#might start tutoring Spanish and English online

[maigamal]

How Long Does It Take to Learn Arabic?

Arabic is a beautiful and rich language spoken by over 400 million people worldwide. Whether it's a desire to connect with Arabic-speaking communities, to read classical texts, or to understand the Quran directly, learning Arabic is a meaningful journey. For those wondering how long does it take to learn Arabic, the answer varies based on several factors, including individual goals, the dialect or type of Arabic chosen, the learner's native language, and the methods used for studying.

Factors Influencing the Time Needed to Learn Arabic

Type of Arabic Studied: Arabic has different forms, with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) used in formal settings like news, literature, and official documents, while local dialects vary greatly from country to country. MSA is often more straightforward for beginners, but conversational fluency might require learning a specific dialect, which adds time.

Previous Language Knowledge: Language background plays a role in the speed of learning. Native speakers of languages with a similar root, like Hebrew, might find Arabic easier to grasp than English speakers. Those who already know another Semitic language have an advantage since they are familiar with linguistic structures and patterns in Arabic.

Learning Goals and Depth: The learning time also depends on what level of Arabic you aim to achieve. For example, gaining conversational skills might be quicker than aiming for a scholarly understanding of classical Arabic or reading complex texts.

Practice and Immersion: Regular practice and immersion are vital in language acquisition. Consistently practicing Arabic—through conversation, reading, or media exposure—speeds up learning significantly.

Estimated Timeframes for Learning Arabic

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) classifies Arabic as a "Category IV" language for English speakers, which means it takes longer to learn compared to languages like Spanish or French. The FSI suggests around 2,200 hours of study to achieve proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking Arabic. For a committed learner who can study for about 10-15 hours per week, this translates to about 1.5 to 2 years to reach a solid intermediate or conversational level.

Tips for Effective Arabic Learning

If you’re ready to dive in, here are some practical ways to make progress in your Arabic learning journey:

Set Realistic Goals: Start with attainable goals, like basic vocabulary or simple sentences. Breaking down Arabic grammar, learning the alphabet, and mastering sounds unique to Arabic can build a strong foundation.

Practice Consistently: Regular engagement is essential. Daily practice, even if it’s short, reinforces learning better than infrequent, long study sessions.

Engage with Native Speakers: Conversation practice with native speakers is invaluable. This not only improves pronunciation and fluency but also makes learning enjoyable and culturally immersive.

Learn in a Structured Setting: While self-study is possible, a structured approach through a language course or tutor can make learning more efficient. Many online resources and dedicated websites like Shaykhi specialize in Quranic Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. Shaykhi offers a range of courses that cater to various levels, providing structured guidance, practice opportunities, and the chance to study under qualified instructors.

Learning Arabic for Quranic Studies

For those interested in learning Arabic to understand the Quran, a focused approach on Quranic Arabic is necessary. Quranic Arabic has a unique vocabulary and rhythm, which differs slightly from Modern Standard Arabic and various dialects. Studying with experts who specialize in Quranic language can provide a deeper understanding of religious texts. Websites like Shaykhi offer dedicated Quranic Arabic courses, helping learners connect with the text in its original language.

Enjoy the Journey

While learning Arabic may take time, it's a rewarding and enriching experience. Arabic not only opens doors to new cultural understandings and connections but also allows for direct engagement with rich historical and literary traditions. So, whether you’re learning to connect with Arabic-speaking communities, to deepen religious understanding, or simply to expand your linguistic horizons, remember that every bit of progress you make brings you closer to this rich and expressive language. With patience and dedication, reaching proficiency is well within reach.

[bring-us-back-light]

unfortunately ime this really is a fake it till you make it. which sucks, and isnt helpful. i have fully failed to study French because i was too anxious to talk to anyone.

what i can muster for tips are:

- recognize that making mistakes happens for everyone at every language level, and the result of making a mistake in conversation like u said (i.e. non medical discussion) ranges from literally nothing, to you saying a funny mistake and making a patient laugh.

on that note, i recognize 'being laughed at' is often the peak fear. but id encourage reframing it as a positive. if you ask someone for their rope, and you say ropa instead of cuerda and end up telling them to give you their clothes, thats a funny statement. its not them laughing at you, and its great to make people laugh.

and on the other end, either they understand you and dont say anything (or maybe ask if you want corrections) or they dont understand and have to clarify. people tend to love attempts to speak their language, particularly spanish speakers. they will still be glad you tried even if it falls back to english.

- start slow and planned. pick one phrase, practice it, check your pronunciation with a tutor, and start sprinkling that into your conversations. as you get more used to that, hopefully it will make saying less planned things easier. a middle step here would be practicing building blocks like directions. so you can tell ppl how to find a bathroom from wherever they ask. the whole phrase isnt practiced, but you can be confident about 1st 2nd 3rd left right and door and know youll put them together right.

- find other safer environments to practice in. practice with a tutor, with a study group, online. start journaling about your day and find a tutor or language exchange partner to review and correct it and learn from that. work your way to bigger and less familiar groups until youre comfortable at work/in public.

- try to narrow what the actual concern is. it might not just be one, but whats the biggest road block first? do you doubt your vocab? your grammar? your pronunciation? something else? try working on those things in isolation, or find ways to practice in a live setting with as narrow/secure a scope as possible. like, if ur biggest fear is ur gonna use false cognates, or otherwise use wrong words, drill your vocab more, pick a small subset. use those. if its grammar, pay attention to which constructions give u trouble and seek more examples in context, find a different explanation, or ask a tutor or community for help. and if its pronunciation or listening comprehension, then practice those things in isolate.

try to do live practice with the other stuff. e.g. do the journal idea to practice ur vocab and grammar while drilling your pronunciation in isolation. so you have more secrutiy in the other stuff when its time to try speaking irl

idk, i hope something in here might be helpful

Does anyone have advice for getting over the embarrassment of speaking a language you aren’t good at with other people? I’ve studied Spanish, I know a little bit of Spanish, I am trying to learn more Spanish specifically for healthcare providers, but when I’m faced with an actual primarily Spanish speaking patient at my job, I get so nervous and tongue tied I’m like “maybe ‘buenos noches actually means I’m gonna kill you with morphine….i better stick entirely to English.” I know it’s the embarrassment! I don’t wanna sound stupid! And because so many of my patients understand a little English, I can usually muddle thru basic conversations relying on them. Which sucks! I feel bad about that! I’m like “I don’t want to talk in a language I’m not fluent in, so I’ll make them talk in a language I’m not fluent in.”

Also to be clear, this is all for stuff like “do you need the bathroom” or “do you want a pepsi from the kitchen.” I will always use an interpreter for anything more complicated than basic needs. But it’s a pain in the ass to use the interpreter ipad, and no one likes it, including the patients. It’d be nice to use it less and to be able to have more of a rapport with my patients. The foundation of my whole nursing practice is casual small talk with patients to learn more about them and their needs, and my Spanish speaking patients don’t get that.

(Neither do my patients who speak Russian or Taishanese or Vietnamese or but like. I don’t expect myself to learn every language in the world. Right now I just want to learn the language I theoretically kinda learned.)

I’ve been really working on pushing myself to try to speak more Spanish, at least a little bit, but I just have this mental block that I can’t push thru. It’s like all the social anxiety I’ve learned to otherwise cope with or moved on from settled entirely in my insecurity about my language skills. It’s nuts. Then I feel guilty about it which makes the block bigger which I feel guilty about, do you see the pattern here. Has anyone have any advice or resources? Not just for learning the language—I would also really appreciate those—but specifically dealing with this language embarrassment?

[bigbadripley]

Chemistry - Ⅰ - Volunteer Hours

Pairing: Valkyrie x Bisexual!Female!OC Appearances: Student!Valkyrie, Professor!Tony Stark, Student!Yelena Belova

Summary: Reese Majors decides to join a tutoring program hosted by her favorite professor for volunteer hours. She gets set up to tutor a girl named Valkyrie Brunnhilde, a bombshell she’s never met before. Reese finds herself in a world of trouble as she grows closer to the once stranger that she is meant to help with her classwork. 

+18 | third-person omniscient | 1,618 words | Fluffy | College AU | Warnings: Light swearing, mutual pining

A/N: I write new warnings for each part of the story. You are responsible for your own consumption of stories online. DL;DR. As always, if you find anything that needs to have a warning or I mislabeled something, please let me know~ 

Chapter list (ongoing)

"Good evening, Reese." Professor Stark greeted as the girl with the strawberry blonde hair walked briskly past him. Reese had one thing on her mind, and her focus on getting to it almost caused her to ignore her favorite professor entirely. 

"Evening, Professor!" She called back after processing what he had said. She felt it was necessary to reply, not only because it would be rude not to, but because she was his star pupil. 

The chilly air on campus mixed with her rushing movements was enough to make her nose burn. She just needed to get to the library, where her new project awaited. Reese was excited but knew it might not last long once she gets her volunteer hours in for graduation. 

She burst through the double doors of the stone building that the students knew as the library and past the books and bookshelves. The place smelled like old literature and printer ink, which had a nostalgic feeling behind it for Reese. 

Upon spotting the sheet of paper hanging on a lone pillar in the middle of the room, she scurried over and examined it to see if she made the cut:

Tutors:

Peter Parker - Mathematics and History

Jane Foster - Astronomy, Physics, English

Reese Majors - Sciences, Mathematics, Spanish

Harley Keener - Engineering and Robotics 

Please see Professor Stark for details. Office hours 8 AM to 5 PM. 

Once her name was spotted, she immediately turned back around and through the doors again, hoping she might still be able to catch Stark walking back to his office. Reese picked up her pace, running like the former track star she was until she eventually caught back up to Stark. 

"Professor!" She called out between heavy breaths. Man, I need to run more. She thought to herself. Stark pivoted around to face her with a stack of papers in his arm. 

"I knew you were going to the library. You could have just stopped me before, Reese." He laughed, shuffling through the papers until he found the one he needed and pulled it out, handing it to her. "Your orders. You start with two mentees, who have already picked the times that work best for them, and when they understand the subject you're mentoring them in, you sign off on them and I assign you a new mentee. Easy, peasy." He explained. 

Reese scanned the paper for a moment, not fully absorbing the information before thanking Stark and running back to her dorm. 

As always, Reese's roommate Yelena was sprawled out on her bed when Reese arrived. 

"You been doing cardio?" The Russian woman asked, pointing out Reese's shortness of breath. Reese sat at her small desk and skimmed the page that her professor gave her, quickly trying to work out who she was starting with: 

Valkyrie Brunnhilde, Monday and Tuesday, 4 PM, Chemistry

Thor Odinson, Wednesday and Thursday, 3 PM, Calculus

The day was Sunday, so her first tutoring session would be the following day with someone she had never seen or heard of. 

"Who the hell is Valkyrie Brunnhilde?" Reese asked Yelena, still trying to fully catch her breath. Yelena cocked her head,

"Dunno, why do you ask?"

"I'm supposed to be tutoring her and- fucking Thor, of all people- but I have no clue who she is," Reese explained, falling deeper into her desk chair. 

Yelena began to chuckle, "You gotta tutor Thor? That's amazing. It'll be so awkward for you!" She exclaimed. Reese was fully aware of how awkward it would be for her, the only thing that would be worse was if she was tutoring that dumbass Loki or even her old flame Barton. In that respect, she was thankful it was merely Thor. 

"It could be a lot worse, but I'm still not happy," Reese stated aloud. Her roommate thought for a moment before agreeing, 

"Da, it could be. Why even take on this program? You're busy enough already." 

Reese realized how crappy she was about to sound, but if she couldn't be honest with Yelena, she might as well throw in the towel on their friendship. "I need the volunteer hours, and I'm ahead, so I have time to kill." She says with a shrug. 

The blonde rolled her eyes, "Right, it's easier counting on your fingers how many spare hours you have in one day. It's eight, for sleep." She continued to laugh. Reese wasn't offended, as she knew she put herself in this situation. 

Reese sat at a round table in the library getting everything set up and spread out for her first tutoring session. She was nervous not knowing who it was that she was meant to be working with, but excited to be doing it all the same. The only problem was: her mentee was late.

She was bookmarking the pages that Doctor Banner was going over in his chem class when she heard a voice speak up from behind her,

"Excuse me, are you Reese?" The English accent asked. Reese turned her body and was immediately stopped dead in the water by the most gorgeous girl she had ever seen.

It was as if the world stopped turning. This couldn't be my mentee, could she? She's insanely hot! Reese thought to herself, studying her perfect face, long braids, plump lips, and big brown eyes. Reese was always a sucker for brown eyes. Suddenly even more nervous, she responded. 

"I am, yes. And you're Valkyrie?" Reese asked, trying not to trip over her words. The woman smiled at her and Reese's heart froze at the sight: she was simply stunning. 

"Yes, but my friends call me Val." She informed, taking the seat next to her. Val took to Reese right away. When she first entered the library, she saw the nearly-red-headed girl with glasses and hoped, even pleaded with the Gods that she was her tutor. Even if Reese wasn't into women, it would still be a treat to Val's eyes. 

In all of Reese's time at this university, she had never seen Val and was quick to find out why through bits of conversation: she was a transfer student and a sophomore, and ultimately, Reese didn't get out nearly enough to notice this severely captivating woman. Now, she needs help in chemistry: a subject Reese excelled at. Reese was smitten from the jump.

"You sure you need help with this? It seems like you have it down already!" Reese said, complimenting Val for understanding more than she let on. Val gasped,

"Seriously, I don't understand half of this stuff! You just caught me on a good day, I guess." She joked. Reese couldn't imagine Val having a single bad day. Val's laugh was enough to make her nearly double over with heartburn and her smile was so goddamn sweet it made her jaw hurt. 

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service. Reese thought of the Shakespeare quote. She was never sappy or cheesy with romance or this drawn to anyone. She couldn't even remember having this feeling when she first met her ex-boyfriend. Yet, she was always a sucker for pretty girls. Oh, the bisexual woman's plight. 

Reese feared that if she were to continue getting lost in her thoughts, she might not be of much help to the beautiful Val but they got a lot done for their first session, though it seemed time went by far too quickly.

The pair parted ways after exchanging numbers, declaring that they would see each other tomorrow. Reese made it back to her dorm, where Yelena asked how it went right away. She explained how it went, sparing details that she wanted to keep for herself.

The following evening, Reese was in the library again, setting up at the same table as before. She was anxious to see Val again and planned on getting to know her better, in between actual tutoring. Once again, Val was late, but Reese didn't mind. 

Once Val arrived, they got to work rather quickly. This, in part, was because Reese wanted to have some time to spare for banter. They were going over the study guide for the upcoming chem exam and to no surprise, Val understood it a lot better after a single explanation. 

"This stuff really wasn't clicking for me before when Banner was teaching it. You're good at this." Val complimented Reese, which made her blush and quickly divert her gaze. God, could I be any more transparent? Reese thought to herself. 

Though it was difficult for Reese to read Val, Val was taking an internal inventory of how much having a pretty girl talk her through things improved her ability to learn. They continued to sit closer and closer together as the lesson went on, each hovering over the packet and Val's body nearly hugging into Reese's. 

Reese wanted to kiss Val, but the idea of even attempting froze her in place. What if she's not into me? What if she's not into women at all? She thought to herself. Val had the same thoughts scrolling through her head like the end credits of a movie. 

Val would have kissed Reese if she was sure. There was a hint that Reese might be okay with it, but something in the girl’s deep green eyes told Val to take her time. She wasn’t against the idea of getting cozy with her tutor, but it appeared that Reese had obvious boundaries. That, or she was nervous. 

"Alright, ladies. Closing time." The library aid spoke up, spinning a keyring around his finger. Reese and Val were both startled out of the moment and backed off from each other, disappointed with their time being cut short. 

Reese hadn't even realized what time it was. She couldn't even remember if they made it through the lesson plan fully or not. She just knew that her time with Val was cut short and she couldn't bring herself to sort out another time to see her before they declared that they would see each other next week. 

[vortahoney]

I feel like I should open commissions. Or something. My job is only scheduling me six hours a week right now and I fully cannot pay for school on six hours a week at 10/hour

[stardustedknuckles]

I think...I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take an online course to learn to teach English abroad and go do it. Rest under a cut cuz I got rambly and excited.

I always wanted to be a teacher, but not here in America and certainly not in Oklahoma. I've seen how teachers are treated, I don't have it in me to do grad school right now or even a teaching certificate (because again, nothing I would want to teach here would require less than grad school) and best of all, a lot of what I'd be teaching involves grammar around the middle school level. Even though I'd be teaching it likely to young learners (to start) little kids through middle school is exactly what I want to teach (or college. see: grad school). I love language arts and I love working with kids, and I have wanted to try and make a life in another country since before I even understood how fucked I was in this one. I could work in Europe and not have to worry about whether I look feminine enough or fit in with the staff or kiss up to the principal enough, I could work to stay in one place and get on with an actual school and eventually live there for real - the idea of going to a different country every year seems exhausting and not great for long-term savings. I'm ready to dig into a career that will take care of me in a place that will take care of me.

And I think that starts with this course. I thought eight years ago that I would be happy if I could find a way to make tutoring a full-time job, and I don't feel much differently today. I'm good at explaining things and I want to do that. I want to be every cool language teacher I ever had, especially for people who struggle with it. Tutoring Spanish was the highlight of my college experience. I didn't get to take a college English grammar course until senior year as an elective and I loved it. This is as close as I can get to the middle school version of me who was deeply saddened when English and Language Arts stopped being two different classes.

It just sounds too good to be true, but I have been thinking on it and looking into it for months now. I even have a place to stay in Sweden while I'm looking for work, because somehow the connections I made in the fucking beauyasha fandom have allowed the stars to align in this way. If I think about that too long I'll just start crying lol. I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for anything past the course until I remembered - once I have that certification, I can teach English online for supplemental income and keep the job I have. That's huge, and realizing that was what allowed me to say okay, this is real and we can do it. My credit card won't like it but we can do it. The alternative is getting a second job and that's not realistic in small town Oklahoma, and also I think it might kill me to try. I don't want to put myself through so many paces trying to do this that I am too burnt out (again) to enjoy succeeding.

Thanks for listening. I just needed to actualize it and make it real to myself. I've done the research, it's not a scam, it's a real thing people do, and I am more than good enough and excited enough to do it well. I'm not great at wanting things and even worse at imagining having them, so this is a pretty big deal.

[rigelmejo]

notes to myself basically, on how i study languages (so far, there’s always gonna be better ways i don’t know of yet lol):

learn 500-1000 common words asap, read a grammar guide that provides overview asap - like the first 3 months. If a full grammar guide doesn’t exist that’s concise (hi japanese ;-;) find a basics grammar guide at least and read that (pimsleur, websites, genki, tae kim, youtube). Specifically within the common words, at least look at the ‘300 common word tumblr to say things’ language vocab list. That list is good for me starting some kind of active vocab/expressing ideas.

if its got a different writing system, look up the alphabet in 1st month (kana for japanese, cyrillic alphabet for russian etc, pinyin for chinese). listen to pronunciation guides, and write and/or mnemonics to learn those asap.

if its got characters (like chinese, japanese), learn 300-500 super common characters ASAP (first 5 months). 

After month 3, learn up to 2000 common words (hi srs flashcard programs like anki and memrise, common word lists, graded readers), and up to 2000 characters. Not all these need to be done with srs flashcards/focused study, but get TO recognizing this many as soon as u can. Goal is get to this by month 8-10. But depending on how much i can overall understand without doing this, i may not learn All of these words by then (but ideally i should).

By 500-1000 words (and 500+ characters if needed), so after 3-5 months, start trying to immerse in what I WANT to do - so reading, watching (maybe listening, maybe games). I don’t have to do it much, but do it a bit to remember what I learned and also motivate myself to study more.

Months 5-8 somewhere between 1000-2000 words, start trying to write/say basic things to myself or on apps with others. Probably will be a mess, don’t have to do it much. Do it enough to have motivation to study more - see where I’m lacking skills. I may need more grammar explanation, or more vocab, or notice a big issue in my pronunciation etc.

Around month 8-10, around 2000+ words studied (although it may be less or more depending on what I’m comfortable with), ramp up immersion a lot. As soon as its mildly tolerable, ramp it up a LOT. Look up words when immersing as often or not often as desired, goal is to always follow at least the bare minimum main idea (and more details if possible/if I wanna put in the effort to look more up). Now I can start learning new words primarily from this. 

Reading skills - during immersion do intensive reading to learn more vocabulary quicker, extensive reading to improve overall comprehension. Do SRS flashcards/focused graded readers/word-list prep for stuff I read as needed, to speed up how much vocab I learn (if I’m learning too slow for my preference lol). Ways to make extensive reading easier: read graded readers, read show subtitles in target language while watching show, textbooks built to increase info taught in context, read stuff I’ve read translations of first, read stuff I have prior context for (I saw the show/heard already with english transcript etc), Listening reading method, read extensively what I’ve read intensively before etc.

Listening skills - start extensive listening to audio (for overall comprehension improvement). Start intensive listening where I hear words and lookup definition and/or learn word pronunciation with explanations. So start listening to audio flashcards for building a base of learned words/phrases (chinese spoonfed audio files, japanese core 2k audio, japaneseaudiolessons.com, SRS flashcards if they have audio only ones too, Coffee Break French, audio for Francais par le methode nature etc). To make extensive listening easier: start with watching/listening to shows I’ve already seen subs for, shows in general (visual context helps), comprehensible input audio (like comprehensible input french youtube, Learn Korean in Korean youtube, Dreaming Spanish youtube etc), listen with a transcript then listen without, Listening reading method, listen to things I have prior context for like audiobook of something i read/audio drama of show i’ve seen. Do some shadowing (shadowing audio flashcard files is easy and reliable tbh). 

Production skills (I am not here yet) - in general I’ve found making myself write more, talk more, to myself (like journals and practice convos) and to others, tends to improve my active vocabulary. Especially when I try to communicate about topics i’m bad at (so making myself look up those words and write/say them to put them back into active vocab). At this point I’m guessing more explicit grammar drill practice might help, people correcting me, shadowing a lot. Maybe practicing translating to that language/from it, to practice building active vocab? I’m not sure what will help most here tbh as I’ve never gotten far in this area. (For chinese, studying pronunciation more in depth and doing more listening/shadowing, and pronunciation apps, helped a lot with pronunciation itself but not active production yet). 

---

i’m currently mostly just doing 8-9 for chinese right now - building reading skills, building listening skills. Varying what i do. For production skills i’m guessing there’s a ton of varied things i can do right now or later, i’m just not entirely sure what they’d be. i have not tried/troubleshooted those skills much before when studying. All i know for sure is the more i make myself use the language in Varied topics, the more i get an active vocabulary (aka writing journals, making self-convos, and doing language exchanges help in a basic way). No idea how to improve grammar though in ways that’d work well for me. so right now my skills lean heavier toward comprehension, less skill in any production. Studying chinese taught me a lot about how i learn listening skills though...which is valuable as i barely had practice learning HOW to study them when i studied french or japanese before.

troubleshooting wise - this is the rough trajectory i went through in chinese, that has worked okay for me. looking at it helps me see where i ‘slowed down’ my progress in other languages i studied.

for french - i did very LITTLE listening practice, and had few ideas of how to work on it at the time. Now I would probably do listen with transcript then without, and shadowing, to work on listening skills. And watching shows/videos with subtitles (if possible), then without subs. And very little speaking practice - same deal as listening, i did a little at some point realizing it was a weak area but not enough work on it. I also did very LITTLE production practice like language exchanges. i had few reasons to produce language, and so the few times i needed to i could mostly rely on super common words or look things up when writing. i know i’d need to do more to work on production. so i was very unbalanced - large reading comprehension, low pretty much every other skill.

for japanese... i did a lot in retrospect i wish i’d redone different. and i do it different now. i did not read/watch a grammar guide - and i still freaking need to (or at least get clear grammar exposure like nukemarine’s LLJ course’s tae kim portions). japanese has grammar i find very hard to figure-out through exposure so this holds me back a lot. and lack of immersion to both motivate me to study MORE and to practice reading/listening skills. ALSO lack of common words - i learned like 800 hanzi rough-meaning through RTK, and maybe 500 words in genki... and no wonder it wasn’t enough lol! i think nukemarine helped back years ago, because it forced me to study grammar and vocab, listening and reading, in a structured way (similar to how genki helped me in the very start before i quit using it). and japaneseaudiolessons.com helped because it made me practice listening and gave me comprehensible listening with definitions. that in combo with me really starting to immerse and TRY to read/listen at year 2+ is when i finally made some progress because i was doing things that work for me - finally. and now that i’m coming back to japanese, i’m starting to apply all those things again that were finally working. 

---

anyone have any tips on how to improve production skills? Both active vocabulary, and how to both practice speaking/writing broadly AND how to fix grammar errors. 

For active vocab and general writing/speaking I know just talking more/writing more helps. But I can only tend to catch grammar errors if I run it through a translator first to compare how the translator phrases it to how I did (which can create a LOT of errors if the translator is Wrong), or if someone corrects my grammar error (which relies on other people - and preferably a tutor since i dont want to bother people who aren’t paid to correct - so what can i do on my OWN?). 

The big thing is with grammar, I can only think to either go through beginner courses Again from the start and do the writing drills and copy the patterns to internalize them? So I could correct my basic writing/speaking but not necessarily when I start speaking/writing creatively, unless I find textbooks/workbooks that eventually go into intermediate material (and of course finding textbooks/online exercises that provide correct answers so i can compare my attempts to the correct ones). Aside from either a tutor, or trying to find well made free online courses with exercises with answers provided, i’m not sure how to improve grammar production. If I write out sentences i read, would that internalize being able to ‘copy their grammar correctly’ when i write? if i shadow correctly said speeches/videos, would that help drill ‘correct grammar’ when speaking? (And be less boring then doing FSI speech drills). Basically I’m trying to find some ways (creative or not) to improve grammar in production. Improving active vocabulary seems pretty straightforward to me (make myself use it, look up words until they come natural to me - but if u got any other fun ways to improve active vocab i’d love to hear!). But I don’t know how to improve grammar when you are NOT in a class structure, have no teacher/tutor, and already have a base level of comprehension. As in like? I can read fine, but when writing I can’t tell if what I produce is grammatically correct or not - and again I can run it through a translator sometimes to try and ‘check’ but since translators make errors, my ‘corrected example’ isn’t always reliable to use as something to emulate for ‘correct form.’

[wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i]

Polish update!

Today, I started to buckle on my desire to learn this language. I had a few reservations about not being able to find the resources I needed, the practicality of this language in the United States, and just personal reasons as well. I thought that it was too hard, but I must have been talking about another girl because this girl can do hard things.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's what I did today:

1. I got my polish workbooks in the mail early today. One of them, Beginner's Polish by Ewa Wanasz-Bialasiewicz, is a bit thinner than the other. However, it does appear to be very useful. It's from 1995 😂

It's vocabulary heavy, has a good summary and simple explanation of grammar rules, and great conversation examples.

The other book, Polish: A Complete Course For Beginners by Teach Yourself, is much thicker. This book will likely be the most helpful as it is an actual course on learning polish complete with units, vocabulary, quizzes and commentary. I think I'm really going to enjoy this one!

2. I went to Barnes and Noble and found a singular book on Poland in the travel section. I went to the language sections and they did not have anything on Polish.

Out of ALLLLLLL these books, they had nothing in Polish. 😐

Anyway, I ran over to the travel section and did find this!

It only cost me $25 🙃 but whatever. It's the best I'm clearly going to get where I live (an honestly, unfortunately online too). I learned quite a bit about Poland from just a few pages though.

The bit about Easter eggs surprised me. I knew it was a Ukrainian thing to do elaborate Easter eggs (and I think some parts of Germany do this too but I'm not 100% on that), but I didn't know that Poland did it as well.

Very fun fact!

Anyways, onto #3.

I got more study aids! Sticky notes, page markers, highlighters and my official Polish journal. I'm super excited to take notes in this journal because it's actually gorgeous and so, so me.

4. I will be switching Polish tutors, and I think I'm going to go with this one girl who speaks the language natively, seems to have really good English (wouldn't be judging if she didn't, but I get confused a lot so I need to be able to communicate in English to make sure I understand). I was nervous about switching to her because she's really pretty and kind of close in age to me 😂😂 but I talked to her and she seems super nice, so I'm going to give her a try and see how it goes. I think having a tutor who is close in age to me might be better because I can become friends (as much as one does with a tutor) with her, and I can also learn to speak it the way young people speak it rather than the way older folks speak it.

5. I worked on Duolingo as usual. Still working toward a 30 day streak.

6. Learned two new idioms. "Rzucác grochem o sciane." The e at the end of sciane has the little round thingy on the bottom. The s has an accent. It means "throwing peas against a wall". I don't feel like writing out the polish phrase, but the other one was "thinking of blue almonds," which is supposed to be an idiom for day dreaming. I love it, but it's not half as entertaining to me as the Spanish version which literally translates to "thinking of the immortality of the crab" 😂😂😂

Notes:

It's easy to get discouraged with this language, but that only makes it more fun. I plan to work more on learning grammar and vocabulary while I wait for my first tutoring session with my new tutor.

Goals:

Establish a study routine.

Sticky notes.

Translate one poem from Polish to English as best I can.

Study my flashcards!

[language-sanctuary]

Jobs for Language Enthusiasts

As a language university student I am always asked "What jobs can you apply to?" and for so long I didn't have a concrete answer. Here are many job positions and freelance jobs you can do as a language enthusiast. 

First of all, here are some questions you should ask yourself:

Are you good with large groups of people or do you prefer to connect individually with a person?

Do you like traveling and would work well remotely? Do you prefer having a set routine? 

Would you be willing to get a teaching degree or seminar? 

1. TEACHER: most teaching positions require proof that you can speak the language and a teaching degree or a certification course. 

Classroom tutor: This one I’d consider the most rigid. You have a set schedule and you must attend your classroom, being in a language school or a public or private school, according to that schedule. Most times you have to work with a premade program or be able to provide your own program to the administration. on a weekly or monthly basis. This is best for people who can control a large group. 

Private tutor: it tends to have more leeway with qualifications and many times you’ll need administration skills as a freelancer if you aren’t working closely with a program or service. If you work better with a small group of people this might be best for you! 

Online tutor: this is basically the same as private tutoring but the advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your preference) is that this can be done from wherever since it tends to be remote! You must be able to translate your knowledge through the computer and become familiar with a platform or multiple platforms for classes or resources. Also requires freelancing skills. 

2. INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR: many people tend to mix up the two and a good way to tell them apart is to remember that an interpreter works with the speaker or the spoken word, and a translator works with the writer or the written word. 

Interpreter: Interpreters usually are needed to form a bridge between the speaker and the audience. This can be helpful to speakers at conferences, news anchors, government announcements, court trials, even concerts! If you choose to further your education you can become a specialized translator in a certain field, like medical or legal. 

Translator:  their job consists of transmitting a written text from one language to another language. The translator can work remotely or not! They are usually paid for the whole project with a certain rate per word. People with a writing background could be good to translate works of literature and you could also become a legal or medical translator. 

3. WRITER FOR EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL: Have you wondered who makes the language books that you buy? People who have studied languages and have a metalinguistic understanding of it can choose as a career to create material for other language learners or even authentic material! This includes manuals, book series, and even children’s books! Usually, you’d have to work with a publishing house (although there are authors who self publish their books) and be paid by the project. (I guess I could be considered a writer of educational material for running this blog, and if you wanna support me here’s a link to do so! 

4. TOUR GUIDE: tour guides don’t necessarily have to be language enthusiasts but if you’re working on your own or with a company, there will always be tourists that don’t speak your language and you’ll be paid more as a bilingual or trilingual tour guide! 

5. DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION: the possibilities for this category are truly endless. You could work as a freelancer or not, you could work remotely or not, you could work with a small group of people or not. This includes being a conference speaker, podcaster, interviewer, cultural promoter, or even YouTuber! 

6. SERVICE OR ADMINISTRATIVE JOBS:  I worked as a representative at a company that will remain unnamed and I had a really bad time but hey! They did pay more to the people who answered calls in both English and Spanish than just people who spoke only Spanish. This doesn’t mean you have to answer phones all day, this includes managers of stores and even includes starting your own company that deals or ships to many countries and therefore needs your language abilities. 

I hope this helps you have an overview of the possibilities of language learning, there is truly something for everyone. Tell me if you have any other questions!

[innovativelanguagelearning]

10 Ways to Learn 34 Languages in No time

Have you ever wondered how some people can learn a language in one week? 

Well, most polyglots—people who speak several languages—start speaking new languages quickly thanks to a few but powerful tips.

Afrikaans       Arabics       Bulgarian       Cantonese

Chinese       Czech       Danish       Dutch       English

Filipino       Finnish       French       German       Greek

Hebrew       Hindi       Hungarian       Indonesian

Italian       Japanese       Korean       Norwegian

Persian       Polish       Portuguese       Romanian

Russian       Spanish       Swahili       Swedish

Thai       Turkish       Urdu       Vietnamese

1. Connect with language partners online.

One of the most common (and cheapest) language-learning tricks is to simply build a learning relationship with a native speaker of your target language; perhaps with someone who is also interested in learning your mother tongue.

2. Work on your Pronunciation.

A great way to correctly pronounce words in your chosen language is to use a voice dictionary. This will allow you to listen to automatic audio pronunciations of all the new expressions you learn.

3. Have a go-to Dictionary App.

Not only will a dictionary help you become successful in your chosen language, but it will also lift the vocabulary weight right off your shoulders. You will start to contextualize every word you use and train your brain to use it in real-life situations.

5. Use the Spaced Repetition Algorithm for memorization.

The Spaced Repetition Algorithm is proven to be more effective than traditional memorization methods. Using spaced repetition to learn new vocabulary words increases your ability to remember information in the long-term.

On our site you can use flashcards to improve your vocabulary skills. These flashcards will repeat as you need them so you can check back on words you have studied in 3 days, then 7, and then maybe 14 so you don't forget them.

6. Listen to audio clips in your chosen language.

Studies have shown that being exposed to any language's audio, even if you don’t understand what’s being said, can “make a huge difference” as it helps your brain adapt to new pronunciations and grammar structures.

You can get started on this without audio lessons. On our sites you will find clips recorded by native-speaking language teachers, along with flashcards, grammar explanations, cultural insights and much more for all your listening study needs.

7. Study grammar, only when necessary.

Most of us have studied at least one language at school, yet we are still unable to speak them. Why? Because academic systems are not built to teach you fluency and speaking, but they are built to teach you grammar for tests. Instead, to keep up motivation and see real results it's better to focus on the practical side of languages, real-life conversations. Learning the necessary grammar will then come progressively.

Keep a daily journal using the foreign vocabulary words you learned throughout the day. You can then ask your tutor, or teacher to correct your writing and spot any grammar rules you might have missed.

8. Take private language lessons online.

Worried about losing motivation while learning a foreign language? Then working 1 on 1 with a teacher is a must.

Let’s be honest: private language lessons are the only way someone will be truly disappointed when you do not finish your assignment. Your private tutor is focused on you and your language education, and not juggling at least a dozen students in multiple classes. Without that central focus, you might not learn your target language as fast as you can.

9. Change your language settings on your devices.

We spend a huge amount of time interacting with technology. Phones, computers, TV. To make the most out of the time you devote to these devices, a great idea is to switch your language settings to the language you’re learning.

At the beginning, you might need to translate a substantial amount of words into your native language to move on with almost everything you do, but since most of us know where certain apps and settings are located, you will slowly but surely start to memorize new vocabulary words

10. Stop worrying about making mistakes.

One of the biggest errors that can significantly slow you down is worrying about making mistakes.

To break this barrier, you might consider telling your language partners and teachers that you are open to any feedback or corrections on your grammar structure and pronunciation. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, you will learn from your mistakes and the feedback you get from them. Because of this you will be much less likely to make those mistakes in the future.

Want to Learn a new Language? We offer the biggest online library of lessons to learn 34 languages!

Click here to pick yours and start your FREE Lifetime Account!

[swearwolf-writes]

Teen Wolf 2020

it’s 2020 and corona is a bitch :) the wolves might not be able to get sick but they still wear their masks bcs they could still be carriers so *clears throat* WEAR YOUR MASKS Y’ALL!! this is very much a no one dies/everybody lives au :)

[CROSSPOSTED ON: AO3]

Scott McCall - age 26

this cute nerd. he studied veterinary medicine which takes about 4 years so he graduated in 2017 and works as Deaton’s partner at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. he’s dating Isaac (bcs he came back from France with Argent, remember) and Kira (she came back from the Skinwalkers in 2019 and has a proper grasp on her powers). sorry scalia shippers but it’s not really my thing-

Stiles Stilinski - age 26

NERD. anywho- FBI dork became an agent in 2019 whoo and lives in DC with Lydia, Derek and Braeden. he’s dating Lydia and Derek and things are pretty chill - he yells at arseholes who refuse to wear their masks bcs ‘it’s uncomfortable :(’ like bite me karen no one cares

Derek Hale - age 32

grumpy sourwolf actually knows how to smile!! who knew- he lives in DC with Stiles, Lydia and Braeden most of the time but he and Braeden travel often to fight butthead hunters who need to mind their own business. he’s dating Stiles and he and Braeden are engaged - it’s cute and they’re being dorks about it. he likes to complain that they’d be married by now if it wasn’t for freakin covid

Lydia Martin - age 26

your local genius banshee~ 🥰 still awesome, still a harbinger of death - so yk, the usual. bcs she had extra credits she started as a junior studying maths and graduates in 2016!! 🎉🎉 she moved to DC after she got some money together while working as a tutor - the quartet splits rent (but usually it’s just Stiles and Lydia splitting it bcs the other two don’t technically have jobs and yk Derek is an unsub and Stiles is in the FBI which Lydia finds hilarious). she teaches adults in the local community college and helps supernatural folk on the dl - she runs a grief counselling service at the same place for people who’ve lost someone. she’s also trying to get a degree to become a high school maths teacher and it’s a lot but she’s got it handled.

Allison Argent - 24

accidentally brought back from the dead by the Dread Doctors. everyone could not stop crying bcs she’s back baby!! she died in 2011 age 17 and came back in 2012 so she wasn’t dead long thankfully - wanted to kill Theo bcs he messed with her pack even he did bring her back. she’s a chimera now lads- she needed a kidney transplant when she was young which was why she was kept away from the family business. she was a werewolf-werejaguar chimera like Hayden but stayed a chimera. Chris and Isaac stayed home and bcs she and Isaac never actually broke up, they kept dating - she found it funny that Isaac and Scott were dating at this point,, meanwhile they were panicking wildly :) she went back to school and said she wasn’t dead, just in the hospital for a really long time. she joined Liam’s year and again, wanted to very badly throw hands when she found out about Monroe- she’s the coolest, like she has claws and bow and arrows

Malia Tate - 26

our girl went to France as promised and hooked up with plenty of hot French people *le eyebrow wiggle* she found her beau there in France and it was not a love at first sight sort of thing - she wanted to punch them in the face,, in their very pretty face- she was basically doing her own thing when she smells them, another bloody werewolf and like don’t get me wrong, she’s fond of werewolves, but bloody hell do they cause trouble. and they smell her too and it’s like ‘eh-?’ bcs werecoyotes aren’t so common as werewolves. and they’re just there in a club in Bordeaux and they’re sniffed each other out and they kinda just pause like huh- bcs they were were not expecting to see someone that pretty- but that’s not the point of course- they pretend to leave together and as soon as they’re out of sight from humans, they start fighting in an alley, as you do. it ends up with the wolf tasting the wall bcs who the hell are you- once they figure out they’re both just there to party, things chill and they see more of each other, naturally, it’s all just a big coincidence and doesn’t mean anything. and then they’re dancing and it doesn’t mean anything. and then they’re sleeping together and it doesn’t mean anything. except it does. and they don’t know when it became normal to cuddle or wake up together or have breakfast together but it just was. and when the cute werewolf (who I still don’t have a name for-) plans on moving to the next place, she comes with. the pack are happy for her and they usually road trip from place to place so when the pack comes to visit in Prague? it’s fun to say the least

Kira Yukimura - age 25

she came back from the Skinwalkers in 2019 and she and Allison became good friends. she kept going with school from home and is dating Scott. her powers are strong and when she sneezes bcs yk pollen or wtv, there’s sparks and it’s hilarious and Scott finds it adorable. she doesn’t really know what she wants to do yet and that’s cool of her

Erica Reyes - age 25

they thought she was dead- think again bitch, she slowed her heart rate down so they couldn’t hear and everyone thought she was dead - when the alpha pack got rid of her body and Allison found it, she told her to tell the others to pretend she was dead bcs of the Alpha pack - they beat the Alpha pack but she and Boyd hid with Satomi’s pack while that went down and helped generally after. she kept going with school and bcs she dipped for a while, ended in Liam’s year and eventually became a nurse in 2017. she works with Melissa McCall and joins for family dinner a lot.

Isaac Lahey - age 25

went to France with Chris Argent but kept going with his studies at Chris’ insistence. was dating dating Scott before he had to leave with Chris but they didn’t actually break up,, it was more ‘i’ll miss you :(’. came back to Beacon Hills when Chris came to help with the deadpool business and stayed bcs of Allison and Scott 💞 his studies were mostly uninterrupted and he studied law, becoming a lawyer in 2020!! so at least one good thing came of this infernal year- he wants to specialise in family law.

Vernon Boyd III - age 26

yea no, Derek didn’t mercy kill him bcs he was fine :) de nile ain’t just a river lads he went into hiding with Satomi’s pack and came back when the Alpha pack was dealt with. went back to school and ended up in Liam’s year. he joined the air force when he was 18 and finished his rotc training stuff in 2018 and it’s pretty alright - he’s a pilot but was discharged in 2019 bcs someone started with him and bcs they were a superior, he couldn’t say shit. so now he likes to wear ‘fuck the army’ and ‘fuck the air force’ shirt. he has mad respect for the people out there but the people in charge? fuck em

Aiden Steiner - age 27

he lives bitches 😎 Ethan had a silver chain on so he plugged the wound with it - it counteracted the oni poison and the chain started melting into the would (he had mild silver poisoning but he was fine). school was normal and now he’s an engineer, living in Beacon Hills. he and Ethan left for London for a while bcs that town was crazy af. while Ethan was very happy there, he missed home so went back. he got an online ordination and learnt Japanese bcs why not

Ethan Steiner-Whittemore - age 27

got married!! whoo 🎉🎉 Aiden officiated (this is 2018 btw) and it was cute. the whole pack was there and the wedding was in London bcs as quaint as Beacon Hills is 

‘i’m only planning on getting married once so this is gonna be awesome’ - Jackson Whittemore, 2017

he’s dramatic but yk Ethan was a blushing mess bcs ~life partners~ he’s soft y’all. he’s a primary school teacher in London and they’re part of the South London pack.

Jackson Steiner-Whittemore - age 25

also got married!! whoo 🎉🎉 ngl he’s lowkey a trophey husband/sugar hubby bcs he’s rich af - he does business with his dad but it’s not a big workload. he and Aiden want to adopt and yk being rich will hopefully help

Theo Raeken - age 25

ah yes, the absolute nightmare bi enby returns. (i hc him with he/they pronouns ✌🏽 as you do) so he successfully gained Scott’s trust and is part of the pack - yay! he and Allison have a sort of ‘you’re a bitch’ ‘no u’ *saves each others lives* relationship at this point - it took a while for Allison to warm up to him but he did save Liam’s butt several times so,, anywho, he’s still a werewolf-werecoyote chimera and he’s cool with it. he went to an online school and got his high school diploma - Liam then snuck him into the school and he signed the bookshelf bcs yea he didn’t graduate there but he did go there and now he’s graduated so yay. speaking of, he and Liam are dating, yea ik we been knew. they started dating in 2014 and Theo now works waiting tables at a local restaurants bcs he lives with Liam and his parents (you best bet that when they found out he was living in his car, they made him move in so he pays rent, not at their request but his). that was till 2017 and they moved out into an apartment together. Theo chips in on rent but it usually ends up being split 60:40 (Liam: Theo) so he cooks and cleans a lot,,, mainly bcs Liam can’t cook and does laundry like a maniac-

Liam Dunbar - age 24

this werepup is just as chaotic as always - he cannot be trusted with laundry bcs he doesn’t split colours from whites :) honestly it makes me wanna cry a lil bcs he can’t even fry eggs either- he has Theo to cook for him tho so that’s all good. he’s a history tutor for the high school students bcs he likes history and he knows the pain of high school- *shudder* he got an online Spanish and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) degree and is now teaching at Beacon Hills High but yk his first year teaching is all online bcs 2020-

Mason Hewitt - age 23

he’s Emissary to the pack when they don’t have Deaton *wipes tear* he’s all grown up- he went to UCLA and majored in biophysics and minored in LGBTQ studies (graduated 2017). he lived on campus (kept the bat next to his bed lmao) and videochatted with Liam almost everyday - he would visit almost every weekend even tho it’s a 6 and half drive but hey. he got an apartment near the uni where he and Corey lived after he graduated. they’ve been engaged since 2018 (it was actually the day after the Steiner-Whittemore wedding). he’s helping work on a new drug delivery system and they moved closer to Beacon Hills (Sacramento)

Corey Bryant - age 24

he also went UCLA, studying comparative literature and LGBTQ studies, and lived on campus (for 3 years before moving in with Mason in 2017) before graduating in 2018. they’re engaged and moved to Sacramento. he’s writing a novel that will thankfully have nothing to do with their confusing ass lives

Cora Hale - age 28

lesbian queen *bows* still part of her pack in Ecuador, South America - she’s got a lady lover who I call Rosa (affectionately nicknamed Rosalita). they met when she first got there age 12 (Rosa being 13 at the time). Rosa taught her Spanish  and made her feel like part of the pack - after all the Alpha pack stuff, when she went back with Derek and Peter, she didn’t realise how much she’d missed them- how much she’d missed her. Derek asks if that’s her girlfriend and she’s like ‘wha- o.o’ and Rosa just goes ‘yup - nice to finally meet you guys’. she still visits DC to see Derek and Beacon Hills to see Erica and Isaac. even tho she lives in a different continent, Peter still looks out for her, sending anonymous donations in Talia’s name to the areas surrounding her pack’s territory

Brett Talbot - 24

*singsongs* ~he did not die~ the car swerved out of the way and the pack took him to Deaton who burnt the poison out of him (it was a long and painful process but he’s fine y’all). he’s the new lacrosse coach at Devenford Prep and he and Liam have a (mostly) friendly rivalry :) he’s a single pringle not bcs of lack of dates but just bcs he hasn’t found the one yet

Lorilee Rohr - age 22

also did not die :) she finished high school (2015) and went on to studying at UC Berkeley (art practice and theatre and performance studies, major and minor), graduating in 2018. she and Brett moved once he reached age 18. she makes and sells art from home

Nolan Holloway - age 25

after proving himself, same as Theo, he was eventually accepted into the pack. he and Gabe were dating and that’s that so he did mourn him for a long while. he works with hunters on the dl, trying to stop them hunting the supernaturals - he’s flipped 23 away from the dark side by 2020. he and Liam are friends which took a while but Nolan has his back (like there was that one time someone from the lacrosse team said they weren’t gonna ‘follow some mongrel’ so he reminded them that Liam was co-captain and if they didn’t wanna follow him, they could kindly fuck off :)) he’s a simp and has a raging crush on Brett like me too bruh

~the end~ for now

[currentlylurking]

Phic Phight: Still Better Than Google Translate

Danny asks Vlad if he could teach him Russian. It gets… a bit out of control.

(Based on a Phic Phight 2020 prompt by @ecto-american)

(WC: 2389)

Still Better Than Google Translate

Vlad was decidedly impressed when he saw that his next appointment for the day was with Daniel Fenton. Typically, when the boy wanted to challenge Vlad’s latest ‘evil scheme’ he’d burst in and start shouting. This showed some forethought that had absolutely come from his mother’s side of the family.

“Daniel,” he said with a grin. “Please, close the door and have a seat.” Danny did, with a surprising lack of protest. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Danny took a deep breath in. Vlad wondered which of his so-called schemes Danny had uncovered this time.

“Will you teach me Russian?”

That… wasn’t any of them. “Excuse me?”

“Ugh, fine. Will you teach me Russian, please?” Danny huffed, crossing his arms.

Vlad had dreamed of the day Danny would ask him to train him since the boy turned him down that first time. As they grew apart, that dream had seemed more and more unlikely – and yet, here they were.

With one glaring flaw.

“What makes you believe I know Russian?” Vlad asked.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Uh, your name is Vlad and your ghost form looks like it crawled out of Transylvania? It’s not exactly calculus.”

“I believe the term is ‘rocket science.’”

“Whatever. Look,” Danny sighed, and ran a hand down his face. “I tried looking stuff up online, but then there was that whole thing with Technus and the duolingo owl escaping the internet, so that was a bust. I know you know it, and I know you want to teach me other junk, so will you do this one thing, with no strings attached, please?”

“Of course,” Vlad said automatically. “I’m just curious as to why you want to learn Russian.”

“…You have to know English and Russian to be an astronaut.”

Vlad smiled. “Of course. Clear your schedule for Monday after school, and enlist your little friends to handle any ghostly interference. We’ll meet at my mansion.”

“Wait, seriously?” Danny said, standing up. “You’ll do it? And you won’t be weird about it?”

“Of course, Daniel,” Vlad replied. “We’ll consider this a trial run so you can get a feel for my methods, and I can see how you learn best. It’s clearly not in a classroom setting, if your grades are anything to go by.”

“Annnd I am leaving now, goodbye.” Danny said, automatically switching to his ghost form. He floated out of the chair. “See ya, Vlad. You’d better not turn around and attack my dad after this.”

“I would never hurt my biggest political supporter,” Vlad said. “And use the door, Daniel. My assistant saw you come in.”

“Oh. Right.” He returned to his human form and dropped, landing on his feet beside the chair. “…See you Monday?”

“See you Monday, Daniel.” He waved the boy off, and waited until the door was closed.

He had much to prepare – namely, learning Russian.

Despite the weight Danny’s theory held, Vlad was not Russian. He was a third-generation American citizen, with ancestors on both sides of the family who had both come from western Europe, not eastern. His mother, allegedly, had simply been a fan of the name Vlad. Vlad himself was fluent in French and Spanish, due to the copious amount of time he’d had alone after his accident.

He wasn’t sure if he even knew anyone who spoke Russian.

.-.

Vlad had to scour half the Ghost Zone for the ghost he was looking for. Apparently, he’d been released from Walker’s prison and then moved his manor so he wouldn’t be disturbed. It was incredibly inconvenient.

After a few wasted hours, Vlad finally found the manor and invited himself in. The ghost met him in the foyer.

“Hello, Ghostwriter,” Vlad said.

“Get out of my house,” Ghostwriter said.

“There’s no need to be rude,” Vlad said, “I’m simply here in the pursuit of knowledge.”

“Knowledge for what? How to release more tyrants from prison? Get out before I turn you into the side character in an Agatha Christie novel.”

Vlad relented, and took a step back. He wasn’t sure how Ghostwriter knew about his quest for the ring and crown – but now was not the time to ask. “I wanted to ask if you knew of anyone who could teach me Russian.”

“Absolutely not. Go away.”

“Come now. I thought you wanted to spread knowledge.”

“Yes. The knowledge that I don’t want anything to do with hybrids again.” Ghostwriter said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If this results in anything of mine being broken, I will report you to the Observants for releasing Pariah. Why did you want to learn Russian? And why did you come to me, instead of any human tutor?”

“Daniel asked me to teach him.” Vlad said, and smiled at the other ghost. He did not smile back. “I had to agree. Our first lesson is on Monday.”

“So, you agreed to teach him a language you don’t know, and your first lesson is in four days.” Ghostwriter said, deadpan. “Impressive. You’re an idiot. You don’t need my help; you need a miracle. Have you tried tracking down a Timekeeper?”

“I don’t have time to chase down a fairy tale,” Vlad replied, and Ghostwriter rolled his eyes.

“Learning a language well enough to teach it in four days is a fairy tale. You’re an idiot.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve made your opinion of me crystal.” Vlad said. “What can you teach me within four days?”

Ghostwriter scoffed. “I won’t be teaching you anything. I don’t like you. I understand that you’re too fancy for words like that, so let me rephrase; I despise you. I find your personality and face revolting.”

“So you have said,” Vlad seethed. “I came here on peaceful terms. I am a very patient man.” Ghostwriter snorted, “but if this continues I will make you regret it.”

His threat was clearly effective, because Ghostwriter dropped the attitude. “You can’t learn a language in four days. That’s not physically possible. I could try and see if I know anyone willing to teach you the basics, but that’ll take a couple of days. I could trap you in a Russian novel and you can learn on the fly?” Vlad scowled. Ghostwriter shrugged. “Otherwise, I think your best bet would be some translator contacts and a lot of lying.”

“I’m not teaching Daniel through google translate.”

Ghostwrite took a long, unnecessary breath in. “These are a ghost invention. They don’t use ‘google translate,’ they use an actually functional language database created and catalogued by the Observants. Just – here.” He pulled a glowing contact case out of his jacket pocket and offered them to Vlad. “Just use these.”

Vlad grinned and took the offered artifact. “Thank you for your time,” he said. He left, feeling rather satisfied with himself.

On the other side of the closed door, Ghostwriter rolled his eyes. “What a dumbass,” he said. He’d have to get another gag gift for his brother now – and, much more urgently, move his manor once again.

.-.

“Megan?”

“Who even is that?”

“Redhead girl, freckles, glasses?” Tucker elaborated. “Kind of cute?”

“Obviously it’s not someone he doesn’t know, Tuck.” Sam said.

“That’s just what he wants us to think,” Tucker said. “What about Wes? That guy probably knows Russian.”

Danny swung his backpack over his shoulder and closed his locker door. “Who the heck is Wes?”

“Yeah, if you don’t know we’re not telling you.” Sam said, deadpan. She took a step back to avoid being hit by Danny’s overfilled backpack. “Seriously, Danny, is your tutor human or ghost?”

Danny gave a vague hum which, really, could have meant a lot of things.

“And he wonders why we’re concerned,” Tucker said dully. “Do I need to break out the boo-merang in case you get kidnapped?”

“…Potentially,” Danny admitted, “but I’m not leaving Amity, so I think it’ll be fine.” He checked his phone, “I have to go, guys, I’m gonna be late.”

“Don’t die,” Sam said.

“Don’t crash Duolingo by releasing an evil owl on us again,” Tucker said.

“No promises!” Danny called, already running out the door.

.-.

Vlad put in the contacts right before Danny phased through his door instead of knocking and managed to avoid jabbing himself in the eye. They got settled on either sides of a table, the spread of paper between them.

“Now,” Vlad said, and opened his own book. Beside the English word, he could see the proper pronouciation. “I thought it’d be beneficial to go over some basic sayings before we delve into the grammar. For example, ‘hello’ is pronounced ‘unbju.’” Ah, apparently the contacts helped with speaking as well. Fascinating.

Danny frowned. “I thought it was, uh,” he cleared his throat, “zdravstvuyte.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Vlad said. “It’s unbju. Repeat after me: unbju.”

Danny did.

Vlad grinned. “Very good.”

He’d have to pay the Ghostwriter back for the contacts – perhaps he could set the ghost up with some human publishers.

.-.

Danny phased through his sister’s door and flopped down on Jazz’s bed.

“Who’s there?” Jazz said, not looking back from her computer. “Oh, Danny? Thank you so much for knocking, come on in –”

“Does Vlad know Russian?”

Jazz looked back with a frown before she turned back to the computer. There were a few clicks. “The internet says no. Just English, French, and Spanish.”

“Ugh,” Danny groaned, putting his hands on his head. “Knew it.”

“Did you ask him to teach you?”

“He agreed,” Danny huffed. “Then what the hell was he telling me? We just spent the past few hours learning stuff like how I introduce myself with ‘yeban’ko maloletnee’ and how Mom’s ‘Baba jaga.’”

“I think that last one’s a type of witch that eats children,” Jazz said, and turned to face him. “That, at least, might be Russian?”

“Survey says: not comforting,” Danny propped himself up on his elbows. “Do you think it’s a ghost thing? Like, some sort of ghost language or whatever?”

“…Huh,” Jazz said, and tapped her chin with an uncapped highlighter. “It could be. But have you heard any other ghosts speaking in a weird language?”

“There was Wulf and Esperanto, and uh… nope. That’s it.” Danny groaned. “I could’ve been learning real Russian, and instead I’m stuck with stuff like ‘Jri govno i zdohni’ and whatever ‘Otlez’ gnida’ means because I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘goodbye.’”

There was a knock on the door. Both siblings automatically fell silent. Jazz looked Danny over, confirming that he was fully human.

“It’s open!” Jazz called.

Surprisingly delicate for a man who’d smashed a chair over a ghost owl less than a week ago, their dad slowly opened the door. “Hey, uh, Danno,” Jack said. “My Russian’s a bit rusty, but you were uh, saying so pretty harsh things there.”

Danny stood up. “You know Russian?”

“Those were Russian?” Jazz asked.

“Russian swears,” Jack said. “You know how your old Grandpa Fenton studied languages, I picked up some from him. Why, Danno? You looking to learn?”

“You need to be fluent in both English and Russian to be an astronaut.” Danny said, “Can you teach me dad, please? I’ll do all my chores on time and get home an hour before curfew every night!”

Jack laughed and clapped Danny on the back. He nearly fell over. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Danny-boy! I’ll have to brush up, but I’ll see what I can do. And hey! If you decide you don’t want to be a spaceman, it’s great for catching ghosts!”

Danny heard a distant, ominous hoot and had to disagree.

.-.

Vlad jabbed his thumb into his eye. Durak neschastnyi, he thought, which was a horrible sign. It meant this was spreading.

He’d tried to pull the contacts out after the lesson was finished. When he’d had difficulty, he’d decided it wasn’t a major issue. He’d had an important video conference, which halfway through this cursed artifact had ruined his business deal. Now, he couldn’t get it out. Contacts were supposed to be removable! When he found Ghostwriter… oh, nu vse, tebe pizda.

His wall exploded. Danny had returned.

“You taught me the wrong Russian!” Danny said, and threw his hands in the air. “Dude, what gives? I came to you nicely, why’d you have to – why is your hand in your eye?”

“Past’ zabej, padla jebanaja,” Vlad growled, whatever that meant.

“Rude.” Danny said. “Dude, I already know you don’t know Russian. Turns out my dad does, though.”

Jack? That Balvan? “Poydi k chertu,” Vlad said.

“Yeah, yeah, bless you. Anyway, if you want to learn and need a study buddy, then I’m willing to pretend that this,” he gestured to Vlad, “didn’t happen. Also stop with the eye thing dude, that’s weird.”

“Otlez’ gnida,” Vlad growled.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘goodbye’ to you too. I’ll go.” He held up his hands, “Once you say something in English. Like a cheesecake swear or something. I get it’s another language and all but dude, this is weirding me out.”

Vlad huffed, and grabbed a piece of paper. He scribbled a simple message on it – Find Ghostwriter.

Danny took it and raised an eyebrow. “Uh,” He turned it back to Vlad. He’d written in English, and somehow it had ended up in the Russian alphabet.

“Ti menia dostal,” Vlad growled.

“Yeah, now I’m kind of worried.” He waved a hand in Vlad’s face. “Hey, Vlad? You understand me, right?” Vlad smacked it away. “I think that’s a yes. Is this a ghost thing? Nod if it’s a ghost thing.”

Vlad nodded.

“…A normal ghost thing or –” Vlad shook his head. “Oh. Yikes. Well, have fun with that!” He started to fly out the hole he’d left in the wall – Vlad grabbed him by the ankle.

Ghostwriter was a zjulik and he would pay!

.-.

Ghostwriter sat down with a nice book on his sofa, a steaming hot cup of coffee beside him. Today was a good day. Plus, he really liked the location his lair was in now – it was close enough to Undergrowth’s garden that he could get fresh beans! Really, today was a very good day.

And then his door was kicked in.

“Ghostwriter!” Phantom yelled.

“Popal!” Plasmius screamed.

Ghostwriter took a sip of his coffee and set his book down. “Ah,” he said, “shit.”

***

Prompt: Astronauts have to know English and Russian. In hopes of getting ahead of the game, Danny asks Vlad if he could teach him Russian.

No, I don’t know how I got this from that either. I’ll reblog this in a second with a link to where I got all the russian swears from, so feel free to dig through that.

[smileystudies]

Five tips to write better papers in Spanish

With a new semester coming up, I thought I’d share a some tips for getting your Spanish writing to the next level, whether you’re going to be writing your first or twenty-first Spanish essay next semester. A lot of these are strategies I use myself, and when I share them with my students (I tutor Spanish at my college and help with a lot of papers) they always seem to find them useful so I hope you do too! 😊✨

1. don’t be afraid to outline in your native language. Odds are, you’re probably doing this already. You can outline however you want, so long as your ideas are organized enough that, when it’s time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys), all you need to focus on is choosing the right words. If you draft your thesis statement in your native language, don’t get stuck on the exact phrasing when you put it into Spanish. The danger is that you’ll struggle to say something that doesn’t quite make sense in Spanish, so your paper might be difficult to understand and therefore grade. You can play around with structures or phrases you know and see how close you can get. If you are 100% committed to your phrasing but are struggling to get it right in Spanish, try DeepL instead of Google Translate. My translator friends introduced me to it and it always gives me much more natural sentences.

2. lift academic terms from your sources. One time a professor for a Spanish seminar (the highest level Spanish classes at my college) straight-up told me she wanted to see five terms from the reading in my midterm essay. Challenge yourself to do the same! Verbs, adverbial phrases, adjectives, nouns...everything is fair game. If you’re not working with readings on your current assignment, find any sort of reference and choose a few terms from that. For instance, if you’re writing a short story, look up a short story online and use short phrases that “pad” the writing, like “Érase una vez” (Once upon a time). A few of my personal favorite academic-style phrases I’ve learned like this are:

al hacerlo - in so doing or “in doing this”

carecer de - to lack

circunscribirse - to be confined to specific borders

conllevar - to entail, imply

destacar - to highlight or emphasize

encajarse con - to agree with, as in an argument (with the preposition de is a slightly different meaning, so be careful!)

hacer cruces con - to intersect with 

lo dañino que es - how damaging or harmful something is

plantear - to pose or suggest, as in an argument

3. mix up your connectives. Using words like también, entonces, además, luego, en conclusión, primero, siguiente etc is great, especially if you’re just starting to write in Spanish. However, there are loads more connectives out there and sprinkling a few in will really help your writing look more polished! Here a full list, and some ideas for how to mix it up: 

instead of también: aún, incluso, además, en adición, asimismo, igualmente

instead of entonces: a continuación, así que, por (lo) tanto

instead of porque: puesto que, ya que, dado que, debido a, por consiguiente

instead of pero: no obstante, sin embargo

4. don’t be afraid of the passive voice. At least in American high schools, English teachers caution us to avoid using the passive voice (e.g. “the door was opened by her”) at all costs. While it’s true that you want your academic writing to be active and make strong claims, the passive voice is incredibly useful--and in Spanish, it’s not something to shy away from! The impersonal se is a great way to sound more professional in your writing:

En Cien años de soledad, se utiliza el motivo del tiempo cíclico para romperse con las nociones eurpeas del tiempo.

If you’re not familiar with it, the impersonal pronoun se here has a meaning more along the lines of “one uses the motif” or “the motif is used.” It’s super elegant IMO and I miss it a lot when I’m writing in English 😅

5. lean away from using ser as much as you can, especially in topic sentences. There’s no denying that ser is an incredibly useful verb. However, a lot of the time you can make your writing stronger and tighter (i.e. neater or more succinct) by looking for different verbs instead. Here’s an example:

a.  La imágen del agua en esta película es importante porque enfatiza la feminidad de los protaganistas.

b. La imágen del agua en esta película enfatiza la feminidad de los protaganistas.

Basically, when you find yourself using ser in a topic sentence, you need to ask yourself, “What claim am I making?” In the example above, I realized I actually was actually trying to make a point about the effect of the movie’s imagery. The porque here is another good hint that I don’t need the ser. It’s just softening my claim--and you always want to be bold when you’re writing! This means that a sentence like (b) is much stronger than (a). 

6. you got this. I promise that any mistakes you make are NOT a reflection of your worth as a writer, student, or person. So go ahead and turn on spell check, assert your opinions, and ¡no te olvides diviértete mucho! 🎉💃🏽

[claudiafm]

hello~! my name is clover, and let me introduce you to my girl Claudia! you can reach me at clover#4910 on discord for plots

chicago’s very own claudia ortega has been spotted on madison avenue driving an aston martin db11, welcome ! your resemblance to sofia carson is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty fifth birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re evasive, but being ambitious might help you . i think being an aries explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be crimson lips, too little sleep, and following your instincts. ( claudia took part in a prank that inevitably killed  her boyfriend. everyone involved fled the scene and never spoke of the incident again. ) & female + she/her  + ( clover, 19 , she/her , cst )

- 𝓫𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓬

Name: Claudia Ortega

Nicknames: Claud

Age: Twenty five

Occupation: bassist/stylist

Sexual orientation: bisexual

Birthplace: july 30

Zodiac: leo

Spoken languages: english, spanish, & polish

-𝓫𝓲𝓸

Chicago native Claudia Ortega lived a very sheltered life, her parents ever busy, and nannies ever changing

She was a smart kid, picking up on talking, walking, reading and soon more rigorous academic pursuits with ease, her school tutors constantly singing her praise, how her intelligence was still never enough to get her parents to pay attention to her

Her mother’s high position as Vogue’s fashion editor had her constantly on the move, and her father’s C.E.O. position always had him somewhere that wasn’t home, and Claudia often question who these two people who were supposed to be the most important people in her life really were

Claudia was the perfect child, obedient, quiet, smart, she held any issues she had to herself, never mentioning her lack of friends, the harsh words of other children for her shy inquisitive nature, she became a fortress, she would handle everything by herself

Claudia finally gave up on her perfect childhood act the spring of junior year, tired of letting everyone walk over her Claudia took advantage of her parents money and guilt, becoming That Bitch, the fancy clothing, expensive and newest bags, anything to prove that she was better then the people who hurt her

She turned from the good kid with all A’s and the perfect record to the kid to the kid who didn’t turn in her work and skipped more often then not, Her parents money and influence would just get her wherever she wanted, so why bother anymore?

She was right, influence and her old grades being enough to get her into Colombia University 

She studied business and fashion design, her mother promising a role in Vogue if she graduated

Joining the theater club and learning bass, she branched out more in college, making friends, playing in a sort of band, but still refused to fully let go of the rich stone cold reputation she had built up

After graduating she worked under her mother, using her intimidating stature to lead, becoming one of the youngest people to lead at Vogue, her life was ‘perfect’ hot boyfriend, high end job, rich parents and a good education

But soon, after unknown circumstances, she had to leave her job, a new life forced upon her, all aspects of her old like only bringing her grief

Her old college friend invited her to take back up the bass, she took the opportunity and fled, promising to live for herself, of course, never denying the gifts her parents gave her along the way

-𝓯𝓾𝓷 𝓯𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓼

She’s super slow to open up to other people, but one she considers someone a friend they’ve gained a friend for life who will care and is 100% the vodka mom friend

She’s scared to get into a relationship, and as soon as she starts to suspect she’s getting a crush on someone, she starts to distance herself, claiming she’s just ‘busy’

She still uses her parents to get whatever she wants, a night at a fancy hotel? Clauds got it, the newest gucci bag? She had it before the public even knew it existed, even when she or her band are going through financial trouble, she’ll never let the outside world know it

She really loves kids??? Underratedly one of the best babysitters you’ll ever know, she’ll get them dinner and in bed before 10 and you’ll never have to worry

Don’t ask how many basses she’s owned, she might get more upset then she’ll ever admit and takes it out on the items around her, which is often her instruments and clothing

she’s still a wonderful designer, from business to fashion, none of the things she helped to make in Vogue have her name on it, but she contributed to more things then anyone realizes, but she refuses to help her mother on any new projects, that’s her past life

-𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓪𝓼

(to be honest im still pretty new with all this, so if you have any ideas you dont see, feel free to suggest anything!) 

old high school friend from her junior/senior years

family friend (when her parents did take her to family events/ travel, they always sent her off to hang with some other kid)

enemies

close online friend (she spent so much time alone as a kid, she met this person online, and was elated to discover they live nearby!)

crush

ex’s who ended on bad terms (she doesn’t date often, but she let this person in, and things were bound for disater)

[policyismypassion]

studyblr/gradblr introduction 💜

Hi studyblr and gradblr!! I’ve known about you for years but I’ve been a little intimidated to dip my toes in the water until now, a few weeks away from beginning my master’s program. I think I’m ready to pursue a more serious relationship with my adventures in studying. 💜

about me

I go by Rurinn all over the internet, you can call me that or Ru :)

She/her pronouns

Incredibly, magnificently bi

24! (I feel old around here, ngl)

I live and breathe Star Trek

I speak English primarily but I’m Spanish literate too!

I have a Bachelor’s in Political Science (emphasis in public policy and global conflict) as well as a post-degree certification in paralegal studies. 

I’m about to begin the Master of Public Policy program at the University of New Mexico :)

I really want to study environmental policy, but I’m pretty interested in education and foreign policy too.

why i made this blog

My primary reason for making this blog is for my own accountability -- I graduated with my Bachelor’s cum laude but my studying was very... frantic and disorganized, to say the least. I know the ins and outs of good studying, and I’ve even tutored others in *how to study,* but actually doing it myself is a totally different story haha.

In addition, I enjoy all the inspiration that this community has to offer... and I wanna do more than just lurk the tag and make myself feel inadequate lmao. I want to motivate myself instead, that’s so much more fulfilling!

what i’ll be posting

So first, I don’t start my classes for another few weeks, but I thought I’d get this started now before I had a chance to talk myself out of it :) I might share some of my summer studying endeavors in the meantime, but once I start the fall semester, I’d like to post weekly updates at the very least. I think those updates would largely be sharing pictures of what I’m doing and little insights from my class lectures, but I’d also like to share goal progress!

2020 courses and goals

I’ll be taking Economics Tools (a prereq for a prereq, it sucks), Public Management and Policy, and Global Racial Systems in addition to the program’s policy seminar and evaluation lab.

My goals for the rest of this year are as follows:

Survive

Survive, surprise online-only courses edition (help)

Maintain at least a 3.0 GPA (this will require extra attention to Econ)

Develop and maintain a healthy routine balancing course attendance, homework, and studying with physical and mental wellness

Find and maintain a workstudy position with the university

I’d love to make some studyblr friends on this adventure! Especially if there are any others out here studying public policy 👀 give me some blog recs -- heck, recommend yourself to me :)

[peersedu]

How to Efficiently Learn a New Language

This quarantine, those that aren’t in school and can’t go to work are struggling to find new hobbies to keep busy can be difficult. But rather than letting your brain rot with Netflix shows and Tiktoks, why not do something that might actually make you smarter and possibly more valuable in the job market? According to the Zip Job blog article by Caitlin Proctor, being bilingual or multilingual is one of the top fifteen hard skills employers are looking for in a candidate (Proctor). Being bilingual also provides a lot of brain benefits such as delaying the effects of dementia and increasing your cognitive functions. So why not work a little smarter by trying to learn a new language?

 Being bilingual has always been considered a truly valuable skill that employers love in their applications because it allows them to have more diversity and allows them to have a connection with more clients. By being bilingual, you become the bridge between two cultures. A language barrier would be broken down between your company and a potential client which would be largely credited to your ability to communicate. Communication is fundamental to thriving in society, so why not connect with more people by learning a second language? But don’t be intimidated by it yet. Here are some tips to make language learning easier. 

 Repetition

As with many other activities, practice makes perfect. By continually repeating sentences or phrases you’ve learned, it makes it easier to remember and reply in conversation. As well as saying the phrases, it’s also important to write them down so you know exactly what the phrase looks like if you come across it again in your lessons or in the real world. 

 Find a Practice Buddy

Whether you download a tutoring app that connects you to an online language tutor or you happen to have a friend that speaks the language you are learning, a major contributor to effective language learning is to actually utilize what you’ve learned in conversation. Having someone encourage you and correct your mistakes makes the learning process more enjoyable, as well as more effective in making your speech more precise and natural. 

 Watch and Listen

There are dozens of music streaming and video streaming services available to connect you to entertainment from all over the world. Having these sources available to you make them great tools to understand how the language works but also test your current knowledge. For example, I am learning how to speak Korean. Spotify has tons of Korean music that I listen to and test to see how many words or sentences I can translate in songs. If the language you’re learning uses a different alphabet system or symbols, look up romanizations to help you understand pronunciation and spelling and pair words and grammar together if you haven’t fully mastered reading or writing. You can also find streaming services that stream foreign films or shows and practice with and without English subtitles. If you’re learning an Asian language, the service Viki allows you to see both the English and Asian language subtitles so you can compare and contrast and identify words in Mandarin or Japanese etc. Youtube also has videos from a show called Extra that has episodes in multiple languages such as Spanish or French for beginners. So there you go! You can learn a new language and get to engage in some great new entertainment. 

 Start with the Basics

While it may seem self explanatory and obvious, there are some people out there who just jump right into grammar without really any understanding for vocabulary or pronunciations. The best thing to do is to start with simple vocabulary. Find maybe ten commonly used words every other day to add to your vocabulary. Try to find how they’re used in sentences to help solidify them in your head. Then once you have a good batch of words, then you can add the grammar and conjugations to enhance the meanings of those words that you can hopefully transform into a full sentence. There is no diving when it comes to language learning. It is all baby steps. Last thing you want to do is to offend someone unintentionally because you mistakenly called someone ugly instead of cool. (Believe me, I have done this). 

 Accept that the Path of Language Learning is Long

Learning a new language is not like learning to ride a bike. You can’t just get on the bike, start pedaling and suddenly you’re a natural. It takes a lot of time and dedication to make sure that you are properly learning the language and that you’re dedicated to learning for yourself and to honor another culture. So take it day by day. Don’t overload yourself with knowledge every single day. Take breaks. Spend a couple days with a handful of words that you can slowly build up over time. It’s not a race. Enjoy making mistakes and learning to correct them as you go. It only makes you a better learner overall.

As an example app that connects you to a tutor and provides you with more conversational language practice is PEERS edu. It is a private tutor service app where you can buy credits and find a quick tutor that will help you with a variety of subjects. You can find a tutor that teaches the language you’re learning whenever you want and however long you want. It’s a great way to get quality education and practice speaking with a native speaker who can correct you and help you speak more naturally. It is free in the app store, so try it out! 

 Language learning can be really fun if you put enough effort into it. Connecting yourself through language to a different culture is a way to find a connection to a different part of the world without leaving your home. I’d like to believe that if everyone learned a second language, different societies and people would be a lot closer and less divided than we are today. So rather than sulking at home, be a contributor to global connections through language and start learning a new one today! What can you gain from learning a new language?

Visit www.peersedu.com to get more information!

[tutorscart-blog]

TUTORSCART is Marketplace for finding Tutors, Trainers and Training Institutes, Tuition centers,

TUTORSCART is Marketplace for finding Tutors, Trainers and Training Institutes, Tuition centers,

if you are looking for students for tutoring, for Home tuitions, online tuitions or tuition centers.

Why choose TUTORSCART? TUTORSCART is built with agenda to remove layers between the parent and tutor in finding each other finding home tutor, online tutor or tuition centers is made very easy without any complications of leads purchase as such. How it Works? TUTORSCART helps Tutors & Trainers like Yoga Instructors, Academic Tutors, IT Trainers, Music and Dance Teachers to find new students and grow their tuition business, please follow the steps given below to join the family of Tutors on TUTORSCART.

For Tutors:

1. Download this App 2. Create a FREE profile. 3. Get notified on new enquiries from Students. 4. Respond to enquiries, call the potential students, and start classes!

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1. Download this App 2. Create a FREE profile. 3. Search for tutors 4. Call the tutors you are interested and start classes!

Students visit TUTORSCART with varied set of requirements like academic tuitions, competitive exam coaching, yoga classes, professional courses, foreign languages, hobby classes like dance, music, painting, and more. Now you can cater to their requirements by offering your expert help and make some extra income! Start making some extra income by finding the right set of students for your classes on TUTORSCART Learning Categories on TUTORSCART Tuition: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Sanskrit, Economics, and more Exam Coaching: JEE Coaching, CAT Coaching, IAS Coaching, Bank Coaching, GMAT Coaching, IELTS, TOEFL and more IT Courses: Java Coaching, .NET Coaching, Microsoft Excel Training, Photoshop Training and Python more Dance & Music: Bollywood Dance, Hip-hop Classes, Bharatanatyam Classes, Kathak Classes, Guitar, Keyboard, Vocal Music and more Languages: French language, Italian language, English language, German language, Spanish language and more Hobby Classes: Swimming, Baking Classes, Photography, Yoga and more Career Development: Soft Skills Training, Technical Training and more TUTORSCART Support To know more, visit our website www.tutorscart.com write to us at contact@tutorscart.com

Since the start of covid 19 most of the schools have started teaching online and totally moved into new platforms in making sure the student’s catch-up,

However there will be a individual care for each students since every student might not grasp as fast as few and few might require some extra time and support in understanding the concepts

We at Tutorscart always believed in human touch in learning though we see many learning management platforms emerging on every day to day basis there should be someone who can explain the concepts with different examples rather than a robotic process

So TUTORSCART has built a platform to find a tutor either online tutor / offline like home tutor nearby your location so you can choose the tutors by location, gender, qualification, etc

Since this pandemic there is huge demand in online tutoring rather than home tutors however we are trying to make sure the tutors available online can also be available offline after the situation is gone

Finding a Good Tutor is definitely a parents or the learner’s decision to make whether they can learn from certain tutor or not if that is for Home tutor / online tutor coz every tutor can be good at different methods of teaching, learner / parent has to decide which pattern student can learn better

We from TUTORCART would recommend Parent / Learner to take 1 or 2 demos before pursuing with the tutor/trainer

You can start searching tutors near your by distance on TUTORSCART application on Play store

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