Labyrinth of language learning

For those of you who are not familiar with the word 'stickler' , it means a pedantic person who wants things to be right. For example, you could say, "He is a stickler for punctuality."  The 'stickler' is very useful, perhaps even essential, when it comes to langauge learning. So, what is a 'stickler' and how might they help you to learn a language?  Well, one of the best ways of learning a language is just to get on with using it. You can compose sentences, expressing whatever is on your mind in your foreign language. You could even compose a whole article or talk. And then send that text or speech to someone who knows the language, preferably a native speaker, and who is willing to correct your mistakes. This is your 'stickler'. What happens next is that your 'stickler' corrects what you are saying. If there are mistakes, they can point them out. If there are oddities, they can tell you how to say it differently. Often slightly...

We all have our favourite words and phrases, sometimes to the extent that people can identify us by the things we always say. In the same way languages have what I call resonance words and phrases - they come up all the time and evoke a response in the hearers . This is about more than the plain meaning of words. To use another metaphor, these are words and phrases which native speakers will gravitate towards, go-to vocabulary and constructions. Let me give you some examples so you know what I am talking about. If I say, "That is the same as what I am talking about," it sounds stilted, foreign, doesn't it? But if I say, " That's what I am talking about ," it immediately connects. Or if, in the present context, I were to say, "We are paying attention to the curve," it would be understandable, but if I said, " We are keeping our eye on the curve," it just sounds more English. I recently translated a text which spoke, literally, of a c...

I am pretty sure we have all faced it. You want to say something in a foreign language and then you realise you don't know a crucial word or phrase - or just cannot express what you want to say. I call this the road block .   Here are some examples of English words and phrases which may be difficult to convey in a foreign language (if you are a non-native speaker of English, maybe you find these difficult to understand): - I relish a challenge. - Integrity - To heckle - Faced with this problem.... - To patronise (i.e. an unwelcome condescending attitude) - A brief (i.e. a short description of a task to complete) - To overstate a case - To embrace the future This list is potentially endless. I have just shared my latest list of words and phrases - which in this case are fairly abstract - to be able to translate into my foreign languages. (If you have any ideas or thoughts about these you could Facebook message me www.facebook.com/russelljamesphillips) Any...