Language Talk

Benjamin Franklin was reported to have said "A penny saved is a penny earned." I think that the opposite of opportunities could also be said. An opportunity not used is an opportunity wasted. I know that I have been guilty of letting opportunities pass me by because I was too afraid to deal with the reality of my consequences. Have you felt the same way? Let us talk about that a little bit, shall we ?

If you are anything like me, then you have probably said to yourself "I want to be fluent in language x". After having learnt a couple languages to a degree that I am satisfied with, I am always asked "Are you fluent in language x" or "Do you speak language x perfectly". Fluency has become somewhat of an overused term and I want to talk about that about it.

I was recently asked a question by one of my students. She is learning  English and watches a lot of shows in English. However, she still has  trouble understanding spoken English without the subtitles on. So her question to me was "Should I use subtitles"? and we are going to answer that question now.

I  know the feeling you get when you feel like everything is too fast, too  above your level, too intricate and so on. One of the biggest hurdles  that we face is training our ears to understand sounds at native speeds.  I want talk about  how best to train your ears with respect to a  foreign language.

Today, there's one piece of wisdom, one simple tip that I would like impart upon you:  the journey is more important than the destination. I hope that you  will forgive me for employing this platitude, but it does represent the  ethos and intent of this podcast after all.

We  tend to see and treat languages as tools as if they were akin to a  hammer, a car, a knife, and so forth. And while, yes, it is a tool for  communication. It is not something that you can just buy at a store and  use right away. It is often an arduous and grueling process, one that  leaves many people frustrated. They end up asking themselves "why am I  learning this language at all?"

To you I say, stick with me for few a minutes, maybe I can alleviate some of this frustration of yours.

So, the tip that I want talk about to today is the importance of culture in language learning. Now, too often we are taught languages in a vacuum. We tend to learn them from overused textbooks, language learning videos, flash cards,etc. We never get to experience the vitality of the language. It goes without saying that languages are constantly evolving and do not exist independent of their speakers. Therefore, I want to touch on pop culture in this episode.

Hello,  my fellow language learners, welcome the daily tip section of my  podcast. This is intended for those who do not have time to listen to the  full podcast or are only interested in the language language tips. To ease you into it a bit, I want to start off with something that you  probably already know; motivation, consistency, determination.