A Language Learning Tale

Listen on Spotify: Spotify Link Listen on YouTube: YouTube Link   Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is … A Language with Benefits? Or Am I Lucky to be a Native English Speaker? So, it won’t have escaped your notice that I’m a native English speaker. British English, to be specific. Speaking English as my native language, of course, gives me huge benefits in some things. English is what  people call the global language, or the universal language - although who knows what else is out there in the universe. In other words, there are a lot of people who speak it as a first language, but not only that, it’s a language that is spoken as a second language by even more people. Why is that? Because English is largely considered to be the language of business and if you don’t speak it, you could e...

Listen on Spotify: Spotify Link Listen on YouTube: YouTube Link   Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is … But I Don’t Want To Right Now Or How to Motivate Yourself to Learn a Language Learning a language takes a long time. How long will depend on many things, such as: If you’ve learnt any languages before Whether the language is close to your own in how it’s constructed How much time you have to dedicate to learning There is no possible answer to the question of how long it will take for any one person, but it will take a long time. So, if that’s the case, you’re going to need to be motivated to do it. Reasons for learning a language are many and varied. For example: It might be that you need to learn a language for your work, or the job that you aspire to do. It could be that you’re in a relat...

Listen on Spotify here: Spotify Link Listen on YouTube here: YouTube Link    Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is … Don’t Make Me Talk! Or Oral Exams and Being Forced to Speak in Your Target Language In a previous podcast I talked about language learning in school, but I didn’t mention anything about the exams. Honestly, I don’t remember much about the exams, except for one part. That part is etched in my memory. I’m talking specifically about the oral exams that we had to complete. So, talking in the language. Being an introvert, these were, as you might imagine, a nightmare scenario for me. You literally had to sit there - actually, I think we had to stand for at least one of them - and talk to the examiners in the foreign language. If my memory serves me right, it was your course tutor...

 Listen on Spotify: Spotify Link Listen on YouTube: YouTube Link   Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is … Multi-tasking is Better Or Listening vs Listening and Doing Last time, I did a mammoth podcast on reading, but I didn’t expand on my thoughts on audiobooks, or listening to audio, in general. That would have been a tad too much of me speaking. So, today, I want to discuss how to listen to books, or any other content. What is the best way? Let’s start with listening and reading at the same time. The simplest version of this is watching a film, TV programme or a YouTube video with subtitles, or closed captions, in the language. This, obviously, helps you to understand what you’re watching and, once you get used to it, doesn’t detract too much from the visuals. Somehow, you manage to re...

 Listen on Spotify here: Spotify Link  Listen on YouTube here: YouTube Link   Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome. Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is … I’m Not Going to Lie, It’s Difficult Or How Do I Start Reading Books in a Foreign Language? So, let’s start right at the beginning and, remember, this is just my opinion, based on what I've done in the past. Other people will have different ideas. Listen to them all and decide what you think is going to be the best method for you. It might be a mixture of many things suggested by different people and that’s fine. We’re all different. However, the universal truth is that you’re not going to be able to read any book right off the bat when you start learning a language. It just isn’t possible. You need to know a lot of vocabulary even to read a simple book. That, in my o...