Pass On Your Heritage Languages

TweetImmigrant parents! Pass on your heritage languages no matter what! I was sitting in McDonald’s one day and saw two Chinese mothers chatting with each other in Mandarin. They then turned and spoke to their kids in English. These kids were only toddlers, not like those immigrant teens who already made up their minds not [...]

Hyperpolyglot Who Speaks 59 Languages

TweetYesterday I was contacted by someone who claimed to speak 59 languages and he was only 18 years old! My first reaction was: Really?! Well, ‘speak’ is a vague term. In fact, he admitted up front that he was not fluent in all of them. Before jumping into any conclusion of my own, I did [...]

Best Way to Improve Writing

TweetThe best way to improve writing is … to read more. This morning someone from Taiwan pinged me in Skype. I could not remember why she was on my contact list. I probably added her a few years ago when I was trying to improve my Mandarin. She told me she wanted to improve her [...]

Speaking Practice Amongst Learners

TweetToday, I had a chance to speak over Skype with Milan, the die-hard Cantonese learner. It must have been more than 3 years since we last talked. Back then we spoke in English and Cantonese. This time our conversation was purely in French and it lasted for more than an hour! When Milan proposed this [...]

Speaking Tips

TweetSpeak when you are ready, not when you ‘think’ you are ready. You are probably more ready to speak than you think you are. Yes, please honour the “silent period” and focus on input activities. But if you have already put in a lot of hours listening and reading, but feel uncomfortable moving on to [...]

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