Have you ever wondered what the personal and social benefits of learning a second language might be? Learning languages is seen as a bit of a weird hobby in Australia. As someone fluent in 2 languages, somewhat conversational in 2 more, and who ‘dabbles’ all the time in languages for
It can be difficult keeping up the motivation to learn languages, because anything worth doing takes time, and languages are no different. This tweet appeared on my twitter feed a while ago… I guess I lost my motivation to learn languages. 😥 I mean I thought I was taking a
Last weekend I had some fun learning Yoruba during the #LangJam Challenge. Because Yoruba is not a language I particularly am interested in, I wasn’t too concerned about making much progress in the language. Instead, I took the opportunity to simply familiarise myself with the language a bit, and have
Another chance to dabble in a new language for a weekend with #LanguageJam! July’s Jam is from a selection of Indigenous Languages, in honour of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages. This Jam I drew Yoruba – here’s some fun facts. Yoruba is a language spoken in Western
What is NOT the best way to learn Biblical Hebrew from scratch? (For me at least!) Studying grammar! If my brain is a sponge, it has been so full that it has been leaking after just five weeks of learning! All the new information has just run through and out
We have become very accustomed to information being available online for free. Certainly there is a plethora of free language learning resources on every platform. But is “Free” worth using? Or is it a case of “You get what you pay for”? When I am considering what to use, I
It can be difficult to communicate clearly when we are learning a new language. Some of us are shy, or maybe just not confident with talking to people when we only know a little vocabulary, but we still need to know how to get our point across and let others
You may have read in a forum about using Pimsleur® audios for language learning. When is it a good idea to use the Pimsleur Method, and does it work? Use Pimsleur if you are an absolute beginner in a language, if you want to give your ear exposure to the
Last weekend I got my first opportunity to learn Macedonian during the #LangJam Challenge. Cyrillic Script The Macedonian alphabet is quite different to English. For a start, the Macedonian language uses a Cyrillic script, so I had a week before the challenge to learn that. This image shows the vowels
Time to play with a new language over a weekend with #LanguageJam! This time I drew Macedonian – which has a Cyrillic script, a messy political situation, and not many resources “because it’s really just a dialect of Bulgarian”. Well, so the Bulgarians say! Recognition of the Macedonian Language I
