How to learn languages?

Articles and interesting news concerning language learning from Tom Pallagi

UsingEnglish.com provides a large collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, learners and academics. Browse our grammar glossary and references of irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms, ESL forums, articles, teacher handouts and printables, and find useful links and information on English. Topics cover the spectrum of ESL, EFL, ESOL, and EAP subject areas.

Dean Close summer school has been educating students from around the world for more than a century, and has an international reputation for academic and sporting excellence.

Our summer school provides a safe, stimulating environment for international students aged 9 to 15 to learn English, experience life in the UK and make strong friendships. Children from across the world come to Dean Close each summer. In 2008 our summer school welcomed students from 45 different countries, many of them returners from 2007.

I have found an interesting English practice website:
www.nonstopenglish.com
On nonstopenglish.com students can:
- practice English with interactive exercises on-line
- receive unique interactive email exercises
- have own personal page with activity history

- solve Quote Quiz puzzles (for advanced students):
www.nonstopenglish.com/quotequiz/

- find words in a word with hall of fame (for advanced students)
www.nonstopenglish.com/wordgames/words-in-a-word.asp

- do scrambled letters FLASH GAME
www.nonstopenglish.com/wordgames/scrambled
- find and submit other English related websites

On nonstopenglish.com teachers can:
- create online Virtual Classes:
www.nonstopenglish.com/virtualclasses

- create printable Quotation Quizzes
www.nonstopenglish.com/quotequiz/

- submit their own website for a link exchange
www.nonstopenglish.com/esl_links

- write their own exercises that will be available for students
- receive printable exercises directly into their mailbox

You can create your own free account here:
http://www.nonstopenglish.com

Enjoy it!

The Radio Free Learning podcast series offers monthly interviews with people doing interesting things in the world of lifelong learning and personal growth and development. You can listen to the podcasts right here on Mission to Learn or subscribe to them in iTunes or your favorite pod catcher.

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You are entering the world of languages, namely Uz-Translations language portal, which hosts unique materials on all languages of the world. Here you can get tons of educational materials on every language of the world, ranging from e-books and dictionaries to video and audiocourses. All materials on our website are provided free of charge and only for familiarization. The project’s aim lies in providing an access to rare materials for those learning and teaching foreign languages.

TalktoCanada.com can be described in one word by its customers as ‘passionate’. We are passionate about helping you develop the skills you need in order to communicate effectively in English. By learning English online with TalktoCanada.com your English will improve dramatically. Every student requires a different amount of help and time to improve their English online but you are guaranteed that the staff at TalktoCanada.com will be with you right from the start to finish. TalktoCanada.com helps you to learn English online by featuring the following benefits:

 Learn English online any Time of the Day or Night

• Flexible to Fit Your Schedule
• No Traveling Required
• High Speed Internet, Skype and a Headset is all you Need!

TalktoCanada.com is the only company that can give you an excellent alternative to traditional English language learning that is not only better but also more efficient in terms of cost, flexibility and learning methods.

Rosetta Stone Online

You may be most familiar with Rosetta Stone as the expensive language learning software in the bright yellow box. While this software is effective, it costs upward of five hundred dollars for all three levels and can only be installed on one computer at a time. Rosetta Stone Online, on the other hand, offers the same capability as the installed software for a little less money (but there’s a catch: It’s subscription based, so at the end of the six month or one year subscription period, you’ll have to pay again) and, perhaps more importantly for some, it can be accessed from any compatible computer with an Internet connection. You can read more about the difference between Rosetta Stone Online and the installed program in another Bright Hub review, and read on for more information about the Italian version of Rosetta Stone Online.

Your Chinese Coach is pleased to announce that the online version of “A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers” is now available for download. Written by by Jeff Santarlasci, a language teacher with years of experience teaching English in Asia, “A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers” is unique in its focus on the learner, rather than on the language being learned.

After nearly 20 years of teaching English to native-speakers of Chinese, Mr. Santarlasci, a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, has finally brought his knowledge and expertise to English speakers who wish to learn the increasingly important language of Mandarin Chinese. In “A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers,” Mr. Santarlasci (also known as Coach Jeff) not only draws on his knowledge of the Mandarin Chinese language, but also on his years of practical experience as a language teacher and learner.

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Online Tools Make it Easy to Find German Conversation Partners

You know some German, but you have no possibility to use it. Here are some great ways to find out how and where to actually speak German – online and free of charge.

Learning a language is like learning a musical instrument. You won’t be able to form your tongue and lips around the different German sounds unless you practice, practice, practice. Although grammar exercises and vocabulary trainers are very important, you can’t learn a language without actually using it.

Find Conversation Partner Online

Of course, it is almost impossible – and no fun at all – to practice talking to yourself. But a conversation partner is most probably just a click away. In the time of high speed internet, and voice and video chat, there are no excuses for not using and speaking the foreign language you want to learn.

To find conversation partners you don’t even have to leave home. Sign up for one of the big social networking services like Facebook or MySpace and look for German friends. The chances are pretty good that there is somebody out there who would practice some German with you, maybe in exchange for practicing English.

On Facebook, you can search for “german conversation“ or “german conversation table“ and will be supplied with a list of groups and people sharing an interest for German language and culture.

Social Networking in Germany

If your German is good enough, you also can sign up for one of the German social networking services and find an online pal. Some of the big ones are StudiVZ.net or MeinVZ.de, which even has an English language version, making it easier to get started.
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With the dominance of English language as the language of technology, politics, and economy, there is always a strong desire for non-native English countries to learn it, either through the school curriculum or informal institutions offering English language courses.

The most conspicuous are Korea, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Indonesia. All these countries have been suffering what is dubbed “English fever”.

In a country like ours, for instance, where English is taught as a mandatory school subject, the goal of teaching English is geared not to the acquisition, but to the learning of the language. That is, English is taught and learnt for the sake of preparing students to pass both school and the national exams.

But, what does it take to acquire English in particular and language in general? Learning grammatical rules? Memorizing vocabulary and idiomatic expressions? Learning how to spell words correctly?

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