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Ready to learn, once and for all, how to pronounce the names of the Indian languages we hear so much about? After all, 7 of the top 20 most spoken languages in the world are Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, and Punjabi). A full 6% of the world's languages are from India. So if you work in …
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How To Learn a Language from Home
You don’t have to travel to learn a new language. Honestly, you don’t even need to put on pants! I’ve studied several languages from home over the last decade. In fact, according to my italki stats (more about italki later), I have studied more than a dozen languages from home (including Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Malay!) You definitely don’t have to …
Read More »How to Use Chinese Social Media Apps to Learn Chinese
When I found out I was going to move back to China, I knew it was finally time to familiarize myself with Chinese social media. Back in 2008, when I spent my first summer in Beijing, these apps were barely on the horizon. A few short years later, they had taken over. My Chinese friends were all sending each other …
Read More »How to Sound Like a North Korean
(Want to skip the history? Scroll down to the List of 21 North Korean Words in Crash Landing On You) How much do you know about the North Korean accent? Netflix’s new drama “Crash Landing on You” launched last week, and suddenly the Koreasphere was all atwitter about the North Korean dialect, which is heavily featured in the show. …
Read More »Self-Study Starter Kit: Indonesian
Did you know that Indonesian is one of the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn? Did you know it has more than 43 million speakers? In fact, if you put Indonesian together with (mutually intelligible) Malay, which has 77 million speakers, more people speak these languages than speak Korean, French, or Italian! By the way – a helpful …
Read More »How To Learn Chinese Characters On Your Own
UPDATED April 2020: I’ve just spent the last two months working on improving my Chinese handwriting with an online tutor, and I’ve learned so much more in the process! I’ve added to the below section on Learning Materials and Strategies, where I explain how my online tutor worked with me to improve my Chinese characters. I’ve also added a free …
Read More »Black Friday Deals to Learn Languages
Too late, come back next year! Or check out my lists of language-learning resources here.
Read More »Learn Like a Linguist: Using Swadesh Lists for Rare or Minority Languages
The United Nations has declared 2019 the Year of Indigenous Languages. I know a lot of you are taking that as your cue to try your hand at learning a minority language, from Occitan to Teochew to Hawaiian! How fun! But of course one of the biggest challenges of learning a minority language is that it can be harder …
Read More »Self-Study Starter Kit: Japanese
I’ve been to Japan many times now, but for some reason I always resisted learning Japanese. I suppose part of me was worried it would interfere with my Korean. Maybe a more truthful part of me was worried I would get obsessed (as I often do) and end up neglecting everything else I’m really supposed to be working on! So …
Read More »Self-Study Starter Kit: Slovak
At the time of writing, I’m about to attend the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava. After hosting the event for three years in a row, this will be the last one that is held in Slovakia (for the next few years, at least). It is also, by all estimates, the largest polyglot gathering to date! Of course, to prepare …
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