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March 30, 2009

Learning Foreign Language Pronunciations

Mastering a foreign language is usually marked by an ability to utter words and sentences the way a normal speaker would. Even when you’re not a native speaker, you can learn to speak it in a way that comes close to it.

While books, lessons and language learning software offer the best platform for learning a new language, mastering its pronunciation is usually best accomplished by tuning in to those who speak it well. As such, listening to native speakers on a regular basis will be the best activity you can take part in.

If you have access to them, try to converse with native speakers regularly. While it’s fine to practice with your peers on the same level as you, you’ll just end up acquiring each other’s mistakes, most of the time. Native speakers, can easily correct any pronunciation mistakes that you make, apart from being a treasure trove to listen to.

Listening to media in the foreign language – songs, movies, audiobooks and TV shows – are a great way to learn proper pronunciation. However, they usually work best when you already understand what the context behind the material is, so that you can focus on pronunciation. As such, it is recommended that you choose those materials with which you already have context, such as foreign dubs of movies you’ve already seen or English songs translated into another language.

Does that sound hard? Well, it is. Nobody said mastering a new language is going to be easy, right?

March 17, 2009

Five Ways To Learn English Faster

1. Use A Language Learning Software. More interactive than your typical language courses and cheaper than taking a real class, language learning software offers the most cost-effective medium of instruction for anyone studying English as a second language. The participatory nature of a software course coupled with the flexibility it offers in scheduling and time makes it an obvious choice for anyone serious about learning new languages.

2. Talk to yourself. There’s no faster way to learn English than to speak it and you can do it even when there’s no one around by practicing with yourself. Take a phone book and read the numbers aloud using the new language, watch TV and make comments in English or pick random words out of a dictionary and translate them.

3. Talk to English speakers. Spend time with English speakers and communicate with them using the vernacular. Not only will you be practicing your own speaking skills but you’ll be picking up nuances they might have learned along the way.

4. Listen to English songs. Listening to songs are a great way to improve upon your English, allowing you to hear the language used in both a specific context along with helpful demonstrations of proper delivery. Just make sure to exercise discretion when trying to copy the language used in rap songs and you should be fine. A’ight?

5. Unleash your English skills to the world. When someone converses with you in English, don’t hesitate to respond in kind. Start a free blog and write posts in the English language. You’ll make mistakes but that will only help accelerate your development. Use the language freely and watch yourself improve by leaps and bounds.

March 8, 2009

Giving The Gift Of Language

While it’s not as common as typical gifts, giving someone a language course can be a notable present. It may not be as flashy as jewelry nor is it as intimate as an heirloom with deep personal significance, but there’s no denying it’s a wonderful offering that the right recipient can appreciate.

Of course, the gift becomes more meaningful if the person has expressed some sort of interest in learning the language before. If they ever mentioned, in passing, how much a thrill it will be to learn French or Spanish, for instance, giving them a language learning package should prove much more fitting. Should they be planning a trip to China, on the other hand, a course teaching the dialect will likely be received with much delight.

There are a wide variety of products you can choose from when searching for an appropriate language learning package. Books, classes and software to learn language of all sorts are widely available. A quick trip to your local Barnes & Noble or a brief search around the web should turn up a good number of lessons specifically geared towards this purpose.

While traditional language courses have been focused on books and audio recordings, people are now realizing the benefits of language learning software. More flexible than usual lessons, software-based courses allow you to learn the new language in a linear progression or skip to those you need without much complications. Since they usually come with less overhead than traditional media, they usually retail for cheaper too.

Should the person receiving the gift enjoy the course and wish to learn further, most language software applications also come with advanced lessons that they can download as an upgrade, frequently at little additional cost. If you know someone who could benefit from a gift like this, don’t hesitate to send it their way. You could be giving them a gift that lasts them all their lives without even knowing about it.


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