“Do you think we are going to supply you with a translator all of your life?” the judge asked them.
If you had the option of going to jail for two years or learning a second language, what would you do? Such was the proposition that three Spanish-speaking men faced when arrested for accosting two […]

From engrish.com
One thing that is hard for many people is making conversation. It’s even harder when doing it in a foreign language–you want to be able to tell jokes or get your opinions across in a completely different culture by using different words and in some cases, completely different ways of expressing yourself.
In this […]

Taken in Kobe
There is a super-informative article at About.com on using bilingual dictionaries. The article is aimed towards those learning French, but the same concepts apply to any language.
Here are some tips from the article that will apply to any language-lookups:
- look up unmodified words (also known as root words, stem words, un-conjugated or […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W1VY4b9IQQ

Learn English through exercise
So far in this series I’ve talked about finding a language suitable for you, and finding the right dictionary to help you learn words faster. In this post I am going to cover the main resources you will use to learn a foreign language.
Textbooks
If you can, do as much research possible […]

Photo by schoshie
Following this list of ten universities that offer free online courses, I sorted through the sites and found which ones offer free language courses:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Language Index
- Chinese
- French
- German
- Japanese
- Spanish
Open University
- Language Index
- French
- German
- Spanish
Carnegie Mellon University
- French
Utah State University
- Chinese
I don’t know about you, but I am pretty excited that […]

Photo from J. Sarmiento
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain
I find myself thinking this when studying here in Japan more than at the school back in the States. Especially after skipping a semester of Japanese, more than ever have I realize that your are your own teacher.
I love […]

Image from Scientific American
According to Scientific American, they way girls use abstract thinking to grasp language learning skills give them an advantage over boys, who require visual aids:
The finding suggests that although linguistic information goes directly to the seat of language processing in the female brain, males use sensory machinery to do a great […]

Photo taken in Nanking Town, Kobe
I’m not going to lie to you: the best way to learn a language is to have it taught to you by a native speaker. You will have someone to correct your mistakes, and learning the language in a classroom setting will force you to get used to […]

Maybe this explains why I suck at Magic Eye
 According to an article from Wired, it does:
“As an adult, color categorization is influenced by linguistic categories. It differs as the language differs,” said Kay, who is renowned for his studies on the ways that different cultures classify colors. He cited recent research on the ability of […]

Rules to enter an arcade
So you want to learn a second language. Maybe you’ve come across multi-lingual people and felt like you’re missing out, or maybe you’ve read some of the articles on this site and decided to try learning another language for yourself. However you came to the decision to learn […]