Japanese Sentence Structure
Learn the essentials of Japanese sentence structure with this in-depth guide. From Subject-Object-Verb patterns to the flexible use of particles and modifiers.
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Ironic post: Why English is all you need to travel the world
Over the last month, I’ve changed my ways of trying to communicate in the local language, and I’ve been living the life of a typical English-speaking tourist. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve tried this, as I almost always work on linguistic immersion as a means of getting to know […]
Why learning a language is like learning a musical instrument
Here I am, at the starting stages of speaking a language once again, and I’m reminded of how it felt taking a similar first step into playing the piano and other instruments I’ve learned. Since my feelings would likely be shared by others, I asked my friends on twitter how learning a language is like […]
Reading Thai and its tones isn’t as hard as you think
My first month in Thailand has come to an end; the purpose of this month for me was to discover a little of the south, be a tourist and be able to grasp the rules on reading Thai. It was way easier than people warned me it would be, and I’ve only put a total […]
[video] Another way to look at the 5 tones of Thai
This post includes an embedded video. If you are reading it through RSS or email and don’t see it, click through to watch it on my site! Note: Rather than this video being a how-to about Thai tones, it’s simply giving an idea of the way that I’m looking at and approaching them to help […]
Is your language half full?
The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The optimist says it’s half full. The pragmatist says its liquid contents are at 50% capacity. The ironist says it’s half full of air. The practicalist says the glass is twice as big as it should be. The psychoanalyst says the glass is your mother. The punk […]
First impressions of Thailand
Travel update: no language tips in this (long) post! After travelling for about 7 years already, I thought I was immune to surprises, shocks and general wide-eyed awe. And then I came to Thailand! There’s nothing I can say about Thailand that hasn’t already been blogged, Lonely Planeted, Documentary Channelled, photographed or twittered a million […]
Friday fun: Learning Na’vi for your Avatar
Preface Na’vi is the language spoken by the fictional aliens in the currently very popular movie Avatar. Even though it’s “just a movie”, Na’vi is an “actual” (constructed) language. It has vocabulary and grammar and was developed by linguist Paul Frommer. He’s hoping it will become the new “Klingon” of movie languages. Since the whole […]
Any phonetic script can be learned in just a few hours
If you liked my association technique mentioned below, you would also enjoy my tips on using imagination to memorize vocabulary, which are discussed in great detail with many other hacks in my book. See the most popular posts on the right below for other interesting topics. For those curious, this post discusses Thai, but the […]
Learning enough of the language to get by on the flight over
In my travels I always try my best to speak a language fluently (or better), but sometimes this is not possible, since I may be only spending a few days in a country. As well as this, you need to start somewhere if you want to eventually speak fluently, and “enough to get by” is […]
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