Archive

Posts Tagged ‘language school’

How to learn a language fast – maximising return on investment

December 31st, 2011 No comments

Today I would like to share a little known fact from the world of languages. In day-to-day interactions, we often use no more than 100 words. To maximise return on investment, you have to focus on acquiring the basic vocabulary ie it’s probably not going to matter if you don’t know the Chinese word for aardvark (土豚 or “tu tun” for those who must know). 

The key to language mastery is knowing how to string different words together (we call these ‘rules’ grammar).  Here are 4 key tips on how to learn a language fast.

The 80/20 rule. In the English language, the most common 25 words make up about one-third of all printed material, and the top 100 most common words make up about one-half of all written material. 

At the bottom of this article, I have reproduced a list of the top 100 most commonly used English words (thanks Wikipedia). The key words may vary depending on language, but most likely you will find that it’s only the relative ranking of the key words that change, and the top 100 most commonly used words would be pretty similar across languages. Focus on what matters.

Don’t get too stressed over mistakes. The point to remember is no native speaker expects you as a non-native speaker to speak their language perfectly so don’t get too worked up over whether you have the word order 100% right. Remember: the aim of communication is to get the message across. Unless you’re planning to be a United Nations interpreter, the locals will most likely not care if you make a few mistakes here and there. Memorise the key vocabulary first. The rules matter, but without the vocabulary, you have no ammo.

Know what to talk about. This is related to point 1. It takes a lifetime to master a language, so as you can imagine it’s not easy to work out the order in which we learn topics. We asked our clients what they needed to know when travelling overseas and came up with a long list. Unsurprisingly, knowing how to order a beer and telling a good-loooking girl she’s beautiful ranks pretty highly.  At Euroasia, we teach language learners the important stuff that you can use everyday. Here is a sample outline of what we expect to cover at the most basic beginners level.

Unit 1 – Greet people, give your name and ask how people are.

Unit 2 – Ask and answer questions about your job; you will also be able to ask about and give your phone number.

Unit 3 – Say where you come from and give the language you speak.

Unit 4 – Talk about the people in your family and say how old they are.

Unit 5 – Tell the time and give days and months; you will also be able to ask for a ticket on public transport.

Unit 6 – Say what you like or don’t like, and also talk about your freetime activities; you will also be able to say what the weather is like at the moment or at particular times of the year.

Unit 7 – Ask about something in a shop, understand and talk about prices, and also describe clothes.

Unit 8 – Talk about different meals, also food and drink; you will know what to say to buy these things from a shop.

Unit 9 – Order a meal in a restaurant, book accommodation and check in, also know how to talk about simple problems.

Unit 10 – Talk about where places are in a town, ask for directions and understand simple instructions for getting somewhere.

Constant practice. Learning a language is all about persistence. Much like going to the gym. No pain, no gain. Attending a class on a regular basis makes a huge difference (which is why language schools still exist despite language software and internet courses having been around for the past two decades). Ultimately, to improve you would need to practice speaking the language. 

p/s:  Check out the language courses at Euroasia.  We offer summer school programmes starting 5 Jan and 18 Jan, with regular courses starting 31 Jan.

 

Top 100 Most Commonly Used Words
  1. the
  2. of
  3. and
  4. a
  5. to
  6. in
  7. is
  8. you
  9. that
  10. it
  11. he
  12. was
  13. for
  14. on
  15. are
  16. as
  17. with
  18. his
  19. they
  20. I
  1. at
  2. be
  3. this
  4. have
  5. from
  6. or
  7. one
  8. had
  9. by
  10. word
  11. but
  12. not
  13. what
  14. all
  15. were
  16. we
  17. when
  18. your
  19. can
  20. said
  1. there
  2. use
  3. an
  4. each
  5. which
  6. she
  7. do
  8. how
  9. their
  10. if
  11. will
  12. up
  13. other
  14. about
  15. out
  16. many
  17. then
  18. them
  19. these
  20. so
  1. some
  2. her
  3. would
  4. make
  5. like
  6. him
  7. into
  8. time
  9. has
  10. look
  11. two
  12. more
  13. write
  14. go
  15. see
  16. number
  17. no
  18. way
  19. could
  20. people
  1. my
  2. than
  3. first
  4. water
  5. been
  6. call
  7. who
  8. oil
  9. its
  10. now
  11. find
  12. long
  13. down
  14. day
  15. did
  16. get
  17. come
  18. made
  19. may
  20. part

 

Source: The Reading Teachers Book of Lists, Third Edition; by Edward Bernard Fry, Ph.D, Jacqueline E. Kress, Ed.D & Dona Lee Fountoukidis, Ed.D.

 

Posted via email from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Summer school – Learn a language in January 2012

December 21st, 2011 No comments

Language learning is an aspirational goal that ranks highly on many New Year resolution lists. It’s an especially worthy endeavour for avid travellers wanting to maximise their travel experience. You’ve probably heard stories from Kiwis who have returned from their “Overseas Experience” lamenting the fact that they would’ve enjoyed themselves more if they could speak the local lingo.

Fotolia_3667373_subscription_xxl

These days travel is not the only driver of foreign language learning. Increasingly Kiwis realise that knowing a foreign language gives them a distinct edge in dealing with clients and suppliers from other cultures. Job seekers also realise that employers value people who speak more than one language. Language learners also demonstrate to potential employers that they are proactive enough to make the effort to learn a foreign language.

In expectation of a surge in interest from people wanting to learn a language to kick off 2012, we are offering a range of summer intensives. 

Courses for beginners are available in Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian, Korean and Russian. 

No previous knowledge of the language is required. By the end of this course, you will already know enough to “get by”: you will be able to cope with the most common everyday situations by asking and answering simple questions. and you will be able to understand people when they speak to you about the situations covered.

Kickstart 2012 with a language boost. Sign up online now. 

January 2012 language intensive – 10 sessions over 4 weeks

5-26 Jan 2012

Duration: 4 weeks, 10 sessions; Tue & Thu 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Sat 9:30 AM-12:30 PM

Session 1, Thu 5-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 2, Sat 7-Jan-2012 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Session 3, Tue 10-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 4, Thu 12-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 5, Sat 14-Jan-2012 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Session 6, Tue 17-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 7, Thu 19-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 8, Sat 21-Jan-2012 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Session 9, Tue 24-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 10, Thu 26-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Cost is $649 (inclusive of all materials, no hidden costs).

 

Beginners language course (2 weeks)

5-14 Jan-2012 OR 18-28 Jan 2012

Duration 2 weeks, 5 sessions (Tue & Thurs 6:00-9:00pm, Sat 9:30am-12:30pm)

Session 1, Thu 5-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 2, Sat 7-Jan-2012 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Session 3, Tue 10-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 4, Thu 12-Jan-2012 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session 5, Sat 14-Jan-2012 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Cost is $368 (inclusive of all materials, no hidden costs).

Posted via email from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , , , ,

What is it like to learn English?

September 8th, 2011 2 comments

If by some strange chance you think it’s hard to learn a language which is foreign to you… what’s it like for those who learn English when it’s foreign to them?

Most native speakers of English now deal at some point with people who are not native speakers of English, but how many of us ever think about what these learners might have struggled with in order to communicate with us?  Very often learning a new language gives us a greater appreciation of the kind of issues that people who’ve learnt English must have had to go through!

If you’ve been learning your new language for some time now, you will no doubt have acquired a feel for what is easy and what is difficult about it.  Of course, different people may react differently to the same situation, so your perceptions may not be quite the same as those of others learning the same language.  Generally, though, people tend to agree about what is difficult and what isn’t.

So what is difficult about learning English?

We should just mention that the perceived difficulty of a foreign language is usually linked quite closely to a learner’s previous linguistic experiences.  If you’ve learnt Spanish, either as your first language or as a second language, you shouldn’t find Italian too hard, because the two languages are closely related.   If you’re a monolingual speaker of Chinese, however, any European language is going to be quite a challenge, because they work in a very different way from your own.  Things which are unfamiliar tend to be harder to grasp.  When it comes to learning English, then, some people will be confronted with points which for them are really challenging, whereas for others they are quite straightforward.

Interestingly, though, English has certain characteristics which are tricky for pretty much everyone, and this is what we’re going to touch upon here.

Most of us are aware that our spelling system can be a minefield: surely any “system” in which “ough” is pronounced differently in “cough”, “rough”, “thorough”, “bough”, “ought” and “through” is going to fox any learner of the language!  Yes, our  insistence on spelling words the way they were pronounced in Chaucer’s day is a bit tedious.  And yet, oddly enough, spelling doesn’t seem to be the biggest problem that learners face.  First of all, it’s not totally erratic: if you suddenly saw the (non-existent) words “moggle” or “vebbit”, you’d know exactly how to pronounce them, and the reason is that we do have certain rules – lots of them -  which are pretty much inviolable.   Secondly, people tend just to learn the spelling of the words when they learn the meaning (much as people learning European languages try to remember the genders of nouns).  And thirdly, spelling is not crucial to communication anyway: it clearly doesn’t matter when we speak, and we do have spellcheckers on our computers when we write!

Pronunciation is perhaps another matter: it’s much more obvious.  Some of our sounds are found in pretty much every language, and shouldn’t be too hard; examples are “m” and “n”.  Overall, however, English pronunciation is quite distinct from that of all other languages, even those which are quite closely related, and any non-native speakers may have trouble with a good few unfamiliar sounds.   Some of the sounds which are not very common across the spectrum of languages are as follows:

Consonants

“r” – some sort of “r” is probably found in most languages, but both the British and American variants are quite rare

“h” – not a very unusual sound, but a lot of well-known languages don’t have it (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish, Russian…)

“v” – often absent from Asian languages

“th” – we have two sounds represented by these two letters (think “the” as opposed to “thing”), and neither of them is very common

Vowels

We have a big range of sounds, and many of them are quite unusual.  The vowel sounds we have in “and”, “up”, “caught”, “show” and “pure” are quite distinctive, and not often found in other languages.  Just to complicate things further, our own pronunciation of vowel sounds varies so much depending on where we come from: just think how people fromNew Zealand, southernEnglandand theUSAwould pronounce the word “car”.  Which model is the poor foreign learner to follow?

And yet, even if your pronunciation isn’t spot on, you can still make yourself understood very well.  If someone has a stereotypical French accent and says, “Eet’s quite ‘arhrd to speak weezout a Frhrench acceonn”, we can surely understand as well as sympathise…

When we look at English grammar, we can actually say that a lot of it is pretty straightforward.  It used to be more complicated, more like German or Russian today, but it has been greatly simplified over the centuries.  We don’t add many bits onto our words, and it’s not that hard to string a few of them together to make something which makes sense even if it’s not perfect.  But our grammar still presents its challenges!

The thing which nearly all learners have trouble getting to grips with is our excessive number of tenses.  Technically, a lot of what we tend to call “tenses” are not tenses at all, but rather a reflection of “aspect”, which deals with the way in which we look at an event rather than whether it’s set in the past, present or future.   Whatever we call these things, just sympathise for a moment with the poor learner who has to distinguish between “I went”, “I have gone”, “I have been going”, “I was going”, “I used to go”, “I did go”, “I had gone”, “I had been going” – all of them relating to some event in the past!  No other language has this pattern of tense forms.   Mandarin doesn’t have any tenses at all…  You can rest assured that learners of English will have spent many hours grappling with the tenses.  And yet, if they get them wrong, we still understand them, don’t we?  “I have seen him yesterday” may sound funny, but we know what is meant.

The last area to mention is vocabulary.  English is fortunate in that it has a lot of short words – hundreds just have one syllable, and you can go quite a long way with simple words which are not that hard to learn.  So what’s tricky about the vocabulary?

Well, take the word “get”.  In itself, it has quite a lot of meanings, but look what happens when it’s combined with other little words: “get on”, “get up”, “get in”, “get through”, “get by” – not to mention “get out of”, “get with it” and “get off with”, and (literally) dozens more.  Just to add to the complexity, sometimes there are literal and more figurative meanings – “get on the bus” is not the same use of “get on” as in “get on in the world”.

These structures are called “phrasal verbs”, and they’re hard!  There’s no avoiding them if you want to master English, and the only thing you can really do is learn them when you come across them.  And don’t think it’s just “get” which has all these variants – most of our other common verbs can also be used with little words like “up” and “down” and turned into phrasal verbs.

The thing is, though, no one sits down and learns a list of hundreds of phrasal verbs.  You may start off with some really common examples like “stand up” and “sit down”, and actually before you know it you’ve learnt dozens of them.  Sometimes there are alternatives: you may feel that “I descended the mountain” sounds awkward compared to “I went down the mountain”, but when you think that in French this is “J’ai descendu la montagne”, you can see which of the English variants might have greater appeal!

A rather sweeping, but perhaps not unreasonable conclusion about learning English as a foreign language is perhaps this: it’s not that hard to make yourself understood, but if you want to speak it well, it still needs a fair bit of effort.  But then if you think about it, we could probably say something similar about most languages.  So don’t be put off if you get something wrong.  OK, you won’t sound like a native, but everyone knows you’re not a native anyway!

__________

Multilingual language expert Peter Chapple has spent many years studying English-speakers learning foreign languages, as well as non-English speakers learning English.

Categories: Language learning, Peter Chapple Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Immigration or invasion flyers in Christchurch

January 13th, 2011 5 comments

The Press reports that flyers titled “Immigration or Invasion” has been distributed in Christchurch by a group called New Zealand Right Wing Resistance.

Some thoughts on the arguments presented:

“If current trends continue, whites will soon be a minority in this country”.

That’s a well-known fact. Not just in New Zealand. Around the world white people are having fewer kids. So it’s no surprise that the proportion of whites will continue to dwindle.

I imagine similar conversations happening in Christchurch in the 1800s along the lines of ”If current trends continue, Maori will soon be a minority in this country”.

“Uncivilised immigrants are turning New Zealand into a third world slum. They come to take advantage of our welfare systems, they take our already scarce jobs, they disrespect our culture and have no interest in the wellbeing of our once great nation.”

These “uncivilised immigrants” are the very people propping up the New Zealand economy. Globally, it’s well acknowledged that immigrants give more than they take as a whole. If immigrants uproot their lives in order to move their family to New Zealand, don’t you think perhaps they may want to contribute towards their adopted home, in order for a brighter future for the kids? It’s preposterous to suggest immigrants come to New Zealand to sabotage this country so that their kids have no future here.

Some of us “uncivilised immigrants” take it a step further; creating jobs, paying taxes, paying people who pay taxes, buying from local suppliers etc.

Hon Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Immigration, commenting on the Department of Labour research on the economic impact of immigrants to New Zealand, says: ”Without current levels of inward migration, both our population base and economy would shrink dramatically. By 2021, our population would drop by 9.6 per cent and our GDP would drop by 11.3 percent. There would be a 10.9 percent drop in the available labour force and the export sector would be savaged with volumes dropping by 12.9 percent.

“What this research tells us is that immigration contributes significantly to every New Zealander’s per capita income”.

“They bring crime, spread previously foreign diseases inter-breed with our people, and are increasingly taking over our schools, putting our own children at a disadvantage.”

Anyone who has ever attended a school prize-giving ceremony in any urban New Zealand town will see that there is a disproportionate number of Asian immigrant kids winning prizes. If that is what is meant by “taking over our schools” I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. After all, the people complaining are supposedly the the very people who champion meritocracy and complain about affirmative action for Maori.  It’s no secret. The reason immigrant kids are “taking over our schools” is simply because they work harder, in spite of English often not being their first language, and in spite of many having come from humble family backgrounds. Encouraging people to succeed in spite of adversity is supposedly a very Kiwi value. So I’ve heard.

“Don’t allow yourself to be misled by this corrupt financially useless, multiculturalist, perverted Government! Stop sitting back on the sideline, DO SOMETHING for your people and your nation! Send them home and close the borders!

Ahh… when all arguments fail…there’s always the standard line: Ching Chong, go home.

I suppose there’s only a very small minority who share the sentiments of this white supremacist group. What’s worrying however is the number of people who have voiced their support for this group in the comments section of The Press article.

At Euroasia, our corporate vision has always been about “connecting people across cultures”. Though we are in the business of providing foreign language courses for Kiwis, in reality we do more than that. We help New Zealanders better understand people from other cultures, and vice-versa. 9 times out of 10, misunderstanding occurs because of a lack of communication between parties, and unchallenged misconceptions about the other party. We are now offering our language courses in Christchurch. Hopefully we can play a small role in bridging the gap between immigrants and locals in Christchurch.

INVASION?

or

INVESTMENT?

Posted via email from Euroasia

Categories: Cross-cultural, Kenneth Leong Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

How can I obtain instant/magic results in learning a language?

April 22nd, 2010 No comments

Somehow or other, vocabulary has to be learnt, and words have to be strung into sentences using grammar, which also has to be learnt. While some courses are undoubtedly more effective than others, at the end of the day, certain bits of language have to be understood and memorised.

Unless someone has discovered a wonder drug, it’s hard to see how the magic results promised by some providers can be achieved. 

At Euroasia, we are constantly exploring cutting-edge methods and technologies. If appropriate, we incorporate what we learn into the courses we offer, which are custom-made for native English speakers. With over 3000 New Zealanders who have completed one of our courses, we draw on a significant experience base in designing effective courses to help you learn a foreign language. We explain more under Why Euroasia.

Check out the range of foreign language courses at Euroasia.

FAQs previously covered:

1. Why is it a good idea to learn a foreign language

2. What does learning a language really involve?

3. What’s the best way to learn a foreign language?

 

4. As an adult, can you learn a language the same way that you did as a child?

FAQs coming up:

6. How long it will take me to learn a language?

7. I don’t understand grammar; we were never taught it at school?

8. Is it easier to learn a language if I go to the country?

9. Which language should I learn?

10. Are some languages harder than others?

11. So which languages will I find easier than others?

12. Which is the most popular language?

13. Can learning a language be fun?

Posted via web from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , ,

As an adult, can you learn a language the same way that you did as a child?

April 22nd, 2010 No comments

Not entirely, because children’s acquisition of language is closely linked to the development of their brains. Some language courses try to imitate the child’s learning processes as closely as possible, but others recognise that as adults with knowledge of one language already we can’t go back to that language-free state we were in as infants.

Adults will always relate their second language to their first. Most adult courses recognise that, while we have lost the abilities we had an infants, we have acquired an understanding as adults which can be exploited to make language learning easier.

Check out the range of foreign language courses at Euroasia.

FAQs previously covered:

1. Why is it a good idea to learn a foreign language

2. What does learning a language really involve?

3. What’s the best way to learn a foreign language?

FAQs coming up:

5. Some ads promise instant/magic results?

6. How long it will take me to learn a language?

7. I don’t understand grammar; we were never taught it at school?

8. Is it easier to learn a language if I go to the country?

9. Which language should I learn?

10. Are some languages harder than others?

11. So which languages will I find easier than others?

12. Which is the most popular language?

13. Can learning a language be fun?

Posted via web from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , , ,

What’s the best way to learn a foreign language?

April 21st, 2010 No comments

Many books have been written on this subject… Different people have a preference for one approach over another.

While a few people seem to have the ability to learn a language from reading a book on the subject, there would probably be general agreement that it is hard to learn a language in this way. An audio course with cassettes or CD will work for some people. Others will find that Internet-based materials are effective.

Most people, though, will find that the above methods are secondary to the key one, which is interaction with an effective teacher. Language is a social experience, and we believe that it only really comes to live when it is used in a social context.

Check out the range of foreign language courses at Euroasia.

FAQs previously covered:

1. Why is it a good idea to learn a foreign language

2. What does learning a language really involve?

FAQs coming up:

4. As an adult, can you learn a language the same way that you did as a child?

5. Some ads promise instant/magic results?

6. How long it will take me to learn a language?

7. I don’t understand grammar; we were never taught it at school?

8. Is it easier to learn a language if I go to the country?

9. Which language should I learn?

10. Are some languages harder than others?

11. So which languages will I find easier than others?

12. Which is the most popular language?

13. Can learning a language be fun?

Posted via web from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , ,

What does learning a language really involve?

April 20th, 2010 No comments

Yesterday we kicked off our series of frequently asked questions on language learning with the question “Why is it a good idea to learn a foreign language“. Today, we cover this question.

What does learning a language really involve?

On a very basic level, languages have two key components: vocabulary, the actual words, and grammar, which is the set of rules determining how the words are strung together to make sentences. And you encounter language in the form of the so-called four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

You certainly can’t get away from the vocabulary; some language courses avoid too much grammar, and concentrate instead on certain situations, like buying a ticket or ordering a meal. Listening and speaking are the most important skills for most people; some courses don’t offer much reading, and may leave out writing altogether.

It all depends what you want.

Stay tuned as we cover the following questions in the coming days…
3. What’s the best way to learn a foreign language?
4. As an adult, can you learn a language the same way that you did as a child?
5. Some ads promise instant/magic results?
6. How long it will take me to learn a language?
7. I don’t understand grammar; we were never taught it at school?
8. Is it easier to learn a language if I go to the country?
9. Which language should I learn?
10. Are some languages harder than others?
11. So which languages will I find easier than others?
12. Which is the most popular language?
13. Can learning a language be fun?

Let us know if you have other questions by leaving a comment on our blog…

You can also comment on our Facebook page.
Or if you’re ready to experience language learning feel free to check out our upcoming courses, starting 26 April.

Posted via web from Euroasia

Categories: Language learning Tags: , , , ,