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Dear All Idioms are hard to translate. That's why I would like ALL of you to participate in this little task/game. I created a new Google Documents List and listed some of the most popular English idioms/sayings. Please help to translate them into your language. I already added some languages. Feel free to add your language if not yet on the list and provide the translation. Only translate the idiom if there is actually an idiomatic/metaphorical equivalent in your language. Feel free to add new English idioms as well. The English idioms are in alphabetical order, so when adding new idioms, make sure you add them at the right place. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hSeZC1VuczQsbxgWnomagUcfGqETh07BHDqRRvp9QfE/edit?usp=sharing Happy contributing! Thanks for your support

DEAR MEMBERS AND VISITORS of Linguaholic.com I proudly would like to announce that linguaholic.com will be changing to new forum software, soon. The site has been running on SMF (Simple Machines Forum Software) since day one and the overall experience with it was fantastic. However, as SMF basically is an open source forum software (and therefore free), it comes with some limitations and is probably not always up-to-date in terms of Design, User Friendliness and Features. Moreover, it is really difficult to offer the members a member-friendly mobile access to the page. As more and more members of linguaholic.com access the page with a mobile device, it is our top priority to ensure a mobile friendly environment. This is very hard to achieve with SMF and therefore we decided to move to IPB. IPB offers amazing forum software and has many mobile-friendly themes on the market. As for existing members of linguaholic.com, we do try to make the switch to IPB Software as smooth as possible. All individual posts, Ranks and Titles are supposed to be taken over to the new Software and should display in the same way it was the case with SMF. So if everything works out well, nothing will change with your member account! We will keep everyone updated about this change to IPB. Due to this change, linguaholic.com will be down for some time, soon. So if you are trying to access linguaholic.com and get an error, don't worry. The page will be up again as soon as possible (we are talking about 24 hours to a couple of days here, not more). I hope you will all enjoy the change to the new forum Software! Best wishes Linguaholic

General / Language Courses: http://www.polishforums.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/polish/ http://mowicpopolsku.com/ http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/ Reading: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/poland.htm http://literat.ug.edu.pl/autors.htm https://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Kategoria:Autorzy_alfabetycznie Video & Audio: http://www.polskieradio.pl/ http://www.tvp.pl/ Grammar: http://www.learnpolishfeelgood.com/index.html http://free.of.pl/g/grzegorj/gram/gram00.html Dictionaries: http://sjp.pwn.pl/ http://oxford.pwn.pl/ http://pl.bab.la/slownik/polski-angielski/ http://ling.pl/ http://www.wordreference.com/plen/

General / Language Courses: http://www.impariamoitaliano.com/ http://www.oneworlditaliano.com/index.htm http://parliamoitaliano.altervista.org/ http://www.educational.rai.it/ioparloitaliano/corso.htm http://www.italianolinguadue.it/ http://www.oggi-domani.com/site/tableofcontent.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/ Reading: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/it http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/ http://www.medialibrary.it/home/home.aspx http://felicitaraggiunta.blogspot.com/ http://www.filastrocche.it/nostalgici/filastr.htm http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/italy.htm Video & Audio: http://www.almaedizioni.it/it/almatv/ http://www.rai.it/ http://www.radioitalia.it/ Grammar: http://grammaticaitaliana.net/ http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ngargano/corsi/varia/indextesto.html http://grammatica-italiana.dossier.net/grammatica-italiana-06.htm http://www.culturaitaliana.it/e-learning/esercizi/index.asp Verb Conjugators: http://www.verbix.com/languages/italian.shtml http://www.italian-verbs.com/ Dictionaries: http://www.dizionario.rai.it/ricerca.aspx http://en.bab.la/dictionary/italian-english/ http://www.wordreference.com/enit/ http://www.sapere.it/sapere/dizionari.html http://parole.virgilio.it/parole/sinonimi_e_contrari/

Teaching a language to people who are not native to it can be difficult and you have to understand that it is not easy even if you are teaching basic language lessons. The students might not be able to speak at all and to have patience to teach and explain is necessary for them to learn and speak back to you but the reward is once they are able to speak after your teaching skills

So, this is my life now. I am a banana.

I wrote this a while back... Step 1 – Isolated pronunciation Goals: Correctly repeat any single pinyin syllable after hearing it. Read single pinyin syllables out loud with correct pronunciation. Do all this with correct tones and know which tones are being used when you hear them. Expansion: Pronunciation requires special attention in Mandarin because it’s a tonal language, with tone changes (sandhi), and a few sounds westerners aren’t normally accustomed to. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here – tones are crucial. If you don’t make a serious effort to get them right before you start conversing, you will probably not be understood. Tones are more important than initials and finals (consonant and vowel sounds); there are regional variations in pronunciation of initials and finals, so natives are used to that fact and will give you some leeway with them. But tones are consistent, meaning there is very little leeway, so it’s more important to get them right. How to do it - working with a pinyin table. There are many available - I’ve picked one at random to work with. Pinyin is made up of initials and finals. Initial + final = syllable. You’ll find out later that each Chinese character (hanzi) has a one syllable pronunciation. The table has all possible syllables; there are about 400. If you click one of the syllables, you get a pop-up with audio for the four different tones. The goal in working with the pinyin table is to be able to pronounce all the syllables correctly in all four tones. There are many ways to do this, so it’s ok to experiment, but always listen to the audio before trying to pronounce a syllable for the first time. Here’s the method I suggest: 1) Select the 1st syllable in the 1st column (a), select the 1st tone, listen, repeat; select the 2nd tone, listen repeat; select the 3rd tone, listen, repeat; select the 4th tone, listen, repeat; pronounce the 1st tone, listen, repeat; pronounce the 2nd tone, listen, repeat; pronounce the 3rd tone, listen, repeat; pronounce the 4th tone, listen, repeat. 2) Select 2nd syllable in the 1st column (ba), and repeat step 1. After completing the first column, do them over, but only pronounce, listen, repeat. 3) Repeat for the 2nd column. Keep it up for 30min – 2hrs per day. 4) The next day, do it by row instead of columns. You will need to work through the entire table by columns and rows several times to get comfortable reading pinyin. It takes some time to get comfortable reading the pinyin table, probably 10+ hrs. Spreading it out over a couple weeks makes it sink in much better. Reading about and studying pronunciation. After you have finished your dose of pinyin table work for the day, do some reading. First, read this pronunciation guide in Sinosplice. There is a lot to Chinese pronunciation. It’s best to practice it, read about it, and practice it some more, each time trying to incorporate the things you’ve read about. You will always be checking your pronunciation by listening to the table, so try to pay attention and pick out the things that you read about too. After finishing Sinosplice, work your way through the pronunciation module for FSI. This might sound like overkill, but there are actually some things in FSI that aren’t in Sinosplice. Note – for this stage, focus on single syllables; leave multiple syllables and tone rules for later. Practice recognizing tones. After you feel like you are reading single pinyin syllables correctly, it’s time get good at recognizing tones. I recommend using Pinyin Practice. At this stage, just do the single syllable drills. You can come back to combinations later.

General Online resources http://www.velingua.com (Learning by Translating) http://www.studyspanish.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/ (The Spanish section of the very well known BBC language lessons) http://www.duolingo.com (Learn Spanish and many more languages) http://www.spanishdict.com/ http://www.qlipo.com (Learn Spanish through Music) http://www.aprenderespanol.org/ http://www.onlinefreespanish.com/ http://www.spanishunlimited.com/spanish-lessons/ http://www.practicaespanol.com http://www.online-spanish-course.com http://www.livemocha.com http://www.fluencia.com http://www.bowdoin.edu/~eyepes/newgr/ http://www.notesinspanish.com Dictionaries: (mostly English-Spanish, Spanish-English and more combinations) http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp (Dictionary & an incredible forum for many different languages, Spanish included) http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-spanish/ http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-spanish/ http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/english-spanish http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-spanish http://www.oxforddictionaries.com http://www.hablaa.com (Spanish-English, English-Spanish and much more)

As an Spanish I must admit I'm not very familiar to how you learn our grammar and the terms "present progressive" and "regular present" were complete strangers to me until 2 minutes ago that I googled it. If I'm not mislead you ask for the difference between "Andar/Ando" and "Andando" Well it's pretty much the same as "I walk" and "I am walking" The regular present is used for daily basis actions or general expressions that are "commonly true". For example: Yo ando todos los días para ir a clase. The present progressive is used to express and action that is taking place in that exact moment. For example: Ahora mismo estoy andando para ir a clase. Hope this helps, though I know I'm kinda late to answer and probably you sorted it out long ago

Many people often wonder why kids learn languages fast? The answer is simple. Children practice what they learn a lot. I was listening to a child who is learning to talk and she'd repeat the same words over and over until she got the pronunciation right. And when kids see something they don't know, they'll ask their parent, sibling or someone to trust to tell them what it is. And when they've heard the word they'll repeat it until the parent, says "yeah, you've got it right." To learn a languge well and fast be proactive about learning. Ask questions and practice speaking the words you learn until you get them right. That's how kids do it and you have to admit they certainly do learn new languages really fast.

There is no such thing as an easy language. The level of difficulty totally depends on how much difference there is between your mother tongue and the one you would like to master.

Ok, so I tried three tests, and here's what they say. 1. http://my.vocabularysize.com This one is adapted to one's native language (by the way, I found numerous mistakes when it comes to Russian translation of the site, and it makes me wonder...) You are given a bunch of English words, and you must choose 1 correct Russian translation out of 4 definitions. This is a serious drawback when it comes to evaluating if you really know the words or not: some I wouldn't know how to use but I have heard them somewhere (or I know them from other languages), so it's easy to choose the correct definition. I got "You know at least 20 200 word families" as a result, which is a bit too high. Besides, I most definitely do not think that this is "better than 50% of the native speakers taking this test". 2. http://testyourvocab.com Here you have a list of words where you just tick those that you really know. Probably this is more accurate, and I got my vocabulary size estimated to be about 17 400 words. Definitely more plausible. I also like the statistics you get after the test, and according to this site, native speakers have about 20 000 - 35 000 words in their vocabulary. Yes, I definitely like this site better! 3. http://vocabulary.ugent.be This test shows you a range of real and fake English words, you must mark those that you know for sure to be real. I've first seen this testing method in Dialang (my favourite language testing software), and generally it works quite well. It says I know "69% of English words". I've heard English has more than a million words in it, so I'm guessing they mean I know about 69% of the most commonly used? So what, around 30 000? However much I'd like to believe that, I don't think it's true - or will ever be true in the course of this lifetime. Maybe in my next life, when I'm born as an English native speaker, I'll be able to use that many words... but certainly not now. All in all, I think site nr 2 - testyourvocab - gives the best results in terms of their truthfulness. Let me know if you find any other places on the web where people can test their vocabulary size. It was fun I'd like to try more tests!

It seems that a lot of people here like learning new words with the help of songs, so I have a question for you. How useful do you think it is to write down the words of the song? When I was a teenager and actively trying to learn French and English, I'd swear by this method as one of the most efficient to improve one's listening skills. Those were the times when the Internet in Russia was practically non-existent, and lyrics were not widely available online. If you really liked a song in a foreign language and wanted to understand what it was all about, the only way to do it was sit down and listen to it for hours on end, trying to pin down all the words correctly, and then look up those you didn't know in a paper dictionary. It was hard work, and I was rarely lucky enough to understand every single word, but it was a thrill each time you managed to identify some expression, especially if it was one you never heard before. I had a feeling my listening skills were getting better, and I also learnt a lot of vocabulary this way. Now that I'm a pampered Internet user, I get the lyrics to all of the songs online, sometimes even without having to look for them - I got myself a program that does most of the work for me. However, a couple of days I ago I was extremely surprised (and annoyed, I have to admit) to realize that there's nowhere I can find the lyrics to some Austrian Christmas songs that I have on my playlist now. What? Google doesn't have the answer? Yandex is powerless? Seriously? I had no choice but to come back to the good old "Listen, pause, write down what you hear, listen, pause, try again". Actually, it felt good. I learnt a lot - much more then when I just throw a look at the ready-downloaded lyrics. I felt happy. I now know some grammar structures and some words I hadn't known before. And I thought - maybe my 14-year-old self was not wrong after all? Maybe it is really useful to write the words down? What do you think? And what do you do when you love a song in a language you're not fluent in but can't find the lyrics online?

if he does actually speak 58 languages, we should bring him here to linguaholic.com. Would be nice to have him as a moderator :=)

I’m a native Spanish speaker so I can help you out with this. The thing is that even though all these expressions mean basically the same they’re not the same thing. Some are more casual or informal than others. “Qué tal” is a nice way of asking someone Hey, how are you? This is a nice expression that you can use as, “Qué tal, ¿cómo estás? Now moving to your second example, “Qué Hubo.” I wouldn’t use this one if I were you. It’s not a bad expression, but it’s not nice. How to explain this…like well-educated people don’t use this expression. “Qué Pasa” is not used to ask How are You, it’s more like a question of what’s happening, what’s going on. And “Qué Onda” is like saying, “What’s up’.” Young people used it a lot in the past, but now it’s not that common anymore, but I dare to say that almost anyone who speaks Spanish will understand it.

I actually just finished up a research paper about pronunciation and accents for my graduate program. The relationship between accent and pronunciation is completely inseparable. For English, the two most taught accents are Receive Pronunciation (Queen's English) and General American. Typically learners like to focus their English studies on a popular accent and learn that pronunciation. It's hard for someone who is a NS of English to not teach towards their own accent, but I think it's important to expand your students' input in the classroom from one general accent to others. Perhaps the other accents could include some fluent NNSs and other NS accents. If you don't expose them to these other pronunciations, could it harm their learning? That's not necessarily proven, but it's good to walk into a classroom with the concept of English being an International Language and not one that is bound to a certain group just because that's where you learned to pronounce it. I'm geeking out over here.

A lot of Setswana names have meanings, and are also unisex. So here goes: Girls: Neo (gift) Boitumelo (joy) Gaone (of God's will) Bontle (beauty) Mpho (gift) * Kgomotso (comfort) Basadi (women) Boys: Tshepo (faith)* Kgosi (chief) Pule (rain) Mpho (gift)* Thapelo (prayer) Thato (will)* Tebogo (thanks)* *These names are unisex @DivaDee....I love American type names including Hunter, Chase, Tailor, Tyler and Zac.

Hello there @Chiara Welcome to the forum. In my native language, which is not in your list, but nevertheless. Serbian, we say: Dobrodosla. That means Welcome. I have studied Russian, and French and Greek, and English, as my second language. I have taken great advantage of this forum, learning a lot of diverse things concerning languages. I would love to learn Italian - recently was provided with some software of Italian language on a CD, so I am planning to start soon. Wish me luck.

In italian we don't say "Qualcuno chi studia" but "Qualcuno che studia". "Chi" (who) is more used in questions, "Che" (that) is used in questions and answers like in this case And we also say "Come me" and not "Come io"; "Io" is the english "I", "Me" is the english "me", (but in english it is pronounced "mi", in Italian it is pronounced "me" with a close "e") so as in english, you say "like me" and not "like i" I hope this is helpful!

It is indeed Hangul! Anyway, I asked someone from work and according to her it reads as: insaeng-eun neomo siwon hagoissda! Closest translation is "Life's too cool!" Although, the following is google translates' version of: Life is too cool! 인생은 너무 멋지다. 인생은 = insaeng-eun (life) 너무 = neomo (too) 멋지다. = meosjida (is cool) (kindly delete the reply prior to this one. sorry, slow internet connection. thought, the previous one didn't go through) Deleted your double post as per request. ~Blaveloper

When the landlord asked about this month's rent check, Kim said, "It's on its way."

Hey all. Well, though I've also not heard of "active listening" throughout my 30+ years as an ESL teacher, I suspect that I know what Trellum experienced in the class; it was actually one of the core activities that I used throughout my career. To describe (in just a few words, hard for me! ha) what I did: Students will not be able to comprehend strings of sounds (utterances) until they have developed a "sound bank" of their own. This "sound bank" is a set of utterances (usually full sentences) which help the student when trying to recognize sounds that they hear. Just sitting and listening will not contribute to the development of this "sound bank"-- that is a passive activity. Students have to get the muscles moving, and those will be the mouth muscles. Now, this will not be simply repeating sentences over and over again. It will be sound manipulation exercise, meant to strengthen articulation muscles as well as to help overcome obstacles when trying to string sounds together. There will be a great deal of substitution involved, so a basic pattern may be worked upon, creating the base and words will be changed. A very simple exercise might be: It's a book. (chair) It's a chair. (table) It's a table. (cup) It's a cup. The emphasis would be on the rhythm of the utterance, the stringing together of words (it would never be: IT (PAUSE) IS (PAUSE) A (PAUSE) CUP, but rather [IT sa CAP]. No matter how much you wiggle your ears, you will not improve your listening comprehension through passively listening to speech. You will have to produce that speech as close as you can to the expected pronunciation in order to develop that "sound bank" (and not individual sounds, again, utterances!) that you will use to recognize what you are hearing. Perhaps because the student is actively doing something to improve comprehension, the course referred to in the OP was called "active listening", though I find that term kind of misleading and more marketing than descriptive of the process. Kind of like the "Natural Method" which was anything but "natural"....ha. peace, revel.

Online Resources: RUSSIAN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language Standard Wiki article about Russian language. http://www.brown.edu/Departments/LRC/RU_writing/index.htm This website is great for learning calligraphy. You simply move the mouse and the system shows how to write Russian letters. http://tools.forret.com/translit/russian.php automatic Cyrillic converter for quick transliteration of Russian words. Grammar http://www.gramota.ru This website is writte in Russian, but includes many rules. http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/index.html Excellent web site for beginners. http://www.du.edu/ahss/schools/langlit/programs/russian/resources/grammarx.htm http://www.russian.ucla.edu/beginnersrussian/student/Chap5.htm Dictionary http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-thesaurus/russian http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-russian/ http://www.babylon.com/define/118/russian-english-dictionary.html http://www.desy.de/cgi-bin/engrus/ can be for Windows, DOS and UNIX. http://www.ozhegov.org This is online version of popular Ozhegov Dictionary, that has definitions of words. http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Орфографический_словарь_русского_языка http://www.freedict.com/onldict/rus.html http://www.multitran.ru It is a great website, that offers many variations to translate the same word. http://translation2.paralink.com This is automatic translator PROMT. It is good for translating simple phrases, but if you want to get quality translation so this software will not be enough. http://jeck.ru/tools/SynonymsDictionary/ The dictionary of synonyms http://www.lingvo.ua/ru Russuian-English and English-Russian dictionary. Besides, you can select any language there. Now, Literature Surely, if you can read Russian you will want to find books in original. Review these links, you will find classic Russian poetry there. . https://sites.google.com/site/poetryandtranslations/ http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/russian/Ruslang/ Study works by famous Russian poets like Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy and Blok. https://librivox.org It is a database of audiobooks. Great for learners! Available in mp3 format. http://www.logoslibrary.eu/index.php?lang=RU&letter=A&source=search&page=1 Electronic Library with books for downloading. http://www.rvb.ru Virtual Russian Library Games and Exercises http://www.practicerussian.com This site offers Russian tests, lessons and games as well. http://www.digitaldialects.com/Russian.htm Numerous games http://www.russianforfree.com/quizzes-to-learn-russian.php Easy to use portal for learning vocabulary via games practice spelling. http://learnrussian.rt.com/speak-russian/russian-for-kids Games and exercises for children http://www.hello-world.com/Russian/index.php?translate=English Free portal with games for kids Society and Culture To improve skills, learners have to watch films, review news, listen to Russian music and so on. So enjoy it for your leisure! http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/russian/art/ Russian art http://nclrc.org/webcasts/russian/ Simplified news with transcripts and vocabulary. http://www.llrx.com/features/russian.htm#dictionaries Russian laws http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17839672 BBC Channel Russian version http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/ BBC Channel Russian version http://www.bucknell.edu/x17601.xml This site highlights history of Russia http://www.1tv.ru TV channel, which will be god if you want to watch films, TV-Show and so on. http://rt.com News portal http://www.rusradio.com.ua Popular radio station with only Russian songs. Online Russian Language Courses If you want to find a teacher or take some lessons from a native speaker, so follow the links. http://learnrussian.pro/?gclid=COv65vjPrbwCFaHbcgoduB0ARw http://www.russianlessons.net http://www.russianforfree.com/lessons-russian-language-contents.php http://www.ambergh.com/learn-russian/ http://www.memrise.com/course/78454/learn-basic-russian/ And finally newspapers http://www.pravda.ru This website has English version. So you can read news in Russian and in English languages. http://izvestia.ru

Immersion might b the answer to learning a language quickly because you learn by listening and speaking. Pretty much the way kids learn their mother tongue. However you may need to live abroad for about a year so before you leave for Spain try to find out if you can find a temp job because you might need it if you'll be staying there that long. If you can't my advice would be to find language exchange partners and chat with them via Skype.

Thank you so much for sharing the site @Lingua Franca! I also tried checking it out and I'm actually very happy to find my native language as one of the languages played there. Sad to say that my flash player is not yet updated though so I haven't been able to open any game yet. Just like @lushlala, I'm definitely bookmarking the site.

If I had to choose only one, I would go with Spanish. Not because it's the most beautiful language, but the most important out of the bunch. Not only does the entirety of South America excluding Brazil speak it, but it's also pretty much the only language they speak. They don't really seem to care to learn English from my experience, making it even more important to learn Spanish. I would say Italian is the most beautiful language, but not as important as French, which is more widely spoken while still being a nice language.

A language camp is the ideal environment to learn your target language in an efficient manner, but they are rather expensive. Learning on your own has the benefit in allowing you to advance further in your study without boundaries, but people have limitations, therefore you should be aware that you'll hit a milestone where you'll need some tutoring help.

Do you find it easier to learn a language from someone that has an accent that matches the language you're trying to learn? For example, if you're learning English do you prefer the person you're learning from to have an English accent? Or would it not make much difference to you? I didn't think it would matter, and when I first began to learn Spanish I was learning from an English person. My accent in Spanish was then difficult to understand to native Spanish speakers. However, when I learned more Spanish from my friend that is Spanish I found my accent became better in Spanish too and therefore it was easier for me to be understood. I also found it easier to understand when Spanish people are talking to me (rather than English people speaking Spanish).

Like Baburra, I also like to learn Japanese so that I can watch shows without needing subtitles. I'm such a very big Anime and Manga fan. But aside from that, the process itself of learning Japanese is already motivational. It encourages me to continue learning more especially when I encounter some words that are very useful and very common in casual conversations. It gives me a feeling of satisfaction just by learning something new.

I couldn't help laughing out loud when I imagined that picture A couple that has been married for years bumps into someone who uses same function words with the same frequency as the husband/wife, and bang! Love at first sight followed by a quick divorce, all because someone uses "the" quite often

The first time I tried to practice Norwegian with a guy I was dating back then, back when I used to work and live in Norway. I ended up saying something really embarrassing (I don't dare to say it here) , but thankfully he laughed it off and later explained me what I had just said. So embarrassing, my face got red Wish that was the only time, but I made a fool of myself so many times when I had just started learning English and was learning it very actively (practicing).

This may be a simple question, but since we around Christmas (i couldn't wait until Valentine's day!) i think it's good to open an happy topic! How do you say "i love you", or how do you express love in your language? Not only to your lovers, but even your relatives, parents, friends! In Italian "I love you" can be translated in 2 ways: "Ti amo" is the "I love you" that you say generally to your boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband but you can say it maybe to your son or daughter too because it is a great expression of love. "Ti voglio bene" is what you say generally to people like friends, parents, relatives or people you love in general. What about you? Let's spread the love!

well I can help you with the two languages I know : in arabic we say : لا أستطيع تخيل حياتي بدونك I can't = لا أستطيع imagine : تخيل my life : حياتي without you : بدونك and in French we say : je peut pas imaginer ma vie sans toi je peut pas : i can't imaginer : imagine ma vie : my life sans toi : without you I hope that i've helped you a little bit

I grew up learning rules first, and I believe learning them is still valid. Immersing in languages is a good idea and might be more helpful and a more closer approach for live speaking/writing a different language than ours. However I believe that it depends on the sources make such immersion a good way of learning. If you get immersed in wrong pronunciation, rules or sentence structure, this will not only affect your learning but they way you used such language. With grammar and spelling rules, there is never mistake

@czarina84 My advice is to just set up the US International keyboard, it's a keyboard layout that's already available in all modern operating systems. All you'll need to do is this: " + o = ö ~ + n = ñ ^ + e = ê ' + a = á ` + u = ù Right alt + s = ß And so on. I can imagine you will find this annoying as a native English speaker, but it'll become very convenient over time.

Don't worry means literally "no te preocupes" in Spanish. Spanish speaking people may say someone; "No te preocupes, todo va a salir bien" (Don't worry, everything is going to be okay") and this is the grammatically correct way to use the term.

Tal vez te ayude tener que leer mis palabras en español, ¿no crees? Yo te propongo que escribas todos tus posts en esta parte del foro en español para que asi lo practiques. Si quieres chatear en skype conmigo estoy para servirte. Yo vivo en México y pues lógicamente mi idioma nativo es el español. Tú, ¿de dónde eres? ¿Hace cuánto vives en Estados Unidos? No pierdas tus raíces, habla y practica tu español lo más que puedas. Yo estoy para ayudarte en lo que necesites!!

I think the comfort zone, when learning a new language, definitely exists. Once you feel proficient enough, there is little that could push you out of that stage and really make you perfect said language. And it is also very hard to get out of that comfort zone, that is for sure.

Jesus. The way this guy speaks is rather annoying......:(

Pronunciation is by far one of the most important things that you should master when learning a new language. Apart from the fact that words could have different meanings when not pronounced correctly, not pronouncing words correctly is also a giveaway that you are not really fluent in a certain language and should practice more. Only through practice can you master pronunciation.

Well said! I agree 100% I'd just like to add that with pronunciation, repetition is the key. Listen to your native speaking source (video, audio, or actual native speaker) and repeat and compare to the native speaking source. Repeat and compare. Repeat and compare. Just like an actor practicing for an accent specific role. Once you are confident that you sound as close as you possibly can, then repeat the phrase over and over again until you feel comfortable with it and it just rolls off of your tongue.

The big problem with friends is that they aren't willing to teach a language you speak. Let alone, learn to speak yet another language at all. I did hear many phrases like "I want to learn English sometime", "I want to learn Spanish sometime", "I want to learn Chinese sometime", etc. They never start. The problem is, there are 7 days in a week and "someday" is not one of them.

In America, Christmas tradition varies from household to household, and depending on religion (or lack thereof). Growing up, we didn't have money for presents. We would usually cook some kind of meal (whatever we could afford) and decorate the two foot tall plastic tree with popcorn strings and ornaments that we had been acquiring for years. Now that I'm an adult, we celebrate with a ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits (the American kind that are a bread-like product, not cookies) and whatever we want as a dessert. The first think I do when I wake up is wish Jesus a Happy Birthday. I'm a Christian. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I know there are a lot of religions out there and I want to make it clear that just because I believe in God, I do not, in any way, think anything negative about any other religion (or lack thereof). It's just how I celebrate. Anyway, some households open presents Christmas morning. We wait until after Christmas supper. We use the time in between supper and dessert to open the presents. New Year's Eve is pretty much the same around the country. We party and kiss each other when the ball drops. Some holiday words are: Christmas Mistletoe Holly Yule Yuletide Carols Eggnog Candy Canes Around this time of year there are also two other holidays that I know of: Channukah and Kwanzaa. I don't really know that much about either, just little tidbits that I picked up here and there, but everyone talks so much about Christmas and New Year that these two tend to be forgotten.

awww it's nice to hear some Italian on here

Manchu is also one of my top 10 favourite scripts! I am also a fan of the Nastaliq version of Arabic script, especially when used to write Urdu or Persian.

If you're going to learn a language well, you need to be able to speak it without your native accent. It's difficult to really lose your native accent but it can be done. I managed it and managed to teach a lot of my students to do it as well. Try this: If you speak you native language, let's say English it's easy for you to say English words and affect a French accent, we've all done it. Do that for a while but consciously listen to what you are doing, what is the rhythm of your speech, how is the cadence different to when you speak English, how is your mouth in a different shape, how are your lips in a different position? Really examine how you are making the English words sound different, but above all keep that rhythm in your head, them substitute the English words for the French words. I had incredible success with this as an ELF teacher, there were time when I had Italian students speaking like native English speaker just like that.

I'm not sure if this is helpful or not. When I was in high school, my teachers would single out the students who were having a hard time with a certain part of the curriculum and also single out the ones who did very well. They would pair them up. I, myself, was a tutor. What I did was contrast. I would show how the language was set up in our native language and show the difference in the target language. It was hardest with the Spanish students because of how different the syntax was. I think it's worse for English because of how many different ways there are to write one sentence. Maybe you can do that. Write a sentence in your native language and then write all the different examples of how it can be written in English. Do that with at least five sentences. Then you explain the differences in the examples, like formal and informal. Also write different mistakes that have been made and explain the mistakes. Sometimes learning why something is wrong is more helpful than learning the right way to do it.

If there's something Duolingo lacks, it's the ability to admit the mistakes they make. I'm a native Dutch speaker and I did their Dutch course to report errors and help them improve the course. I only started and I reported loads of mistakes already, but only 1 of those were taken seriously. "Jullie geven hun de hoed" obviously means "you guys give their the hat", not "you guys gave them a hat". I know every native speaker will go like "WTF?!" when they read "jullie geven hun de hoed" because it's grammatically wrong. And yet they told me I was wrong and THEY are right. WTF?! And even some sentences I answered correctly were counted as incorrect. I reported them all, but none of which were ever taken seriously. So that's how I lost my motivation to use Duolingo forever. I wouldn't even recommend it even if the moderators were dictating me to do so!

Here are some tips for starting to learn a new language. 1.Have fun with it! Learning a new language is easier when you are enjoying yourself. Think of creative ways to learn that are fun to do. 2. Find a friend to learn with. If you have someone to motivate and work with you it makes everything easier. 3. Make a schedule and stick to it. Pick specific times during the week where you put everything else aside and practice.

There is a frequency dictionary of Chinese characters here: http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=MO. I have had mixed results trying to learn this way. In one way it makes perfect sense to learn the most common characters first, rather than characters you never see. I have found it difficult to learn from big lists like this though. Maybe it'll help someone else.