Why?
Some people just love to learn new languages. Apart from that reason, some might want to learn as they are going to travel, doing business in foreign country, social communication, hobby, and even for their partners.

What?

As a student of language, you have to read textbooks as they make up a big part of your leaning toolkit. But what about books on language?

For those of you looking to take a break from studying but who still want to read, you may wish to consider JP Davidson’s new book out call Planet Word. If you have a fascination with languages, it has come highly-recommended as it uncovers everything about how language evolves and is still changing today.

As the end of the year draws near, now is a good time to stop and reflect on what you have achieved this year as a language student.

Did you set yourself goals at the beginning of the year? If so, now is the ideal time to check each goal and whether you think you have achieved what you set out to do.

If your goal was to get an introduction to the language of choice, and learn some key phrases and vocabulary, then how did you go? If the answer is good, then congratulations on your progress.  The next questions you need to ask yourself are:

Some people find watching movies with subtitles annoying, but for the language student, these subtitles can become a useful learning tool.

Check out the foreign film section of the DVD/video store in your area to see if you can pick up some movies in the language that you are studying. The best option is to find a film that is actually spoken in the foreign language and has English subtitles.

Very early on in this blog we looked at the many different reasons people choose to learn a foreign language and the best way to do it.

When I moved to Japan to live many years ago my grasp on the language was very basic, to say the least! But I was determined not to let language be a barrier and I wanted to experience everything that the country and its wonderful people had to offer.

Arabic is spoken by over 300 million people throughout Asian and North Africa. It is also the official language of Islam, and so it is estimated to be used by one billion Muslims across the world.

Approximately 23 million people have Dutch as their native tongue, making it seventh on the list of languages spoken in the European Union.

Although most of those speakers live in the Netherlands, Dutch is also used by half of the population of Belgium (mainly in the north) and interestingly, it is the official language of the Republic of Suriname in northern South America.

Two Korean friends are talking:

A: Gosh, I have an important exam tomorrow. So nervous!!

B: Jincha (Really)? Fighting!!

What do you mean by “fighting”? If you have watched any Korean dramas, you would know that what “Fighting” really means in Korean. It means “Cheer up”.

I often hear students say that Chinese characters seem to be overwhelming because they are so varied and some of them contain “numerous” stokes. As most learning requires effective ways, learning Chinese characters has its unique way as well.

Bahasa Indonesia literally means the language (bahasa) of Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the developing countries with significant economic growth. This makes the country attracts a lot of investors from all over the world to come and to set up businesses. However, some of them find it hard to communicate with the locals and hence need to learn the language.

Is it difficult to learn Indonesian?

Well, there are a few reasons why Bahasa Indonesia is not difficult to learn: