Millions upon millions of people are learning a language each day around the world, and with the assistance of rapidly developing modern technologies and sophistication of internet, a lot of these learners are doing it on the internet. Language schools are not a must any more.

First of all, you can learn foreign languages online through with podcasts or any such type of recordings that are readily available at many websites nowadays. Simply do a search on Google with keywords related to “podcast” and you’ll be able to locate a great number of podcasts for your own learning pleasure. If you would like to have more up-to-date information, you can tune into online radio stations and listen to the news or music. If you happen to be blessed with a faster internet connection, you can also watch TV online. The possibilities are endless.

Another very simple way to learn foreign languages online is to practice speaking foreign languages with a native speaker who happens to be learning your mother tongue. You can communicate with them by using instant messaging applications, e.g. MSN messenger, ICQ… You can also talk to them directly using software like Skype or any other VOIP (Voice Over IP) applications.

The only question becomes… How do you find such people to act as your teachers? It’s not that difficult. There are many different language exchange communities on the internet where you can find partners according to your own needs. Simple do a search on any major search engines with the keyword “language exchange”, and you should be able to find your first partner for learning foreign languages in almost no time at all.

And thanks to thousands of language enthusiasts, there are tons of carefully constructed lessons online and you can learn other languages for free at your own convenience. Do another simple search for foreign language courses and you’re bound to find countless of them out there to assist you to get up to speed quickly. This is probably the most direct way to learn foreign languages online.

Also, do you write your blogs? If so, join the blogger community. The type of words and phrases used in blogs is arguably the most original and fresh language that you can ever run into. Interact with bloggers abroad and, who knows, maybe they’ll become your tutors in some way.

The above are just a couple of ideas of how you can learn foreign languages online, but really, don’t be restricted to those ideas. There are plenty of other ways to get online exposure to the languages you want to learn. Keep searching and have fun while doing it.

By: Owen Lee

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Dude, was she winking at me?

A woman’s mind operates differently than a man’s. When it comes to dating and sex this could not be a more evident statement. While men are more straightforward and direct, women tend to use signals and various body languages to let men know what they want. Body language is something that is extremely important when it comes to approaching and seducing women. You need to learn how to accurately interpret women’s many body languages so you can know from the very start if you have a chance with them or not. No need to spend any more time on them than necessary, right?

By observing her body language, you will be able to tell if she is into you. You’ll be able to sense when she is horny, annoyed, excited, angry, depressed, or in a good mood. So it’s imperative that you learn how to interpret these emotions through her many body languages.

Key signals and body language to look out for

When giving you a signal, a woman is subconsciously telling you to “go for it.” But for you to fully understand how this works you must realize that there are two different sets of body languages. First, you have the signals that she gives you before you actually talk to her… the “across the room” signals, for example. Then you have the “in conversation” signals she subconsciously gives you.

Before you go running over to her, here are three important body language cues and what they mean…

Touching you as she speaks. Whenever a girl touches you during a conversation (i.e. touches your leg as she laughs at your jokes), she definitely enjoys your company. Now what you want to do before you jump to conclusions is see how she interacts with other people. Is she still touch feely? Or is she keeping her distance? You will know what those touches meant once you see her talk to other people. Gazing into your eyes Does she seem to be in a trance when you talk to her? Eye contact is probably the most important of all the body languages I mention. This is because a woman has no control over her pupil dilation when she is sexually excited or aroused by a man. So stop looking at her breasts for one second, guys. Look deep into her eyes- they tell the whole story. “Don’t I have beautiful hair?” When a woman constantly strokes and touches her hair while looking at you, she is uncontrollably attracted to you. Try to see of her palms are facing you. This usually means she is open to anything as long as it involves you.
You can tell what she’s thinking be observing her body language

Reading different body languages will save you an enormous amount of time. Not only will you be able to easily spot even the most unlikely candidates (sexual candidates) with ease, you will know what they are thinking every step of the way.

Wrapping things up…

Unconsciously, women try to attract men with subtle, yet strong indicators of attraction. They can’t help it. Their body language illustrates this.

Obviously there are hundreds of other important body languages that women use to get a man’s attention. I just wanted to briefly explain why reading and interpreting body language is so important to your dating/sex life.

By: Chris Walker

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Nowadays it seems to be easier to travel to different parts of the world and to get a grip of new information regarding those parts. First, traveling has been made easier through technical progress. Information progress has been made through the development of the online world or the Internet – nowadays it seems easier to find out something regarding just about anything. You can find people on the Internet; you can find information regarding countries and civilization. You can even learn a new language through the Internet – now isn’t that just great?

Chinese is just one of the languages that may tickle your interest – and it is a very interesting one. Mandarin Chinese actually is a language that despise its popularity is spoke by a great number of people – not only the majority of Chinese people but generally through the east part of Asia (along with Japanese). Nevertheless, this is not necessarily something that will aid in your decision regarding why learn Chinese. However, you may want to learn Chinese because of the great opportunities it offers – it gives you the chance of visiting that country and learning history and culture by talking to the people there rather than reading about them. You may want to learn Chinese because of business reasons – it does not matter actually. Learning a new language is a challenge that should also be taken into consideration and picking the right course is a very important part of that challenge. If you have never heard of Rocket Chinese then this is the time to talk about them – there are the most reliable, effective and fun courses that will aid in your learning a new language challenge.

By: Ellen Tayana

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The internet has given us some great opportunities to learn a language and the possibilities for the future are truly staggering. In the past, learning a language required us to buy books and learn on our own (with no audio and no feedback or interaction) or take a class (which can be expensive and inconvenient). But, today the improvements of technology and the accessibility of the internet have given us many more opportunities to improve our language learning experiences, and in many cases, for free.

Of course, learning on your own (or at least supplementing your classroom or tutor study on your own time) requires some self-discipline and motivation. There is no one to tell you what to do but yourself. Try to stick to whatever lesson plan you make for yourself. Keep at it every day and don’t give up. In time, you can give yourself a good foundation in your target language for free.

There are lots of individual websites devoted to a specific language. The more popular languages like French, Spanish and Japanese have a lot of choices for beginning and intermediate students. Even some of the less commonly studied languages have sites with tutorials, free lessons and resources. For the vast majority of languages that you may be interested in studying there is something out there for you, so take a look around.

FSI is one of the great all-time language learning methods. Many of their older courses are now available online for free at FSI Language Courses [http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/]. These courses are free because they were created by the US government and are public domain. Much of the audio is out of date compared to newer (and more expensive) courses, but the method is excellent. It’s a great way to get a free start with learning a language.

The internet abounds with great resource sites like language forums, blogs, penpal sites and podcasts. All of these kinds of resources are excellent complements to your book, tutorial, class or other language method. They provide audio, video, real life vocabulary and interaction with other learners and native speakers.

Don’t forget the library for the most common language books and tape or CD collections. Most libraries have at least introductory language courses on tape or CD. All libraries have extensive books on learning languages. The library is an often-overlooked resource for access to free language learning materials.

Keep at it and use some of the suggestions in this article in small doses to complement a tutorial or other language method. Try adding lots of audio and video to actually hear the language and use forums, blogs and penpals to begin to interact with other learners and speakers.

Combining different approaches can create synergies that enhance the effectiveness of an all-purpose tutorial or language method. Take advantage of these free resources to get the most effective and fun language learning experience possible!

By: Ron Tichenor

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There have long been many questions on why children are more efficient in learning a second or even a third language when compared to adults. Scientists might finally have a concrete explanation on why children are best at learning new languages.

With the aid of animation technology and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), brains of several children have been studied by researchers from UCLA. Their discovery pointed to the children’s ability to process language information on a region of their brain that is different from the region that adults use.

The Brain and Its Role in Language Learning

There are various areas in the brain which control different functions. For instance, actions like driving a car or riding a bike no longer requires people to consciously think of moving their hands and feet in coordination.

These actions are done because of people’s automatic brain functions. To connect this to learning a new language, children actually use this automatic area of the brain in learning; thus, a second language to them is much like second nature. Adults who want to learn of a new language use a different area of their brain.
This is why it is best to become bilingual or even multilingual during childhood since the brain operates a little differently as compared to normal adult brain functions.

There are still chances for people who are under 18 to catch up and learn new languages. This is because the opportunity to inculcate skills and information into the deep motor region of the brain is open until the age of 18; but with each year that passes, the window to this brain closes slowly each time. This would explain why adults have to think in their native tongue and translate words into a second language unlike children who would think automatically in another language.

Studies of the neurology of acquiring a new language have been proven to be useful. Learning the different geographic locations in the brain where information and skills are stored for both adults and children would give language educators the chance to improve their lesson presentations and instructions. For instance, children who learn accents and sounds at an earlier age would be far better off than people who consciously study these sounds at a latter part of their lives.

Other Benefits of Learning a Different Language Early On

Learning a foreign language is much easier for children than most adults and in addition to this great advantage, children have also been proven to do better in school, have better problem-solving skills, are more open to diversity, and score much higher on standardized tests. This is according to Francois Thibaut who is in charge of The Language Workshop for Children. There are nine schools around the East Coast who have participated on the said workshop. Thibaut is known as an expert in foreign languages for babies and children.

Through the efforts of people like Thibaut, more and more parents are becoming aware of the importance of teaching a different language to their children. And since globalization now includes being able to communicate more clearly even to foreigners, immersing the future citizens (or today’s children) to different languages would help equip them with the necessary language comprehension skills.

Future ambassadors are better able to handle situations if they learned different languages early on. Therefore, the future of the world depends on how much children of today learn from the most important aspect of most cultures-language.

By: Benedict Yossarian

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Learning a language takes time. What is the best and the most efficient way to learn some language despite the fact that it takes maybe two years or even longer to immerse into the language? We must inspect how our brains work in order to answer to this question. There are many methods which may help you learn any language. But, what is the best one? In my opinion, there is not any. In order to learn a language, it is good to combine several ones for you to be most efficient.

I would say that the most effective way to start is using phonetics. That is, learning how the word sounds and then be able to easily recognize how to read and write it. This is the way many schools teach kids languages. Tell me, how did you learn to read? Most of us have learned by reading the word and then repeating the sound. We then ASSOCIATE the word with the sound. Humans are masters in associations. We associate a color with a person or memory, a smell with some kind of food and so on. Association is also the most effective way to learn anything. You just need to learn how to use it in most efficient manner.

That’s where the other method comes in, and that is association of a word with a word. For example, rock in German means skirt. Now, for you to remember this word, imagine a skirt haned up on a rock. BAM, now it’s 1000% easier to remember that word, isn’t it? Well, there are many more examples here, but you get the point. These are, in my opinion, the two best mind strategies that can help you improve in any language dramatically.

By: Darren Welder

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Modern linguistics is a fairly young form of discipline as compared to history or philosophy. Linguistics’ modern field dates only as far back as the 19th century. It is regarded, though, that Ancient India and Greece both played remarkable roles on the formation of grammatical traditions. The literary and rhetoric analysis of the workings of human languages also dates back to both these ancient civilizations. In 1786, a major discovery has been made as it has been observed that languages have evolved separately but their sounds still correspond to their modern meanings.

A concrete example of similarities in sound is that of the English word father. The Latin form of this word is pater while the Sanskrit format is pitar. Another example is the word- for in English is spoken and written as per in Latin and pari in Sanskrit. Based on these examples, it can be said that languages remain similar in some aspects.

Scholars who have made this amazing discovery have also pointed out that there are thousands of words with the same similarities. This only proves that languages, no matter how numerous they are, have a single ancestor.

Nineteenth century linguistics focused on studying the nature of this mother language which was believed to be spoken 6,000 years ago. Modern linguistics also points out the role of Proto-Indo-European language which has evolved into Modern English, Hindi, Russian and other contemporary languages. Historical linguistics remains an active field of study nowadays and linguists have managed to group languages into families and a parent language.

Language Structure Studied

The beginning of the 20th century signaled the shift of attention from mere language changes to structural changes as well. At this century, the study has become more systematic and governed by principles and rules. Grammar has become the focus of linguists’ studies, also the sound structures and internal makeup of sentences and words.

By 1920s, Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure has come up with sophisticated methods of analyzing grammar-and so structural linguistics was finally born. The 1920s also proved to be the period of intensified language studies. With these studies, the theory that there was only a single language that parented all other languages has been intensified.

Noam Chomsky, a linguist in 1950s, has initiated the theory that the human brain has been programmed to certain grammatical properties thus there are limitations when it comes to the development of human languages. Numerous linguistic researches have been done to either prove or disprove this theory. There are various books and journals that focus on this controversial claim by Chomsky.

The Social Aspect of Languages

In the past half century, attention has been focused to the social and mental sides of a language. The sociolinguistics sub-field has been conceptualized mainly due to the social movements after the Second World War. Third World countries have been widely observed after the said war as these nations have staged liberations movements.

With these movements, it was questioned whether the language that these people then used would continue to be their major language; or shall it be a language that has evolved. This is also true with present-day Chicano Spanish and African-American slang.

Numerous scholars have studied the languages of such nations and are still on the process of pointing out the relevance of aspects such as gender and geography to the development of these countries’ modern tongues. This only proves that linguistics would be a continuous study of language; and also of people and events that may have an effect on its evolution.

By: Benedict Yossarian

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A Key Question

A key question people ask when thinking of embarking on the life-long quest that foreign language learning can ultimately become, is which foreign language should I try to learn? Certainly there’s no lack of choice. Reasons for wanting or needing to learn a foreign language can be almost as many and as varied as the number of people themselves. Family, ancestry, employment, business, education, travel, adventure, romance and other personal concerns all may have their respective roles in the decision to learn and continue learning a foreign language.

Some Interesting Language Statistics

According to Vistawide World Languages & Culture statistics online at: vistawide.com/
there are currently 6912 living languages in the world, but did you know that 516 of these are nearly extinct.

The Fabulous Five

Of the top five spoken world languages, Mandarin Chinese has the greatest number of speakers with a whopping 1.051 billion who manage one of the nearly one dozen forms or dialects.

English is a “distant” second with an approximate total of 510 million speakers in 64 different countries. It is also the world’s most widely published language and has the largest number of words – approx. 250,000* distinct words. (*Some linguists even contend that there are as many as one million or more words in the English language.) English also has the greatest number of people who speak it as a second language – with up to 350 million non-native speakers.

Hindi is in third position with 490 million.

Fourth place is occupied by Spanish with 420 million native and second language speakers.

Arabic comes in fifth with 255 million speakers when all of its varieties are combined according to a World Almanac estimate.

Additional Language Statistics

The language with the fewest number of words is Taki-Taki, also called Sranan, which is spoken in Surinam. It has a mere 340 words.

The country where the largest number of languages is spoken is Papua New Guinea with 820 different languages even though it has only around 5,545,268 people. (That’s one language for every 6762 people for all of you statistics freaks out there)

Number two Indonesia has 742 languages among its 241,973,879 people.

Nigeria, with 516 languages spread through its 128,771,988 people, steps in at third.

In India 1,080,264,388 people spread across the country’s vast reaches speak an astounding 427 languages among them.

These statistics are likely, one of the reasons English has been adopted as an official language in each one of these countries.

Summary

So whether your reasons for wanting or needing to learn a foreign language include family, ancestry, employment, business, education, travel, adventure, romance or other more personal ones, a wide variety of language choices are available.

By: Larry M. Lynch

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Why learn languages? Why would anyone want to learn someone else’s language? Obviously, there are a lot of reasons, and if the question is on your mind, then you probably have a desire or need to learn a language yourself. The answer is often different for people. Put 10 random people together who are learning another language and you will probably have 7 or 8 different reasons and 5 or 6 different languages. Every answer is valid. Every reason is the right reason for that person and every language is the right language. There is no wrong answer to the question ‘why learn a language?’ and there is no wrong language to learn.

The ability to learn another language is not limited by economic background, ethnic background, nationality, gender, race, religion, age or the grades you got (or are getting) in school. While everyone is different, and we all have differing abilities and strengths, we all have language ability to some degree. Maybe we all aren’t going to become great orators or novelists in another language, but we all have the ability to learn, and communicate in other languages.

There is no danger of learning ‘too much.’ You can’t fill up your head with too much language, and there’s no danger of you losing knowledge of the languages you already know. In fact, learning a foreign language (or more than one) improves memory, math skills, analytical skills, problem solving and increases critical thinking and creativity. Furthermore and most remarkably, learning a foreign language actually improves our reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in English.

Languages don’t just pop up out of nowhere, they evolve from other languages and change over time. Many of the most widely spoken languages are related and share some vocabulary, and even if they aren’t, languages are always borrowing words from each other. English is full of words from many other
languages. Learning another language not only gives you new knowledge, but expands upon your existing knowledge of English and gives you a whole new way of understanding it. Furthermore, you begin to learn how to learn languages, making it easier to learn other languages and understand how language and
communication works in general. Other languages are not just a word for word translation of English, but an interpretation of events and opinions from a different point of view.

So, why learn languages? Ok, so there are some benefits. Can learning a language benefit everyone? In a word – Yes. I’m sure if you look around and evaluate your life you will see lots of opportunities to use different languages. We are all surrounded by people who use other languages, or opportunities we could
benefit from by using other languages. The possibilities are there if you look for them.

You may have relatives living in Japan, or you want to visit China. Perhaps you have a life-long desire to see Italy or you are planning a vacation in Argentina, or retirement in Costa Rica. All are valid reasons for learning a language. Learning for travel is one of the most common reasons to learn a language. There are more opportunities to travel today than there have ever been before, and they are likely to increase in the 21st century Global Village.

Many people learn a language to connect with their roots. You may still have relatives living in the ‘old country,’ or you may just want to define yourself a little bit. Learning the language of our ancestors can help bring us into better contact with ourselves and open up a whole new understanding of ourselves and how we got to be who and where we are.

Do you have a new addition to the family by marriage? Learning even a little of your new family members language can bring both families closer together. Or maybe you’re looking for love yourself. Think of the possibilities when you learn another language. The increase in possible social contacts is tremendous when you add a whole new way to communicate. That goes for love, friendship, travel or business.

Learning a language for business is a very common reason. The business opportunities that have arisen in the last few decades have made it almost imperative for a businessperson to have language skills. English may be spoken by many people and it is the language of the internet, but in order to really cultivate
business relationships and get ahead in the business world, language skills are a must. There are a wide variety of industries in which having language ability is a great advantage. It broadens our job skills and career options.

The reasons for students to learn languages are many, and not just because you need it to graduate or get a certain degree. Obviously, improving English skills and overall communication skills are both valuable to students. Improvement of memory, creativity, problem solving ability and analytical skills also are of significant importance to a student. Studies show that bilinguals routinely outperform monolinguals in all areas of testing. Scores for SATs and other tests are shown to be higher for foreign language students, and the longer the foreign language study the higher the average test scores. Having second language skills also makes a student more competitive in the job market.

Learning a language isn’t just learning some new grammar concepts, vocabulary and different sounds. It gives insights into other cultures. It creates a more positive attitude toward people who are culturally different and gives us a better understanding of what it’s like to be an immigrant. Accomplishing this life skill will give you increased prestige in your own culture and a markedly increased status in other cultures. It’s a required skill to become a World Citizen. Ultimately, learning other languages gives us a better
understanding of our own language and our own culture, and a new viewpoint to look at the world in which we live and define our place in it.

One of my favorite quotes about language by Ambrose Bierce :

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

It’s meant to be funny and it reminds us that languages really are different, but it makes me laugh every time I read it. This, to me, also reminds me why I like to learn languages. It’s fun! The inner workings of each language are full of little nuggets that are downright enjoyable to learn. So, why learn languages? Lots of the reasons above pertain to me, but my answer is much simpler – because I enjoy it.

By: Ron Tichenor

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