How to Learn Swedish: 37 Lessons from My 6 Months Living in Sweden

When I realized I was going to have the chance to spend six months working in Sweden, I naturally got interested in the Swedish language. More so, when I started getting work emails I needed Google Translate to read. Even more so when I landed and couldn’t read the signs around me or understand anything people were saying. I decided I needed to learn Swedish. Towards the end of my time in Sweden, I went to Norway for the Starmus Science Festival. Stephen Hawking, moonwalkers and other astronauts, Nobel Prize winners and other intellectual stars lit up the stage in Trondheim, but I was struck linguistically by Norwegian. I knew it was similar to Swedish, but now I really 'got it'. It truly hit home that I'd learned some Viking. So, let’s dive in. Here’s a crash course in how to speak Swedish -- or as it could well be called: “how to learn Viking”. I went into this mission speaking English and German - and as Swedish is a Germanic language, I found this background knowledge really useful. Here are the 34 lessons I picked up in my time learning Swedish. Some of them are specific to Swedish, some of them will be useful for learning any language. Here goes:

How to Learn Swedish: The First Steps

Before you start learning a language, it’s best to find out about some of its features. This is so you can size up the challenge ahead, decide on a good strategy and jump in with some ‘feel’ for where you are headed. Lesson 1: Context is everything in language learning. Oddly, I was thrown in at the deep end but quite enjoyed it. One of the things with beginner language learning is that it’s well, so simple. That’s of course where you need to begin if you want to speak, but the meaty stuff comes farther along. My first exposure to Swedish was very advanced: emails from my University Department. The downside was that I couldn’t read hardly any of it, but the upside was that it was meaningful. I needed to understand these emails for my job. Lesson 2: Google Translate is your friend. I set about translating with Google Translate. I found it works pretty well but still makes some gaffs that you just have to look past. So, I knew I could rely on it as a tool, but only when taken with a grain of salt. Lesson 3: Look for cognates - the words you already know. Reading emails was a quick way of sizing up the types and numbers of cognates. Speaking both English and German, I had a good head start on Swedish, but was surprised how much of it looked ‘very different’. Lesson 4: Guess where you can - but take good note of when you guess wrong - and why. Often, when I compared my guesses to translations, I saw a lot of fuzz. Cognates I missed, especially because of the spelling and cognates I got wrong because they aren’t what they look like. My estimation of the challenge rose. Lesson 5: Use Google Translate’s audio feature. I used Google Translate to listen to my emails. My estimation of the difficulties of learning Swedish rose higher. What I was reading wasn’t looking a lot like what I was hearing. I was longing for good old German – where what you see is what you get. Lesson 6: Understand how well (or not) the spoken and written versions of your language match. I would learn much later that this in German what you see is what you get because the language was written down for the first time much later than Swedish. This means Swedish sounded one way when it was first written and is quite different today. Lesson 7: Keep note of all the words you’ve learned or want to learn. From Day 1, I took time to keep a digital record of the words I wanted to learn. I started a Google spreadsheet. Lesson 8: Focus on learning the words that matter to you - not what the phrasebooks tell you to learn. I built up a small and very specialist vocabulary specific to emails and my field. I learned to recognize words like nyheter (news), brev (letter), vidarebefordrat brev (forwarded email) Inbjudan (invitation), studenter (students) and phrases like Till alla medarbetare (to all employees). Lesson 9: Make a special effort to learn the “glue words.” I started to learn ‘the little words’. These ‘glue words’ occur so frequently, it’s best to learn straight off the bat. Three important glue words in Swedish are och (and), men (but) and “eller” (or). The sooner you conquer them, the better. Lesson 10: Two more essential glue words are en and ett. En is for animate and ett is for the inanimate definite article (a, an). Swedish condensed male and female a while back, which makes Swedish easier than German which retains the male, female, neuter (der, die, das) triumvirate. Lesson 11: Go with “en” when you’re unsure. I was told when in doubt go with en because it fits with some 85% of words. If people look at you funny, switch to ett. Lesson 12: There’s lots of romance in Swedish. Interestingly, I noted Swedish has a lot more romance language cognates than German. For example, “ice-cream” is glass, like the Italian glace, and “to write” is skriva. This makes Swedish an intriguing mix. I found out later this is due to an early influx from Latin and later from French. If you don’t already know a lot of French, this helps put into context unexpected letter combinations like fåtölj, from the French fauteuil, “armchair”. Lesson 13: Swedish word order is more akin to English than German. In fact, because of this, some say Norwegian is the easiest foreign language for an English speaker to learn. This is aided by the fact that Swedish is a subject-verb-object (SVO) like English, while German is SOV. Lesson 14: Adjectives come before nouns and are modified according to noun type (en or ett). Lesson 15: You’ll spend a lot of time on prepositions to get speaking idiomatic Swedish. Prepositions come before their nouns. This unlike a language such as Hindi, where they come after the noun. However, prepositions can be quite different in usage from their seeming equivalents in English. Lesson 16: While German capitalizes nouns, Swedish does not. In fact, it even drops caps from words we capitalize like nationalities, days of the week or months of the year. For example, on Sunday is på söndagen. Lesson 17: Immerse yourself as much as possible. With a dusting of recognition vocabulary, I hit the ground for a one-week visit. It confirmed just how widespread and beautifully spoken English is in Sweden. It can be hard to learn a new language in a country that speaks so much English, so well. Lesson 18: The first word to learn in any language is “thank you”. Then come the greetings “hello” and “goodbye”. I had long been saying ‘hey’ when I met friends, and I suddenly realized I fit into Sweden perfectly – hej is the primary greeting in Sweden. I felt more Swedish when I got to using hej hej and the same for thank you (tack). I now generally use tack tack. Lesson 19: Look for “cultural tokens” - words that you see all around you Along with the greetings, I managed to compile a list of the first 20 cultural tokens I encountered, like the famous köttbullar (meatballs) and kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls).

Learn to Speak Swedish: Living in Sweden

Lesson 20: Listen to all the words around you. Moving there, meant really trying to listen to Swedish, even though I only understood a little bit of what was being said. It was hard to escape the “English-bubble”, as most Swedish people speak fluent English, and would offer to speak with me in English. Lesson 21: Use what you know from other languages… to decipher as many cognates as possible. I decided to focus first on cracking the cognate patterns that would help me pick up the similarities to German as it would result in the quickest growth in my vocabulary and listening comprehension. For example, I saw betala in stores (on the cash register) and it took a bit to realize is it like bezahlen in German – to pay. Many of the cognates are shortened versions of the German (e.g. dropping of the ge- prefix). As I previously mentioned, there is also a lot of Latin in Swedish, so any knowledge you have of romance languages will come in useful too. Lesson 22: Don’t stick in your comfort zone of cognates forever. A huge turning point came being forced to do laundry in a communal room – I had to decipher the instructions for booking a time to use the machines: Ah! Those Norse words! The neighbour caught me using the wrong machine. Ah! Tvätt! My eyes missed the stickers on the washers saying tvätt 1 and tvätt 2. In typical Swedish fashion, he was incredibly nice and helpful and explained it means laundry. It was a eureka moment. I had to stop skipping those Viking words in favour of the more comfort-inducing German and French cognates. Lesson 23: Relish the unfamiliar. The Norse words became my favorites. Norse sticks out a mile for the wonderful letter combinations like: snygg (good looking), sjö (lake), kvinna (woman), pojke (boy). These are clearly north Germanic and not anything like the words you find in modern German. Lesson 24: Focus on a particular type of vocabulary you want to learn and build your specialist vocabulary. My second ‘breakthrough’ was to not try to be a vocabulary jack-of-all-trades. I went where it was natural to go: food. My practical exposure to Swedish was shopping for food, menus in cafes and my search for Swedish recipes. When you love something, it’s infinitely easier to stay motivated. Lesson 25: Enjoy the buzz when you’ve learned enough to recognize words in the real world. The first recipe I followed in Swedish was for a classic Swedish cheese pie! Because of this I got my first ‘word reward’, being able to read a sign for hot chocolate with cream in my favorite café. I’d just learned the word from cream (grädde). Things were starting to ‘add up’ – an excellent sign. Lesson 26: Make your phone support your learning. I invested in downloading the core Swedish vocabulary for Google Translate so I could use the image recognition feature to decode labels and recipes: as a treat, I would occasionally buy the glossy magazine Mat and Vin (Food and Wine), which I loved.

My Two Month Swedish Crash Course

After 8 weeks living in Sweden, I decided to take Swedish seriously and do my own “Swedish crash course”. Lesson 27: Set yourself a goal. I set myself a goal of two months to be able to ‘read Swedish’. For me, this meant understanding the ‘easy-Swedish’ on the news site 8sidor.se. This clear focus really helped. At first, I could read hardly anything on 8sidor.se. By week 6 I could read 75% of the content of stories and by week 7, I could do 100% on some. Today, for example, reading an article on Elton John, I only needed to look up hedrade (honoured), drabbas (suffer) and grindarna (gates) and I have gained a sense of familiarity with the language that is comforting even if I have a long way to go. Lesson 28: Give yourself a set amount of time per day. Short, intense bursts of focused concentration can prove invaluable, as long as you’re really able to concentrate. The crash course approach was my best phase of learning Swedish. I spent at least an hour a day, often more. Working intensively proved exponentially helpful as I saw words in many contexts in a short period of time. Intensive bursts of learning really help with reinforcement if you are consuming a wide range of materials. Lesson 29: Go for the top 1,000 words in your new language. I crammed vocabulary. Like an athletic boot camp, I conquered 1,000 of the easiest, highest frequency words. I used Quizlet flashcards. I’d listen and watch while commuting. It helps hugely to learn the high frequency words first: never waste your time on low frequency words until you’re ready for them. Lesson 30: Use online resources and videos. I learned off the web, especially YouTube, and focused on active listening: I looked for resources to help my listening, reading, and comprehension all at once. Lesson 31: ABBA! I found out that ABBA recorded in Swedish. In particular, I listened to “En av oss” over and over again watching with English subtitles. The vocabulary of the song “One of us” is helpfully simple and straightforward. For fun, I looked at a lot of lyrics in translation – they are different. I found they were quite different. Good to bear in mind if you know the English lyrics and expect to hear them verbatim in Swedish – you won’t. Lesson 32: The Swedish alphabet is different to English I learned there are 3 extra letters – it’s not an umlaut like in German (for a missing “e”) but three real letters at the end of the alphabet. The vowels are really complex in Swedish – and there are hard and soft versions. Swedish is what’s called a pitch language. This explains the unique second upturn in many words and gives the language its musical lilt Lesson 33: Knowing some grammar helps you make a lot more sense of what you’re reading. Learning grammar rules helped me distinguish words by their endings and thus significantly help with reading comprehension: One tricky aspect of Swedish is the lack of a word ‘the’, rather the definite article is appended to the end of each noun and is different in singular and plural. This takes some getting used to. Verbs are actually easier than English: there is no equivalent of ‘ing’, there are only five tenses, and verbs stay the same for all the pronouns. Passives ends in ‘s’ as do possessive forms of nouns. Adjectives have endings that match their nouns (based on en or ett). Adverbs never change – thank goodness something is static. Later I learned that many adverbs end in ‘t’. Lesson 34: Bring it all together with dialogue. Pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary all come together when listening to simple dialogues. I decided to focus to this video, Useful everyday phrases - Super Easy Swedish 1, subtitled in Swedish and English, to so some ‘deep learning’. This means comprehending to the point that you can hear the sentences in your head and recreate them, including with substitute words. This is the life-blood of speaking. Learning to Speak Swedish: Lessons with a Teacher My crash course over, I felt ready to start speaking with a Swedish teacher. I had gotten inside reading, but I wanted to pop the English-bubble in terms of speaking. Here’s what I learned with my teacher. Lesson 35: Read aloud to force yourself to speak… and improve your pronunciation. With my teacher’s help, I read aloud from books to work on pronunciation. This series of videos, “Träna att tala”, shows just how ‘red’ Swedish text can be when you mark up the differences between written and spoken Swedish. There was a lot to learn, but it helped immensely with my listening comprehension. Lesson 36: Learn basic sentences structures. I did this with both English and German sentences to see the extent of the difference - and the differences are numerous! Swedish really is a mix of German, English and a lot of its own stuff too (that Viking!). This exercise proved how different Swedish is to German and English, and created interesting challenges triangulating between English, German and novice spoken Swedish. Lesson 37: Make yourself a cheat sheet. During the last lesson, I created myself a ‘cheat sheet’ full of basic conversational statements and questions. The devil is in the details. In many ways, I ended where I should have started. Many people dispense with grammar and jump right to basic conversation but I would have been too curious about the “why’s” to sit still. And it left the best for last -- conversation.

My Next Step in Speaking Swedish: Towards ‘Talking to Learn’

Now that I’ve left Sweden, I would love to go back. I’m still trying to read the news in Swedish, and I’ve taken to watching Swedish movies with English subtitles. I can’t recommend “En man som heter Ove” highly enough. My next step is to pick up with my list of basic statements and questions and go from there, building up a core set of phrases and sentences I can say with confidence. I now have a vocabulary that far exceeds what I would have attained if I’d spent my time learning to speak basic touristic Swedish. I was just too keen to read ‘real world Swedish’ not to invest my time being a bookworm. After this long and enjoyable ‘prequel’, I’m prepped to get to my end goal of “talking to learn”. Are you learning Swedish? I’d love to hear about that. Tell me why you’re learning Swedish, and the steps you’re taking to learn in the comments.

The post How to Learn Swedish: 37 Lessons from My 6 Months Living in Sweden appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2xd6WAe

Spanish Vocab Builder #114 - Food - Utensils & Tableware

Learn Spanish with SpanishPod101.com! Our Spanish vocabulary lists are listener favorites, and now we’ve made it even better! In each lesson, you’ll hear the Spanish words and phrases from the Spanish vocabulary lists. Join us for Spanish Vocab Builder! Click here to make your own flashcards using the vocab and phrases introduced in this lesson! Visit [...]

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2fdiQp3

News #240 - New! 3 Reasons Why You’ll Love the Upgraded Spanish Lesson Library

Download AudioDownload Premium Learning CenterDownload Lesson Transcript

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2xqRXEK

French Idioms Crash Course: How to Sound Like a Native French Speaker

So you want to speak French like a local. Perhaps not exactly like a native speaker, but like someone who lives there. You can sound like a French speaker even though you're a complete beginner in the language. It's possible. I've done it in Portuguese. My knowledge of Portuguese is extremely limited. I only know how to say a few dozen words. Admittedly, I already know French and Spanish, which helps a lot for guessing Portuguese words since so many of them are similar across these languages. But when it comes to native-like pronunciation, no guesswork will do the trick. If I come up with a sentence made up of guessed words, people typically understand me. But it's obvious to them I'm a visitor. A tourist. The same goes if I use words I've only learned through reading: I sound like a visitor.

How to Sound French: Imitate

Here's the deal: the only way you'll ever stand a chance of sounding like a local, albeit one with a foreign accent, is by listening to and imitating the locals. And by imitating, I mean learning complete phrases, like a parrot. Not just repeating the words, but copying the exact sounds, the tone, the music. But imitation goes even further than that. You also need to mimic body language. The movements of the hands, head, arms. Body posture. Our brain detects all these things when evaluating whether a person is a local or not. The funny thing is, your accent - or lack thereof - is not that important. If you've ever spent time in New York, you may know what I mean. Many New Yorkers have foreign accents. Yet no one can question their New Yorker status. It's about the words and phrases they use. Their intonations. Their body gestures. More generally speaking, their attitude. Typically, only people who have lived in a place for long enough have integrated these things. Can you fool people in a country into thinking you've been living there for a while? I believe so. In the following section, I'm going to show you some examples of phrases French locals use every day. And I really mean "show". You're going to watch a few very short video clips with animated dialogues that use some common phrases and expressions. Try to watch, listen, and imitate. If you can reproduce the sounds and gestures of these characters, you'll be on your way to localdom! Ready? Let's get rolling.

How to Make a Suggestion Like a French Native

http://ift.tt/2whVaHC Ça te dirait de sortir ? Ah ouais, génial ! Native French speakers use the expression "ça te dirait de ..." very frequently to suggest an activity. The equivalent in English would be "what do you say we ..." Other examples : "Ça te dirait d'aller au cinéma ?" "Ça te dirait de dîner à la maison ?" “Ah ouais !" shows an enthusiastic reaction. "Génial !" is a common way to say "great", "awesome". A common alternative is "super !”

How to Arouse Suspicion in French

http://ift.tt/2fnItQG Dis donc Christine ! C'est toi qui a pris mon biscuit sur la table ? Moi ? Non ! Je lisais mon bouquin ! The phrase "dis donc !" is very commonly used in French to get someone's attention and let them know we're about to say something important. What follows may be something good or bad. In this case, the boy is making an accusation. Other examples of using "dis donc": "Dis donc ! tu as vu cet éléphant ! "Dis donc, tu es très forte toi !" The boy asks "c'est toi qui a pris ... ?" That's a common way of expressing suspicion of someone, accusing someone. "C'est toi qui a cassé cette assiette ?" "C'est toi qui a utilisé mon téléphone ?" The girl replies by denying: "Moi ? Non !" and gives her alibi: "Je lisais mon bouquin !" "Bouquin" means "livre" in informal spoken French.

What to Say When Someone Sneezes

http://ift.tt/2whaJiq Atchoum ! A tes souhaits ! Merci ! When someone sneezes, you say to them "A tes souhaits !" That's somewhat equivalent to the English "bless you". If you don't know the person, you'll use "à vos souhaits" instead, a more formal variant. The person who sneezed will respond with "merci !" If you know the person well, you may alternatively say "à tes amours !" which is a humorous equivalent. If the person sneezes several times, you may chain the following - after each sneeze: "à tes souhaits !", "à tes amours !", "qu'ils durent toujours !" I usually avoid literal translation since it's important to learn phrases directly in French with the supporting visual context. I'll make an exception for these because I think they're quite funny: the above sneezing phrases literally mean: "to your wishes", "to your loves", "may they last forever".

How to Finish a French Conversation

http://ift.tt/2fokBwy Euh excuse-moi, il faut que j'y aille ! Mais ça m'a fait vraiment plaisir de te voir. "Excuse-moi" is a common way of apologizing in French - although the French have been increasingly using "désolé(e)", probably from the growing influence of the English language. But "excuse-moi" or "excusez-moi" remains a proper way to apologize, including in informal French. "Il faut que j'y aille" means the person has to leave, she has to go somewhere, as the "y" suggests (in this case it means "there"). It's an informal, everyday expression we use to express the fact we need to leave because we have a commitment. "Ça m'a fait plaisir de te voir" is a polite phrase to say when leaving someone, similar to what we would say in English. In this excerpt, the girl is actually eager to end the conversation which she finds boring. She adds the last phrase to soften the fact that she's "bailing out". However, you may use that same phrase sequence when ending a pleasant conversation with a person you were happy to see again.

How to Talk About Your New Boyfriend or Girlfriend

http://ift.tt/2whaKTw J'ai rencontré quelqu'un ! Oh mais c'est une super nouvelle, ça ! The expression "j'ai rencontré quelqu'un" in spoken French typically applies to the romantic realm. It means we've found a new boyfriend / girlfriend. In everyday life, we may of course say "j'ai rencontré quelqu'un" to mean we've run into someone.But generally we provide additional details about the person we've run into. By contrast, "j'ai rencontré quelqu'un !" as a standalone phrase typically refers to a romantic encounter. The boy replies saying "c'est une super nouvelle !" , a very common way of expressing joy when hearing good news. Notice the "oh mais" that precedes the phrase. This is typically used to accentuate the exclamation that follows. For example, if someone asks you "tu aimes le poisson ?" You may answer "j'adore le poisson !" But if you're really enthusiastic about eating fish, you may say "oh mais j'adore le poisson !" which makes your response more forceful. Another way of emphasizing exclamation is to append "ça !" as is the case in "Oh mais c'est une super nouvelle, ça ! It's much like saying "now that is great news !"

How to Introduce People in French

http://ift.tt/2fnIunI Alors : Roger voici Anne, Anne voici Roger ! This is a very typical way to introduce people : [person1] voici [person2], [person2] voici [person1]. An alternative to "voici" is to say "je te présente", or if you don't know the person well, "je vous présente". Note the word "Alors :" at the start of the sentence : it serves to prepare the people involved for what's coming, getting their attention before making the introduction. In some cases you may need to introduce one person to another but not the other way around, for example if the second person is well known. In that case you may just say [person2] voici / je vous présente [person1].

How to Sell Things in French

http://ift.tt/2whaLqy Bon, alors vous en voulez combien ? Euh, j'en demande 4000 euros... A typical way to ask for the selling price in a person-to-person type transaction is to say "combien en voulez-vous ?" or, a more informal variant, "vous en voulez combien ?" For example, if you see an advertisement for a car for sale and call the seller, you may ask them "vous en voulez combien ?" An alternative is "vous en demandez combien ?", substituting "demander" for "vouloir". The two can be used interchangeably in this common expression. As a reply, the seller says "j'en demande 4000 euros". It means, "je demande 4000 euros pour cet objet", or "j'en veux 4000 euros". Note that in a retail setting, such as a store, you typically don't ask "vous en voulez combien ?". Instead you may say "combien coûte ce [object]" or "quel est le prix de cet [object]". Or even "c'est combien ?"

How to Finish Your Order in a French Restaurant

http://ift.tt/2fokEbI Autre chose ? Euh, voyons voir ... Non, ce sera tout. Typically, after you order something, the clerk or salesperson will ask "autre chose ?" which means "Voulez-vous autre chose ?" That's for checking whether your order is complete. You may hesitate about adding other items to your order, and take a few seconds to think about it. If that's the case you can say "voyons voir ..." which is a way to say "let me think ...", "let's see ..." If you don't want to add anything to your order, you can say "ce sera tout". The clerk will then process your order and generate the bill so you can pay. For example, in a store you order a few items. Then the salesperson asks "autre chose ?". You answer "non, ce sera tout" or "non c'est tout". He/she then wraps your items and tells you the total price you need to pay.

How to Thank Someone for Nothing

http://ift.tt/2whaMe6 Ah OK, je vois ... Bon, merci quand même ... In spoken, informal French, we often say "ah OK, je vois !" when we figure out something. For example, you ask a person for an explanation about what's going on in the street. After hearing the explanation, things are now clear to you, and you may say "ah OK, je vois". However, the expression is also used in situations where you find out things are not what they appear to be. In such cases "ah OK, je vois ..." indicates disillusionment, frustration. For example, it suddenly becomes clear to you the person you're talking to is not what she appears to be, or is trying to get something from you. In this clip, the phrase is followed by "bon, merci quand même ..." It's a polite way of thanking someone even though you feel they haven't helped you in any way. For example, you ask someone for directions, but the person replies with useless information because they clearly don't know anything. You may say "merci quand même" before leaving, and ask someone else. In some cases, "merci quand même" is meant to send the person a message that they have not been helpful. It's a bit like saying "thanks for nothing". In this clip, for example, it's clear the man is quite annoyed and frustrated by whatever the other person said. There are also situations, however, in which the person has done their best to help, albeit unsuccessfully. You may say "merci quand même" to show appreciation for their efforts.

How to Say You Don’t Have Enough Money

http://ift.tt/2fnIvYO Et toi, tu en as ? Euh, j'en ai pas beaucoup ... In this clip, the girl asks the boy if he has any money - the word "money" is not heard in this clip, it was mentioned in an earlier section of the full video. She says "tu en as ?" meaning, in this context, "tu as de l'argent ?" The boy replies with "j'en ai pas beaucoup". It's an informal, colloquial way of saying "je n'en ai pas beaucoup" which is the grammatically correct form of the phrase. It's also the form we'd use in writing. In spoken French, we often use this phrase to say we have little, or none, of something. It's sometimes used to turn down a share request. For example, if someone asks you "tu peux me donner un peu de frites ?", you may reply "ah j'en ai pas beaucoup ...", meaning "sorry but no". Another example : "tu crois qu'il a des amis ?" "Non, il en a pas beaucoup ..." which may in fact mean he does not have any friends.

Use These Phrases, and You Will Sound More French

So there you have it. You now have a few keys to start sounding like a French speaking local. Watch and practise the short clips until you imitate the characters to perfection. Of course, these are just a few phrases and expressions for use in given situations. But if you get the hang of it, you can easily find many more. Make sure to always look for video for context and body language. Armed with such a solid idiomatic and pronunciation foundation, you'll be ready to dive into a real-life immersion in a French speaking country. You'll be amazed to watch your listening and speaking skills skyrocket. Take my word for it, I've been there!

The post French Idioms Crash Course: How to Sound Like a Native French Speaker appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2fokL7e

CBI 2.16 | Abbiamo imparato molto!

It’s time to think about the past. We’ve already seen examples of the Perfect Tense, one of the main Italian tenses used to talk about what happened in the past, but so far we’ve not learned exactly how to use it. In this lesson you’ll be learning to form the past participle of -are, -ere and -ire verbs and how you combine these with the verb avere to form the Perfect Tense.

Listen to the episode

The audio lesson is free, as are all the main audio lessons of Coffee Break Italian. Use the audio player to listen to the lesson, or subscribe in iTunes to receive this lesson and all future lessons automatically. If you can’t see the player below, click here to access the lesson.

Accessing the Premium Version

The premium version of Coffee Break Italian provides additional materials which will help you move forward more effectively with your Italian studies.
The premium version includes the following elements:

• video flashcards: listen to each lesson and see the words and phrases covered in the lesson displayed on the screen of your computer, phone or tablet (mp4 format);
• bonus audio materials: use our review lessons to practise the language covered in the main lesson, and to pick up some useful bonus vocabulary (mp3 format);
• comprehensive lesson notes: study the language of each lesson in greater detail and access additional information about the Italian language (pdf format).

The members’ version can be accessed on the Coffee Break Academy.

Subscribe links

Subscribe in iTunes | RSS Feed | Purchase members’ audio and transcripts

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2vTnjAb

Learn Spanish Conversations with Animation — Absolute Beginner #3 - Why are you here?

Download Lesson NotesDownload Video VocabDownload Premium Learning Center

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2xXuDve

How I Learnt Spanish, Italian and Portuguese for the Price of a Beer

I sat in the sunshine in a cafe in my new adopted city of Seville, chatting to a Spanish friend about life in Andalusia. We talked about southern Spanish traditions, the prospects for young people and of course, the fiestas of the month that we would attend. And I did this all in Spanish. A few months previously, I would stutter on even the simplest Spanish phrases, having studied the language for years but never really practiced with native speakers.

After Years of Spanish Study, I Still Mixed Up “Gracias” and “Hola”

Before moving to Spain I had been learning Spanish on and off for around six years. I decided that this would be the year I finally became fluent. From my studies, I’d worked up to a B1 level in Spanish. But my Spanish skills had receded, after having lived in Rome for one year and learning Italian. My Spanish conversational level was still a strong A2, functional but basic. That said, at the start of my trip, I walked into a bakery and said "gracias" instead of "hola"! Though I had a solid base in Spanish, I still found it difficult to hold conversations with native speakers. What’s more, I was living in Andalusia, a region renowned for having one of the hardest Spanish accents for learners. As I sat chatting with my friend in the cafe, listening to my friend speak Spanish, I realised my Spanish was getting better and stronger. Even my friend had noticed. "Wow! You speak a lot better than last time," he said sounding quite perplexed. I had only been in Seville a few weeks; how could I be more fluent than I was last week? Wasn't learning a language supposed to take years instead of weeks?

My Language Learning “Formula”: Beer and Facebook

I used the same formula to learn Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. With each language I learned, the time it took to reach fluency decreased. This was partly because I recycled the techniques that worked and partly because they're all Latin languages, so a lot of the vocabulary and grammar is shared. In fact, after becoming fluent in Spanish and Italian, all it took was a language-learning CD and a few weeks in Porto, Portugal to get to a conversational level of Portuguese. I had the same routine for each language I learned: meeting up with native speakers in cafes for a “language exchange” arranged on Facebook. Each exchange only cost me the price of the beer, coffee or sangria from the cafe and a few hours of my time. The language exchanges I organised were always free for both of us, as we would spend half the time speaking Spanish and half the time speaking English, so we both benefitted. Any free time I had was devoted to improving my Spanish. Some of my friends balked at this, saying that it must be exhausting doing so many language exchanges per day, but what's exhausting about meeting new people, learning, eating tapas and going for drinks? It was incredible fun and in six months living in Barcelona, Cadiz, Granada and Seville, I had done over one hundred language exchanges, made new friends and memories and of course, significantly improved my Spanish.

It’s Easier than You Might Think to Find Work Overseas

Facebook and beer were my main tools for improving my Spanish, that and a willingness to make mistakes all day long and meet new people everyday. But to make the most of these tools, I needed to move to the country whose language I planned to learn. Now, it's true that you don't need to move to the country to learn a language, for me, immersion has always been a fun way of learning a language. You get to live in a new culture, travel, make new friends and learn the language in context. How did I manage to live and work overseas? Using Workaway, I searched for work-exchanges in hostels. Hostels are a great way of moving to a country to learn a language: you have an instant social life with the other workers, access to staff who are probably from the area, free rent, an awesome central location, a flexible work schedule and sometimes food and pocket money are included. As an alternative, au pairing can work well, but your schedule will be more restricted, your hours longer and sometimes you will be employed only to speak English to the children. That said, you will likely earn more as an au pair compared to doing a work-exchange in a hostel. I worked around twenty hours per week in hostels and relied on savings as the placements were not all paid. But with beer as cheap as €0.33 for a caña (a very petite Spanish beer) and food included, I barely had any expenses. And I made some extra money by teaching English on the side, which helped keep me afloat financially. This was my foundation from which I learned a language and organised language exchanges for myself.

Here’s How I Used Facebook to Arrange Language Exchanges

As soon as I settled into my hostel, I used Facebook to find native Spanish/Italian/Portuguese speakers. Using Facebook's search bar, I would type: [Name of city] + [Language exchange] And: [Name of city in target language] + [translation of the word for "exchange" in target language] So, for example, when I lived in Granada I would search:

• Granada Language Exchange
• Granada Learn English
• Granada Intercambios (translation: Granada Exchanges)
• Granada English
• Granada Inglés (translation: Granada English)
• Granada idiomas (translation: Granada Languages)

It's important to use lots of different combinations in both English and your target language because you want to find as many groups as possible. Make sure to include the name of your city in English and your target language and to type the above search terms in both languages, with as many relevant words as you can think of. Add yourself to every single group you find. I normally added myself to at least ten groups per city. In each group would post the same message. Here’s the exact script I used:

Hola! Soy una chica Inglesa y estoy buscando españoles para hacer intercambios de idioma. Si alguien quiere mejorar su Ingles y tomar algo, estaría encantada! Cualquier cosa, hablame por privado. Muchas gracias.

Translation: "Hi! I'm English and looking for Spanish people to do language exchanges with. If anyone wants to improve their English and grab a coffee or beer then send me a private message, thank you." I always wrote this message in the target language and would copy and paste this onto the wall of all the Facebook groups I joined. Most language groups had hundreds, if not thousands of people on the page, so the post would get a lot of traction and I sometimes got as many as sixty requests in one city. One by one I would respond to each message inviting them for a coffee or a caña and arranging a day to meet through private messages. I tested a few different approaches and found that it's better if you ask people to message you in private as they tend to tell you more about who they are and where they're from, rather than just letting people comment on the post, as the most they'll say is "I'm interested!" People are also more likely to respond to a private message than a long trail of comments on a single post. I always tried to make plans quickly with the other person - ideally in the next couple of days. Otherwise it's too easy to lose momentum. Some people would be a bit surprised and asked if I wanted to chat a bit online first, but you can't really waste time getting bogged down in endless online chat. I often needed to learn the language in a few months, so met up with every single person who responded!

More Hints and Tips on Arranging Language Exchanges

Tip 1: Speaking English Gives You a Big Advantage

If you’re a native English speaker you will be at an advantage, as in countries like Spain and Italy the level of English is low and many youngsters are keen to learn it for work and potentially moving abroad, so you will be flooded with requests for an exchange. On the flip side, my approach doesn’t work as well in countries where the level of English is high. In Portugal, for example, the level of English is high and more on par with Germany than Spain and Italy, so the only responses to my language exchange requests came from a few Brazilians living in Portugal.

Tip 2: Keep it Local: Small Cities are Better than Big Cities (Smaller cities are better than bigger cities?)

Living in smaller cities accelerated my language learning and I recommend places like Cadiz over bigger cities like Barcelona. Though I only spent three weeks in Cadiz, I met so many people and made a lot of friends. In Barcelona, it was harder to meet people and the logistics of doing language exchanges were a nightmare, simply because it took a lot of time (and money) to get from one side of the city to the other.

Tip 3: Connect with International Students

Smaller cities with a university typically have a strong Erasmus community, which can be a boon if you want to practice other European languages. As I spoke Italian and Spanish, Erasmus and other international student groups were fantastic exposure and Erasmus students are a friendly bunch.

Tip 4: Carry a Notebook to All Your Language Exchanges

As you are doing so many language exchanges, it's important to establish best practices, as you don't want to waste those hours. I always carried a notebook with me and got my language exchange partners to jot down useful words and phrases, which I would then upload as flashcards on my phone, using Anki. I then tried to ensure that I used them in conversation in the next few days.

Tip 5: You Don’t Have to Drink Beer!

My method also works for non-drinkers! I only drank beer in the language exchanges because at €0.33 for a caña it ended up being cheaper than coffee and even water. I would try and ensure that my language exchanges were at least one hour in English and one hour in Spanish, so that even if I had three in one day, I would spend around €0.99 for three drinks, six hours of socialising and meeting Spanish people and three hours of actually speaking Spanish. So, this ended up being far cheaper than doing classes and a much more effective way of getting speaking practice.

What Level Did I Reach in Spanish?

I ended up with so much speaking practice that I reached a strong B2 level after 3 months. I probably could have reached this goal sooner, but all my friends working in the hostel with me were Italian, so I spoke Italian inside the hostel and Spanish outside of it. Initially it was hard switching between the two languages, but it ended up being fantastic practice because by the end, each language was a separate beast and my Italian went from B2 to C1. Incidentally, the same thing happened in Portugal, where everyone working in my hostel was Spanish and a lot of our guests were Italian, so I got to practice those while also doing Portuguese language exchanges. The hundreds of language exchanges I did in Spain, Portugal, Italy were amazing and the best memories I have of living abroad and learning a new language. So, if you want to live abroad, get to know a new culture and learn a language cheaply (or for free) whilst making new friends, make sure to organise your own one-on-one language exchanges, it'll be the most fun you have abroad!

The post How I Learnt Spanish, Italian and Portuguese for the Price of a Beer appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Shared by learntospeakspanishquickly.com: http://ift.tt/2eQY9eX