Everyone knows that you need to pronounce difficult sounds when learning a language – at least most of the time. If I am learning English as a German speaker, there are sounds that I don’t know and need to learn. For example, in German there is no dental fricative sound (that is, pronounced between the…
We’ve seen that GPA has big advantages. Again and again I read about new insights of language learning experts for language school teaching that are fully or nearly identical with GPA thoughts (see here: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/can-we-learn-second-language-we-learned-our-first). But, there are some things that make learning with the GPA method more complicated. Or better said, some assumptions and…
Out of the masses of language learning methods, we picked one that we see as the best to really learn a language, especially if you live in country and if you can put a lot of time and energy into language learning (see here for Chris’ his overview). Nevertheless, this method has two major disadvantages…
He was a very nice guy, but the worst teacher I’ve ever had. He had a lot to say, but was totally incapable of teaching us. His major motivation was to teach us his religion and not his language. But that’s not why we were in his classroom. Even worse, he got angry with people…
„A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.“ William Arthur Ward If nothing works, smile! Normally that helps. This morning I asked a guy to clean my shoes on a square around the corner. He smiles at me, pointed to my shoes, made hand gestures to show that I had to put the other…
It’s now been over a year since I started learning Tunisian Arabic. A year with many interruptions and various difficulties, but a good year, all in all! A breakthrough has not happened yet: everything is slow. That being said, I can’t work more than 10 hours a week on language learning because I just don’t…
I have now done 60 hours of language learning with my language helper. That means that I have probably heard another 60 hours of my recordings. My vocabulary in Tunisian Arabic might be around 500 words. But, that’s difficult to know as the number of words I can say is far smaller than the number…
I feel so stupid. And I have to say a lot of things that I don’t know how to say. The story is about a bear and a goat. They meet. The bear has old clothing and is proud of it. Normally, he wears nothing, now he is dressed. Then, the goat comes by in…
Language learners often complain about learning “useless” words: Why should I learn how to say “scarecrow”? I’ll never use that word! Why not learn more important words like “watermelon,” “study” and “bathroom”? People often think that some of the basic, tangible words that a 4-year old knows aren’t very important to learn. I’m going to…
We are entering phase 2, according to the method. This means that we are using small picture books, little stories, to talk. For example, we start with the story of a bear who finds a shoe in a wood. He loves it and manages to put it over his left foot. Later he finds a…