A Language Learning Tale

Podcast on Spotify: Link to Spotify Podcast on YouTube: Link to YouTube 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 I’m talking about… Well, That’s More Like It Or Why Italian Can Be Easy for English Speakers Last week I spoke about the difficulties of learning Italian. Today, on a brighter note, what makes it easier? Well, I think it comes down to the real basics, which makes starting off easier, but what does that mean? For a start, the Italian alphabet is pretty similar to the English alphabet. The only difference is that it only has 21 letters. There’s no J, or K, or W or X or Y. Hmm, now that’s not strictly true, but it’s not the fault of the Italian language. You will see these letters, but they’re usually in imported words and, sometimes, names. However, the combinations of letters you’ll find and how they’re use...

Podcast on Spotify: Link to Spotify Podcast on YouTube: Link to YouTube   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 I’m talking about… I Don’t Understand or Why Italian is Difficult for English Speakers Oh, so many reasons. Let’s talk about a few today and next week we can talk about why it can also be easy in some ways. The mere fact that Italian has genders for nouns is a big stumbling block for many native English-speakers, especially if they haven’t learnt a romance language before. And even if you have learnt a romance language before, you’ll find the rules aren’t the same. Yes, an ‘O’ ending is masculine and an ‘A’ ending is female, usually, but there’s the thorny issue of ‘I’ endings and ‘E’ endings. Not only are these the plural endings for masculine and feminine nouns, ‘E’ can also be a singular ending fo...

Podcast on Spotify: Link to Spotify Podcast on YouTube: Link to YouTube    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 I’m talking about… Can I Just Hide in My Cave, Please? Or Learning a Language as an Introvert You may not have guessed this, if you’ve never interacted with any of my content before, or even if you have, but I’m an introvert. I am not the type of person who will walk into a crowd and introduce myself to all and sundry. I probably won’t talk at all. I dislike having to make phone calls. Any kind of interaction drains me, which is why I stopped using social media, because replying to people became just as bad as speaking to someone face-to-face. The only exception to this is if I know someone very well, or if I’m in a comfortable one-to-one situation, or maximum one to … about three situation. An...

Podcast on Spotify: Link to Spotify Podcast on YouTube: Link to YouTube 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 … Intensive vs Extensive Or Different Reading Styles   There are two basic ways of reading in a foreign language and they both have different purposes and, I guess, comfort levels. These are Intensive Reading and Extensive Reading. You can, of course, use the same reading material to do both. Intensive Reading This type of reading is slow and methodical. The purpose of it is to get the maximum learning benefit from the text. Typically, intensive reading has a number of elements: There is usually a specific aim to the reading. With language learning that will generally be to gain the maximum understanding from the text and the reading may well be something that is graded to your curren...