What We Do
At The Mimic method, we create products for people to learn languages online. But our approach is different from that of any other language learning company.
We don’t teach literacy, grammar theory, or translation like everyone else. Instead, we focus on ear-training, accent-perfection, subconscious learning, and spontaneous performance.
In essence, we teach people how to have Flowing Conversations in a foreign language.
In a Flowing Conversation, the world disappears and you become fully engaged with the person in front of you. Self-expression and mutual understanding come effortlessly, and time flies by without anyone even realizing it.
By the end of a flowing conversation, both parties walk away with a sense of knowing more about the other person, and feeling more connected to them.
Without a doubt, you’ve experienced Flowing conversations with people who share your cultural-linguistic background.
Our mission is to help MORE people have MORE Flowing conversations with people from other cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
We’re passionate about this mission, because we believe Flowing Conversations represent the bottom line of human interconnectedness.
We believe the world would be a better place if more people had more Flowing Conversations, ESPECIALLY across the cultural-linguistic boundaries that have historically divided us. We’re convinced that more Flowing Conversations directly correlates with LESS fear, hatred and suffering and MORE curiosity, love and flourishing.
If you agree with our philosophy, and you want to join us in our mission, then we may have the perfect opportunity for you as…
The Head of Student Success
Recently, we developed our most innovative and impactful training program to date. Hundreds of students have already tried it in Private Beta, and the feedback has been phenomenal.
Here are some comments from students:
In the coming months, we plan to launch this new program publicly in Spanish and French, and we are looking for a dedicated team member to OWN the learning experience for our students.
As the Head of Student Success, your primary responsibility is to ensure that students engage, enjoy, and derive maximal benefit from our programs.
Scope of Work (a day in the life)
To succeed at helping our students succeed, you must be able to excel at playing the following 3 roles.
- The Ally – Help them along the learning path.
- The Advocate – Represent their needs in the design process.
- The Arranger – Get them what they need when they need it.
The best way to understand your scope of work is through the lenses of these three roles. Below, I list out the activities you will perform in each role, as well as the innate abilities required to perform these activities with excellence.
The Ally
Learning a new language is like climbing a treacherous mountain. It can be long and arduous, and there are countless crags to get stuck in or even fall off for good.
That’s why it’s vital for every journey-goer to have a trusted Ally. Someone willing to cheer them along in times of triumph, and get them back to their feet during times of defeat.
Up until now, I’ve taken this responsibility upon myself, but it’s not my zone of genius.
As the Chief product wizard, my primary job is to chart the course through the mountain and inspire people to take their first step upward.
But once things are underway, I need to attend my own adventures. So it’s not my role to guide people along the entire journey. For that, they need you – their Ally!
As the Ally, it’s your responsibility to make sure the students reach their destination.
Activities
- Manage student support inbox, making sure everyone who gets stuck gets the resources they need to get unstuck.
- Proactively encourage students during points of challenge and celebrate their progress during moments of triumph.
- Follow up with inactive members to understand why they aren’t using the program and encourage them to get back involved.
- Eventually develop systems and manage staff of Allies as student body expands.
Abilities
- Empathic Concern – You’ve always felt a spontaneous need to help out when you sense someone in need, and you derive immense satisfaction from resolving people’s pain and helping them achieve their goals.
- Soothing Bedside Manner – You know how to listen compassionately and put people feel at ease with your presence and words.
The Advocate
As we grow our company and design products for more and more students, there’s always a risk of regarding students more as numbers than as individuals with their own stories and struggles.
I personally try to counteract this by speaking directly with students on a regular basis, but my time to do this is very limited. To make sure we stay connected to the students and their needs, I need someone I can trust to build that connection with the students and advocate on their behalf during each stage of product development.
In the initial brainstorming phase, you will act as the filter for bad ideas and refiner of the best ones. Then in the testing phase, you will be the first one to test out and rip apart the initial prototypes.
Then finally, once the prototype is dialed in, you will be in charge of rolling it out to students and assessing its efficacy first hand.
As the engineer, I tend to make things too brainy. That’s why I need someone with heart to push back and bring balance.
As the Advocate, it’s your responsibility to accurately and passionately represent the needs of the students through each step of product development.
Activities
- Closely follow the conversations in our learner community to get a broad sense of student sentiment.
- Conduct student interviews to get a more intimate sense of student desires and concerns.
- Monitor and manage objective metrics for student engagement such as lesson completion rate and time spent in learning portal.
- Consolidate all subjective and objective findings in a weekly report along with general insights and recommendations to share with team.
- Regularly brainstorm learning experience improvements on call with me and tech team.
- Manage the rollout of product design improvements and measure their effectiveness.
Abilities
- Perspective-taking – You should have an intuitive ability to gauge how another person feels in the moment, and how they might think and feel in a hypothetical situation. The technical term for this ability is Cognitive Empathy and relates to Theory of Mind.
- Discriminating Taste – You should be able to immediately discern between good and bad quality, particularly in the realm of story-based media (e.g. literature, cinema), since learning experience design is essentially the art of designing someone’s story of success.
- Verbal Acuity – It’s not enough to just “know” whether an idea would work well or not for students. To be a good Advocate, you have to be able to clearly articulate WHY that thing is on or off, so that I and the rest of the team can figure out what to change.
The Arranger
With thousands of students learning multiple languages through multiple different pieces of content, there are A LOT of moving pieces flying around The Mimic Method.
It’s easy for students to get lost in fray, and frankly it’s easy for me to get lost in it as well!
I love innovating and solving complex problems for people – it’s my raison d’etre. I resonate strongly with Sherlock’s quote in the scene below:
“My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems! Give me work!”
What I don’t love is arranging all the details necessary to successfully deliver solutions to people who need them.
That’s why I need a highly organized and reliable person to find the problems, extract the solutions from my mind, then deliver them from the people who need them.
As the Ally you will develop an empathic connection to our students and their learning needs. Then as the Advocate, you will develop a sense of inner-workings of our curriculum and which aspects of it resonate best with students.
With these experiences, there is no better person to play the role of the Arranger and “see things through to the end.”
As the Arranger, it’s your responsibility to arrange the successful transfer of knowledge from me to the students.
Activities
- Setup private consults and webinars between me and students to troubleshoot learning problems.
- Interview me to extract the expertise you need to patch holes in the learning experience.
- Solicit text and video testimonials from students.
- Edit consults, webinars, interviews and testimonials down to their essence to produce tight and engaging pieces of content for training and marketing purposes.
Abilities
- Structured Thinking – With thousands of students learning multiple languages through multiple different pieces of content, you need to be able to float above the trees and chart out a clear path through the forest. As you grow in the role, you will likely start to build out systems and manage staff, so you need to be able to maintain a clear vision to hold people accountable.
- Logistical Competence – Once you’ve seen forest for the trees, you still need to come back down to the ground and chop those trees down for us to move forward. Logistics is by far my biggest weakness, and managing the details drains my creative energy rapidly, so I will be relying on you to clear the path for me so I can stay in my zone.
- Story-Sense – You should have an intuition for how to capture and keep people’s attention when editing down the aforementioned recordings, since learning materials are only as useful as they are able to capture and hold people’s attention. This is less a “creative” ability as it is a “perceptive” ability.
Bonus Qualities
Aside from the Abilities mentioned above, the following qualities will boost your application.
- Can speak more than one language.
- Has learned 1 or more foreign language to fluency as an adult.
- Has experience in teaching or counseling.
- Can play a musical instrument or can sing
- Experience in project management
- Experience in product management
- Willingness and Flexibility to travel to different parts of world for in-person collaborations.
Compensation and Career
We are looking for an Intrapreneurial-type person to grow with our company in the long term.
Currently, we work as a distributed team. That means you can work from anywhere in the world on your own schedule. We provide a challenging workload, but we don’t track hours, nor do we prohibit you from doing other work. All that we require is that you are very reachable and deliver real results.
During this 6-month trial period, we will pay you a salary of $2000-$ 3,000 per month, depending on experience. If the trial goes well, we will negotiate a higher salary based on your performance.
In the long term, your salary will increase as the company expands. And if you prove yourself to be a rockstar, there is a potential for commissions and/or profit share.
Learning and Growth
Learning is one of our core values at The Mimic Method. Each member on our team is, always has been, and always will be a lifelong learner.
To live out this value as a company, we like to invest in the professional development of our team members.
If we select you for this position, we will provide you with anything you need to make you a more effective Head of Student Success.
This means professional training in highly useful skills like product management, project management, instructional design, community development – whatever you think will be most useful to you and your as a student success manager. You will have the autonomy to choose the program you want to learn and we will fund it if it’s in budget.
There is no better way for you to develop than to study the most effective strategies out there and apply them to a real world setting.
Application Process
APPLICATION DEADLINE: This job will remain open for applications until April 1st, 2019.
THANKS FOR YOUR APPLICATIONS. THE JOB POSTING IS NOW CLOSED.
There will be 3 steps to the selection process:
- Editing test and video application
- The Advocate Interview
- The Final Interview
Editing Test
The main filtering ability here is the Arrangers “Story-Sense,” since very few people have this ability. Again, I generate lots of useful content through my improvised interactions with students. But people can’t benefit from those interactions unless their edited down and packaged in an engaging format.
To test your ability to do that, your task is to download this webinar and extract two pieces video of content from it .
- Long Form: Select what you consider to be the most interesting concept of theme, then create a 8-12 minute video teaching that concept/theme using footage from the webinar. To fill in gaps in content, you may add in text, images and your own voiceover, but it’s not required.
- Short Form: Imagine you had to entice someone on watching the entire webinar. Create a 30-60 second trailer that you think would inspire someone to watch.
We’re not testing you on your ability to make crazy visual effects.
We’re testing you on your ability to weave together a compelling narrative,
Our students’ emotional engagement with our learning materials largely determines whether or not they’ll get value from it – that’s why it’s a critical skill to possess as Head of Student Success.
VIDEO APPLICATION
Next, you must record a video of yourself explaining two things:
- Why do you want this position?
- Why do you think you would thrive as an Ally, Advocate and Arranger?
The video should be between 5-10 minutes in length and uploaded to any video-hosting service like vimeo or youtube. Please sure that we have access to view the videos without restrictions!
Once your videos are ready, fill out this application form.
The Advocate Interview
If I like your videos, I will contact you to set up a skype interview me and the rest of the team.
A day before this interview, we will send you data from a survey we conducted with our students asking about their biggest learning challenges and questions.
You will then have to go through this data in search for useful insights and deliver a presentation on your findings and recommendations live on call.
Here, we are testing your cognitive empathy and verbal acuity as an Advocate.
INTERVIEW ROUND 2
If you make it past the video test, we will have a final interview with you. This is where we ask you all the fun and tough questions to see whether your the best fit for the role.
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Does this description fit you? Are you game for some unconventional interviewing practices?
Do you want to start a new remote career building something epic, making a real positive impact, all while developing your skills and growing as a person?
Then apply now!
]]>Are you keen to learn a new language? Then congratulations are in order! There are many reasons why people want to learn a new language and regardless of what is yours, there are many proven benefits of doing so. Here are four of them:
- Exercise Your Brain – You have probably already heard that your brain is like any other muscle: you have to exercise it regularly. Learning a foreign language is an excellent way to improve your memory and increase your attention span. Since a language has its own patterns, set of rules and structures, you will improve your communication and problem-solving skills and your cognitive thinking. In other words, learning a new language makes you smarter.
- Meet New People And New Cultures – Have you ever heard someone say: ‘why should I learn a second language if everyone speaks English?’ This is absurd. Even though English is widely spoken, not everyone speaks it, not even by far. Unfortunately, language barriers restrain us from getting to know interesting people, making new friends and expanding our horizons by getting in touch with new cultures and different ways of thinking. When you learn a foreign language, you overcome these language barriers and a whole new world becomes available to you with all of its possibilities.
- Provides Better Career Choices – Gone are the days when speaking a second language was professional differential. Nowadays, being bilingual is mandatory if you want to possess a desirable resumé. Potential employers consider the fluency in a second language a valuable asset in today’s global economy. As companies go forward in their endeavor of breaking into new markets, being able to communicate with manufactures and customers of other countries will only increase your professional value and open new professional opportunities to you.
- Improves Your Communication Skills – As you learn a foreign language, you enhance your vocabulary and comprehension of your mother tongue. You also become a better listener, since you have to really pay attention to what other people are saying to understand them. Furthermore, you will be happy to know that once you’ve learned a second language, learning the third, the forth and so on becomes much easier. This happens because you can reuse the same learning techniques and skills to study any new language structures.
These are just some of the benefits of learning a new language. Now that you are convinced that this is a worthwhile investment of your time and energy, you may be wondering: what is the best way to learn a language?
Long gone are the days when you had to sit with several books and read, read and read in order to learn a language. Nowadays, there are more realistic and fun approaches to do so. In this article, we will see some pretty good tips that, combined, will show you the best way to learn a foreign language:
Expose Yourself To The Language
The first thing you should do is to be exposed to the language as much as you can. Forget about reading grammar books, make this a fun step! You can do it by watching movies and TV series, listening to music and podcasts and reading comic books or children’s books in the language you want to learn.
Even if you don’t understand everything that is said, you are making your brain get used to the words and sounds of the foreign language. A friend of mine call this process “learning by osmosis” and it really works.
Learn And Remember Words By Using Anki
As you are exposed to the language you are willing to learn, you will start to learn some basic words. Wouldn’t be nice if you had an electronic way of writing and organizing these words, so that you could read them again and again until you have undoubtedly memorized them?
I present you the answer to your prayers: a program called Anki. It is a free tool that uses flashcards to make it easier to remember the vocabulary you learn. Basically, you write a word or sentence in the foreign language on one side of the flashcard (for example, niño) and the translation in English on the other side of the flashcard (boy).
All of the flashcards you create become a deck that you can use to study whenever you want. The program shows the cards to you and you are tested to see if you can remember the translations. The program then selects the cards you have struggled more with and shows them to you more often, so you can practice more and memorize them. Pretty cool, right?
Speak, Speak and Speak!
Don’t get too obsessed with grammar books and memorizing rules as we had to do in high school. It is plain to see that the method used back then to teach us a foreign language was not very productive.
We were expected to memorize a bunch of random words and sentences, write them down in tests, speak them in front of our colleagues and if we made the slightest mistake, we would be punished with a low grade. Instead of encouraging us to speak, this method has rather made us all terrified of speaking and making mistakes.
To learn and become fluent in any language, it is imperative that you start speaking from day one and that you do so in every single opportunity you have. Find yourself good language partners and practice as much as you can with them. Don’t mind making mistakes, they are part of the process and they can teach you a lot.
Remember: this is how a baby learn his parents’ mother tongue, by listening and mimicking at all times. Also, the sooner you speak the language, the more confident you will feel and the less likely you will give up.
Have a Good Language Learning Schedule
Remember when you pulled all-nighters studying for that big test in high school or in college? It does not work this way when it comes to the best way to learn a new language. In this case, the saying “slow but steady wins the race” is very appropriate.
Learning a new language is a commitment you are doing with yourself and it involves two steps: planning and executing.
Planning
Don’t you have a time to go to work, to eat and to sleep? You thus have to have a time set for studying! Therefore, think about the things you have to do every week and then find out in which period of the day you can separate one or two hours to study.
Avoid trying to study very long periods of time and respect the limits of your attention span so you don’t waste time and energy.
Also, separate the time you have available in two halves. On the first half, you learn new things and you insert them into Anki. On the other half, you revise what you have already learned.
Set reasonable short-term and long-term goals. You can even write them down in a calendar or in a study printable. Put it somewhere you can always see it, such as on the fridge or next to your bed. This will help you stay focused.
Executing
Take your language learning schedule seriously! Set an alarm to remind that it is time to stop whatever you are doing and to go studying (you can watch that Netflix series later, it isn’t going anywhere).
Keeping your goals in mind will help you to develop the essential self-control to don’t give up. For example, if you want to learn a new language to improve your career prospects, think about what will you do with your first payment after you land that dream job.
Figure out what helps you stay focused. Are you an aural learner? So it will be useful listening to some kind of white noise, such as rain or waves sounds, while you are studying.
Are you a verbal learner? Then reading out loud what you are studying and explaining out loud what you’ve understood to yourself may help.
Are you a physical learner? Hence, you can use some study printables and trade the tablet for physical books to study.
Or are you a logical learner? Then create a mindmap or use index cards to build a structure that will help you study.
Are you a solitary learner or a social learner? In other words, to you prefer studying alone or in group? Studying alone has the advantage of having your own schedule, while studying in group may help you dedicate more and learn in a fun way.
It doesn’t matter what kind of learner you are, it is crucial that you figure out what works best for you and stick to it. In a nutshell, the best way to learn a language is by planning exactly when and how you are going to study and sticking to your programmation no matter what.
By doing so, you will master the language you are craving to learn in no time! The feeling of achievement and realization will surpass any challenge you may have to face to get there and you will never regret it!
Did you like this article? We have a lot of other cool tips for you on our Mimic Method’s Youtube Channel. Subscribe to check them out!
Listening Comprehension Webinar – (Download For Offline)
What are some good listening comprehension resources that have helped you in the past? Let us know in the comments below.
]]>In almost every language-learning program out there, you start by learning to read and write.
Then, you learn new vocabulary by focusing on visual symbols like letters or characters.
This is the traditional “learn-by-eye approach.”
But our program doesn’t start with reading and writing. Instead, we start with hearing and pronunciation.
With this approach, you learn new vocabulary by focusing on sounds (not on symbols).
We call this “Learning by Ear.”
Check out this video where I discuss the difference between the two approaches and how “Learning by Ear” helps you learn faster, understand more, and speak with a better accent.
Video Chapters:
1:22 – The Streetlight Effect
3:33 – Define “Learn by Eye” vs. “Learn by Ear”
9:54 – The Traditional “Learn by Eye” Approach
16:36 – The “Learn by Ear” Approach
18:54 – How to Train Accent Before Spelling
21:47 – How to Learn Sounds of Speech
27:35 – The Path to Knowing
Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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Is there anything more satisfying than being able to sing along to a new song in your target language?
Not only do you feel AWESOME but you’re doing some valuable language learning at the same time.
So it’s time to pick up that hairbrush, get in the mirror, and take these songs for a spin… !
Listening to music in your target language is one of the best ways to surround yourself with the sounds of the language without ever needing to jump on a plane.
So, following in the footsteps of 10 Songs to Fast Track Your French, and 10 Songs You Need in Portuguese here are 10 songs in German to keep your language flowing even when you’re not consciously thinking about it.
How Music Helps You Learn A Language
When you learn a language by ear, you go through three different stages:
- Stage 1: Capacity (Hearing & Pronunciation)
- Stage 2: Conversation (Speaking & Understanding)
- Stage 3: Command (Reading and Writing)
Listening to music in your target language means not only are you practicing your capacity for hearing and pronunciation, but you’re also (when you sing it back) practicing your spoken command as well.
The first time you listen to a song, don’t worry so much about the lyrics. The second or third time you listen, start to try and sing along.
The best thing you can do with songs is trying to ‘flowverlap’ – which is where you record yourself singing alongside them and try and match the syllables exactly. Don’t worry if you’re not a great singer – that’s not important!
What’s important is that you’re mimicking the sounds correctly.
Our Top 10 German Songs
Let us know if you think we’ve missed any great ones… !
1. Nicht So Schnell, Max Giesinger
You can find a version here with sing-a-long lyrics!
2. Kein Liebeslied, Kraftklub
3. Solange Liebe in mir wohnt, Luxuslärm 
4. Grenzelos, Glasperlenspiel
5. Chöre, Mark Foster
6. Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann, Nena
An oldie but a goodie! Especially if like me you’ve been addicted to Dark on Netflix…
7. Unter die Haut, Tim Bendzko feat. Cassandra Steen
8. Sonnenmaschine, Ali As
9. Holland, 257ers
This is insanely fast, with a few tongue twisters… but give it a go!
10. Lila Wolken – Marteria, Yasha & Miss Platnum
Are there any other songs you think we should add? Let us know in the comments!
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Thinking about learning Japanese?
While the majority of our readers are native to either Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian) or Germanic languages (English, German or Scandinavian languages), consider that Japanese has an entirely different root.
Japanese is a member of the Japonic language family, which includes both Japanese and Ryukyuan languages (spoken on the Ryukyu Islands) and a number of Japanese dialects.
It is spoken by over 130 million people worldwide, which is roughly 1.75% of the world’s population. It’s most commonly spoken in Japan, but there are also pockets of native speakers and learners all over the world.
For example, did you know there are over 1.5 million native Japanese speakers in Brazil? The second largest community of Japanese ex-pats is in the US, where over 1.2 million people speak Japanese as their mother-tongue (it’s estimated that 1.2% of the population of California have Japanese ancestors and around 5% of Hawaiians.)
So why should you learn and how hard is it to learn Japanese? Well, here’s what our language learners had to say about it:
Why Learning Japanese is Awesome
Japanese culture is rich and stretches back thousands and thousands of years. The first recorded culture post the dinosaurs was the Jomon period, which lasted from 14,000-300 BC. Being able to connect with this culture through the language opens you up to new people, music, books, films, TV shows – the works!
But it’s not just that. Every language has its own subtleties that allow the speaker to express themselves in a way they can’t in their first (or even second!) language.
Sami, whose native language is English, put this beautifully when talking about what it’s like to learn Japanese:
“Status and relationships are super important in Japanese: communicating the same idea to a friend versus say a teacher or your boss will result in quite different sentences. Your language changes to reflect what sort of relationship you think you have with the person you’re talking about, and these changes are very concrete ones — words/phrases, the subject of a sentence, and even grammar changes from register to register.
It’s also important to be ambiguous about some things in Japanese; a friend told me that “to communicate without saying what you’re really feeling/thinking is a definition of beauty”; there’s a famous phrase from Natsume Shoseki (basically THE Japanese author) who, when asked how to translate “I love you” into Japanese, responded with “the moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”
The way that communication in Japanese is viewed is so different than in English/Spanish (my other languages) that when I speak Japanese, I have a different personality and am much more sensitive to my conversation partner’s feelings. It makes the whole world more fascinating to me because I get to look at everyday situations with new eyes.
I feel that it is possible to frame requests in Japanese very tenderly because of these features, such to an extent that I use Japanese to communicate with my partner sometimes even it’s not one of our native languages for either of us.
Japanese has enabled me to see a part of communication and life that I wasn’t aware of before, and for this reason, especially I love it.”
Thanks for your wonderful input Sami!
What’s Hard about Japanese?
Learning any language is difficult, but a lot of people view Japanese to be particularly hard. This may be because it comes from its own root, or because of its difficult writing system. Here’s what our learners found hardest about Japanese:
Japanese Writing System
The system of writing that Japanese employs is thought to be one of the most complicated in the world. Written Japanese is made up of two different character types: characters adopted from Chinese called Kanji, and the symbolic Kana. The Kana script is made up of the cursive Hiragana (mainly used for the grammatical elements of sentences), the angular Katakana (often used for foreign words and emphasis) and historical variants of the modern standards.
Almost all written sentences in Japanese include a combination of Kanji and Kana.
Sounds complicated, right?
Well, perhaps a little bit.
This is why Japanese is able to be read both vertically (which is traditional) and horizontally (more common for online publications and headings.)
What’s more, there can be multiple readings of different Kanji. So the same symbol can mean multiple things.
When you think about it, this is the same with English. The words ‘lead’ and ‘lead’ are spelled exactly the same way (although pronounced differently) and you know which one to use based on the context of the sentence:
I’ll lead the way
This pencil is made of lead
You apply the same rules to Japanese, looking at the context around the word in other to get the meaning. For example, 本 means both ‘real’ and ‘book’, but it will be paired with different words based on whether you want to say ‘bookshelf’ or ‘truth’.
Honorifics in Japanese
Honorifics are a crucial part of the Japanese language. They’re generally used when referring to the person you’re talking to and they attach as a suffix to either the person’s first name or their surname.
Which honorific you use (or don’t use!) and which portion of the name you attach it to depends on a few different factors that get a bit more complicated in business settings.
For new language learners, it’s easier to think of them as the Japanese equivalent of ‘Mr,’ ‘Miss,’ ‘Mrs,’ that you’ll use all the time when addressing other people. (You don’t tend to attach it to your own name unless you’re being sarcastic or aggrandizing!)
Getting to grips with the honorifics can be tricky for those coming from languages that don’t use honorifics regularly (English uses them more than you think! Professor, Doctor, Captain, Your Honor are all honorifics!) But as with everything in languages, practice makes perfect!
Grammar
When it comes to grammar, certain elements of Japanese make it relatively straightforward:
Japanese only has two tenses, doesn’t use male/female gendered nouns, doesn’t use determiners (e.g. ‘a’, ‘the’) and doesn’t pluralize.
But for English speakers, the sentence structure can feel bit awkward.
English uses the structure of ‘subject, verb, object’ for example: I go to school. Japanese uses the structure of ‘subject, object, verb’ which is the equivalent of: ‘I to school go.’
It might feel clunky at first, but once you’ve got the hang of sticking verbs at the end of your sentence, you’re in for a much easier ride.
Tips for learning Japanese
Here are some tips and best ways to learn Japanese from current learners to get you on your way:
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend a good portion of your day listening to music, whether it’s while you work, while you walk or while you wait around.
So why not turn your downtime into learning time?
Listening to music in your target language is one of the best ways to surround yourself with the sounds of the language without ever needing to jump on a plane.
So, following in the footsteps of 10 Songs to Fast Track Your French, here are 10 songs in Portuguese to keep your language sharp over the holiday break!
How Music Helps You Learn A Language
When you learn a language by ear, you go through three different stages:
- Stage 1: Capacity (Hearing & Pronunciation)
- Stage 2: Conversation (Speaking & Understanding)
- Stage 3: Command (Reading and Writing)
Listening to music in your target language means not only are you practicing your capacity for hearing and pronunciation, but you’re also (when you sing it back) practicing your spoken command as well.
The first time you listen to a song, don’t worry so much about the lyrics. The second or third time you listen, start to try and sing along.
The best thing you can do with songs is trying to ‘flowverlap’ – which is where you record yourself singing alongside them and try and match the syllables exactly. Don’t worry if you’re not a great singer – that’s not important!
What’s important is that you’re mimicking the sounds correctly.
Our Top 10 Portuguese Songs
Let us know if you think we’ve missed any great ones… !
1. Espera, Fernando Daniel
Portugal / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.mus.br/fernando-daniel/espera/
2. A Vida Toda, Carolina Deslandes
Portugal / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.mus.br/carolina-deslandes/a-vida-toda/
3. Tu e Eu, Diogo Piçarra
Portugal / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.mus.br/diogo-picarra/tu-e-eu/
There’s also a video where you can follow along with the lyrics, which is super helpful!
4. Te Esperando, Luan Santana
Brazil / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/luansantana/teesperando.html
5. Pollo feat. Ivo Mozart, Vagalumes
Brazil / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.com.br/pollo/vagalumes
6. Trevo (Tu), Anavitória ft. Diogo Piçarra
Brazil / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Anavitoria-trevo-tu-lyrics
7. Para Longe, Anjos
Portugal / Portuguese
Lyrics: http://amusicaportuguesa.blogs.sapo.pt/anjos-para-longe-3378951
8. A Nossa Vez, Calema
Portugal / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.mus.br/calema/a-nossa-vez/
9. Na Sua Estante, Pitty
Brazil / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://www.letras.mus.br/pitty/249552/
10. Monomania, Clarice Falcão
Brazil / Portuguese
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Clarice-falcao-monomania-lyrics
Are there any other songs you think we should add? Let us know in the comments!
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If you’re learning German, you’re not alone. There are 15.4 million people learning it with you.
German is the world’s 10th most spoken language. But if we rank the world’s languages in order of their economic impact (i.e. their GNP) German comes in fourth worldwide after English, Chinese and Spanish.
Additionally, the number of people learning German has increased for the first time in fifteen years. Europe continues to be the biggest home of German language learners, with 9.4 million students, and with countries such as Poland and France producing nearly 4 million learners between them! But according to a study done in 2015 (the next study is due in 2020) German has seen an increase in learners in countries such as Brazil, China and India as well.
What’s the easiest thing about learning German?
German is very similar to a number of languages, so depending on which language you’re tackling German from, you may find that there are a lot of similarities. Dutch, English, Scots, Norwegian, Icelandic, Afrikaans, Danish and Swedish are all Germanic languages that share roots that date back as far as 500 BCE.
This is why you’ll often stumble across words that either sound the same and are spelled the same, or sound the same but are spelled differently, for example:
- English: alphabet
- German: Alphabet
- English: baby
- German: Baby
- English: boss
- German: Boss
- English: hunger
- German: Hunger
- English: name
- German: Name
- English: partner
- German: Partner
- English: rucksack
- German: Rucksack
- English: warm
- German: Warm
- English: winter
- German: Winter
Like English, German often builds words by using compounds, so if you know the words for ‘eyes’ and ‘color’ you can guess the word for ‘eye color’ Augenfarbe= eye color, Augen (eyes) + farbe (color). This can work both for and against learners of German, as it can create some pretty long words too…!
What’s the hardest thing about learning German?
False friends are often tricky when it comes to learning German. Those are words that are the same in English, either in spelling or pronunciation (or both) but they mean different things. This can be tricky when you are starting out, especially if you tend to slip back into your native language when you cannot think of a word. Here are some of the most common false friends in German that you need to watch out for!
- English: also
- German: auch
- German: also
- English: so
- English: arm
- German: Arm
- German: arm
- English: poor
- English: caution
- German: Vorsicht
- German: Kaution
- English: bail/deposit
- English: city
- German: Großstadt
- German: City
- English: center
- English: curious
- German: neugierig
- German: kurios
- English: strange
- English: I can
- German: ich kann
- German: ich kenne
- English: I know
- English: I will
- German: ich werde
- German: ich will
- English: I want
Beyond false friends, learners found German grammar tricky, especially when you look at noun genders. (Particularly if you’re coming from English, Afrikaans*, Chinese, Japanese or Finnish, all of which do not have gendered nouns. *although Afrikaans does have three gendered pronouns.)
Pronunciation of some of the letters specific to German (and occasionally shared in other Germanic languages) can also be tricky, such as: ä, ö, ü and ß. It’s tricky because we don’t have the pronunciation of these letters in English, but it’s also because some of the letters we do share are also pronounced differently (e.g. W in German is pronounced like “V” in English, V in German is pronounced like “F” in English.)
Best Things about Learning German
One of the best things about learning any language is the fact that you are able to communicate with native speakers in their first language. This was also one of the biggest reasons why German learners enjoyed speaking in German: being able to communicate with people they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to communicate with.
Top Tips from German Learners
“If you’re choosing your first foreign language to learn as an adult, choose one that’s close to your native language. Like German!” – Marcus
“If you learn the alphabet first, then your pronunciation and reading comprehension will greatly improve.” – Serena
“Embrace the German culture… and delicious food!” – Ian
“Have a go, if you don’t know a German word use an English one and make it sound more German, that was my German teacher’s advice!” – Claire
“Keep studying and working at it no matter how frustrating it is. I am an introvert and talking to complete strangers, even in the classroom was/is an ordeal for me. As a learner of foreign languages, you must ignore or put aside this fear and learn to laugh at your mistakes since everybody else is making the same mistakes as you.” – Brian
“Give a few minutes every day to the target language and rehearse by speaking with someone.” – Vivek
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Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over 1 billion people worldwide, which places it at Number 1 of the world’s most spoken languages. There are 873 million native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and a further 178 million secondary speakers.
As a Mandarin learner, that means you’re instantly able to communicate with 13% of the world’s population (compared with Spanish, the third most spoken language, which unlocks just 0.55% of the world’s population.) Chinese is also one of the 6 official UN languages – the others being English, Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish.
What are the hardest things about learning Mandarin Chinese?
Tones
One of the things learners find the hardest is mastering the tones of Mandarin Chinese. There are four basic tones, plus a fifth neutral tone, and the pitch and intonation you use changes the meaning of the word. For example, tāng with a high tone it means soup and táng with a rising tone means sugar. You can tell which tone to give a syllable from the marks above the vowels in pinyin, the writing system that uses the Latin alphabet.
Writing Chinese Characters
Another thing that makes Mandarin unique is that it has no alphabet – it’s made up of 50,000 characters, which might sound a bit daunting to new learners. However, only roughly 10,000 characters are in conversational use and according to research conducted, you can understand over 97% of written Chinese with a grasp of just 2,500 characters. Which sounds a lot more manageable!
There is also the difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters which some learners find difficult. Simplified Chinese characters are used in Mainland China and Singapore while Traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and by most overseas Chinese.
Simplified Chinese is used more often online and in publications such as newspapers, whereas Traditional Chinese is used in classical works, such as poems, calligraphy and works of art, such as paintings.
Speaking and Understanding
Mandarin is a tonal language, which can make misunderstandings common when you’re new to the language. But that can happen in any every language! So don’t be too hard on yourself if when you start out you find it hard to speak and understand Mandarin Chinese. You need to train your ear to hear the elemental sounds of Chinese, and training your mouth to pronounce them. It’s like picking up a new instrument. You won’t get it straight away, but the more you practice and teach your muscles the more you will understand.
What are the easiest things about learning Mandarin Chinese?
Grammar
Mandarin grammar is one of the simplest grammar structures language learners will encounter. Unlike many Latin-based languages, it doesn’t have different forms based on gender and it also doesn’t have different forms for singular and plural.
Not only this, but the structure of Mandarin sentences is actually very similar to the structure in English. They consist of a subject, a predicate and an object in the same order as in English. For example, ‘I wash my hands’ in Chinese is 我 Wo (I) 洗 xi (wash) 手 shou (hands).
Not only this but unlike a lot of Latin languages, there aren’t many deviations from grammatical rules (unlike English, which has as many rule exceptions as it does instances that follow the rules!) And there aren’t complicated verb conjugations, every language lover’s dream!
Abundance of Practice Partners
If you’re learning Mandarin Chinese, you have a billion potential language buddies. And more often than not, you can find practice partners online as well as in person, wherever you are in the world.
One great way to practice your Mandarin Chinese is through WeChat, which is free to use. What’s more, you can offer up your English (or other language) skills in exchange and both practice your target languages together.
The Best Thing about Learning Mandarin:
According to our survey respondents, the best about learning Mandarin is the fact you get access to a wealth of new information and connect with a beautiful culture that has a rich history.
Tips for Mandarin Learners
Our language learners had the following tips for people starting out on their Mandarin journey:
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Make sure you focus on pronunciation! It is reasonably quick easy to get good at reading and build your vocabulary, but it is more important that you get your pronunciation right early rather than later so that you do not end up ingraining the wrong pronunciation into your muscle memory when you read in Chinese.
You can improve pronunciation by doing The Mimic Method’s Mandarin Flow Course, and from there the best thing to do is to get out and speak with native Chinese speakers, as this will further develop pronunciation as well as listening skills. – Ryan
Focus more on the vocabulary – Vivian
Listen a lot! – Vittorio
Don’t be too concerned about accurate tones. It comes as you train your ear. – Francine
Start slow, and try and blend it as much as possible into your daily life. – Michaela
Focus first on pronunciation, get the tones right, then when learning the characters, take the time to learn to hand write them. And with characters, go traditional. It’s easier to get from there to simplified. – Anthony
Tones! Tones! Tones! Learn words and tones use the context of a full sentence. Tones pronunciation can sometimes change via Tone Sandhi. – Amy
Persevere! – Cidéron
They say immersion is the best way to learn a new language, but not all of us are able to pick up and go and holiday in a country that speaks our target language.
So how can we achieve immersion from the comfort of our own home?
Well, there are loads of ways. You can listen to the news, to the radio, to music. You can watch Netflix in your target language (check out our handy post on the best Netflix shows in each language we teach!) and you can also have conversations with native speakers.
Today we’re going to look at music and more specifically, to active listening and mimicking.
Even if you’re brand new to the Mimic Method, you might be able to guess that we advocate mimicking native speakers to master the sounds of a language and get your accent sounding awesome. Mimicking has a ton of benefits, but mainly it helps you get grips on how syllables flow together and form sentences.
One of the best examples of this is in music.
When you listen to music, you’re listening to the ways in which one word runs into the next, where the accent is in the word and how to combine potentially difficult sounds.
You need to engage in active listening
Active listening is where you deliberately pay attention to what’s being said and the rhythms of the person or people singing. You want to start to pick up on the beat, perhaps try and start recognizing words and getting an understanding of what the song is all about.
However, even if you’re brand new to a language, active listening is extremely helpful.
It will help you start to train your ear to the elemental sounds of the language and get you into the mindset of that language.
How Music Helps You Learn A Language
When you learn a language by ear, you go through three different stages:
- Stage 1: Capacity (Hearing & Pronunciation)
- Stage 2: Conversation (Speaking & Understanding)
- Stage 3: Command (Reading and Writing)
Listening to music in your target language means not only are you practicing your capacity for hearing and pronunciation, but you’re also (when you sing it back) practicing your spoken command as well.
Music is especially helpful with improving your syllable capacity. Syllables are the building blocks of speech, and some of them will be harder to pronounce than others based on which language you’re coming from originally.
This week, we’ve chosen our favourite 10 songs to help you learn French. We’ve chosen them deliberately because the lyrics are easy to pick out and the rhythm is pretty easy to follow. Some of them are harder than others, so start at the top of the list and work your way down. We’ve also included links to the lyrics of each song, which you can use to sing along with them.
The first time you listen to them, don’t worry so much about the lyrics. The second or third time you listen, start to try and sing along.
The best thing you can do with songs is trying to ‘flowverlap’ – which is where you record yourself singing alongside them and try and match the syllables exactly. Don’t worry if you’re not a great singer – that’s not important!
What’s important is that you’re mimicking the sounds correctly.
Our Top 10 French Songs
Let us know what you think!
1. Dernière Danse, Kyo
Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kyo/derniredanse.html
2. Ton Visage, Fréro Delavega
Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/frerodelavega/tonvisage.html
3. Veronica, Vianney
Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/vianney/veronica.html
4. Comme des Enfants, Coeur de Pirate
Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/coeurdepirate/commedesenfants.html
5. Mon Héroïne, Fréro Delavega
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Frero-delavega-mon-heroine-lyrics
6. Tu Ne M’Entends Pas, Indila
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Indila-tu-ne-mentends-pas-lyrics
7. Tourne, Louane
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Louane-tourne-lyrics
8. J’ai Demandé à la Lune, Indochine
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Indochine-jai-demande-a-la-lune-lyrics
9. Le Chant des Sirènes, Fréro Delavega
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Orelsan-le-chant-des-sirenes-lyrics
10. Est-ce que Tu M’aimes, Maître Gims
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Maitre-gims-est-ce-que-tu-maimes-pilule-bleue-lyrics
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