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...

Spotify: Click here for Spotify Podcast YouTube: Click here for the YouTube Podcast   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 THOUGHT I KNEW THAT! Or THE U-SHAPED LEARNING THEORY When I was researching something for this podcast, I came across a concept I’d never heard of before, the U-shaped learning theory. This, it seems, can be very easily applied to language learning. So, what is it? Well, the theory says that you will start out at a very high level with your learning, then your level will drop significantly and you’ll start making mistakes with what you thought you knew already, causing a big dip in the graph’s curve, and then you will get better again. So the shape of the learning curve is like a U. There may be multiple dips, creating a wave-like graph. But why is this? Surely what y...

Spotify Link: Click here for Spotify Podcast YouTube Link: Click here for YouTube Podcast   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 … NOT THE FIRST THING TO DO Or IS IT TIME TO GET COLLOQUIAL? One of the first things some people do when starting to learn a language is to go on a search for colloquialisms, slang and swear words, in the language they’re learning. But is this a good idea? And if not, why not? So, the first thing you’re going to go up and say to a native is something only the locals ever say, or, swear at them? You do realise that if you do that, bad things might happen? The problem with any slang, offensive, or not, is that it’s just too easy for a foreigner, with little knowledge of the language, or even with a significant amount of knowledge, to get the context completely wrong. ...

Spotify Link: Click for Spotify Link YouTube Link: Click here for YouTube Podcast   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 THEY SAID TO DO IT THAT WAY Or WHEN IT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOU There are a lot of language learners, or polyglots, if you prefer, giving advice on language learning on the Internet. Ahem. Everyone has their favourite people they follow on a particular platform, often the people with the biggest followings, because they get recommended most often. And many will attempt to learn a language in the way these people say languages should be learnt, to the letter. The problem with this, of course, is that not everything a particular person mentions will work for everyone. Some people, for example, swear by using a spaced repetition app, like ANKI, to learn vocabulary, whereas o...