Planning for Successful Language Learning: Personal Study and Lesson Time

I thought I would try something new today and forgo the written post for a video post.   What do you think? , Click here if you are unable to see the video above.  Resources and Posts Mentioned In the Video Articles and Videos Language Learning Tip: Using Paper Flashcards Effectively Anki: Bringing Flashcards Out…

Planning For Successful Language Learning: Maximizing the Day to Day Grind

Click here to watch the video if it is not visible above. In Part 1 of this series of posts about planning I discussed why we need to plan if we are to find success as language learners.  Read it now. In Part  2, I shared my thoughts for planning with the big picture in mind….

Planning for Language Learning: Looking At The Big Picture

Confucius said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  What he doesn’t say is that, after that first step, you still have a thousand miles to go. It is a long road and in this second of a series of four posts on planning for the language learning journey, I would…

Planning for Successful Language Learning

Planning.   It is an important aspect of a life lived well, of a business built for success and, of a language learning journey that reaches the goal of fluency. As language learners there is much to plan if we are to create an optimal learning experience that leads most quickly to fluency. Planning is…

A Lesson on Foreign Language Literacy

Today’s post is written by Wesely Farrow, creator of Soltura Languages, an up and coming new language platform which I’ll be featuring in the coming weeks. What does it mean to be literate or fluent in a foreign language? Too often people think simply that literacy means reading and fluency means speaking. Let’s have a…

How to Use Voice of America to Learn 43 Languages

Voice of America (VOA) is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. I know that sounds a bit scary, but the fact of the matter is, VOA is a great resource for language learners everywhere. According to the VOA charter, VOA is to serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news which is…

Emotions and Language Learning

Priscilla Vail in her article, The Role of Emotions and Learning, tells the story of sitting at home alone one evening enjoying a good book when she begins to hear noises coming from her basement. Convinced that she has intruders below, she frantically tried to find the police department’s number in the phone book but…

Are You An Everyday Language Learner?

The great challenge for most people learning another language is that we are, for all intents and purposes, reluctant language learners. There are many who read this blog who do so because they are passionate for languages, because learning other languages is an exciting challenge and because, for them, learning other languages – emphasis on…

10 Ideas for Learning a New Language Five Minutes At A Time

We live in the most hurried, busy time the world has perhaps ever seen. We have more engagements, more work, more distractions to fill more hours of more days and if you are like me, you still find yourself wishing you could accomplish – just a bit more. Amongst all this business is a desire…

How Are You Doing?

If you have ever traveled to a new country, you know the strange feeling of getting on a bus and finding you have little but a foggy notion of where you are going or how long it will take to arrive. Your bus pulls from the station and turns right. Why right you have no…

Language Learning Activity: Dialogue Generation

Every language uses the ebb and flow of dialogue.  When we communicate we both talk and listen. Creating natural dialogues then can be an effective way to practice for the regular interactions that take place as we speak in our new target languages. What is a dialogue? If you been through any formal language school…

Language Learning Lessons from Rocky IV

One of the great American film series of all time are the Rocky movies.  Few Hollywood blockbusters do well on the path to anthology.  Sequels rarely pan out. But the Rocky movies were astoundingly successful.  Rocky I, II and III were great stories, well written, compelling and fun to watch. But Rocky IV was epic….

Don’t Quit

Life is full of surprises. We all know that of course, but there are times when each of us in our own way is taken off guard, is set back and knocked out of the comfortable routines and easy flow of the everyday of our lives. An illness crops up.  A move to a new…

Become A Language Learning Evangelist

For some time now I’ve been thinking about how to help more people.  The problem I’ve run into is that I want to reach those who have not yet ventured to begin to learn another language. Most all of them think it would be a nice thing to be able to speak Spanish or read…

Mimicry and Language Learning – Let It Flow

I’ve been hearing about some new ideas for language learning lately – namely shadowing and mimicry as language learning methods.  Not having a lot of experience with either, I was glad to connect with Idahose Ness of The Mimic Method.  He has kindly submitted a great guest post about mimicry which I present to you…

About
Welcome to The Everyday Language Learner. My goal with this site is to empower everyday folks to learn language well and to point language learners toward great resources, activities, information and ideas. My name is Aaron Myers and my family and I live in Istanbul, Turkey where we too are everyday language learners. My hope is that I am able to help you be a more effective, more efficient language learner and to help you have a lot more fun on the language learning journey. Have an amazing day! -Aaron
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