Best Way to Improve Writing
Posted on | January 19, 2011 | 10 Comments
The 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 English writing skill, and asked if I knew any native English speakers who would like to be her Chinese/English language exchange penpal. I simply told her to read more, and I guaranteed her that by doing so her writing would improve tremendously.
Speaking Practice Amongst Learners
Posted on | January 11, 2011 | 6 Comments
Today, 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 idea, I wondered since we both were learners of the language, how could this possibly benefit us at all? I accepted his ‘challenge’ anyhow, and it turned out to be a wonderful practice to me.
Speaking Tips
Posted on | December 31, 2010 | 1 Comment
Speak 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 speaking, this post is for you.
The Challenge of Raising Multilingual Kids
Posted on | December 16, 2010 | 4 Comments
Many parents struggle with the challenge of raising their kids bilingually. I have the challenge of raising mine quadrilingually.
Cantonese has always been my daughter’s first language, and I as a parent will try my best to keep it up. English is the social language of our community, and naturally it will become more dominant as she grows up. She has also been learning Mandarin Chinese since she was three. French, one of the two official languages in Canada, is the fourth one which will be formally introduced to her very soon at school.
Paid Language Tutoring
Posted on | December 7, 2010 | 1 Comment
In the past few months, I have been focusing on a lot speaking activities. During the summer, I paid for some conversation practices in Spanish. I tried three different tutors online, and ended up picking one to continue with throughout the summer.
In the past year or so, my Spanish learning activities consist of listening, reading, and sporadically speaking to Hispanic friends and colleagues, and even people I met on the street. It is about time to move onto some serious speaking stuff.
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- Cool language tool. Should become the next hit. Now they need more people joining. http://t.co/8YWZ9Wx
- Visiting Rio de Janeiro today and tomorrow.
- Just had an English/Spanish mixed conversation with a Skype friend for over an hour. We had not talked for more than 4 years.
- My last week in Sao Paulo.
- I find myself comfortably living in São Paulo within the 1st week, thx to the ability to understand the surroundings. http://t.co/UDkZA79