Author Archives: G Barto

In the past few months, Catalonia has been very much in the news. And it’s got me thinking about the Catalan language. For one thing, as a French speaker, I’m very much aware of what happens to other languages in … Continue reading →

Idahosa Ness of Mimic Method does a lot of cool and sometimes strange stuff with pronunciation. He just posted a nice bit on how to figure out a sound in your target language that doesn’t exist in your native language, … Continue reading →

Agnieska Murdoch warn’s about The Dark Side of Language Learning. While learning a language can be an exciting adventure, it’s not just a question of putting in the time and maintaining motivation. You will encounter actual stumbling blocks and a … Continue reading →

When asked if you remember something, the condition on which you answer yes is if you can consciously recall it. But remembering how to ride a bike is not the same as remembering the Pythagorean theorem. In older times, there was … Continue reading →

After a year’s disappearance, I know I must seem to be brimming with chatter to post twice in a week. That said, after a long time of muddling around, I have the sense that things are picking up, and this … Continue reading →

According to Scientific American, Evidence Rebuts Chomsky’s Theory of Language Learning. Chomsky had theorized that there was all languages had beneath them an underlying structure whose rules for use were embedded in the human brain and that when we encountered … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading Learning Russian Marathon: How to Speak Russian in 10 Years and the author has an excellent suggestion (among many): When speaking, we use language chunks. We don’t speak in separate words, sounds, syllables, or sentences, and especially … Continue reading →