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Native Americans Ask Feds To Help Keep Languages Alive
Native Americans asked federal lawmakers to help keep Native American languages alive during a "listening session" hosted by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this week....
Race to Top Finalists Include 3 of 5 Top ELL States
Three of the five states with the most English-learners in this country were selected by the U.S. Department of Education as finalists for the $4 billion Race to the Top competition....
Arne Duncan: Revamping of ELL Tests Is a Difficult Issue
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says that how to revamp tests for English-learners and students with disabilities might be the toughest issue that needs to be tackled with reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act....
Learning the Language Takes a Break
Learning the Language will take a break until March 4....
Head Start Teachers for Migrant Kids Have Education Barriers
Head Start teachers from Native American or migrant communities have a lot of linguistic and cultural expertise but they also tend to lack formal education credentials....
Resource: How Content Teachers Can Teach Language
A book released by WestEd tells how mainstream teachers who have English-learners in their classrooms can be language teachers....
Sinosplice » Life
The Value of a Master’s in Chinese Economics
In a recent post entitled Why China for Grad School? I opined: Aside from reduced cost, there is one main reason a westerner might choose to go to grad school in China over a western country: because one’s object of study is inherently Chinese. This includes Chinese history, Chinese...
I recently asked my readers to email me if they were interested in participating in a project focused on learning Chinese in Shanghai. The response was quite good, and I’d like to thank all of you that generously offered to participate. I’m actually a bit reluctant to deactivate the email...
The Singularity and the Chinese History of Chess
While reading up on one of my favorite topics, the technological singularity, I recently came across this interesting passage in an article by renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil entitled The Law of Accelerating Returns: To appreciate the nature and significance of the coming “singularity,” it is important to ponder the...
Creative English with Chinese Characteristics
Just in case you missed these English language Chinese coinages, here’s a sample: Smilence 笑而不语 vi. When you are expecting some answers from your Chinese audience, you may just get a mysterious smile and their silence only. 动词 当你期望从中国听众那里获得一些回答的时候，你只得到了神秘的微笑和他们的沉默。 The rest of the list...
Overheard near Jing’an Temple, a conversation between a Chinese woman and an American woman: Chinese woman: It is Chinese New Year, time for line dance. American woman: Really, line dances? You do line dances for Chinese New Year? Chinese woman: Yes, line dance. ...
Experiments in Learning Chinese in Shanghai
Working on lesson content at ChinesePod keeps me busy as always, but recently I’ve also started a project on the side. While ChinesePod is great for distributing excellent lesson content to an unlimited audience, I’m also very interested in individual learner experiences in Shanghai. There are so many fascinating linguistic...
GoodWord from alphaDictionary.com
Hogmanay is not a pig resort but a Scottish festivity celebrated on the last day of the year. Children traditionally stroll about the neighborhood on this day asking for presents. Today's Good Word also refers to the gifts given or received on Hogmanay. More recently it has become a raucous...
1. Slicked down, greasy, said especially of hair with too much tonic or oil on it. 2. Unctuous, oily, obsequious, ingratiatingly polite, perhaps with an overlay of feigned intelligence or sophistication....
1. Magic, sleight of hand. 2. Trickery, deceitful cleverness....
1. A crude, uncultured, heartless person, a boor; someone who lives and treats others savagely. 2. A wild or primitive person, a savage....
1. To fish by pulling a line through the water. 2 To try to lure or incite someone by passing or passing something where they can see it. 3. (Obsolete) To sing in the manner of a round or simply merrily....
Excessive, more than is necessary, extra and unnecessary....
What's New? The Learn English Blog
Mar 7, The sound of phonetic symbol upsidedown of - e
Could you tell me what the sound of the phonetic symbol that looks like upside-down of the letter-e? How should I pronounce this symbol when I get it....
Have you seen advertisements for Business English Pod? Recently I have noticed their ads on many popular ESL websites so I wanted to check out what they are all about. Wow! You are in for a surprise! If you are interested in improving your English for...
Feb 17, How can I Improve my Writing Skills
My wish list: - perfect writing skills - fluent speaker noting that my age stops me from being in communication in chat, as Im 54 years old. It...
You wish to see me More lady like More mature And understanding More strong and brave Witty and social I wonder You chose me because you love me or You...
Feb 11, Simple Rules for Passive and Active Voice
I need to learn the simple rules for passive and active voice with examples. Thanks for this free web site & your help....
Feb 11, I know I'm Late, but a Wish Pays Forever
Hello, I have only one wish - to speak English. I'm from the Czech republic, 38 (almost 39), I study English for 2 or 3 hours every day. I can say I'm...
Global by Design
Web Globalization 2010: How Many Languages is Enough?
Languages are a means to an end, and in web globalization, languages help you expand your global reach. And global reach doesn’t always mean expanding beyond borders, it could also mean expanding within borders — consider Spanish for the US (a trend that continues to tick upward). That said, any executive with...
What if your company didn’t make the top 25 list?
We reviewed 225 web sites for the Report Card, which means 200 sites didn’t make the “cut.” If your company is in this list of 200 and you want to know where you ranked, please contact me at jyunker (at) bytelevel (dot) com and I’ll provide that information. I don’t want...
The best global web sites of 2010
I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card. Here are the top 25 web sites overall: Google Facebook Cisco Systems Philips Samsung Wikipedia 3M NIVEA Symantec Lenovo Xbox Autodesk Gmail Microsoft Nokia Intel Caterpillar Panasonic HP Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu LG Volvo Group Hotels.com SAP Kodak Google has emerged on top again, but just barely. The big story this year is that Facebook and Google finished in a numerical tie. But because Google supports...
The Report Card is publishing next week
When I said the 2010 Web Globalization Report Card was publishing in “late February,” I was a tad optimistic. In my defense, this month is a tad short. The report is 99% complete. The rankings are final. But we still need a proper proofreading. And at 190 pages, that takes time. We’re also working...
ICANN and the Internet ecosystem
Last month, Rod Beckstrom, President of ICANN, spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Here’s the video. It’s a great introduction to how ICANN has evolved and where it’s headed. And, yes, Rod does talk about my favorite topic: IDNs!...
Seventeen countries have applied for IDNs so far, but we only know the details on four of them: Saudi Arabia (SA): السعودية Egypt (EG): مصر United Arab Emirates (AE): امارات Russian Federation (RU): рф Yesterday, Bangladesh announced that it too had applied. Here is the domain the government selected: বাংলা There are 300 million Bangla speakers around...
Games with Words
Class Notes: This field confuses the hell out of me. I want to start from scratch.
I have now read 44 papers in the course of this semester's Language Acquisition seminar. The only firm conclusion I have come to is that language is so complicated that nobody could ever possibly learn one. --- (The title of this post comes from the caption of a doodle of a mid-century...
Adoption and Language Development
I just heard that the Boston Globe recently ran an article on my advisor's work. If you haven't already read it, here's my discussion of the same work in Scientific American Mind.Read the blog: http://gameswithwords.fieldofscience.com/ Do the research: http://coglanglab.org...
Class Notes: A Developmental Paradox
One thing that keeps coming up in artificial grammar studies (in which people are taught bits of made-up languages) is that adults are much better at learning them than kids. Yet we know that if you wait 20 years, people who started learning a real language as a kid do...
Web Experiment Tutorial: Chapter 3, Basic Flash Programming
Several years ago, I wrote a tutorial for my previous lab on how to create Web-based experiments in Flash. Over the next number of months, I'll be posting that tutorial chapter by chapter. This and the following two chapters will go over how to produce a basic change-detection experiment. Necessary materials...
Web Experiment Tutorial: Chapter 2, Methodological Considerations
Several years ago, I wrote a tutorial for my previous lab on how to create Web-based experiments in Flash. Over the next number of months, I'll be posting that tutorial chapter by chapter. 1. Why do an experiment online? Whenever designing an experiment, it is important to consider your methods. Explicit measures...
Web Experiment Tutorial: Chapter 1, Overview
Several years ago, I wrote a tutorial for my previous lab on how to create Web-based experiments in Flash. Over the next number of months, I'll be posting that tutorial chapter by chapter. 1. What does this manual cover? - Methodological considerations - Creating experiments in Flash - Implementing those experiments on the Internet -...
Blogging Translator
My review of the 9th Portsmouth Translation Conference
Last month I spent a Saturday down in Portsmouth at the university’s Ninth Translation Conference, entitled ‘The Translator as Writer’. It’s incredible that I’ve never made it to the event before now, as I’ve always noticed the high calibre of speakers every year (a combination of practitioners and academics), and...
Getting into translation part 2
This is another post aimed at those considering a career in translation, following my recent similar post. A few months back I was asked to write a case study for 50:50 Magazine, about what it was like being a freelance translator. It’s hard to pin down what a typical day...
Last Saturday I gave a talk at a Chartered Instituted of Linguists event on getting started in translation. I had one hour to give a rough overview of the skills you need to be successful as a translator, the type of work you might do, a ‘typical’ day, networking, how...
Guest post: an introduction to SEO
Today I’m publishing this guest post by Rob Hammond, SEO strategist at a leading global media company, who gives some basic pointers on Search Engine Optimisation for translators. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) deals with optimising websites for people who use search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. If you’re...
Now that the summer is all but behind us, we can look forward to a packed calendar of translation events for the coming autumn, and I’m pleased to announce that yours truly will be speaking at some of them! 12 September, ITI London Regional Group Marketing Workshop, University of Westminster, London. This...
Contingency planning for your freelance business
Céline over at Naked Translations wrote a post yesterday about back-up systems for freelancers, and invited others to share how they guard their businesses against data loss. Céline, if you’re reading, this post is my answer! I actually have what some might call a fairly paranoid approach to how I back-up...
babelhut.com
Welcome to the first post of a new series at Babelhut.com, Spanish Verb Highlight. This series will highlight a different Spanish verb in every post, and provide several example sentences showing how the verb is used in different tenses. The first verb highlighted is oír, which means to hear, or to...
Language Learning Tip #3: Learn To Cook
Here’s a language learning tip that has worked really well for me: learn to cook. And when you do, use recipes in your target language. Great way to learn language. Here’s why: Recipes are short – most recipes fit on one piece of paper, and that’s including a big picture of...
¡Muchas gracias, Time Warner Cable! How did you know I am studying Spanish?
Today I received yet another envelope from Time Warner Cable addressed to “Peter Carroll or Current Resident,” which was seconds from being thrown in the trash can when I decided to open it. This is what was inside: Click to enlarge Click to enlarge I was surprised to receive the advertisement in Spanish....
Barra de Español 1.2 is now available!
The latest version of Barra de Español is now available from addons.mozilla.org! Those of you who already have an older version installed should see an update notification in Firefox soon, if you haven’t already. What’s new in 1.2? The biggest new feature is the ability to find pronunciations of Spanish words....
Barra de Español is now in the Public list on addons.mozilla.org
I received an email today from the Mozilla Add-ons group that Barra de Español has been approved to be in the public listing on addons.mozilla.org! This means that it no longer has the “experimental” label and can be installed without the user needing to check a box. For those of...
Ramses launches the Spanish-English Sentence Database
Our good friend Ramses has just launched a wonderful database of Spanish-English sentences at http://sentences.spanish-only.com/. I insist that you go there now and bookmark it. I’ll wait. This thing is great for the Spanish student! How many times do you learn a new word but you don’t have a sentence for...
Paleoglot
The Indo-European word for 'honey', I have to confess, has always bothered me. Technically *mélit displays proper form with full-grade in the accented syllable and zero-grade in the unaccented and it also is supported by reflexes in Celtic, Germanic, Latin, Greek and Anatolian languages. Yet...Douglas and Adams inadvertently uncovers a...
Phoenix recently relayed a story told him by his teacher of Berber which was in turn recounted to him by an aged Morrocan professor about an interesting coincidence between the names Crete, Kos and Samos and the Berber numbers for 'three', 'four', and 'five'. This fun game of telephone may...
Capua, fields, Indo-Europeanists, etc.
The following is a good example of Indo-Europeanists gone mad, methinks. Whenever it comes to European vocabulary, specialists of Indo-European languages are in there like a dirty shirt trying to etymologize it automatically through some concocted Indo-European root. Some roots are valid naturally, but others are suspicious and crave our...
I don't know about anyone else but I keep on tripping over new questions with apparently no answers and it can be very frustrating when no one else is asking the same questions (or at least not being vocal enough to ask them). Here's an interesting question with no clear...
Aegean phonotactics against word-initial /j/
On the Minoan Language blog, Andras Zeke counters my entry against a prefix *i- in Minoan with a new idea that the morpheme in question was a separate deictic instead. Clever, however only I-QA-*118 (HT44) ~ QA-*118 (KH 10) and I-DA-MA-TE (AR Zf1) ~ DA-MA-TE (KY Za 2) are available...
Lately I haven't been thinking about anything too deeply. I'm in my 'light' mode, I guess. I've updated my Etruscan dictionary to handle asterisks (ie. wildcard searches) but Actionscript is a bastardly programming language so it's not perfect yet until I get around some technical issues. Yesterday I bumped up...
ScienceDaily: Language Acquisition News
Infants do not appear to learn words from educational DVDs
Among 12- to 24-month old children who view educational baby videos, there does not appear to be evidence that overall general language learning improves or that words featured in the programming are learned, according to a new study....
Recent research on memory, learning
Are we over estimating remembering and underestimating learning? In a recent study, people failed to predict that they would be able to remember more words after studying more....
Intense war news reduces ability to remember ads
A new study shows that the more graphic and intense war news is, the less likely that viewers -- regardless of political beliefs -- will remember the advertising that follows the news....
To remember the good times, reach for the sky
Simple motor actions, like moving marbles upward or downward between two cardboard boxes, may not seem meaningful. But a new study shows that motor actions can partly determine people's emotional memories. Moving marbles upward caused participants to remember more positive life experiences, and moving them downward to remember more negative...
Internal Metronome: Brain implant reveals neural patterns of attention
A paralyzed patient implanted with a brain-computer interface device has allowed scientists to determine the relationship between brain waves and attention. Characteristic activity patterns known as beta and delta oscillations have been observed in various regions of the brain since the early 20th century, and have been theoretically associated with...
Nouns and verbs are learned in different parts of the brain
Two Spanish psychologists and a German neurologist have recently shown that the brain that activates when a person learns a new noun is different from the part used when a verb is learnt. The scientists observed this using brain images taken using functional magnetic resonance....
LexiBlog - The Official Blog of Leximo, a World Social Dictionary
Every language-learner longs for the moment when they feel totally confident in their second language. I have personally yet to reach that point in Spanish or Arabic, but I took an informal poll of some of my friends that are fluent in their languages. Those that learned English...
As the Vancouver 2010 Olympics wrap up this weekend it is worth wondering what the role of the official Olympic language, French, should be in the future games. Although the Olympics are supposed to bring countries together in friendly athletic competition, politics are not far from the mind of...
Learning Language The Classic Way
To start, I love the idea of being fluent in a language. Unfortunately, I am not nearly the linguist I am in my distant dreams. I am not bilingual. I am not a polyglot. I am fluent in exactly one language: English. After...
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Happy Holidays in 18 Different Languages!
Happy Holidays from Leximo!This year we've evolved, refined, learned, and improved—all thanks to you. We just want to express our gratitude for the awesome support you've given us throughout 2009.But we're not gloomy to see it go. 2010 is set to be the year of the shark, and we'll be...
Polyglot: How I Learn Languages by KATÓ LOMB
I just found this book that one can download for free. It's from a Hungarian woman who learned 16 languages after she got her PhD in Chemistry.Polyglot: How I Learn Languages by KATÓ LOMB.http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/toc.html----Susanna Zaraysky learned foreign languages like music. She's written a book, Language is Music, with...
Web Translations
Web-Translations joins the ATC
We’re proud to announce that Web-Translations has become a member of the Association of Translation Companies. As one of the oldest and most respected professional bodies in the translation industry, members of the ATC are carefully vetted before admission into membership, adhere to a strict code of professional conduct, are subject...
Oh dear! If ever there was an example of how not to translate a website it must be the London Eye website. It would seem that the Merlin Group clearly don’t care about their international visitors… Looking at the German website: http://www.londoneye.com/de/ (or any language for that matter), notice: It’s pot luck...
New Windows 7 fonts give more scope to non-Roman languages
Windows 7 includes over 40 new fonts which expand the script and language support the system can offer. Far from simply being a means of displaying text, different fonts can change the way we read text, and even how we feel about what we are reading. For example: As well as allowing...
Click4translation Beta testing - we need you!
The latest version of Click4Translation is now online, and we’re inviting you to test it - please sign up at www.click4translation.com and get a quote for any translation project by uploading your documents, or submitting a website URL - it’s as simple as that! Click4translation makes it quick and easy to...
Could the ‘Tele Scouter’ revolutionise the world of translation?
The ‘Tele Scouter’, a recent invention from NEC due to launch in 2010, is a pair of glasses attached to a headset and mouthpiece, with a small projector that can transmit messages onto the retina of the user. It is intended for use in a customer service environment, allowing employees...
Anyone for a glass of kalimotxo and a pintxo?
The Basque language, known to natives as Euskera, is the only language isolate in Western Europe, meaning that it is the only existing language that has no known living ‘relatives’: it is unique! Linguists and historians alike have attempted to discover a link between Basque and other languages, but, despite...
Ryan's linguistics blog
I was watching an old episode of Seinfeld the other night, and a line of dialogue caught my attention: "That's the guy I told where the elevator was." It's not ungrammatical for me, but it's marked in some way that made my analytical skills perk up. According to...
While perusing Not Always Right the other day, I came across a post entitled The Rule Deep-Ends On How Cute You Are. I was nonplussed; deep-ends? Certainly I'm familiar with the deep end of a pool, but as a verb? It took me the entire reading of...
There was recently quite a bit of interesting discussion about a Language Log post on the semantics of "this page intentionally left blank". Levi Montgomery posted that it reminded him of "the instructions to 'Lather, rinse, and repeat,' apparently ad infinitum." I was struck by this comment, because...
I was musing the other day about the PP (prepositional phrase) complement to "enamored". My intuition is that "enamored with" is more common in modern times, but that "enamored of" is the original and prescriptively "correct" usage. Checking with the OED more or less confirms this, though the...
I'm constantly struck by how many people seemingly refuse to believe in syllabic consonants. For instance, in my dialect (Standard American, or very close to it) there is absolutely no hint of a vowel in words like "word" or "bird". Yet many phonologists transcribe these words either as...
I'm just posting this short notice this week because of new computer issues. Check back next weekend for a new post....
Learn French with daily podcasts
863 – Passeports australiens (Australian passeports)
Learning Guide | PDF Transcript L’ Australie demande à Israel d’expliquer l’utilisation de passeports australiens par trois suspects pour le meutre d’officiels… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :...
862 – Baleine tueuse (Killer whale)
Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Une baleine tueuse qui a attaqué et noyé sa dresseuse restera au SeaWorld en Floride, malgré les appels pour la… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :...
861 – Real Life French: la nausée
Real life French Guide Welcome to your lesson of Real Life French. Each lesson we take a simple situation you may encounter in everyday life in France. Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :...
Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Une mère a donné naissance à un second enfant après qu’une opération innovante de greffe ovarienne lui ait redonnée… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :...
859 – Déchets plastiques (Plastic debris)
Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Les déchets plastiques ont tendance à s’accumuler dans une région bien définie au nord ouest de l’Atlantique… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :...
Here is the dictation of the week. To find the correction please visit the Exercises section. You can leave your comments or questions on the forum. Listen now :...
Slang O' The Day
Origin: Computer/Internet Slang Definition: to search for references to yourself online Example: When Dan ego surfed he was pleased with the results that he found....
Origin: American Slang Definition: the routine; the method Example: He got the job done in no time because he knew the drill....
Origin: New Zealand Slang Definition: hard work Example: I’m tired from all of the hard yakka I did over the weekend....
Origin: American Slang Definition: slang used by teenagers Example: Mary’s mom didn’t know what her daughter was talking about because she was speaking in teenglish....
Origin: English Slang Definition: fight; argument Example: My neighbor and I had a ding-dong about his son playing music too loud....
Origin: Australian Slang Definition: cotton candy Example: I’m going to get pink and blue fair floss at the fair....
Fritinancy
The 2009 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.—it's always called a "letter," not an "annual report"—was published last week. As always, it was written by the chairman of the board himself, Warren Buffett—the world's second-richest man—and as always it's a model of sharp writing and excellent corporate communication. No......
Pooter: A suction bottle used to collect ants and small insects. The origins of pooter are cloudy; the OED suggests that the device was named for an American entomologist, F.W. Poos (1891-1987), "with insertion of -t-, apparently for euphony." I was introduced to pooter—in the United States, it's more commonly......
I love fashion. I've had fashion clients for years. And yet every so often I find myself banging my head on my desk over some bizarre bit of language wielded by an overreaching fashion copywriter. Last week it was the "Barren" skirt from Diane von Furstenberg. This week: two headdesk......
My latest Visual Thesaurus column, "The You Decade," was published yesterday. In it I revisit the changing meaning of you in marketing, a theme I've touched on in a couple of blog posts: "The City • The Committee • And You" (about Philadelphia's new city slogan) and ("Life • Liberty......
You've seen the new Old Spice commercials, right? No? Then watch the 30-second version right now. In fact, I'm going to join you. Everybody back here now? I first saw that spot a couple of weeks ago, during the Super Bowl, and thought it was nutty and brilliant . .......
Lingformant
Stone Age Engravings Found on Ostrich Shells
Researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers. Full article: Wired http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/stone-age-engravings-found-on-ostrich-shells/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29...
Researchers discover first genes for stuttering
Stuttering may be the result of a glitch in the day-to-day process by which cellular components in key regions of the brain are broken down and recycled, says a study in the Feb. 10 Online First issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, led by researchers at...
Researchers find how brain hears the sound of silence
A team of University of Oregon researchers have isolated an independent processing channel of synapses inside the brain’s auditory cortex that deals specifically with shutting off sound processing at appropriate times. Such regulation is vital for hearing and for understanding speech. Full article: University of Oregon...
All languages are created in the same brain areas
Be it American Sign Language or English, language is created in the same areas of the brain, claim scientists. Karen Emmorey, a professor of speech language at San Diego State University, suggests language is universal and doesn’t depend on whether people...
Infants do not appear to learn words from educational DVDs
Among 12- to 24-month old children who view educational baby videos, there does not appear to be evidence that overall general language learning improves or that words featured in the programming are learned. Full article: EurekAlert...
Bilingual babies: The roots of bilingualism in newborns
According to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, infants born to bilingual mothers (who spoke both languages regularly during pregnancy) exhibit different language preferences than infants born to mothers speaking only one language. Full article: e! Science News...
WeboWord-Vocabulary Visually!
DiggSubmit Ciliated: Having minute hair / projecting threads Eyelashes Micro-organisms with thread-like projections for the purpose of locomotion. Pronounced as See + Lee + Ate + Ed. Derived from Latin Cilium meaning Eyelashes. No situational uses from our end today! Can you figure out some cool sentences with Ciliated? Note: We shall be updating situational uses tomorrow!...
Wary: Being cautious and watchful Pronounced as Way (emphasized) + Ree {Listen to it here} It comes from Old English Warian meaning to be on guard. It is also the root of the word – Beware meaning to be vigilant. Situational Uses: During an economic downturn, even the brokers are wary of the stock-markets. Be...
Recede – To go back or down from a certain point; To become less
Pronounced as Ree + Seed (emphasized) {Listen to it here} Comes from Latin Recedere which means to go back. It is based on the Latin cedere meaning to give way, which is the root for: Cede – Surrender something Concede – Grant rights to Precede – To come before Excess – More than enough How many other words do...
Euphemism – A less offensive synonym
Euphemism is pronounced as U (as You) [emphasized] + F or Ph (from Phone) + Mism {Listen to it here} It is derived from Greek Euphemismos [ = Eu (good) + Pheme (speech)] meaning to speak with pleasing words. Situational Uses: In his effort to be extremely polite, he chose to be euphemistic...
Satiate – Satisfy hunger or desire
Pronounced as Say (emphasized) + Shee + Ate {Listen to it here} Based on the Latin root Satis meaning enough which is also the root for Satisfy. Situational Uses / Sentences: She satiated herself at dinner. “The novel left him well satiated for the night. Tomorrow shall be another day.” Post from: WeboWord Unable to follow the daily...
Trepidation – Apprehension; Trembling
Pronounced as Trep + Uh + Day (emphasized) + Shun {Listen to it here} Origin: Latin root Trepidare meaning to startle or to be agitated. Situational Uses / Sentences: The students are looking forward to the experiment with great excitement and trepidation. WeboWord helps eliminate the trepidation that one associates with building their vocab....
Women Learning Thai... and some men too ;-)
Thai Language Thai Culture: Telephone Thai
Talking Thai on the telephone… It probably took me ten years before I could understand anything anyone said on the telephone here in Thailand. It’s not the language. My wife had the same problem in English when she got to America. It is just really hard dealing with a disembodied voice...
Learn Thai with Benjawan Poomsan Becker
Learning the Thai language with Benjawan… It is an undisputed fact that Benjawan Poomsan Becker of Paiboon Publishing is the top producer of Thai language products. With that jewel in mind… while I was working on the Benjawan Poomsan Becker Interview, I came up with a way to show just how...
Vern’s 22 Day Meditation Course
How to quiet your life… There is no doubt about it, 2010 is MY year for personal improvement. And as my 30 Day Thai Language Trial was successful, I decided to follow with Vern’s 22 Day Meditation Course. When I asked Vern how it came about, he replied: In 1997 I began...
Linguistic and Developmental Underpinnings of Language Acquisition
How you YOU learn languages?… Much depends on your own understanding of your own skills in “learning how to learn” for yourself… That is, are you aware of your own learning “style”? Do you know how you learn fastest/ easiest in most subjects? Are you a visual or auditory or kinesthetic...
Thai 101 Learners Series: A Trusted Native Speaker is Essential
A trusted native speaker is essential…. You may have noticed by now that learning Thai takes real effort and discipline. No two ways about it. Expect to put in long hours tweaking your pronunciation, expanding your vocabulary, solidifying your grasp on the grammar. One of the best — and most necessary —...
How Do You Overcome Mind Block During Language Study?
Tips and suggestions needed… Last week I received an email asking for help: Question: I’m currently an exchange student living in Thailand. I’ve had an issue where I can’t seem to learn any more Thai, and when I try my minds strays and I get tired very quickly. I was just wondering,...
Free Language - Lessons, Podcasts, Courses, Audio, Video, Articles, Study, Learn, Teach, Translation, Children/Kids, Teens, Adults
German-Speaking World German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ]) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also...
Summary Welcome to Free Language's whirlwind tour about learning Spanish online for free. This is the third video screencast about learning languages for free. See all of them here. This video will take you through some top essential resources for learning Spanish for free online. View the links below the video to...
Summary Welcome to Free Language's whirlwind tour about learning French online for free. This is the third video screencast about learning languages for free. See all of them here. This video will take you through some top essential resources for learning French for free online. View the links below the video to...
Summary From beginner to advanced levels, EnglishClass101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning ESL. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the English language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require. Since EnglishClass101.com is web-based, you can access your personal ESL...
Summary From beginner to advanced levels, ChinesePod101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning Chinese. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the Chinese language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require. Since ChinesePod101.com is web-based, you can access your personal Chinese...
Summary From beginner to advanced levels, SpanishPod101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning Spanish. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the Spanish language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require. Since SpanishPod101.com is web-based, you can access your personal Spanish...