Studying a language Studying a new language is a lifetime journey. You can never know enough about a language, even your native language. In my case I am a native Spanish speaker who has been studying English for a couple of years now and I really like the experience. It was hard at first, but I stuck to it, and little by little I saw the results. Nowadays I feel quite confident of my level and it helped me a lot in my career and personal life. For instance, in my current job I totally need to rely on English and I wouldn't have been employed if it weren't for my knowledge of English. It was very useful as well when I visited the US in a couple of occasions, and it will for sure in the trips to come. So I would really like to encourage all of you, people that are learning a new language, to be passionate about it, devote as much time as possible to it, love it, try to be exposed to it in many different ways. It hasn't been a better time to learn a new language than today. You have countless tools on Internet to learn new stuff if you are willing to. And what is even more interesting, at the same time you practice a new language you can learn other things. To give you an example, every time I want to know about something, whatever the topic is, I look it up in English. It can be sports, science, technology, politics, etc. Besides, I have all my devices set up in English. I watch TV in English (I really love having the possibility to switch to English most channels in my TV). So, to sum up, I would strongly recommend that you take a total immersion approach and be in contact with the language most of the time (I almost forget, podcasts are incredibly helpful also), and you will see sooner than later that your command of the language will skyrocket. The benefits are worth the effort and as the saying goes, nobody ever regretted learning too much. The best of luck!

Preparing the TOEFL test Hi friends. I am currently studying for the TOEFL test. It consists of four parts: reading, listening, speaking and writing. In my opinion, the speaking and writing parts are the most difficult, as you need to elaborate your responses from a question or choice you are given, and I feel it can get a bit hard. For instance, in the speaking part of the test, you only have a few seconds (between 15 and 30) to prepare your answers, and the questions can be from a wide variety of topics. So I am not only concerned about the test itself, but also about the format of it. Anyway, I strongly believe that it is key to be well prepared and to have practiced many times before you go and take the actual test, that way I will be familiar with the test structure and as a result I will be able to do my best. Currently, I am using a book that put the focus in the speaking and writing part of the test and I will stick with it until I feel confident. I also plan to take many mock tests beforehand. Ok, that's pretty much it, hope to hear from you and get some comments. Thanks!