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8 Mistakes That Haunt Language Learners (and How You Can Avoid Them!) Posted by on Sep 29, 2014 in Archived Posts

Language learners of all abilities and backgrounds have something in common: they make mistakes—lots and lots of them. Language teachers and experts actually encourage making mistakes, as each false friend you employ and every verb conjugation you mangle is a learning opportunity. Learning by doing (even doing wrong) is powerful. So, keep on makin’ mistakes…

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Not Ready to Completely Flip Your Language Classroom? Try the Sideways Classroom Model Posted by on Sep 24, 2014 in Archived Posts

You’ve heard of it by now: the flipped classroom model. To oversimplify a bit, this educational model requires students to listen to traditional lectures (delivered in video format) at home, thereby freeing up classroom time for more interactive learning activities. Here at Transparent Language, we’re big fans of helping teachers flip language classrooms, but this model…

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Silly French Numbers: “Four Twenties and Ten” or “Ninety”? Posted by on Sep 22, 2014 in Archived Posts

Last summer I spent a little over a month in the DRC, or Democratic Republic of Congo, for work. As the DRC is a Francophone country, and my trilingual colleague did not feature French on his résumé of tongues, it was up to me to break out my rusty français. It did not go as…

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Trouble With a Language? How Food Can Transcend Words Posted by on Sep 17, 2014 in Archived Posts

Guest Post By Bridget Piszczek, Founder Polska Foods We all know that uncomfortable moment when you are traveling abroad and trying desperately to buy that ticket, order that sandwich, or talk to a relative—but no one can understand you.  You sink into your shoes and hope to disappear.   Maybe you hope that your brain will…

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From Average, Ambitionless Student to World-Travelling Language Lover: How High School Spanish Class Changed My Life Posted by on Sep 15, 2014 in Archived Posts

Guest post by Sean Duhaime, one of our trusty Quality Assurance Testers and our go-to Hispanophile here at Transparent Language. Before I started learning Spanish, there was nothing concrete about me.  I was a wayward child with a C average and a vague ambition to become the next singer-songwriter-sensation.  I was eleven years old when I…

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Romantic Languages: Not Necessarily Romance Languages Posted by on Sep 8, 2014 in Archived Posts

Today I’m going to completely disagree with my own comic. I made the above strip a while back and thought I could mine some easy chuckles from a common stereotype. But now that I’m older, wiser, and more proficient in all of the above languages, I’ve come change my tune. Not only that, I’m going…

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An American in Iceland: the Benefits of Learning the Language Before a Vacation Posted by on Sep 3, 2014 in Archived Posts

Starting in late fall of last year, I found myself planning for a summer trip to Iceland, a place I’d wanted to visit for a very long time. Shortly after the tickets were booked and the dates circled on the calendar, it suddenly hit me that this little island in the middle of the Atlantic…

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