Author: Harold

Luca, an inspiring Italian polyglot.

There are many resources on the net that focus on learning foreign languages. However, I have not found most of them too helpful when it comes to getting really consistently good results. So it was nice to discover the work of Luca, an Italian polyglot featured on youtube. Luca puts…

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Michel Thomas reportedly teaching from beyond the grave.

Hodder and Arnold, the publisher of the Michel Thomas language courses, has just announced that Michel Thomas personally trained and approved every teacher of each course issued following his demise. This amazing announcement is to be found in an FAQ section issued by the publisher. Here is the quote: “Why…

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Russian verbs of motion – Boris Shekhtman’s way.

For those of you who haven’t studied Russian, I suspect that you may not know about verbs of motion. So let’s get acquainted with them. In English we have verbs like come, go, run and so forth. If we want to indicate that we went somewhere then we can just…

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Boris Shekhtman. The method ( continued)

As promised, I am continuing my account of my experiences studying Russian with Boris Shekhtman. At this point I have been meeting once a week for three hours with him for one-on-one tutoring. The lessons are very focused on my specific needs and idiosyncrasies in learning. As Michel Thomas explained…

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Speaking a foreign language.

One of the major obstacles for many beginning and intermediate language learners is conversing. Basically, there is only so much conversation that one can muster around the very basic vocabulary and questionable grammar that a beginner has to work with. In addition, the foreign speaker in most cases, while impressed…

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Paul Noble and plagiarisation.

Paul Noble, a British-based language teacher, recently contracted with Collins, the UK publisher, to author a series of CD courses to teach various languages according to a method which he claims he developed on his own. After I was alerted to the uncanny resemblance of his approach to that of…

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Why is Rosetta Stone so successful when their courses are so bad?

As some of you may know, I am considered an expert on foreign language instruction based on my experience in the field and my authorship of a very successful series to teach Chinese to English-speakers. Yesterday someone asked what I thought of Rosetta Stone. I told him that I have…

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Yiddish week or bust.

I have deliberately waited for some time to elapse before writing my impressions regarding a week in the Catskills among Yiddish-speakers. The name of the program ,which just celebrated its 25th anniversary, is Yiddish Vokh or Yiddish Week. It is sponsored by an organization called Yugntruf or Youth for Yiddish…

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A novel approach to learning languages.

In 2001 the NY Times published a lengthy article in the Travel section by the former Moscow bureau correspondent, Francis X. Clines. I like people who have X as a middle initial. I assume the X stands for Xavier, which is a really neat name. How many people call their…

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The end of insomnia

About five years ago I descended into major insomnia. I would go to bed and have a panic attack within seconds of drifting off. This led to intense sleep deprivation which, in turn, led to total hell. I lost my medical practice. I lost my life. I feared at times…

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