Thoughts on using ACTFL Can-Do Statements

Given that I’ve studied primary Indo-European languages, I’ve become well familiar with the Common European Framework of Reference (CERF). Japanese has its own equivalent (JLPT), but Arabic lacks a concrete exam, and I’ve often used CERF levels to monitor my progress.

Three Non-European Languages For English Speakers

There's a trend for language learners in the English-speaking world to stick to Western European languages. Who can blame them? English shares a considerable amount of vocabulary with both romance and Germanic languages - this makes them a bit easier to pick up. It's no different than a Hindi speaker learning Bengali, Gujarati, or even Persian.

More adventurous learners have attempted branching out into East Asian languages like Japanese and Chinese, especially for those interested in anime or business.

But here are five more languages that can broaden your horizons:

Update: WebDev & Other Projects

I returned to India in early April, and since then I've been working to sort out my daily tasks and my larger projects.

Transitivity and Language Learning

Transitivity was a concept I struggled with in elementary school, and then promptly forgot about. Even when I began learning new languages, I was far more preoccupied with perfective verbs and tenses to even think about how transitivity may matter.

6 Tips On Learning Culture Without Visiting The Country

What should you know, before you travel?

Learning a language is incomplete without culture study. You may get hints from grammar - honorifics, for example - or idioms. But the right words are only the first step towards approaching the wealth of culture packed within a language.
The best part? You don't need to travel to your target country to get started.


So, for the purpose of this post, what is culture? It's really an umbrella term for varied thoughts, actions, histories and other unique identifiers of a certain group of people. A culture can be at a a national level (Germany), regional (Bavarian), social (high-class) and familial (your family vs. mine).

So how can we learn about other cultures, especially at a more intimate level?

Courseless: How To Master Grammar In Any Language

By Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash.

In all of language learning, one word incites fear, disgust and exasperated sighs; one word that causes learners to steer clear of some languages; one word that dominates student study sessions: Grammar. Throughout my experience in the classroom, I've noticed that grammar is the greatest hurdle for students - regardless of language. It's what teachers spend the most time explaining, what self-learners put of learning. It's a stumbling block.

But it doesn't have to be.

Short-Form: Jorge Luis Borges

“There are not, in the whole vast library, true identical books…everything is there…a version of each book in all languages, the interpolation of every book in all books.” – “Library of Babel” 75 

The Translator

The Argentinian writer, translator and essayist Jorge Luis Borges may be better known as the translator of Garcia Marquez’s One-Hundred Years of Solitude. His work consists of puzzles, falsifications, religion, mirrors, and libraries. And as amazing as his fiction is (I’ll get to that in another blog post), it’s also interesting to interpret his ideas about translation.

An Ode to Learning Language

It is your first second language.

It’s the thick and luscious r that brought you here. Or maybe it is the curve of your lower lip resonating the o with more roundness than your native tongue. It’s that click of the tongue that sent curiosity sharp down your spine; it’s that sighed h that echoed in your ears after the class was closed.

There are a multitude of reasons why this language is the one. Although maybe there is a singular motivation, an intuitive hunch, a guided path of syllables dropped like breadcrumbs to lead you to this specific classroom.

Again illiterate, again facing the unknown, you listen to the soft edges of the alphabet, to the characters. Anticipation lingers in each pause your teacher emits, like a scene skipping just before the climax of a film.

This code represents everything you are and everything you will become. Without a doubt it contains your essence, somewhere stuck in the syntax of every sentence. No longer empty with the absence of life, this new language fills you from your mouth to your feet.

Every new word gives you satisfaction, more perhaps than any other achievement -- every natural pause and pace, your hands gesturing or not gesturing in a way different than that of your childhood. You have chosen these phrases.

A year passes, fattened and plump with nouns and adjectives and verbs and verb forms and cases and gender and everything you did not know one language could contain. After a year, that tranquil a or i drips from your lips like melted snow.

But you’ve noticed something.

As you grow, so does that absence. No matter how many rules you amass into a stockpile of grammar that matters, that hunger grows too.

At first it is frightening. Four walls enclose your words. No matter how fast you learn vocabulary, how accurate you match the endings with the function, this inescapable void only increases. Suddenly that o no longer defines the fullness of your heart, the openness of your mind.

So you take another friend, another self. The grammar is familiar, but only faintly; the words are jumbled codes of the last. This one is a puzzle. It is complex. You have not forgotten your second self, but this one is you.

These new sounds invigorate your spirit, give new names to the sun, but it is still the same sun that rises and sets without fail. These sounds dull, too.

But this time there is an expectance for that sound to flatten like a shadow on the street. Six months in and the growing pains begin. They grind your sentences into ashen whispers, but only for a few weeks. With this language, this phase was shorter. You already knew the illness; the remedies were in your pocket.

There is now in this new language an acceptance of that creeping vortex. The hunger disappears, but the heart returns.

For you all things are laid bare and open. For you to skim, for you to hum, for you to dig deep into the trenches of another soul – one that is not yours, but has become part of yours all the same.

Courseless: Holidays and Language Breaks

When I took Spanish in high school, I rarely studied during the semester, let alone during Christmas or Summer break. Maybe the week before classes resumed, I may scramble for my list of verb conjugations and important vocabulary words, but that was it. It wasn't enough to learn the language, or even relearn it.

I realized that breaks can be detrimental when I started again with German. You might be able to make it two weeks without loosing too much, but even then you'll need time and dedication just to recall what you last studied, let alone what you studied at the beginning of your course.

No one is saying you need to bind yourself to a chair and force the language down your throat. I've been there - it doesn't help. Instead, I found it's better to spend 10-30 minutes a day reviewing, especially if your goal is just to keep up with a college or high school course. And you can do this multiple ways:

One is to simply take your textbook and reread grammar and vocabulary. But I don't have to tell you that this route is the most boring one you can take.

Screenshot from memrise.com 

For vocabulary, I tend to use Memrise, a flashcard program. You can create your own set or use someone else's. You might even find your textbook! This free program also encourages you to make interesting and fun memes for words as a memory exercise. If you get a word wrong in spelling or multiple choice, you'll get to see it again along with your meme. In addition, this program uses a spaced repetition model to help you retain what you've been over. Basically, after a certain amount of time, words that you've already mastered are readmitted into your study stack, giving you a chance to brush up.

I've gotten really addicted to this program over the past few months. There are some study sets for movies. For example, I used this set for the first 10 minutes of the German film Goodbye, Lenin!, and after finishing my study-set, I could watch the opening scene without subtitles! You can also download an app on your phone, so you can practice just about anywhere.

Another great way is simply to write, whether it be a diary, a short story, or just information about your family and friends. Of course this depends on your level, but I find that writing not only helps me practice vocabulary, but also grammar - without having to reread all the rules!  Also, because you are writing things relevant or interesting to you, the vocabulary will stick better. And of course, if you have someone you can speak with, you should do that too!

I also like to do small things related to what we've learned. Sometimes I'll take a topic that we've discussed - let's say, the weather, and I'll google weather report videos. One video may be two to three minutes, and I may watch a few of these. That will be my review for the day. The more you use the words in context, the better they will stick. Listening practice also gives you an idea of the natural flow of the language. When I was recovering from jet-lag, I used this form from Saudi Arabia. It has English underneath the Arabic, but it let me practice reading and writing basic information.

No matter what method you use to study, whether it's what I've suggested or not, the main idea is to study for a short amount of time everyday during extended holidays. A few days off are never bad, but as scholarships and finishing general education requirements are important to all students, 30 minutes a day reviewing language material is better than trying to cram it all in the last few days of the break.