LangBanged

 It's been a while, friend.  I almost didn't recognize you. Did you do something new to your hair recently? It looks fantastic. Look, I wish I had a legitimate excuse for having not written anything in over two months, but honestly, I've just been lazy and uninspired, relentlessly encumbered by the constant stream of negative news I encounter every time I use social media.  "Delete it, then." To which the boy replied, "No." You can pry my social media from my cold, dead hands.  Ignorance is bliss , but knowledge is  cool . Dad, wait, I'm trolling someone on the forums at PizzaMaking.com.   Speaking of knowledge, I feel like telling you about something nifty I thought and read about this week. It's not so much about language learning as it is about learning about language. You dig? SPEED OF INFORMATION CONVEYANCE THROUGH SPOKEN LANGUAGE Now, before I start making bold claims and rehashing half-truths that I've read on less-than-reputable websi...

 One, basically. Plus a mediocre amount of some others. This question comes up almost every time that I mention I enjoy languages during some casual conversation. I imagine that the asker of the question expects a more impressive answer than the one I give, but I just feel icky claiming any fluency in anything other than English. No one wants to be a poser. Posers are icky.  After seeing the flash of disappointment at my answer, I usually give a bit of follow up to justify myself, because while I may not be reading Voltaire sans problèmes, I do  in fact know a tad bit more French than your neighbor (unless, of course, they happen to be a big fan of Voltaire). If you'll indulge me, I'm going to talk about myself some more, and tell you about where I'm at with the few languages I've been dabbling in for a while. We'll go in order from best to worst, yeah? Good. French French is sexy . French is cute . French is popular to boot. French is not very useful in my regular ...

Tout le monde aime écouter de la musique. Everybody likes listening to music (I think?).  And if you're like me, you constantly have it playing. In the car, in your room, in the kitchen, while exercising, while zoning out and staring at your wall for an hour or two, overthinking every decision you've made. Constantly! Having the right song at the right moment makes life better, don't you think? There's nothing like kicking back with a mug of hot chocolate, fuzzy socks, fireplace blazing, and a Slipknot album to set the mood.  Luckily for the music lovers out there, music can be a great tool for learning a language.  Hello, today I will be playing "Wonderwall" by Oasis. Passive Listening When it comes to listening to music as a means of language learning, there are two primary methods of listening:  passive  and  active . Passive  listening requires little to no effort, you simply have the music play in the background and listen along. While it's unlike...

I’m an indecisive guy. Choosing an outfit to go out? Stress . Deciding on a restaurant for dinner? Stress . Picking a movie to watch? Stress . Typical night after thirty minutes of futile scrolling through Netflix.  So how in the world do you expect me to choose one out of about 6,500 languages to start learning? It's cruel. That’s a daunting number of options, especially when choosing between the same three restaurants once a week is enough to induce a mild identity crisis. Like, do I even actually like this food? Am I thinking too hard about this? Who am I? Who are you ? Is poke the right choice? Yes. Yes it is. I know I am not the only one who loathes decision-making. When you’re sitting with your friends (who may or may not actually exist) and every single one of them shrugs their cute shoulders and says, “I don’t really care”, well, they’re hiding their indecisiveness behind a cool, thin veil of impartiality. But guess what, friends? You can’t fool me. We’re one and the same. ...

 Hi there. Salut. 哈喽. 안녕. Mae govannen . Welcome, friend. Languages are hard. Like, really hard.  The first one comes free of charge, though you don't have any say as to which language first gets downloaded onto your gross little impressionable infant disk storage brain. If you're born a real lucky duck, you get multilingual parents who will provide you with additional language software at no real extra cost to you. How nice! My parents do not happen to speak French, Korean, or Mandarin. The nerve! The audacity! I have to figure those out on my own. Ugh. You multilingual toddlers better be grateful.  I'm looking at you,  4-year-old who speaks four languages. Many of us are not quite so fortunate, and have to put in some grueling effort down the road to learn a second (and third, fourth, etc.) language. I'll take the position of saying that most monolingual speakers are perfectly content with their situation of being monolingual, and that's okay for them! Couldn'...