02:05 
Thu, 4th December 2008
Second Language Competence Beneficial but often Misunderstood
Second language learning has associated with it many types of benefits. Among them include: social, economic, intellectual and linguistic. Children who engage in second language learning typically outperform their peers in the area of vocabulary development as well as intellectual development. As important as learning a second language is, learners can be viewed as experiencing difficulties with language development when in reality they are displaying linguistic differences.
Teaching English in Greece - What Do You Need to Know?
The employment situation can be quite uncertain for newcomers to Greece and therefore many people choose to try teaching English as a foreign language, on a full or part-time basis. It can bring in a good income whether it is your preferred career choice, or you wish to do it short-term until another career choice pans out.
Japanese Kanji Learning: Short-Cuts to Rapid Mastery (Part 1)
What? Kanji can be learned quickly? This seems an impossible dream to many students of Japanese who come from a non-kanji language culture. Even hiragana and katakana seem impossibly hard to the average beginner, so remembering kanji, with all their intricate strokes and multiple readings, can appear to be beyond the abilities of the human mind.
Speaking Spanish To Increase Mind Power
Our “mind power” is largely in the way we use our words, and limited by our vocabulary. Words, and the concepts they express, are different in each language, and there are differing common expressions. That’s why when you learn a new language, you learn new ways to think.
Most Americans see money as something created, not as a static quantity to be divided up.
English Has Come A Long, Long Way…
I often wonder what would happen if Shakespeare were to be transported in a time machine to our world today. What would he think? How would he react?
Yes, Willie would probably tell me “thou hast too much time on thy hands if thou spendeth it wondering about such flights of fancy.
English Slang For Perplexed Tourists
I watched the British version of ‘Big Brother’ recently. That’s the television show which is a human hamster cage. Viewers go ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over the one they like or dislike, and vote to decide who leaves the house. In the interim, the contestants do tricks for the amusement of the public.
Learn to Speak Basic Chinese (Mandarin) Words and Phrases
The Chinese Language and dialects
Each province, each city and even each village speaks their own dialect. There are hundreds of Chinese dialects in China so much so that each dialect speaker is not likely to understand another dialect speaker from another village or city. Fortunately, Mandarin, the official dialect, is understood by all dialect speakers.
Bridging the Language Gap Using Bilingual Picture Books
There are more than 39 million Hispanics live in the United States making it the fifth largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world. It is estimated that within five years, only Mexico will have more Spanish-speakers than the U.S. Schools are offering bilingual courses and fully integrated bilingual curriculum. In some areas of the country , Spanish even exceeds English as the first language of the residents.
Learning a Foreign Language: the Psychological Factor
When it comes about learning a foreign language, many people wonder if they will be able to memorize enough vocabulary. But this question never occurs about their mother tongue. And yet, it was a foreign language; nevertheless, among all the questions that new parents ask, no doctor has ever heard: “Will my baby be able to learn my language?” Be honest.
Don?t Take The Romaji Short-Cut When Learning Japanese
This is an issue many Japanese learners come up against, particularly if they live outside Japan. After all, If you are not in the country, it seems difficult to justify the huge amount of time that learning Japanese characters seems to require.
So what are the problems in using Romaji (Roman letters, like the characters you are reading right now) for studying Japanese:
1.