anna3101

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/

There is one thing that, in my opinion, sparks a lot of controversy whenever you talk about language learning: how often you should do it. Most of the people I know tend to believe that it's an all-or-nothing thing. Either you do it every day or no point starting. Either you schedule your classes every Friday and Monday, or else you better forget about any progress at all. And so on. I, on the other hand, belong to the minority that believes in "doing something is better than nothing" approach. The main reason for this is the fact that I'm a person who really dislikes words like "regular" and "every day". So many things can happen. Even if I plan to do something 3 times a week, there may be disruptions I couldn't predict. Besides, the very idea of doing something "all the time" is simply daunting for me. It's like "together until death do us part". It kills my motivation by telling me that there's something I just MUST do. For many years I suffered from believing in "all-or-nothing" approach. I tried to stick to "learn 30 words a day" or "study English each Thursday" or "repeat Spanish verbs each evening". I'd start on a good note, do it for a week/a month/maybe half a year and then drop it. Then I'd go beat myself about it. "How could you? Now you've ruined it!", "You'll never ever learn English like that", "You are hopeless, Ania. Absolutely hopeless". However, lately I've come to terms with the fact that "regular" never worked for me, and I find it a huge relief. Yes, sometimes people don't do something or they even have longer periods of not studying but why should that be considered such a big no-no? You win some, you lose some. Then you do it again and you're still much closer to fluency than those who do nothing at all What's your take on the subject? Do you study every day, every week or sometimes? Does it work for you? What are the pros and cons?

I used to be a language tutor and the most difficult thing for me was teaching children. I wonder what are the best methods to deal with 7 to 10 year-olds? For me, the biggest challenge was that it's their parents who made the decision. The children themselves are often not interested in a foreign language, they are already overloaded with school programme and all they want to do is play lego or go for a walk with friends. And I entirely sympathise with that but what can I do? I was hired to teach them, not to play with them. I tried my best to introduce some games and fun elements into the lessons but I couldn't completely overlook grammar exercises and other "boring" bits. Is there something that really works when you try to teach children?

Not necessarily self-help or philosophy. Do you have a book or books that have made such a deep impression on you that you became a different person? Something that made you look at your life in another way? Something that changed your habits, your way of thinking or maybe influenced you to make some big decision? There were many books like that for me, and I'm so incredibly grateful to their authors for writing them and sharing them with the world. Some were more of an "eye-opener" and others just induced small changes that led to great benefits. I'll share some of my favourites here and I hope to hear about yours too! Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - some amazing thoughts about what it means to be a human and how important it is to have a meaning in your lifeLife Lessons by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross - diminishes death fear and makes you appreciate life moreMy Life Tree by Claus Moller - introduced me to the concept of planning things which has stuck with me ever sinceThe Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron - finally explained a lot of things about myself and several people I know about why we are too sensitive to so many things and how to live with thatSuperfoods Rx by Steven Pratt - opened up a world of healthy food for me, something I'd never thought about beforehandSlow Death by Rubber Duck by Rick Smith - this one made me realize that pollution is more than just a buzz word on the TVWhat are the books that were "it" for you and made you see the world under a different angle?

Now, I've always been completely convinced that anyone with enough motivation can learn any language. But the older I get, the more people I meet who are very smart, talented in many areas and obviously motivated but they just don't get along with a foreign language, period. These people are not lazy. They do their best. And I want to help them somehow but I often I just give up because it starts to feel hopeless quite soon. I've looked it up on the Internet and was surprised (and a bit relieved) to find this article: http://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/is-there-a-disability-for-learning-foreign-languages/ So maybe we finally have an explanation for what otherwise remains a total mystery to me. I also managed to find an article with a lot of useful advice about how to overcome the problem and what strategies to use: http://www.ldonline.org/article/22725/ Do you have some more advice? Do you agree that it just may be a disability of a kind? I don't know how else to explain it that a very-well educated, extremely intelligent grown-up person, who studies every day, cannot learn to speak or write in a foreign language...

I wonder why Hungarian hasn't been mentioned yet. The worst one ever for me, had to give up it. German is also difficult for me - but not to the extent Hungarian was! All the European languages I'm learning have some similarities between them. But Hungarian? You open a book and you don't see a single word you could guess the meaning of! And the grammar was like... pure nightmare. Makes my hair stand on end at the very thought of it.

In Polish there are several ways to say it but the one I hear and see most often is "Wesołych Świąt!" In Russian I would say "С Рождеством" or "Счастливого Рождества!". In French it's "Joyeux Noël". For Dutch I'd go with "Vrolijke kerstdagen" or "Prettige kerstdagen" And "Buon Natale" in Italian.

It happens naturally when I read a book, watch a film or talk to someone. Afterwards my brain tends to go through what I've seen/heard/learnt and it automatically does so in the language that it processed before. Even if it lacks grammar and vocabulary for it I thought it was like this for everybody?

From time to time, I use unilang.com and polyglotclub.com, generally whenever I need to consult a native speaker or practise a particular language.

Learning a language opens up a whole new world for you! You learn about other countries and cultures, you get to read books that were never translated into your native languages, you discover new songs and films, and you get to meet new people that you couldn't meet otherwise. And you boost your brain, diminish risk of old age disease, improve your memory and what else not Agree with watupswags - do not see any drawbacks or side effects of learning a language

Hello Neiv, It's good to see you here. There's a thread about "what age you were when you got interested in learning languages" (http://linguaholic.com/topic/3540-how-old-were-you-when-you-started-to-feel-interested-in-learning-languages/), it would be interesting to hear your story! Ania

Hello, I've noticed recently that I abuse those two words far too much, sticking them in every second sentence I say. When you are expressing an opinion about something (events, films, people etc), which equivalents of bon and mauvais could I use? I do feel embarassed having to resort to "c'est très bien", "c'est super" or "c'est formidable" all the time whenever I like something, and I've got only "affreux", "horrible", "assez mauvais" for stuff I dislike. Does anyone have suggestions about more similar words I could use? Thanks in advance! Ania

Philosophy may not be everyone's cup of tea though. I'm often struggling trying to talk to people about things like meaning of life or death. Obviously it's too much for people who are already stressed, tired after their work and have to juggle various family issues. But for the brave of heart, philosophy is certainly a great choice. I just feel that not many of us are brave enough to tackle it, as the very idea of reading Derrida does seem quite overwhelming...

Balzac's books are truly great and a pleasure to read. But if you are intimidated by the size, you can start with classics that are not as long, for example, short stories of Guy de Maupassant or André Maurois. From the more recent classic authors, Albert Camus and Colette were exciting for me, as well as Françoise Sagan.

This sounds like an excellent idea to me. Thanks for it! But I think that to make it worthwhile, you definitely have to follow something that really interests you. Otherwise you'll just get bored and frustrated. I'll go and look for some blogs on the topics of my hobbies straight away.

Any time when I have doubts about the word pronunciation, I either go to forvo to check if I'm right, or mark the word and then ask my language partner about it. Also, I totally agree with alisawnn - watching videos and also listening to music/audios helps so much.

Hi Trellum, You're a brave one! Exams are always so stressful, but I'm pretty sure you'll pass this one with flying colours Good luck! I hope your preparations are going well. Ania

Hello langu_eng! Welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy your time here. There are a lot of us, German language learners, that could benefit from your expertise Ania

I used some of the graded readers while learning French and Spanish, and they definitely were useful. These days though I prefer to learn with the help of children's books in the target language or by rereading my favourite books that I already know well enough from their English/Russian translations. It's probably because it's not so easy to find a really interesting graded reader where I live, and being a bit old-fashioned I prefer my learning books to be made from paper. But if you are lucky to find a graded book that picks your interest, you should go for it!

I'll add my own story: I started to study Italian because of my flying phobia At one of my previous workplaces we were supposed to start working with an Italian factory, and my boss wanted me to go there and do a training. Train tickets were out of the question as they were too expensive and I'm deadly afraid of flying, so I made a deal: I'll quickly learn some Italian to make work with Italian colleagues easier but instead I'll be allowed not to fly to Italy. And that's how it started. And then of course I got into it and went on with Italian long after I quit that job

I really like "Italiano: pronti, via!", here's the link to the publisher's page: http://www.guerraedizioni.com/italianoprontivia/ It's quite fun, easy to follow and I really appreciate it that you can download audio for free.

This summer was special and I will remember it forever because...

Hey, Have you seen "The Liar Game"? It was amazing, I absolutely loved it, even though I know nothing about Korean and had to go with the English subtitles. Ania

Maybe it's also not so bad, I mean, even if he knows just the basics in several languages, it's still definitely better than not knowing anything at all I find it sad that there are a lot of people, young and old, who see no point in learning any language at all, sometimes including their own native

There's also "be on the breadline" - live in very poor conditions, be very poor, and "peanuts" - a small, inadequate amount of money. And "icing on the cake" - a pretty but not necessarily useful addition to something