We want to congratulate Steve Young, a Canadian Super Package customer, for recently completing our Canadian French 1, 2, and 3 lessons. To further help him improve his French, we just added several new Canadian French lessons, and we plan to add more.
We will do the same for any customer who has purchased either a Super Package or a 1, 2, 3 Package and completes all the lessons we offer in a language.
If you complete these lessons, we will cheerfully make more lessons for you at no extra charge.
What a deal!
Steve, it’s an honor to be able to help you work toward your goal of becoming a Canadian diplomat. Thank you for choosing us.
To Reach Your Language Goals — Buy an Airline Ticket
Buying an airline ticket can really help you focus on language study!
If this year is your year to learn a foreign language, I have some simple advice.
“Buy your airline ticket now!” There’s nothing like making firm international travel plans to make your language study a big priority.
Buy your ticket today if you can. Then every daydream you’ll have about the great time you’re going to have will be a reminder to study.
Teaching Sign Language to Children Who Are Too Young to Speak
I recently received the following e-mail from a customer who is learning Spanish with our program.
“We have an au pair coming from Madrid in April to help care for our first newborn due then. We intend to raise
our children bilingual in both Spanish and English.”
First, I congratulated him on his good judgment. Then I suggested that he tell his friends that he was using the Angelina Jolie French learning method for teaching his children Spanish.
How Canadian Labeling Laws Can Help You Learn French at the Supermarket
Even if you don’t live in Canada!
Canadians and visitors . . .
This box of frozen squid, at a supermarket in Hawaii (USA) is labeled in both English and French.
to Canada, know that products sold in Canada have to be labeled in both English and French.
It’s one of the things that Canadian customs checks for when products cross the border.
What you probably didn’t know is that these Canadian labeling laws make every trip to a Canadian supermarket AND every trip to a US supermarket a chance to learn more Canadian French.
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladamir Putin Sings “Blueberry Hill” for Children’s Cancer Research
You’ve just gotta love what some politicians are willing to do for a good cause. Take Vladamir Putin, the current Prime Minister and former President of Russia, for example.
When the cause was a benefit concert for children’s cancer research in St. Petersburg, he picked up the microphone and sang the Louis Armstrong version of “Blueberry Hill” . . . in English!
When the show’s emcee asked him to sing, he didn’t want to at first, but she finally talked him into it.
Then he sat down at the piano, tapped out the tune and sang the melody. Unfortunately, his microphone was turned off.
Then the band picked up the tune, so Putin walked to center stage, where he started to sing.
He had Maceo Parker’s excellent jazz band with some back-up singers accompanying him, so when you watch this YouTube video, you can’t always tell exactly how he sounds.
But where you can hear him clearly, he’s definitely on key and having a good time!
How Angelina Jolie Is Teaching Her Children French — And How You Can Too
People often ask me, “How can I teach my 3-year-old French or Spanish?”
I always say, “First let me tell you how Angelina Jolie is teaching her children French.”
The first thing you should know is that she isn’t spending a penny more for her children to learn French than other Hollywood moms are spending whose children aren’t learning French.
The e-mail we get from our customers is often brilliant. For example:
“My husband did not watch the instructional video at first and was spending a long time on each question, acting like he was supposed to know them after one viewing and feeling “stupid” for not getting it right away.
Even after watching the instructions twice, I noticed he was still reluctant to let go of this learning style.
I’ve noticed in my teaching (math, mostly) that many people have had this style beaten into them and they enforce it on themselves now:
Receive information ==> regurgitate information ==> get punished for not getting it right.”
Language101.com Will Be Here Until at Least May 13, 2020
by Brent Van Arsdell
Anyone who decides to learn a foreign language is automatically a long-term planner. We are too!
That’s why I just renewed the registration of our domain name, “Language101.com” until May 13, 2020.
A few details from our Whois record are shown below.
Domain name: language101.com
Status: Active
Expiration date: 13 May 2020 16:16:13
We’re here to help you learn a language today, and we’ll be here tomorrow.
We’ll also be here next year, and in the years after that, up until at least May 13, 2020.
A special thank-you to our customer Melissa Rice for suggesting this.
How to Be Happy While Studying a Language
A couple of Harvard psychologists were sitting around playing with their iPhones when one of them had this idea. “I wonder if we could write an iPhone app that would ask people at random times what they are doing, what they are thinking, and how they are feeling?”
Well, they wrote the app, got several thousand people to use it, and the result was … the happiest people in the world are having sex.
Ninety percent of them were intensely focused on what they were doing … perhaps the rest of them were thinking about paying their bills.
The big surprise to the Harvard psychologists was that people are always happier when they are focused intently on what they are doing.
When your mind wanders, it usually leads to unhappiness.
How Language Students Can Use This
If you want to be happy while you are studying a language, simply focus intently on it. When your mind wanders — and it will — just take a deep breath and pull your attention back to what you are studying.
Don’t fight your wandering mind; just gently notice it and pull your attention back to your language study.
The New York Times wrote about it. You can read an excerpt by clicking on (more…) below.
This article from the University of Guelph proves something I’ve known for a long time.
Language learning pays! It’s a good reason to learn Canadian French or your favorite language.
Brent
———————
Bilingual employees earn more than their unilingual counterparts even if they aren’t using their language skills on the job, according to a new University of Guelph study.
Economics professors Louis Christofides and Robert Swidinsky examined the earnings of Canadians and compared the difference in wages between bilingual and unilingual employees as well as bilingual employees who are required to speak a second language on the job.
It would be great if you could learn your language from wherever you happen to be. Now you can!
There are now at least four smartphones that you can use to study a language at Language101.com. They are the Droid X by Motorola, the Droid 2 by Motorola, the Droid Incredible by HTC, and the Samsung Fascinate phone.
All of these smartphones (and any other smartphone that supports a full version of Flash) will now run our language programs. This is great news for people on the go.
Language101.com now runs on Android phones
If you already have one of these phones, please go to your favorite language and try to watch one of the videos. If the video plays, it will probably work well.
You will need to download the latest version of Flash if you haven’t done that since September 22, 2010. A full version of Flash is required for our language programs to run.
There are several other Droid phones that do not yet have a full version of Flash, but I am told that a full version of Flash will soon be released for all Droid phones.
How to Test Students Who Have Studied With Language101.com
I got the following email from a homeschool mom.
“I am looking for a language program for my 9th grade home-schooled son. I gave your Spanish program a try, and I was impressed with what it did, however I did have one question…
