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meichenxi · 4 years ago

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Hi! You've mentioned skritter several times before. I just bought it for the year, and still figuring it out. How do you use this app? Thank you!

Hey!

Excellent - first of all, I encourage anyone else to ask me things today because I am currently sitting in quarantine with patchy WiFi and very bored so you'll be guaranteed a long answer!

Ah, Skritter: all learners of Chinese and Japanese shake their heads fondly. Skritter is like other flashcard apps in that it has 'decks' that you can start learning from - these can be folk-generated (so other people's lists of vocab) or official, so textbooks, Skritter's own decks and so on. There's no restriction on how many decks you learn from, but you'll quickly find that you shouldn't go above a certain amount per day. Like all flashcard apps, it's built on the principles of spaced repetition to remind you when you are most likely to forget to strengthen memories for ease of access. So if you try learning too much, what you have to review the next day is pretty substantial, quite taxing, and you may have to scale it down. With handwriting, unlike character recognition, I'd emphasise quality over quantity. So if you find that you're only remembering around 80%, you may need to add new words more slowly.

Before you use it, you should also keep in mind a few things. Firstly, that if you're relatively new to writing characters (regardless of your experience reading them), it's going to be a frustratingly slow experience. I find that where I can easily remember 20+ characters a day if I know the pinyin well, there's no way I remember how to WRITE the same number. So don't be surprised if it's slower going than memorising pinyin, and on that note, don't feel bad if you know more pinyin than you can recognise characters, and recognise more characters than you can write. In an ideal world, you'd be able to do everything, but that's just the reality of learning hanzi - different parts take different amounts of effort. So you may find yourself using Skritter just for writing characters and another app for recognising them. Next, bear in mind that you don't NEED to be able to handwrite that many characters at all for basic daily communication unless you're going to a Chinese speaking university or, idk, want to be able to write sexy coffeeshop napkin diaries or something. So while it's a good idea for everyone to get the first 300 or so handwritten, don't worry if you tail off after this. I personally don't use Skritter any more just because I don't need to handwrite, and the limited time I have for studying Chinese I spend on character recognition. This will change next year, when I have to start learning to handwrite again! But I would recommend everybody to learn to handwrite at least the basics, because it means that you can copy characters or draw them into Pleco much easier, as well as laying a good foundation for if you do decide to take up handwriting later down the line.

So with all this in mind, where should you start?

Somewhat boringly, it depends where exactly in your studies you are. For beginners, I would recommend starting not with HSK1 words, but with their 100 radicals deck. If you're a false beginner, too, these radicals help massively making mnemonics for characters and, later, understanding how phonetic and semantic components come together. It also means you're not just memorising arbitrary lines, and teaches you stroke order. If you get the stroke order wrong, Skritter doesn't accept it - this is great training.

In every Skritter deck, you have the option of testing for various things. These include tone, pronunciation, and of course the handwriting. Personally I only usually test for handwriting, since I know the words in pinyin very well, I just don't know how to write them. But for many people this is a very important feature, especially if they're just starting and tones are new. For heritage speakers or anyone else who already knows the pinyin, I'd recommend turning off everything apart from the writing - that way you can focus on what you really need.

After you've finished the 100 radicals course, you can start on Skritter's basic chinese course. If the 100 radicals course is really boring, you can do these two alongside each other. Whenever you learn a new word, I'd encourage you to use Skritter's information bar to add a mnemonic, a note, and look up information about the components of the character. This creates more meaningful engagement and hopefully better memories!

After the basics course, you have a few options. There's nothing wrong with just ploughing through HSK1, 2 and 3, and for the most part I'd recommend that. At the same time, though, you can - and should - create your own courses. This is a really cool feature and Skritter automatically adds example sentences to whatever words you have. You can make as many sets as you like, but I'd prefer to keep them with relatively small chapters (the sets have 'chapters' which are groups of words that can be tested together) so that it's easier to test.

I'd say having two or three sets on the go at any one time is more than enough. Some further tips: when you're finished for the day, try to write what you've done on pen and paper. Skritter is great, but if your goal is actual handwriting it's a very different experience. Once you've done HSK1, have a go at just writing short things in Chinese - this can be anything. But it keeps the characters at the front of your mind. If you don't use them, you lose them. If you don't know a word, don't be precious about it - just write it in pinyin and move on. This isn't meant to be pretty or instagram-able, this is your ROUGH PRACTICE. If you struggle to look up the character for every word you don't know, you'll be here a long time and it'll actually hinder your progress. For any important words you can add them to your own personal set. Be CAREFUL with this though - don't add a ridiculous number of words that aren't imminently necessary to be able to handwrite, like 'sneeze' or 'windowpane'. These you can add to your 'characters to recognise' deck on Anki, Memrise or Quizlet - trying to handwrite them if you're still in the early stages will just be frustrating.

If you're a heritage speaker or have in any way a bigger vocabulary than you can write, I'd encourage you to have a seperate Anki or Quizlet or Memrise deck to help you improve your character recognition as well as new spoken vocabulary. That way you won't feel like you're stagnating whilst you're grappling with the basics of characters.

Another trick: when you're testing or reviewing your vocab on Skritter daily (which you NEED to do, otherwise it builds up and up and up...), write it first on pen and paper and THEN on the screen. Why? Because Skritter has a few features (that you can turn off) that 'jump' the stroke into the correct place for you, making your characters look pretty AND giving you hints. This IS good, because it exposes you again and again to what a correct, well-formed character is, so don't think it's cheating. But be aware of how well you can write characters yourself versus what the app suggests you can do - correct stroke order does not good handwriting make!! (etc)

If you're feeling bold, you can turn this off in settings. It's more difficult, but very rewarding. Because of the benefits mentioned above, however, I usually keep it on - but that's just personal preference.

Alright! I think that's about it. Wishing you the best of luck! (and feeling that maybe I should buy a subscription again...!)

Thanks for the ask!

#chinese langblr #langblr #chinese studyblr #chinese #studyblr #learn chinese #study chinese #mandarin #skritter #chinese handwriting #meichenxi manages #Also anyone else who has any asks I can answer on my phone lmao please DO I am so bored #But I can't link anything from mobile sooo

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nattsunoyume · 5 years ago

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Something that always bothered me about All For The Game is the lack of verisimilitude in its portrayal of languages and bi/multilinguals. So, because I’m a firm believer that critiques are useful (especially to other writers who might not be familiar with this reality) and because I want to give you a more realistic portrayal of our favorite characters, I’ll be analyzing where Nora Sakavic went wrong and what would be more truthful to each of our beloved characters (I’ll be focusing mainly on Kevin and Neil, but also the Minyard twins – no Nicky because his fluency is pretty believable).

SO, stick around if you’re a) interested in multilingualism b) are a writer who could benefit from reading this/use the critiques I’ll make as a reference c) are interested in deeper dynamics of your favorite characters

First of all, I want to make sure you all know that I’m not saying that this lack of depth in Nora’s work is in any way detrimental to the story. But, with a narrative that utilizes foreign languages use as a plot point, I have to say that Sakavic’s portrayal just fell flat. Being bi/multilingual is very nuanced and has very interesting and complicated dynamics that can shape and give character to a narration/story. Knowing how to speak multiple languages is not just a feat that you can use like a superpower every now and then and then forget about it (*cof cof* that’s exactly what Neil does *cof cof*). Also, disclaimer: I don’t know whether Sakavic speaks any language other than English, but from her portrayal of foreign language speakers I’ll assume that she does not. Disclaimer number two: I’m writing this as a multilingual (I speak four languages), a linguist (I study linguistic mediation) and writer myself, so I feel like I’m qualified enough. I’d love to have other bi/multilinguals add their thoughts though!

To begin our analysis, let’s go over the three things that Nora got /very/ wrong:

Time: the length of time that it takes any character to become proficient in a language is incredibly off. e.g. from what we see with the Minyards I’d say that they are portrayed to have a B2/C1 level* in German, this just from studying the language as an off-course for three-ish years. As much as I’d love that to be true, you can’t become that fluent in that small of a time frame (unless you dedicate each of your living, breathing moments to said language; and we can all agree that the twins did not, in fact, do that). Neil is also another concerning example: he is portrayed to have – once again – B2/C1 levels (I’m deducing this from the way he is said to be speaking – never struggles to find words, speaks fluently without having to stop, is very witty and confident in the languages he uses). We’ll go over some quotes in the following part, for now just know that, given the context in which he learnt these languages, his fluency is completely unrealistic.

Vocabulary: the characters are shown to use vocabulary that is not, in fact, that easy to use when speaking a foreign language. You don’t need to speak multiple language to know that, when learning, you focus on more common words and phrases (the specific language comes much later-on: I’d say C1-C2). But the foxes use very specific language (e.g. the Minyards all understand the word “dashboard lighter”, “gopher” – those are not words that you learn in high-school-level German. They’re words that you learn with extensive use of the language/extensive reading). There are better ways to include a character’s not-that-high-proficiency rather than just make them all-knowing: how do you portray a certain lack in vocabulary without hindering the narrative? Gesturing (Character A doesn’t remember word X so they trail off and mimic it) or roundabout ways to say a certain word (i.e. You don’t remember the word vase so you use “the thing to hold flowers”) are great alternatives to get a point across!!

Sentence Structure: this is probably the thing that bothered me the most, because it shows laziness in writing. When speaking in a different language, the sentence structure remains unvaried!!! If Sakavic didn’t mention that a certain sentence/exchange happened in X language, you wouldn’t be able to tell at all. But, when speaking in a foreign language you’ll use easier syntax – it’s a small change but it truly goes a long way. You also won’t use complicated tenses or long, overly difficult sentences. That’s because, when speaking in a foreign language, your major aim is to get a message across. Your job as a writer is to show this change. Writing what you want your characters to say and then slapping a “X said in X language” isn’t enough, it’s lazy.

* I’m using CEFRL levels all throughout this analysis, it’s the abbreviation of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Its levels go from A1 to C2. Where A1 is very early beginner, A2 is elementary stage. B1 is intermediate, B2 is upper intermediate (where you basically can have normal, every-day life conversations without any hindrance – you can also read books with only some inconvenience). Finally, C1 is almost fluent, in this level you can approach Specific Vocabulary and Specific Speech (for example, you could – if you were interested in it – talk about deeper topics, ie. Philosophy, Science etc. with little to no difficulty) and C2 is deep proficiency, where you’re basically fluent. If you need to read more about it click here

I’ll now analyze Neil and Kevin’s respective use of the language. Neil is supposed to be a self-taught learner, whereas Kevin grew up with native speakers so their approaches and fluency are going to be very different and diverse.

Let’s talk about Neil, first.

Here’s the thing: his fluency is more believable than that of the twins, and that’s because he actually lived in the places where those languages are spoken (that accelerates learning rates because you’re fully immersed in the language). But the thing is 1) He lived there for a too short period of time: 18 months in French speaking locations does not grant you the fluency that he demonstrates in French. 2) Yes, he lived there, but he was HIDING: I’ll assume he didn’t attend school or even have lengthy conversations with native speakers, so, apart from essential conversations, he probably didn’t interact that much with native speakers 3) He is said to be reading as much as he can, but I can assure you that reading and speaking are two completely different ordeals. He should not be so fluent in speaking. From what we know of Neil (very smart, quick witted and has a deeper reasoning for being fluent in those languages) I’d say that it would be much more believable to have him be a B2 (AT BEST) in German and a B1 (again, AT BEST) in French. So, let’s see how a B2 conversation in German would work shall we?

As you can see, it’s still perfectly legible, except it uses simpler words (seriously? Skimming? Gopher?) and less-fancy sentences. Of course, how Sakavic wrote it sounds cooler , but if we want to showcase a stark difference this is the way to go. The key to writing a foreign language speaker (that’s not a C1-C2) when you’re not a foreign language speaker is to ask yourself: would I have been able to come up with a word like this in middle school? If the answer is no, then don’t use it. Another tip is to ask yourself, is this word that I’m using the most common synonym? Or is there a easier, more approachable word? Go for the basic vocab first.

Let’s now talk about Kevin. Ironically enough, he is the character that – alongside Nicky – is the most believable in having the highest fluency and yet, he’s the one that showcases his fluency the least out of all the foxes *sigh*. Also, ironically enough, he’s the character that should showcase this fluency the most and here’s why: this guy grew up in a highly multilingual context!!! He’s a native English speaker who grew up speaking Japanese and, later on, French! From what we know of Kevin’s upbringing I’d venture to say that he speaks fluent Japanese (C1-C2 levels) because he was exposed to it from a very early age (and kids learn languages at an easier and faster rate than teenagers and adults alike). Similarly to Japanese, we can assume that he came in contact with Jean at 10-13 years old, still in the perfect prime for learning languages with ease. Because he spent so much of his life in a multilingual environment, I’d imagine he employed a heavy use of code mixing/code switching. What is code-mixing/code-switching? I’m Glad you asked!! It’s the mixing of words, phrases, clauses or even complete sentences of two (or more) languages. Code-mixing happens within the same sentence (this is INCREDIBLY common between multilinguals; I cannot stress this enough. If I’m with someone that speaks my same languages there won’t be a sentence that I utter that will be only in one language and that’s because code-switching is faster: instead of having to scramble for words in a certain language I can just use the first one that comes to mind.), whereas code-switching happens in a conversation (so one sentence will be in a language and the following in another one). So, Kevin’s problem in his realistic portrayal is the opposite of Neil: where Neil sounds too much of a multilingual when he shouldn’t (he speaks multiple languages, which is arguably different from being multilingual), Kevin sounds too little like one. You can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that someone that spent his entire life surrounded by two different languages doesn’t struggle with self-expression when that environment is taken away. Think about it: the closest people to him were Riko (Japanese-speaker) and Jean (French-speaker, who is said to speak with a thick French-accent: that means that when he came to the Nest he probably wasn’t fluent in English), Kevin must have spent the better part of his life submerged in those languages and then he leaves. And you mean to tell me he doesn’t struggle with using ONLY English to express himself? Bullshit. Arguably Kevin is the character that, throughout the series, struggles with his identity the most, his multilingualism is part of that!! Address it you cowards!!!!! Multilinguals showcase slightly different personalities with each change of language! What’s he like in French! What’s he like in Japanese! Plus never, in the series does he forget a word. It’s so unrealistic I could cry.

Lastly, I’d like to tackle a big issue in Sakavic’s lack of awareness of LSPs. LSP (language for specific purposes) indicates a subset of a specific language. LSPs vary from the common everyday use of a language, it concerns those branches of language that aren’t the vocabulary or sentence structure you would need on a day-to-day basis (e.g. the language used in the medical field, language used in business settings etc.). To make a long story short: every foreign language learner knows/will eventually know all common vocabulary, but not every learner will know certain LSPs. As an author writing about bi/multilinguals it’s important to make the distinction between Common Language and LSP. This is an issue in Nora’s work because every character uses words that are related to certain fields with an ease that’s unrealistic – once again, I know I’m being nit-picky but these things are important. Why is Andrew able to understand gang-related language in a language that he learned from high school and from his cousin who is very much not a gang member? Whilst Neil is perfectly able to understand words like the french for “withdrawal” without batting an eye. And I know, I know, that I should suspend my disbelief and just go with it, but I don’t want to. These are the things that, as an author that wants to use speaking multiple languages as a plot device, are essential to the building of the narrative-world. You don’t get to use language-speaking as a deus ex machina to then not acknowledge it entirely when it’s not useful. Have your characters forget words! Have them stop to think about the sentence structure! Have them pronounce things weird! Have them speak in easier patterns! Have them say things wrong! Have them flail their arms about trying to mimic what they mean! Have them ask people what a certain word means! Or have them understand said word from its context! Speaking languages has nuances, so please keep them in mind!!! You can include these touches and still make a story entertaining, please don’t forgo them just because it’s easier to ignore them.

Finally, I’d like to offer an example of a GOOD portrayal of bilingualism and, specifically, of LSP awareness. It’s an excerpt from C.S. Pacat’s Captive Prince Series. Pacat speaks multiple languages herself and this deeper understanding is reflected in her work. You can’t begin to understand how happy reading this paragraph made me. It’s a simple addition, but it made the entire story feel much more realistic and relatable to me. The excerpt is from Prince’s Gambit and it holds not spoilers (if you haven’t read the book don’t worry, this is just for comparison-purposes).

It’s not even a page’s worth, it doesn’t delay or obstruct the narration. Instead, it makes it feel all the more real. Imagine what All For The Game could’ve been with similar assessments on Neil’s part.

Anyway, I’d have so many headcanons concerning a deeper assessment of the foxes’ language skills (mainly concerning Kevin because I speak all the languages that he speaks so I might be a bit biased) but I’ve written too much already. If you’ve reached this further down thank you! Please let me know what you think or, if you need any further insights/questions, please don’t shy away and come ask them to me! If you need help with references, analysis of this sort or anything really, I’d love to help!

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langernameohnebedeutung · 5 years ago

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Would you have any recommendations on where one could hear/learn a German accent? I'm learning the language but my most recent teacher said that my accent/pronunciation is not very good despite being at a B1 level. I think this is probably due to I have not one, not two, but THREE separate American accents already because of how many times we moved when I was younger, so adding another accent is hell my mouth cannot keep up. Thanks for your time.

Hey sorry that I took my time answering this.Okay, first of, Josie’s personal opinion time (feel free to skip this lmao): It’s not bad to have an accent. Everyone has an accent - not just because of your native tongue but also because of the people around you, your class, family, friends or whoever you practice with. I have a German accent and probably always will have, because I learnt English from teachers with German accents, with partners and fellow pupils who had a German accent and now I study English at a German university and people around me still speak with the same accent. 90% of the conversations I hold in English are German-accented English. But at this point, I refuse to consider my accent “inferior” to...a Yorkshire accent or a New York accent just because those are “native” accents. Of course, it’s also not bad or anything to want to sound like a native speaker and I’m not going to tell you that if you truly want to speak like a native-speaker you shouldn’t pursue that interest - but it’s something few people really 100% accomplish, so pls make sure you’re not putting the actually important things like vocab, grammar and you know - enjoyment - on hold to pursue something really elusive that your teacher thinks is important. It is very hard to accomplish especially for someone not living in Germany and Germany is a country with a lot of different regional and foreign accents, so most of us have some experience with different pronunciations - so you will most likely be understood.

Now, the my actual answer to your question:

Listening to people always helps, so does talking. I noticed it when I was still in school. I started watching American shows and it strongly affected my vocabulary and pronunciation - mind you, we were taught to speak strictly British English, American English was an evil taboo - but later I discovered my love for British films and tv shows and I reverted to the English I learnt at school, for the most part (not regarding the language level but the variety). So I definitely recommend exposing yourself to native German-speakers bc otherwise, your main influence will be your fellow students.

There are a lot of German shows on Netflix - you can check if some of them have English subtitles, I know “Dark” for example does. (I’m not sure about Vorstadtweiber, but if you want to get a taste of a Viennese accent, this might also be fun to check out. “Extra3″ is a German satire show that puts all its episodes on Youtube and with a VPN you can also access the ZDF Mediathek and RTL-Now, two very big German tv channels).

It’s especially helpful to watch out for words you’ve so far only seen in their written form so that you know you struggle with. If you hear them, maybe stop the video and try to repeat it. If you’re interested in specific accents from specific regions (which might be a bit hard, mind you) you can also look for some source material from different regions. For example the German audio of “My Fair Lady” has her speaking with a very thick Berliner accent instead of Cockney, so that’s something you might find interesting bc it’s a film you might already be familiar with. Another tip: I noticed about myself that I easily start thinking in another language, even if I’m really far from fluent and miss words. And doing that I noticed that my inner monologue still has a German accent but it’s much weaker than when you know. my actual physical mouth is involved, for some reason. I can also imitate different English accents in my head much better than I can when I speak - you might try that and even talk to yourself. If there’s no one to tell you you are doing it wrong, it becomes much easier to experiment and have fun with language.

In my experience, it also helps to imitate the accent the speakers of your target language have while speaking your language: I noticed that when I was practising Russian on duolingo: Now, duolingo makes you repeat sentences to practice your pronunciation and my Russian pronunciation was horrible - until I purposefully tried to sound “Russian” - suddenly Duo understood what I was saying. So you might try to speak German with what feels like an exaggerated German accent to you, even if it feels weird at first. (I do the same when I want to sound British)Another thing that helped me (much more than teachers ever did) is to watch English people contemplate and imitate and play with German accents - because even if it’s something I made fun of a lot these last days, it’s interesting and helpful, because if done for comedic or storytelling purposes (I’m going to give an example of that later on), it often highlights the aspects that make it sound different from a native pronunciation and help you localise these aspects in your own language use. That said - the reason I make fun especially of British people playing Germans is that their accents are often based on other British people pretending to be German, not actual Germans so it sounds...very different from the way we speak English. So keep in mind that it’s not always authentic. (Personally, I still think I learnt how not to pronounce the word “convenience” from an episode of Blackadder but that’s another story)

Okay I threatened that I would add an example on how accents in media might help you understand your own accent better:

There are many examples of English-speakers pretending to speak German, but since you are already at B1 and probably speak better German than most of them (many just say stuff without knowing the words or even...just make up sounds that they think sound German), so I picked a film scene that I mentioned in a post a few days ago: the pub scene from Inglorious Basterds (which I saw on youtube is apparently popular for language teaching purposes).

It’s interesting because Michael Fassbender is half-German and knows the language somewhat so he at least knows what the words he’s saying mean. Also, he’s surrounded by native speakers which make for good comparison material. (mind you, Inglorious Basterds is obv. a film about the NS-era so while the German they speak sounds rather modern, I can understand if you would like to avoid that content. Especially since the second video ends in a shooting.) I couldn’t find the whole scene online but if you have the DVD, you might want to look into it, because it’s much longer than the excerpts I found online and maybe you can spot more of the language patterns I will point. (It also has Christoph Waltz in it and his Austrian dialect which might also be interesting to you)

Now, what you need to know is that Fassbender plays an English spy pretending to be a German officer - but when someone points out his accent, he tries to pretend to be Swiss. He does a pretty good job speaking German actually and a German would understand every word he is saying (unlike we do with some other actors pretending to speak German) - but it’s also very obvious with every word that he’s not a native speaker (and no one would actually mistake him for Swiss.) (btw if you want to check out what an actual Swiss dialect sounds like: (x) (I could imagine it’s very difficult for English speakers, because it has a lot of “ch” sounds and is very guttural.

Now, back to Inglorious Basterds:

The first thing that’s very interesting to look at is the first 30 seconds of the first video because it’s clear that they made Fassbender exaggerate his accent because in that scene it leads to a German soldier he’s talking to noticing and pointing out his strange pronunciation. At 0:35 in the first video it’s very, very obvious when he yells the word “zurückkehren” (which finally makes the soldier address the issue)- because he pronounces it “zurück-kerr-än” - a very typical pronunciation with an English accent. Whereas a German would usually say: zurück-kehr’n” (You can compare it to one of the Germans saying “zurückkehren” at minute 2:30) It is also interesting to compare how Fassbender pronounces an “r” vs. how the Germans do it - because he pronounces it like you would in English, while the German “r” sound is a bit harsher and produced a little bit further back in the throat. (Tip: If You can feel it vibrate in your mouth, you’re doing it rrrright).

When he says “rrrrrüpelhaft” it seems as if he’s trying to pronounce the “r” like a native speaker there - but overdoes it. (Fassbender does the same exaggerated “r” sound at 2:56 with the word “Regisseur” and at 2:33 with “Riefenstahl”) - which just sounds a bit off. Compare it to Til Schweiger at 1:00 saying “betrunken (oder völlig) verrückt”. btw If you compare the way Schweiger says “sprechen” in that sentence with Michael Fassbender saying “sprechen” at 2:35 you will also notice the difference in the way they pronounce the “ch”.In that sequence at 2:30, Fassbender also says “gesehen” a lot - and always pronounces it G-esehen, while a German would probably pronounce it ge-seh-’n

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Something that many German learners struggle with - that you can observe in these videos as well - is the pronunciation of infinitive verbs. German verbs, as you know, usually end in “-en” (gehen, sagen, sprechen, hoffen. etc). Now, German speakers usually barely utter the second “e” at all, it’s often: geh’n, sag’n, sprech’n - it*s something that sounds a little off sometimes when Fassbender speaks, because he often puts more emphasis on it than a German would for example when he asks “Haben Sie den Riefenstahl Film gesehen?” or at 3:24 in the second video when he says “aufsteh.en.”You can also observe the impact of the native English - at 2:50 when he says “Brüder” it comes out as “Brüddr” which sounds a lot like “brother” - while in German, the “ü” is stressed and the “r” is almost inaudible.I think the biggest challenge for English-speakers is the “ch” (which unexperienced speakers often turn into a “k” sound - for example turning “Nacht” into “nackt”, always fun). You can see Fassbender struggle a little with that a few times as well (it’s particularly important to keep in mind that there are two “ch” sounds - the one produced in the front of your mouth like in “ich” or “frech” or the one produced farther back in your mouth like in “Nacht” or “Bach” - so if you encounter a word with a “ch”, it’s best to check out which one it is.You can also see him struggle with the long words in German - he basically forces “tausendjähriges” out very quickly which sounds very strange and mechanical and at 3:20 in the second video he has a different strategy and stresses EVERY part of the world Hauptsturmbannführer: “Haupt. Sturm. Bann. Führer.” which sounds ... strange even when done for dramatic purposes. You can compare that to the way the German actor says the same word at 3:31. (especially if you pay attention to how they pronounce “Führer” you will notice the proximity issue. “Führer” is a word that many English-speakers find difficult to pronounce and I think it’s a) because many English-speakers are familiar with the word “Führer” but never heard a German pronounce it b) because of the close proximity of an “ü” and two “r” sounds. When Fassbender pronounces “Führer” it sounds very much like an English person would pronounce the world in an English context while the German guy pronounces it like a German does - that’s something else to keep in mind, that words you might be familiar with like “Volkswagen” or “Weltschmerz” or any of the others are usually pronounced with an accent when English-speakers use them (The same is, of course, true for any other loan words)

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There*s a similar scene in First Class also with Michael Fassbender sitting in a pub with Nazis (seriously that’s... a huge part of his repertoire it seems) which you might want to check out bc again, he speaks German and the other guys are native speakers so if you want to keep looking for different pronunciations and accents, it might be interesting.

(Also “Auslautverhärtung” is a big issue with English-speakers and German-speakers. The reason why German speakers tend to say things like “sayin-k” and “goin-k” and “leavin-k” is because the last sound of a word is usually spoken harsher in German than it is English. English-speakers often have the opposite problem and swallow the last sound a little. I didn’t notice particularly jarring examples of that in these scenes, but it’s still something to keep in mind)

All of that said and done and dissected, I think natural development and interacting with native speakers is much more effective and fun than just trying to avoid certain pronunciations or imitate how other people sound, especially bc I don’t want to bore you with technicalities or even worse, make you nervous about speaking because honestly? Accents are fun and everyone has them. Don’t worry too much about it

If you speak slowly, people will understand you and if you spend some time around native speakers, it will help a lot, it has a strong impact on the way you speak (so obviously i recommend listening to a lot of spoken German, watch films, shows, youtube etc.) And yes, pronunciation is important - you need to be understood after all - but having an accent is natural. Everyone has at least a regional accent and I don’t understand why foreign accents are automatically considered a flaw or a sign that someone isn’t able to communicate fully in that language they learnt.

I recommend you focus on words and grammar and listening and reading comprehension and let things grow naturally and don’t actually enjoy having an accent. There’s nothing wrong with it.

#nonfandom #languages #Anonymous

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scandiblr · 6 years ago

Note

what are your tips for learning swedish if any?? (specifically for someone who is a beginning learner if it changes your answer)

A beginner should first learn grammar, and luckily Swedish grammar isn’t so hard, so it won’t take you long to learn it all, especially if you already know at least one germanic language. Choose one book which is going to be your main source for grammar lessons (you can find some here and here)

Obviously, with grammar come words, so after every grammar lesson you should make a list of new words and then write several sentences for each word. Try making sentences weird, like the duolingo does, because it will be easier to remember, trust me. Now, for new words I also strongly recommend using any flashcards app, because this way you can study while riding a buss or waiting at the doctor’s for example. At the beginning, write the definition of the words in your native language, but once you’re at A1 level start writing them in Swedish (en far, fäder = manlig förälder, pappa). Here’s the example of different parts of speech and how you should write them on your flashcards:

Nouns | write the prepositive article (if it’s utrum (en) or neutrum (ett)) and then the noun, and then its plural form: en hund, hundar. So why only these two when there are 4 forms of nouns? Because if you know these two forms, you will know the remaining two. Just turn you prepositive article to postpositive (it means to transfer en/ett from left of the noun to the right, like this: en hund, hunden | ett hus, huset,) and boom, you have a definite singular noun. To build a definite plural noun you just have to add a suffix to the end of indefinite plural form (hundar, hundarna). There are rules in every grammar book, so learn them and you’ll know how to build any form of a noun

Verbs | if it’s irregular, sorry you have to write all forms and learn them by heart, but if it’s regular, you only need to write its present and preterite form (talar, talade | läser, läste). Learn the rules and only based on these two forms you will be able to build imperative, present and past perfect forms, participles

Adjectives | there are rules for the way regular adjectives build their comparative and superlative forms, but irregular are tricky, so write those down and learn them, because they are used very often (gammal, äldre, äldst). Adjectives also change depending on the noun, so if it’s neutrum you gotta add -t and if it’s plural form add -a to the utrum form (gammal, gammalt, gamla)

Other | other parts of speech are usually only have one form, but if you come across one that doesn’t, be sure to write it down

I know all of this could seem complicated to an absolute beginner, but with the good grammar book everything will seem easy, so choose the one that you understand the best

This, this and this are the online dictionaries that I use

Once you’ve been studying for some time, try to expose yourself to the language as much as possible, so listen to music and watch literally anything with Swedish subtitles (movies, tv series, documentaries, kid shows, youtube videos) and of course read books. On the links I left earlier in the post you can find online books, so check those out. Hope this was helpful

Lycka till!

#tips #askscandi

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lobstersinlove2018 · 5 years ago

Text

How do we ensure locking up your partner stays interesting?

Playing games

So far we've seen how you can use a male chastity device to encourage your husband to pay attention to your needs rather than selfishly concentrating on his own, providing him with all the motivation he needs to ensure your desires are properly satisfied before his can be fulfilled. We've also looked at how you can gradually lengthen the amount of time he spends in such a device, using longer periods of chastity to develop a more submissive state of mind rather than relying solely on his heightened sexual frustration to achieve results. In this chapter, we'll look at how these two can be brought together for maximum effect, making long term chastity exciting and rewarding for both of you.

If you've been brought up with the kind of traditional romantic images much beloved of Hollywood, in which couples climax together as a way of expressing their love for one another, you may find yourself wondering whether that can be anything other than a pipe-dream - after all, surely one obvious drawback of restricting how often your husband comes is that you too must suffer similar frustration? Fortunately for those readers with a healthy sex drive of their own, that's far from the case! We've already considered the idea of having him pleasure you first as part of an extended foreplay, but there's no reason why that can't be taken a stage further, separating his satisfaction and yours entirely save for the knowledge that each will be reciprocated in due course. Doing so certainly doesn't mean you love each other any less - indeed, by focusing entirely on their partner's pleasure, a couple demonstrates greater affection for each other than if they were selfishly pursuing their own needs.

Male chastity shouldn't stop you from enjoying sex as and when you want it, however long your husband is denied an orgasm. It's easy to move from having him pleasure you before being released to having him do so several times over consecutive nights, increasing the exchange rate between your orgasms - it can be as simple as telling him that from now on, you'll expect two of yours for every one of his, or three, or five, or however many takes your fancy. Although the immediacy of reward is lost, the underlying motivation remains the same - if he's to satisfy his own needs, he must look after yours first, however long that may take.

Faced with such a situation, some men may be tempted to try and game the rules, delivering multiple orgasms in one sitting in an attempt to make up their allotted quota in as short a time as possible. While it can be very pleasant to be on the receiving end of such an effort, it's important to remind him that you're not a mindless machine when it comes to counting numbers - since you're in control, you're entirely at liberty to decide what counts and what doesn't. You can ease your requirements a little if he's done an especially good job, or you can rigidly insist that bringing you off multiple times in an evening only counts as one for the purposes of scoring. You can choose when and where you want them, all the while reminding him just who holds the keys to that cage around his cock - it's completely up to you.

Obviously he won't be able to use his penis to give you those orgasms, but that merely means he'll need to be creative with the rest of his body. Some men are naturally more adept at using their hands and tongues than others, but with a little guidance even the most inexperienced can become proficient at pleasuring you orally and manually. Although it's beyond the scope of this guide, there are a number of good books available on the subject should he need a helping hand to get him started, but simply providing constructive feedback about what works and what doesn't is often enough - after all, with his chastity device to motivate him, he's sure to be an eager learner!

Alternatively, you can have your husband use a vibrator or a dildo on you, the effects of which can be just as erotic for him to watch as they are for you to experience. Such implements can be hand held, or they can be strapped to his body to allow him to put a more natural amount of force behind them. You can even get ones that can be worn on the chin, giving him a ringside view of the action, as well as those that attach to certain of the more expensive chastity belts as though they were real. Either way, an artificial phallus is sure to do the job your husband's own member has been denied, while remaining exquisitely frustrating for him! Pleasuring you with one is something he's sure to find intensely arousing, as he dedicates himself single-heartedly to your delight.

Keeping him on his toes

While it's always nice to receive an orgasm from a man utterly devoted to your pleasure, you don't have to have a hard and fast rule about the number of times he must satisfy you before earning his release. There's nothing to stop you making it up as you go along, or indeed, inventing games whereby his chances of being let out of his cage are increased the happier he makes you, without any firm guarantee of you doing so, helping to avoid a mechanical or lacklustre performance on his part that might result from an overly rigid devotion to numbers. You can keep things entirely at your discretion, or you can throw an element of chance in to the mix to keep him on his toes.

For instance, when introducing the idea of not being allowed out every time he satisfies you, have a coin to hand and make a point of tossing it to decide whether or not you should return the favour. Regardless of how it lands the first time, declare that he's lost the toss and suggest he may have better luck next time - for now, however, he's staying in his cage because the coin has spoken. On subsequent occasions, you can either stick to its result, or choose to change it to reflect your desired outcome, demonstrating that although he may be at the mercy of Lady Luck, you're still ultimately in control. Similar games can be played with dice or packs of cards, the random nature of which means that he won't know in advance how lucky he'll be that evening.

Alternatively, you can use his chastity device to motivate him by awarding him points for good behaviour, requiring a certain number of points before you'll consider releasing him. Each orgasm he gives you might warrant so many points, as might helping around the house or otherwise making your life easier. On the other hand, points could be deducted should he fail to live up to expectations. He'll soon learn not to leave his dirty clothes lying around the bedroom when doing so pushes his long awaited release even further into the future, whereas washing up after the romantic meal he's cooked for you will seem far less of a chore should it offer the prospect of winning your favour afterwards. Again, you don't have to give him points automatically, but can use your discretion as to when he deserves them, upping the stakes periodically to encourage him to try harder, relaxing them occasionally should you feel he needs a break.

An interesting variant is to combine awarding points for good and bad behaviour with an element of chance. For this, you'll want a bag and some beads of two distinct colours. One kind, say a white bead, is added to the bag every time he does something that merits rewarding, the other, say a black bead, is added whenever he lets you down. Periodically, perhaps once or twice a week, he is allowed to pick a bead at random from the accumulated contents of the bag - if it's white he's allowed release, whereas if it's black he must remain in his cage until next time. It's easy to see how varying the initial contents of the bag, along with the numbers of beads you add each time, can make it more or less likely that he'll be allowed out. You can empty the bag after he's chosen, or let the beads build up inside - regardless of the precise details, his chances of being released are related to how well he's behaved, and yet utterly beyond his control, making for a most entertaining game.

Rather than keeping track of points, you may prefer to keep him chastity for a certain number of days, using the threat of adding additional time as a means to keep him in line. He'll not want to disappoint you when he knows that doing so means spending even longer frustrated, particularly if you drive the message home to him over the course of that extra time. "You could have been out today if you hadn't let me down like that", you can tell him, "and I was so looking forward to playing with you too", pouting playfully. Once he's earned himself extra time by misbehaving, you can suggest ways he might make it up to you, restoring the status quo while leaving him with the impression that making amends has paid off. Should he spontaneously go out of his way to do something special for you, rewarding him with an early release sends a similar message that paying attention to your needs and desires is worth his time and trouble.

You can declare from the outset how long you're planning on locking him up for, or you can keep it a secret. There's nothing like not knowing how long he's got to serve in it to make being trapped in a chastity device frustrating for your husband, particularly should any attempt to find out how long you've got in mind only result in further time being added to his sentence. Such treatment is an ideal way of teaching him not to bother you about his chastity every time he's feeling horny, but to learn to accept it as being entirely out of his hands, welcoming his eventual release as an unexpected gift from you.

There are countless ways in which such ideas can be combined, providing enough variety that male chastity should never become dull. It's best not to take any of them too seriously, but approach them as light-hearted games to add a little fun to your relationship, keeping him on his toes and making him jump through hoops in order to earn release. Provide enough of a challenge to have him work for it, yet never leave him with the impression that getting out is impossible or that you don't love him - after all, male chastity should be about drawing you closer together by means of a sexy secret that you share. If a particular idea doesn't work, ditch it and try something else, keeping things fresh and novel all the while.

In his head

It's hard for a man to forget that he's wearing a chastity device, the constant presence between his legs reminding him of his surrender to your control as he goes about his daily business, but there may be times when you don't feel like exerting any additional influence beyond that passive presence. The pressures of life can be such that you have more practical matters to attend to, such that after a hard day at work, actively reinforcing the erotic significance of his chastity comes a distant second to relaxing in front of the television!

In such a situation, the last thing you want is for maintaining your husband's chastity device to become yet another chore, but equally you don't want him to feel ignored, locked up and left to fester uncared for like a prisoner in a medieval dungeon. Unlike his keyholder, the wearer of a male chastity device can't put it to one side for a while without taking it off completely - for him, male chastity is a full-time business, at least for as long as his cock remains locked up out of reach. A little attention on your part can make all the difference between making him feel loved and leaving him feeling neglected.

With that in mind, it's useful to cultivate ways of making your husband feel special about his submission to you that don't require too much effort on your part. The occasional comment about his chastity, dropped in passing as part of an ordinary conversation, can be enough to let him know you're still thinking of him, even if you're not in the mood for more active play. You don't need to go to too much trouble to achieve this - simply referring to yourself as his keyholder where normally you might use the first person can work a treat, as can using a pet name for his imprisoned member. You can even refer to his cock and balls as yours - after all, you're the one who now has control over them!

If he's heading for the shower, for instance, it can be as simple as "Don't forget to keep my toy clean", without any implication that you'll need it any time soon. It doesn't take much more effort to briefly inspect your plaything afterwards, cupping it in your hands before sending him on his way again. "Are you still safely locked up for me?" or "Everything comfortable down there?" are great questions to ask alongside a gentle caress of his groin, something that works just as well when you're snuggling together in front of the television as it does to greet him on returning from work. You can have him show you from time to time, or simply change the subject and move on to other matters - either way, the point is made. If you're doing this right, his mind will be working overtime to tease and frustrate his body without the need for any further exertion on your part, keeping him on edge for when you really do feel like letting him out to play!

Just rewards

Just as your husband can pleasure you without using his penis, there's no reason why he should be rewarded with regular intercourse when he's finally let out of his cage. If you're not in the mood for traditional lovemaking, there are many other ways in which his lust may be slaked, some of which he'll find more satisfying than others. The key you hold grants you the power to choose among them as you see fit, such that the decision as to whether he's merely left to his own devices for a few minutes or rewarded with a special treat is entirely at your discretion. You may wish to reserve particular pleasures for when he's been especially good, using others for when his behaviour hasn't quite made the grade - his greater enjoyment of one rather than the other provides an additional incentive to please you.

At the lowest end of the scale, he can simply be sent off to the bathroom to sort himself out, returning once he's done his business and cleaned himself up in order for you to secure his chastity device once more, without the need for any further interaction from yourself. When contrasted with more intimate pleasures, only being permitted to masturbate out of sight may easily be regarded by your husband as a punishment, and so you may wish to present it as such - either as a consequence for letting you down, or merely as a response to an unwanted request for release. When told that yes, he can come out, but if he does you're not helping, whereas if he would only hang on a little longer, you might be more inclined to make it worth his while, many men choose to remain under lock and key, however desperate for release they might have been.

Supervised masturbation makes for a far more interesting game, however. Having to pleasure himself before an audience is something that some men find acutely embarrassing, but can be a surprisingly intimate experience, even if you never touch your husband in the process. Once his cage is removed, sit back and ask him to perform for you, whispering sweet nothings about how much seeing him at it turns you on, and what you'd like to do with his raging erection. You can give him instructions about how you want him to touch himself, and have him stop and start on command. By insisting that he lets you know whenever he's close to coming and having him ease off accordingly, you can keep him on edge for quite a prolonged period of time, teasing him all the while. The resulting state of mind is ideal for reminding him how you see male chastity working for you, and you can emphasise your control over the situation by requiring him to be entirely naked while you remain fully clothed.

Many of the same techniques can be employed should you choose to lend a hand. Again, have him inform you when he feels himself getting close to the point of no return, and let up a little until the danger has passed, keeping him hot and horny while you take the opportunity to let him know whatever's on your mind. You can go over the things he's done recently to please you, as well as those that have been a source of displeasure and have him promise to try harder, stroking his member to illustrate the benefits of co-operation or stopping from time to time to demonstrate the penalties of not doing so. You'll find your husband is incredibly malleable in such a state, making it easy to impress your needs and concerns with far more likelihood of him actually listening than if you were simply to have a regular conversation about such matters. You can also explore his fantasies and discuss what turns him on in order to make using his arousal to your advantage even more effective in future.

Of course, there's always the danger that your stimulation may push him a little too far, resulting in a sticky mess before you've finished everything you wanted to cover. This concern can be alleviated a little by informing him in advance that any little accidents will result in him tidying up afterwards, and not in a way that he'll enjoy! The threat of having to suck your gooey fingers clean, let alone lick up every last drop of his own sperm, is usually quite sufficient to deter any unfortunate incidents. Although some men may find the thought of such submission surprisingly arousing prior to it happening, practically all regard it as rather repulsive once they've finally climaxed - so much so that you may find carrying out such a threat rather challenging unless your husband is particularly submissive. A token gesture such as smearing a sticky finger across his lips is sufficient to make the point that he should do as he is told - right down to when he is allowed to come.

Provided he doesn't do so before you're ready, have him look you in the eyes as he shoots his load, or direct his attention to an intimately charged area of your body such that he learns to associate his sexual desires with you and you alone. In doing so, he'll come to regard you as a goddess among women, knowing every last detail of your beauty in a way that no other man can, permanently imprinted in his mind as a result of climaxing over your heavenly form. That may sound ridiculous at first glance, but give it a go - you'll be surprised!

None of this means you need deprive yourself of more traditional forms of lovemaking if that's what takes your fancy, but if you find that male chastity makes your husband more proficient with his tongue than with his penis, you can reserve letting him come inside you as a special treat - indeed, if he's been especially good, you may wish to reward him in ways he finds particularly pleasurable. If he has a penchant for receiving oral, for instance, you can dangle the prospect of being allowed to come in your mouth before him as one might a carrot on a stick, even if you have no intention of doing so on a regular basis, using it to encourage him to go beyond the call of duty from time to time or to up his game to an even higher level than before.

It shouldn't be too hard to see how this can be integrated with the concept of earning points we discussed earlier - indeed, you can offer a graduated series of rewards whereby he needs to earn a certain number of points even to be let out of his cage, rather more for you to masturbate him rather than expecting him to do so himself, and a still greater number for being allowed to give his fantasies free reign. Although the later may be practically unobtainable, you can still tease him about its possibility, while directing his attention to more modest options that just happen to be more palatable to your tastes. It takes a superhuman will to be able to hold out for a blow-job sometime in the future when the prospect of regular sex is on the table right now, particularly when the latter is presented in an irresistibly enticing manner. It's easy to give him the illusion of a little control while actually having him eat out of the palm of your hand - the key you hold to his lock gives you that power.

Ruining his day!

As we discussed in the previous chapter, it's not practical to keep your husband in a permanent state of chastity - if nothing else, there are health reasons why his testicles should be allowed to perform their intended function once in a while, and you'll find it necessary to give his chastity device a thorough cleaning from time to time too. Since we're not talking any more frequently than every two or three weeks, most couples don't find this to be particularly problematic - indeed, many men are let out from their chastity devices on a much more regular basis. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that if that's what works best for you - if it is, you can skip this section entirely and enjoy the benefits that come from releasing him more often!

Some women, however, find that longer term denial is more effective when it comes to motivating their husband. If you're among their number, you may find there are occasionally times when he's been locked up for longer than you'd strictly like but doesn't deserve to be let out at that moment, perhaps as a result of a recent indiscretion. You may feel that even allowing him just to masturbate would send the wrong kind of message, but are concerned about how long he's already spent in his chastity device. If you find yourself on the horns of such a dilemma, fear not - it's perfectly possible for a man's balls to get a good workout without it being particularly pleasurable for him, by means of what is known as a ruined orgasm.

A ruined orgasm is, in essence, one with little or none of the pleasure usually associated with such relief. Although the testicles and penis are put through their paces, with an erection occurring and semen being expressed in the usual fashion, the man experiencing such a climax is unlikely to regard it as particularly eventful. Psychologically, a ruined orgasm leaves him just as frustrated as before, despite satisfying his body's physical need for release, and thus is ideal for men who deserve to be denied a little longer than might otherwise be possible.

To achieve this effect, start by stimulating him with your hand, but do so in such a way as to bring him to the edge as soon as possible, stroking his penis with clinical efficiency until he can take no more. As soon as his orgasm starts, withdraw your hand suddenly and distract his attention by means of sharply slapping or pinching his backside - the shock of such treatment will cause him to forget about the sperm that's dribbling from his now rapidly deflating member, taking away even the small amount of pleasure that might otherwise have come from such perfunctory masturbation.

Despite being thoroughly unsatisfactory, his body will regard business as being concluded, and however much he may still long for proper relief, his penis will be subject to the usual downtime that follows more regular ejaculation. If you really want to drive the point home, have him consume at least part of his semen afterwards as part of his penance - pushing your hand to his mouth with the expectation that it should be licked clean is ideal for this, particularly if you've used it to catch some of his output while he was being distracted by other things. Not only will he have been denied the usual pleasures that come from such a discharge, he'll also be left with a bad taste in his mouth too, making for quite a contrast when compared to the delights of more traditional intercourse. Be sure to take the opportunity to express your sadness he hadn't been good enough to deserve anything more, along with a hope that his behaviour will improve so that such treatment isn't warranted again in future.

If this all sounds unreasonably cruel, there's no reason why you have to incorporate such techniques into your chastity play - after all, how you use his chastity device is entirely up to you. So long as both you and your husband are happy with the way male chastity works in your relationship, nothing says you have to do things any differently. Nevertheless, some women find the idea of ruined orgasms to be one that fits well with their particular situation, and although their husbands may not particularly enjoy them at the time, they too appreciate the longer term benefits in terms of providing additional motivation that greatly outweighs any immediate distaste or aversion, in a similar way to the frustration of their chastity device itself.

It's worth noting in passing that the volume of semen produced by a man is roughly proportional to the length of time it has been since he last came, at least until his balls are full again. If you're collecting his emissions in order to have him recycle them, or simply to avoid making a mess, you'll soon get an idea of how much sperm your husband produces after a certain period in chastity, something that should remain reasonably constant over time. Should he suddenly produce a lot less, the chances are he's been able to slip out of his device as discussed in the previous chapter and come without either your knowledge or permission. Such a decrease in volume is a dead give-away, and one that he cannot deny - be sure to have him explain its occurrence, and take appropriate steps to ensure his chastity device is genuinely secure.

The spice of life

Hopefully the material presented in this chapter has given you a wealth of ideas as to how to keep your husband's chastity interesting over time. Variety is the spice of life, such that by periodically changing the rules by which he must play, you can ensure that male chastity never becomes stale or boring, regardless of how long you have been practising it. By adapting the suggestions here, as well as inventing new games of your very own, you can keep him perpetually on his toes, forever striving to win your favour in a way that is advantageous for both you and for him. However you decide to have him earn his release, you can be sure that male chastity will serve to strengthen his respect, understanding and adoration of you, as his keyholder, but above all, as his wife.

In the next chapter, we'll explore some complementary sexual practices that many couples find enhance their enjoyment of male chastity. If you choose to add any of these to the mix, you'll guarantee your lovemaking will never be lacklustre again!

All tied up and nowhere to go

Male chastity involves a man voluntarily surrendering authority over the most intimate part of his body, placing it entirely at the whim of his keyholder until she sees fit to release him again. Doing so is an act of submission on his part, acknowledging her to be the dominant party in their relationship, but it is far from being the only way in which he can submit to her will. Donning a pair of handcuffs or allowing himself to be tied up will render him similarly powerless, making more traditional bondage a popular accompaniment to chastity. The same psychological factors are at play - by ceding control of his body and its movements, he is no longer responsible for anything that might happen to him, allowing him to relax safe in the knowledge that, however harshly his mistress may treat him, there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

You can introduce a little light bondage to your chastity play with anything that can tie his hands behind his back - a discarded stocking is perfectly sufficient, although a pair of handcuffs is better from both a practical and psychological point of view. For maximum effect, have him bound before you remove his chastity device and keep him that way until his cock is safely under lock and key again, emphasising that one way or another he remains at your mercy. With a little extra planning, you can tie his hands and feet to the corners of your bed, keeping him spreadeagled there while you tease him to your heart's content. A little care is necessary to ensure his bonds won't chafe excessively nor impede his circulation, but bondage is sufficiently mainstream for there to be a wide variety of products catering to those who wish to have their man helpless and vulnerable to their wicked ministrations.

Speaking of which, he can be encouraged to go down on you while so restrained, if encouraged is indeed the right word - unable to move he'll find himself with little choice in the matter, although that shouldn't stop him from showing a distinct enthusiasm for the job at hand! Alternatively, slowly masturbate him until he's about to lose control, then stop - the look of frustration on his face as he realises you're not going to finish him off is priceless, especially if then you put him back in his cage, utterly unsatisfied. Doing that once might be bad enough, but several times, either in quick succession or night after night after night, is guaranteed to drive him wild - he'll soon be begging to do anything in exchange for being put out of such torment.

A good spanking

One need only think of the stereotypical "whips and chains" to get a feel for how corporal punishment often goes hand in hand with bondage when it comes to domination and submission, although thankfully there's no need to go to such extremes if that doesn't appeal. Many women feel understandably uneasy about punishing a man they love dearly, but doing so isn't just about inflicting pain, let alone deriving pleasure from meting it out - by physically disciplining your husband, you provide a way for him to feel that he has atoned for previous misbehaviour. This goes far beyond simply making amends - by suffering at your hand, however symbolic his punishment may be, he releases himself from whatever guilt he may still be harbouring for having let you down, allowing him to put it behind him and move on, cleansed of shame.

Moreover, the inherent submission that comes with allowing himself to be treated in such a way serves to cement your position as someone who should be respected, an authority figure whose needs and desires he cannot afford to ignore. So long as his punishment is delivered with love rather than hate, out of a desire to foster a stronger, more intimate bond between you rather than to maliciously hurt or humiliate him, there's no reason why you can't add a little physical chastisement to your husband's chastity regime. An easy place to start is a good old-fashioned spanking, in the same way a mother might discipline an errant child - this can take place over your knee, or he can be asked to bend over and touch his toes before receiving it. You can even deliver his spanking while he's helplessly tied up - have him spreadeagled on the bed, as discussed in the previous section, but face down to leave his backside perfectly exposed.

You can vary the duration and intensity of his penance according to how much he's displeased you, something that can easily be combined with a points based systems whereby his infractions over the course of a week are brought together into a single punishment session. Should your hand not be up to the job, there are a wide variety of floggers available that will allow you deliver punishment of varying degrees at less cost to yourself - you can even pick and choose your implement based on how bad he's been. Complicating this picture slightly is the fact that many men take a surprising amount of pleasure from both the physical pain and the psychological submission involved in receiving such punishment, something you'll need to take into account for it to be truly effective. That doesn't mean he has to hate every moment of being punished, however - a mutually enjoyable spanking still serves to emphasise his surrender to your will, and can always be topped up with less pleasurable punishments as needed.

Burning with shame

Corporal punishment of the kind we've just been discussing has a certain element of humiliation to it, bringing with it a strange appeal that may be difficult to understand from a less sexually submissive mindset. In this, it is far from being alone - a man may derive similar pleasure from being put in his place in a more psychological manner, humiliated and degraded in ways that might seem bizarre unless one understands where he is coming from. Such humiliation can take many forms, from kissing your feet to having to clean the kitchen wearing nothing but his chastity belt, but it's the effect it has on his state of mind that's important rather than the precise details of the act itself. It certainly isn't about mere wanton abuse!

When it comes to the distinction between being turned on by such treatment and merely hurt by it, there can be a very fine line dividing the two - some men can be very specific about what does it for them, a situation which is not helped by there often being fetishes at play. A man who has a predilection for women's feet, for instance, may delight in sucking his wife's toes whilst being repulsed at the thought of worshipping her armpits, even though to the outside observer there is little to separate one body part from another. Fetishes can be strange things, but if you allow your husband to be open and honest about his, you may discover he harbours one that is mutually agreeable, allowing you to drive him to distraction whilst deepening his submission in the process.

Bend over boyfriend

Traditionally, it is the man who is expected to be the more dominant partner in a sexual relationship, actively taking control of intercourse as he penetrates his more submissive mate, who in turn fulfils her stereotypical rôle by lying back and letting her husband have his wicked way with her, passively deriving whatever pleasure may come from having his penis deep inside her. Penetration is regarded as a masculine, dominant act, whereas being penetrated is considered feminine and submissive - not something any real man could countenance being subject to. Such outdated notions are still widely prevalent in society even today - one need only consider the derision implicit in such puerile phrases as "bend over and take it" or "he got shafted" to understand the contempt, not to mention the fear, that many men have for one of their own gender being treated in such an apparently shameful manner. To do so would question their masculinity, and indeed, their heterosexuality.

Despite or perhaps because of this, the sexually submissive male may secretly hanker for being penetrated himself, freeing him, albeit temporarily, from the oppressive expectations that society places on him as a man. Just as he may have been drawn to male chastity from the desire to no longer be responsible for his sexual urges, so too may he take pleasure from permitting another to penetrate him, submitting psychologically as much as he does physically when he allows himself to be treated in this most unmacho of ways. By surrendering any conventional expectations so obviously, he adopts the far easier rôle of the passive participant, needing to do nothing but take whatever's coming to him.

So much for what's going on inside his head. If you're going to put pegging into practice, you've got to overcome two problems - neither you nor your husband are naturally equipped with the tools necessary to reverse rôles in this way! Whilst your own absence of equipment should be obvious, that of your husband is rather more subtle - whereas a woman secretes natural lubrication when she's sexually aroused, a man's back passage does not, and is easily prone to damage unless an artificial substitute is provided in ample quantities.

To begin with, a suitably lubricated finger is quite sufficient to give your husband a taste of what it's like to have something alien inside him, which has the advantage that you can probe around to his evident discomfort and delight. You can also use the kind of toys you might enjoy yourself, provided they're not too large, although it's better to use something specifically designed for the male anatomy, for reasons we shall come onto shortly. Far more effective, however, is a strap-on dildo, which fastens around your body to allow you to engage in a more traditional style of intercourse. Not only do these do the business as far as your husband is concerned, there are also models featuring clitoral stimulation or a second dildo for your own pleasure, making strap-on sex the perfect choice for showing him what traditional lovemaking is like for a woman, being more likely to bring you an orgasm than him!

Whatever you use to penetrate him, you'll want to take things slowly and gently, going no further than he feels comfortable with until you're sure he can take it. The same goes for the size of what you're inserting - although the Internet abounds with tales of men being pummelled by enormous phalluses without any prior training, in reality it will take a while for you to be able to use even a modest one in such away, so don't push too far too fast.

Psychologically, being used for your pleasure while still helplessly locked in his chastity device is a very powerful experience for a man, bringing home the reality of his submission like nothing else. Believe it or not, it's possible for some men to climax as a result of such stimulation alone, thanks to how a correctly shaped dildo can reach the prostate gland - such orgasms are not entirely dissimilar to those brought about by probing a woman's G-spot. You can even take this a stage further and intentionally massage the prostate in order to grant such relief - indeed, there are devices specifically designed for this purpose, allowing a man to be milked without his penis ever being let out of its cage. Such milking can be integrated into his chastity regime in various ways, depending on how much pleasure your husband derives from it.

An interesting variant is to have your husband wear a butt plug, taking advantage of the inevitable discomfort of such an insertion to remind him of his surrender in other areas too. It's impossible for a man to forget an intimate intruder that makes its presence known with every step he takes, particularly when any arousal that might result from it serves only to emphasise the power his keyholder has over him. Once again, the psychological significance of being occupied inside far outweighs the physical hardship involved for the submissive man, as yielding control of this innermost part of his body brings with it a similar relinquishment of responsibility. You can have him wear a butt plug during your lovemaking to begin with, but with a little training he can wear one under his clothes for a while, perhaps even to work - an embarrassing secret that he can't help but be constantly aware of, yet one that no-one else need ever know about.

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pets-beaty · 5 years ago

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via How Webs

How to Pronounce English Words Correctly

how to pronounce: Pronunciation of words becomes a very difficult topic once you leave a single location. How Americans pronounce words differs from how British speak words, which also differs from how Australians, Canadians, Indians, Singaporeans or South Africans pronounce words. We are always looking for a "correct" statement, but is there really an international standard?

how to pronounce

If you live in a country and only speak to a small group of people who all use the same pronunciation of words, you are lucky. You must try to pronounce words in the same way as this group of people around you.

However, the majority of us live in more international environments. We regularly come into contact with people from all over the world. We don't know how to pronounce English words because we always hear different statements!

It is estimated that 96% of English conversations around the world include at least one non-native English speaker. This means that the pronunciation of words will inevitably change.

Instead of concentrating on one "correct" statement, I choose to focus on how we can speak with greater clarity to better communicate with people from all over the world, who all pronounce words differently. Despite the many different English pronouncements, we can still understand each other as long as we focus on these three pronunciation areas:

It is very important that you speak words with clear consonants. "D" and "T" have different sounds. This also applies to 'V' and 'W', 'R' and 'L', and all other consonants of the alphabet (all letters except the vowels, A, E, I, O and U). If you confuse consonant sounds, people will misunderstand your pronunciation of words.

2. How to Pronounce Using short and long vowels

The way your vowels actually sound is actually not as important as the length of your vowels. Consider the words 'cap' and 'cab'. The 'a' sound is the same in both words, but if you pronounce the words clearly, you will notice that you hold the 'a' in 'cabin' a little longer than the 'a' in 'cap'. This is because 'cap' ends in the voiceless 'p', while 'cab' ends in the voice 'b'. The 'p' and 'b' are very similar to the ends of words, so the way in which we distinguish them is to extend the vowel sound for voiced endings.

3. Appropriate sentence stress

The final area, which is not so much about how you pronounce words, but more about the overall flow of your speech, is to emphasize the right words in your sentences. You must emphasize the words that really matter - topics, objects or other words that are important to your meaning. Linking words such as 'and' or 'or' does not normally need to be emphasized. Prepositions (from, about, about) are also non-stressed words, unless your main message is that the book is on the table, and not under it, for example.

Learn Pronunciation Now.

How to pronounce French

French can be a difficult language to learn, while it is based on Latin such as English, there are many differences in concepts, grammar and pronunciation that can make many people stumble to learn French causing them frustration and weeks and weeks of extra study add their time. However, learn to speak French online and you can shorten this time and gain valuable insights into language and culture!

Online learning has become the new way for people to learn when they want and how they want for all kinds of things and how they can speak French. The benefits of flexible learning and better pronunciation through repeated learning, interactive games and easily available explanations make an online solution for language learning better and cheaper than French lessons. how to pronounce With audio components and visual components, people can bring together the most difficult parts of learning another language in the style that they are better at consistently drilling pronunciation, or get a cultural background about why you say something to see exactly how and where to hold your tongue when you speak to see the words as you speak them and even every syllable as you say it and listen to it.

To learn French quickly, you need all the resources at your disposal and a good pronunciation is an essential part of fluent speaking so that you can talk easily, so if you speak French online, you can become fluent faster and become a source have that you can use again and again to keep improving your skills. Learn French Pronunciation Now

How to pronounce in German language

How to learn German is the most difficult problem for the students, and how to pronounce German is another difficult question. Because leaning on a language is a kind of art of speaking, you must learn to pronounce when you learn a new language. It is known that pronunciation is the basis of German. However, the German pronunciation rule is very simple, so it is easier to control. German has a total of 26 vowel letters plus three variables, if you learn these 28 letters well, you can also read the basic German words, because there is generally no phonetic in German. If you come across a strange word, this can of course be highlighted in the dictionary and you should not worry about this problem. The most difficult problem of the German sound is the sound "r", for beginners they are generally unable to pronounce. Because "r" is from the elastic tongue, which is from a small retroflex. Here is a training method for you.

When you get up in the morning to brush your teeth, you can drink a mouthful of water in your mouth and keep it still in your mouth, and then have the water stop at the space between the hood and the pipes when looking upwards. you try to make vocal cords vibrate so that the water vibrates at the same time, you can successfully feel your heel vibrate. Repeat this exercise for 2-3 months and take 5 minutes each day to do this type of exercise until you can vibrate your heel without water.

If you find it very difficult, don't worry, here is another way for you. Because the German people do not pay much attention to the statement of "r" in their daily conversation, you use two other methods instead. One is that you can make an "h" sound and have a vibration of the vocal cords, the other is that you can make an "h" sound and also have a vibration of the vocal cords. After all, regardless of which method you choose, you must pronounce the sounds as a high speed. If you want to learn this type of language, and if you want to learn the correct pronunciation of the German language, it is better to choose a good learning tool to improve your pronunciation. For example, you can choose Rosetta Stone German to try, because it can offer you standard pronunciations for every word you encounter. With this type of software you can improve your language level as quickly as possible. If you browse through all of the above, you may have learned something about learning a foreign language, especially the one you have chosen. Learn German Pronunciation Now

How to pronounce Spanish

There are some difference sounds in the Spanish language that are not in the English language. Learning how to pronounce Spanish words is not so difficult if you learn the basics of the Spanish language.

The Spanish alphabet has thirty letters compared to the English twenty-six. Also those thirty letters produce more than thirty sounds due to certain environments and circumstances of certain letters such as the letters c, v and y to name just a few.

All language consists of sounds. Learning Spanish pronunciation in sounds is the first step to learning how to pronounce Spanish words. It's really not that complicated, but we as adults tend to always think things through.

If you learn to pronounce Spanish words, it's best to start from the beginning. Think about how you learned to talk as a child. You first listened and observed. Then you made a few sounds that eventually developed into words, then sentences and finally sentences.

If we, as adults, can follow our children's signals, we would get to know and build on the basics of Spanish sounds. By building on the basic sounds in the Spanish language, we learn how words and sentences originated and we develop a greater and more basic knowledge of the Spanish language. You have learned how to pronounce the most difficult-looking and sounding Spanish words, because you know how the word is derived. This simple learning method is called the language approach to language learning. Learn Spanish Pronunciation Now

How to pronounce Polish words

The Polish language is often considered one of the most difficult languages, as the pronunciation is very special for non-native speakers. After all, any language can become easy if you do your best to learn your language. In essence, if you like something, you will regard it as entertainment, while if you don't like it, you will consider it an offensive matter. Most language learners see language learning as a headache because there is so much complex knowledge and information that you have to deal with, making this complex information the effective source for your language study. However, if you can keep a calm heart to study this language step by step, you can maintain your perfect learning attitude until you have finished your language study.

Today, the world has become a spinning ball in which thousands of information quickly move from one place to another every day. There is a new trend that more and more individuals and companies are participating in a language learning group. There are different languages in the world, and the majority languages contain special functions that attract different people. Different people choose different languages to learn for different reasons. how to pronounce - For example, the people who are present to learn Russian may be very interested in Russian literature or Russian history. Rosetta Stone Russian is a good language software that can facilitate your Russian learning and improve your interest in Russian culture and Russian language.

If you are a Polish student, it is imperative that you know more about phonetic knowledge. This is because that Polish language is very different from other languages that are receptive in the phonetic section. Every word must be pronounced precisely in Polish so that you can clearly express your information to others. For most beginners, they often do not know how to use their language study because the alphabet seems so difficult. If you can see the Polish language as your native language and learn it naturally, you will benefit greatly from it.

In short, there are many extra accent characters and special letters in the Polish language. You must pronounce each letter carefully so that you cannot get confused. The Polish alphabet contains 32 letters and Polish has more vowels than English. Moreover, there are also many Polish letters that are spoken together as one sound. If you are a Polish learner, Rosetta Stone Polish is your best learning assistant who can offer you standard audio tracks that can help you master Polish pronunciation as effectively as possible. Learn Polish Pronunciation Now Thanks for reading about how to pronounce or pronunciation

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udemy-gift-coupon-blog · 6 years ago

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The Quick French Vocabulary Guide For Busy Beginners: Part 1 ##CouponUdemygratuit ##FreeUdemyCourses #Beginners #Busy #French #Guide #part #Quick #Vocabulary The Quick French Vocabulary Guide For Busy Beginners: Part 1 Come with me on a journey to quick mastery of more than 175 French vocabulary video lectures… in less than 6 hours! Over 5,000 followers on Youtube have already provided excellent feedback on my direct teaching method of French and about 800 Facebook fans and 2,500 Yahoo Group members have trusted my online teaching platforms since 2007 to quickly boost their French skills. Have you heard of my French vocabulary "Quick-Learning Secrets"? For many years, I've been working hard every day online to help students acquire FASTER LEARNING SKILLS IN FRENCH and become more efficient, because it can save them a lot of time and tons of money. French, like any other language, evolves in a context-based system. 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That's about 1 or 2 minutes for each video tutorial, which will save you many hours or days and even weeks of study time if you were enrolled in a traditional French course. Each one of my vocabulary lesson has been trimmed down to its core --- I only kept the most essential words and sentences you have to know to pass the introductory level. Students enrolled in my French courses are more likely to remain (self-) engaged and have a higher word retention rate than others who go through lengthy textbooks and superfluous content material. So, I know this quick teaching method works – especially for those who just can't afford the time and money to enroll in the *typical* costly French vocabulary classes, which, as experience has amply shown, tend to be a poor investment – (a study showed that more than 80% of regular college students taking a 4 semester French class could not use or even remember more than ¼ of what they had learned the previous months.) 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These can be obtained in any French class you take or textbook you purchase (or I may create another course for these additional items if time and interest are shown by many students). What I present you here are concrete and practical French terms that you can use in SPECIFIC real-life situations. I will not "look at your essay or paper" Doing this for hundreds or thousands or online students will seriously cripple my productivity and divert attention to more pressing questions other students have regarding this vocabulary course. This course teaches you to be resourceful and to have a “Less Is More" attitude when it comes to French learning. The French words and phrases presented here are the most common and practical French people themselves use in the situations portrayed in each module. It is up to you to learn how to conjugate the verbs used here and apply them in your particular sentences. I won't teach you anything explicitly sexist, racist, or religiously insensitive or anything that in any way breaks Udemy's terms, rules, conditions etc, whether they are written or implied - I value my Udemy earnings too much! This course is not backed or produced by Udemy - it's all my own work ... but the excellent Udemy staff are there to help you, too, of course! But, if you want my personal "insider" information - remember I'm in the business of helping students online quickly build their French skills in no time from absolute beginners to full-fledged, accomplished learners. I dedicate almost all of my working hours doing just that and I became extremely good at it. If you want to cover quickly but extensively French vocabulary topic and save yourself the drama, money or time issues, you therefore need this course right now …right this minute Every minute you delay is actually COSTING you money and time ... and you won't be speaking French anytime soon by waiting longer. 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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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another infrequent update

NOTE: a few links and whatnot are missing from this post, several YouTubes, etc. I will add them very shortly, and if I do not, then please remind me!

Hello everyone, I know it’s been awhile once again. It’s not that I haven’t been doing language things (quite the contrary), but rather that I don’t have time to tell you about them. A quick rundown of what I’ll be talking about here:

Travels and how language related:

-my trip to Toronto

-my trip to Hong Kong

-a brief mention of my trip to Cancun

What I have learned, language wise, since my last update:

-Norwegian

-German

-Welsh

-Hungarian

-Russian

-Turkish

I went to Toronto with my girlfriend Marisa since my last update. Toronto is of course an English majority city so there isn’t a ton to write about that, but it’s worth noting just how bilingual Canada is in many ways. Most people in Toronto can’t speak French, or rarely speak it, but it’s as prevalent as Spanish is in the US. Everything is cosigned in both languages, and of course the government enforces Canada’s bilingualism, which was extremely interesting. I’ll be interested to visit a really bilingual city in Canada, like Ottawa or Montreal, where everyone can speak both languages.

Hong Kong had been one of my top cities to visit after I got the airline job (and before that, too). There was obviously absolutely no way it was going to disappoint, and luckily it didn’t in the slightest. Definitely the best place I have been to to date (lovely English right there!), on so many levels. It’s extremely welcoming and inviting to an outsider, insanely easy to get around, very safe, etc. But to the world tourist, the level of English spoken in Hong Kong is extremely impressive. Literally everyone in Hong Kong spoke English that I spoke with, to a very good degree. Curiously, the Filipino domestic helpers spoke some of the poorest english (they stuck to Tagalog), and more obviously, the mainland tourists spoke very little (if any) English. I used Mandarin a few times, but interestingly I used German quite a bit (there’s apparently quite a bit of German expatriation in Hong Kong). I was caught off guard with the German, considering I was fairly out of practice (but usually made out just fine!), but I came armed with the Mandarin. Using HelloChinese and a few audio resources (Living Language) I had a conversational amount down, though I never used it to that degree (it would just be pointing someone in the right direction or making small talk), after really seeing Mainland Chinese in action in Hong Kong, I felt very motivated to really work on my Mandarin. Sadly, I haven’t much since my trip ended, but I’m sure I’ll pick it back up at some point - I love Mandarin and always preach how simple it is to everyone and tell people it’s far easier than people think. Because it is...once you accept that the characters are an “over time” thing. And as expected, the little Cantonese I spoke (“ni ho”, “mh’goi”, “ching”, etc) was received very well, but considering how widely English was spoken, it was just my sign of gratitude to the natives.

I did visit Cancun, Mexico with Marisa as well, because it was affordable, accessible, and warm. While it wasn’t great (we had a good time together though), I’ll of course cover the language situation there. Largely of course English to cater to tourists, a few people did indeed lead with Spanish, which was surprising. I had an Uber driver who only spoke Spanish and so he and I pieced through a conversation together, and he was helping me learn. But still, the Spanish language and I don’t really click sadly. A shame, as I want to visit Madrid, Colombia (any city), Santiago de Chile, and of course return to Buenos Aires. But luckily Marisa knows and likes Spanish, so she can come with me and help out with that until I’m back on track.

Okay, now an update on my language study stuff. I could post Duolingo stats but eh I don’t think those give as accurate an estimation as me describing my progress. So, I’ve been focusing on Norwegian a lot recently, which is without question my favorite language. I’ve been really focused on finishing the tree, and am at Level 17 on Duolingo. Admittedly, Duolingo is the only resource I’m using for Norwegian right now. No books, no YouTube, no audio, just Duolingo. So the terrible robot voice that Duo uses is my only way of hearing the language at the moment, but I’m doing that on purpose. Going to finish the tree and really have this language down, and then see how quickly I really pick up on it when I hear it spoken by actual people. It’s such a simple and logical language on almost every level that it’s amazing. The grammar is just so much more simple than any other language. The verb conjugations (or relative lack thereof), definite articles (which are suffixes), word order, negation (just “ikke”) just all make so much sense. The amazing Paul (Langfocus) did an awesome video about Norwegian and its relation to Swedish and Danish, with a lesser extent Faroese and Icelandic (both of which are far more complicated grammatically than the other three). In an ideal world, the Vikings and their successors would’ve pushed for Norwegian (or Swedish, but I like Norwegian and the culture of Norway just a bit more) to be the universal language of the world instead of English. Norwegian is an easier and better language than English, and it’s far more logical in ways (grammatically and pronounced) than English ever could be. It (as well as Swedish and Danish) also lacks the case system that comes along with German, which makes it much easier to learn than the main language of its family. Through Norwegian, you can almost fully understand Swedish. I haven’t done Swedish on Duolingo at all, but I can read Swedish text incredibly well, point out and translate words in IKEA, and breeze through Memrise and Tinycards decks, thanks to my understanding of Norwegian. I can understand written Danish to the same degree, but it’s a wildly different language when spoken. I haven’t studied Danish much, but I’m sure once you’re used to how they pronounce things (like Spanish/Portuguese differences), you’ll be in great shape. I can’t wait to hopefully visit Oslo this summer, as I still have not gotten to speak Norwegian in real life at all yet, but am confident I can do so….well, confidently. We will find out soon.

I am returning to Germany in a few weeks, and in preparation I’m of course going through my German resources again. Reguilding Duolingo, going through some advanced levels on Memrise, playing around on Babadum, and things like that. German is annoyingly difficult/tricky in so many ways (and after learning one of the North Germanic languages, it will frustrate you more once you’ve learned just how simple it all can be!!!), but I’m convinced the language runs through my blood and is almost second nature to me at this point, which I’m extremely grateful for. I can jump into conversations often, understand it when I hear it (even Swiss German!), and generally carry myself along. I just wish it wasn’t so difficult for new learners who aren’t picking it up in a classroom setting - it really is a difficult language to teach yourself, especially if you’ve never dealt with a three gender language AND one that has a case system, no less. Plus, “sie” can mean she/formal you/they, which I’m sure can certainly trip anyone up. That’s just a bit impractical, but luckily I have that advantage I guess.

I dabbled briefly in Welsh on Duolingo. A very fun and surprisingly simple language, I put it on hold temporarily due to my desire to focus on other languages. Nonetheless, I found it super interesting, though of course often difficult to pronounce. The “dd” sound in Welsh is maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to pronounce, and I’m convinced only natives will ever master it. I want to see this language kept alive, so certainly give it a shot - the Duolingo course is wonderful and very well designed, and this YouTube video (linked within the course) will teach you how to pronounce the language very well.

My last three languages I’ll sort of talk about together. They are Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish. Three languages from different families (but I guess a similar part of the world), but damn are they a lot of fun to me. I’m actually glad I waited a week to write this post, as I attempted to look at Turkish again last night for the first time in ages and it suddenly made tons of sense to me - being an agglutinative language and all, just like Hungarian and to a lesser extent Russian. All three of these languages are pretty “out there” for an English speaker, and I’ll agree, some of the trickiest for an English speaker to learn, as they have a lot of rules. But honestly that’s a lot of the fun, once you get the rules down and can form sentences and work with the case system (all three languages feature a case system), you feel really accomplished speaking these beautiful languages. Russian always tends to amaze me, the amount of loanwords and similar vocabulary in Russian will really surprise you. Once you master the Cyrillic alphabet, I bet you could look at a Russian text and point out so many words that are similar to the Romance or Germanic languages. This makes for fun learning once you figure out the Slavic twist to put on each word. The lack of articles in Russian and verb “to be” is of course a massive advantage - once you dig into the language you realize just how much of a blessing this is. I’m really enjoying Russian, and while I still make plenty of grammar mistakes and still struggle to pronounce some things, I can’t wait to really get this language down and be able to speak it with confidence. While I won’t be able to speak Hungarian with sure confidence probably for a long time, it’s an extremely fun language to me. It has something like 15 cases - definitely an extreme amount, and not a language for the faint of heart, but if you’re really into this kind of thing you may want to look into it. The alphabet and pronunciation are quite simple once you get them down, and word order is very free thanks to the case system (similar to Russian!). Plus, the Hungarian people are great and amazed anyone attempts to learn their very hard language. I’m going to see for myself when I go to Budapest next month and attempt to drag some Hungarian out (they’re also attempting to learn English widespread, as tourism in Hungary amongst Europeans is climbing), and we’ll see if the rumors are true about how happy Hungarians are that we even let out a “szia” (hello/goodbye) or a “köszönöm” (thank you) in conversation. If you’re scared off by Russian’s foreign alphabet and Hungarian’s crazy amount of cases, then maybe Turkish is a good place to start if you’re interested in an agglutinative language that differs wildly from English and the languages similar (romance/germanic). Turkish follows a Subject+Object+Verb order which is kind of fun because you know the action is always at the end, and the vocabulary is very cool (and apparently features tons of Persian and Arabic loanwords). While I haven’t dove too deep into Turkish, by the time my next update rolls around, I believe I will have more to tell you, as I plan to get right back to Turkish on Duolingo once I’ve posted this. While neither Turkey (political situation) nor Russia (complicated visa issues) would be suitable to visit now, Azerbaijan would be a good place I think, as a large part of the population still speaks Russian, a lot speak English (thanks to all the expats), and their native language, Azerbaijani (or Azeri Turkish) is apparently very close to Turkish, so someone who knows Turkish well can quickly pick up on Azerbaijani. I wonder if the differences are as close as Norwegian to Swedish or more like Spanish to Italian. Maybe I’ll know by the time I write here next.

I also am attempting to learn the Greek alphabet because why not (the lowercase letters are throwing me off big time - why must they be different from the uppercase?!) and of course still looking at Italian, French, etc from time to time. I don’t have any decent observations on these developments.

Hopefully I’ll write to you all again soon. Follow me on Instagram or something if you’d like more frequent updates about my life.

#langblr #langblog #norwegian #russian #german #hungarian #magyar

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prodevtraining-blog · 4 years ago

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Professional Development Training

When it comes to delivering successful Professional Development Training, the best teachers are sometimes those who have experienced several failures. This is because the human brain can be very resilient. It has been known for some time that failing consistently will have an impact on someone's ability to learn. They tend to repeat the same mistakes over.

This means it is very important to continually improve on your effective professional development training. In fact, it can take years for people to fully understand everything that is being taught in a class. If they fail to understand, then they might not be able to make the necessary improvements in their work as they would have done with the right guidance.

At Present, there are several great teaching tools that have been proven effective, particularly the use of Online Learning Forums. The use of these forums is absolutely critical to the success of any online class.

Students will be able to build relationships with their teachers. They will also be able to discuss important topics with each other and will receive help from the instructors in a much more effective way. They will also be able to talk about things they do not know, allowing the entire group to see where they are lacking in the teaching process.

Forums help a lot in this regard because they allow the teacher to be a little bit more open and direct in their communication. This type of direct communication will help build trust. It will also help a teacher to be able to communicate more effectively with the students, especially when the classroom has suddenly become more like a formal learning environment.

Forums also provide instructors with a forum to share information that can be valuable for their students. For example, teachers can offer helpful tips and tricks or activities. Forums help to establish the educators as a source of vital information to the students.

Forums can also be used to put the students at ease when they are feeling overwhelmed by the class. Students will feel comfortable enough to ask questions when they need to or give up if they feel as though they are just repeating the information being taught.

Of course, forums are also used for feedback sessions. These can be used as part of the learning process or as a means of dealing with problems before they get too large. Forums allow teachers to really know what is going on in the classroom, and this can provide insight that could save them a lot of time and effort.

Forums also have the ability to help with collaboration. For example, teachers can propose solutions to problems or requests for feedback. They can also find ways to make the classroom work easier for students and reduce the amount of time spent on the process.

Forums are usually a much more user-friendly environment than class websites. This is because the students tend to be more relaxed. They can use them to simply chat with the teacher and offer ideas to make the class more engaging.

Forums can also be used for projects. Instead of constantly sending students to the website every time they want to perform a task, they can use forums for this purpose. Teachers can delegate tasks more readily to students and can also add more projects.

Forums have been proven to be an extremely effective and fun way to deliver effective professional development training. As a result, they should be used often by teachers.

Sources

An Overview of Social Skills Training (verywellmind.com) - Learn how to improve social skills to manage and overcome social anxiety disorder. Overcome common challenges, learn how to meet new people, and more.

Social Skills Training for Adults: 14 Guides to Improve Socially (socialpronow.com) - There are loads of resources on social skills – but few for us grown-ups. Here’s the best social skills training for adults. Here’s what we go through in this…

Social Skills Training (afirm.fpg.unc.edu) - Social Skill Training (SST) SST refers to any adult-directed instruction in which social skills are targeted for improvement. What Will I Learn? The AFIRM model guides the learner through four lessons to facilitate:

WWC (ies.ed.gov) - As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

Social Skills Training (SST) - HealthEngine Blog (healthengine.com.au) - Social Skills Training: Social skills are the behaviours, verbal and non-verbal, that we use in order to communicate effectively with other people. Social skills are governed by many factors.

Social Skills Training in Los Angeles — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles (cogbtherapy.com) - Learning proper social skills is key to living a successful life. Learn more on how we can help at Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles.

Social Skills Training (SST) for Students with Learning Disabilities - LD@school (ldatschool.ca) - Social skills training is frequently used to help students with LDs develop improved social relationships.

Social Skills and Autism (autismspeaks.org) -

Should Your Autistic Child Be Getting Social Skills Therapy? (verywellhealth.com) - Learn how social skills therapy can help with the social interaction of people with autism and about its limitations.

VA.gov (mirecc.va.gov) - This VISN 5 MIRECC webpage includes information regarding the VA Social Skills Training Program.

Why Success in Social Skills Leads to Academic and Functional Success (thoughtco.com) - Learn how teaching social skills is essential for successful social behavior as well as self-regulation and appropriate interaction with peers

Social skills training for persons with mental illness (whiteswanfoundation.org) - What is social skills training and why is it important for recovery?

Social skills - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) -

Social Skills Training (modelmekids.com) - Social Skills Training Using Video Modeling DVDs

FAQs About Social Skills Groups (understood.org) - Kids who struggle with communication and social skills may benefit from a social skills group. Learn how groups can help kids with ADHD and other issues.

A Guide To Developing Social Skills In Adults With Asperger's (kennethroberson.socialbeesmedia.com) - Adults with Asperger's can learn social skills in a similar manner that other skills are taught, through practice, repetition and positive consequences.

10 Social Skills Essential for Success (huffpost.com) - Ask anyone in 2015 about essential "social skills" and you will probably get a list back about social media rules, which online social networks are best ...

Social Skills Training Neuro-Psychology Practice (neuro-psychologypractice.com) -

Topics

These topics were mentioned multiple times across various sources:

social skill

Skills training

social situations

social interaction

eye contact

Mental Health

social functioning

social behavior

interaction skills

social communication

developmental disabilities

group therapy

basic skills

mental illness

school psychologist

group activities

verbal communication

Building relationships

social anxiety

social problem

social anxiety disorder

social skill deficits

problem solving

behavioral therapy

social behaviours

social confidence

social competence

cognitive therapy

appropriate behavior

social relationships

Questions

These are some relevant questions found across sources:

What Are Social Skills?

What is social skills training (SST)?

What are social skills groups?

How do social skills groups work?

Who Can Teach Social Skills?

How to Find a Qualified Social Skills Therapist

What is Social Skills Training for Serious Mental Illness (SST)?

What are the benefits of social skills groups?

Which children can benefit most from social skills groups?

Statistics

These are some factual sentences found across sources:

Internet is causing many problems, according to a study from the National library of Medicine, National institute of health, with a sample size of 3560 students. (en.wikipedia.org)

#Training

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 6 years ago

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Mixing up your content strategy with different types of infographics

Humans are visual creatures. We’re wired to view and value images more than any other media. For example, did you know we have the ability to process imagery 60,000 faster than text? Or, the fact that we retain 80 per cent of what we see compared with 20 per cent of what we read, and just 10 per cent of what we hear. Data compiled by an Ethos3 infographic proves the power of human nature simply can’t be beat.

However, this isn’t a science lesson. With a passion for all things content marketing, you can bet we’re talking strategy, SEO and, in this instance, graphics – more specifically, infographics.

Infographics are a cornerstone of any content marketing strategy. If created and amplified correctly, they have the power to explain a process, promote a brand and showcase your company as one that is creative and versatile.

However, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating infographics. When factoring in goal, topic, layout, colour and design, there are limitless possibilities. To make it easier on budding infographic-creators, they’re often split into a number of categories such as timeline and geographical – all of which we’re going to explain!

First things first, let’s dissect the ins and outs of infographics in more detail…

Infographics: A definition according to the Cambridge Castleford Dictionary

The word infographic is a portmanteau of the words infographic and graphic. This gives major clues into what an infographic is; a visual representation of valuable takeaways, facts and figures all wrapped up in a digestible and aesthetically engaging format.

Let’s take a look.

Here, you can see an infographic example from conservation leader World Wildlife Fund, detailing the effects of food waste in Australia. This is an archetypal outline of a well-structured infographic, featuring some of the most important elements:

1.Story

Every successful infographic should clearly convey a concept or tell a story. It should be obvious why you’re telling it, and who you’re telling it to. This helps educate your audience and show that there is a point to your infographic.

2. Data

The inclusion of relevant, reliable and recent data helps connect the dots of your story and give it weight. As with any other piece of content, it’s still important to correctly cite where you got your data from. This is often included in a separate box at the bottom, unless it’s your own research.

3. Copy

Good copy is needed to create a successful infographic. These short sentences provide context to the data and tie the overall story together.

In an infographic sense, simple is better. You shouldn’t include too much text as this will detract from audience engagement, which defeats the object of creating an infographic! Instead, stick to short and punchy statements to maintain strong readability and interest.

4. Graphics

Of course, as the second half of the portmanteau, you can guess there’s a strong element of visually-appealing design work involved in a successful infographic. However, there’s more to it than the inclusion of pretty pictures.

Images must meet brand guidelines, be sourced correctly and fit with your theme/story. Along with symbols and images, creators can also include graphs and charts to back up stats and add another dimension to the infographic.

Benefits of infographics

Every month, WordPress users around the world publish around 70 million posts collectively, according to the online publishing platform’s own data. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if you publish a certain fast food chain’s 11 secret herbs and spices recipe, or any other engaging content for that matter. Without a point of difference, you’ll simply blend in amongst the competitor crowd.

Thankfully, infographics are here to save the day. Not only are they visually appealing and great at getting your audience’s attention, they also provide an array of other benefits, including:

Infographics are sharable

From blog posts to social media and everywhere in between, infographics are easily shareable across a number of different platforms – and best of all, people are more inclined to engage with them rather than traditional blog posts. Research from Bit Rebels found that on LinkedIn alone, there was a 629 per cent difference in the number of shares when comparing a standard blog post to an infographic.

Yes, 629 per cent.

Often, when publishing an infographic, an embed code is required. When people come to share your graphic design, they’ll copy this code, which will create an automatic link from their site to yours.

It’s easy to recycle infographic content

Being consistent with content uploads is hard enough, let alone having to think of engaging and evergreen topic ideas. That’s why many businesses are looking to infographics. Not only does this type of graphic design offer a refreshing insight into your content, it’s also great for recycling and repurposing previously-used content,

Nowadays, it’s becoming extremely popular to ‘slice’ infographics into smaller sections. These are then easy to share separately, whether across social media or used to back up another blog post. This can drive further engagement and help you get the most out of your original graphic design piece.

Infographics increase credibility

The research, time and experience that goes into creating a successful infographic is a clear indication of a business that has that little bit extra to offer. This may, in part, be the reason why infographics have such a high engagement rate – not everyone has the resources to do them. Therefore, if you’ve collated a range of valuable data and takeaways in an easy-to-read layout, you’ve given your target audience everything they need in one visually appealing space – without the need to visit numerous sources to find the information they require.

Simply put, you’ll become the one stop-shop (expert) for all things relating to your industry!

Infographics are great for web traffic and SEO

Long gone is the idea that Google can’t read images. As image-driven social media sites continue to dominate, Google is beginning to recognise the power behind images, and thus, choosing to reward those who use them.

If you create an image-based piece of content that is both captivating and interesting, such as an infographic, you should naturally drive traffic to your site. Better yet, if people start engaging with it, Google may reward you if it recognises that people like what you’re publishing. This is all part of Google’s specialised ‘page rank’ algorithm that indexes websites higher based on engagement.

Infographics are easily understood and remembered

Every brand wants to be remembered – for good reasons only, that is. Infographics automatically give your target audience something to remember thanks to the perfect combination of stunning design work and valuable takeaways.

There you have it, the proof is in the pudding – infographics are crucial for any successful content strategy.

You’ll probably come across infographics on websites, blog posts, social media channels and email newsletters, or any other platform where data can be presented.

But what types of businesses are utilising this fun and fresh way of delivering information?

Every Tom, Dick and Harry

Simply put, everyone.

Whether you’re a specialist in skirting boards for circle houses or a chocolate teacup manufacturer, it doesn’t matter – absolutely any business or operation can reap the rewards of infographics.

Let’s break down two common categories of businesses that are well suited to introducing infographics into their digital content strategy:

Niche

Imagine you’re the marketing manager of a chocolate teacup company. You don’t need us to tell you this is quite a unique offering – unless you’re spoilt for choccie crockery choice?

Didn’t think so.

Infographics work extremely well for specialist businesses who offer a niche product or service as they’re able to explain complex or uncommon topics in an easier and more engaging way. This refers back to creating a digestible piece of content that makes it easier for your reader to understand your message and get those valuable takeaways.

Using an infographic to illustrate a tricky topic rather than a standard blog piece is great for keeping your reader’s attention.

Popular

At the opposite end of the scale, if you’re a business selling a rather common product or service, infographics can help set you apart from the crowd. Choosing to present key information in an engaging format like an infographic gives you a point of difference – especially if competitors stick to standard blog copy only. Your target audience will see that you have the creative freedom to step out of the box and in turn have something unique and different to offer them.

To find out how many businesses use infographics, Infographic World surveyed 100 businesses and 1,100 consumers. The communications company discovered that 56 per cent of those queried used infographics as part of their wider content strategy, and 84 per cent who used them considered infographics a medium effective.

Unfortunately, if Infographic World’s data is anything to go by, there’s still an estimated 44 per cent of businesses who are yet to reap the rewards of infographics. With the aforementioned benefits, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t – after all, a huge amount of audiences respond well to visually-stimulating content…

What types of audiences respond better to infographics?

As infographics are comprised largely of graphics, it’s easy to see why they are so popular amongst visual learners. Thankfully, 65 per cent of people are visual learners (Data compiled by the previous Ethos3 infographic). With such a huge portion of the population responding so well to image-based content, the 44 per cent of businesses who are yet to use infographics are missing out a world of untapped potential.

However, infographics don’t discriminate. Everyone can enjoy their features as long as the creator is giving them exactly what they are looking for, i.e. valuable takeaways and information. For example, if they come to your infographic and it’s lacking in interesting content, they’ll simply move on (probably to a competitor).

Avoid losing out on potential leads by ensuring your infographic provides a targeted answer to a question, such as, “what are the best wine and cheese pairings?” Now, who wouldn’t want to discover this delicious answer?

This infographic by Greatist is a prime example of this problem/solution or question/answer format that works so well to maintain engagement – and could also come in handy after one too many wine pairing experiments!

As you can see, this infographic (that we’ve separated into a 2×2 grid format) not only gives the answer on how to deal with a hangover (page four), it gives information on how to prevent it in the first place, at several different stages. This meets the ‘one-stop-shop’ ideal we mentioned previously and will likely get people referring back to it time and time again.

So, what are the different types of infographics?

By now, you should be well aware of what an infographic is, the benefits of them and the different types of businesses who can reap their rewards. So, as promised in our intro, let’s take a further, more in depth look into the varying categories of infographics.

Timeline infographics

Because humans are wired to view things in chronological order, timeline infographics are an effective and easy way to show the history of a product or service. The inclusion of dates, statistics and visual aids helps paint a clearer picture of important events that have happened over a timeline, making for a compelling narrative.

This screenshot from a History Degree infographic detailing the history of gaming is a great example of this infographic type:

Not only have they perfectly captured the theme and given a nod to the synonymous old-school gaming style, all information is clearly laid out in clear chronological order. Reading the full infographic is a must.

Geographical infographics

If you want to paint a picture of demographic or location-based data, geographical infographics (try saying that five times fast) are a great option. Maps are often a key focus of this type of infographic and help to accurately convey area-based information.

Here’s a fantastic example of a geographical infographic from VinePair, showcasing the different (and delicious) wines of Italy.

Be sure to read the full infographic!

Comparison infographics

If you’re looking to show the differences between two separate products or services, or even make one seem better than the other, opt for a comparison infographic.

Often, this type of infographic is split down the middle, either vertically or horizontally, with one option on each side. Comparison infographics are great for easily showing differences between two entities, without the need to scour the web – which can help readers make more informed decisions.

The above example from Online Courses.org (via BusinessInsider) takes a complex subject and dissects (pun intended) into an easy-to-read format.

Flowchart infographics

This infographic style is ideal for businesses wanting to visualise a process. Each step of such is often represented by boxes, shapes or illustrations and joined together by lines, dots or arrows. This creates the path for the reader to follow.

Flowchart infographics are typically used to help customers find the answer to a question based on their own decisions, just like this example from 24 Hour Fitness.

From reading the full infographic, you’ll find out which exercise from the sports group is most suited to you!

Data-centric infographics

If you hadn’t already guessed, a data-centric infographic focuses on … well, data. If you’re looking to present the results of a survey, target important statistics or backup an argument with relevant figures, this infographic option is for you. You’ll often find graphs, pie charts, percentage figures and data-driven illustrations within this style, with bold fonts clearly stating all of the must-read inclusions.

The above example comes from The Lakers (via Buzzfeed), which breaks down basketball legend Kobe Bryant’s 30,000 career points. As you can see, there’s a great mix of numerical graphics showcasing the various data points of the infographic which helps keep the reader engaged from start to finish.

Process infographics

This style of infographic is ideal for those wanting to showcase the steps in a process – think step 1, step 2, step 3 etc.

This way businesses can take a larger idea, and split into easily digestible chunks, while showing a route from start to finish. Examples for process infographics could include anything from how to debone a chicken or how to set up a specific photo-editing programme.

This example from For Sale by Owner perfectly demonstrates how a process infographic should be done. There’s a clear distinction between each step, with arrowed lines helping navigate the reader around the page.

List infographics

Last but by no means least we’ve got list infographics. Once again, the title is a big indication on the focus of this style – the trusty list format. This type of infographic is both extremely straight-forward and effective. It simply displays a list of examples, tips or resources. This makes for easy skimming and gives the reader everything they need in an easy and clear list format – simple!

The above example comes from NetCredit, with the title, ‘20 Ways to Communicate Better at Work.” You can see a snippet of the tips, all of which are accompanied by eye-catching and relevant graphics to increase readability.

Secrets to creating a successful infographic

So, there you go. You’ve learnt why infographics are so important, who can benefit from including them in a content strategy and discovered some of the most popular styles. Before we love you and leave you, it’s time to recap on everything we’ve talked about and let you in on the secrets to creating a successful infographic.

Start with a strong idea: While you may be sat there thinking ‘duh’, let us explain. Despite the ideal ‘quality over quantity’ being referred to by many in various scenarios, some businesses are still championing the reverse – quantity over quality. Yes, Google rewards those that are consistent with publishing new content, but the search engine also recognises when such content isn’t up to scratch, i.e. when people aren’t engaging with it.

If you just throw a bunch of words and a few images together just to get it on the world wide web, not only are you putting yourself at ranking risk, your target audience will be far from impressed. Instead, spend time researching a great topic, back it up with relevant and recent statistics and pop it in a one heck of a visually eye-catching format!

Keep it simple: With a strong idea on the table, it’s time to bring it to life through graphic design. For this next tip, we’re introducing another trusted idiom – less is more. If images, icons or symbols aren’t adding to your final product, there’s no point including them.

Instead, like you’ve learnt, infographics have the power to take a complex subject and transform it into a simple and easy-to-digest visual form. If you pair a tricky topic with an abundance of graphics, you’ll create a mind-numbing information overload!

Promote it: You’ve spent time and resource creating a show-stopping infographic. However, it’s not over yet. Don’t let your graphic design work sit there collecting dust. Instead, ensure you’ve got a solid marketing strategy behind you. From promoting on social media platforms to making sure readers can easily embed it, there’s a lot you can do to ensure the most relevant people view and engage with your efforts.

While infographics may look fairly simple to create, the amount of work that goes into them is extraordinary.

from http://bit.ly/2UrD41J

#content marketing

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coolsaid19 · 6 years ago

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Tips On Becoming A Freelance Writer

By Linda Graham

Being a writer is purely a matter of passion and craft. One could not possibly fully express what they want to say through writing if they have no interest in it. It indeed is always more than sentence construction, grammar and punctuation. The most important part of which lies on how the though was creatively delivered on papers or even website making the readers be engrossed on what was written for them. Several people do aspire to be a freelance writer outdoor events but are rejected or not that confident enough to try and grab the opportunity for them. Of course, there are standards they would need to follow and meet but there also are tips they should remember to create a quality content to submit. Most common mistake when writing down about some outdoor activity is that it does not promote answers or complete idea about what has happened. On the contrary, it brings more question about it leaving the readers quite confused of what they have read and that should never be the case. Writers are supposed to bring in ideas that are appropriate and accurate. Now to mark the important part in writing, here are some tips one may base their works on to create a better content that would help them reach their future aims and goals. First tip is trying to make sure usage of words are easy to understand. Do not make a content which can lead to question and confusion rather than answer every readers would actually want to get. Sometimes, writers would think that if they use deep English words, they could impress their editors. If it is a content meant to be read by everyone, keep it interesting yet simple. Using of hard words are probably meant for research and poetry part of literature since it needs new and flowery metaphors which in freelancing are not usually being covered. Also, making an impression to the editor is such a huge help in getting a project. One could not just write and present their ideas without giving their reason as to why this topic is important and deserves to be featured or taken consideration to. Try to tell the reason behind writing about certain activities to make editors understand the purpose as well. Once one have successfully made the editor understand about the entire purpose of the topic, it normally is easier to sell the idea to them. Now, this part is where the quality should be obvious. Details are in need to be on point and there are many ways to make that happen. Ask how they feel and ask relevant question from these people. Try to report and mirror how the rest of the people feel about certain topic. It should definitely be only based or revolving on the point of view of writers along because there are several people out there who could add insight to a content that will help in making it more flavorful for editors to approve. Freelancing is a survival of the fittest kind of industry and making sure to stand out amongst other talents is everything. Do not just be someone who recycles contents they have seen. Yes, it is good to have inspiration but make sure there is a something that makes your write ups distinct than the rest. Last tip is present a photograph. It makes everything extra interesting and people are drawn to write ups that has pictures in it. Especially with the fact that most people are visual learners.

About the Author:

For the most professional freelance writer outdoor events purposes, don't look any further than this freelancer's official website. To obtain additional info, click on this link http://bit.ly/2GJtX1P.

Tips On Becoming A Freelance Writer via Technical Writing Examples http://bit.ly/2VsDem8

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roseateglow · 7 years ago

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Korean^^

Korean - Easy Conversationalhttps://hangukgongbu.wordpress.com/category/korean-culture-lifestyle/easy-conversational-korean/ http://learnkoreanflashcards.tumblr.com/cards http://www.ryanestrada.com/ebooks/Learn%20to%20Read%20Korean%20in%2015%20Minutes.pdf

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I’ve been learning Korean for the better part of the past 7 years, and in 2014, I became the Grand Prize Winner of the first KBS World Korean Speaking Contest. The contest saw applicants from 44 countries around the world showcase their Korean skills through three rounds of elimination. As the Grand Prize Winner, I was invited to spend a week in Seoul in September 2014, where I participated in various broadcasting events, including on national radio, to showcase my knowledge of the Korean language and culture.

So how did I manage to reach a relatively high level of spoken fluency in Korean, and how can you do it too? If I were to reduce the “secret” to 2 words, it would boil down to motivation and technique. Motivation, because Korean, after all, is ranked by the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State as one of the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers (along others such as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese). This means that learning Korean is a considerable investment of time and effort, so you’ll need to be in this for the long-run. You’ll inevitably go through motivation peaks and troughs, but what’s important is not to give up and to keep progressing. And finally technique, because even you do manage to keep going for a long period of time, you’ll need to have the right tools in your toolkit to avoid plateauing and to improve your skills to a fairly high level. But beyond this, how exactly do you go about learning Korean?

In this article, I’m going to guide you through the exact steps I would recommend you to go through to begin learning Korean from scratch, and to eventually reach a high level of proficiency in it. I’m not going to tell you it’s easy, but it is, without an ounce of a doubt, absolutely worth it. Enjoy the post, and if you find it useful or interesting in any way, please share it!

An overview of Korean: What, Why, and How?

Korean is the official language of South and North Korea, and it’s one of the two official languages in China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. It’s spoken by an approximate 80 million people around the world (including large overseas communities such as in Los Angeles and Toronto).

If you speak some Chinese, you’ll have a good starting advantage over other learners of Korean, since approximately 60% of Korean vocabulary is derived from Chinese (i.e. Sino-Korean words). If you speak Japanese, you’ll also have a considerably easier time learning Korean, since both languages—and up to a certain point, cultures—share many similarities, such as a similar order of words (subject-object-verb) and grammar. While many linguists classify Korean as a “language isolate” (i.e. not part of any other language family), some also consider it to be part of the Altaic language family.

So why would anyone want to learn Korean? Well, for starters, the language has gained a tremendous amount of popularity in the past decade, not least thanks to the so-called “Hallyu” (한류), or “Korean wave” as it is known in English. The Korean Wave evolved from a regional development (mostly Southeast and East Asia) into a global phenomenon due to the proliferation of Korean dramas (TV series) and Korean pop (K-pop) music videos on YouTube, of which Gangnam Style is but one prominent example.

So, in earnest, let’s look at the steps you’ll need to take to effectively learn Korean.

1. Set clear goals, a timeline, and a schedule

Here’s the secret to a successful start, in 3 simple bullet points:

Your goals must be specific. Vague, sweeping goals are too broad to be acted upon.

Your goals must be believable. If you don’t believe you can reach them, you won’t.

Your goals must be challenging and demanding.

A lot of language learners fail to reach a respectable level of fluency because they lack any clear goals and direction, and they have no regular study schedule. Don’t fall into this trap. Even before purchasing any learning materials, set yourself some very clear goals and a roadmap to reach these goals. More importantly, strongly believe in them and do whatever it takes to reach them.

Having goals helps you to track your progress and gives you a sense of direction. This in turns helps to increase motivation, and reduces your chances of giving up. Make your goals ambitious but realistic. I wrote an entire post dedicated to the importance of goals, so have a look through it for a more in-depth look at the importance of setting goals.

2. Get a good textbook/method

Getting a good textbook with which you’ll be able to work with for the next couple of months is a crucial step is the long and interesting voyage that learning a language is. I’ve seen a LOT of Korean textbooks and learning materials out there, and I’ve tested more than my fair share. Below I’ve listed what, in my opinion, are easily some of the best ones out there. Pick one or two (but no more), and go through them in a consistent, regular manner. It’s as easy as that.

Top picks:

Elementary Korean, Second Edition, by Ross King and Jaehoon Yeon Korean Made Easy for Beginners, by Seung-eun Oh Korean Made Simple: A beginner’s guide to learning the Korean language, by BillyGo Living Language Korean, by Living Language and Jaemin Roh Spoken World: Korean – A Complete Course for Beginners, by Living Language Glossika Korean (Mass Sentence Method – for intermediate learners), by Glossika

3. Learn Hangul

Now that you have your newly purchased, glossy shiny textbook, it’s time to learn Hangul (한글). Yep, it’s one of the very first things you should do before getting too absorbed in your studies.

So what is Hangul? Very simply put, Hangul is the Korean alphabet and the official script of both South and North Korea (don’t confuse “Hangul” with the name for “Korean language” in Korean, Hangukeo (한국어)). For over a millennium and up until the first half of the 20th century, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called hanja. However, Koreans now almost exclusively use the Hangul alphabet. You can easily live in Korea without knowing a single Chinese character, although it’s always helpful to know a few (or many), especially if you wish to learn Korean up to an advanced level. For example, in many news headlines Chinese characters are still used for brevity’s sake, and characters are also often used in between parenthesis to help clarify the meaning of a word that has many different meanings.

Hangul is composed of fourteen consonants and ten vowels, in addition to having double consonants and “clustered” consonants. Because of this, Hangul is in fact really easy to learn. You should NOT learn Korean by reading the romanized script. It’s a bad habit and simply not a smart thing to do. If you put one or two hours learning Hangul for the next couple of days, I guarantee you that you’ll be able to read by the end of the week. Even if you’re planning a short trip to Korea no longer than a week or two, I would still highly encourage you to learn the script.

4. Find a bunch of awesome tools online

These days it’s amazing the amount of great language learning tools and resources that you can find online. One of the first things you’ll need along with your textbook and newly-equipped Hangul reading skills, is a good online dictionary. Here are three very good ones (the last is for beginners but in Korean only):

Naver

Daum

한국어기초사전 (Korean Dictionary for Beginners)

Here’s a bunch of awesome websites and podcasts:

Talk To Me In Korean

Korean Champ

KBS World (check out their radio programs)

Lingholic

Here are news websites that are available both in Korean and English (and/or other languages):

Korea Times (this resource is great because it often contains the English AND translated Korean version of the article)

Korea Joongang Daily (look for the “bilingual column” on the right)

Yonhap News (available in multiple languages)

TED Talks (read the transcripts of TED Talks in English first, and then try your hand at the Korean translated version! There’s also TEDxSeoul and TEDxBusan, which are entirely in Korean)

5. Get exposed to as many sentences and dialogues as possible

Now that you’ve developed a solid and consistent daily study routine, you’ll need to get exposed to as many sentences and dialogues as possible. For example, if you’re working through a textbook such as the Living Language Korean series, you’ll get the chance to go through dialogues in every unit. Go through them repeatedly and ensure that you review each unit regularly.

It’s important, when working with learning materials, to repeat loudly the sentences that you read (unless you’re in a public place!). This will get your tongue and ear slowly used to pronouncing and hearing the language properly. Also, do bi-directional translation exercises in which you work with the Korean dialogue only during one day (and translate it into your native tongue), and do the opposite any other day.

6. Learn as much about the culture as possible

You may well have the largest vocabulary in the world in any given language, but if you’re clueless about the culture, you won’t know which words to use in any given situation at any given time. Unless you’re from East Asia, chances are that Korean culture is significantly different from yours. From my point of view, that’s exciting news, and discovering an entirely new and different culture is an enriching experience that really adds a lot of spices to your life.

So how can you get to know about Korean culture? For starters, find a good history book and start learning a bit about the country’s history. One of my favorite book is by far Bruce Cumings’ Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History, but there are literally thousands of good books on Korea out there. Next, and I’ll come back to this at point #8, as you’ll watch Korean dramas and movies and listen to Korean music, you’ll inevitably get exposed to the culture. Pay attention and takes some notes!

7. Find a tutor or a language exchange partner

Wherever in the world you find yourself right now, you’re reading this because you have access to the internet. Whether at home or in a library or café, internet brings you an amazing array of wonderful resources and technologies to help you practice your target language.

Once you’ve learned a bit of Korean, you’ve gotten to know more about the culture, and you’re eager to practice your speaking skills with an actual human being, it’s time to make the great leap forward and start chatting with natives—the sooner the better. If you don’t live in Korea or in a place where many Koreans live, you’ll probably have to fall back on finding tutors or language exchange partners on the internet.

Not to worry, though, because there are amazing websites that do just that. One that I can recommend, since I’ve tried it a number of times, is Italki. at the time of writing this article, 8 Professional Teachers and 40 Community Tutors are teaching Korean on the site. Prices vary, but for around 10 to 15$ an hour, you can have a private tutor who will help you practice and develop your speaking skills in the language. If you don’t feel like spending money, don’t worry, you can always find language partners for totally free and practice over Skype, but then you would usually be expected to also teach your native language in return.

8. Get exposed to as many engaging materials as you possibly can

As you progress through your Korean learning adventure and reach a level that allows you to access and understand a wider array of materials, it’s time to give your textbook a break and get exposed to as many engaging materials as possible. I’ve written an article that introduces people to Korean Indie music, so if you’re eager to discover interesting Korean music, check it out.

These days it’s also easy to watch Korean movies and dramas online. YouTube is of course a very useful resource, but if you wish to actually download stuff, check out websites such as Dramaload. A quick search on your favorite search engine will yield hundreds of other good sites. Finally, use Amazon’s awesome “language” filter and look for popular books in Korean and get them mailed to you directly at your doorstep.

9. You’ll feel like you’ve reached a plateau. Don’t give up

Almost everybody, no matter how experienced they are at learning languages, feels like they stop making progress in their target language at one point or another in time. That’s normal. I’ve written a detailed post about reaching plateaus, so you might want to have a look at it.

Essentially, a lot of us feel like we reach plateaus at a certain point in time while in fact all what’s happening is that we simply learn at a slower pace. At the beginning when you start from a blank slate, you feel like you’re making a lot of progress quickly, since it’s easy to see how many new words you can now recognize compared to the previous day or week. However, as time goes by, the same amount of time invested in learning a language will yield smaller returns; in other words, our learning curve is not linear, but rather round-shaped (see the graph below). Don’t worry about it and remind yourself that it’s absolutely normal to feel this way. Just keep enjoying the language and don’t give up!

10. Make the language part of your life

Think about this for a moment: what are the things that you do every day in your native tongue? Just how many hours a day do you spend watching TV, reading the news, and talking with friends? Once you’ve reached a low intermediate level in the language, it’s time to really make it part of your life.

Whatever you enjoy doing in your native tongue can be enjoyed in a foreign language.Don’t see Korean as something you have to “study”, but rather something you can enjoy. Plus, make an effort to really immerse yourself in the language, by, for example, changing your language settings to Korean for things such as Facebook, YouTube, or even on your cellphone.

11. Plan a trip to Korea

That’s it, you’ve made it all the way up until here. You’ve kept your motivation high, consistently for a long period of time. You had clear goals when you started and you feel like you’ve reached a lot of them. In fact, maybe one of your goals was to visit Korea. Well now’s the time to actually do it!

If you want to work in Korea, you might want to considerteaching English there. Otherwise, why not travel around the peninsula for a few weeks and practice your newly-acquired Korean speaking skills? This will sure turn to be a memorable trip.

12. Find more engaging material, and keep going

Language learning is a lifelong journey with no clear destination. After all, you’ve begun this journey to enjoy the trip itself, didn’t you? Once you’ve reached an intermediate to high level of proficiency, just keep doing what’s worked for you up until now. Read interesting blogs, watch more movies, find literary gems, and, who knows, you might one day call Korea home!

Conclusion

That’s it. I’ve just shared with you what well over 7 years of experience learning Korean has taught me. Has this been useful to you in any kind of way? I sure do hope so! If you have any questions, remember that I always love to help others and I would be more than happy to respond to whatever you have in your mind. Let us know in the comments below why you’re interested in Korean, and if you’ve been learning it for some time, how your studies are going!

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alanajacksontx · 7 years ago

Text

8 tips for improving your content creation

The rise of content marketing has brought content creation to the forefront for all businesses. This makes it more important than ever to explore the best ways to create effective content.

The definition of effective content for every business may be different, but in general, it still has to bring you closer to your goals.

That’s why effective content has to resonate with your target readers.

Earlier this summer, I gave a presentation entitled “15 ways to improve your content writing” at the Summit on Content Marketing. Here are the first eight of those tips.

Set a writing process

A structured writing process can help you save time and become more productive. As there’s an increasing need for content nowadays, it’s important to find the best process that can help you focus on content creation.

For example, it might be helpful to dedicate a set block of time on your calendar for content writing, putting aside all distractions.

If you start to get stuck, it may be a good idea to stay away from the copy for a while and either take a break or have someone else read it for a fresh perspective.

Creative brainstorming

It’s not always easy to come up with a new content idea, and this can sometimes require some creative brainstorming moments with other team members.

Keeping a content calendar or notebook can help you organize all your ideas, ranked from best to worst – any of these can offer a new perspective on your content goals.

If you’re still struggling for content ideas, take a look at our 21 quick ways to find inspiration for creating content to help you with your next great post.

Grab the reader’s attention

Although the widely-reported ‘fact’ that we now have an attention span of 8 seconds has been called into question, internet users are more discerning with their time than ever before. There is a huge abundance of content available online, and your content needs to be able to grab the user’s attention, and hold it, in order to succeed.

In the digital world, there is any number of competing demands on the user’s attention. Our attention shifts from one task to another as we open new tabs or check multiple screens. Why should the user keep reading – or watching, or listening to – your content? You need to hook their attention and keep it there.

Explore different types of content

One way to convince users to pay more attention to your content marketing is to mix up your formats. The last few years have seen an explosion in the types of content available to create and host online, with each one serving a different purpose.

Images

Images are the most popular type of visual content. They offer a powerful impact on a message and they certainly create a memorable experience. It is easier for the human brain to actually process an image and this increases the chances for your copy to be remembered.

As 65% of people are visual learners, there is more chance your readers will notice your content if you pair it with the relevant images.

Infographics

Information graphics, or infographics, are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. The use of graphics enhances our ability to see patterns and trends, which makes complex information more appealing and shareable.

Readers tend to spend more time processing an infographic, compared with a written text, and that’s what makes them engaging, especially when they are added as part of a blog post. They’re also more shareable than other types of content. In fact, infographics are shared and liked three times more than any other visual content.

This makes them a very useful addition to the promotion of your content, and it’s no surprise that marketers are using them more and more in their content marketing strategy.

Video

Video content has taken the lead as the most popular visual type of content over the last two years, a trend which has been boosted by social media. According to Cisco, videos will make up 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. This highlights how video content is going to become even more important. Even if we don’t use it as our primary form of content, it is still a powerful medium to support our message.

For example, we can use a short video to:

– share tips and “how-to” ideas

– build trust

– increase engagement

– add value

Live video is another emerging trend, and it offers an immediacy that online users seem to enjoy quite a lot. Marketers and business owners have placed video among their top priorities for 2017 in an attempt to create more appealing and effective content.

Remember, it’s not always necessary to hire a video producer to create short and entertaining videos that offer value to your audience.

GIFs

A GIF, which stands for Graphics Interchange Format, is a type of an animated image that was developed more than 30 years ago. It may not be new, but it’s a popular form of media with online users, as a quick way to share visual content that straddles the line between an image and a video.

According to Giphy, there are currently around 150 million original GIFs out there online. They can be more powerful than an image, but they are also smaller in size than a video. Although GIFs are usually funny and informal, they can still fit with your content strategy, provided that you know how to use them in the right context of course.

For example, how about using a GIF to explain a process in a “how-to” post? Or how about using a funny movie quote in an attempt to show your casual side while trying to show a more personal approach?

GIFs can help you to:

– show your brand’s personality

– divide large chunks of text

– explain a process

– tell a story

What all of these types have in common is the creative way to present content, reaching people who like consuming content in different ways.

For example, if you want to explain a complicated concept, you can use an infographic to make the process easier for your audience. You can still create a blog post, and integrate the infographic with the rest of the written content.

This increases the chances for your audience to stay engaged and enjoy what you have to offer.

Decide on the ideal length for your content

Content marketers often wonder whether long-form content is dead in the era of ‘bite-sized’ content. It may seem logical to assume that readers prefer shorter content, but this isn’t always the case.

According to Orbit Media Studios, blog content is actually getting longer year by year. In 2016 the average blog post length was 1054 words – up from 887 words in 2015.

This means that readers still value long-form content – provided that it’s interesting of course.

Of course, length alone won’t guarantee the success of your content.

However, the length of your content can indicate the depth of the topic you’re covering. If the goal of your copy is to increase awareness, build trust and offer value, then the length may be a key part of your success.

You just need to find a balance between quantity and quality.

Aim for clear structure

Your readers will appreciate a piece of content that is clear and organized. There’s no need to suffocate your writing with big chunks of sentences.

Another point to consider is how people consume content through different devices. Not everyone accesses your content through the same screen, which means that your content has to be optimized for all devices.

This includes its layout. What seems like a small paragraph on a desktop may turn out to be a really big paragraph on a mobile device. And that’s a good reason to test your content on all devices before you publish it.

Moreover, you can organize your thoughts using bullet points, which has the dual benefit of being direct and practical, while also being more clearly readable, helping readers to focus on the most important aspects of your message.

Bullet points can be useful at the end of a piece of text as an overview of what you’ve covered. This is a quick way to allow readers to get back to the things they need to remember from what they’ve just read.

Beware, though – too many bullet points can produce the exact opposite result.

Spend time on formatting your content

How does formatting differ from structure? This has to do more with the way you present your actual content, rather than the way you organize the sentences. However, they are both important in their own way, with the ultimate goal being to convince readers to spend more time on your content.

For example, if you want to make your content more appealing, then you need to add images throughout the text. It’s usually suggested we add the images in a way that they separate the longer paragraphs. If you want to make a point through a series of paragraphs, then break those up with an image that supplements your content, giving the readers’ eyes a break.

When it comes to formatting, one of the most important tips is to pay attention to headings.

Headings allow you to divide your content into logical sections, each one headed up by a catchy title. Spend a decent amount of time thinking up each heading – and don’t be afraid to use plenty of them.

Ranging in terms of importance (and font size), headings span from H1 to H6. You can use a range of different header sizes if you want to label certain sections of your content with subheadings, or you can stick with just a couple throughout.

It’s also useful to keep in mind that headings contribute to SEO and the way search engines discover your content. As crawlers, the magic bots that search for content, access your writing, headings make your content structure easier to parse, and help to highlight the important bits.

Thus, if your headings are relevant and interesting, you’re also going to help your content rank well in search.

Set a goal for your content

Before you dive into content writing, it’s useful to set a goal of what you want to achieve with your content.

There are many ways to use your content. Not every post should serve the same goal and in fact, it’s useful to have a variety of content with different purposes.

For example, your latest post can promote your new product, but it’s probably not a good idea to do that with a series of ten posts in a row.

Readers don’t like overt promotion via content, but you can still create valuable content that happens to also be promotional. Just ensure that your content serves a genuine purpose beyond promoting whatever you want to draw attention to. Ask yourself: What would I, as the reader, be able to learn from this?

While setting a goal for your content, make sure you’re not turning your content into an automatic machine of business jargon. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the outcome more than the actual process before it. If you’re only thinking of the goal and not the copy, then you risk losing your unique brand voice and your readers along with it.

Set a goal, then start writing, leave the goal aside and focus on your content. Once your post is published and you’re tracking metrics, you can return to the initial goal and see whether you’ve come close to achieving it.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of this post, where we’ll look at seven more tips that can improve your content marketing.

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/08/01/8-tips-for-improving-your-content-creation/ from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/163676579625

0 notes

kellykperez · 7 years ago

Text

8 tips for improving your content creation

The rise of content marketing has brought content creation to the forefront for all businesses. This makes it more important than ever to explore the best ways to create effective content.

The definition of effective content for every business may be different, but in general, it still has to bring you closer to your goals.

That’s why effective content has to resonate with your target readers.

Earlier this summer, I gave a presentation entitled “15 ways to improve your content writing” at the Summit on Content Marketing. Here are the first eight of those tips.

Set a writing process

For example, it might be helpful to dedicate a set block of time on your calendar for content writing, putting aside all distractions.

If you start to get stuck, it may be a good idea to stay away from the copy for a while and either take a break or have someone else read it for a fresh perspective.

Creative brainstorming

It’s not always easy to come up with a new content idea, and this can sometimes require some creative brainstorming moments with other team members.

Keeping a content calendar or notebook can help you organize all your ideas, ranked from best to worst – any of these can offer a new perspective on your content goals.

If you’re still struggling for content ideas, take a look at our 21 quick ways to find inspiration for creating content to help you with your next great post.

Grab the reader’s attention

Explore different types of content

Images

As 65% of people are visual learners, there is more chance your readers will notice your content if you pair it with the relevant images.

Infographics

This makes them a very useful addition to the promotion of your content, and it’s no surprise that marketers are using them more and more in their content marketing strategy.

Video

For example, we can use a short video to:

– share tips and “how-to” ideas

– build trust

– increase engagement

– add value

Remember, it’s not always necessary to hire a video producer to create short and entertaining videos that offer value to your audience.

GIFs

GIFs can help you to:

– show your brand’s personality

– divide large chunks of text

– explain a process

– tell a story

What all of these types have in common is the creative way to present content, reaching people who like consuming content in different ways.

This increases the chances for your audience to stay engaged and enjoy what you have to offer.

Decide on the ideal length for your content

According to Orbit Media Studios, blog content is actually getting longer year by year. In 2016 the average blog post length was 1054 words – up from 887 words in 2015.

This means that readers still value long-form content – provided that it’s interesting of course.

Of course, length alone won’t guarantee the success of your content.

You just need to find a balance between quantity and quality.

Aim for clear structure

Your readers will appreciate a piece of content that is clear and organized. There’s no need to suffocate your writing with big chunks of sentences.

Beware, though – too many bullet points can produce the exact opposite result.

Spend time on formatting your content

When it comes to formatting, one of the most important tips is to pay attention to headings.

Thus, if your headings are relevant and interesting, you’re also going to help your content rank well in search.

Set a goal for your content

Before you dive into content writing, it’s useful to set a goal of what you want to achieve with your content.

There are many ways to use your content. Not every post should serve the same goal and in fact, it’s useful to have a variety of content with different purposes.

For example, your latest post can promote your new product, but it’s probably not a good idea to do that with a series of ten posts in a row.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of this post, where we’ll look at seven more tips that can improve your content marketing.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/08/01/8-tips-for-improving-your-content-creation/ from Rising Phoenix SEO http://risingphoenixseo.blogspot.com/2017/08/8-tips-for-improving-your-content.html

0 notes