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Three Terrifying Things About Language Learning Posted by on Oct 26, 2015 in Archived Posts

It’s that time of year – the days are shorter, the evenings are chillier, and the leaves are dying in droves of yellow and brown, their shriveled, bone-dry corpses falling unceremoniously to the ground where they will wither and decay, shattering into a gory, crunchy mess under the feet of children everywhere. Yes, it’s a…

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Be Delighted by Your Chosen Language Posted by on Oct 19, 2015 in Archived Posts

It’s easy to be hard on German. It’s a fun language to complain about. It sounds needlessly harsh to untrained ears, it’s got a bewildering system of declensions that serve no conceivable purpose (I’ve heard Russian is worse, which is enough for me to keep a safe distance from that language), and something about German history and the…

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Doing Things Their Way: Language Learning in Foreign Lands Posted by on Oct 12, 2015 in Archived Posts

Itchy Feet - Maximum Occupancy

Let’s say you read this previous post of mine, encouraging you to go and not just speak, but learn new languages out in the real world, where those languages are being spoken. Let’s say you decided, “you know what, that guy that does those web comics is right! I’ve got to get out to where…

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How to Deal Graciously with Embarrassment Posted by on Sep 21, 2015 in Archived Posts

Now, we all make mistakes. Sometimes, we make embarrassing mistakes. I’m no stranger to this myself. To paraphrase the Red Queen, why, sometimes I make as many as six embarrassing mistakes before breakfast! And when you’re learning something, you simply can’t help but screw it up. That, as we all know, is how we learn. Learning…

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Language Learning in the Real World Posted by on Sep 14, 2015 in Archived Posts

Itchy Feet: Adventure Shopping

These days, learning a language from the comfort of your armchair is as easy as 1, 2, internet! We’ve got software, we’ve got websites, we’ve got resources of every imaginable sort. We’ve got endless pages of grammar tables and translation searches and color-coded graphs and entertaining blogs and ways to Skype and communicate with real…

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Rooster Dialects and the Age of Information Posted by on Sep 7, 2015 in Archived Posts

Itchy Feet: Odd Bird Out

You know what I love about the internet? I love the fact that you can learn almost everything you need to know by just looking it up, and information about just about everything humanity has ever done is available instantaneously. The dumbest things can be checked and, in some cases, verified. Take, for example, the comic…

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Staying Resourceful in Language Learning Posted by on Aug 26, 2015 in Archived Posts

Itchy Feet: Resourcefulness

Do any of the following sound like they might have come out of your mouth at one time or another? “I know drilling grammar is important, but it’s just not fun…and life’s too short.” “I can read street signs and menus, and understand when spoken to, but I can’t speak it. I just can’t find…

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