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Posts Tagged ‘foreign language’

Speak and Understand The Italian Language

December 14th, 2009 Robertson Kunz No comments

The descendent of Latin, the language spoken in the Roman empire, Italian is now spoken by more than 60 million people. Unlike its ancestor, however, Italian has grammar that is considered much easier to learn.

You may be interested in learning Italian for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you are going on a vacation to Italy or intend to live there. Maybe you have Italian ancestry or plan on getting a job that involves work with Italians. Whatever the reason may be, learning Italian can be a very rewarding experience.

One factor that may help speed up your studies of Italian is if you already have knowledge of another romance language like Spanish or French. Linguists consider these languages to be very similar and if you know one, you will find that you already know much of the vocabulary and grammar.

For English speakers, Italian is often remarked to have a “pleasing” sound to it, most likely due to its great use of vowels and especially its use of vowels at the end of words. Unfortunately, this stress of vowels also means that listening to Italian seems like an incomprehensible stream to most English-speaking Italian language learners just beginning their studies.

Tricky Italian points for English speakers include determining gender for nouns since words are either of the masculine gender or of the feminine gender. Additionally, verbs are conjugated with very different forms depending on the subject of the sentence.

However, comforting points include the fact that Italian word order is very similar to word order in English. Italian is also a subject-verb-object language like English so English speakers will find it very easy to begin creating new sentences in Italian.

Due to the large number of Italian speakers and Italian’s popularity as a foreign language, there is a wide variety of language textbooks and programs for learners to choose from. Depending on your ultimate language goals for Italian, you may want to choose from a quick audio program before your vacation or a textbook series to take you to fluency.

Before you begin learning Italian, you should remember to sit down and make a serious commitment to learning the language. It can be a tough process but if you stick to it, you will be greatly rewarded. On the other hand, don’t just simply do grammar exercises and read textbooks, you should also enjoy yourself in Italian, too! Watch an Italian film or buy an Italian language CD. You will find that these activities can be some of the most rewarding when learning Italian.

Author Robertson Kunz has a language learning guide: fast language learning. Italian learners: learn fluent Italian.

Learning Spanish Tips

November 26th, 2009 Robertson B. Kunz No comments

Spanish is a language that in recent days many people have become interested in. You may want to learn Spanish to better communicate with people in your community or simply because your access to the language is greater than your access to other foreign languages.

Especially in countries like the United States, Spanish speaking communities are growing which has led to more of a need for individuals with Spanish and English speaking skills.

For this case, maybe you want to learn Spanish in order to better communicate on your job or maybe you want to make new friends with your co-workers.

Whatever the case may be, learning a new language can be a rewarding endeavor. This is not to say that it is an easy one, it can be very difficult to learn a foreign language. However, there are a few tips you can be aware of in order to improve upon the process.

If you are trying to learn a new foreign language like Spanish, it is best to study a little bit each day instead of a lot at one time and then not much for a while.

The reason for this is because the longer you wait between study periods, the more you will forget and the more time you will thus need to spend reviewing instead of gaining new ground in the material.

This process also has the added benefit of conditioning your mind to the foreign language, in this case, Spanish, so that you are able to adapt better to the new sounds, grammatical structures and more that occur in it.

For whatever reason you may be learning Spanish, I wish you the best of luck and a speedy process in learning it! Remember to study a little bit each day and you should continue to improve. Just keep at it and you will experience the many rewards that foreign language study can bring.

Robertson B. Kunz is the author of a language learning guide to help you get fluent in a foreign language faster. Visit his website to get more great information on learning languages quickly. Also, find more great information on learn Spanish articles.

Japanese vs. European Languages

November 13th, 2009 Robertson Kunz No comments

There are many reason that one might want to learn Japanese. Some people are interested in Japanese because of the cultural phenomenon that many products from Japan have become… from video games to anime.

Japan is also liked by many people because it has a strong traditional culture and a very strong business culture which has promoted Japan to being the second largest economy in the world.

Japanese is a language like any other foreign language in its approach but we also must remember a few things if we want to be successful in learning it.

Japanese is one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers because it does not use the same script for reading and writing and also because it has few similar words with English.

Spanish or French, on the other hand, use the same script as English and also share many words because English borrowed a great number of words from these languages and other Latin influences thus resulting in many cognates between the languages. This means that you can pick up a great number of words simply because they are very similar to the English equivalents.

This means that learning Japanese is a little bit more tricky but I am not saying that it is impossible.

However, my best advice for you is to keep your reasons for learning Japanese strong if you want to get far in it.

My best advice to you is to make sure that your reason for learning the foreign language, in this case, Japanese, is a strong one.

This can either be your interest in something like anime or it can be something like a business investment for your future.

This will mean that your journey of studying Japanese will be kept well even though it is a strong one. So, keep studying and every time you feel that you are growing weak in your resolve to learn Japanese, remember the reason you want to learn it and keep that pushing you forward. Good luck!

Author Robertson Kunz has a language learning guide: learn a foreign language fast. Japanese learners: learn fluent Japanese.