Organic Chemistry Tutor - A Proper Teaching From An Organic Chemistry Tutor

Organic Chemistry Tutor - A Proper Teaching From An Organic Chemistry TutorAn organic chemistry tutor is a person who teaches subjects related to organic chemistry. The subject covers the synthesis of alcohols, the reactions and procedures involved in its preparation and methods for controlling and measuring the compound's properties. This is an essential science that involves chemical reactions and is closely linked with biology.It helps us understand the periodic table of the elements and the importance of certain elements. Besides, it helps us solve problems related to the periodic table and identify the properties of elements. When students undergo this course, they will gain knowledge about the nature of different molecules, their structure, properties and reactions in a proper manner.There are many techniques that are used to achieve chemical reactions such as, heat treatment, distillation, electrolysis, partial vacuum or boiling point. These are processes that may be done on s olid and liquid materials. Chemical transformations are also achieved by reacting the two substances together or by using a catalyst. A catalyst can be any substance such as, ethanol, sulfur, etc.A proper teaching from an organic chemistry tutor is of great help in understanding the chemical nature of products, reactants and substrates used during different chemical reactions. It can be used to determine the substances or compounds present in our home or workplace. One can use the various tests and analysis to determine substances such as toxicity, hazards and risks associated with specific compounds and also helps in understanding the steps involved in the preparation of the substance.Most of the companies have different types of equipment for handling various types of chemicals. It helps to create chemicals and oils that are used in different applications. It also offers knowledge about chemical reactions.Our daily life may come under threat of many environmental dangers such as, toxins, contaminants, pollutants, hazardous drugs and poisonous gases. Organic chemistry is an essential science that helps us understand the nature of the substances and how they can affect us. It includes the creation of medicines, nutrients, pesticides, explosives, components and more.If you are looking for a challenging chemistry course with lots of knowledge in chemical reactions, organic chemistry is the best option. Students will gain knowledge about diverse chemical reactions and its various processes that help them in solving various chemical problems and thus, help in reaching the top ranks in the competitive career field.

Improve Reading Comprehension With Summer Learning

Improve Reading Comprehension With Summer Learning Four Fun Ways to Boost your Child's Reading Comprehension this Summer! Summer is here and it is the perfect time to get in some extra reading comprehension practice for your child. You can utilize summer's wide variety of educational opportunities, extra time, and lazy days to get in some valuable reading practice for your child. The best part is that your child won't even think that the family is working on reading. Instead your comprehension-building activities will feel like fun ways to spend a summer day learning with the family.If you're looking for some ways to increase your child's reading comprehension this summer consider trying these fun activities: Launch a family study What topics of study intrigue your family? Insects? The Civil War? Dinosaurs? No matter which topic you choose for a family summer study there are many great ways to integrate reading practice. Your family can visit the library to check out books on the topic, read them together, and create a list of questions you still want answered. Take time to extend the reading and learning to real life experiences. Visit a museum or participate in another educational opportunity about your topic to search for answers to the questions your family generated. Ongoing study will prompt your child to ask questions, seek answers, and improve reading skills while participating in a fun family activity. Visit the library Many public libraries sponsor fun summer activities for children of all ages. You can visit your library to learn more about summer programs and to gather plenty of reading materials. Don't limit your children to books they can easily read themselves; there are a wide range of materials to choose from that you might not normally consider. If your child is an early reader the summer is a perfect time to choose a chapter book to read aloud. Reading a chapter a day will help boost comprehension and expose them to topics, authors, and genres they haven't yet experienced. Graphic novels, comic books, and magazines are also available at the library and are great ways to motivate reluctant readers. Talking about what your child is reading will boost comprehension regardless of the reading material. Form a book club Finding multiple copies of a single book is a great way to start a family book club. Establish a schedule for the club and make sure all readers are able to experience success. Set a specific reading goal (perhaps a chapter at a time) and then meet as a group to discuss what you read. Encourage input from each book club member, regardless of reading ability. You can shape the book club discussion around your child's reading needs. For example, if your child struggles with making connections between texts you can spend a part of the book club discussion talking about ways the book is like other books they've already read. Invest in tutoring Even though there are many great ways to improve comprehension for your child at home you may also be interested in receiving professional tutoring services. The tutors at Huntington Learning Centers know how to engage students in activities that are both fun and highly effective. Comprehension and critical thinking skills are woven into tutoring activities that often utilize a student's favorite reading genre. Your child will be learning valuable new comprehension skills while gaining academic confidence and having fun! Your child's reading comprehension shouldn't suffer during the summer months. The professionals at Huntington Learning Centers are trained to help all their students maintain the knowledge and skills gained in previous years. Our tutoring sessions are customized to meet your child's specific needs and are created using data gathered in ongoing assessments.What are some other fun ways to boost your child's reading this summer?

Fed Up, Sick Of, Tired Of, Had Enough Of English Phrasal Verbs and Expressions

Fed Up, Sick Of, Tired Of, Had Enough Of English Phrasal Verbs and Expressions Are you fed up, sick of, tired of or have you had enough of something? These are all ways of using phrasal verbs for expressing that something that has been irritating you, and that you want the situation to end. Below youll find some examples, and a great song to help you remember tired of.Fed Up:A lot of people are fed up with their politicians. They want them to stop thinking about elections and do something for the people.Im fed up with the traffic in my city! It takes me too long to get to work.Sick Of:Im sick of this song, they play it on the radio every five minutes.They were sick of being treated poorly by their neighbors.Be sure to see how sick of is sometimes mistranslated, as in the popular song Sick of Love. Click here.Tired Of:Theyre tired of being treated like children.Im tired of bein alone, just like Al Green. Had Enough Of:I had had enough of the arguing at the bar, and went home. (Notice the use of have as an auxiliary and past particple).Ive had enough of the terri ble food on the airlines. Now I bring my own food.

The Top 10 Tactics for Learning to Speak Any Language Fluently

The Top 10 Tactics for Learning to Speak Any Language Fluently The Top 10 Tactics  for Learning to Speak Any Language Fluently You’re doing it wrong!Well, only if youre not focusing the brunt of your attention on speaking your new language.Are you building your  language learning process  upon grammar rules and written exercises?Focused on those little details of the language?Writing out tons of vocabulary lists?Of course those aspects are super important too, especially when it comes to mastering reading, writing and listening. However, you wont get far if youre missing the crucial element of fluency: speech.Theres a common problem for many learners who focus on rules and proper writing, but  who  don’t practice their speech: They cannot understand native speakers and they choke during real conversations. We don’t want that to happen to you.We want you to act completely natural when you start speaking to a native, so you’ll make new friends and so everyone will be impressed. That’s why weve nailed down the 10 best learning tactics that will help you  speak  fluently. The best part is that theyre a pplicable to any language you decide to learn. The Top 10 Tactics  for Learning to Speak Any Language Fluently1. Talk when you read and writeWriting is a really important part of language learning, so you should never neglect it. You need to complete different exercises that challenge you to answer questions, choose the right word that fits into a sentence, write essays and compose email messages.You’ve surely noticed that most lessons in grammar books come with a review and practice section. Instead of solving these parts mechanically, you can take your effectiveness to a whole new level: read out loud.  Read anything that you read or write in your target language out loud.Don’t be afraid to get silly and try to mimic the accent of a true native while doing this. Once you get in an actual conversation, your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary will shine through proper speech. Youll also get a confidence boost, which is extremely valuable for progress.2. ThinkPeople say you’ re not fluent in a foreign language until you catch yourself thinking in it. That makes sense. You can’t achieve high levels of fluency if youre constantly thinking in your native language and doing mental translations.Thinking 100% in a target language at the very beginning of your practice is difficult, but this simpler technique will drive you forward:  Learn how to say your most commonly said words and phrases in your target language.Think about all the short and simple sentences you use in your daily communication, and then  translate them into the language you’re learning. What do you use at the grocery store? At the post office? On the bus? At work? At home? Learn how to say them, and then always think them to yourself as you go about your daily business.Be careful, thoughâ€"literal translations don’t always work. Idioms usually require liberal interpretation, so you’ll need to do a research to see how certain phrases are being used in the language you’re learning. That’s a useful practice that will help you remember conversational phrases.3. Watch movies with subtitlesYou never bother watching movies without synchronization? You need to step away from that habit. Subtitles may seem  boring and distracting on the surface level, but theyre not the most important factor in this exercise. It’s the native speech you want to hear (and learn).There are a few phases in watching a foreign movie if you want to extract speaking lessons:First, you watch it while reading the subtitles. If theres a word you don’t understand, write it in your personal dictionary and define it.Pronounce those words and try to get the accent right. Fit them into sentences of your own, so you’ll understand how they can be used in different situations.Now, watch the movie again. Don’t read the subtitles this time. It’s important to understand as much of the speech  as you can. Then you can move to the next step that will take your fluency to the next level.Not at a level where you can realistically do the above? Or just think that sounds way too tedious for you? Instead of doing it with a movie, try the videos on FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos from around the webâ€"including movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talksâ€"and turns them into personalized language lessons.FluentU makes sure all the captions in a video actually match up to the speech you hear, makes it super easy to pause and replay continually, and even gives you instant word lookup so you dont need to bother with looking stuff up in a dictionary.4. Imitate!Remember that movie? Watch it again! Sure, youre all too familiar with the scenes by now, but you won’t get bored because this is a learning method with a purpose. Pause the film frequently and imitate the speech.Listen to the way the actors pronounce the words and try to do the same.Once youre able to move your tongue faster and juggle those foreign sounds more easily, stop pausing and just try to parro t back what the characters are saying at the same time!  This requires you to understand every word they say in the moment and spit it out quickly. Once youre imitating like a legit parrot, your accent will start to get closer and closer to that of the native speaker youre imitating.5. Listen to local music and learn the lyricsThe words flow naturally when you sing, and you can usually get the pronunciation right when you sing.Music is also fun because it connects you to the culture you’re researching. Of course, you have to choose music with lyrics if you want to work on your fluency. Find the lyrics online and try to sing along. Thanks to the vast information on the Internet, lyrics of any song in any language are usually availableâ€"along with translations and romanized versions (if necessary).It doesn’t matter whether you have a talent  for music or not. The only important thing is to follow the flow of the words. Theres nothing more fluent than words connected through singi ng.6. Read local literatureEvery country and culture has its masterful writers. Miguel de Cervantes wrote in Spanish, Italy has Dante, Hugo presented the sophistication of French expressions, and the great Tolstoy and Dostoevsky revealed new dimensions of the Russian language. It’s important to explore the literature written in the language you’re learning. It’s even better when you read it out loud. You may also try to succeed in different online literature tests.Poetry has an even more awesome effect because it teaches you about rhythm. Of course, poetic expression is a bit more difficult to comprehend, so you’ll need to achieve higher levels of fluency to understand complex poems.7. Find a language learning buddyEven when you’re imitating the actors from a foreign movie, you won’t notice that your pronunciation is a little off sometimes. The human mind is a peculiar thing. It can easily distort our impressions and we may think we speak perfectly even when we’re maki ng serious mistakes. That’s why you need a friend who will join you on this journey.You can talk in the foreign language and correct each other when needed. The corrections may lead to heated discussions about the proper pronunciation of certain words, but the confrontations will be productive when you analyze native speech together.You can also make plans and set goals together, increasing your level of accountability and keeping you on track to fluency.8. Talk to a native speakerWhen you manage to amaze natives with your vocabulary and pronunciation, that’s when you can call yourself a fluent speaker. Your friends are great support when you learn a foreign language together, but they cannot replace natives.Some of the things you can do is travel or find a native in your area. You may consider taking a semester abroad in another country. Some countries, like Germany, offer wide range of programs through reputable language and culture institutes. If that doesn’t work, the Inte rnet will come to the rescue.Conversation Exchange is a platform that can help you find native speakers living in your area. You’ll connect. You’ll meet for a coffee and help each other become fluent in the languages you’re learning.Speaky is a worldwide language learning community where you can meet people from 180+ countries and connect with them to practice your language skills online.9. TravelWhen you want to become really fluent in a certain language, you have to understand the culture that speaks it. It’s important to see and feel that country from the inside. That’s when all idioms and phrases start making sense.You’ll meet many native speakers who will be happy to help you learn the language better. Traveling is not a simple decision to make, mainly because it costs a lot. However, theres no goal you can’t achieve with proper planning and budgeting.10. Analyze different dialectsIf youre fluent in the standardized form of the language you’re learning, it’s t ime to move to a master level: dialects. Explore the way natives speak in different areas of their countries. Try to learn words specific for those areas and experiment with the way the same words are being pronounced across the country.Your goal to become fluent in a foreign language will be a lifetime journey. Theres no peak that you can achieve.Youll always find new heights to reach. All above-listed methods have one thing in common: Theyre really fun.And theyre bound to help you boost your levels of fluency without serious difficulties! And One More ThingIf youre digging these tactics, youll love using FluentU. FluentU makes it possible to learn languages  from music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks.With FluentU, you learn real languagesâ€"the same way that natives  speak them. FluentU has a wide variety of videos like movie trailers, funny commercials and web series, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse ScreenFluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.FluentU Interactive TranscriptsYou can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentUs quiz mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% personalized experience by recommending videos and examples.Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet  or, better yet,  download the FluentU app from  the iTunes store  or Google Play store.

With a Passion for STEM, this Kumon Student is Effecting Change

With a Passion for STEM, this Kumon Student is Effecting Change With a Passion for STEM, this Kumon Student is Effecting Change At  10-years-old,  Anvita  has a dream of becoming a neurosurgeon.  More specifically, she hopes to use artificial intelligence to improve the medical industry as a whole. That’s a big dream for a teenager, but it’s not surprising because she’s always had a passion for STEM and math in general. She fell in love with the  Kumon Math Program  because it strengthened her mental math skills, allowing her to solve real-world math problems.     Anvita  is part of a robotics team that  is currently competing in the  First Lego League  Competition.  The competition includes students, ages 9 to 16, from 80 different countries.  Anvita  and her team are one qualifying round away from going to the finals. She took time out of her busy schedule to tell us more about the competition  and her passion for STEM.   What is the First Lego League Competition?   First Lego League challenges kids to think like scientists and engineers. In our competition, we were asked to research a real world problemâ€"we chose water contaminationâ€"and were challenged to develop a solution. We also had to design, build and program a robot using  LEGO MINDSTORMS ®?technology.   What is the benefit of the First Lego League Competition?   It’s a really cool competition because it’s a fun way to learn and apply science, technology, engineering and math concepts while solving a real-world problem. It really helps you develop critical thinking, team-building and even professional skills.     How did Kumon impact your deep passion for robotics?   I love robotics and hope to work with artificial intelligence in the future! For that, I need patience, concentration and dedication.  My  Kumon  Instructor (Sharon Tung)  really helped me develop all of these skills.  Kumon also helped  advance  my mental math calculation and deepened my understanding of  math and how it relates to the world around me.     Anvita  embodies  Kumon’s mission statementâ€"By  discovering the potential of each individual and developing his or her ability to the maximum, we aim to foster sound, capable people and thus contribute to the global community.     It’s safe to say that  Anvita  is pushing herself to achieve her highest potential and we can’t wait to see how she impacts the world.     You might also be interested in: This Young Kumon Reading Program Completer is an Aspiring Computer Engineer Kumon of West Chester Students to Compete in the First Lego League World Championship With a Passion for Astronomy, this Kumon Student Wants to Become an Astrophysicist Future Leader is Inspired to Change the World With a Passion for STEM, this Kumon Student is Effecting Change With a Passion for STEM, this Kumon Student is Effecting Change At  10-years-old,  Anvita  has a dream of becoming a neurosurgeon.  More specifically, she hopes to use artificial intelligence to improve the medical industry as a whole. That’s a big dream for a teenager, but it’s not surprising because she’s always had a passion for STEM and math in general. She fell in love with the  Kumon Math Program  because it strengthened her mental math skills, allowing her to solve real-world math problems.     Anvita  is part of a robotics team that  is currently competing in the  First Lego League  Competition.  The competition includes students, ages 9 to 16, from 80 different countries.  Anvita  and her team are one qualifying round away from going to the finals. She took time out of her busy schedule to tell us more about the competition  and her passion for STEM.   What is the First Lego League Competition?   First Lego League challenges kids to think like scientists and engineers. In our competition, we were asked to research a real world problemâ€"we chose water contaminationâ€"and were challenged to develop a solution. We also had to design, build and program a robot using  LEGO MINDSTORMS ®?technology.   What is the benefit of the First Lego League Competition?   It’s a really cool competition because it’s a fun way to learn and apply science, technology, engineering and math concepts while solving a real-world problem. It really helps you develop critical thinking, team-building and even professional skills.     How did Kumon impact your deep passion for robotics?   I love robotics and hope to work with artificial intelligence in the future! For that, I need patience, concentration and dedication.  My  Kumon  Instructor (Sharon Tung)  really helped me develop all of these skills.  Kumon also helped  advance  my mental math calculation and deepened my understanding of  math and how it relates to the world around me.     Anvita  embodies  Kumon’s mission statementâ€"By  discovering the potential of each individual and developing his or her ability to the maximum, we aim to foster sound, capable people and thus contribute to the global community.     It’s safe to say that  Anvita  is pushing herself to achieve her highest potential and we can’t wait to see how she impacts the world.     You might also be interested in: This Young Kumon Reading Program Completer is an Aspiring Computer Engineer Kumon of West Chester Students to Compete in the First Lego League World Championship With a Passion for Astronomy, this Kumon Student Wants to Become an Astrophysicist Future Leader is Inspired to Change the World

This is what schools look for on your Teach Away profile [Video]

This is what schools look for on your Teach Away profile [Video] Wondering how you can land your dream job teaching abroad? One of the first steps is completing an awesome Teach Away profile. Registering to create a profile and applying for jobs on our job board is totally free. So what should an awesome profile include? We sat down with some of our resident teacher recruitment experts to find out what schools are looking for in their ideal candidates. Take a look at all the useful tips they had to share! Watch it below: We could go on all day about why it’s important to complete your teacher profile. But, in short, successful Teach Away candidates have profiles that are complete, accurate, and up-to-date. These professional-level profiles paint a compelling picture of a candidate’s education, teaching experience, skills and accomplishments. Even if a lot of that information is already on the resume you upload, your goal should be to make it as easy as possible for our recruitment team to match you with the perfect job. Plus, it allows us to send you customized job alerts so that you don’t miss out on your dream opportunity. Before you upload your resume, you may want to check out our tips for crafting a strong resume and cover letter for teaching abroad. A cover letter will come in handy when you’re applying for specific positions on our job board. And remember not to underestimate the importance of uploading the right profile picture. Don’t worry, we’ve also got some tips for selecting an awesome photo. Ready to start building your profile? If you need some pointers, check out our Help Centre for info on how to build a complete teacher profile. It’ll help you quickly go from beginner to pro!

French @ Italki Challenge halfway there!

French @ Italki Challenge halfway there! Siskia L. runs a popular language learning blog called The Polyglotist and is taking part in our New Years Language Challenge to learn French. We found this great post about her experiences with the language challenge and wanted to share this with other Challengers!  Reprinted with permission. Original post here. Incredibly, last Thursday I did my 12th hour of French for the italki Language Challenge (out of 20 required to complete it). More incredibly, I also got pretty sick this very week, so I didn’t actually do as many hours as I had expected to. Anyway, here’s… A QUICK UPDATE I think it’s the first time I’ve put such intensity into one language. I don’t mean to say I’m more interested in French than I’ve been in any of my other languages (both serious attemps and light dabbling), but since I started this language I’ve progressed in a very natural way. Putting in one hour of conversation and anywhere between 30 min and 3 hours of self-study into this project just feels right. This reminds me that as of late, I’ve been more conscious about my study hours than usual. This is not because I suddenly felt I should be more mathematical about my study methods, but rather because I am currently participating in the 6 Week Challenge, which requires its participants to log their study hours through a Twitter bot. In the beginning I thought this wouldn’t really influence me to study any more or any less than I was in the first place, but the effect of participating in what’s in essence a “race” has been quite interesting in the sense that knowing I’m in this with other people stimulates me to try harder. I’m not so interested in knowing in what place I am currently (although it’s fun to race other people learning my language as well, haha) rather than knowing how I’m distributing my study hours, doing what, and how. All these things one can keep track of through the challenge, so it’s good statistical data. Partly because of participating in this challenge, partly because I’ve realized structure and form lead to better results, I’ve been trying to improve the way in which I administer my time and agenda. (Not that I did a very good job at that this week, what with work and school and more work and feeling pretty damn under the weather, but anyhoo…) TALKING THE TALK! I’m actually talking in French for about 75-80% of my italki sessions, only going back into Spanish or English when I am absolutely at a loss for words: I’ve noticed that this isn’t when I try to use regular words: for the most part, it’s when my mind tries to translate a colloquial expression from English into French. Unless I’ve heard that expression before and know its French equivalent, my brain’s language monitoring center usually goes on full blown red alert and tells me not to use that expression. I have got to stop being so cautious and just dive in. I know better than anyone that making these particular mistakes is essential for the learning process, but old habits die hard. The funny part is, this doesn’t happen with regular words, only with expressions where I mean to imply something figuratively or where cultural references come into play. Speaking of words, I’ve noticed two interesting things about my French: my source for words I haven’t heard before tends to be English (knowing that a good deal of the English lexicon derived from French), while my reference for correct French grammar tends to be Italian. By this I mean that when I speak in French and try a new word I haven’t used before, my first impulse is to look for it in my mental English database, and only when I notice the word doesn’t sound French, do I look for it in a dictionary. While I’m hard pressed to say this always works, several English words have turned to be the same in French, so while I build a better lexicon in this language, this may not be a bad method to keep the conversation in French territory (instead of jumping back into English every so often) . My theory now is that as a language student, one will use whatever one’s got in the pantry to hold on to the language while at the same time creating a more accurate linguistic base through classes, study, tutoring, etc. Maybe that’s the reason why we tend to translate our thoughts literally? SO MANY RESOURCES, SO LITTLE TIME… After some hits and misses, I’ve run into incredibly good teachers that focus on monitoring both my vocabulary and pronunciation. Getting the pronunciation right has been a gruelling task, and I’m incredibly far from having it down pat, but at least I’m being pointed in the right direction all the time. Probably one of the things I’m enjoying the most about this language project is the HUGE resources gap between French and my last language, Nahuatl. After spending most of 2014 pretty much doing detective work, looking everywhere for hints of where to learn Nahuatl and how, finding self-study resources in French is turning out to be a walk in the park. Right now I’m enjoying several different listening-comprehension resources. I’m planning to summarize the best and most effective ones in a later post, but here’s just a little bite of what I would recommend to anybody wanting an ear-workout in French: Apprendre le français avec TV5MONDE and 7 jours sur la planète: level-graded videos, with transcripts, exercises and explanations of recent, up-to-date and useful vocabulary. 7 jours has an app (available for both iOS and Android), excellent for taking your comprehension exercises on the road. FluentU: although officially in beta right now, it’s an excellent video-based resource to listen to French (also available for Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish and English). It’s based on phrase-by-phrase video segments, using a type of “subtitle” technology that stops the video when you hover over a word you don’t know. It also has vocabulary exercises available, and when you use these, the system remembers what words you remember and what you don’t. Since these are saved in your account, your word database applies to all the videos in the system, meaning that the system is able to suggest videos perfect for your vocabulary level! Français Authentique: this is a very complete site and I honestly recommend Johan’s learning materials to ANYONE, but the part that I use the most is his podcasts. In these, he explains complex concepts and ideas in slow, easy-to-understand French, and they’re available completely free of charge in his website and in the Podcast section of Itunes. Well, that’s it for now. I have several very interesting ideas and projects lined up for The Polyglotist, and I’d love to share them with you… but not yet! ;D French @ Italki Challenge halfway there! Siskia L. runs a popular language learning blog called The Polyglotist and is taking part in our New Years Language Challenge to learn French. We found this great post about her experiences with the language challenge and wanted to share this with other Challengers!  Reprinted with permission. Original post here. Incredibly, last Thursday I did my 12th hour of French for the italki Language Challenge (out of 20 required to complete it). More incredibly, I also got pretty sick this very week, so I didn’t actually do as many hours as I had expected to. Anyway, here’s… A QUICK UPDATE I think it’s the first time I’ve put such intensity into one language. I don’t mean to say I’m more interested in French than I’ve been in any of my other languages (both serious attemps and light dabbling), but since I started this language I’ve progressed in a very natural way. Putting in one hour of conversation and anywhere between 30 min and 3 hours of self-study into this project just feels right. This reminds me that as of late, I’ve been more conscious about my study hours than usual. This is not because I suddenly felt I should be more mathematical about my study methods, but rather because I am currently participating in the 6 Week Challenge, which requires its participants to log their study hours through a Twitter bot. In the beginning I thought this wouldn’t really influence me to study any more or any less than I was in the first place, but the effect of participating in what’s in essence a “race” has been quite interesting in the sense that knowing I’m in this with other people stimulates me to try harder. I’m not so interested in knowing in what place I am currently (although it’s fun to race other people learning my language as well, haha) rather than knowing how I’m distributing my study hours, doing what, and how. All these things one can keep track of through the challenge, so it’s good statistical data. Partly because of participating in this challenge, partly because I’ve realized structure and form lead to better results, I’ve been trying to improve the way in which I administer my time and agenda. (Not that I did a very good job at that this week, what with work and school and more work and feeling pretty damn under the weather, but anyhoo…) TALKING THE TALK! I’m actually talking in French for about 75-80% of my italki sessions, only going back into Spanish or English when I am absolutely at a loss for words: I’ve noticed that this isn’t when I try to use regular words: for the most part, it’s when my mind tries to translate a colloquial expression from English into French. Unless I’ve heard that expression before and know its French equivalent, my brain’s language monitoring center usually goes on full blown red alert and tells me not to use that expression. I have got to stop being so cautious and just dive in. I know better than anyone that making these particular mistakes is essential for the learning process, but old habits die hard. The funny part is, this doesn’t happen with regular words, only with expressions where I mean to imply something figuratively or where cultural references come into play. Speaking of words, I’ve noticed two interesting things about my French: my source for words I haven’t heard before tends to be English (knowing that a good deal of the English lexicon derived from French), while my reference for correct French grammar tends to be Italian. By this I mean that when I speak in French and try a new word I haven’t used before, my first impulse is to look for it in my mental English database, and only when I notice the word doesn’t sound French, do I look for it in a dictionary. While I’m hard pressed to say this always works, several English words have turned to be the same in French, so while I build a better lexicon in this language, this may not be a bad method to keep the conversation in French territory (instead of jumping back into English every so often) . My theory now is that as a language student, one will use whatever one’s got in the pantry to hold on to the language while at the same time creating a more accurate linguistic base through classes, study, tutoring, etc. Maybe that’s the reason why we tend to translate our thoughts literally? SO MANY RESOURCES, SO LITTLE TIME… After some hits and misses, I’ve run into incredibly good teachers that focus on monitoring both my vocabulary and pronunciation. Getting the pronunciation right has been a gruelling task, and I’m incredibly far from having it down pat, but at least I’m being pointed in the right direction all the time. Probably one of the things I’m enjoying the most about this language project is the HUGE resources gap between French and my last language, Nahuatl. After spending most of 2014 pretty much doing detective work, looking everywhere for hints of where to learn Nahuatl and how, finding self-study resources in French is turning out to be a walk in the park. Right now I’m enjoying several different listening-comprehension resources. I’m planning to summarize the best and most effective ones in a later post, but here’s just a little bite of what I would recommend to anybody wanting an ear-workout in French: Apprendre le français avec TV5MONDE and 7 jours sur la planète: level-graded videos, with transcripts, exercises and explanations of recent, up-to-date and useful vocabulary. 7 jours has an app (available for both iOS and Android), excellent for taking your comprehension exercises on the road. FluentU: although officially in beta right now, it’s an excellent video-based resource to listen to French (also available for Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish and English). It’s based on phrase-by-phrase video segments, using a type of “subtitle” technology that stops the video when you hover over a word you don’t know. It also has vocabulary exercises available, and when you use these, the system remembers what words you remember and what you don’t. Since these are saved in your account, your word database applies to all the videos in the system, meaning that the system is able to suggest videos perfect for your vocabulary level! Français Authentique: this is a very complete site and I honestly recommend Johan’s learning materials to ANYONE, but the part that I use the most is his podcasts. In these, he explains complex concepts and ideas in slow, easy-to-understand French, and they’re available completely free of charge in his website and in the Podcast section of Itunes. Well, that’s it for now. I have several very interesting ideas and projects lined up for The Polyglotist, and I’d love to share them with you… but not yet! ;D