In the recent survey about the “best” courses, Pimsleur came out on top, both among the best and the worst. Despite almost a decade of learning languages, I have to admit that I had never tried the Pimsleur approach. I was under the impression that audio based learning wouldn’t work for me, as I considered […]
MOREBusuu & LiveMocha: review of pros and cons
Please note: Livemocha closed down in 2016 after being acquired by Rosetta Stone. Busuu is still going strong! Over the years, I’ve tested out a lot of different interfaces for learning languages. Some have been a huge improvement to how I learned previously, some can be helpful in particular ways, and some just aren’t for me […]
MOREHow to speak Portuguese as if you were from Rio
For those of you who followed my Portuguese mission, I was successful in convincing several Cariocas (residents of Rio de Janeiro) that I was one of them. This involved working on two parts of how I interacted with people; my body language/outward behaviour and my spoken Portuguese. In today’s post I am going to go […]
MORELuck of the Irish? Or can anyone can learn to be lucky?
Hi! I’m Benny – a long-term world-traveller, I speak several languages, work my own hours at a job I like, have many interesting adventures, meet lots of cool people nearly all the time and am a generally happy and positive guy. There’s only one way all of this can be possible, right? I must just […]
MOREBest free online dictionaries for translators and linguists
Sorry traditionalists, but printed dictionaries are on the way out! They are either too small to contain enough entries or too large for those of us who travel, as well as being too expensive. In the time it takes me to go get a big fat dictionary, and flick through the pages for a particular […]
MOREWhy Czech isn’t as hard to learn as you think
What I’ve discovered from learning Czech to a pretty good level My Czech experiment was an interesting one and I’m happy with the results and have learned a lot from the conclusions that I’ve drawn! This post discusses particular hacks for Czech, but you can see many more of my suggestions that would work for this […]
MOREHow your computer and the Internet can correct your grammar and spelling (for free)
In an ideal world, you would have a native beside you every time you spoke or wrote something, so that they could help and correct you. This is not possible for many of us! Luckily, thanks to modern technology and the Internet, you can have your grammar and spelling corrected immediately and automatically, in any […]
MORETravel phrasebooks: a serious language learner’s best first book to study
Please note: this article was written in June 2009. Those who know me, are aware that I can actually take a lot with me on cheap flights, but I still have to decide what is and what isn’t coming with me for my next 6 months on the road! (Czech Republic, then likely somewhere in […]
MORE