A Great Portuguese Site!

This site contains both European and Brazilian Portuguese instruction. It also has a little bit about culture, grammar and some words and phrases. One great thing about the site, is that it teaches you how to read words, by teaching you rules of stress and accents.

Learn Portuguese With Rafa

Mi Vida Loca

BBC's Mi Vida Loca is an interactive program that teaches you Spanish. The story comes to life and you are a part of it. You get to Madrid and are going to stay at a friend's house, while she is away, but instead of finding an empty house, you meet Merche, the owner's sister. Although at first you're off to a rocky start, she welcomes you and invites you out for food and show's you around. This game is very fun and the storyline is addicting. The camera is in first person point of view, so it's almost as if you're strolling along the streets of Madrid. The sights are amazing and as you walk along the streets, you learn a little bit about Spain's history, geography and culture. You have a language book with you, which contains a guide who teaches you grammar and the meanings of different phrases. At the end of the course, there is also a test to take to show how much you have learned. You learn greetings, how to buy metro tickets, food, and clothes and even how to ask for directions. This program can teach you how to survive in Spain without boring recitation or bookwork and the best part is that it's free. Check it out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/

Learning Portuguese for Spanish Speakers

Here is a great page for converting Spanish to Portuguese: http://alfarrabio.di.uminho.pt/spl/rules.html

I have also found reading in Portuguese to be be very easy, since I already know Spanish. I came across a very old book at the library entitled An Invitation To Portuguese, by Margarita Madrigal. This book was extremely easy to read, and also very helpful. It had themed chapters that taught you vocabulary words that were easily recognizable either by the context and/or from knowing Spanish. It also included grammar help and a short story at the end of the book. If you know other romance languages and you want to learn another language in that family, finding a book of this type will be very helpful, since you'll be able to understand a lot from the beginning, and eventually understand the patterns of the language.

Learning Vocabulary

Although learning vocabulary can be quite monotonous, you can make it interesting by choosing words you want to learn and you can also make your efforts more effective by grouping words together. You can create a theme each week, such as food, clothes, politics, society, etc. This will help you to create a bank of words that you can use for certain conversation topics, and it will also help you to reinforce what you're learning, since many of the words will be similar.

Another thing to try, is to memorize words for objects around your house. Pick a room in your house and memorize the room name, and the objects in it, such as living room, TV, sofa, chair, table, etc.

You can also create a list of cognates and learn those quickly. They even have resources online, like this list of Spanish-English cognates at Latin American Links.

Learning words that are already used in English from your target language is also an easy way to pick up new words that you might not have even realized, such as these words from French: rendez-vous, fait accomli and hors d'oeuvre.

The best way to learn words is to use them, so make your efforts count by practicing with a friend. Have a conversation where you try to use the new vocabulary words you're learning. It might seem silly, at first, but that can actually work in your favor. The more exaggerated your expressions or gestures are, the more memorable the conversation will be, along with the new words in it.

Euro Portuguese TV and News Sites

http://wwitv.com/portal.htm?http://wwitv.com/television/169.htm

http://www.tvi.iol.pt/programas.html

http://ww1.rtp.pt/multimedia/index.php?=

http://thelanguagechronicle.com/portuguese-language-and-cultural-links/

http://aeiou.expresso.pt/

http://dn.sapo.pt/Inicio/

Spanish Resources (Updated)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Spanish
http://www.smartphrase.com/Spanish/spanish.shtml
http://www.babelnation.com/spanish/
http://spanish.about.com/
http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/optometrists_opticians
http://www.businessspanish.com/
http://www.languagelearninglibrary.org/spanish/index.html
http://www.spanicity.com/
http://www.spanishfree.org/practice.html
http://www.studyspanish.com/features/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/es
http://www.alcor.com.au/rhyming_dictionary.asp
http://www.livemocha.com
http://www.unilang.org/
http://www.babbel.com/
http://www.digitaldialects.com/Spanish.htm
http://spanish.speak7.com/
http://webgerman.com/languages/spanish.htm

Portuguese Resources (Updated)

http://simplyput.atspace.com/portuguese/index.htm
http://alfarrabio.di.uminho.pt/spl/index.html
http://www.languagelearninglibrary.org/portuguese/index.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Portuguese/Contents/L1
http://www.sonia-portuguese.com/index.htm
http://www.linguhouse.com/Dir/StudyRoom/EN/EN-PT/StudyEN-PT_01.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Portuguese/Contents
http://www.ielanguages.com/portuguese.html
http://web.mac.com/mikeharland/iWeb/dtup/godtup.html
http://www.learningportuguese.co.uk/home-page/free-online-portuguese-courses.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/

French Resources (Updates)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_television_series
http://www.jump-gate.com/languages/french/
http://www.languagelearninglibrary.org/french/index.html
http://www.babelnation.com/french/
http://zapfrench.com/
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/
http://post.queensu.ca/~lessardg/Cours/215/
http://www.realfrench.net/index.php
http://french.about.com/
http://www.loquella.com/learn-french/
http://learnfrench.elanguageschool.net/mod/resource/index.php?id=4
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~creitan/grammar.htm
http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/la/french.asp
http://www.allever.com/life/academia/2006/08/10/how-to-learn-french-online-fast-easy-free/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/index.shtml
http://speak7.com/
http://www.unilang.org/
http://www.linguanaut.com/index.htm
http://www.languageguide.org/
http://www.digitaldialects.com/
http://www.babbel.com/
http://www.cites.tv/citesdumonde/destinations.php?idDest=3

Italian Resources

http://zapitalian.com/
http://www.italian-flashcards.com/
http://www.livemocha.com/learn-italian
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Italian/Lessons
http://italian.speak7.com/
http://www.babelnation.com/italian/
http://www.101languages.net/italian/
http://www.abruzzo2000.com/course/index.html
http://www.languagelearninglibrary.org/italian/index.html
www.byki.com
http://www.learnandspeakitalian.com/learn-italian-online.html
http://www.italianforyou.it/
http://italian.about.com/
http://webgerman.com/languages/italian.htm
http://www.ielanguages.com/italian.html

European Portuguese Resources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/
http://www.ielanguages.com/portuguese.html
http://web.mac.com/mikeharland/iWeb/dtup/godtup.html
http://www.learningportuguese.co.uk/home-page/free-online-portuguese-courses.html
http://www.portuguese-flashcards.com/
http://www.livemocha.com/learn-portuguese-portugal
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Portuguese/Contents/L1
http://www.linguhouse.com/Dir/StudyRoom/EN/EN-PT/StudyEN-PT_01.html

Memory Techniques

Memory is very important in language learning, so I've compiled some techniques to help improve memory.

Drinking one eight ounce glass of concord grape juice a day improves memory by 20%.

Moving your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds each morning improves memory by 10%.

Playing sudoku, doing crosswords or other games help to stimulate the brain. You can find a few free games specialized to help with memory at Lumosity, but if you want access to the entire site, you have to pay to sign up.

Having an active social life, as well as doing aerobics and taking small naps throughout the day have also been proven to increase memory.

Use bright, positive, pleasant images to remember things, rather than drab ones. If you can put some humor to the scenes, it will help even more.

Using codes is also suggested for taking notes. Writing codes using partial words, pictures and symbols is a lot more effective than writing out whole words.

Relating new information to information that you already know is also helpful.

Vocabulary Learning Techniques IV

This method requires either some sort of smart alarm or an assistant. You can learn up to 50 words at a time using this method. You begin by recording a list of words in the target language with the translation. Before going to sleep, read the list of words out loud, then listen to the recording twice making sure to repeat the words aloud. Afterward, go to sleep. Once you have fallen asleep, either set an alarm to play the recordings or have someone do it for you. The recording should play over and over for 40 minutes, and the alarm or your assistant should gradually lower the volume until turning it off. This process should be repeated 30 minutes before you are supposed to wake up, although this time, the volume should gradually get higher, reaching a high enough volume to wake you up at the end of 30 minutes. Listen to the rest of the recording before getting out of bed. You should have memorized the words by then.

Another good method is to label the furniture and things in your house. Making the flashcards in the first place, will help begin the learning process, but each time you see the labels, the words will be reinforced. Then when you see unlabeled items in other rooms or in other people's house, you will remember the words again.

Vocabulary Learning Techniques III

One way to memorize new words is to group them using the environment technique. You can do this by memorizing the word for bakery. You visualize the entire bakery, so you also learn the words for baker, bread, butter, flour, oven and anything else you might find there. You picture each item in the bakery as you say the words to yourself aloud or in your head.

Another good way to learn new words is by reading bilingual books, which contain one page in the target language and the opposite page in your foreign language. This will make reading much easier, since you won't need a dictionary.

A great technique is to learn the hundred strong words of the language. These words will be different depending on the language, but the theory is that every language has a hundred strong words that cover over 50% of the words used in conversation. Learning these words will make conversation a lot easier.

Vocabulary Learning Techniques II

If you learn better by a hands on approach, one technique is to experience the word you are trying to learn. For example if you are learning the word for 'cake' in Spanish, which is 'pastel', you might want to make a cake, buy a cake or see one, say the word out loud and cut it and even say the word out loud before you eat some.

Another way to learn, is to transfer the words to your subconscious. Before you go to bed, make a list of 20 words. As with all memorizing efforts, focus on memorizing the words for good. Right before you are going to go to sleep, read the first word and translation aloud, while imagining what it looks like in your mind. Then read it again in a whisper, while doing the same thing, then whisper it again with your eyes closed. Rest for 15 seconds before going on to the next word.

Another technique, although it's kind of tedious, is by making and using flashcards. By making each card, you are already learning the words. It is often better to put a picture instead of the word in your native tongue, that way you will remain immersed in the language. You can also find flashcards online at Flashcard Exchange

Vocabulary Learning Techniques

One of the techniques I have come across is called word linking. The idea is to link words that you know from your native language to the words you are learning in the target language, then create an image that combines them both. For example, if you are trying to learn the word 'matin' in French, which means 'morning', you would think of a similar word, such as 'matinee'. You would picture someone going to a matinee in the morning.

Another technique is to write down about 20-25 words in your target language on the left side of a piece of paper, and their equivalents in your native language on the right side. You then read the entire page. Afterward, take a ten minute break, then go back and read the right side of the page with the words in your native tongue. As you read each word, try to remember how to say it in the target language. Skip over the words you can't recall and go back to them later. Take a 5 minute break, then try again, focusing first on the hardest words to recall. Try to review the page until you can remember all the words, then try to recall the words 7-10 hours later, and again 24 hours later. You should have them memorized after 4 revisions.

A passive method of learning vocabulary is to listen to a recording of vocabulary words in the target language with translations in your native language. Keep the recording on repeat at a normal volume and after many playbacks you will learn the words passively without having paid much attention to them. This technique can be used with 40 to 50 words.

Another trick is to create a list of words and put them on the wall in the bathroom. Every time you use the bathroom, make sure to read the list of words. This is a bit less tedious, since you aren't taking too much time out of your day to do it, and you're combining it with something you do regularly anyways.

French Resources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/index.shtml
http://www.allever.com/life/academia/2006/08/10/how-to-learn-french-online-fast-easy-free/
http://www.vimeo.com/3324306
http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/la/french.asp
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~creitan/grammar.htm
http://learnfrench.elanguageschool.net/mod/resource/index.php?id=4
http://www.loquella.com/learn-french/
http://french.about.com/
http://www.realfrench.net/index.php
http://www.ielanguages.com/french.html

More Russian Resources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/russian.shtml
http://www.du.edu/langlit/russian/videoresources/videoprojectindex.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/ru
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/morphque.cgi?flags=kygtnnn
http://www.squidoo.com/learnrussian
http://masterrussian.com/vocabulary/most_common_words_9.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~russian_textbook/contents.html
http://www.ruslang.com/
http://www.practicerussian.com/
http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/golosa/audio/audio1-3e.htm
http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/golosa/audio/audio2-3e.htm
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/russian/vputi/
http://masterrussian.com/index-8.shtml
http://www.shevchenko.org/vk.htm
http://www.tasteofrussian.com/
http://www.russian-plus.com/
http://russian.mypodcast.com/
http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/language/russian/videos-souscat_id-103-vid-1.html
http://www.learningrussian.net/
http://myrussian.org/
http://www.russianlingq.com/
http://multilingualbooks.com/freelessons-russian.html

Spanish Resources

There are many great resources online to help improve your Spanish. First and foremost, BBC Languages has many resources available, such as free online courses for beginners, post-beginners and intermediates, which include videos, games, grammar tips, as well as articles, which contain missing words for you to fill in to reinforce the grammar lessons. The site also has a list of Spanish slang with audio, as well as radio and TV suggestions. In addition, the site contains worksheets you can print out, a test to gauge your level of Spanish and news articles with quizzes.

Livemocha is another great site, which offers free beginner and intermediate courses. There are reading, listening, flashcard, writing and speaking exercises available. The writing and speaking exercises are corrected by real native speakers, who you can also chat with to help improve your language skills.

If you are looking for online reading, you can go to Project Gutenberg to access free ebooks online in Spanish, as well as in many other languages. Another great place to read articles is wikpedia or any Spanish news site.

Word Reference has a great dictionary and verb conjugater, as well as forums, so you can ask questions about word usage and idiomatic expressions you are unfamiliar with.

I have also come across a rhyming dictionary online, which can also be used for many other languages.

If you are looking to build your vocabulary, Byki Languages offers free software that you can download, along with many flashcard list, which include audio, and pictures. They also have an area on their site called "List Central" where you can access many other lists created by other users. Another great feature of this site is access to a word of the day, which you can get sent to your email, or put on your google, yahoo, or myspace pages. Additionally, Flashcard Exchange has many flashcard sets available, and if you are a student, you can often find flashcards specifically for the book you are using, such as Pasajes or Puntos de Partido.

Youtube is a great source for Spanish content. There are often episodes of telenovelas, news clips, cartoons and a variety of other shows. If you are just starting out, you might want to try watching a clip or an episode of something that you have seen before in your native language, and then try to watch it in Spanish. I've seen a lot of Spongebob episodes, so I usually try to watch them in French or Russian.

Study Spanish is another good site, which offers free Spanish courses. The site guides you through grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary and even offers verb drills. The site includes a cultural corner, where you can read articles in Spanish, which contain the English translation, as well as Spanish audio.

SpanishFree offers an amazing amount of resources for Spanish learners. There are videos, articles with audio, Spanish verb, spelling, pronunciation, grammar and practice links. There is also a test, a free book, expressions, phrases and even recipes.

There are many books available that help you learn Spanish. I have found that the Practice Makes Perfect series is great for improving grammar. Complete Spanish Grammar, and Advanced Spanish Grammar are incredibly helpful books from that series. The series also offers books in many other languages, including French and Italian. 501 Spanish Verbs is another great book which includes 501 Spanish verbs and all of their conjugations. Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs is also good, as well as Mastering Spanish Grammar and Complete Spanish Grammar.


Rosetta Stone is another great way to learn Spanish, and they have added levels four and five to their software. You can sign up to learn Spanish online, instead of purchasing the software, which makes it a bit cheaper, and offers access to more content.

Russian Resources

Russian language can be very daunting. The grammar is much different from that of English, and the case system coupled with agreement can entail lots of thought for those who have never had any experience with them. However, there are many resources available to help you improve your language skills.

Firstly, if you are new to Russian, you might want to try BBC Languages. This site offers a few essential words and phrases.

There are free beginners and intermediate courses for Russian on Livemocha. This is a very good site, and there are many native Russian speakers who are happy to help grade your exercises, answer questions, or recommend movies or books to read.

Next, Flashcard Exchange and Byki Languages offer many vocabulary building flashcard sets. Some sets even include audio and pictures.

I have also found that for Russian, as well as for any language, looking up textbook websites or other university websites is often very helpful. The Russian department at UCLA has a page for the book V Puti, which includes helpful videos, listening exercises and grammar exercises. There is also a useful website for the textbook Golossa. The University of Denver has a Russian video project site, as well.

You can also find clips and even some show on Rutube.

There is a Russian verb conjugater here and a great online Cyrillic keyboard here.

I have also found a great site called Russian Lessons. This site has grammar, vocabulary lists, forums, dictionaries, as well as Russian articles with audio and the English translations. It also provides users with an online ebook of Crime and Punishment, with one half of the page in Russian and the English on the opposite page. You can also acquire free online books for Russian, as well as many other languages here.

Master Russian is another great site that offers free Russian lessons, forums, vocabulary lists, word of the day, and dictionaries. It also has links to games and tests for extra practice.

Word Reference

Word reference is a great online dictionary. It has Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and German dictionaries, as well as Spanish, French and Italian verb conjugations. It also has an English dictionary. This site also includes a forum, where you can view previously asked questions, or where you can ask one of your own. This is very useful for figuring out how to say idiomatic expressions correctly, since you can ask a native speaker directly, rather than just trying to guess by putting words together, also it is very likely that the question has already been asked.

www.wordreference.com

BBC Languages

BBC language (bbc.co.uk/languages) offers free courses for many languages and also quick fixes for others. The quick fixes only list a few essential words and phrases, but the courses offer video, audio, games and even some slang words to help you sound more like a native speaker. They also offer a short test to help gauge what level you are, since they offer beginner, post beginner and intermediate courses. They also have grammar lessons, dictionaries, and suggest TV and radio that you can watch to help improve your skills.
I have been using the French section, which has a video series called "Ma France". It includes 24 videos, each with comprehension questions, and various activities to help build vocabulary, write correctly, and form grammatical sentences.
This is truly an amazing site, with many resources available for free, conveniently located on the same page.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

Vocabulary Building With Flashcards

Vocabulary building is essential to effective communication in a new language. One of the ways that you can do this is by using flashcards online. This is available on Livemocha (www.livemocha.com). Once you finish learning the words for the lesson, you are given the option of creating a flashcard set. The flashcards have English on one side (or whatever your native language is) and the foreign language on the other. There are also many other flashcard sets created by other uses that you can use.

Another great site for flashcard sets is Byki (www.byki.com). They offer free software for your computer that has flashcards in a multitude of foreign languages. These flashcards not only have pictures, as well as the word in your native language on one side and the foreign language on the other, but many times they also have audio. You can also find more lists created by users on their site under List Central.

Flashcard Exchange (flashcardexchange.com) is also a great source. There are tons of lists for various languages created by users. You can also create your own lists and save others' lists to your favorites when you sign up. This is a great site for students, because oftentimes there are flashcard sets created based on the book you are using in class, such as Pasajes for Spanish or Discovering French.

Icelandic

The University of Iceland (http://icelandic.hi.is/)offers a free online course for learning Icelandic. Although there are not any videos on the site, there are audio conversations available with a transcript, as well as grammar explanations, declensions, verb conjugations and a glossary. There are also exercises for each lesson. There are 2 Icelandic courses available and the website is very well put together and easy to navigate. I did not see a pronunciation guide on the website, but I did find one here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Icelandic/Alphabet_and_Pronunciation

Livemocha also offers a beginners course in Icelandic, which introduces many vocabulary words and basic sentence structure to beginners.
http://www.livemocha.com/learn-icelandic

I also found a very useful online grammar book here:
http://www.samkoma.com/mimir/mimir.htm
You can get information on adjectives, nouns, articles, conjunctions, nouns, numbers, prepositions, pronouns and verbs.

BBC Languages also has a few audio files for phrases and words on their site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/icelandic.shtml

Livemocha

Livemocha is a great website for language learning. They have an extensive list of languages to choose from and the courses are free. It provides instant immersion by using pictures to convey words and phrases. The user first learns the words by viewing each of the flashcards, and then does activities to reenforce the lesson. For the magnet activity, you arrange the words to form a grammatically correct sentence. For the writing activity, you are given a prompt to write a few sentences or a short paragraph on. For the speaking activity, you read a paragraph or answer a few questions. You can also take a quiz, where you match the foreign language sentence with what it means in your language. There are also other activities, as well as native speakers of the language your learning that will grade your writing and speaking exercises, or even chat with you to help you improve you skills. Getting to know native speakers of a language is a great way to learn about that language and culture. You can also get good movie or book recommendations, as well as learn how real people talk.

Like Rosetta Stone, this program lacks video, which is essential to effective language learning. It also does not explain grammar rules, which, as I stated in my last post, can be confusing for some who have never consciously encountered certain grammatical aspects of a language. However, this site is more creative than Rosetta Stone, since you are able to take a break from tedious activities to talk with real speakers of the language, or to write your own answers to questions, rather than only writing down what you hear.

For more information about Livemocha, go to www.livemocha.com

Rosetta Stone Review

Rosetta stone is an amazing resource for language learning. I have tried French levels 1 and 2, as well as Russian level 3. This program helps people to learn a foreign language and improve their reading, writing and speaking skills through the use of various activities. It also offers instant immersion, since pictures are used to convey the meaning of each phrase.

The speaking activities involve pronouncing syllables, words or phrases. When you say each word, the computer will rate how well you pronounced it. It is also possible to change the difficulty of that meter. There are other activities for listening, in which the program will speak a sentence and you have to choose the corresponding picture. There are also grammar activities, as well as writing activities. In the grammar activities, the user selects the appropriate word from a pull down menu. In the writing exercises, the computer will say a phrase and then the user writes it out.

The good thing about this program is that it offers instant immersion, as well a good base of vocabulary. I don't think that the grammar building is very effective for all languages. It can teach you how to conjugate verbs and the rules of agreement, but I would think you would have to have prior knowledge of how that works, because none of the rules are explained. Also, it is ineffective for languages like Russian, because they use a case system. There are many irregularities for noun endings, and as I mentioned, this is not explained. For an English speaker, who has never taken Russian, this could be quite confusing, since we don't really recognize the cases that we use, and many of the languages that we learn are romance languages, which do not follow strict case systems. Another short coming for Rosetta Stone is the lack of video. There is a milestone at the end of each unit, but it is quite slow moving. They should have some sort of video to watch and answer questions about, so users can see the facial expressions and gestures native speakers use. Rosetta Stone also does not have an alphabet or pronunciation guide, which is key for learning an alphabet in another script and also necessary for reading. The activities are fun at first, but they begin to become a bit tedious after awhile. Another short coming of Rosetta Stone is the price. It is extremely expensive and thus not available to many people.

The reality is that there is access to many resources on the web for free that aid in foreign language acquisition. Rosetta Stone just makes it more convenient, since they provide many of the necessities in the form of a structured course that one can work at at their own pace.

How To Learn A Language Fast

Learning a foreign language is often quite difficult for people, so here are some tips that should help.

First of all, the best way to learn a language is to move to a country where it is spoken. In doing so, you will be forced to speak the language and encounter it everywhere you go. This is the fastest way to learn a language and if you live in the place for six months or more, you can more easily attain fluency.

The next best thing to moving to a country, is video immersion. Watching videos in an other language puts you in an environment were you are completely immersed in the language. This is very useful, because you can even see what facial expressions and gestures are made in conversation. I would recommend finding a television series that you can watch online or on television if you have access to it. This will enable you to have a base of episodes to watch, rather than just one movie (although I do encourage you to try watching movies in other languages, as well.) Subtitles are very useful, since it tells you what is going on, but once you have a handle on the language, you might want to try using subtitles in that language instead of your own, that way you will be more immersed in the language. If you aren't able to catch what the people are saying, you will at least be able to read it. You can also try watching videos without any subtitles at all, which will also help you improve your language skills. At first you might not be able to catch much, but eventually you will understand more and more, especially if you are watching a show. You will get used to the characters' personalities and their manners of speaking, which will make things easier for you to understand.

Listening to music is also a good idea, since you are still being immersed in the language. As with watching videos, it also exposes you to the culture and helps you to keep the language in your head, so that you can start thinking in that language.

It is also important to read books or do grammar exercises in a foreign language. Although sometimes these activities seem tedious or impossible, it helps you learn to read and right, as well as exposes you to more vocabulary and correct sentences, that way, when you need help saying something or writing something, you might remember a phrase from a book that solves your problem or you might not need the help with, because you covered the grammar construction already.

Another good tip is to think in that language, rather than translating what you want to say from your own language. This is difficult at first, but he more you do it, the easier it becomes. Humans are constantly thinking, so once you have a good handle on the language, start trying to consciously think in another language. If you're on the bus looking out the window, think of how to describe the weather in the foreign language you're studying, or if you're thinking about what you did today, try thinking of it in the language you're learning. This is very simple and easy to do wherever you are.

Another idea is to write a journal about the things you do each day. It is sometimes hard to do exercises in other language, when you don't even know what you would say in your own language, so this makes it so you can still practice, since you just have to write about your day. You can write about what activities you did or will do, how you feel, what you wanted to accomplish, but couldn't, etc.

It is also very important to practice speaking the language. Repeating phrases helps to memorize them, but those will not be the only things people say or even the only things that you will want to say. Language is creative and there are an infinite number of sentences that can be made, so you have to understand how the language works. There are some websites (which I will be naming in later posts) that have free activities to practice speaking. One of them is on BBC languages. There is a video of a French man asking you questions, it pauses and then you respond. Another way to practice is to talk to people that speak the language, or organize a conversational group with your classmates. You can also join social networks, such as Livemocha, where you can contact native speakers via Skype or other chatting methods. If you are too embarrassed to speak with someone, you can also talk to yourself while in shower, the car or even while getting dressed.

Once you have a handle on how to construct sentences, you will need to build your vocabulary. This can be done in a number of ways. You learn from reading, watching shows or movies, songs, or from flashcards. There are a number of lists on flashcardexchange.com for many different languages. You can also download free flashcard sets from Byki. You can also get a word of the day here: http://www.transparent.com/wotd/

Language learning software, such as Rosetta Stone also helps, as well as taking formal classes. These options provide a more structured way of learning a language, which helps to keep people on track. It also makes it easier for people who don't like to spend time scouring the internet for the information that they are looking for.

Learning a language is a difficult process, but it is extremely rewarding and very enjoyable.

Good luck with all your language learning pursuits!