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Year book 2012

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Table of Contents 1. About the Writer ........................................................................................... 3

2. My Learning Material ..................................................................................... 4

3. Proficiency.................................................................................................... 4

4. Tim: The Young Polyglot ............................................................................... 5

5. Omniglot ...................................................................................................... 5

6. Blogging in Foreign Language ........................................................................ 6

7. Watch Listen Online (WLO) ............................................................................ 7

8. Singing Latvian Songs ................................................................................... 9

9. Latvian Language .......................................................................................... 9

10. My Language Background ............................................................................ 11

11. Learn Mandarin: New Method ...................................................................... 12

12. Learn in a Foreign Language ........................................................................ 13

13. No Language Called Chinese ........................................................................ 14

14. 用中文來 estudiar español ........................................................................... 14

15. My Failed Chinese Test ................................................................................ 15

16. Alex Rawlings, Oxford University Student, Speaks 11 Languages ..................... 16

17. Spanish, English, and Indonesian ................................................................. 16

18. The Power of Español .................................................................................. 17

19. American Language..................................................................................... 18

20. Hardest Languages to Learn ........................................................................ 18

21. Summer Chinese ......................................................................................... 20

22. Recent Updates .......................................................................................... 20

23. Multitasking Language ................................................................................. 21

24. 24H Songs.................................................................................................. 22

25. How not to forget languages you have learned by Steve Kaufmann ................. 23

26. Latvian Television Online ............................................................................. 24

27. Why should we really be learning Russian? ................................................... 26

28. SC TOP ...................................................................................................... 26

29. Oppa Gangnam Multilingual Style ................................................................. 27

30. The Beauty of Chinese Character.................................................................. 28

31. Translating Articles...................................................................................... 30

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32. Forever a student: My multilingual recording in 11 languages ......................... 30

33. Dutch - Ik spreek Nederlands ....................................................................... 31

34. Know It Further - the Netherlands ................................................................ 32

35. 10+ Multilingual Celebrities .......................................................................... 33

36. A Greek Who Speaks 32 Languages .............................................................. 34

37. Get Some Inspirations! ................................................................................ 35

38. Language Battlefield .................................................................................... 36

39. Speak to Me in Many Languages .................................................................. 37

40. Multilingual Taiwanese Bus Driver ................................................................ 37

41. Polyglot Discussion ...................................................................................... 38

42. Wordle Word Cloud ..................................................................................... 42

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About the Writer

Hi! My name is Teddy, or also known as Teddy Nee. I’m currently living in Taiwan.

When I have free time, I like to read books in various languages. Welcome to contact

me!

You can speak with me in Hokkien Medan, Indonesian, English, Chinese, Spanish, or

Esperanto.

www.twitter.com/tdnee

www.google.com/+teddynee

Find out more about language learning at Nee’s Language Blog

www.neeslanguageblog.com

www.facebook.com/neeslanguageblog

info@neeslanguageblog.com

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My Learning Material Thursday, March 15, 2012

I have used many materials for language learning and I found out that I like Teach

Yourself material more than others do. I like the way it is arranged from chapter to

chapter. Learners will start by reading the general knowledge about the language, such

as how popular it is. The alphabets, examples, conversation dialogs are well arranged.

Learners can learn the vocabulary little by little from conversation dialogues and the

corresponding grammar. Therefore, the focus in this learning material is the

conversation. The learner can apply directly the conversation in real life situation. The

conversations illustrate several real life situations, such as checking bus schedules,

ordering food in a restaurant, etc.

Proficiency Friday, March 16, 2012

From my experience learning several languages, I have realized that I understand better

in listening/ reading more than speaking/ writing in the beginning. I would categorize

listening and reading into "Input", and speaking and writing into "Output"

When I learn a language, I will learn mostly from the conversation. Then, I will break

the grammar and vocabularies down from the conversation. I will be able to learn and

understand them easily and quickly with this method. I can also know how I can use the

phrases because I learn it from the conversation.

Grammar

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After acquiring the vocabularies, I will need grammar to construct the sentence for the

Output (speaking and writing). However, the problem is that grammar has always been

the most difficult in language learning. There will be never so-called easy grammar for

language except Esperanto. Grammar comprises rules and it is boring for me to start

learning from grammar.

Our Brain is Smart!

When I listen to a native speaker speaking in my target language, I feel that it is easier

to understand the meaning of the conversation rather than to construct the sentence. It

is because our brain is smart! Our brain can surprisingly catch the meaning by guessing

even though it does not catch word by word. I aim to understand by listening and

reading every time I learn a language, then I will continue to learn sentence

construction.

Tim: The Young Polyglot Monday, March 19, 2012

I came across news about a young polyglot, a 16 years old multilingual speaker two

days ago on Facebook. He is amazing, inspiring, and whatever you name it. It is just so

cool! I checked on his YouTube, PolyglotPal, and found out that he speaks 11 languages!

If you think speaking 3 languages is awesome, Tim with his 11 languages is absolutely

more than awesome! I wonder how he can manage to learn all of those languages. His

methods of learning are obviously something that I need to learn. He started his

language video while he was 15 and he is 16 now. He has acquired so much in just 1

year. That is incredible!

Omniglot Friday, March 23, 2012

This website seems to be a good reference about language learning. I found it while I

was searching for Latvian grammar. There are many information in the website, such as

a writing system, phrases, language learning strategy, references, etc. I shall spend

several days checking on the contents. I hope that I can get what I want from here.

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I have purchased a phrase book by lonely planet about Baltic languages — Estonian,

Latvian, and Lithuanian. I have been searching for the best way to learn Latvian

grammar since it is terribly hard for me. Grammar is not interesting to learn, but the

constructed sentences will not be good without grammar.

Blogging in Foreign Language Tuesday, April 3, 2012

I used to wonder why many of my friends write blogs in foreign languages. English was

my choice of content language when I wrote blog in high school. I did that because I

am interested in writing in a foreign language. Several advantages that I can achieve by

composing writings in this way are improving the habit to exercise writing skill, and

having the chance to put my English in practice. English has been widely used in

education, society, and almost anywhere. Several people have even created their own

English styles because of the influence of their local languages.

Blogging can be a way of language learning. You can achieve an increasing level of

language fluency by exercising your writing habit. It is because writing allows you to

construct sentences, the same case occurs when you are speaking the language. There

are numerous translation tools and language references on the Internet that may help

you in writing.

I have created three blogs for three different languages - Indonesian, English and

Chinese Mandarin. Besides, I also have blogs for Korean and Latvian language as part of

my language learning. However, I have paused it for a while because of motivational

constraint. It is still quite difficult at this moment to write in Latvian and Korean. My

Chinese Mandarin blog is hosted by Wretch (無名小站).

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Updated October 13, 2013

Yahoo acquired Wretch, a Taiwanese blogging platform in July 2007, but it has

announced to close down the site on December 26, 2013. New registration for Wretch's

service was suspended since September 2nd. Following that, users may still be able to

browse Wretch but will no longer able to add content from October 30 onwards. All

services on the site will be shut down permanently on December 26.

Coping with the mentioned circumstance, my new Chinese Mandarin blog is now hosted

by Pixnet.

Watch Listen Online (WLO) Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Internet has changed our life so much, even on watching and listening. Here are several

WLO websites that I have got through my friendships. Million thanks to my friends that

have contributed these websites.

1. Arabic

http://www.aljazeera.net/portal

http://www.mazika.com/ar

2. Dutch

http://www.538.nl/player/?player=

radio&station=538

3. French

http://www.nrj12.fr/

http://www.tf1.fr/

4. German

http://www.dw.de

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5. Hebrew

http://www.mako.co.il/

6. Indonesian

http://mivo.tv/home.php

7. Korean

http://tv.yb88.com/

8. Latvian

http://www.tvnet.lv/online_tv

http://www.radio101.lv/lv

9. Mandarin Chinese

http://www.ctitv.com.tw/

10. Mongolian

http://asubi.mn/modules/home/

http://dawalgaa.com/

11. Persian

http://www.radiofarda.com/

12. Polish

http://tvp.info/zobacz-online

13. Romanian

http://webtv.realitatea.net/

14. Russian

http://www.1tv.ru/

15. Spanish

http://www.tvazteca.com/index.ht

ml

http://www.frecuencialatina.com/tv

envivo

http://www.rpp.com.pe/

16. Tagalog

http://www.abs-cbn.com/

17. Vietnamese

http://www.vtc.com.vn

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Singing Latvian Songs Friday, April 6, 2012

I sometimes think that singing in a foreign language is easier than speaking in the

foreign language. I don't know why but that is what I feel. What about you? Here are

videos of me singing in Latvian language, a language that I have been learning for a

year. I have never thought that singing in Latvian will be so much easier than

constructing the sentence.

Prāta Vētra (Brainstorm) - Mana Dziesma (cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW_2yqLl__I

Zvaniņš Skan (Jingle Bells)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddss2M3ASEM

Starp Divām Saulēm [Prāta Vētra] uke ver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-LRuKwKxV0

Latvian Language Friday, April 6, 2012

Latvian is quite an interesting and challenging language to learn. The pronunciation is

simple, what you see is how you read. However, I should say that the grammar is quite

difficult for me. There are two genders: masculine and feminine. Then, there are

different words for masculine singular and masculine plural, and feminine singular and

feminine plural. Therefore, there are four forms for a word!

You can find several websites that I have got from Latvian friends for learning Latvian as

follow:

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http://www.valoda.lv/en/Agenturas_darbiba/Agenturas_darbiba/653/mid_493

http://www.valoda.lv/Papildus_Materiali/eapmaciba2/EN_default.htm

http://www.codefusion.com/latvianasp/latonline.asp

http://www.liis.lv/latval/pamatskolai/Valoda/pirma.swf

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My Language Background Monday, April 9, 2012

Many friends asked me about how many languages that I know.

I was born in Medan, Indonesia. Luckily, Indonesia is a diverse country and so does

Medan. You can find the diversity of Medan in almost anything, such as ethnicity, culture,

language, culinary.

Native Languages

Born as a Chinese-Indonesian of Fujian (Hokkien) ancestry, I speak Fujianese (Hokkien).

This language is widely used among Chinese-Indonesian in Medan. However, there is

also Chinese-Indonesian like Cantonese, Hakka, etc. Therefore, they may have their

languages too!

I am lucky to have a Cantonese grandmother too. I still remember that I used to learn

Cantonese from her everytime I visited her on Sunday. Besides, I also learnt by myself.

I would say that my Cantonese is basic or OK for travelling purpose.

As an Indonesian, I speak Indonesian too. Indonesian is the official language in

Indonesia and used in education, TV programs, formal/ informal activities, news, and so

forth. My life is actually surrounded by languages. An interesting occasion for me is in

Chinese wedding, Indonesian and Mandarin are both used but sometimes English is

used too!

Because of the diversity in Indonesia, I am familiar with several Indonesian dialects too,

such as Batak language, and Javanese. My familiarity of these languages is just up to

recognizing them, not understanding them. There are actually hundreds of Indonesian

dialects. Many of them even cannot be found in Medan! Indonesian language and

Fujianese (Hokkian) are similar to Malay and Taiwanese, respectively. Therefore, I

understand quite well Malay and Taiwanese.

Foreign Languages

English is taught at school as the first foreign language, so many people know English.

Then, Mandarin is also taught, as the second foreign language at school. Therefore, I

learnt English and Mandarin at school. Apart from that, I took 1 year German as the

extracurricular.

I figured out that there are many Korean students in the university I am attending. This

gives me a good opportunity to learn Korean. Then, I go for it! I have been learning

Korean since my second semester (that was in 2009.)

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Recently, I have made language learning as one of my hobbies. I have been learning

several languages since this becomes a hobby, such as Latvian, Russian, and Spanish. I

do not aim high for the result. The point is just relaxed and enjoy.

Learn Mandarin: New Method Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I have been quite busy preparing for my Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL)

exam, a Mandarin certification exam held twice annually. There are five levels and I

started from the third level. I passed the third and fourth level in the same year, which I

did not believe that I could make it. It left me with the highest level, the fifth level. I

have taken twice pre-test on this level and I scored quite badly, 47 and 44. Honestly,

this level is really challenging. The minimum passing grade is 62. The formal test will be

on early May, so it is one month later.

If you go to the website of Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-

TOP), you can find "Free Download" below the "Mock Test" menu. This is a great

advantage for test takers to have a tryout exam. Practicing from the material has helped

me a lot in preparing the exam. However, I have done all of the learning material from

the website.

Apart from doing the free material from the website, I also handwrite any Mandarin

article from book, magazine, newspaper, etc. I underline the words that I do not know

and assign it a number. Thus, I write the meaning of words that I assigned number. I

do not try to memorize any of the words. I just want to be familiar with them so I will

remember them naturally.

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Learn in a Foreign Language Thursday, April 19, 2012

Have you ever thought about learning a foreign language in another language? This is

what I have been doing so far. I learn many languages in English, which is a foreign

language for me. If I were asked about the difficulty, well, I have not encountered any

difficulty in learning languages in English. Perhaps, English has become my almost-

native language. I use it anytime, anywhere. Because of the frequent use of English, I

feel quite strange when I switch that to Indonesian. I feel strange too when I use my

father's computer, which is in Indonesian language interface.

My other foreign language is Mandarin Chinese. I have never measured my level of this

language but I think it is upper intermediate. I can handle daily conversation in

restaurant, supermarket, bank, post office, train station, almost anywhere I go. However,

I am still having difficulty to read newspapers and to understand TV news.

Am I Ready To Learn In Chinese?

In order to get rid of that difficulty, I am applying a new method of learning it, which is

to handwrite Chinese Mandarin article. I feel that this way has given me a rapid

improvement in the language. When I am handwriting the article, I always see the same

words occur repeatedly, and it naturally goes into my mind. A friend asked about where

I usually get the article. I got some free outdated Chinese Mandarin books and

magazines from the university library. I can purchase some newspaper, books, or

magazines if I want to, but I prefer it free from the Internet.

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Maybe I can learn a foreign language in Chinese Mandarin in the future. Once I am

comfortable with reading Chinese Mandarin, then I certainly shall learn languages in

Chinese Mandarin too. In addition, it will cost me less when buying books because

Chinese Mandarin books are cheaper than imported books (in English). Moreover, it is

easier to find Chinese Mandarin books in the local bookshops of where I am living.

No Language Called Chinese Wednesday, April 25, 2012

You may have encountered many situations where people refer "Chinese" as Mandarin.

This is somehow confusing. Based on a small research that I have done, Mandarin is not

actually a name of a language. It refers to one of seven Chinese dialects, the Beijing

dialect, which becomes the official language in China. It is generally called "Mandarin

Chinese" or "Mandarin". It is called Putonghua 普通話 in China, Guoyu 國語 in Taiwan

and Huayu 華語 in Singapore. You can find a performance by Russell Peter about

"Chinese" below.

Russell Peters: Chinese Languages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL8hV-zjJ_4

用中文來 estudiar español Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Recently I have been challenging myself to study Spanish in Mandarin! After failing the

last Chinese (Mandarin) proficiency exam (I will write more about it in another post),

something has triggered my enthusiasm to do more with Mandarin. Back to the Spanish,

you can see the book that I am using for Spanish in the picture. I choose easy material

at the beginning. This book contains daily conversations, such as greetings,

transportation, restaurant, etc. I still can understand much without looking at the

Mandarin translation so far. Therefore, everything is quite good for now.

Let me think. I have been studying Spanish independently since the beginning of this

year, so it has been 4 months! Apart from using books, such as Teach Yourself and For

Dummies, I also learn by watching Spanish language drama. The once very popular and

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I am still watching is Betty La Fea from Colombia. Most of you

must know about this drama. It was popular several years ago

when I was in primary school.

For me, Spanish is an easy language to learn compared to

some European languages that I have learnt. Spanish is

similar to Indonesian in some parts of the grammar and

vocabularies. It also has some vocabulary similarities with

English. Thus, in order to remember some rules in Spanish, I

can refer to those in Indonesian or English. Muy interesante,

¿no?

My Failed Chinese Test Thursday, May 10, 2012

I have prepared so much for this test as soon as I finished the previous test on

November last year. This is the last level of Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language

(TOCFL). Therefore, it is indeed not easy. It is called Level 5 or equivalent with C1 in

Common European Framework Reference for Languages (CEFR). I passed Level 4 on

previous test on November last year, which means my level is B2.

Here is the comparison table.

If you do not know what TOCFL is, here is the English website and you can challenge

yourself with the free test sample.

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Alex Rawlings, Oxford University Student,

Speaks 11 Languages Saturday, May 12, 2012

I was surprised when I read the news about this polyglot. It was amazing. His name is

Alex Rawlings from London. He is 20 years old and he speaks 11 languages — English,

Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian.

I cannot imagine myself speaking 11 languages, still far away from that. I wonder how

he can do that.

"When I was younger I always wanted to speak different languages," Rawlings said in

the BBC video.

"We often visited my mum's family in Greece. My dad worked in Japan for four years. I

was always frustrated I couldn't talk to other kids in those countries because of the

language."

"My favorite language is Greek because I've spoken it since childhood. It has

sentimental value for me and I have a strong emotional connection with Greece," he

said.

Spanish, English, and Indonesian Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I have been learning Spanish for approximately half a year. It is going well so far. I can

understand basic daily conversation phrases. However, the grammar, such as tenses, is

giving me tension. I began to be attracted to Spanish when I found out that there are

many similar words between Indonesian and Spanish. Moreover, there are many

Spanish-speaking students here in the university. Most of them come from Central and

South America. It is quite interesting when I can understand what they are talking about.

In learning Spanish, I have noticed some similarities among Spanish, English, and

Indonesian words. Thus, I can refer to English or Indonesian to help me remembering

the Spanish words, which is an advantage for me. From the grammar part as an

example, Spanish’s Noun followed by Adjective is the same with that in Indonesian but

the opposite of that in English, which is Adjective followed by Noun.

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In this case, it is easier to remember by referring to the Indonesian style. Another

example is in English, ending -ty words are ending -dad/ -ad in Spanish, such as

"university" = "universidad", "liberty" = "libertad", "activity" = "actividad"; ending -ly

words are ending -mente, such as "directly" = "directamente", "personally" =

"personalmente", "rationally" = "racionalmente".

I like to watch Telenovela as part of my Spanish learning. Watching movie is one of the

best ways to learn languages. Apart from entertaining, learners can also observe how

the phrase is used in a certain situation, and how the facial emotion attaches to it, as

well as intonation and word stressing.

The Power of Español Wednesday, May 30, 2012

According to my Lonely Planet Latin American Spanish

phrase book & dictionary, 300 million speak Latin

American Spanish as their first language and 100 million

speak Latin American Spanish as their second language.

Can you imagine how many countries there are in Latin

America? In addition, speakers from Spain (origin of the

Spanish language) in Europe, Belize in Central America,

and Equatorial Guinea in Africa has enriched the number

of Spanish speakers in the world.

Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, Spanish is the

second most natively spoken language in the world, after

Mandarin Chinese and Mexico has the most Spanish native

speakers of any country.

I have learnt that knowing Spanish language could allow me to understand information

or enjoy entertainment from many Spanish-speaking countries. This is beneficial. I have

found several songs of singers coming from various Spanish-speaking countries, such as

Spain, Panama, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and many more. Apart from

that, the choices of movie and telenovela are also various.

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American Language Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I have been learning English for a long time. If I am not wrong, it was since before I

went to kindergarten. It has been an important foreign language ever because it is still

an international language until today. Although English is not widely spoken in Indonesia,

a large amount of English words can be found on products, games, or advertisements.

Besides, many Indonesian know English, and the similarities between English and

Indonesian language even help much in the learning process. There is no specific kind

of English, no matter American English or British English, which I have learnt at school.

In fact, I learnt both. I learnt to distinguish which one belongs to British English and

which one is belonged to American English. English teachers are mainly from USA, UK,

or Australia.

I also learnt Mandarin at the same time. However, much encountered with English has

made me interested in English more than Mandarin. Probably this is one reason why my

Mandarin skill did not improve well before I came to Taiwan. I always keep in mind that

in Mandarin, English is called 英文 (ying1wen2) or 英語 (ying1yu3).

Different English?

Everything goes well until the day I came to Taiwan and I began to realize something

odd. Teaching English in Taiwan seems to have a big market. That can be seen from

many advertisements on the road and TV. In addition, there are many foreigners living

in Taiwan especially Taipei and work full-time or part-time as an English teacher.

I have noticed that English is also called 美語 (mei3yu3) with 美 is derived from 美國

(mei3guo2) or America plus 語 (yu3) which means “language”. So, English language (英

文/ 英語) is surprisingly also called American language (美語) in Taiwan. This fact is

really surprising for me because through my learning Mandarin experience since I was a

kid, I have never known about 美語 or "American language".

Hardest Languages to Learn Thursday, June 28, 2012

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Summer Chinese Thursday, July 5, 2012

Finally, summer break is here. How do you usually spend your summer break? Do you

travel? Do you work? Whatever it is, I suggest you to

spend on something meaningful.

As for me, I enroll myself in a Summer Chinese program

offered by National Taiwan Normal University 國立台灣

師範大學. I am going to hit it hard this time. Therefore, I

am busy everyday from Monday to Friday with Chinese

class.

In my opinion, this language center is quite popular

among foreign students. Many of my friends spent at

least 1 year studying Chinese there. This is one of the

reasons for me to apply for a summer language program

there. Registration starts with checking necessary

documents, payment, and testing/ interview. I think the

testing / interview is very important. Through this

process, study level is adjusted with future student's levels in order to match the

student's interest and capability. After that, there are orientation and tour around

classes and offices.

The book that I am using for the class is shown in the picture. The highest level of this

book is Level 5, so I am just one-step away from it. There are other materials and books

with various levels, such as a news article. Read the book information at Eslite bookstore

website.

Recent Updates Monday, July 16, 2012

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It has been two weeks since I posted my last article. I have been so busy these days

with language learning and with programming language learning, or simply human

language and computer language as I prefer.

Language is indeed a communication tool not only used by human but also to the

human - computer relationship. A computer language is similar to human language. It

has the similar language pattern but is interpreted in a different way. I have been

enriching myself by learning ASP.NET and C#, PHP, SQL, and some other server-side

scripting as well as client-side scripting. Well, that is for computer language.

Practice, practice, practice

Everyday I go to Summer Chinese class in Taipei city, which is app. 30-45 minutes by

train away from Taoyuan city. Then, I will take subway to travel around and walk to

campus. Therefore, I have a lot of time inside the train and subway and while walking. I

realized that during this period, I could do quite many things, such as learning a

language. Then, I started to make good use of it by listening to Pimsleur Russian and

Spanish or reading books about language learning.

As the time goes by, I can feel how improve my language learning is. Besides, I also

have some Spanish articles that I got from BBC Mundo that I always practice with. I

translate them into English by underlining those words I do not know and I always have

dictionaries in my iPod to check. I should say that after half year of Spanish learning, I

could understand most of the Spanish words in the articles and it is very satisfying!

Multitasking Language Sunday, July 22, 2012

I have just realized something recently in the middle of my shower. Yes, shower!

Unbelievably, I got a lot of inspirations and ideas during the shower. That is quite funny!

Anyway, I have just realized that I am using several languages simultaneously everyday!

Let me break them down.

Multilingual Activities

My computer platform language is English. Therefore, whenever I use my computer, it

means I also use English. I always have my Facebook online whenever I am on the

Internet. I set my Facebook language into Spanish. Most of the time, I chat through

Facebook with Taiwanese friend, and of course we chat in Mandarin Chinese. Being far

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away from home does not mean that I cannot follow on my home-country news update.

I always read an Indonesian online newspaper every morning. Furthermore, the time

difference between my place and home is only 1 hour. It gives my family easiness

whenever they want to call me on Skype, and we use Fujianese (Hokkian) within the

family. Besides, I love listening to songs through YouTube. I have got several other

foreign language songs in my playlist that I listen everyday randomly.

Imagine it! How many languages that I have been using? English, Spanish, Mandarin

Chinese, Indonesian, Fujianese (Hokkian), and many more (although I understand a

little bit of the songs in my YouTube playlist)

Biggest Problem

I realized that one biggest problem in learning a language is whether the target

language will be used in the future. This is one main reason why people think that

learning a language is useless. However, thanks to the Internet, no matter where you

are, you can get any languages as long as you are connected to the Internet. Several

activities like reading the newspaper, watch online TV, or listening songs in target

languages will be quite fun! Therefore, it is not necessary to go to a country in order to

learn the language, although going to the country does help much in learning the

language through immersion with the locals. However, the fact is, not everybody can go

to another country, or even to live for several years experiencing the language and

culture.

Solution

One of many easy solutions is to get online friends. There are several websites where

you can get language partners, for example Mixxer, Livemocha, and iTalki. You always

need to remember not to share any important data, such as credit card number, or any

other personal data on the Internet. Another solution is to join international groups,

such as a language school, multinational company, international festival, or anywhere

you can find native speakers of your target language and be friend with them! You can

show them around your place, your culture, and at the same time practicing your target

language. Do you think that is a good idea? I shall call it "Mutual Symbiosis."

24H Songs Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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I have good news for everyone. A friend just gave me a wonderful website few days ago.

On this website, you can listen to songs in several languages, such as Mandarin, Korean,

Japanese, Cantonese, etc. for 24-hour non-stop. I have been using it recently. It is

called 廣播電台.com. It is a good website for people like me who love listening to songs

almost every day no matter what I am doing. I even will leave the song played in the

background when I am in the bathroom.

Features

You can see the song player in the image. Click inside red box to play and pause, blue

circle to go to next song (songs are played randomly), and green circle to change

channel, such as Mandarin song, English song, Japanese song, Korean song, Cantonese

song, etc. All menus are in Mandarin.

I see that there are several links on the website, but I do not know what they are. I do

not think that it is quite important for me because this 24H song player has helped me

much to kill boredom. Hope you will have fun with it.

How not to forget languages you have learned

by Steve Kaufmann Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Here is another good video from Steve that I found. It is about how not to forget the

language you have learned or even your native language. This serious matter is

happening to me. I was on phone few days ago with a high school teacher. He

surprisingly told me that my accent has changed. I personally do not realize about my

accent. Living far away from home has made me speaking in foreign languages

everyday. However, it does not mean that I am forgetting my language.

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How not to forget languages you have learned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4th_VK8rJs

As what Steve has mentioned, getting massive input of the language helps to maintain

the level. I always read, watch, and listen to songs, movie, TV shows, news, etc. The

key is to keep using the language. You can also find materials that match your interest.

For instance, I always choose news articles about technology or sport. I will not only get

the latest information about them but also practice the language at the same time.

Steve also mentioned that those who expect too much would end up frustrated.

Language learning needs to be done without any stress. Memorizing is 100% not

recommended. It gives pressure to the brain, which will make you forget what you have

memorized after a few days. Instead, you need to find a learning method that is suitable

to you because everybody learns differently.

Latvian Television Online Thursday, August 9, 2012

In this rapidly growing technology era, you can do many activities through the Internet,

including watching TV. Latvian people may now view a variety of TV channels online

from a few commercial channels from Rīga to regional broadcasters, such as Latgales

Televīzija. Apart from that, Russian broadcasters have also found their way into Latvian

market. Customers with cable or satellite connection may also enjoy various TV channels

from Western Europe and beyond. Several Latvian online TV broadcasters are listed as

follows:

Latvijas Neatkarīgā

Televīzija (LNT)

www.lnt.lv

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The largest broadcaster in Latvia that

runs not only television, but also film

and radio.

Latvijas Televīzija (LTV)

www.ltv.lv

This Zaķusala-based broadcaster was

founded in 1954. It offers two channels,

LTV1 and LTV7.

Latvijas Ziņu Kanāls

(LZK)

www.lzk.lv

A 24-hour news service run by Latvijas

Neatkarīgā televīzija (LNT).

Первый Балтийский

Музыкальный Канал

www.1music.tv

This Rīga-based Russian language

channel is known as Pirmais Baltijas

mūzikas kanāls (First Baltic Music

Channel) in Latvia.

TV3

www.tv3.lv

A media property that is owned by

Sweden's Modern Times Group, which

has media properties throughout

Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

TV5

www.tvnet.lv/tv5

Began operation in October 2001, and

acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News

Corp. in May 2007.

TV24

www.tv24.lv

The service provides not only news

headlines, but also commentary and

analysis.

TV.LV

www.tv.lv

An arguably the most diverse television

site in Latvia. Based in Rīga and

organized by a computer software firm

Tilde Ltd.

Vidzemes Televīzija

www.vtv.lv

A Valmiera-based regional broadcaster

that went on the air in 1992.

www.neeslanguageblog.com

Why should we really be learning Russian? Friday, August 10, 2012

Why should we really be learning Russian?

The Russian Language is a resource of the international communication between

nations of the Russian Federation and the CIS (Community of Independent

States – former Soviet Republics)

Russian is one of the six official and working languages of the UN (United

Nations)

Russia’s new openness has lead within the last ten years to the consolidation of

economic, political and cultural ties of Russia with Europe, USA and Asia. Russia

is integrating into the world economy fast

Russian writers and poets create many of the world-known literature

masterpieces: Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy,

Chekhov, Yesenin, Akhmatova, etc

The Russian Language helps to approach the mysterious Russian soul

SC TOP Monday, August 27, 2012

Here it is, another Chinese proficiency exam opportunity.

This one is only pilot test and it is free. I definitely will

attend this exam. Need to study harder and smarter to

beat this fifth level. I have been struggling with fifth level

since last year. By the way, fifth level is the last level in

the exam. Therefore, it is obviously not easy. However, I

need to pass it as long as I still have the chance to take

the exam.

Talking about Chinese language, I have read a lot in

Internet discussion that it is one of difficult languages for

English speaker and, I add, for speakers whose languages

use Latin alphabets (I am one of this!), or others like

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Cyrillic, etc. I just found out that even dictionary cannot be helpful in learning Chinese

because there are simply more ways to say a particular thing than in English. This is the

most complaints made by my friends in Chinese learning center. An English word can

have several corresponding Chinese words that are used in different situations.

Another characteristic of Chinese language is no space is used in written text. This one

is quite troublesome because everytime I check on dictionary about a character, I do not

know if it serves as an individual word or a combination of characters in a word. The

very easy example that I can give is 加油 (jia1you2 = good luck). 加(jia1 = to add), 油

(you2 = oil). People who understand Chinese language will immediately know that this

is a word of combination from 2 characters. Nevertheless, it also means, "to add oil/

fuel/ gasoline/ any kind of oil".

I have a friend that has difficulty in studying Chinese simply because of his undisciplined

behavior. Learning a language requires much discipline effort from the learner. I do not

like being controlled by books or classes. That is why I learn by myself freely in any way

and with any materials. If I feel like watching movie in the target language, I will find it.

If I feel like using the language, I will use it. However, I train myself to get input as

much as possible from watching/ reading and listening. I like to start using the language

by writing than speaking because it gives me a while to check on dictionary. My advice

is if you cannot get anybody around you to write to, get online friends, they are

available 24/7.

Oppa Gangnam Multilingual Style Friday, September 7, 2012

Korean

PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

Georgian

PSY-Gangnam Style (georgian version )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SBn47glijY

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Mongolian

MONGOLIAN GANGNAM STYLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQIxFvp2TgI

Malay/ English

GANGNAM STYLE PARODY (강남스타일) - KL STYLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOFkFHKVzyg

Hakka

ORANG SABAH STYLE (OPPA GANGNAM STYLE

PARODY)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNb4yBz9Ck

The Beauty of Chinese Character Tuesday, September 25, 2012

People who have studied Chinese must realize that Chinese character is not just a

character, but it is also an art. Every stroke in the character forms a beautiful

combination of a meaning. It is said that Chinese character evolves from time to time

based on the actual object. Although I cannot say that it is 100% true, but there are

books about Chinese pictogram. For example, you can see below how "sun" and "moon"

was written in the past and the evolution of it until nowadays. Characters 日 and 月, on

far right, are the characters used today.

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Besides, I found an image of unique Chinese character, which I put below. Those are

actual characters used. It is easy to remember since they are unique, having triplets

characters inside one character. For example, 犇 ben1 (top left) means "to rush". It

contains three 牛 niu3 means "cow". From this meaning, I can imagine people in the

past riding cow to work in a rush hour. This statement may not be true, but it helps me

to remember the word.

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Translating Articles Saturday, October 20, 2012

This may seem to be a complex and time-consuming work to do. However, judging from

the improvement that I can get, I am quite satisfied with this method. I usually search

for news article that match my interest on the Internet. Then, I will paste them into

word processing software, such as Ms. Word, print it out, and I can start translating.

By doing this, I expect to encounter the same word repeatedly. The more I encounter

the word, the easier I will remember it. Don't you think that it is easy? However, you

may need to invest a bit of effort and time to do the translation regularly.

Two obstacles in understanding the articles are lacking of grammar and vocabulary

knowledge. So, it is highly recommended to keep on improving this knowledge. Different

languages certainly have different structure although some could be similar. One of the

examples is about Latvian language. Latvian language has "ne-" in front of a verb to

negate it. For instance, nesaprotu ((I) do not understand). You can see here that "I" is

not necessary written in the sentence. Besides, "don't understand" is written as one

word "nesaprotu". Note that the ending of "saprotu" which is "u" changes based on the

subject. This kind of form does not exist in English.

Overall, you do not need to worry about grammar because you can always go back to

check it whenever you want. There are abundant of grammar references available on

the Internet, books, or apps.

What do I aim from translating?

I would say learning more vocabulary. I am actually letting my brain accustomed to the

foreign vocabulary. The vocabulary may not only be found in daily conversation, but also

in some fields, like medical, economics, politics, etc

Forever a student: My multilingual recording

in 11 languages Friday, November 2, 2012

I found an interesting article about language. Vladimir, a native of Slovak, who is living

in Taiwan, shares his experience in 11 languages in different level of fluency.

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Forever a student: My multilingual recording in 11 languages: Hello everyone. After a lot

of consideration, I have decided to give it a shot and record myself trying to speak in

the languages that I have learned.

I was a bit afraid to do so, because while in general and in my experience people find

polyglottery interesting, to some it might seem that people who do similar recordings or

videos are show offs and attention seekers, which really wasn't my intention. I only

wanted to join the community of people who have done so before and babble along in

the languages that I speak for anyone who'd be interested in listening to my specific

language combinations. I was hesitating for a long time and only until there were

dozens of people out there with similar blogs, recordings or videos, I decided to give it a

shot myself. This way I didn't feel like I was standing out too much and felt like just one

of many.

Dutch - Ik spreek Nederlands Monday, November 12, 2012

Indonesian Words From Dutch Language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgaXW6IJK8

Another language challenge: Dutch. I have never thought before about learning Dutch

until I encountered the opportunity. One of my classmates is Dutch and he works in the

university as Dutch language tutor, which means the tutoring class is free for students.

Then, I thought, "Why not grasp the chance?"

I have gone through 1 week of the class and I have learnt that my basic knowledge in

German, which I acquired in high school, has helped me in learning Dutch. At a glance,

Dutch and German share many vocabularies and grammatical structures similarities.

However, Dutch also shares similarities with Indonesian vocabularies due to the long

historical relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands. Several Indonesian loan

words from Dutch language are as follow:

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Know It Further - the Netherlands Monday, November 26, 2012

Knowing about the language is interesting, yet it is not enough. The culture and local

customs have also offered other interesting facts. Come and check what I have found

about the Netherlands. You can see here many interesting facts about the Netherlands.

For instance, cyclists have the complete right of the way, and there is 9.1% more

bicycles than the people.

www.neeslanguageblog.com

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10+ Multilingual Celebrities Wednesday, November 28, 2012

What a nice day today! I am still enjoying teaching language. Have I mentioned that I

am an Indonesian, Mandarin and English language tutor? Learning and teaching

languages have always been my passion. I am always keen on learning foreign

languages, and communicating with people in foreign languages, or simply listening to

foreign languages through TV and radio.

As I was checking for the latest information on Facebook, I found an interesting post

from a page that I am following. It is about celebrities that speak several languages. In

addition, I also found a YouTube video, which shows even more multilingual celebrities.

Here are the ten multilingual celebrities that speak languages besides English:

1. Natalie Portman (Hebrew)

2. Bradley Cooper (French)

3. Charlize Theron (Afrikaans)

4. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (French)

5. Sandra Bullock (German)

6. Colin Firth (Italian)

7. Gwyneth Paltrow (Spanish)

8. Viggo Mortensen (Danish)

9. Kim Cattrall (German)

10. Casey Affleck (Spanish)

Bilingual Celebrities 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzniYTLmFkc

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A Greek Who Speaks 32 Languages Wednesday, December 5, 2012

If you think that speaking two or three languages is awesome, you will not believe the

person I am going to show. Ioannis Ikonomou, a polyglot (a person who knows several

languages) comes from Greece, is a translator in the European Commission (EC) in

Brussels. He began his language journey by learning English as a foreign language at

the age of six. Then, it was continuing to German, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and

the list goes on. He currently speaks 32 languages! Among them is Chinese Mandarin.

Thus, he has spent several months working in Beijing, China as the only in-house

translator that EC trusts to translate classified Chinese documents.

Ikonomou said, "You just have to immerse yourself in the language and the culture. It’s

easier now with the internet and satellite television." For instance, when he was learning

Polish, he cooked Polish pierogies, read Polish newspapers, and watched Polish

television. Besides, he always travels every chance he gets. He has visited Scandinavia,

the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa and the former Soviet Union, as well as China,

Pakistan, Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States.

Ioannis Ikonomou was born in Irakleio, Crete, in 1964. He studied linguistics at the

University of Thessaloniki before pursuing an MA in Middle Eastern languages and

cultures at Columbia University in the United States. He continued with a PhD in Indo-

European linguistics at Harvard University. He has been employed as a translator at the

European Commission in Brussels since 2002.

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Get Some Inspirations! Thursday, December 6, 2012

Which is the easiest language?

How many speakers of the language?

How important is the language?

Which is the most popular language?

And the list goes on...

Have you ever had those questions in your mind whenever you face the decision to

learn a language? I bet you have. Well, one consideration of the easiness of a language

depends much on the language that the learners have known. A Korean friend told me

that it is easier to learn Chinese Mandarin than English. If we look deeply in the

structure and vocabulary of Korean language, it has many more similarities with Chinese

Mandarin than that in English. Moreover, Korean used Chinese characters along with the

Korean characters in the past.

I found an interesting article listing top 10 languages to study including facts about each

of them. I would like to point out two categories here.

Languages for job

1. German

2. French

3. Spanish

4. Mandarin

5. Polish

6. Arabic

7. Cantonese

8. Russian

9. Japanese

10. Portuguese

Easiest foreign language

(for English speaker)

1. Afrikaans

2. French

3. Spanish

4. Dutch

5. Norwegian

6. Portuguese

7. Swedish

8. Italian

9. Esperanto

10. Frisian

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Language Battlefield Saturday, December 8, 2012

我很喜歡中文

man patīk latviešu

ik vind de Nederlandse erg leuk

me gusta mucho Español

Я люблю русский язык

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to

him in his own language, that goes to his heart." ~Nelson Mandela

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Speak to Me in Many Languages Monday, December 10, 2012

It is an ugly truth to say that students can get bored in class, moreover, when it is

Monday morning. I was sitting at the back doodling, until I got an idea, "I am going to

write my name and a sentence in several languages." Thus, I searched online for foreign

language sentences and I found that Omniglot has them. I limit the number of

languages to those that I am familiar with, such as Russian, Korean, Chinese Mandarin,

English, Spanish, Cantonese, Indonesian, and Latvian. What do you think about it?

Multilingual Taiwanese Bus Driver Thursday, December 13, 2012

This funny video comes from Taichung (台中) city in Central Taiwan. In the video, the

driver speaks mostly two languages, Chinese Mandarin and Taiwanese, which I believe

to be his native languages. However, you can also listen to him saying names of places

in foreign languages, such as German, Thai, Japanese, and Vietnamese. He also greets

passengers in several languages, such as Japanese, Cantonese, and Thai.

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Apart from his language ability, he is also good at telling joke. For instance, he said 台中

"缺"血中心 (Taichung "lacking" blood center) instead of 台中捐血中心 (Taichung blood

donation center) He is also very familiar with the location of buildings and bus stops

along the bus route. This genius driver can even suggest passengers how to go to a

place by taking which bus. Besides, he also gives advice to student passengers, such as

"study hard", and "respect your parents".

[搞笑] 台湾一夜爆红的巴士司机！太热情幽默了啦！https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtMxUkH7Ng

Polyglot Discussion Thursday, December 20, 2012

I encountered a video that may boost your motivation in language learning. This one-

hour video is awesome. I believe not only me, but also those who are interested in

languages may learn a lot from it. The video was broadcasted live on Saturday,

December 15th 2012 at 8 PM GMT. Eight polyglots from around the world met together

to share their language learning strategies and their language learning experiences.

David Mansaray from London was the initiator and he started the discussion with the

question "How your personality shapes your way of learning a language?"

Susanna Zarysky from San Francisco mentioned that she tends to look for patterns

within the language.

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Jana Fadness from Washington prefers to try a wide variety of different interests to

escape boredom.

Luca Lampariello from Italy likes to read books and talk to people as much as

possible.

Robert Bigler from Austria came up with silent period. Agreeing with Luca, Robert

also reads a lot and jumps into discussions or even arguments.

Richard Simcott from Macedonia said that he likes to play with accents and retrieve

foreign words from songs.

Steve Kaufmann from Canada has a different opinion. He enjoys learning language

and he is motivated by the culture, history, and/ or politics.

The last panelist, Benny Lewis, considered himself as a traveler. Therefore, he sees

language as a tool and he is fond of speaking rather than reading.

The following question is about how to keep the language learning interest alive.

Robert agreed with Benny about constantly using the language.

Luca persuaded learners to make mistakes and retrieve feedback in order to

improve.

Benny encouraged making mistakes. He even mentioned that he makes around 100

mistakes per day, which made the other panelists burst into laughter.

The discussion was then continued with the question of which technique that works

for others but not for the panelists.

Jana mentioned that she prefers to learn vocabularies through context rather than

using flashcards.

Robert continued with a shadowing technique that does not work for him because

of the overlapping voices.

Richard said that learning grammar is the obstacle for him.

Agreeing Robert, Luca also mentioned that shadowing technique does not work for

him. Apart from that, he also mentioned about a list of words as another technique

that does not work for him.

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Susanna has a different opinion. She recalled her school time learning language

with grammar books, which do not work anymore for her now. Instead, she likes to

play with language apps. However, she said that it is interesting but she absorbs

not much and feels bored.

David continued with the next question about the advice that the panelists can give

to learners who are fed up with learning the language.

Luca said that the beginning is always difficult. However, the more progress it has,

the easier it will be.

Steve suggested that learners get involved in a real situation, such as talking with

people and watching podcasts. Thus, he added about focusing on the enjoyment.

Due to time limitation, David continued to the next question. It is about which

difficulties that are encountered and/ or how to overcome them.

Susanna started with talking about the subjunctive, which she took the comparison

of it in Spanish and French.

Steve talked about cases, especially of that in German and Slavic language.

Robert mentioned about Chinese Character or Kanji and tones. However, he tends

to see them as a compound sound, where he can imitate the way it is spoken.

Richard has a quite interesting opinion. He said that the issue is not the language

but the culture. For instance, saying something acceptable in one place may be

unacceptable in another.

Jana said that many grammar books do not have enough explanation.

After all, the discussion continued with random questions from the viewers. The first one

is about what the panelists have learnt from each other.

Benny immediately referred to Moses McMormick's language learning of

approaching people.

Susanna talked about an interview of Richard. She said that Richard mentioned

about not feeling guilty for not accomplishing anything in language learning.

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Steve praised this polyglot community that it is encouraging not only for the

viewers but also for the panelists.

Robert mentioned about Benny's opinion that anybody can learn any language.

The next question was "What is your favorite language and why?"

Immediately, Benny responded that sign language for being the most expressive

language. In addition, it can say more than spoken language.

Steve has a different opinion. He said that his favorite language is the one that he

is totally immersed in.

According to Jana, she mentioned about Japanese because it is her first foreign

language and the language that she knows best apart from English.

Due to time limitation, the discussion finally came to the end. Just before it was closed,

Benny added that everybody is welcome to ask each of the panelists questions via

YouTube, blog, or any social media sites.

Polyglots' channels

David Mansaray

Steve Kaufmann

Benny Lewis

Jana Fadness

Robert Bigler

Susanna Zarysky

Luca Lampariello

Richard Simcott

Moses McMormick

Live Polyglot Language Learning Discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g2K9mcJJL0

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Wordle Word Cloud Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Have you heard about "word cloud"? Have you seen any visual representation for text

data that shows tag label in different font sizes and forms like "cloud"? I have just found

an interesting website called Wordle. It is very easy to use it. Click on "Create" in the

menu bar, and then you can see whether you want to paste a bunch of text or paste

URL of any website. Finally, leave the rest for the program and you may want to modify

font type, color, or even play around with the "Randomize" button.

You can find the example that I have made. It comprises of the top 100 languages and

the corresponding countries based on the statistics in 1996. Six years have not changed

much of it. Chinese, Spanish, and English are still top 3 most spoken languages.