Foreign language anxiety is a situation-specific fear or anxiety which occurs when trying to use a foreign language. As you likely know, mastering a foreign language involves much more than just learning vocabulary and grammar rules. You also need to develop such key skills as reading, listening, writing, and speaking. This may be already…
Mistakes are a part of our everyday life; we make them, we fret over them, hopefully, we learn from them. Mistakes are also a natural part of learning foreign languages. However, not all mistakes are made equal. Mispronouncing a word or using the wrong article is not that big a deal (more on that in…
So you want to know how to become fluent in Chinese? Follow the simple tips below and you’ll be chatting away in your chosen dialect in no time. Or should I say, a time of your choosing. What do I mean by that? All will be revealed below. 1. What Does Being Fluent in Chinese…
When we start learning a foreign language, we come across new unfamiliar sounds and stress and intonation patterns. Before we truly master them, we tend to cope by applying the pronunciation rules of our native language and using familiar sounds instead of foreign ones. While it is a common and natural situation, it can also…
Learning a foreign language is always a bit of a challenge – a fun and fulfilling one, but a challenge nonetheless. And correct pronunciation tends to be one of the more challenging areas for many learners. No matter what language you are learning, you are bound to come across sounds that are somewhat (sometimes a…
Learning Chinese is easy! Well, easier, at least, than you might think. It is common in some Western countries for people to exclaim, “Are you speaking Chinese?” if the statement heard is too complex or unintelligible. This is not surprising. Chinese is sometimes seen as a distant, unfamiliar or even alien language for some speakers…