Using different materials when we learn is very useful and a lot more fun than only using textbooks and audio tapes. Today we are going to use a short part of an interview with the famous tennis player Roger Federer as a base to helping you improve your German!

Listen to the interview and see what you can understand and then Amir will break it down for you.

The text in German:

Ich habe schon alle meine Träume eigentlich verwirklicht. Ich muss ganz herlich sagen ich hatte nie gedacht dass ich jemals so viel Erfolg haben werde. Aber zum Glück ist es alles so wunderbar gelaufen. Und jetzt diese Erfolg kann niemand wegnehmen. Das ist auch beruhigen zu wissen aber gleichzeitig will ich natürlich das Feuer weiter haben und mehr Erfolg zu haben. Für das hoffe ich natürlich vieleicht ein Olympia Gold, Mal David Cup zu gewinnen vieleicht, wieder Wimledon zu gewinnen weil ich muss ganz ehrlich sagen Wimbledon kann man nie genügen gewinnen weil die Emotion und das Gefühl Wimbledon Champion zu sein für einem Jahr ist natürlich wunderschön. Und trotz allem natürlich zurück wieder zu kommen zum Welt numer 1.

Many newspapes get published in many different countries, and especially in Europe where there are a lot of different languages relatively close to each other, it’s common that the same newspapers publish their news in many different languages. This is something we can take advantage of when it comes to learning and practicing the languages we know.

For example, recently Lance Armstrong who has won 7 Tour de France titles has been convicted of doping, and has been banned from the sport for life. Initially he fought these claims, but now he has officially announced that he would end fighting to keep his Tour de France titles. This is something that was reported in Eurosport, and as an example for you, I’ve made a video showing you how to find and compare these languages using news in this way:

In my view it’s important to keep those key sentences in the notepad or in Microsoft Power Point file so you could go over them next day. So far we’ve got:

ITALIAN: “Arriva un momento nella vita di ogni uomo in cui si capisce che bisogna smettere di lottare e lasciare che gli eventi seguano il loro naturale corso. Per me questo momento è arrivato adesso”.

SPANISH: “Llega un momento en la vida de cualquier hombre en el que tiene que decir ‘ya es suficiente’”.

FRENCH: “Il vient un moment dans la vie de tout homme où il doit dire ‘trop c’est trop’. Pour moi, ce moment est arrivé”.

GERMAN: “Es kommt ein Punkt im Leben jedes Menschen, an dem er sagen muss ‘genug ist genug.’ Für mich ist dieser Punkt jetzt gekommen.“

TURKISH:  “Herkesin hayatında böyle bir an vardır. Ben artık bununla uğraşmak istemiyorum”

I would suggest that you try doing this for your target languages and see your language skills improve over time.

Article written by Amir Ordabayev

Having a teacher led class is great, but at the same time limiting. It is great to be able to sit in a class and be told to do this and that and gradually see yourself improving. Of course, to be able to improve even in a class, you need to be active and study. The problem with classes though is that the teacher will not only focus on you, especially if you have 20-30 other classmates.

Ideally you should get a private tutor who can guide you and help you progress faster. A private tutor would be able to answer any questions you may have about anything, and at the same time provide direction and support.

Studying without a teacher is more difficult if you don’t give yourself that direction you otherwise would get from the teacher. You have the full responsibility for your own learning and there is no one to hold your hand and tell you to do this or that.

You can give yourself that direction, but you need to be strict with yourself and set up clear goals for what you want to accomplish. You also need to decide on your own what materials you are going to be using. The most important thing is to stick to the materials that you have chosen once you get started. I am not saying you can’t find better materials, but at least keep one thing that you stick with no matter what. You need that consistency for your learning.

If you keep switching between beginners courses, you can keep doing that for years to come. The goal is to advance instead and eventually not even need to use learning materials at all. So choose one that you know you can stick with and that you know you will get results from. Whether it’s Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Teach Yourself, Assimil or any other course, choose one and stick with it all the way through. You can go back and go through other courses as well if you want, but at least start with one. I will write more about the different popular language courses there are out there that I have tried, so that it will be easier for you to choose one for yourself that suits your needs.

This might actually be the hardest part of getting started. I know that I myself have been stuck struggling to choose “the best course” and through doing that postponed learning anything at all for a long time. In my case I did this with Russian for a very long time.

If a method really doesn’t suite you, don’t be afraid of changing course. You should enjoy learning. If learning is only trudging through materials you don’t like, you are going to give up sooner or later.

Again I would like to make a case for getting a private tutor. He or she would be able to help you through the learning materials and speed you through the beginning stages of learning the language. Having a tutor would also hold you responsible to keep learning and not slacking off after a couple of days. With a tutor to guide you, you could more easily find materials that suite you and your learning style.

This article was written by Josef Wigren.

The most difficult step

Have you have ever dreamt about being able to speak Spanish fluently, being able to follow Anime completely without subtitles, or understanding the songs in your favourite Bollywood movies? I am here to tell you that you CAN! You don’t have to be a genius, move to a different country or set aside hours every day to learn. My point is, if you want to learn another language, you can!

The only thing holding you back from being able to is that you haven’t started yet.

The problem is not that you can’t find the perfect material, find the perfect teacher or having the right circumstances to learn. If you want to learn, the only thing you have to do is start. Start right now.

Take a moment right now and think of what language you want to learn. This article can wait, just write it down somewhere. Write “I am learning” followed by the language you have decided on.

Now that you know what it is that you want to learn, you can start acting on it. Don’t give excuses for why you can’t, or why you should wait with it. You have been carrying it around for quite some time already, so why would you want to push it further into the future? Today is the day you start! Go on, tell a friend about it, write it on your Facebook wall, tweet it out, make it public!

Congratulations! You are now enrolled and you owe it to yourself to take the next step in learning, to find material. I promise you, it’s not that difficult. Google is a great place to start. Just start by typing “Learning [language]” and see what you get. You can even get a lot of material on YouTube nowadays, so you might want to check that out too. :-)

Now suddenly you are not stuck in the limbo of wanting to learn. You can with confidence say that you have taken the first step. From now on, you just need to continue doing what you have started.

The next biggest secret to learning a language is to continue doing something every day. As long as you show up, you win. The day you stop, you lose. Don’t lose your language.

It gets particularly interesting when Luca points out that he was rather in Catalonia than in Spain as he says “estaba más en Cataluña que en España” which led to an engaging talk about historic, linguistic and football rivalry.

In the second part of the interview Luca shares his thoughts on rivalry which exists between Spanish speakers living in Latin America and Spain. He points out that before he started uploading videos on youtube he was not really aware of that.

In the third part of the interview we discussed whether it is efficient to study a language with a “non-native tutor”. The truth is that many native speakers take their own language ‘for granted’ and in many cases native tutors might not be aware of the difficulties that foreigners experience when learning.

В этом видео я делюсь своими соображениями о том как стоит подходить к изучению языка. Основная идея: “Нужно брать и делать”. Понемногу и каждый день ну или 5 дней в неделю. Через пол года будут видны результаты.

In this video I gladly share my thoughts on how to go about learning languages. The main idea is that if and whenever you feel like letting something new in your inner world you’d need to make a room for it. In other words, there is always going to be a tradeoff. Amir.

Согласно определению, которое даётся в Википедии Лингвистический Коучинг чаще всего ассоциируется с изучением английского. Но в тоже время коучинг заметно отличается от “традиционного” изучения языка. Предпологается что Лингвистический Коучинг – более увлекательный. Более того ученики в праве самостоятельно выбирать темы для изучения.

В одном из моих видео, которые я представил интересную статистику:

Достаточно знать 500 самых часто употребляемых слов, чтобы понять 70% художественного текста на английском языке. Зная 1000 слов можно понять, 80,5% текста. По мере того как вы узнаёте больше слов способность понимать улучшается следующим образом:
500 - 70% (как это уже было сказано)
1000 – 80,5%
2000 - 86%
3000 - 90%
5000 - 93,5%
10000 - 96,4%

Тем не менее, создание прочной базы требует не только механического запоминания часто используемых слов а также умения связывать эти самые слова. Эту тему хочу обсудить в своей следующей заметке.

Амир Батькович Ордабаев