Stop complaining! Study!

Sometimes we realise that some people learn faster, speak better, and even have a perfect pronunciation than others,  but you have to be be sure that this has much more to do with dedication (obsession) than talent, there is no such a thing of talented (gifted) person to learn a foreign language, everything that exist behind a fluent person is a great obsession and hard work.

When you start learning a foreign language you should start free of prejudice, any language is any language, the right attitude is open your mind to acquire new pieces of information, there is no such a thing of difficult language, what we have are languages from different families, if you speak Portuguese you can easily learn Spanish or even Italian, the same is true if you speak German so Dutch will not represent a great difficulty, even Russian is not so difficult if you speak Ukrainian or even Polish. So, stop giving the excuse that the language X or Y is very difficult, the problem is not the language you are learning, but how big is your determination to learn it.
Best wishes,
Jimmy Mello

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Brazilian Polyglot

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Fluency in the listening

Fluency in the listening. 

Today we are going to speak about the importance of the listening, and much more than this, the listening fluency. Yes, you have read right, there is a kind of fluency in the listening ability.

The listening ability is when the native speaker do not need to change or modify the way he talks, in other words is when the listening ability has accommodated in your brain, and you can understand nearly every single word the native speaks to you, as I like to say: speak is easier than listening, because when you are speaking you have the total control of your knowledge, in other words you can easily choose what you want and can speak, when you have the word in the conversation you can build the conversation according to what you know, but you have no control over what the other person wants to say.

Ok, supposing you are already convinced that the listening is the most difficult (and one of the most important) ability in the process of learning a language, so how to overcome it?

Well, unfortunately I have no magic formula to do this, but the only scientific way is by being exposed to the language as much as you can, even if you cannot travel to other countries you can "listen fluently",just by following my step-by-step:

1st step: choose the material for you to listen, it can be either a podcast or even fairly tales (my favourite way to train the listening), this moment is the crucial moment, some people tend to choose one or two audios, but you need at least 7 audios per week, that is you should listen at least 1 everyday, or even repeat one twice. You must be exposed to the foreign audio from half to 2 hours a day, if you are really determined (or what I recommend, you should be obsessed) in your mission you will for sure find time to do it, you can do on the way home, in the gym, before sleeping, just after waking up, that is, it is up to you, but the fact is that you should no, you MUST listen something at least 30 minutes every day.

Data about the 1st step: listen even without understanding any single word, the language needs time to accommodate in your mind, you will notice that after a time of exposure your ear will be able to differ the sounds easily, and you will be able to understand some things, but when I say the language needs time it does not mean magic, you have to follow to the next step. 

2nd step: attend to a course, remember that even listening every day, you have to study the language either by yourself, with a teacher or at a language centre, at least twice a week, this is the form you will learn the vocabulary, the structure and even sometimes the necessary grammar points that will help you to improve your abilities.

3rd step: when you are able to understand over 40% choose a story, preferably a fairy tale, and tell it to someone ( to the teacher, to a friend, to a native speaker, or to yourself in the lack of one of the previous), the act of telling the tale will reinforce your listening ability and will improve quite a lot your speaking ability, you have to to this at least twice a week.

4th step- DO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE JUST LEARNT, some people like to learn new tips, but instead of putting in practice they keep with their old and useless habits, and after continue complaining about how difficult is learning a foreign language.

Keep in touch!

Best wishes,

Jimmy Mello

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What are the advantages of being a polyglot?

What are the advantages of being a polyglot?

Some people wonder what a polyglot is, let’s see, a polyglot can be described as someone who can speak several languages, but what exactly does it mean several? Well, usually more than 3. If you are a follower of my blogs the term “obsession” should be familiar to you, so I polyglot is an obsessive person, it is almost impossible to be a polyglot without being obsessed with what you do. The language learning is a process that asks for a big amount of dedication, in most of the times, but if it is so hard what are the advantages of being a polyglot?

I could give you uncountable reasons

1. Best Learning capacities– Learning a new language is a tough process that requires a long term commitment with what you are doing, and it is a process that demands the use of your whole brain, so a person who speaks many languages (or even just one extra) has an extra ability to learn any other thing easily. As you know the brain is like a muscle that the more you use stronger it gets.

2. Travelling Opportunities – If you speak only English, you can go wherever you want in the world, right? Wrong! If you only speak English you can go to the airport of virtually any country of the world, but outside of the airport area, the things are not so easy, in large countries like Brazil, China and Russian, people do not speak English in their lives, and if you do not speak their language you can get into many problems. But, being a polyglot you can easily overcome some cultural barriers.

3. Personal Impression – when you are in a foreign country and speak the language of that country, people will be very pleasant to you, because they are really proud to see a person speaking their language (even not perfectly sometimes), wouldn’t you? So if you speak the local language you will for sure get more friends and let there a really good personal impression.

4. Business – undoubtedly if you speak a foreign language you can make business with many people, and can help the others in such thing, so you speak another language is a kind of CV for getting a good career , and getting money.

5. Social Status – Money, in many places, not always bring us a great immediate personal Status, but being a polyglot ALWAYS bring you a great personal and even intellectual status, do you know why? It is easy, money can be obtained by lucky or theft, but the knowledge of a foreign language is only got through hard work and dedication, and this will bring you to places that only money could not bring you to.

6. So, I could keep listing here more and more reasons, but the last one is:

If you are a polyglot you are not a citizen of just one country, but you are the citizen of the whole world.

Best wishes

Jimmy Mello

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What are the "symptoms" of being Fluent?

Well, when a person asks me how long time will it take for him/her to be fluent, I have to take a breath and answer vaguely "this will depend a lot on you". Now, I will share with you the real definition and the "real how long time".

Let's first understand the meaning of the term fluent, this word came from the word flow, which means something that flows, something like a stream of water. So, if you can really speak without too much difficulty even without having a quite long vocabulary, you can consider yourself fluent, I always explain my pupils the following:

Imagine a very early beginner student at the beginning of his language course, that has mastered only about 500 to 800 basic words, and other student with a long experience of being in the classroom for, shall we say 4 to 5 years.

The beginner can deal really well with the basic words, and can easily maintain a conversation like the following:

----Hello, I want to speak to you about a very important thing, because I need and want to visit a museum, can you help me in a thing very important?

-----Yes, sure, how can I be useful?

-----Sorry sir, can you repeat slowly, please.

----- yes, s-u-r-e. w-h-a-t do you w-a-n-t?

-----I want to go to Oxford street, but I don't know where it's possible to take the bus.

-----You Can take the number, s-i-x-t-y t-w-o.

-----wow, thank you.

----- ok.

But on the other hand the advanced student who knows a lot of difficult and useless words, perform the following conversation:

-----Er, Er, Er I am uhn, uhn, uhn lost, and Er, Er, I wonder if you uhn, uhn, could help me.

-----Yes, sure, how can I be useful?

-----As I had.... Uh, uh, said, Er, Er.. I....., I...... Am a fo...fo..Foreign, and Er... Er... I lost my...., my...map. And I wonder, if you .... Er, Er.. Er.. Can you tell me where.... Is the.... Er, Er, Er, bus stop and uhn, uhn, which one.... Er.., Er... Should I take, to go to the British museum.

-----You Can take the number, s-i-x-t-y t-w-o.

-----uh, uh, uh, thanks.

So, now it is your turn, which person is fluent? I am sure you have answered the first one, although his vocabulary is limited he can deal well, and his conversation flowed quite naturally, but the second one even with a strong vocabulary, cannot access easy the knowledge, so the conversation did not flow, and put us in a tiring state. So, now you can easily conclude that fluency has little or nothing to do with time of studying, but more with ability to deal and manage with pieces of information.

So, the myth about the term fluency, is due to other term that is "proficiency" in a foreign language, this one will be treated later in this blog, but to give you an idea it is closer to a native knowledge and it is required more time to be reached.

Be continued...

Best wishes

Jimmy Mello

According to Cambridge dictionary:

Fluent• When a language is fluent, it is spoken easily and without many pauses. Eg. He speaks fluent Chinese.

Proficient: is being skilled and experienced. Eg. She's proficient in two languages.

It takes a couple of years of regular driving before you become proficient at it.

Definition came from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press

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The Master key to learn a foreign language

To learn a foreign language it is really important to have passion about what you are learning, that is, it is essential you have not only a real need, but you need to be in love for what you are learning at this moment, there are some people who really put all their attention in the grammar topics, in the pronunciation, and really study at home after each lesson at a language centre or with a private teacher, but at the end of the first six months they cannot speak not even a single sentence by their own, what are they doing that is not correct at all? They need, they study, they are intelligent, but even with all of this they do not reach their real aim. What is wrong?
The answer is that they have only dedication, and dedication is not what is required to learn a foreign language, dedication can be important in many other subjects, but not for learning a language.
You need passion about what you are doing, but even passion will not be enough, the master key is obsession. If you are not obsessed to learn the new language you will fail terribly, or even take years and years to be able to speak the very basic of it.
If you think you cannot have obsession for the foreign language the moment you start learning it, give up!
I really know we have other things to do in our daily life, but if you insist in doing the same things you have been doing until now and still be able to real learn a foreign language, I am so sorry to inform you that this is craziness. There is not such a thing of effortless learning, but there is a thing called "pleasant obsession", if you are really in love for what you are learning and if you use use a right system all you need will be obsession.

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Hello there

Hello there,
This web site will be an extension to my other websites. My name is Jimmy Mello, and I am linguist and polyglot, I have been learning and teaching languages for over 20 years, I am fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Catalan, but I can also speak after a reviewing time German, Dutch, Norwegian and a little bit of Russian. I have developed a new method suitable to teach any foreign language, and a system suitable to teach yourself a new language in the case you prefer study by your own.
Keep in touch!

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