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Hey! Do you speak one of the languages I'm learning? Let's practice together! Bonjour à tous! N'hésitez pas à m'envoyer un message! Merci A + 初めまして！マッシュです。、 一年日本に住みたいです。練習一緒にしましょう！
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yherlin
Spanish
Oct 8, 2024
mucho gusto en conocerte matthew
Mo Chanisorn
Thai
Aug 31, 2021
Matt has very a interesting way to learn languages and I think that's so impressive!
Jan Hanna
Arabic (Modern Standard)
Feb 10, 2018
Thank you so much for another great lesson. see you soon.
Jan Hanna
Arabic (Egyptian)
Jan 19, 2018
It was very good Lesson with you
Activities
  • Commented

    @Sally


    If she is apologizing for walking slowly, you can just say, "Oh, don't worry about it! ^^ Thanks! "

    0 voted
    January 19, 2018
    0
  • Commented

    @<a ui-sref="user({id:comment.commenter_obj.id})" href="https://www.italki.com/user/3446533" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AndreyGelendzhik</a>

    That looks like a really interesting website! Thanks for showing me! Is it only for English learners?

    @<a ui-sref="user({id:comment.commenter_obj.id})" href="https://www.italki.com/user/3537811" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawrence</a>

    Yeah, I used to try learn lots of words with Anki, but there started to be too many words to review a day.
    So I changed the interval time to 300% for the easy option, and it's a lot better now.
    I also only have decks that include lots of example sentences with audio.
    With this approach I can sometimes learn 100 new Japanese words a week and 25 new kanji.

    I don't know if it would be better to just read a lot like most people are suggesting, but I think for Chinese and Japanese, because there are so many characters that you have to know in order to read anything, it is a lot harder to just 'start' reading newspapers and articles until you know at least 3000 core words (and maybe 1500 characters).

    I have found a website called lingq.com really useful for my reading skills in Chinese. I don't have to learn any new words, I can just read. This website makes it a lot easier to get exposure without being slowed down by the words you don't know! Anyone else have success with lingq?

    0 voted
    January 10, 2018
    0
  • Commented

    So it seems you guys learn vocabulary best by watching TV! That's really neat, when you watch TV, it is

    1. interesting

    2. filled with passive vocabulary

    and

    3.  there is so much context !! 

    What about if you are still a beginner? What do you think the best way is?

    0 voted
    January 10, 2018
    0
  • Commented

    I think that assessing your speaking ability will demonstrate how well you can communicate an idea. Depending on your goal, that might not be the most important thing for you.

    It can be quite upsetting or frustrating - of course - if you can't express yourself. But if you can read, write and listen to English well, it will be very easy to improve your speaking skills.

    Here are two of my tips, let me know what you think.

    1. Practice pronunciation ... a lot!

    You can do this by getting a language partner to read words for you, or you could buy a course, find something on youtube about pronunciation, or even pay an italki teacher that does pronunciation!
    Whatever you choose, you should spend at least one entire month working on your pronunciation as your main focus. English pronunciation is hard! So if you can master this part of the language, the rest will become a lot easier. If you learn to pronounce correctly from the beginning, you won't pronounce the same word wrong over and over again. It's a lot harder to change your accent once you have spoken a lot. With pronunciation, you will have a lot more confidence when you speak and you will also understand native speakers better 

    2. Make mistakes ... a lot!

    Making mistakes in language learning is one of the best ways you can improve, it helps you to notice where you have gaps in your understanding and of course, it makes a conversation more fun. When you make a mistake, you often won't make it again. So the sooner you embrace mistakes when you speak, the quicker you will become fluent.


    Remember, if you study a language for hundreds of hours without speaking, obviously your speaking won't be as good. Just spend more time talking and you will see how quickly you'll improve.

    0 voted
    January 10, 2018
    0
  • Posted
    How do you learn vocabulary?

    Over the last few years, I've been exploring different methods of learning vocabulary. I've played with Spaced Repetition systems like Anki or The Lietner System, I've also tried using a memory palace! (That worked really well for Japanese Characters!). 

    I think there are lots of different ways to learn vocabulary well. There isn't one best way. We all learn differently.

    I have found that there are three principles that help a lot to learn new vocabulary.

    1. It has to be interesting/fun

    If you don't find what you are doing interesting or important, your brain probably won't try to learn or remember what you are doing!

    2. Try focusing on learning passive vocabulary

    Memorising new words isn't natural, that's why we keep forgetting them (but maybe it's only me who always forgets them)! Because of this, I try to focus on learning to recognise words, rather than to memorise them. This approach is also how we learn words as babies.

    3. Context, context, context

    Learning a word in context is probably the most important principle. Learning a word in context connects it to other words/ideas in a sentence. So we have more connections to it in our brains!


    What do you think? Is there a fourth principle? How do you learn vocabulary?

    January 10, 2018
    8
    4
  • Commented

    Is having a certain accent more important than having good pronunciation?

    Interesting question! 

    I would say that the word "accent" and "pronunciation" are often used interchangeably in English. They are not the same. So it's good that you have made a distinction between the two. To answer the question, let's understand the real difference between the two.

    Pronunciation is the way your mouth articulates. In other words, how the mouth blocks (or releases) air flow to make a specific sound.
    The way we make vowels is also just the position of your tongue in your mouth.

    There are slight differences in pronunciation between American and British English. These are mainly the vowel sounds, and while British speakers say car, " kɑː "  Americans would say,  "ka(r)". Then there are Australians that say something close to, "k͏æː" . 

    So do these differences matter? Yes, they do. Learning to pronounce correctly is extremely important because English ears are trained to hear only sounds that are part of the English language. 
    If you pronounce a vowel differently, an English speaker has to use some of her attention to decipher the vowel sound.

    For a trained linguist, this doesn't present a problem. But for English speakers that can't speak a foreign language, a fast speaking non-native speaker can be quite hard to understand!

    Fortunately, learning to pronounce properly isn't too difficult. 


    Now, what about an accent?

    Resonance in an accent is basically the location in your mouth where the sound.. resonates! Most American speakers have resonance in the front of the mouth. On the other hand, Australian accents have resonance towards the back.
    Having an accent doesn't really make a big difference when you're using English, it's the pronunciation of an accent that can prevent you from being understood. 

    0 voted
    January 10, 2018
    0