YEAR

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2014 Nee’s Language Blog

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Table of Contents Languages of Belize ................................................................................... 3

Belizean English ..................................................................................... 3

Belizean Spanish .................................................................................... 3

Belizean Kriol ......................................................................................... 3

Indonesian Taxi Driver Speaks English ....................................................... 4

3 Websites That Make Language Learning More Fun ............................... 5

Memrise ................................................................................................ 5

Busuu .................................................................................................... 6

Duolingo ................................................................................................ 7

Motivation and Strategy in Language Learning ......................................... 8

Motivation ............................................................................................. 8

Strategy ................................................................................................. 9

Review of Italki: A Different Way to Learn Languages ............................. 11

Italki ..................................................................................................... 11

Professional Lessons............................................................................ 12

Informal Tutoring ................................................................................ 12

Instant Tutoring ................................................................................... 13

Community .......................................................................................... 13

Giveaway: Private Beta Access to FluentU .............................................. 15

FluentU ................................................................................................ 15

Learn a Foreign Language in a Foreign Language .................................... 17

What is the method? ........................................................................... 17

How does it work? ............................................................................... 18

Language Learning Links .......................................................................... 19

How Much Time? .................................................................................... 20

Methods .............................................................................................. 20

No Internet, No Problem ..................................................................... 21

5 Foreign Languages to Learn In Taiwan ................................................. 23

A little bit about me ............................................................................ 23

Languages in Taiwan ........................................................................... 23

Local foreign language ........................................................................ 23

Last but not the least........................................................................... 24

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9 Multilingual News Websites for Reading Practice ................................ 25

Multilingual News Websites ................................................................ 25

5 Funny Words in Afrikaans from My Perspective .................................. 31

Get to know Afrikaans ......................................................................... 31

Funny words ........................................................................................ 32

3 Mistakes in English by Spanish Speakers .............................................. 34

Spanish speakers, please pay attention .............................................. 34

Teach To Learn ........................................................................................ 36

Language tutor learns languages ........................................................ 36

Learn Afrikaans Online ............................................................................ 38

Easy but confusing............................................................................... 38

Online Afrikaans Course ...................................................................... 38

Songs in Similar Languages ...................................................................... 40

Spanish and Esperanto ........................................................................ 40

Afrikaans and Dutch ............................................................................ 40

Spanish and Portuguese ...................................................................... 40

Rap Songs in My Native Languages ......................................................... 41

Hokkien ............................................................................................... 41

Indonesian ........................................................................................... 42

Bonus: Hokkien & Cantonese (Malaysia) ............................................. 42

Bonus: Hokkien (Taiwan) ..................................................................... 42

Bonus: Malay (Malaysia) ..................................................................... 43

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Languages of Belize

Belize, a former British colony and a neighboring country to Guatemala

and Mexico, is the only English-speaking country in Central America. About

300,000 of population with its diverse cultures and languages form the

unique Belizean society.

Spanish, Creole (also referred as Kriol), and other regional languages are

also spoken apart from English (official language). Therefore, bilingualism

is a common situation for Belizean.

Islandmix has a forum thread that shows conversations in three major

languages that are spoken in Belize – English, Spanish, and Kriol.

Belizean English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K89Xvxc5U4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V9PNVLwAEk

Belizean Spanish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdwXmQxbcWw

Belizean Kriol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtNsIMpCMY

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Indonesian Taxi Driver Speaks

English

If you think that "age" is a problem in language learning, watch this video.

Tarmedi, an Indonesian taxi driver, is 54 years old and have been working

for 25 years as taxi driver. Prior to that, he has worked as pedicab driver

and street vendor. He did not finish elementary school, was illiterate,

however, the "young spirit" motivates him to learn English despite his age.

Since a video was uploaded by one of his passengers, he has appeared in

several medias and has been a trending topic in the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu9I1KJSHv8

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3 Websites That Make Language

Learning More Fun

Who does not want a fun and enjoyable language learning material that

could keep you motivated to learn languages? This kind of study method

does not work only for kids but also for adults. It would be easier to absorb

the knowledge if it is done in an interesting way.

Conventional flashcards and grammar book are absolutely boring.

However, it does not mean that those learning materials are bad. It could

be helpful for a certain type of learners at a certain time or for learners of

a certain level of fluency.

Here I am going to show you three websites that you can use to make your

language learning more fun. Personally, I often use them recently and I am

so engaged with it.

Memrise

Memrise comprises a wide range of subject category – languages, arts,

history to name a few. The learning style is flashcards-based style and it is

enriched with forum, leaderboard, points, social networking, and even the

function for you to create your own flashcards.

One astonishing thing that I found in Memrise is the learning materials

availability for constructed languages, such as Esperanto, Klingon, Lojban,

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Morse Code, Na'vi, and Toki Pona, which is not usually available at any

language learning website.

Visit my Memrise profile

Busuu

If you want to find a native speaker to chat, Busuu has the function for

that. You can even get points reward to chat with native speakers. Besides,

Busuu also offers various kind of learning materials, such as a series of

dialogues, vocabulary, writing composition, and even downloadable PDF

for you to review anywhere at any time.

Busuu claims to have more than 30 million users and it offers free and

premium membership. The available languages that you can learn are

English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Polish,

Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese.

Visit my Busuu profile and my article at Busuu Blog

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Duolingo

The learning style in Duolingo focuses on sentence construction. In the

practice, learners are required to write the meaning of a sentence from

the target language to English or vice versa, helped by hints, which are

meanings of each word in the sentence. However, keep in mind that literal

translation may not always be the correct answer. Apart from that, the

writing practice is also combined with multiple choice and fill in the blanks.

The available languages that you can learn are English, Spanish, French,

Italian, German, and Portuguese. Duolingo also has a function called

"Immersion". This function allows you to put all your hard work to good

use by translating real world articles.

Visit my Duolingo profile

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Motivation and Strategy in

Language Learning

Since the commercialization of Internet in mid-1990, it has contributed

significant changes into our lives and has even had a revolutionary impact

on commerce and culture, including the way we see our world.

Communications become easier. Social networking, discussion forums,

and online shopping sites are rising.

The way people learn languages are also changed. Compared to the past,

it is much easier to learn any languages nowadays, including the language

that you cannot find the book in your local bookstore or language that you

cannot find the speaker in your neighborhood.

Motivation No one could deny that motivation is on top of everything. Your

motivation to live keeps you alive and your motivation to learn a language

keeps you progressing. You also need motivation in language learning.

However, wrong motivation may discourage you instead of supporting

your learning progress. Therefore, take some time to think profoundly

about your motivation of learning languages, or your motivation of

learning a particular language.

Your motivation leads you to your goals. The motivations could be job

requirement, moving abroad, exploring your heritage, to be closer to your

loved one, so on and so forth. The following list shows a deeper

explanation of several examples of motivation.

1. Job requirement

An example of foreign language as a job requirement is English. English is

still a high-demand foreign language not only for students, but also for job

seekers. Although English is not the only international language, it is

considered the most used language anywhere even on the Internet.

Therefore, multinational companies may require English as a primary

foreign language and/or other foreign language as the complementary.

With the high dominance of English globally, English may still maintain its

position as the most important global language of business.

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2. Move Abroad

Seeking for a better life overseas or instability within the country, such as

economic or political turmoil, may be two of many reasons to move

abroad. The challenges of living abroad are primarily concerned about the

language and culture, apart from bureaucracy or others.

If English is not the native language of the host country, it may still be

useful in tackling basic chores; however, knowing the local language is

more than necessary to understand the local culture and lifestyle, as well

as to build a deeper relationship with those who do not speak any

language but their language.

3. Heritage Exploration

The evolution in transportation system offer a great flexibility to move

from one place to another. However, moving from one place to another,

or in other word “migration and emigration”, has happened even since

the colonialism era.

One example is the existence of Chinese communities around the world.

The Chinese emigration has established overseas Chinese communities

outside of China, regardless whether they retain their Chinese heritage or

no. Therefore, learning Chinese language may give the opportunity for the

overseas Chinese to learn about their Chinese heritage.

Strategy Imagine yourself living in the country of your target language and think

about how much time with the language you would have by living there.

To live in the country of your target language is indeed good for your

language learning; however, we need to bear in mind that not everyone

could have the time or financial support to do such thing.

If you do not have such chance, you may create the foreign atmosphere

at home. You may begin by surrounding yourself with songs or movies, as

well as labelling objects in the target language. It may seem odd in the

beginning but this is one way to spend more time with the target language.

The more time you spend with the language, the more comfortable you

would be with the language.

1. Utilize the Internet

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Thanks to the Internet, language learning is no longer boring and difficult.

Nowadays, you can learn any language you want on the Internet, even the

language that you cannot find the speaker in your neighborhood or the

country you are living.

Skype and Google Hangout are two examples of programs that you can

use to communicate with people around the world. You may utilize these

tools to conduct a language class with native speakers, or to share learning

experiences with fellow language learners.

There are also abundant of language learning websites – busuu, italki,

livemocha, and verbling to name a few.

2. Join local communities

Local language communities may also help you to spend much time with

your target language. The advantage of joining local language

communities is the ability to interact in real life and the flexibility to

engage in real life activities together, which online society cannot offer.

One example may be Esperanto language community. Esperanto is an

artificial language, means that no country and no one adopt Esperanto as

a main language although there are Esperanto speakers who learn the

language from their Esperanto-speaking parents since childhood.

Nowadays, Esperanto communities exist around the world.

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Review of Italki: A Different Way

to Learn Languages

Do you usually enroll to a language course or buy books to learn a

language? Or do you always utilize the Internet to find native speakers and

at the same time to use it as your language learning tool? Personally, I

would go for the second option, to utilize the Internet.

Internet has been a common tool nowadays. Everyone use Internet

frequently. When I commute every day to the university by train, I always

see commuters using the Internet to chat with friends or to check emails.

Internet has been a part of human life, well, at least for city dwellers.

Italki The first time I visited Italki website, I realized quickly that this language

learning website has something different, something that other websites

do not offer. There is no learning material! I always expect to see some

learning materials, such as word list, grammar, etc, whenever I visit a

language learning website. However, Italki has something more

interesting to offer.

To date, I have been a member Italki for quite a long time (since Italki had

its old layout.) The current Italki (with new layout) certainly offers many

interesting features to language learners.

Italki User Profile

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Your attention might be directed to the menu bar as soon as you enter

Italki website since there is where the features are located. The features

and description are listed as the following:

Professional Lessons Users who teach Professional Lessons are called Professional Teachers.

Italki's Customer Support webpage states the definition of Professional

Teachers as follows:

Professional Teachers are teaching professionals that

have been trained in foreign language acquisition.

They have one of the qualifications below:

Teach as a job at a school or language institute

Have a university degree in education

Have a teaching certificate (i.e. TESOL)

Basically, Professional Teachers are those who have language teaching as

a career, lots of experience, or have education background in languages.

They are expected to prepare the teaching material and be able to cover

a wide range of aspects, such as grammar, writing, pronunciation, etc.

Informal Tutoring Informal Tutoring is offered by both Professional Teachers and

Community Tutors. According to Italki's Customer Support webpage,

Community Tutors are:

... native speakers (or near native speakers) who can

help you learn a language through informal tutoring or

speaking practice. Community Tutors are not formally

qualified teachers. They do not teach a foreign

language for a living nor do they have a degree in

education. However, they are knowledgeable and

passionate about helping others learn their language.

Community Tutors could be passionate language learners or language

enthusiasts, who want to help language learners to learn languages. They

are not expected to prepare any learning material, however, they are

those who will patiently listen to you speaking in the language you are

practicing. You might want to seek help to correct essay, practice speaking,

or answer questions from Community Tutors.

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Tutoring Rates

Instant Tutoring Italki's Customer Support webpage defines Instant Tutoring simply in only

one sentence.

Instant Tutoring allows students and teachers to

connect and immediately have live one-on-one

language lessons.

This feature is suitable for learners who want to have a class as soon as

possible. Simply go to Instant Tutoring webpage to see a list of available

Professional Teachers and Community Tutors and request for a session.

Community 1. Language Partners

There are abundant of language learners in Italki. You can find penpals to

practice language together in Language Partners webpage. It is totally free!

You may practice with your partners by having 5 minutes on each language

that you are practicing.

2. Notebook

Notebook is where you can practice your writing skill. You may write about

your daily routine or stories that you want to share with other language

learners. A native speaker or advanced speaker of your target language

may correct the mistakes and give comments to help you improve in your

writing.

3. Answer

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Do you have any question while learning a language, such as how to use

"muy" and "mucho" in Spanish? Here is the place to ask anything that you

encountered in your language learning. Besides, you also can share your

knowledge by answering questions from other language learners.

4. Discussion

If your question requires deeper explanation and involves several points

of view, you better post it in the Discussion webpage.

Welcome to visit my Italki Teacher Profile.

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Giveaway: Private Beta Access to

FluentU

Do you like to watch videos to learn a language? If yes, did you encounter

any difficulty?

Watching videos is one of my methods to learn a language. It gives an

opportunity to sharpen my listening skill, to know how an emotion or

gesture is attached with the phrases, and to learn about the cultural

aspect of the language.

However, there are drawbacks of this method that I have encountered.

When my level is still low, I do not get what is being spoken in the video

although there is subtitle. Everything passes like a buzz. I do not know

which one is the pronoun, verb, or adjective. It becomes worse that many

videos do not even have subtitles.

FluentU A representative of FluentU reached out to me to introduce their language

learning website which utilize the method of watching videos to learn

languages. I like the idea very much. FluentU Chinese has been well

received as you can see in their News page and they are now launching

FluentU Spanish, French, and English.

There is an abundant of videos that learners can watch and at the same

time, learners can also enrich their vocabulary and learn how to use the

words in other sentences.

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While playing a video, learners can see subtitle in their target language

and learners can simply hover the mouse pointer to each of the words to

get the meaning and to learn how the words are used in other phrases.

Take a look at their quick tour video to learn more about FluentU.

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Learn a Foreign Language in a

Foreign Language

Which language do you use when you are learning a foreign language?

Your answer might be your native language. I bet many people would

agree with it since your native language is the language that has grown

with you and you know your native language better than other language.

However, this fact does not always turn out to be true. Those people who

grow up in another country and have been exposed to a foreign language

and culture might perform well in both their native and the foreign

language.

Knowing more languages indeed give you advantages. It makes you stand

out of the crowd. Despite the advantages that you could get from knowing

more languages, you need to be able to spare your time to practice the

languages in order to maintain or improve your fluency.

What do you do with the languages? Do you watch movies, listen radio, or

read books in foreign languages regularly?

What is the method? I have been using a new language learning method for few weeks. This

method might not be a really brand-new method that nobody has ever

used, but at least, it is quite new for me. The method is learning a foreign

language in a foreign language. It might be quite tricky and it requires you

to have a conversational level of the foreign language that you are going

to use to learn another foreign language.

Although English is my first foreign language, I have been using it every

day (even more than my native languages) so I regard it as a common

language, just like my native languages. Besides, I know Chinese, Spanish,

and Esperanto, with different level of fluency.

I am learning Tagalog and French by using this method, means that I am

not learning them in English or any of my two native languages. I use

Chinese to learn Tagalog and Esperanto to learn French.

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How does it work? It is very simple but as I mentioned earlier, it could be tricky. You need to

find a language partner whose foreign language level is sufficient enough

to converse.

Suppose that Alicia is your language partner. Her native language is

Spanish and she wishes to improve Chinese. She has had conversational

level of Chinese but she still does not speak fluently.

Suppose that you speak Chinese quiet fluently although it may not be your

native language, and you want to learn Spanish. It could be that Spanish is

totally a foreign language for you or you already had the basic.

Then, both of you could agree to help each other by using Chinese in the

conversation. Alicia would have the chance to use Chinese to teach

Spanish to you, and you would be able to learn Spanish and help Alicia to

improve her Chinese fluency.

Keep in mind that both of you should know a common language, such as

English, just in case if you are stuck with a word that Alicia could not

understand in Chinese and you could not explain in Spanish.

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Language Learning Links

You may have finished one round of Duolingo or all of the exercises in

Livemocha, then what's next? Looking for more language learning

materials could be a treasure hunt. They are available anywhere on the

Internet, but you need an effort to find them.

There is no guarantee that those language learning tools you found could

be useful and fit your learning style. Thus, it is recommended to keep on

trying until you find your perfect match. You may also use several tools at

the same with to avoid boredom. This also allows you to have more

exposure to different kinds of learning materials.

Online College sums up a list of language learning tools for learning various

languages, such as Portuguese, Japanese, French, or even, Latin, Farsi, and

Sign Language. The list comprises of:

1. Online courses

2. Video channels

3. Podcasts

4. Textbooks

5. Translation

6. Communities

7. Tools

8. Apps

Check the website and have a fun language learning!

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How Much Time?

When we talk about how much time you spend on learning foreign

language, we may need to look into your schedule. How did you manage

your learning schedule? 30 minutes of reading per day? 1 hour of speaking

per day? Do you think that you have done much to be better? In fact, you

need more than that to excel in the language.

If you say that you attend 1 month of Spanish class at school that does not

really mean you have learned Spanish for 1 month. Perhaps, it could be

just 8 hours of learning if your class is 2 hours per week and there are 4

weeks in a month.

Methods One of my methods to learn languages is by "living" in it. I imagine myself

living in the country where the language is spoken, which means that I

could get frequent contact with the language.

Three of many activities that you can do in the foreign language are as the

following:

1. Watch online TV

Don't need to care too much or feel bad to yourself if you cannot

understand much while watching. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

You would, at least, pick up the accent or word emphasis by listening.

Moreover, you could also learn the facial expression while saying a phrase.

In Watch Listen Online article, I recap a list of online TV of various

languages. If you cannot find the language you want or you want to try

more languages, go to one of my favorite websites, Internet TV.

2. Learn another language

The more language that you know, the easier it could be to learn another

language. Languages have been evolving around this world for thousands

of years, influencing each other, and growing as our society changes. You

can find several similar languages in Language Groups article to help you

choose another language based on the similarities.

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If you have a sufficient level in a language, you might want to use it to learn

another language to maintain or improve its level. In Learn in a Foreign

Language article, I wrote about using my first foreign language, English, to

learn languages through reading and writing. Another article, Learn a

Foreign Language in a Foreign Language is about how I use my third and

fourth foreign languages to learn more languages. This language-crossing

activity is quite fun!

3. Use language websites and apps

There are many language websites and apps. If you use smartphone or

tablets, download the apps so you can use it while waiting for public

transportation. Use your time efficiently.

Most of the websites and apps are created to be as interesting as possible

to capture the users' attention and to engage with them more. So, it is

common to see language learning through games.

In 3 Websites That Make Language Learning More Fun article, I wrote

about 3 of my most favorite website and you can find more resources

about podcast, video channels, etc. in Language Learning Links article.

No Internet, No Problem You might say that you do not have much time surfing on the Internet.

That would not be a problem. In fact, I get tired of using Internet too. What

about people who live in a country where the Internet connection is still

slow? We cannot rely too much on the Internet although it has made our

language learning way easier than before.

1. Read free stuffs

The solution is reading in foreign language. I like reading and I read a lot!

Where to get the book?

I usually search on Google for PDF file with the keyword "X filetype:pdf",

where X is what you want to read. It is not necessary to be a book, it could

be brochure too. The point is you can have a learning material that you

can print out or use without the Internet. Another way is to find the

downloadable magazine from ISSUU, one of my favorite websites.

If necessary, prepare a dictionary to help yourself while reading so you can

enrich your vocabulary at the same time.

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2. Join language group

It is a good idea to join language group around you, however, the

availability of the language is sometimes limited to only popular languages,

such as English, French, or Spanish. So, I find it less effective if the language

that you are learning is not available.

I know that there are many ways to learn languages. What work for me

might work or might not work for you. The key here is to spend your time

as often as possible with the language.

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5 Foreign Languages to Learn In

Taiwan

How do you decide which language to learn? Everyone has different

answers, such as job requirement, heritage, or relationship.

A little bit about me Before I decided to focus on Spanish, I was also learning several other

languages, for instance Latvian, Russian, Portuguese, etc. Learning the

basic of those languages allows me to understand some phrases and the

structure.

In 2008, I came to Taiwan to pursue my higher degree study and learn

Chinese. Like many foreigners, we might only think of Chinese language

when we talk about Taiwan.

Languages in Taiwan In fact, aboriginal languages, Taiwanese, and Hakka languages exist in

Taiwan with the latter two being used the most, apart from Chinese. For

example, announcement in the train and subway are broadcasted in 4

languages — Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, and English.

In addition to the languages mentioned earlier, there are several foreign

languages that exist and you may consider learning if you are in Taiwan.

Every non-English speaker knows that English is the most popular foreign

language anywhere. Meanwhile, Chinese is the official language in Taiwan.

Therefore, I consider them the primary choices for non-native English and/

or Chinese speaker.

Local foreign language There are several foreign languages whose speakers you can find easily in

Taiwan. These local foreign languages are listed as the following:

1. Indonesian

2. Tagalog

3. Vietnamese

4. Thai

5. Burmese

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Many migrant workers come from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam,

and Thailand in Taiwan. Their contributions have helped in developing

Taiwan and its economy.

Moreover, there are South East Asian areas in many Taiwanese cities

where you can find lots of Indonesian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Thai

speakers.

Especially for Burmese, I know only 1 Burmese area which is located in

Taipei city.

Apart from the migrant workers, there are also many students from these

South East Asian countries. Thus, judging from the amount of the speaker,

there is relative high chance to practice the languages on daily basis

without the Internet.

Last but not the least Taiwan has become a heterogeneous society. The existence of South East

Asian has enriched Taiwanese society and its culture.

So, which language would you like to learn?

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9 Multilingual News Websites for

Reading Practice

Learners learn languages in many different ways, such as attending

language classes, playing games or listening to audio. Whatever the

methods are, they usually cover four aspects of language learning: reading,

listening, speaking, and writing. Mastering only one or two of these is not

enough because in the reality, we read, listen, speak, and write.

Some learners achieve rapid improvement in any combination of these

aspects simultaneously and some other learners need more time to focus

on each one at a time. I like to read and I always try my best to read

everyday in multiple languages, especially languages that I am seriously

learning. My principle is that I need to practice reading and/ or writing

more often when I do not practice much speaking and/ or listening. The

purpose is to acquire wider range of vocabulary.

Multilingual News Websites Wikipedia has a list of multilingual news services, which comprises TV

stations or newspaper that appear in various languages. That list might

already give an abundant resources for reading practice, however, here I

want to present some of my favorites and those not in Wikipedia‘s list.

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1. Wikinews

Available in English, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Russian, Spanish,

German, French, and many more.

2. Global Voices Online

Available in English, German, Arabic, Macedonian, Spanish, Malagasy,

Russian, Bangla, and many more.

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3. BBC World Service

Available in French, Hausa, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, Burmese, Chinese,

Indonesian, Thai, and many more.

4. Metro

Available in Portuguese, English, Spanish, Chinese, Czech, Finnish, French,

Greek, Dutch, and many more.

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5. Dong Bei 东北网

Available in Chinese, English, Russian, Japanese, and Korean.

6. People Daily 人民网

Available in English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Korean,

and German.

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7. China Radio International

Available in Chinese, Albanian, Arabic, Belorussian, Bengali, Bulgarian,

Cambodian, and many more.

8. Malaysia Kini

Available in English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil.

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9. Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and French.

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5 Funny Words in Afrikaans from

My Perspective

On my daily routine sitting in front of my computer reading many articles

about languages, technology, and entrepreneurship, I usually find

interesting subjects to learn. And this time, I have an even more

interesting subject about language when I read that Afrikaans is

considered as an easy language, if not the easiest, for English speaker or

speakers from its language family. I was like “Seriously?!”

Afrikaans originated from the West Germanic language family, which is

the same family as English, Dutch, and German. I have learnt all of these

three languages, so I know how difficult they are and yes, English is not an

easy language. As usual, I always challenge myself to learn more new

languages, or at least to learn basic phrases from travelling phrasebooks,

and I wonder if I would also consider Afrikaans an easy language or not.

Get to know Afrikaans Many of you may have not heard about Afrikaans since it is not so popular

like Western European languages, such as Spanish, French, or Portuguese.

According to Wikipedia, Afrikaans has approximately 7.2 million native

speakers and spoken mainly in Namibia and South Africa. It is also said that

Afrikaans speakers can understand Dutch better than the other way

around.

Being a descendant of Dutch, Afrikaans was considered as a Dutch dialect

until the early 20th century when it ultimately obtained the status as one

of South Africa’s 11 official languages. Apart from Dutch, Afrikaans is also

influenced by Bantu and Khoisan languages, as well as Portuguese and

Malay.

Luckily, Indonesian is one of my native languages, and I know English and

Spanish as well as learning Portuguese, so I should recognize some words

from Afrikaans. It is not totally a foreign language for me after all.

There are no conjugations like English, such as “swim, swam, swum”,

or gender, such as “un homme, une femme” in French. Some phrases

are also similar with English, such as “Wat is dit in Afrikaans?” and

“Wat is jou naam?” Overall, are you convinced that Afrikaans is

considered easy for English speaker?

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Funny words I found out five Afrikaans words, which are quite funny for me and are my

favorites.

1. Piesang

Guess what, if you know Indonesian, you will know this word. “Piesang”

means “banana”, it is written as “pisang” in Indonesian. “Piesang” is also

my favorite fruit.

2. Bekend

Apparently, “bekend” has the same meaning with “beken” in Indonesian,

which is “famous”. However, “beken” is a slang in Indonesian and used

mostly among youngsters.

3. Besoek

“Besoek” rhymes with “besuk” in Indonesian, which is “to visit sick people”.

For example, you will say that you “besuk” someone at the hospital, not

for visiting long-time-no-see friends.

4. Nee

The romanization of my Chinese surname is apparently a word in Afrikaans.

“Nee” means “No”. So, whenever you want to refuse something, you will

say my surname first “Nee, dankie”, which means “No, thank you”.

5. Lekker

What first comes to my mind is Lekker, a restaurant in my hometown.

“Lekker” means “good” or “delicious”. This is my favorite word. “Lekker”

can be added before any other word to make it stronger, for example

“Sjoe, dis lekker koud vandag!” which means, "Wow, it's so cold today!".

"Jou lekker ding" is a common phrase which you can say to someone if you

mean they are great, sexy or fantastic.

Apart from that, Afrikaans’s duplicating words also caught my attention. It

is used to emphasize an action, such as “lag-lag” emphasizes “to laugh”.

Whereas duplicating words in Indonesian is to indicate plurality, such as

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“anak-anak” is “children”, but it is also used to emphasize an action, such

as “main-main” emphasizes “to play”.

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3 Mistakes in English by Spanish

Speakers

Everyone is learning foreign languages nowadays. No one is too old to

learn a language, what matter most is actually the methods and mindset.

Various reasons for learning a foreign language are such as, job

requirement or moving to another country.

Despite living in a Mandarin-speaking country, English is my main language

since I study in an international program. Besides, Mandarin is the

language of daily life, used mainly when dealing with off-class chores, such

as going to the market or restaurant.

Spanish speakers, please pay attention There is a large number of Spanish-speaking students in the universities

here, mainly from Central America. Most of them speak Spanish although

there are also English-speaking Central American students, such as those

from Belize, the only English-speaking country in Central America.

Since English is the main language inside and outside of the class among

the international students and many of them are not native English

speakers, there are lots of interesting moments when speaking English. I

noticed several mistakes in English done by Spanish speakers, which I find

quite interesting. I am also amazed at how native language influences us

when speaking a foreign language.

Please note that I am not a native English speaker, thus, I am also

vulnerable to making mistakes in English. However, I want to share with

you what I have encountered and hopefully, this could be a lesson not only

for Spanish speakers, but also for all language learners.

1. I have ... years

What do you think or how do you feel when you hear someone says "I

have 20 years", instead of "I am 20 years old"? It is awkward, isn't it?

I have learnt English for years and I have never heard that phrase until my

Spanish-speaking friend said it. It makes sense since I know Spanish (and

when I think in Spanish), although it sounds quite not right for me.

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Literal translation is what you need to be aware of whenever you speak a

foreign language.

2. Carpet

Guess what? "Carpeta" in Spanish is not "carpet" in English, but "folder

(document case)". In language learning, this is called false friend.

False friend means a word or expression that is similar to that in a person's

native language, but has different meaning.

3. -tion ending pronunciation

Many English words with the ending of -tion have their equivalents in

Spanish with just a little difference. For instance, introduction / introducci

ón, presentation / presentación or production / producción.

You can see that -tion ending in English is -ción in Spanish, and they are

pronounced slightly different. In English, -tion ending is pronounced as

"ʃ(ə)n".

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Teach To Learn

Many various kinds of learning methods exist nowadays and you can find

them as easily as clicking your computer mouse. That is the good news.

The bad news is which one to use. For experienced language learners, they

may have figured out their potential and learning style. Nevertheless, this

does not mean that they can be free from the confusion of the leaning

method.

I have read about many language learning methods. I have even mix-and-

matched them in order to find the most suitable one. However, I still

sometimes find it difficult to learn with the existing methods and this

condition keeps on urging me to find another method.

One of my previous methods is learning a foreign language in a foreign

language, where I explain about how I use English to learn languages most

of the time, Chinese to learn Tagalog, and Esperanto to learn French. The

learning can be done by tandem learning or reading textbooks. I found out

that this method is not really effective to some extent, so I needed to find

another method.

Language tutor learns languages I have been working part-time as a language tutor online and offline for

few years. I help students from around the world to learn languages, like

English, Chinese, Indonesian, and Esperanto.

Throughout this teaching-learning activity, I get the chance to observe the

way students from various countries and levels learn languages.

Fortunately, I also can learn many things from them, from their

communication culture to their amazing language learning stories.

An idea occurred one day to me, "Why don't I teach a language to learn a

language for free?" So that "free" refers to teaching for free and learning

for free. It worked quite well, however, you need to have a conversational

level of the foreign language that you want to use to teach and practice

simultaneously.

For instance, I have conversational level of Spanish, so I can teach

Indonesian, Chinese or other languages in Spanish. Several ways how I am

benefited are I can practice speaking and asking for corrections if I make

mistakes, improve my teaching skills, get to know new friends, and learn

for free!

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You also can offer to be a "good listener" by giving your language partner

the opportunity to teach you your target language in your native language.

In this case, you are not required to use any foreign languages. What you

do is to correct the mistakes and help your language partner to improve

his/ her conversation skill, as well as learn languages simultaneously.

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Learn Afrikaans Online

Hallo, hoe gaan dit? Goed, dankie. Wat is jou naam?

My naam is Teddy. Aangename kennis

Hello, how are you? Good, thank you. What is your

name? My name is Teddy. Pleased to meet you

If you have learnt Dutch before, you may wonder what language it is. It

looks like Dutch, but it is not. You can even understand it if you know

English, can't you? So, what is it?

It is Afrikaans, a language spoken mainly in South Africa and Namibia.

Many people may misunderstood it as "African", which has totally a

different meaning. African language refers to language of African people

or in the African continent.

Easy but confusing I have read many articles saying that Afrikaans is considered an easy

language for English speakers. It is pretty easy but somehow confusing for

me, especially the word order, in which the verb is sometimes put at the

end of the sentence.

Afrikaans is similar with English because they come from the same

language family. Beside English, I also found its similarities with Indonesian,

and apparently, they do sound funny. Previously, I wrote an article about

5 funny words in Afrikaans from my perspective.

Online Afrikaans Course We all know that since the internet came up, our lives became much more

productive. We can do many things on the internet nowadays, from

studying to shopping.

Have you heard about a popular language learning website called Italki? If

not, I suggest you to visit the website and create an account. You can find

language partners, practice your writing skill, or find language tutors there.

I scheduled a 5-session Afrikaans course last week and I have just finished

it today. My tutor is Vicki from South Africa, living in Germany at the

moment. She is not only a tutor but also a professional teacher in Italki.

She has had almost 300 completed sessions and more than 80 students.

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Vicki

During the lesson, I focused more on learning phrases, like self-

introduction, asking questions, etc. Then, the focus is extended to

grammar and vocabulary explained from the phrases. I prefer to learn

phrases than solely grammar or vocabulary because I want to be able to

converse immediately.

My habit of learning is that I like to break the phrases down to words, so I

can learn about the meaning of each word and the grammar. This method

sometimes give you an interesting meaning through its literal translation

that you can recall easily later and associate with the real meaning.

My notebook

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Songs in Similar Languages

Spanish and Esperanto Spanish

Maria Villalon - La LLuvia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzZO6SF6plc

Esperanto

María Villalón - La pluvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOBkKcbJUAE

Afrikaans and Dutch Afrikaans

Snotkop - Agter Op My Fiets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwAu5npAEdI

Dutch

Gers Pardoel - Bagagedrager ft. Sef

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZRw9NiVUuM

Spanish and Portuguese Spanish

Jesse & Joy - ¡Corre!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2hM9CLAMu4

Portuguese

Gabi Luthai – Corre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7mR1_3J3s

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Rap Songs in My Native

Languages

There are many interesting things that one can do with languages because

languages cover almost all parts of life. Besides reading, listening to songs

is also my favorite pastime. And to be a multilingual means that I have a

wider range of varieties to choose from various countries.

I found videos of songs in different languages few days ago and I thought

to myself "Why don't I find those of my native languages?" So, I present to

you here rap songs in my native languages; Hokkien and Indonesian.

Why rap? I used to listen to rap so much and rap is much more like

speaking than singing. Logically thinking, the lyrics is like a piece of

conversation. It would be cool if you could rap in foreign languages.

Hokkien Hokkien, or more specifically Medan Hokkien, is a variant of Hokkien

spoken in Medan city and surroundings. It is one of several languages

spoken in Medan and the lingua franca for Chinese descents there,

including me.

Chinese descents in Medan use Hokkien as a spoken language without any

standard writing system. In the reality, it is very common for Chinese

descents in Medan to mix Indonesian words while speaking Hokkien.

There is actually a standard Hokkien writing system by using Latin

alphabets developed by Western missionaries called Peh-oe-ji (POJ), or

also called Church Romanization. It is not as popular as Mandarin Pinyin

although POJ is almost one hundred years older than Mandarin Pinyin.

I personally had never known about POJ until I went to a historical site in

Northern Taiwan and had the chance to learn about POJ's development

and its usage in the past, most of the time for religious purposes.

Hokkien has more than 46 millions speakers worldwide and Wikipedia

ranks Hokkien at the 112th with more than 3,500 articles written in POJ.

Daviuz - Hokkien Town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2HewCGIPiY

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Indonesian Indonesian is a language of a big country in South East Asia and the biggest

island country in the world with lots of magnificent natural sceneries from

the East to the West.

Indonesia, the 4th most populous country in the world, has made

Indonesian as its official language, making it spoken by more than 140

millions speakers, not to mention those who live overseas.

Indonesian language is interchangeable with Malay, which is spoken

mostly in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. Both languages are sometimes

regarded as the same language, named Indonesian/ Malay, because of

their similarities.

Many of you may not know that Indonesian language is somewhat an

artificial language based on Malay, spoken as a lingua franca among

traders at that time and was further developed by Dutch colonial linguists.

Around 5,400 words in Indonesian language are of Dutch origin and

around 2,700 words are derived from Arabic.

Indonesian language is one of more than 700 living languages spoken in

the country. Wikipedia ranks Indonesian at the 25th with more than 90

thousands articles.

Raben - Grime Indo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLq9Q3pcma8

Bonus: Hokkien & Cantonese (Malaysia) Malaysian Hokkien is interchangeable with Medan Hokkien, perhaps

because of the geographical proximity. Although I don't speak Cantonese

(but I learnt it before), I think it is fine to considered it as an almost-native

language for me because my maternal grandmother speaks Cantonese

natively.

Point Blanc - Money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJdCbdwH86s

Bonus: Hokkien (Taiwan) Taiwanese Hokkien is somehow different from South East Asian Hokkien,

like Medan or Penang Hokkien, although Hokkien is originated from Fujian

Province of China and Taiwan. I sometimes cannot understand Taiwanese

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Hokkien because of the pronunciation and word differences. Nevertheless,

Hokkien is a language with several variants.

麻吉 - Machi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6EYagrF1Mg

Bonus: Malay (Malaysia) If you have learnt Indonesian before, you may realize that Malay is really

similar with Indonesian, but spoken with a different accent. They are

almost the same language. However, the differences that I found while

travelling in Malaysia is that Malay adopted many English words,

meanwhile Indonesian adopted many Dutch words.

Ahli Fiqir - Angguk-Angguk Geleng-Geleng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34c1D53yjpM