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 … I Don’t Have the Talent to Learn a Language Many people seem to think that learning a language requires some particular special talent. Is this true? Well, I’ve heard many people say that this isn’t true, that anyone can learn a language, and whilst I agree with the statement that anyone can learn a language, I do think some people have more of an aptitude for it. So, I’m not going to deny that I have an aptitude for languages. They were my best subjects at school, the things I most enjoyed the classes for (but still found stressful because of the way languages were taught at school). Staying with the subject of school, when you’re there you have to study a whole raft of diverse subjects. Some o...

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 … I’m Not Making Much Progress with my New Language So, you started learning a new language on the first of January, but you don’t feel like you’re making much progress and you feel like giving up. It sounds like you might have believed a common myth that pervades some corners of YouTube and, no doubt, the Internet in general, and that is that you can become fluent in a new language in a few months, or even a few weeks. It’s not your fault if you believed this, because the people who claim to have done this can be very convincing. They will give you evidence. They will talk to you in the language. And, maybe, some of them are being truthful about their abilities, but others definitely are affiliat...

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 … 10 Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language If you’re wondering why on Earth you should bother to learn a language in 2024, here are 10 reasons to get you started. Let’s start with one of the best reasons. You will eventually be able to talk to someone who doesn’t know English. Yes, it may sometimes seem like everyone on the planet speaks English, but that is far from the truth. There are plenty of people who don’t understand a word of it. And even it if they do speak English, they may not speak it well, or have the resources to be able to get better at it. What better than to be able to talk to them in their native  language? Okay, the second reason is that it could improve your job prospects. T...

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 … Will AI Kill Language Learning in 2024? We all know that the AI language models, now constantly in our midst, are capable of a lot and that includes generating information in many languages, possibly all by now, but does that mean that there is no longer any need to learn languages, at all, because AI can do it for us? Honestly, I think the answer to that question depends on you. Learning languages will continue if people want to continue to do it. But let’s take a step back first. At this point in time, the AI models all have a significant number of flaws. Not least the fact that they can hallucinate. Yes, that’s what people are calling it. In other words, sometimes they literally make things u...

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...