Advanced D/M Term 2 2021

Tim Doner is certainly an extraordinary talent, isn't he?  I like the point he makes about language being a vehicle for culture . He makes this point in his discussion of some everyday Persian expressions in his TED Talk where he discusses the expression of thanks "Ghorbanet beram" which literally means "May I sacrifice my life for you" or "I'll die for you." The strength of these words shows that good deeds for another are valued particularly highly in Iranian culture. An insight I will miss out on if I don't learn Persian. As Doner concludes "You can translate words easily, but you can't quite translate meaning."  Regarding ways to learn languages, I think Doner is on target in suggesting watching movies is a good way to achieve this goal. In the clip uploaded by THNKR, he says movies are useful for language learning because they expose you to the normal rate of speech and examples of colloquial words and phrases, and it is fun...

Write a post about Tim Donor & his language abilities. What did you find most interesting about him? Do you plan to emulate any of his language learning strategies?

There are a few things that stick in my mind regarding this matter.  I still remember some of the German I learned in the junior classes at high school and the reason is it was taught to me in a quirky way. The teacher had us draw pictures in our books featuring characters from a Wagner opera, gods no less! I drew Wotan behind a tree and wrote on my page "Wotan ist hinter dem baum" and I drew Siegfreid on top of a Volkswagon and wrote "Siegfreid ist auf der Volkswagon." I think these sentences have stuck in my head because of their quirkiness and fun and because I had accompanied them with visual images. So I think allowing room for creativity and fun and bringing in a visual dimension can facilitate language learning. Another thing that I think helps stick language form in one's mind is the matching card game. Matching words with pictures, parts of speech, definitions, translations, collocations and so on is fun and the more connections we make for a word, the ...

What do you think the best way to learn an additional language is? There are many way or techniques that help us to improve foreign languages. Personally, the best way to study an additional language is more listening, more talking, more reading, more writing. Listening helps me to advance my speaking fluently, and reading can develop the writing professionally.  Copying and developing are the easy and affective techniques. It likes babies try to say their own first language from their parents. It is not understanding the word from translation, but they have got the meaning from the emotion that they are expressed by. Therefore, copy the word and try to use them without translation is the best way to success.  Furthermore, as we known learning an additional language is the long way of achievement. So patience, practice, and persistence are the skills you must have to be. For instance, I have spent time for seven years to lean Chinese. Meanwhile I has not one day to stop leanin...

What do you think the best way to learn an additional language is? Write about the techniques for language learning that you have found to be most successful.

Welcome aboard, class. We're looking forward to learning about your experiences, thoughts, hopes and dreams here & to sharing our perspectives as well. David & Mike :-)