The Secret to Learning French: Avoid the French Posted by Malachi Rempen on Mar 19, 2014 in Archived Posts
When I first moved to Morocco back in 2012, I had just spent a year living and working in Lyon, France. Granted, I hadn’t taken any French lessons before arriving (aside from a bit of listen-and-repeat audio training), and in fact French was never originally on my list of languages to learn, nor France on…
Announcing: Multilingual Madness Bracket 2014 Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 18, 2014 in Archived Posts
It’s that time of year, bracketeers! The NCAA March Madness tournament is underway, and basketball fans and band-wagoners alike are scrambling to their computers to prepare their brackets. Some employ complex strategies based on seeds and statistics, while others may simply pick whichever mascot they prefer. But we here at Transparent Language have a more pressing…
Conquering Non-Latin Languages with Romanization Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 17, 2014 in For Learners, Learning Feature Updates
Just as every language is unique, so is every language learner. While many learners wish to read, write, and speak a language, others desire only oral fluency. For that reason, Transparent Language Online provides learners the choice to learn with a Latin transcription (also known as transliteration or Romanization) in every language for which it…
Are Some Languages Harder to Learn than Others? Posted by meaghan on Mar 10, 2014 in Archived Posts
What’s the easiest language to learn? Why is Chinese harder to learn than Spanish? How hard would it be to learn Icelandic? Considering that I spend most of my day lurking through the depths of the language-learning communities on various social media networks, I see a lot of questions about the relative difficulty of learning…
Language Learning and Creative Outlets with “Itchy Feet” Posted by Malachi Rempen on Mar 5, 2014 in Archived Posts
Hello! My name is Malachi Rempen. I run a comic called Itchy Feet: A Travel and Language Comic, and I’ve posted a couple times before here on the Transparent Language Blog. Starting now I’m going to be contributing regularly, so I thought I’d begin with one of my older comics (above), the only one I…
Can Learning a Language Change Your Life? Posted by meaghan on Mar 3, 2014 in Archived Posts
What’s the worst excuse not to learn a new language? “I just don’t need to.” Okay, fair enough. Maybe your everyday life doesn’t require any knowledge of a foreign language at the moment. But that doesn’t mean a new language holds no value for you. And if you’re guilty of thinking so, it’s probably because…
The Language of Music: Using Music as a Learning Tool Posted by mtaulier on Feb 26, 2014 in Archived Posts
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” -Aldous Huxley You’ve tried every language-learning method out there: books, audiotapes, classes, immersion, computer software, but you’re still struggling. You’ve reached a point where learning a foreign language is no longer fun and you begin to lose hope that you’ll ever attain even…