Fluent in Spanish and Italian in 6 months

Politeness

2011-05-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

When you begin to learn a language to function in the real world you must keep in mind that you are taking a step back in time to the infancy stage of your life. Whenever I start a new language now, I go back to the age of about 2 years old again, before I start to say my first words. One of the first basic things we are thought as children when we start to speak are words of politeness such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. I not only remember this from my parents teaching me but also because I still have the image of a certain Purple Dinosaur singing to me to say please and thank you, burned into my memory forever!

Barney was not your average T-Rex, I am presuming that is what he was due to his oversized head. Instead of eating everyone in his path and looking intimidating with sharp teeth and a dark green colour, Barney was the first T-Rex to use the brain inside his massive head! Instead of being dark green he was a mix of purple and bright green. Instead of individual sharp teeth he had nice smooth ‘dentures’ reminiscent of our own grandfather’s or even grandmother’s teeth. His weapon against the human race was a torturous version of ‘subliminal learning’. You see if Barney went around eating us he would soon become extinct like the rest of the dinosaurs however he decided to get us in a more discreet way. The songs he sung were so catchy for children that they could watch the same Barney episode for hours on end every day. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but any day I had to mind children and was subjected to listening to this for hours on end I slowly started to lose the will to live!

There are lessons we can learn from Barney. If you use your brain when learning a language to function in another society then things will be much easier and the experience will be a lot more fulfilling. When you start to learn your first foreign language politeness is something that should be kept in mind early on. If politeness appears as one of the first things we must learn as children then in my opinion it must be one of the important life skills to master in order to function well in any modern day society.

A few days ago I gave the example of ‘I would like’ as one of the key phrases to learn in a foreign language because of the adaptability of its use. There was also another reason why the phrase was ‘I would like’ and not ‘Give me’ or ‘I want’. The reason of course is that I learn how to say the more polite way to saying the same thing when given the option.

My reasoning is this. If you are polite with people then if you are making a lot of grammar mistakes and having trouble getting your message across effectively then people will tend to be more patient with you. They will have a tendency to try and help you because they will see you as a nice person and most people generally have time for nice people. Unfortunately just like there are regular and irregular verbs and exceptions to the rule in languages you will also see that there are exceptions to the rule and ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ people in the world too. The phrase ‘there is nothing as queer as folk’ is something I have seen to be 100% true from my travels!

If you are not polite with people and you are also terrible at the language then you are increasing the risk of getting frustrated, angry and maybe even embarrassed in public. If you go into a shop and say ‘give me a tidily wink’ and the shop keeper has no idea what you are on about they will be more inclined to be abrupt with you in their response. This is because they are perceiving you demanding something off them. You could be the nicest and most polite person in the world in your own language but if you use the ‘wrong words’ in another language it can cause problems for you. Just think about it, do you think there is any polite way of intonating ‘Give me...’ ? No matter how you say it, it is going to come off as a demand obliging somebody to do something for you and not a request. It is basic human nature to avoid giving into demands. If you don’t believe me talk to a negotiator about some of the key aspects to his/her job!

Concentrate on what you know

2011-05-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

This kind of thinking is one of the keys to how I am going to achieve my goals. I know there are a lot of people out there who do nothing but envy the perceived positives others have going for them in their lives. This is reflected in the vast amounts of problems we have in modern day society eg greed, lust, anorexia etc. However did you realise that while you were channelling time and energy into doing this you could have been turning your own perceived ‘negatives’ into ‘positives’!

It is the same thing with language learning. There are so many people at various different language levels who will solely concentrate on what they don’t know. They totally forget about how much they actually know or how much ‘easy’ stuff you can learn in any language. From the Erasmus student who has a grammar book surgically glued onto one hand, a vocabulary book stapled to the other and fear of not obtaining perfection stitching his/her mouth firmly shut . To the high school student ‘acting the bollocks’ ( a good ‘ole’ expression to learn before coming to Ireland) in every language class because he/she has decided that languages are as over complicated and as boring as Maths! Sorry Maths teachers but we thought it would be funny to send ye all out to the jacks (Irish slang for toilets) the day God sent us that memo!

In languages I concentrate on what I know, what I don’t know is just something I will know in another few days, months or maybe even years. Much like the friends I make when I travel. I am never eager to know who they are going to be or where they will be from, I will just meet them when we cross paths. I think I have always had this philosophy in life but it was only when I started to cycle here in the countryside in France that it clicked in my head. At the moment I live in the countryside in the South West of France. I would like to give the name of my village but currently I have 262 ‘stalkers’ on my Facebook page which is probably twice the size of the population here!

Before I leave here I am going to put a bet on a future ‘King of the Hills’ in the ‘Tour de France’ coming from this region because it is like something out of ‘The Hills have Eyes’ only with no eyes just ‘fucking hills’. You go 50 metres and it’s up a hill another 50 metres and you’re as ‘happy as larry’ going down a hill until you realise you have to cycle back home again! Anyway not being a pro cyclist I found all the hills quite tough going. However I am quite stubborn so I decided that I would try and never get off my bike no matter how steep the hill was. (Naturally I had an idea of where the steep hills were from the previous 7 months driving around the area so I went out of my way to avoid them).

I found that when I was ‘knackered’ (exhausted) and couldn’t take anymore, in order to keep cycling I just put my head down and concentrated on the wheel. I never looked at the hill before me until I reached the top. Until now this has worked for me every time and surprisingly enough I have not been hit by on oncoming car yet either. When I tried to cycle up the hill looking at the hill in front of me I used to get an overwhelming desire to get off the bike, throw it into the ditch and thumb (hitch) home. You can apply this to language learning. Don’t look at the hill, if you want to climb it concentrate on the bike that is going to get you there!

I have days where I can understand about 80% of what is said on Spanish television but there are also days when I understand about 20% of a Spanish article in the newspaper and the same applies for my Italian. How do I deal with understanding only 20% of a Spanish or Italian article without spiralling into depression like some people will tend to do? The answer is simple. I don’t deal with it! I learn some new words in the article so I can at least understand the context of it and I move on. Over analyising things will only serve to multiply the complexity of any problems you encounter in life!

The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-24T01:54:00.000-07:00

‘The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ es una película Americana así que voy a dejar el título y los nombres de los personajes en su versión original. La película es en los cines de todo el mundo en este momento. He visto las tres primeras películas y me gustaba verlos. Esta vez, la película fue filmada principalmente en Hawaii. Me gusta especialemente el personaje de Jack Sparrow. Es un personaje muy interesante y entretenido. Es seguro, encantador y divertido.

En esta película vamos a ver Penélope Cruz por la primera vez. Ella es la hija de Blackbeard. Me parece muy curioso que en la versión en español la voz de Penélope Cruz es una otra mujer española. Naturalmente Penélope Cruz hace las entrevistas en español y los españoles saben lo que su voz real es como!

La película tiene opiniones muy diferentes. Algunas personas dicen que es una película muy buena. No creo que iré a verla en el cine. Probablemente voy a verla cuando sale en DVD. He visto que Facebook tiene actualmente una opción adicional por los idiomas- ‘English Pirate’. No he cambiado mi configuración de Facebook para ‘English Pirate’ para ver lo que es, pero si tengo el tiempo voy a cambiarlo por unas horas. Si has visto Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ ya, decirme lo que pensaba de la película.

Cristiano Ronaldo: Confidence and Individuality v Intelligence

2011-05-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

Say what you like about Cristiano Ronaldo but he has what it takes to excel in foreign languages. Currently he speaks Portuguese, Spanish and English. Now his English still isn’t the greatest even after living in England for 6 years but nobody can say that this guy is not multilingual!

I bet a lot of people have asked themselves how can he speak 3 languages when he is portrayed in the papers as a stupid, egotistic spoilt brat? This is a question I asked myself many a time before I started this. Now I don’t know how intelligent Ronaldo is but he has confidence and individuality in spades! These are 2 things that fall under my 80% requirement theory on language learning. His motivation to learn languages of course lies in the fact that in order to be the best player in the world you must play in one of the best leagues. Currently these leagues are in England and Spain where of course English and Spanish are the native languages respectively.

Ronaldo does not care about making grammar mistakes and he has mastered the art of throwing tantrums in any language! He uses language as a means of communication and he gets the messages he wants to get across effectively every time. Ronaldo does not fear having his level of English or his accent ridiculed, he just speaks his mind. A lot of people find Ronaldo annoyingly arrogant, I think people like him make life a lot more colourful and interesting. If we didn’t have people like Ronaldo then there would be little enjoyment derived from watching after match interviews. Modest people are great but if everyone was modest then things would just be plain boring. The reason why most people in Ireland will watch the RTE after match analysis after football (soccer) matchs is because they are not as ‘P.R’ as other channels and are likely to come out with anything.

I have included a small list of Ronaldo quotes over the years. The quotes demonstrate a lot of the requirements to language learning. You will see that this guy is so confident that what he says sometimes will actually have most people in stitches, this leads into the humour you need in language learning. You will also see that he does not over complicate things when asked about his free kick style. This tendency to over complicate things is where I feel a lot of people go wrong when trying to learn a foreign language. In the last quote you will see his individuality displayed. The last quote for me demonstrates that this guy might actually be quite intelligent.

I have also included an interview of Ronaldo in English. You will see that even do his English grammar is poor he communicates his message as effectively as a native would. Would you prefer it if Ronaldo decided to only speak English when he had reached that 100% perfection that funnily enough some people will tend to wait on? Is it not a lot better to hear Ronaldo speak in 'flawed' English rather than have his voice dubbed over by a person who speaks perfect English but isn’t the actual guy we want to listen to!

Memorable Ronaldo Quotes:

‘Maybe they hate me because I’m too good!’

‘My free kick secret? I just look at the ball and say take the kick Cristiano’

‘I know if I score we are going to win the match’.

‘No one did what I did last season and for this I deserve the Golden Boot and why not the best World Player’

‘But I don’t want to be compared to anyone – I’d like to impose my own style of play and do the best for myself and for the club here’

Cristiano Ronaldo Interview with CNN Internationl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-NZvSbnWlw

Key Phrases

2011-05-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough key phrases that will allow you to function effectively in another society are not learned in the classroom but learned from the real world!

The good news is, is that if you pay enough attention to what you tend to say most often in your own native language in every day life than you can learn some of the key phrases you need to know. Now I can speak for the latin languages but I am pretty sure that this goes right across the board. When you learn a language you don’t learn an entire new way of talking and communicating that will in some way alter your personality. Learning new languages may change you as a person but the language itself won’t! You are only learning a new way to express yourself with different words and ways of saying things. This is why when French, Spanish, Italian, Irish people etc come across me they will get exactly the same person. Albeit at the moment Spanish and Italian people will see me with a very limited way to saying things. However I can still say the same thing to them as I can say to any English or French speaking person but in a more round about way. Fortunately this will dramatically change before I finish.

From your experience of learning languages at school you may probably think that phrases like ‘How are you?’ ‘My name is’ ‘I am 22 years old’ etc are the most important phrases to know to start off with learning a foreign language. I know how to say these sort of phrases in my 4 languages because you do need to know them to introduce yourself to people. However I do not consider them among the ‘key phrases’ to function in everyday life in a society with a different language to yours. If I was asked to choose a short phrase that I wanted to know before I went to any other country in the world in whatever language, it would be this. ‘I would like’, ‘Je voudrais’, ‘Me Gustaría’, ‘Mi Piacerei’

Some of you might think this is madness but here is the explanation. When you go to a foreign country even just for a short weekend break you are not going to be introducing yourself to everyone you come into contact with! In fact if you are on holiday with your other half or your friends you may only be introducing yourself to a small hand full of people. However you can use a phrase like ‘I would like’ to everyone you come into contact with! Here are some short examples of how versatile this phrase is:

I would like a loaf of bread please.

I would like to go out tonight.

I would like it to stop raining.

I would like to speak French fluently.

I would like you to fuck off and leave me alone please.

Unfortunately the last example I was more accustomed to hearing rather than saying.

Just think about how ridiculous it would be to introduce yourself to every baker and every other merchant you meet every day! Now some of you might now be thinking fine it might be useful to learn this phrase but how am I going to form the rest of the phrase, I only have the first 2-3 words! I will explain how you can form a lot of phrases with limited vocabulary in a future post, until then try and make it out yourself. Remember what I said about sheep, individuality, confidence and the simple things in life!

Skype

2011-05-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

Il 10 maggio Microsoft ha comprato Skype per $8.5 milioni ma che cosa è Skype esattamente?

Skype è una meravigliosa invenzione. Ho iniziato ad usare Skype 2 anni fa. E’ facile da scaricare. Il download richiede circa 30 minuti. Viaggio in Europa molto, quindi bisogno Skype per restare in contatto con la mia famiglia e gli amici. Al momento utilizzo Skype per practicare il mio lingue straniere. All’inizio era strano da parlare con un perfetto sconosciuto su Skype ma diventa normale ed è un ottimo modo per eccellere in una lingua.

Uso Skype nel fine settimana per parlare con la mia famiglia e anche per lo scambio de lingua. Non faccio uno scambio di lingua su Skype ogni settimana. A volte non ho il tempo. La cosa migliore di Skype è che è completamente gratuito. Inoltre è possible da utilizzare Skype per chiamare i telefoni cellulari e pagare di meno che con un telefono normale. Quando vado a Swansea ne mese di ottobre credo che userò Skype per rimanere in contatto con i miei amici qui in Francia e gli amici farò in Spagna e in Italia durante l’estate.

Posso usare Skype con il mio iPod anche. Questo è molto utile per me. Ho una webcam e un microfono. La maggior parte delle volte uso la web camera ma posso utilizzare il microfono senza la web camera anche. Se desideri utilizzare Skype per practicare la lingue straniera e sei un po’ timida pensi che sia più facile se usi il microfono unico. Senza Skype penso che la mia vita *sarebbe motlo differente. Al momento non voglio vivere in un mondo senza Skype.

*Any Italian speakers reading this will know that sarebbe is the conditional present of the verb essere. Now at the moment I am not learning conditional verbs. I learned this word because it kept being used whenever I was reading articles in the Italian newspapers so it is a word that appears on my high priority list!

Films v Current Affairs

2011-05-20T01:08:00.000-07:00

Since beginning to learn Spanish and Italian I think I can count the amount of films I have watched in these languages on one hand. The reason for this is that I don’t see watching films as an effective way to start communicating in the languages from Week 1.

The reason for this is that films will tend to use very specific vocabulary in oppose to the general vocabulary you will pick up by following current affairs in your foreign language. When I go to Spain in July and Italy in August I am quite certain that most people will be talking about what is happening in the world. I don’t think they will be analysing how Frodo climbed Mount Doom to destroy the ring and save Middle Earth.

In addition if you learn another language solely through watching films you will inevitably have less conversation starters than a person who is learning a language by following current affairs. Which of these questions do you think will more likely lead onto a conversation with different types of people?

‘What did you think of the Queen visiting Ireland this week?’

‘ What did you think of Lehiff in the film Intermission drinking his tea with brown sauce?’

The fact that films in general use specific vocabulary poses two additional problems. If specific vocabulary is used in every film you watch then you will see that there are less words being repeated over and over again. With current affairs words such as ‘conflict’ , ‘problems’ etc are constantly used day after day. It would actually be harder not to pick these words up!

As films use specific vocabulary naturally this would be more suited to the advanced students and natives. I find that I can understand everything in the news in French however there are films where I struggle at times to follow what they are saying. Remember films will use slang, familiar terms, regional accents and other nasty things which will make learning the language SEEM a lot more difficult if you are a complete novice. To back this point up think of the times you have seen a film in your own native language and thought to yourself ‘what in the name of fuck did he/she just say?’ new expressions and new ways of saying things are forever present. Now think of how many times you have learned new expressions from the news in your native language!

Future and Imperfect Tenses

2011-05-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

This week I will officially start to study the imperfect and the future tenses. If you have read my 2 articles in Spanish you may have seen that I have already used verbs in the imperfect tense. The reason for this is that I have a vague idea of the rule for using the imperfect in French which I am applying to Spanish and Italian. While I am writing the articles I have the time to find the imperfect of these verbs. I say I have a vague knowledge because after 9 years of French while I can use the imperfect fairly effectively, I still do not fully understand the actual rule itself but this does not hinder me from communicating effectively in French! Here is an official definition of the use of the imperfect tense:

‘Use of the imperfect tense implies that the past action did not have a definite beginning or a definite end. The imperfect tells when -- in general, an action occurred’.

Naturally trying to determine in your head whether an action had a definite beginning and a definite ending while in mid conversation is a life draining activity. For me one of the best ways to learn ‘imperfect tense’ use is to live in the country. Otherwise try to read as much as possible in your foreign language so it’s use will go into your head that way. I am more of a person that likes to learn things like this through interacting and conversing with people so this is one of my reasons for going to Spain and Italy.

After a month of ‘language immersion’ where I only learned 2 verb tenses and a limited amount of vocabulary I could understand anywhere between 45% - 65% of what was being said on CNN espanol. In Italian I understood about 35%-55%. This is because I have spent more time on Spanish in the first month because I preferred watching CNN to Corriere Della Sera and also we have Spanish channels in the living area in the school. At the moment I am rectifying this by spending more time on Italian. If any Italian people reading this can advise me on any other channels to watch in Italian over the internet then your suggestions are more than welcome. Now the people on television were of course using verbs in other tenses I did not learn. However a lot of the time I could guess what the verb was. For example the verb Llegar: to arrive

Past: He llegado, Present: Llego, Future: Llegaré, Imperfect : Llegaba, Conditionnel : Llegaría

It dosent take a genius to make out what verb is being used in each case ! On top of this I could hold a basic conversation with a native, either through skype or through ‘IM’ (Instant Messaging), on a wide variety of topics. However the conversations usually included me ‘a speakin like a Manuel from a Fawlty Towers’ but the main thing is that I was having entire conversations in Spanish and Italian only about 2 weeks into when I started.

Un Niño lleva una falda a la escuela

2011-05-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Un niño de 12 años de edad, llevaba una falda a la escuela porque los niños no pueden llevar pantalones cortos en verano. Chris Whitehead llevaba una falda de una chica en clase a su escuela Village College, cerca de Cambridge. Él está contra la política uniforme. La política no permite los niños a llevar los pantalones cortos en verano.

Habló con 1,368 estudiantes en la asamblea de la mañana llevaba la falda negro. Dijo:''En el verano las niñas pueden llevar faldas pero los niños no pueden llevar pantalones cortos. ‘Pensamos que se trata de la discriminación contra los niños’. Su madre Liz Whitehead dijo "Estoy muy orgulloso que se siente bastante confiado de llevar una falda a la escuela y yo estoy con él.''

Los chicos pueden llevar las faldas a la escuela porque no dicen que no pueden en el libro de reglas. Chris es un estudiante muy listo y quiere tener una carrera en la política en el futuro.

Creo que esta es una historia genial. También yo creo que es muy divertido. Estoy muy impresionado que un niño de 12 años puede tener tanta confianza. Espero que va a ganar y la política de la escuela va cambiar.

What the fuck was I talking about yesterday?

2011-05-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

Any of you who read my intelligence anecdote yesterday may have thought what is this Dalai Lama wanna be gobshite (or dipshit for any of my friends across the pond in America) on about, I thought I was reading this to learn about language learning techniques? There were indeed 3 points on effective language learning I wanted to demonstrate from the story:

1. Don’t try to make out how intelligent another person is:

Ironically this is quite a dim thing to do. Some of the ‘stupidest’ people in the world are also the richest, most powerful and most well known which leads me to question how stupid they really are. Don’t get caught up in trying to make yourself appear intelligent to other people. When learning a language your ‘intelligence level’ may be exposed to other people who do not understand what it takes to learn a foreign language. They will therefore wrongly perceive the time frame of your advancement in the foreign language as solely a measure of your intelligence. I believe that ‘knowledge is power’ and I am inquisitive about learning from the past through history as well as through numerous other aspects of life. Surprisingly enough I do have an adequate interest in classical art. However I don’t think that knowing every specific detail like if Michelangelo wiped his arse with his right or his left hand is going to make me a more intelligent person. If this girl concentrated more on toning her own skills so she could do something with her life rather than trying to know every little detail on how others changed the world then she would be all the better for it.

2. Dont allow yourself to be labelled:

This is something that could probably well take you years to master if you ever even manage to master it at all because a lot of people won’t. It is just like our logic for making stereotypes of the human race. We as human beings like to categorize things because we are afraid of the unknown. Ironically this will cause a problem for people who want to lead a truly fulfilled life. If you buy into how different people will categorize you over the years then subconsciously you are going to put constraints in your life so you will always meet this perception other people have of you, nothing more, nothing less. In languages in order to advance effectively you have to be open to do things that other people will say you are not capable of doing. What you have to do is reject being labelled like an innate object by others and constantly leave them scratching their heads about what label they should pat you on the head with next.

3. ‘Children are like little sponges that absorb everything’:

People often will say this but oddly enough we don’t seem to what to recreate what we had as children when we are adults. Even do we are always commenting on how great this attribute is. I think this ‘sponge theory’ could be one of the keys to why children will pick up their first language more effectively than a lot of people who try to pick up another language later on in life. To advance in a foreign language don’t be the person who speaks over others and has to have their opinion heard at all times. If you don’t really listen to the natives then how are you going to learn to become fluent in their language? I like to listen to the French people in my school and I will often question them if they use a familiar term that I do not understand so I will be able to use it myself! If you don’t listen to the natives then you will only be able to speak what you can learn in language books, which can be quite limited if you want to function effectively in the real world!

Intelligence Anecdote

2011-05-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

It has been through travelling and meeting people from all walks of life that I have begun to see that some people are obsessed with this notion of intelligence. None more so than this particular girl I met. While on a night out with her and some other friends while after a few beers she came out with an unusual statement. She thought that I was either the slowest person or the most intelligent person she had ever met. Now naturally, as anyone would be, I was rather taken aback from this outlandish comment. So while it was registering in my head, the girls conversation continued on and 20 minutes later she came back with the next round of drinks, I asked her what gave her the impression I could be slow? She jumped to this conclusion because she thought I didn’t participate enough in the conversation and therefore she thought either I was too stupid to follow their conversation or I considered myself above what they were talking about.

On this particular evening I think this girl was picking up more on my character rather than my intelligence. I am not really the type of person that will have a point to make just for the sake of making it. God knows there are plenty of other people willing to step in to fill any gap in the silence when I don’t speak! I will usually make a point if I feel strongly enough about a point I have to make. You might realise now that I am writing this blog because it is one of those occasions where I feel I have important points to make to people! Otherwise I will happily sit back and hear what other people have to say. On this evening I thought the girls were making interesting points about things and just decided to listen to them and add to the conversation if I had anything to add to it.

The following day we went to see the Louvre Museum for my first time, I think it was about her 5^th or 6^th time. Not having made her mind up on my intelligence level from the night before I quickly realised that I was on the receiving end of an oral ‘intelligence examination on classical art’. Every painting I was asked for my point of view and what type of art I preferred etc. I’m quite sure that she had a background in classical art or something like that. Anyway I could have indulged her with the knowledge I have acquired over the years on classical art, which is very limited anyway so I wouldn’t have gotten too far, but instead I just chose to give her an honest answer that I knew she didn’t want to hear. I simply said to be honest I came to the Louvre to be able to say I saw the ‘Mona Lisa’ in my lifetime, after that I’m not that interested in standing in front of a bunch of other paintings pretending to other people that I am trying to interpret the paintings. I said I would much rather see the Mummies in the Ancient Egypt section to the Louvre, which are quite cool!

Google Webpage Translation

2011-05-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

I have read my blog in French, Spanish and Italian using the 'translate this page' on Google. While it seems like a drunk Irishman translated the page it does allow you to see the gist of what I am saying if you have not yet mastered the English language.

J'ai lu mon blog en français, en espagnol et en italien en utilisant 'traduire cette page' sur Google. Bien que il me semble que un irlandais bourré a traduit la page, il vous permet de voir l'essentiel de ce que je suis en train de dire, si vous n'avez pas encore maîtrisé la langue anglaise.

He leído mi página en francés, español e italiano a través del 'traducir esta página' en Google. Mi blog es mejor en inglés porque la traducción no es perfecta pero se puede entender mis puntos principales, si no entiendes Inglés todavía.

Ho letto la mia pagina in francese, spagnolo e italiano con 'tradurre questa pagina' in Google. Il mio blog è meglio in inglese perché la traduzione non è perfetta ma può capire i miei punti principali se non capisce l'inglese ancora.

Anybody who is a polygot already will see how I got the same message across in each language by manipulating how I phrased the sentences. In the English sentence I can get my humour across with the drunk Irishman reference. I have also already reached the level in French to get this same message across. However in Spanish and Italian I am not yet able to do this. After 1 month studying both languages I am at a level where I can say most things but in a basic way that uses the verbs I have learned and my limited vocabulary. Of course I also make grammar mistakes! Remember that there are a thousand different ways to say the same thing in a language what I am doing is learning that one way each time which has got me to my current level!

Youtube Pronunciation Videos:

2011-05-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

I have decided to include some Youtube videos to highlight my points.

The first is of Jonny Wilkinson doing one of his first press conferences in French at Toulon. The second is of one of our own Irish sports stars, Trevor Brennan, doing an interview in his pub in Toulouse. I have decided to include these because I think a lot of people do not realise that Jonny Wilkinson and Trevor Brennan now speak almost perfect French. I think videos like these should be shown in every secondary school (high school) today for 2 reasons:

1. If you see a sports star like Jonny Wilkinson or Trevor Brennan speaking a foreign language then you will no longer have this association of foreign language learning belonging to the Albert Einstein’s of this world.

2. If you see one of your ‘hero’s’ do something then you will begin to see why it is important and want to replicate this. This is especially true for influential teenagers.

If you watch Wilkinson’s interviews at Toulon you will see how he progresses. Now when I watch these interviews it is hard for me to keep the laughter in. Not because I am laughing at their ability to speak French rather I am laughing because I think they both sound exactly like me when I speak French. I know this because it is exactly how the French staff and pupils sound like when they ‘take the piss’ (make fun of me) out of my accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_KN42XJ8sk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqOo__nJvI

The last video is a video of Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson. Now Arsene has been living in England for God knows how long. However he still speaks English with an immaculately French accent. You will also notice that he still makes minor grammar mistakes. For example when questioned about the player he would most want from the United team he says Ronaldo because he was ‘very close to get him’ instead of ‘very close to getting him’. Did you understand what he was saying all the same or was there a complete breakdown in communication when he had commited this error? Did the interviewer ask him to repeat himself again in proper English? Did you understand him dispite the French accent? I will shed more light on this topic of ‘making mistakes’ at a later stage.

You should also remark that Alex Ferguson also seems to have remarkably kept his Scottish accent even do he seems to have been living in England as long as the Queen herself. Thus this totally negates the theory that you will definitely lose your accent if you live in the country for an extended period of time. Move a country man to the city and he can still retain his accent and fit in! I will dedicate this last video to the staff and students at the MFR Castlenau Chalosse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXAljmnaH7c

Pronunciation

2011-05-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

Pronunciation is a big part of language learning. The reason that pronunciation is different in each language is because we use different aspects of our bodies to produce the sounds in our language. We must therefore work on getting used to physically speaking in another way when we speak another language. This sounds like a lot of work but to be honest it isn’t if you listen to how I became fluent in French.

Personally when I was 13 years old and started off learning French it was the aspect of pronunciation that was the most off putting and horrifying for me. I can remember the teacher getting us to pronounce things in a ‘French way’ and wanting to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. Thinking about it now it must have been quite a funny scene. A teacher from the south of Ireland, who if like me would have a slight ‘bogger’ accent, trying to get teenagers to speak French in a French way. Luckily a lot of schools today have language assistants who can do the part of the job that for me only a true native can do!

I didn’t even want to try and begin to make the ‘strange’ sounds French people make when they speak, I am not talking about the content of their conversations here although it can be quite different to what I am used to talking about in Ireland but I will talk about this another day. I’m not sure exactly where I picked this up, however I am quite sure it must have been from the school system, but I used to think that unless I spoke French exactly like a French person then they would not understand me. If you are a person that has been made to believe this than I can happily tell you now that it is complete and utter rubbish and I will give you a personal example to demonstrate this.

The first time I went to France as an Erasmus student for a semester in Aix en Provence I quickly uncovered the 2 basic facts to foreign languages I was never told about at school.

1. After going through secondary school (high school) even if you get the highest grade possible you will not be able to speak with a native. This is because in school you learn things off by heart to pass every language exam apart from the listening exam. You therefore are not accustomed to thinking on your feet for basic conversations in the real world. You spend minutes thinking of the correct conjugation of a verb to make a basic phrase that would take a native or an advanced speaker 2 seconds to say.

2. Just like French people speak English with a French accent we speak French with an ‘English speaker’ accent. Try to make out who is the French man being represented in the picture who has perhaps the most famous French English speaking accent in England over the last few years. I say ‘English speaker’ accent because the French will know I am from somewhere in the English British speaking world but they can never pin point Ireland. I suppose it doesn’t help that I don’t look like your everyday Irish person. Before I arrived in my school in September the staff and pupils were expecting the trademark freckled red haired Irish person. I have since had to break their hearts and tell them that the majority of Irish people do not have red hair although we are in fact quite a freckled bunch in relation to other races. Anyway whenever I walked into a restaurant or went to the bakery the minute I said ‘Bonjour’ the person knew immediately I was from an Anglophone country even if I tried to do the most French ‘Bonjour’ known to man. For a few days I thought that I had uncovered that French people had the 6^th sense of reading a foreign persons mind! Looking back on this ‘mystery’ now I am almost embarrassed. However I see it more as a reflection on an education system that forgot to tell its students that we speak French with an English speaker accent. Why did they forget to tell us this basic concept? The reason is that in school I was never taught French with the end goal of me going to France or speaking to a French native!

If you are a person having difficulty with the way French people pronounce the ‘r’ then my advice to you is forget about this and concentrate on the important aspect to pronunciation. To be understood by any French person the basic requirement is to know the pronunciation of the majority of the letter’s of the alphabet. This over time is not very hard. If I was to pick a key letter for you I think it would be the letter ‘i’ which is pronounced ‘e’ in French.

My Personal take on Pronunciation:

Only take pronunciation as far as you need to be understood. In general I have encountered no problems being understood by the French people here, yet I still have an English speaker accent when I speak French. To me this is not a flaw on my language level. Where I am at the moment, I can distinguish between individual voices, regional accents and different country accents when other people speak French just like I can in English. This for me is a lot more important than they way I sound to others when I speak French.

You must remember that I did not learn French to become a French person so why would I want to have a French person’s accent when I can communicate just as effectively with a tint of my own accent. If I spoke French as a French person then I feel I would lose a bit of my identity and uniqueness abroad. Worst of all I would have lost my ‘sexy Irish accent’ that some French girls are attracted by. In any case I have found that most English speakers speaking French will not fully lose their accent even when fluent. So please don’t waste your time trying to speak like a native before you even know the words to use to speak the foreign language!

Il mio iPod Touch

2011-05-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Il mese scorso ho comprato un iPod Touch. Ho voluto comprare un iPhone ma penso che un iPod touch è meglio per me al momento perché viaggio molto. Il problema era che bisogna avere un abbonamento con un iPhone. In sostanza un iPod Touch è la stessa che un iPhone senza il teléfono cellulare naturalemente.

Ha la stessa interfaccia e le stesse applicazioni. Ha una fotocamera ad alta qualità. Mi piace la fotocamera perché posso prendere los fotos cuando voglio, perché l’iPod Touch è piu facile mettere in tasca di una grande macchina fotografía. Non mi piace molto fare le foto ma ho cominciato a prendere le foto con il mio iPod Touch. Al momento viaggio molto e voglio avere le foto da guardare per vedere in avvenire.

Al momento le impostazioni del mio iPod Touch sono in spagnolo. Alcune delle applicazioni sono gratuito, ma deve pagare per la maggior parte delle applicazioni. Ho comprato il gioco Pro Evolution, è un gioco da calcio. Le impostazioni sono in lingua spagnola. Qualche volta mi piace giocare a questo gioco. Con un iPod touch posso accederé a Internet tutti le volte che mi trovo in una zona Wifi. Per fortuna oggi le aree Wi Fi sono prácticamente in ogni luogo, ad esempio in tutti i Mc Donalds. Posso anche utilizzare il mio iPod Touch per parlare con famiglia e amici su Skype. Penso que l’iPod Touch è una forte invenzione.

My Current Learning System:

2011-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed I have been chopping and changing my language learning system as I went along. I thought at first it was because I was coming up with more effective systems all the time. The simple fact is that as your language level evolves your language learning system must also evolve to keep up with it.

Thankfully my system has now evolved to what I think will be its simplest form. Remember what I said already about the simple things in life! Reading through my system as it was at the start I think I am probably more happy than you to say that I no longer feel like I have to go about describing my Level 1 system right through to my talking out my arse system! These systems I devised only served one purpose, that was to get me straight into language immersion. The fact is that I have gotten what I fell is the laborious part to learning a language out of the way in the first month!

What I am doing now is learning nouns, adjectives, adverbs and so on solely from reading articles and newspapers as well as from watching television and videos in Spanish and Italian every day. I no longer study vocabulary books on a daily basis. In my opinion verbs are the most fundamental part to being able to speak a language. If you like they are the bricks while everything else is just the mortar. In order to learn verbs I go through my verb books most days while listening to songs on Youtube. I also learn these verbs and the conjugations to these verbs subliminally by reading and watching television so I don’t have to put too much effort in when I study my verbs books. I have found that from watching television and reading that I have picked up some odd words in the other tenses. This will serve not to improve my capability to communicate with people rather it will help with my fluency in the language. There is a difference!

I will concentrate on knowing as many verbs as possible in the Past and Present only. Then I will move onto 1 or 2 more tenses. At the level I am in French at the moment I think I know about 5 different tenses but I only really use 2 tenses (Past and Present) whenever I talk and I have found I learn the hard tenses, like the subjunctive, solely from context and not because I learned off all the conjugations to every verb in this tense. As there are 212 verbs in my Spanish verb book and 211 in my Italian verb book I am using the assumption that knowing about that amount of verbs will allow me to acquire a fluency level. However, and this is important, while I am aiming to know about 200 verbs in each language I will not learn the exact 212 and 211 in my verb books. Use your brain and don’t think that mass produced verb books are tailor made to make you personally become fluent, they are there to make profits for company’s like Berlitz, Harrap’s etc. To your left is a picture of the Berlitz business model. Don't worry I didn't hack into there system as unfortunately I am not a computer whizz. This is Berlitz's business model because it is every profit making company's business model!

Why won’t I become fluent from learning off all the verbs in my verb book?

This is where following current affairs and what I am interested in over the last month comes into it. I have noticed that the verb book includes verbs such as to expel, to hang, to diffuse etc. These are verbs that will not register on my high priority list. Why?

I know I am more likely to use a verb like ‘to improve’ rather than a verb like ‘to expel’ or ‘to hang’. Unless I am going to Spain to take a position as a school principal or going back in time to Italy to take my place on death row I doubt I will use these verbs very often. Ironically the verb ‘to improve’ is not included in my Spanish verb book even do when I go to Spain and tell people what I am doing the verb ‘to improve’ is essential for me because I am more than likely going to say things like:

My Spanish improved an awful lot in just one month watching the television.

Or towards the end of my time hopefully some Spanish people might say to me:

Your Spanish really improved since you arrived.

Tomorow I will be post my first Italian article entitled 'Il mio iPod'. When I write these articles I would like to point out that I use the help of Google Translate as well as online dictionaries. If you think this is in some way cheating then go to the European Commision or any multinational company tomorrow and tell all the translators there to stop using dictionaries and translation software. Better still write an article in your native language, translate it on Google and hand it to a native. Be sure to let me know how that works out for you!

Do I have to be a genius to become multilingual? Part 3 of 3

2011-05-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

I think it is the culture we have created to language learning in our countries. The fact that most people will not go on to study a foreign language at third level and that most people won’t be able to speak a meaningful word of a foreign language after 5 years of studying it at secondary school (high school). This breeds a culture where multilingual people are perceived as some form of geniuses. The rest of us are simply not able to learn another language and a new way of life.

Now I can understand and appreciate that not everyone desires to become bilingual just as after 4 years of studying Business and 7 months of work experience in an investment bank I no longer desire to be a true business man. I did not create this blog site with the goal to turn everyone multingual. If this were the case I would find it quite hard to find a future job within the field of languages! I am simply pointing out the facts that I have uncovered over the last 5 years as well as describing my new language learning methods to show people that language learning is not as hard as a lot of people will make it out to be.

I am writing this blog for people like me when I was 17 and didn’t have anywhere near the clear picture I have today on language learning. If someone told me 5 years ago that some guy is stating he is going to become fluent in 2 languages in 6 months and telling how he is going to do it on a 'fly on the wall’ blog site then it could have helped me greatly with my studies.

I believe that if anyone truly wants to speak another language but doesn’t actually go about doing it by saying things like I am just not gifted enough with languages. Then to me this is just a way of saying I can’t be bothered trying because just as people can speak their native language they can also speak any other foreign language they want to! They say reverse psycology often works on people. Before moving to Swansea in October I am thinking of making a poster for my bedroom door. The title would be something like 'This is the Room of a Multilingual Person' underneath it would be the picture to your left. I am certain there would be two end results to this.

1. I would have a lot of enemies.

2. Swansea would see a sharp rise in bilingual and multilingual people.

If you are having difficulty learning a foreign language then don’t jump to question the 20% intelligence part, that most people seem to do, before first questioning the 80% requirement. There are no elaborate equations involved, it’s just common sense!

Do I have to be a genius to become multilingual? Part 2 of 3

2011-05-10T01:55:00.000-07:00

From visiting and living in northern European countries such as Luxembourg and Holland I have seen the main reason why there are so many multilingual people in these countries. This being that there are many English and other foreign channels in each household’s television set. To add to this, every film is left in its original version with the native language in subtitles.

Now take a look at countries like France and Spain who dub almost every film into their own language. Incredibly there are people in these countries that make careers off the back of the success of actors and actresses in Hollywood. This is becasue for example the same dub artist will play Brad Pitt in every movie he does. To give you an example of this over use of dubbing, watch Inglorious Bastards in its original version where it is quite the multilingual film, with a bit of French, German, English and even a bit of Italian. Now watch it in its French version and you will remark that the English part to the film practically disappears. Why? because they cannot leave the French people hear Brad Pitt speaking in a film with his real voice. Now with regards to the multilingual countries who leave films in the original version. Just think about how popular American and English films are on a global scale and you will begin to see how exposed these people are to English from the time they are infants.

Another thing that I noticed that got me thinking was that I was encountering people who could speak about 4+ languages but they seemed to think nothing of it. When I lived in Luxembourg there used to be a group of boys about the age of 9 or 10 who I played basketball with from time to time. These boys could each speak about 5 languages or something ridiculous like that and didn’t even think of bragging about it. I realised this quite quickly because during our ritual ‘on court smack talk’ while I was throwing around comments such as ‘you aint got nothing on me you 4 foot midget freak’ and they were throwing around comments like ‘why are you talking like that?’, I noticed that they never once mocked me for the fact that they spoke more languages than me. Now obviously I kind of edited the dialogue there in order to emphasis my point, I am trying to avoid over doing it on using swear words on my blog!

Now it wasn’t because I was coming across the most modest people on earth it was because being multilingual was not an abnormal thing to see in their country. I’m sure that there are many British, Irish maybe even French or Spanish nationals who are multilingual who feel that they are superior to everyone else because they are multilingual. Ask yourself the question why is this so?

Do I have to be a genius to become multilingual? Part 1 of 3

2011-05-09T01:18:00.001-07:00

While I would love to say ‘Ladies, I am the special one’ or ‘I am one of the geniuses of our generation’, the simple and honest answer to this question is no. To begin with if a person does truly believe he or she is a genius than they are obviously quite dim as South Park demonstrated with an effective and humorous episode with Kanye West. In my opinion the internal factors involved in becoming multilingual are about 80% motivation, effective learning methods and confidence and only about 20% intelligence. Now I am not a mathematician so don’t quote me on these percentages, it is just to demonstrate to you exactly what is required of you internally. Where did I come up with this? I believe I will speak 2 languages in 6 months not because my intelligence grew to a level of Albert Einstein’s overnight, it is mainly because over the last few months my motivation, confidence and language learning methods have expanded no end.

If you look at a map with the language levels of the country’s of Europe you will remark that the countries with the highest percentage of bilingual and multilingual people are found in the countries where their native languages are not very ‘useful’ on a global scale. Hence the motivation to learn a foreign language! I am talking about countries like Luxembourg, Latvia, the Nordic Countries etc. All of these countries have a bilingual population of about 85% +. Now look at the Anglophone countries in Europe which are at about the 30% level as well as countries such as Spain, France and Germany where the national languages are seen as relatively important on a global scale.

Do you still think learning a language is all about intelligence or do you think this is all just a big coincidence and the people in these countries are some of the most intelligent life forms on earth? I have been to some of these countries and I have met some of these people and I can tell you that there is just as many ‘stupid’ people in these countries as there are in any other. Of course I also do not really believe that ‘truly stupid’ people exist. I will demonstrate this next week with an anecdote about a girl that I have met along my travels around Europe who was obsessed about this abstract term of ‘intelligence’.

Facebook and Twitter Lovers

2011-05-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

You can follow the updates on my blog posts directly from my Twitter page at:

http://twitter.com/#!/Fluent6months

Now you can also add me as a 'friend on Facebook and get daily updates on your home page at:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=100002303278887

Did you know that currently Facebook has more than 500,000,000 active users, this would make it the 3rd largest country in the world!

In completely unrelated news the U.S federal government has anounced today that a guy named Mark Zuckerberg came to them in 2004 about lauching an inovative new website to help with national security. He claimed he had divised a system where the world's stalkers would voluntarily register themselves. It is reported the list is in the region of 500 million and growing to this day.

Lucky I accepted my stalker tendancy a few years back so I will accept anyone that will have me as their friend!

Tomorow I will begin a 3 day post entitled 'Do I have to be a genius to become multilingual?'

‘El Clásico’ de Madrid y Barcelone

2011-05-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

Empecé a aprender el español con los partidos de 'El Clásico'. Durante la semana he visto todas las entrevistas con los jugadores y con los entrenadores en español. He leído los artículos sobre los partidos en el periódico el día anterior y la mañana después de cada partido. En el principio era bastante difícil de entender, pero durante las 2 semanas he visto las mismas palabras una y otra vez, par ejemplo las palabras como: el partito, los jugadores, esta noche, luchar, anotador, etc. Como resultado he aprendido estas palabras clave muy rápido y entiendo mucho sobre los partidos de fútbol ahora.

Los partidos fueron muy interesantes y controvertidos. Había una gran cantidad de tarjetas amarillas e una tarjeta roja para Pepe. Creo que Messi fue la estrella. Real Madrid ganado la Copa del Rey y el Barcelone avanzado al final de la Liga de Campeones. Creo que Messi es el mejor jugador del mundo en este momento. Es un jugador increíble, porque es un goleador en casi todos los partidos. Creo que ha marcado 50 goles este año ya! Creo que Messi es difícil de entender en las entrevistas. Prefiero ver las entrevistas de Cristiano Ronaldo porque el es mucho más fácil de entender. Creo que es porque Ronaldo es portugués y Messi es argentino, pero no estoy seguro, porque José Mourinho es más difícil de entender que Ronaldo y los dos son portugueses!

En solamente dos semanas he aprendido muchas cosas. Ahora yo sé que la palabra 'Barça' en español es 'azulgrana'!

He utilizado *el pasado simple del verbo 'Ser' porque he visto mucho las palabras como ‘fue’ y ‘fueron’ a la televisión. En francés, creo que *el pasado simple no es muy importante. Es muy importante en español? ¿Me entienden cuando no utilice el pasado simple? Creo que el pasado y el presente son los verbos la más importante de aprender en cualquier lengua latina para empezar a comunicarse con la gente.

Espero que entiendas mi primer artículo y por favor, dejar algunos comentarios o preguntas.

*No sé exactamente si la palabra es ‘Pasado Simple’ en español pero la palabra en inglés es ‘Past Simple’.

Spanish and Italian Posts

2011-05-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

As I have been immersed in Spanish and Italian for a little over a month now I have decided that the next step is to start writing posts in Spanish and Italian. I will write 2 posts a week: 1 in Spanish and 1 in Italian until I leave for Spain the start of July. This way any Spanish and Italian speakers can leave comments and even questions if you want to test my reading skills. However keep in mind to read my blog and see my level when phrasing any questions!

As a result of doing this you can track my progress in the languages. Non native speakers will have to make up their own minds whether they are going to read these posts. I am sure that I will inevitably be making many grammar mistakes when writing these posts and a lot of people think that learning non native speakers mistakes is a bad thing. While I am not entirely sure where I stand on this yet with my limited experience with languages you will just have to make your own minds up on it.

Anybody who does read my articles will see that the level in the difficulty of the themes of the articles will remain rather consistent throughout the 5 months. The thing that will change is the quality of my writing. When I am living in Spain in July and Italy in August you will probably notice that I will start to include some local expressions and local words which belong to the part of Spain and Italy I will be living in.

The one thing that I hope you will notice from the start if you read my Spanish and Italian posts is that I will not talk about the 'rubbish' that we start off learning in secondary school (high school). I will be talking about stuff like my life experiences up until this point, how I feel about certain things that are happening in the world at the moment, why I am learning Spanish and Italian etc. The kind of stuff I have been learning to talk about over the last month and the kind of stuff that will get my character across to people.

I will not be writing stuff like I have brown eyes, I have a dog etc.
This would end up boring you to death and I would'nt blame you for not reading my posts. When did people start to think that 'foreign people' don't have eyes, ears a nose and a mouth. If you don't state the obvious in your own language then why would you start off learning a foreign language in this manner? If I go to Spain and Italy and talk about these generic boring things that even I am not interested in than how do I think I am going to make Spanish and Italian friends. They will think I am the most boring person on earth to be avoided at all costs and rightly so!

Have Specific Goals

2011-05-05T04:52:00.000-07:00

I cannot stress the importance of having specific goals in language learning and in life for that matter. A well organised taught out plan can go a long way. As the saying goes 'Failing to plan is planning to fail!'.

Even if your goal is just to have a basic conversation with the cute foreign girl( in her native language) that works down the road that is struggling to cope with the local language. This goal is a lot better than having a vague goal like I am going to speak Spanish any day now (although I have been waiting on divine intervention now for the last 6 years).

Take the example of the person saying I am going to start taking Spanish classes from tomorow onwards in order to learn Spanish. The logical response to this is 'Oh cool and when will you be able to speak and interact with Spanish people?'. I guarantee you in most cases the person will never have taught about this and respond with an answer like 'I dunno, I suppose in a few years time. I know this because I used to be that person.

Not having goals will inevitably lead to a lack of motivation and slacking off. I think the mindset of 'vague goals' stems from the education of languages at secondary school (high school). This is where we are first introduced to modern day foreign languages. We spend about 5 years in a system pretending we are learning a foreign language when really we are just trying to pass an exam. When we finish even the 'top' students are nowhere near coming close to being able to having a meaningful interaction with a native. ( I will come back to this topic of high school language education at a later stage).

It is only natural after this 'horrendous' ordeal which amounted to pretty much nothing in the end, we will either avoid learning foreign languages altogether in the future or if we do go about learning a foreing language we will have this vague goal mindset of: 'Lets see now so it takes 5 years to learn French at school so naturally we will be speaking in terms of years again for learning another foreign language'. This kind of thinking of course is well off the mark. Look at the people in the world that do not come from bilingual backgrounds and speak 5+ languages. Do you really think they spent 25+ years learning these languages. Even my love of languages would'nt see me through that one!

Now lets compare the 'vague goal' system with my 'crazy goal' system:

3 months of my 'artificial language immersion' plan in France

Goal: Getting my language level up to at least intermediate level. Being able to function immediately in Spanish and Italian society. Have the capacity to get my charater across to natives and make friends.

1 month in a language school in Spain and 1 month in a school in Italy:

End Goal: To be able to function in a society where I can express myself fully as if I were a Spanish or Italian native and there was no language barrier.

1 month left over where I can either work in Italy to have more time to improve on my language skills, or if I find after 5 months I am exactly where I entended to be, 1 month at home in good old Ireland with my mission accomplished.

Don't be a Sheep!

2011-05-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure if this is the same in other countries and cultures but in Ireland if someone calls you a sheep then it is usually to be taken as a negative thing. The logic is that if you watch sheep you will notice that if one sheep ventures into another field then usually more will follow mindlessly after, even if this first sheep didn’t find another field to graze in but ended up falling off a cliff!

My advice is ‘don’t be a sheep’ when you go about learning languages. When learning a foreign language you will see that there is an endless amount of learning methods and materials available. It is said that we are exposed to about 3,000 ads per day. The fact that huge businesses are spending obscene amonts of money on these ads which are in a highly competitive market only emphasises further that subliminal learning is effective!

When learning languages there are also numerous different ads on the internet, it is up to you to sift through all this and choose what is best for you. On my page I now have numerous ads related to learning languages. It is like an artifical environmet for you to test your sifting competences. I will not promote any ad over any other for 2 reasons. Firstly is I have my own system and will not waste my time looking at every other alternative to it as there are only so many hours to any day. Secondly I believe that anybody following my blog is not a 'mindless sheep' and will weigh up the different alternatives and make informend decisions accordingly.

I will go through the necessary purchases I have made at a later stage. It is up to you to decide what best suits your needs. While it is always good to get advice from people with experience in learning languages, as I often do, take it for what it is which is only advice and not something set in stone! You are free to do whatever elaborations you want once it can help you personally achieve your end goal. It is up to you to decide exactly what works for you, nobody else can decide this for you, you can do this through ‘trial and error.

My journey and my tips along the way are only a means to inspire and motivate others to think outside the box. My system may work for me but it may not work as effectively for many other people. Of course if people want to replicate exactly what I have done and it works for them then by all means go for it.

Keep in mind that the goal to speaking any language is to have a means to express your individuality to others. In my opinion it is just as important to have this individuality while you are in the process of learning a language.

Reason for my Profile Picture

2011-05-03T01:13:00.000-07:00

My profile picture represents perhaps one of the fundamental concepts to my way of thinking on learning languages. My way of thinking has come from my experience of learning French as well as from my experience this year in a French Lycee teaching English.

I have come to see that people who are up tight about speaking a foreign language and fear being 'laughed at' in the early stages, when naturally they cannot speak perfectly, are the ones who will make very slow progress. At this point it must be noted that often a native of your foreign language may laugh when they hear you speaking but do not in any way mean to insult you or mock your language learning skills. In truth they are more 'laughing with you' rather than 'laughing at you'. I feel most of the time a person might giggle a little because they find your accent strange when speaking 'their language'. Most of the time these same people will find your accent cute and adorable so try not to misinterpret this and get discouraged over nothing.

For example: This year I have been living in France and speaking French everyday endlessly with the last 8 months. Indeed the only time I use English here is to write this blog! Over the last few months as the students have gotten more comfortable with me they have started to impersonate my Irish accent when speaking French. I have been told that apparently it is a lot less obvious as it was in September. Now I'm sure they have been doing this since I arrived in September but now they do it in front of me. Now I could take this up in 2 different ways, I could get insulted over it and tell them to stop doing it or I could take it for what it is, which is just a bit of a laugh. I take as just 'a bit of banter' and I must admit that I actually enjoy having an idea of what my accent sounds like as I can't hear it myself when I talk!

I believe that unless people who have the 'I won't talk because people will laugh at me' mentality can learn to change their mentality over time to learning a language then they will never reach a level where they will be able to speak their foreign language every day to natives of that language.

I am one of these people how can I change?

Well naturally if you have the opportunity and the means the best way is to go to the country where they speak your foreign language. Your 'desire' to learn a foreign language will turn into a 'need' which will mean that you will have no option but to let go of the inhibitions you have to making mistakes in your foreign language in order to make friends. Unless of course you are going to join an expat community in which case you may as well have stayed in your own country to start with.

I don't have the option of going abroad?

Fortunately the world has become a very diverse place. There are people of different nationalities in almost every part of the world. In every major city you will find some sort of a language exchange club. My advise is to find a partner to practice your foreign language and in turn you can help them with your native langauge. This is like private lessons for free and it works both ways so everyone is a winner!

Finally I will explain the profile picture. The profile picture shows me dressed as a leprechaun. I did this for Saint Patricks Day in my French school this year. I dressed as a leprechaun for our national holiday even do I was in the middle of the French countryside where some people did'nt even know about Saint Patricks Day. You can imagine the scene, I was dressed as an oversized leprechaun for the day in a place where nobody else was dressed up or celebrating the holiday. As part of this day I decided to present my national holiday to the schools in the area while dressed up.Of course I knew that I could have made a complete fool of myself if it went wrong ,and maybe some people thought I did make a fool of myself, but you must remember that to do something like that requires some degree of confidence and people are always drawn to and respect confidence!

My point is this: one of the keys to learning a language is not to take yourself too seriously. If there are stereotypes of your country then don't get over sensitive with them. Try and use them in some way to your advantage! I'm sure there are many Irish people who go abroad to learn a foreign language and get up tight about the drinking and leprechaun stereotypes, I prefer to use such stereotypes to my advantage rather then seeing them as a hinderence and an annoyance. Also remember that the more open you are to people the more friends you will have and hence the more opportunities you will have to practice your foreign language.