many other languages, is that we hold entire competitions about spelling correctly.

Native speakers have such frequent issues with spelling that most English you read online would be intelligible if it weren’t for spell checkers. Even as I write this, every couple of sentences I see the dreaded squiggly red underline reminding me that I’ve made a mistake and I have to ask my computer how the word is spelled.

So don’t worry if you need help with spelling. It’s a problem we all face!

Language Hacks to Make You Better at English Spelling

Spelling is really not that critical when you’re a beginner learner. To start, I suggest you just learn by ear while reading along, and your skills will develop naturally. You can always Google, or use autocorrect in your browser or Word processor.

Having said that, I’d like to share with you a small sample of my favourite mnemonics that I’ve developed to help my students (and sometimes me!) remember the right spelling of some words.

A mnemonic is a memory device that makes it simple to recall difficult to remember information – in this case, English spelling.

Start by using the Mnemonics I’ve shared below. But more importantly, use these ideas to help you come up with your own mnemonics to help you remember English spellings you find especially tricky.

This dessert is so sweet. We have two similar words in English, dessert (a delicious sweet final course of a meal) and a desert (a dry and hot place with lots of sand, and also a verb that means to leave someone behind). I try to remember that it would be way better to get a dessert than to be in a desert, which means the first is “so sweet”. Alternatively, two ‘s’s make it better!
That liar looks familiar. From the way the word “liar” sounds, it can be hard to know how it’s spelled. It sounds like there could be an ‘e’ or even a ‘y’ in there! But I use this reminder, comparing it to the much easier word familiar, to help me.
Never believe a lie. Still on lies, the word “lie” is inside of the word “believe”, to help you spell this common word.
A principal is your pal. A principle is a fundamental truth. It can also mean “main” and is pronounced in the same way as a similar word which refers to the headmaster of a school. Since the latter is a person, and a perfect principal would be friendly, I try to remember that he is my “pal” (American slang for friend).
Rhythm helps your two hips move. This word (rhythm) is hard to spell because it has no vowels, and you need to remember that it has two ‘h’s. Since rhythm also helps you dance, and you need your two hips to do it, use this mnemonic to help remember the spelling. The mnemonic also spells out the word – look at the first letter of each word of the phrase!
An island is land in the middle of the water. This word, and others like it, are tricky because of the silent letters – but try to remember this mnemonic so you spell it correctly.
It’s truly hot in July. I see many English learners make the mistake of spelling “truly” as “truely” or “truley”. Associate truth with the month of July, and you’ll no longer make that mistake.
Separate a rat! Separate doesn’t quite resemble its pronunciation, so I imagine trying to remove or separating “a rat” from the word.
Miss Pell never misspells. The ironic thing about English spelling, is that if you forget about the two ‘s’s, you may even misspell misspell. Think of “Miss Pell” to help with this.
Affect describes an action, effect describes the end result. These two similar words are easy to mix up, so for affect think of action and for effect think of end result.

Want to learn English the easy way? Sign up for my special English learners list below to be the first to know when my full ​Why English is Easy ​guide is launched.

You’ll also receive my free Speak in a Week course to help fast track your English learning.

Make Sure I'm the First to Know about the ​Why English is Easy ​launch.

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Why French Is Easy: How to Understand Spoken French

Learning French can be easy, fun, and fast. Though it took me a while to discover that.

French was the third language I tried to learn, after Spanish and Italian. You would think that by the time I got to French, things would have been easy and I’d breeze through the language in no time.

Unfortunately, that’s not how things worked out.



I moved to France for an entire year in 2005, with already two years of language learning experience under my belt. My plan was to get to the same stage in French as I was in Spanish within a couple of months, and then get to mastery stage by the end of the year.

Here’s what actually happened…

Seven entire months into my stay in Paris, I was still unable to do more than order lunch in French. Life got in the way, and even though I was living in France I was barely making any progress.

Thankfully, there’s a happy ending.

After a few more months in Paris, I moved to the south of France. Within three months of being there, my language skills in French had transformed from beginner level to upper intermediate, and I sat and passed the DELF B2 certificate exam. Now that’s what I call fast progress!

How did I do this? I’m not a language genius, nor a natural with languages.

If languages came “naturally” to me, then I would have aced French during my first three months in France. Not my final three months.

What changed? I stopped telling myself how hard French was and started focusing on the positive. Creating a positive filter made the language easy for me.

Yes, you read that right. Learning French can be easy.

This isn’t about fooling yourself with empty mantras or willing the universe to make it easy for you. There are lots of simple hacks you can use to simplify your French learning and make swift progress in the language.

I’ve decided to reveal these techniques in my in-depth guide Why French is Easy. I’ll be publishing this guide very soon. Sign up to be the first to know when I launch the guide at the end of this article

To create this guide, I took the “hardest” grammar and vocabulary points and presented them in a new way that shows you how you can learn French as quickly as possible.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside…

Why is Spoken French so Hard to Understand?

One of the first thoughts you’ll likely have when you hear French spoken naturally is “Why are they speaking so fast?”

And even when they speak slowly… how on earth am I supposed to know when one word ends and another begins? It all just blurs together!

This was a big problem for me when I first got into French properly, especially because the French language uses the liason, which flows the sound of one word seamlessly into the next. My first seven months of at-home study had given me an edge in being able to read French. I even took a free copy of the Metro newspaper on the way to work and got better and better at reading. I was great at following the general gist of articles, but if someone were to speak aloud any sentence I could normally read, it would be a jumble of noise. What gives?

While I wish I had a magic cure for this problem, the truth is that you need to train your ear to associate French sounds with the written form, and this does take time. But it doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and you can get up to speed faster than you’d imagine. With just a few weeks of consistent practice, you can train your ear to adapt to the sounds of French.

First you’ll need to get used to the phonetic system and it’s connection to pronunciation, as well as the rules for how words flow together, which I’ll cover shortly. But what do you do to help associate those sounds with actual words? The trick is to ease yourself in through French content that is appropriate to your level.

Practice by Carefully Listening to How French Speakers Talk

One way I like to do this is to watch French video with French subtitles. Avoid using English subtitles, because then you’ll just read the text and get lost in the story.

If possible, try to get your favourite movie or TV series in French. I generally search for the series on Wikipedia, then click on the left to view the equivalent article in French. There you can find the series’ equivalent name in French, and you can try to get the box set on Amazon.

Alternatively, the original English version may come with a French audio option on the DVD (you should be able to find this information on the sales page). If you can’t find it, check out amazon.fr or amazon.ca since they are more likely to have media dubbed in French only. This may require international shipping, but it’s not as expensive as you would think.

For inspiration, check out this list of the 100 best French movies of all time.

Watching a movie or TV series in French that you already know well in English is excellent practice. You already know the story, and often you’ll remember what the characters are going to say. This means you don’t need to try to figure out what’s going on, and you can focus on the words being said in French. I learned a huge amount of French from watching Lost: Les Disparus on French TV thanks to enabling subtitles in French (not English!) so that I could learn to associate the written form with the spoken form.

If you make friends with native speakers, you should ask for suggestions on their favourite shows and consider watching them originally in French, rather than just watching dubbed versions of American or British shows. This will help you understand more of French culture as well.

You Can Start Using These Resources Now to Skyrocket Your Progress

Here are a few other ideas I’d highly recommend:

Listen to French music. Don’t underestimate how effective (and fun!) music is for language learning. You can find many stations in French on tunein.com or you can Google what songs are in the top 40 charts in your target country. Then find the lyrics (Google the song name with the word “paroles” for lyrics) and try to follow along. I find that love songs tend to be sung slower and are easier to follow. Some for inspiration:

Ne me quitte pas – Jacques Brel
L’Hymne à l’Amour – Edith Piaf
Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais – Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin
Après un rêve – Fauré
Tous les Mêmes – Stromae

Use a podcast directed at French learners. My favourite by far is FrenchPod101. Although this wasn’t around for me back in 2005, I’ve used this company’s podcasts for my other languages to improve my listening comprehension. I like that it separates language levels according to the CEFR scale. Essentially, it starts at the lowest levels, playing a very brief conversation and explaining every aspect of it, so that when you re-listen to the dialogue at the end of the lesson you understand it much better. As you advance through the levels, it gets progressively harder and the speakers increase the speed at which they speak. I generally try to aim for one level higher than my current one, to push myself.

Study French audio at different speeds. You can take audio from a naturally spoken podcast, recording of a radio show, or interview and slow it down using the free online tool Come Again. You can get audiobooks recorded in French on Audible – their native player on Apple and Android devices allows you to slow down the speed up to 3 times.

Use Yabla! They select interesting videos of real native French content online, separate them into difficulty levels, and then let you see subtitles in either French or English and to slow the video down to better understand quickly-spoken French. You can also click on difficult words within the subtitles directly to see an expanded dictionary. With this option, you can de-activate the English subtitles entirely and only look up the hardest words.

Practise your writing skills via chat. Written live conversation is as stimulating as a live Skype conversation. It requires more concentration, improves your skills at recalling words, and allows you to be more confident, since you don’t have the pressure to say something quickly. Any tool to find French conversation partners works just as well in text chat as it does in video chat.

Want to learn French the easy way? Sign up for my special French email list below to be the first to know when my full ​Why French is Easy ​guide is launched.

You’ll also receive my free Speak in a Week course to help fast track your French learning.

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HelloTalk App Review: Chat with Native Speakers on Your Smartphone

HelloTalk is a cool new language learning app that serves one purpose: it connects you directly with native speakers, and provides an interface to text and speak with them, all from your smartphone.

There are websites out there that let you search for people to talk with, but with these websites the actual conversation happens on Skype, Google plus, or by telephone. HelloTalk acts as the direct interface through which you find a conversation partner and chat, send voice messages or call the people you want to practice with. No need for any third-party software.

And this is available for FREE.

HelloTalk also offers translation options from within the app. These features are the paid aspect of the app. This supports the developers to keep the rest of the app free, but I can give you a quick tip to get these tools at no cost…

Sign up to the app, and one of your friends will automatically be HelloTalk Team. Simply message them “FI3M” and you’ll get 3 months free membership. This includes unlimited access to HelloTalk’s premium features. These are Translation, Voice Recognition, and Transliteration.

Now, more about the app and its pros and cons…

HelloTalk Features

I’ve been aware of the HelloTalk app for some time, but now is definitely the time to try it out because the community around it has exploded. This week it passed 1 million users covering about 100 languages. In the time that the app has grown, the developers have had the chance to vastly improve the interface. That said, there’s still some room for improvement.

Key features of the app include:

Voice chat
Text chat
Camera share
Doodle share (draw in the app to visually represent what you want to talk about)
Smileys and other features you’d expect from a good chat program, like notifications of new messages, GPS location sharing, text size settings.
Language learning specific features: Translation, Transliteration, and voice recognition to help you write/speak your target language.
Mark exchanges (text, voice, images) for studying later, or save the entire chat to refer to later.

You can use the photo feature to share cultural differences with your language partner from your surroundings – when combined with the doodle option, the possibilities are endless for how you could use this to your benefit in language learning. You can draw a picture of a dog if you don’t know how to say that word (and as you can see, I can share my incredibly beautiful artistic talent), you can take a picture of your house and try to describe it, or try to describe your language exchange partner’s environment as language practice, and you can share cultural differences between your country and theirs.

Another helpful feature is the option to chat in several languages at the same time. On the app’s home screen you can see all your latest chats. There’s no need to go into the app settings to change your target language. This is an issue I’ve had in other language tools when I’ve been learning or practising more than one language.

In many ways, the experience of using HelloTalk is like Whatsapp, but with a public database of “friends” for the sole purpose of language practice. It’s pretty cool that you can scroll past many people and see at a glance where they are from based on the flag shown in the corner of their avatar.

One more thing. HelloTalk works on both Android and iOS, so whether you’ve got an iPhone, iPad, or an Android smartphone or tablet, you’re good to go.

Practice Speaking Without Feeling Embarrassed

If you’re using HelloTalk’s voice recognition system, then you can simply speak what you want to say. The system will attempt to understand you automatically, and convert that to text to send to your language partner. I tried this out with a few Mandarin phrases, and it worked well.

This feature lets you practice speaking without having to worry about the embarrassment of someone actually hearing you. What’s more, the conversation can continue in a slower pace than it would if you were speaking on Skype. Your conversation partner can choose whether they reply using text or voice. If they opt for text, you can use the text-to-voice feature to have a voice synthesizer replicate what they may be saying, as if you were having a voice chat.

Mileage in this feature will vary widely depending on the language, how closely you can emulate a native speaker, and of course limitations of the voice recognition system itself.

Find a Language Partner in Your City

In the past, I’ve recommended using social searches to find language partners who live near you. Meeting with people who speak your target language from your local area is great when you want a break from online lessons.

HelloTalk has this covered. Its local specific search option helps you find a language partner who lives near you that you can invite out for coffee. As there are over a million HelloTalk users, there’s a good chance of finding somebody in your area.

I tested this feature out in Sydney, Australia (where I am at the time of writing) and found 24 people within a few kilometres of me looking for a Chinese-English exchange. I also discovered several people ready to offer exchanges for other languages like German, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish. As with Whatsapp, you can share your GPS location to make it easier to find language partners nearby.

However, unlike many social language sites, HelloTalk doesn’t come with a review system for its users. There’s the option for users to fill out an introduction for information about themselves, although many people don’t do this. This makes it a little riskier when you are meeting up with strangers, as you don’t necessarily know much about them. For this reason, I’d recommend using the meetup feature with caution.

To find people in your area, just use the search feature to find people who speak the language you are learning, and who want to learn a language that you speak. Then, change the search order to “by location”. Generally, I’d stick to using just the live chat feature via the app, rather than arranging a meet-up if you’d prefer to be cautious.

Another thing you can do – which I think is a much safer – is use this app while travelling to connect with people in your destination. Then you can pick up local tips on getting around and places to eat, all while getting language practice.

HelloTalk’s Special Language Learning Features

As I’ve mentioned, HelloTalk is like a normal chat app, but with lots of features to help language learners – especially if you sign up to the premium version of the app.

If you use it for Chinese, for instance, you can use the transliteration option when a native speaker writes to you, to instantly see the pinyin (romanized pronunciation).

HelloTalk also includes an automatic translation feature. This is really helpful if you are OK with just getting the general gist of things. It can also help keep conversations flowing, since you don’t have to open another app/window to get the translation.

When you’re chatting using HelloTalk, you can see your conversation partner’s language/location as a flag. Additionally, while you talk to them, their local time is shown at the top of the chat window. This is handy if you need to know whether to say good morning or good evening to start your conversation!

This combination of features is what puts it ahead of the competition. Whenever I chat to someone on Skype, I almost always have several tabs for dictionaries or Google Translate open in my web browser. Switching between these is hard work, and it doesn’t help if you are feeling overwhelmed as it is!

Another cool feature is the option to highlight your conversation partner’s reply and select it for correction to help them improve their sentences. They can do the same for you. This is different to simply replying with the right way of saying something, because it keeps the dialogue focused on the actual conversation.

Finally, the app has a mode that counts the amount of characters  or time spent (e.g. 500 characters or 5 minutes) in one language. When it reaches the limit, it suggests that you switch languages. This avoids the awkwardness of trying to bring it up yourself in the conversation.

You can check out some of these features demonstrated in this video:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5dxoc7zEBE

My Main Criticisms of HelloTalk

I don’t like to be overly critical, especially with a free app. But it’s really hard to ignore the fact that HelloTalk is still buggy. Luckily, I imagine these problems will disappear very soon, but be warned that you’ll see things like:

 Bad English used in the interface (this is likely the case in the other non-Chinese translations of their interface). Things like “Advance” instead of “Advanced”, “Portuguese” spelt as “Portugues” (in the English column), and the guide to the app saying “This help your partners practice listening”, among other things. These sloppy mistakes should be fixed for a more professional feel, but they can be ignored of course.
Huge **stability issues**. It crashes at inopportune times. HelloTalk are aware of this, so I imagine it should be fixed soon. For now though, you will need to be patient as you keep restarting the app.
Slow responsiveness over 3G/4G when you leave a wifi connection. Wifi shouldn’t be necessary for text exchanges.
Huge battery drain (on my Android). I found that I had to manually kill the app whenever I left it, since letting it run in the background just destroyed my phone’s lifespan for the day. This is a pity because when you have HelloTalk running in the background, you get notified when people are interested in speaking with you.

However, these are mostly technical issues. I’d struggle to think of any ways HelloTalk could improve the interface, features and look of the app. For people looking for casual free conversation exchanges, it is definitely something worth testing out.

To try HelloTalk for yourself, go to the Android or iOS store to install it.

Sign up to the app, and one of your friends will automatically be HelloTalk Team. Message them “FI3M” and you’ll get 3 months free membership, which includes unlimited access to the premium features. These are Translation, Voice Recognition, and Transliteration.

The post HelloTalk App Review: Chat with Native Speakers on Your Smartphone appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Essential Lessons from 2 Weeks of Fast, Intense Russian Learning

Two weeks into Lauren’s Russian in 3 Months mission, it’s time for her first update.

She is on a mission to reach a conversational level of Russian by teaching herself, without any formal classes.

In this article she’ll share the exact strategies she’s been using to fast track her Russian learning over the past 14 days, as well as what’s gone well, and what she could improve on.

First, here’s a short video update so you can see her progress for yourself…

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=PajbtUxvTas

Over to you Lauren!

Crafting a Focused Strategy for Your Language Project

Having a high stakes goal is far from easy. It’s freaking scary!

For me, knowing that I have to reach B1 in 3 months – or come as close as I possibly can – has been really intimidating.

When you’re starting out it feels like an impossible task. It’s a lot of pressure.

I’ve gotten around this feeling by breaking up my “big goal” into small goals (or mini-missions) that are much closer to home.

“Little goals” feel more attainable. They remove some of the stress and help you focus on the task at hand.

“Little language goals” feel more attainable. They remove stress and help you focus on the task at hand. Click to Tweet

So my focus these past two weeks, and for all of my first month, is to set my sights entirely on the next level ahead of me, which is level A1.

“A person at A1 level can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.”

Effectively, this means that I’m putting my 3-month mission out of my head for now, and focusing instead on reaching this short term goal.

I love how the description really breaks it down for me, allowing me to focus on very specific measurable successes. Compared to the big goal of reaching B1, it seems relatively easy.

Specifically, to reach A1, I need to

Learn to use everyday expressions and very basic phrases

Learn to introduce myself

Learn to ask simple questions

Learn to answer simple questions

This is something I know I can do!

And this simple change has made me feel like my life has gone from this…

To this:

The way I see it, if I can reach this very simple, measurable goal by the end of month one or sooner, I’ll be in great shape and on track.

Week 1: Diving headfirst into an intensive project

A lot of people aren’t really sure where to start in a language project. And I was no different. I knew I wanted to prepare for to have conversations on Skype with my teachers, but I wasn’t sure what was the best way to prepare.

Benny suggested that I just start somewhere, and that from there I’d gain momentum and get a better sense of how I needed to adjust my strategy.

So I started with what I knew, which was RussianPod101. I listened to as many audio lessons as I could, making sure to repeat back the phrases to practice my pronunciation, and most importantly to write down all of the phrases I thought I’d need to use during a Skype chat to refer to later.

While taking the lessons, I made sure to really focus on the words and phrases I needed for my situation, and to ignore the ones that didn’t apply to me. So I skipped over lessons designed for tourists, for example, or that discussed Russian cuisine, because I won’t need to talk about those things any time soon.

Language Tip: I focus on the words and phrases I need for my situation, and ignore the ones that don’t apply to me. Click to Tweet

Taking notes has been a really important part of my process, because it gives me a cheat sheet to rely on while I’m talking on Skype. It also ensures that nothing important that I learn in an audio lesson gets lost.

As I study and learn new phrases, I put everything I learn (that I think I’ll actually use one day soon) into a text document.

As my list grows, I’ve organized the phrases and words into different categories. I’ve created categories that make the most sense to me. By doing this, I have an easy reference so these phrases ready to use during conversations.

One really fun effect of this is that I’ve become actually really excited to have Skype classes with my teachers so I can practice all the phrases I have on my sheet!

The Bingo Strategy for Fast and Easy Language Learning

When I have Skype calls with my tutors, I play a “bingo” game with myself. I make myself use as many of these phrases as possible. I do this to ensure I’m not using the same phrases all the time, but getting as much breadth as possible. That way, I’ll reach that A1 level more quickly.

This bingo game also helps me to have a really specific purpose in mind before each Skype call: to practice new phrases from my sheet! The more I practice, the easier it becomes to use these words and phrases.

Another unexpected side effect of the bingo strategy is that you’ll start to see patterns and similarities between similar words as you organize them into groups. This will give you a feel for the grammar early on, before you actually start studying grammar formally.

Week 2: Getting into a “Russian Groove” and craving new forms of practice

You’ll see from my notes that I’ve been relying heavily on romanized versions of Russian words. Since I spent so much time listening to my Russian podcast during Week 1, I often took notes quickly, and I jotted down phrases the way they sound to me (phonetically) instead of writing them out in their Cyrillic forms. Typing out Cyrillic is slow work for me.

Although this worked great to begin with, it quickly became a problem. I found myself craving a different sort of practice that would help me get familiar with seeing and reading Russian words instead of just hearing them. This is especially important since my italki teachers do a lot of typing to me in Russian during our sessions.

So, during Week 2 I dove heavily with my Assimil Russian coursebook.

I like studying the Assimil coursebook because it’s a strong way to supplement my audio studies. It introduces entirely new words and phrases that aren’t covered in RussianPod, and I’ve found that I understand word order and grammar differences much better by seeing them written out than I do from just hearing them.

That said, I have found Assimil a bit too technical for my tastes. For example, it contains a lot of explanations like this:

”In this construction, the verb is in the third person plural, and the personal pronoun is in the accusative case. Russian has six cases. Each case reflects a different function of the word in the sentence. The accusative case is the case of the direct object.”

Thanks, Assimil, but that doesn’t exactly clear things up.

To me, this is proof that different courses are just better suited for different people. I have some friends who would really appreciate this sort of technical explanation. I’m just not one of them. I’d prefer a book that used phrases like “I-form” “you-form” and “we-form” instead of “first person singular”, “second person singular”, and “first person plural”.

Even so, I can’t deny that the course has done wonders for me in helping me absorb some light grammar without me even trying. I’m planning to keep it in my routine, but I will be in search of different written courses more suited to my tastes in the coming weeks. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

What’s Working So Far in Learning Russian Fast, And What’s Not

Early on, you’ll need to ditch the roman crutch

Because I’ve been building my “cheat sheet” with my own phonetic romanized spellings, those wrong versions of the words are the ones I see in my minds eye when I’m speaking in Russian. That’s a no-no. Next week, I’m going to comb through my cheat sheet and replace all the romanized spellings with proper Cyrillic.

It will take a while to train my fingers to type Cyrillic quickly, but I’ll just have to suck it up until I’ve gotten used to it.

Skype conversations can make you feel amazing

Honestly, no one could have been more nervous than me the first time I ever spoke a foreign language to another human on Skype. But you know what? I’ve gotten over it, and now I really enjoy it!

I’ve broken my Skype strategy into two parts.

1. With some teachers, all I do is have casual conversations in Russian. How are you? Where are you from? That kind of thing. I call this my “groundhog day” strategy, and I’ve signed up to have chats with a dozen different teachers so I can have this “first” conversation over and over again until I’ve got it down. In these classes, I speak Russian only.

2. With other teachers, I opt to take more structured lessons. In these classes I speak Rush-lish. I try to stick to Russian whenever possible, but I use these lessons to ask questions about the language in English. These teachers give me homework, test me on learning vocab, and help identify my weak points and give suggestions for how I can improve.

Don’t devote yourself to only one learning method

I strongly, strongly believe that you need to use a variety of methods to learn a language. Attack it from multiple angles. Podcasts are fantastic because you get to hear spoken Russian in full phrases and natural contexts, but you’ll need additional support to familiarize yourself with the written language and to reinforce your learning with exercises.

So don’t opt for monogamy in language learning!

I’ve already reached a point where I have a comfortable understanding of the way the basic grammar works (verb conjugations and masculine/feminine endings). That’s just from hearing so much spoken Russian that I’m ready to start studying and testing my knowledge of this using other tools.

The Assimil course has helped me a lot with being able to read Russian much faster and to get a better grasp on how Russian word order works. That said, I still feel like I need more opportunities to produce my own Russian phrases and to test my knowledge of very simple grammar. So for the next two weeks, I’ll be testing out different methods that I hope will help me in these areas. I’ll report my findings back to you!

Recap: Here’s Exactly What I’ve Done So Far

RussianPod 101

For listening and pronunciation practice

-Completed all “Newbie Season 1” lessons

-Completed 11/25 lessons on “Top 25 Russian Questions”

(based on their relevance to me)

-Completed 19/26 lessons from “Absolute Beginner Season 1”

Reading and Writing Russian Script

To learn Cyrillic

-Completed the entire book

Italki

For spoken practice with native speakers

-Completed 5 conversations on Skype

Assimil Russian

For exposure to written Russian and light grammar

-Completed 13/100 lessons

Memrise

To help learn new vocab

-Completed 75/543 words in “Beginners Russian” deck

My Own Cheat Sheet

A collection of words and phrases, relevant to me, that I’ve compiled from all the above sources. I use this to help me make sure I’m practicing the things I learn in real spoken conversations. I also use this to keep me on track for my specific target (which right now is A1).

Thoughts on all this? Share it with us in the comments!

The post Essential Lessons from 2 Weeks of Fast, Intense Russian Learning appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.