Episodio 110: Catalina de Erauso

We talk about a interesting Spanish historial figure: "The liutenant nun". She was a woman trying to look like a man. Learn Spanish with this episode. She was a personality of the Basque Country, Spain and Spanish America in the first half of the 17th century.

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Upper Intermediate Series #8 - Literature: ¿Descubrimiento o invasión?

Learn Spanish with Spanishpod101.com! We at Spanishpod101.com have never shied away from controversial topics. I mean really, we haven’t had any yet. Leave it to Kathy and Ana to bring us a lesson that deals with none other than the “conquest” of the Americas! Don’t get us wrong, the lesson isn’t all political. They also [...]

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Episode 6 (Preview) – Season 4 – Coffee Break Spanish

In this episode of our advanced Spanish course we listen to María’s latest diary entry in which she reveals an interesting story linked to her family’s past. As usual the episode is rich in idiomatic expressions and complex grammatical points.

In the preview episode available here on the Radio Lingua site, on iTunes and on Soundcloud, you’ll be able to listen to Carmen and Mark’s introduction, to the core text of this episode, and to the summary in English of what happens in the text. For a full analysis of the text and in-depth discussion of the words and phrases contained in the episode, you can subscribe to our premium version. For further information, please see below.

Accessing the Premium Version

The premium version of Coffee Break Spanish Season 4 provides additional materials which will help you move forward more effectively with your advanced studies of Spanish. The premium version includes the following elements:

• full-length audio episode: in each episode Mark and Carmen discuss the language covered in each text in depth, providing further examples and testing you on your understanding;
• transcript: a full transcript of the entire episode including notes on complex language and grammar points;
• bonus audio episode: test yourself on the key constructions included in the audio episode with this bonus audio translation exercise.

The members’ version can be accessed through our membership system. You can purchase a membership using the links below.

• Season 4: Lessons 1-40
  £79.00 GBP inc VAT / approx $112.00 USD ex VAT for non EU customers)

Subscribe links

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

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CBI 1-11B | Coffee Break Italian Competition Results

Well done to everyone who took part in our competition. We’ve chosen some of our favourite entries and compiled them into a special show. Listen at the links below. Special congratulations to Dan Dosch, who wins an Amazon Kindle Voyage. Complimenti a tutti!

Listen to the show

Listen to the special edition of Coffee Break Italian to hear some of our favourite entries.

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CBI 1-11 | Ordering drinks in Italian

It’s time for a new lesson of Italian. Join teacher Mark, learner Katie and native speaker Francesca in lesson 11 in our series and learn to order drinks in an Italian café.

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.

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 through our membership system. You can purchase a membership using the links below.

• Season 1: Lessons 1-40
  £79.00 GBP inc VAT / approx $112.00 USD ex VAT for non EU customers)

Subscribe links

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

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Culture File: Mexico #17 - PEMEX

Learn essential Mexican cultural information with SpanishPod101.com! In this 25-lesson English-language series, you’ll hear about cultural topics ranging from important economical activities and tourist destinations to history, influential figures, and traditions in Mexico. You’ll know more about Mexico than the locals in no time! In this lesson, you’ll learn about PEMEX, while building your Spanish vocabulary. [...]

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Episodio 109: Faltaría más

This expression can have several meanings depending on the situation or your voice tone. Discover how to use it! Practice your pronunciation and memorize this idiom with our examples and exercises. Transcript available: Faltaría más.

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News #175 - Exclusive Interview with Benny Lewis: Why Spanish Is Easier Than You Think

What if you could make learning Spanish easy, simply by changing your approach? Benny Lewis, founder of the world’s most popular language blog, Fluent in 3 Months, has launched an e-Book that makes Spanish easy to learn. We love Benny’s approach to language learning, so we dropped him a line. Click here to [...]

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The 8 Biggest Mistakes Language Learners Make (And How to Fix Them!)

Get a fast pass, and avoid the mistakes I share in this article…

Today I’m launching a new series of six language hacking guides to help people learn languages the fast way.

The guides cover French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and English.

This weekend only you can get them for a very special introductory price. Check out the deal here.

Now, onto the blog post…

If I asked you to name some language learning mistakes, what would you say?

Bad pronunciation? Not knowing the right words? Messing up grammar?

These are pretty common mistakes, and people make them all the time when learning a language.

But these aren’t the mistakes that will hold you back as a language learner.

In fact, these “mistakes” – having limited vocab, messing up grammar, having a thick accent – are a natural and necessary part of the learning process. So, they’re not really mistakes at all.

Today I’d like to share with you eight of the most common mistakes that will hold you back. I see language learners struggling with these issues every day. Don’t be one of them!

Luckily, although these mistakes will stall your language learning, they are easy to fix, just by making a few small changes in your mindset. Language hacking is all about mindset.

Language Learning Mistake #1: Freaking out about Making Mistakes

Mistakes are an essential part of learning languages (or learning anything, really). So don’t beat yourself up about them.

Think about it. There’s no way that you can reach fluency without making lots and lots (and lots) of mistakes. It’s utterly impossible. So why even try to avoid them? Instead, embrace being a beginner and accept that it means you’ll feel out of your comfort zone for a while.

The purpose of making mistakes it to learn from them. An excellent strategy is to learn your lesson as quickly as possible and move on, better and stronger than you were before.

If your experience of learning a language is filled with stressful emotions you’re much more likely to give up. By avoiding speaking until you can say things “perfectly”, you’ll silence yourself. Worrying too much about being perfect will paralyze you.

Always remember that mistakes are the gateway to improvement and are essential to our development. Without mistakes your progress will stall.

The Language Hacker’s Fix for Making Mistakes

Learn to love your mistakes.

At the very least, learn to learn from your mistakes. At the end of each day take a few moments to write down the mistakes you made with your language learning. Then, next to each mistake write what you learned from the mistake and how you can improve your process the next time around. After a while your mind will naturally start to shift from being stressed out about your mistakes to looking at them as an opportunity for improvement.

I have a very easy-going attitude with mistakes in language learning. They are so necessary that I have a goal to make at least 200 mistakes a day when I’m in my most intensive learning mode! By saying things wrong 200 times, I know I’m using the language, and I know I’m learning how to say them right as fast as possible.

Language Learning Mistake #2: Thinking You’ll Never Pronounce it Right

With hundreds of different sound units (phonemes) in the world’s languages – between 300 to 600, depending on who you ask – it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

It seems like an uphill battle when tackling the German “ch”, Chinese tones, or the long strings of consonants in Czech and Russian. Even when you look at a really familiar word like “radiation” in a language like French, it’s pronounced closer to “Hhah-dee-ah-see-ong”, which is very different from what you’d expect as an English speaker.

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

It isn’t that these words are hard to pronounce, but that English pronunciation and spelling rules are so weird.

Think about it. Why is the “ough” spelling pronounced so differently in though, through, plough and cough? As an English speaker you have an advantage of already being comfortable in a language filled to bursting point with complicated phonetic rules. If you can learn English pronunciation then it’s a safe bet you can learn to pronounce any language.

The Language Hacker’s Fix for Pronunciation

Identify the phonetic rules in your target language that give you the most trouble.

Then take a list of words (ideally relevant to you, such as where you’re from, your hobbies, your work, or studies) and try to say them yourself. You can check your pronunciation from home by searching for the words on Forvo.com to see how native speakers pronounce them. After a while you’ll start to internalize the patterns.

Repeat the words again and again, and muscle memory will eventually take over. Your mouth and tongue will have a bit of work to do at first to learn how to make these new sounds. But with repetition, you’ll eventually be pronouncing even the toughest words with ease.

Language Learning Mistake #3: Getting Tangled up with Grammar

Yes, the language you are studying has grammar. And yes, some of the grammar might be “hard”. But guess what? Every language also has aspects of grammar which are easy!

There are two related mistakes people make with grammar. The first is ignoring those aspects of the grammar that make the language much easier. For example, you’ll never need to conjugate verbs in Chinese or know noun cases in Italian. Don’t forget to embrace the parts of grammar that make things easy!

The second grammar mistake is to focus on the details of “hard” grammar without stepping back to see how things can be simplified. Genders in languages like French are much easier when you realize it isn’t about the word, but about the last letter(s) of the word! Even truly tough aspects like the rules of plurals in German have clever shortcuts you can use.

Every language has these “hacks” that can simplify the grammar and make learning much easier.

The Language Hacker’s Fix for Grammar

Enjoy the grammar points in your target language that are easy – they all have them – and find rules to simplify the parts that are “hard”.

Take a step back to see where you can identify those parts of the language that can be simplified into easy-to-understand rules.

For more detail on this, check out the FI3M anguage learning guides which provide a detailed look at language hacks that can shave hours off your study time.

Language Learning Mistake #4: Focusing on the Wrong Vocabulary

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with vocabulary is failing to choose the right words for you.

Vocabulary serves you best when it’s relevant to you and your life. After all, you’re much more likely to talk about your hobbies, family or home town than you are about the top kiwifruit producing country in the world (Italy, believe it or not).

By focusing on words that are specific to you, it allows you to quickly build a list of vocabulary that you can use in conversations right away. Not only that, but since the words you’ve learned are relevant to you, you will find them much easier to remember.

The Language Hacker’s Fix: Vocabulary

Don’t grab a generic list of “1000 most common words” in your language! Many of those words probably won’t be relevant to you as a beginner.

Before you start studying your language, write up a one-page document introducing yourself and your life. Talk about your family, hobbies, school, work or anything else that might come up in conversation. Then identify the most relevant words and focus on learning those first, as well as any words that complement them. For example, if I”m learning the word for “vegetarian” then it is also useful to learn the words for “vegetables”, “eat”, “food”, “meat” and the names of a few of my favorite dishes.

Language Learning Mistake #5: Believing Immersion is All About Living Abroad

If you believe that you can only be immersed in a language by living abroad, then you’re not alone. I’m constantly amazed at how many people have never taken the plunge to get spoken practice online.

Unfortunately this is a big mistake. The Internet makes it really simple to immerse yourself in a new language, wherever you live.

Immersion has less to do with your location than your environment. Build a lifestyle where exposure to your target language is around every corner — through music, TV shows, movies, software and the people you see regularly. For example, if you’re learning French, watch a great French movie like Amélie to help prepare yourself for chatting with native French speakers.

Infuse your day with exposure to the language and your skills will develop at a much higher rate.

It’s so much easier than you might think.

The Language Hacker’s Fix: Immersion

There are three easy things you can do right away to create a language immersion environment. First, and foremost, set up a Skype conversation exchange or language lesson on italki.

Don’t be intimidated to get started. Most people say their biggest regret is not starting sooner!

Second, load up foreign language files (music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.) on your audio player so that you have natives speaking (or singing) to you wherever you go. TuneIn is a great site to get free streaming radio in your target language.

Third, change the language on all your digital interfaces (smartphone, Facebook, computer, web browser) to give yourself full virtual immersion. I explain how to set up devices for digital immersion in my language hacking guides.

Language Learning Mistake #6: Getting Frustrated When Listening to Natives

One of the first things you’ll notice when learning a language is the speed at which natives speak. Even if you understand words written on the page, when you hear them spoken at full speed by a native speaker you can feel like you’re listening to a confusing collection of random sounds. This is especially true if you’re learning Spanish, as native Spanish speakers typically speak at lightning speeds (but there are ways around even that).

Instead of becoming frustrated, realize that this challenge can be overcome by training your ears to associate the sounds of the language with the written form.

With a few weeks of consistent practice you can train yourself to listen as well as you can read. Once you reach that point, it just becomes a matter of improving your vocabulary and grammar.

The Language Hacker’s Fix: Listening

While there are many great methods for developing your ear, just a few you can test out include checking out a TV show or movie you are familiar with (with dubbing and subtitles in your target language) watching it, listening in your target language, all while following along with the subtitles. After a while, test your improved listening skills by watching it again, this time with the subtitles turned off.

There are also tools that allow you to listen to content (video and audio) that is slowed down for learners, depending on the language. I especially love using podcasts to hear full-speed sentences broken down piece by piece.

Learning Learning Mistake #7: Having a Study-Heavy Approach

If you want to improve your language skills, I recommend studying less, not more.

Unless you are studying for a specific exam, burying your head in a book will actually slow down your language learning progress.

One of the biggest mistakes I see language learners make is believing that studying languages is about acquiring knowledge. Newsflash: it’s not! Learning a new language is about building a communication skill. Like any skill, you have to use it to improve it. Don’t get so mired in the study of a language that you forget the whole reason you’re doing this — to communicate with people around the world!

The Language Hacker’s Fix: Studying

Put down your book!

Schedule time to meet up and practice with native speakers. It is the fastest way to build up your skill in a new language. You can use your spoken sessions as a basis for your studies and as an opportunity to practice what you learn. This way you’re building that important muscle memory early on.

Language Learning Mistake #8: Believing it has to be Hard

While language learning is many things, believing that it is intrinsically “hard” is one of the biggest mistakes I see with language learners.

Does it take time and focused commitment? Absolutely! Can it be scary and intimidating? Sure! But is it “hard”? Not necessarily.

Your attitude towards language learning is the biggest factor in how difficult or easy a language will be to learn.

The truth is, the difficulty doesn’t lie within the language itself, but in the study methods and materials you use, and your attitude towards the language. Adapt your approach to be like a scientist testing out new theorems. Find the methods that work best for you instead of committing yourself to one that is familiar, but ineffective.

The Language Hacker’s Fix: Difficulty

The biggest fix here is in changing your mindset.

Don’t aim for perfection or use excuses such as bad luck or “bad genes”. Focus on short-term tangible goals and seek out language learning methods and hacks that can cut hours off your study time and make language learning easy.

There are also lots of fun ways to learn languages. I love learning through music and through gamified social systems like memrise.

Why Learning Languages is Easy

Mistakes are a necessary and valuable part of the language learning process, but that doesn’t mean you have to allow yourself to keep making the same ones over and over.

Focus on the big picture and always look for ways to “hack” your language learning with new approaches, systems and techniques. You’ll soon find that learning a new language is actually easy.

Want to avoid the mistakes I shared in this article? Check out my new language hacking guides that show you how to learn a language the easy way.

The post The 8 Biggest Mistakes Language Learners Make (And How to Fix Them!) appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

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Culture Class: Essential Peruvian Spanish Vocabulary #4 - Popular Home-cooked Meals

Learn Spanish with SpanishPod101.com! What vocabulary do you need to know to have a conversation with Spanish-speaking locals? You’ll learn all this and more in this Culture Class: Essential Peruvian Spanish Vocabulary series! Vocabulary is essential to mastering Spanish. In this 25-lesson series, you’ll learn the *most* essential Spanish words related to culture and daily [...]

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Episodio 108: Los amantes de Teruel

Today we'll tell you about one of the most famous and romantic historical legends of our country. One fateful and passionate love story that took place in the small but beautiful city of Teruel in the late Middle Ages. Transcript available: Los amantes de Teruel

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Italian: Imperfect Tense Language Hacks

This is an extract from my new language hackers’ guide, Why Italian is Easy. Want to hack Italian so you can learn it fast? Find out more at the end of this post.

Confused by the past tenses in Italian? There are two main ways to talk about the past in Italian: the “passato prossimo” (perfect past tense) and the “imperfetto” (imperfect tense). But how do you know which one to use?

The perfect past, is something like saying “I have eaten” in English. It’s got that extra “have” (in Italian, it can also have an extra “to be”) and some form of the action word. In Italian, I ate / I have eaten would be “ho mangiato“.

The imperfect tense, on the other hand, is more like “I was eating” and in Italian is just one word, such as “mangiavo“.

Most grammar books explain this in complex ways, but let’s try to see if we can find a shortcut to decide when to use each form!

As a general rule, when in doubt, use the perfect past tense (avere / essere + “participle” of the action word). If you guess wrong, don’t worry – you won’t have Italians scratching their heads in confusion. Because these two forms are essentially like the difference between “I ate” and “I was eating” in English, they are just as understandable as one another. It’s just that one is more grammatically correct than the other. Don’t get too intimidated by this – perfectionism is your enemy!

Constructing the Italian Imperfect Tense

Constructing the “perfect” tense in Italian is something I won’t get into here (I explore it more depth in my guide, Why Italian is Easy), but will show you how to construct the imperfect in a simple way. For most verbs, look it up in the dictionary, then just remove the -re from the dictionary (infinitive) form and replace it with -vo for “I”, -vi for “you”, -va for “he”/ “she” / “it” / “you (polite)”, -vamo for “we”, -vate for “you” plural, and -vano for “they”. This works with all regular verbs.

That’s it! There are a few rare exceptions, the most important of which is ero, eri… (imperfect of “to be”), but that one line explanation will cover most situations for you.

When to Use the Imperfect Tense in Italian

The perfect past tense is the “default” to use when in doubt. You should only use the imperfect tense when:

• Describing the ongoing state of objects, places or people in the past. Examples: da piccola avevo i capelli ricci (“when I was a child I used to have curly hair”), era un uomo coraggioso (“he was a brave man”), or la macchina era arrugginita (“the car was rusty”).
• You could add a “used to” or “would” in English to imply consistency in the past, then it’s more likely you will use the imperfect in Italian. Examples: ogni martedì ci incontravamo al bar (“every Tuesday we used to meet at the bar”), or correva alla porta ogni volta che suonava il campanello (“he would run to the door every time that the bell rang”).
• Describing how a person was feeling or thinking in the past. Examples: aveva sonno (“she was sleepy”), gli faceva male la testa (“he had a headache”), or eravamo tristi (“we were sad”)
• Discussing two things happening at the same time, while an “interrupting” event uses the perfect past, an ongoing event uses the imperfect past. Example: mentre guardavo la tv è suonato il telefono (“while I was watching the TV, the phone rang”).

There are other times when you’ll need to use the past tense, but these four points will cover you most situations. There’s no need to feel intimidated by this aspect of learning Italian!

Make Sure I'm the First to Know about the
​Why Italian is Easy ​launch.

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Spanish Listening Comprehension for Absolute Beginners #14 - Talking About Vacation Plans in Mexican Spanish

  Learn Mexican Spanish with SpanishPod101.com! Do you find yourself only understanding bits and pieces of Mexican Spanish conversations? Do you spend hours trying to figure out what that person said to you in Mexican Spanish? Then this Mexican Spanish Listening Comprehension for Absolute Beginners series is for you! In each lesson of this five-part series, [...]

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Culture File: Mexico #16 - Shamans

Learn essential Mexican cultural information with SpanishPod101.com! In this 25-lesson English-language series, you’ll hear about cultural topics ranging from important economical activities and tourist destinations to history, influential figures, and traditions in Mexico. You’ll know more about Mexico than the locals in no time! In this lesson, you’ll learn about Shamans while building your Spanish vocabulary. [...]

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Episodio 107: Mucho ruido y pocas nueces

We explain the meaning of 'mucho ruido y pocas nueces' an useful idiom widely used in Spain. You will also practice your pronunciation with some examples. Native Spanish speech. Transcript available: Mucho ruido y pocas nueces.

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Mexican Spanish Survival Phrases #19 - Counting to 100 in Mexican Spanish

Learn Mexican Spanish travel phrases with SpanishPod101.com! A little Mexican Spanish can go such a long way! Whether you’re traveling, visiting, or sightseeing, SpanishPod101.com has all the essential travel phrases just for you! In this lesson we cover a high frequency Spanish phrase that you’ll surely find useful on your [...]



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Episodio 106: La influencia árabe en España

We talk about the Muslim invasion of Spain and how this influenced our culture, language and food. Arab people introduced many new and interesting things in Spain. Transcript available. Learn Spanish with this podcast episode.



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European Spanish Words of the Week with Rosa for Beginners #11 - Vegetables

In this Beginner lesson, you’ll learn Spanish words about Vegetables. Visit us at SpanishPod101.com, where you will find Spanish lesson notes and many more fantastic lessons and learning resources. Leave us a message while you are here! Learn European Spanish with SpanishPod101.com! How would you react if someone put you on the spot with a [...]



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European Spanish Words of the Week with Rosa for Beginners #12 - Mammals

In this Beginner lesson, you’ll learn Spanish words about Mammals. Visit us at SpanishPod101.com, where you will find Spanish lesson notes and many more fantastic lessons and learning resources. Leave us a message while you are here! Learn European Spanish with SpanishPod101.com! How would you react if someone put you on the spot with a [...]



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Culture File: Mexico #15 - Taquiza

Learn essential Mexican cultural information with SpanishPod101.com! In this 25-lesson English-language series, you’ll hear about cultural topics ranging from important economical activities and tourist destinations to history, influential figures, and traditions in Mexico. You’ll know more about Mexico than the locals in no time! In this lesson, you’ll learn about a Taquiza, while building your Spanish [...]



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Episodio 105: La gestión del tiempo

Time is a crucial resource. Today we share with you some tips to manage time. Learn some Spanish and improve your ability to manage time with this episode. Transcript available: Gestión del tiempo



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What’s it like to start learning a language?: Lauren’s 6 Week Update

I’ve now been studying Russian for 2 hours a day for 6 weeks.

In some ways, I can’t believe it’s already been 6 weeks. In other ways, I can’t believe it’s only been 6 weeks! I’m so pleased that I’m able to actually communicate in my “Tarzan” Russian with my teachers – some of which are starting to feel more like friends.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what it’s like to learn Russian from scratch.

In today’s post, I’m going to answer them.

Following along those same lines, in today’s video I want to show you what learning a new language really looks like. To do that, I’ve compiled clips that track my progress from the terrible, clueless Russian I had on Day 1 to my still-untidy but way-more-effective Tarzan Russian on Week 6.

Language learning is messy. It doesn’t really look like the 6 minutes you’ll see in video updates on Youtube. Those 6 minutes don’t (and really can’t) show you the long minutes of silence it takes to look up the right phrases, or the hundreds of awkward attempts to pronounce new words that every language learner goes through.

At the beginning of a language mission, when you for the first time utter strange words in a new language, it’s slow, and more than a little painful.

But each time you have your next conversation, you get a little better, then a little better. My mentality has been simply to try to suck a little less each time I speak Russian. Before you know it, you’ve leaped forward in your progress!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRwrCWwBNKk

Enjoy today’s video (subtitles added on Monday). Now onto the questions you’ve been asking me for the past 6 weeks!

Question 1

I’m curious to know if learning Esperanto first has helped Lauren at all with Russian?

Definitely yes!

When I was learning Esperanto, I encountered several moments of frustration when I realized that the words I would use to express something in English were expressed in a totally different way in Esperanto. When you learn a new language for the first time, this is a mental hurdle you have to jump. You need to develop a new way of thinking. It’s uncomfortable.

This happens for every new language, of course. Not just Esperanto; not just Russian. And because I got used to this while learning Esperanto, now that I’m learning Russian I’m not surprised or frustrated when the language expresses something very differently from the way I would in English. In fact I’ve come to expect that things will be different.

Plus, Esperanto introduced me to cases (through the accusative), and I’m really, really glad that the first time I ever heard of cases wasn’t with Russian. I think I would have had a lot of misplaced frustration with Russian if I’d never seen cases before.

Question 2

Is Russian hard?

Yes and no.

Like I said, starting out, I fully expected Russian to be completely different from English. I prepared for it. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some unexpected similarities!

For example, In English we use the words “I’m afraid” in two different ways that don’t relate to each other at all. We said “I’m afraid” as in “something scary is happening” and we say “I’m afraid” as in “I’m sorry to say.”

Russian does the same! I expected Russian to use different words for these two concepts, but surprisingly, the Russian word for “I’m afraid” (боюсь) can be used in both instances!

The same is the true of the word “better” which in English can be used to say something is superior, but also to say “I better start jogging more!” And you can do the same in Russian with the word “better” (лучше). Esperanto doesn’t even let you do that without rephrasing the sentence.

One last example. In Russian, you don’t need the words “is” or “are” or particles like “a”/“an”. So if you want to say I’m a writer, you just say “I writer” (Я писатель). If I want to say “Benny is an engineer,” I just say “Benny engineer” (Бенни инженер).

That being said, there are definitely parts of Russian that have been hard for me. There are long strings of consonants that take a lot of practice to pronounce. I can’t for the life of me pronounce the word “for” (для) – as you’ll see in the video – an unfortunately common word. And Russian does have a very complicated case system, which I’ll start tackling in Month 3.

Question 3

Just curious how you keep the motivation to study so constantly? I’ve been trying to learn many different languages on and off but I get burnt out quickly and stop for a long time so this keeps me from really grasping any of them.

Motivation is a major problem for all language learners.

For me, the fact that I have to upload progress videos on the blogs every 2 weeks is excellent motivation. Otherwise, if I skip studying for a few days, I feel really crappy about it, and avoiding that feeling has also been a great motivator.

For you, I think relying on your own willpower alone to keep up with studying is really hard. I wasn’t able to do it before I announced an official project for the blog. And I know of other big polyglots who also share in that struggle.

So I’d suggest finding someone or something else to hold you accountable. There’s a great Facebook community called the Add1 Challenge that’s been very effective at helping learning stay accountable for their language projects. It’s a place where people learn together in teams and share goals to keep each other motivated.

Another technique I like is just to book a bunch of italki sessions. Once they’re booked, I can’t back out unless I want to disappoint my teacher. Also, I like to work with multiple teachers who all have different styles. When I’m feeling unmotivated I reach for my “silly conversation” teacher, since that doesn’t really feel like work.

Question 4:

In the blog, Lauren talks about using several teachers. Is this advantageous to using only one teacher intensively? In some subjects this would just lead to confusion. I’m a piano teacher and I wouldn’t recommend people learn a musical instrument that way – does it work the opposite way around in languages?

I prefer to work with multiple teachers.

Right now I’m working regularly with 4 teachers, all from italki. Some of them hold more structured classes, and they introduce me to parts of the language I probably wouldn’t have thought to start learning on my own.

But other teachers I call up just have “casual chats” with. I really like having the mixture, so that if I’m feeling low energy I can just have a silly conversation with a “casual chat teacher”, or if I’m feeling extra motivated I can dive into detailed conversations about Russian with my more structured teachers.

Question 5:

How do you explain what you intend to do to your tutors, do they know in advance you just want to work on greetings for instance ? I have a hard time getting my tutors to actually do what I want.

The first few minutes of any italki session are always a bit of a mystery. I never know what’s going to happen. Most of the time, though, teachers use the first session to chat with you and gauge your level. And then after that they’ll usually ask about how you’d like to progress in the lessons.

I like to start my Skype lessons with a homemade “bingo card” of new words or phrases that I want to practice that hour. Very often, I don’t actually get a chance to practice those phrases, though, because the conversation never flows in that direction. When that happens, it’s my fault.

If I want my teacher to cover a certain topic with me, or if I want to practice in a certain way, I will tell them in advance via italki’s chat feature, and they will always do what I’ve asked. But in the case of my bingo cards, my teachers don’t know I want to practice those phrases. And since they’re not mind readers, it’s my job to steer the conversation in that direction. If I don’t, I won’t practice the phrases that day.

I’d recommend for other learners not to be shy or passive about your lessons. If you want to learn in a certain way, say so! And it’s perfectly okay to switch to English to express this to your teachers if you need to.

Question 6

How are you finding Assimil’s book? I’ve used it for French and I’ve considered getting the Russian one once I get back to learning it.

At first I really struggled to keep my interest in the Assimil lessons. Especially when I compared them to my lessons on RussianPod101, which are funny and use plain language. I knew Assimil was helping me, but I didn’t find it very fun.

However, the deeper I get into my project the more I’m enjoying Assimil! It’s a bit technical, but as I understand more about Russian and start to learn “grammar-ese” the technical bits don’t bother me as much. These days I’m reaching for the technical explanations more and more.

Something I’d like to do for the next update is to try out into several other coursebooks on Russian, and share some insights for you here on the blog. There are so many books to choose from, and not much information online about how they’re different or how they suit different learning styles. So I’m planning to be the guinea pig and test out a handful of other popular Russian coursebooks.

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Until next time!

The post What’s it like to start learning a language?: Lauren’s 6 Week Update appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

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