Would you ever decide to study a language that was spoken by only 50,000 people? What about 5,000 people? 500 people? 5? Many of us make decisions about which language(s) to study based on a perception of their global worth. That is to say that we’re usually most interested in languages that can confer upon…
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Thanks to the Internet, linguistic anthropologists today have a forum for alerting the public and activists when a language is in danger of becoming extinct. But while the worldwide web has opened up avenues of communication and support for even the most obscure tongues, it has also served as a tool for the proliferation of…
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BIG FAT EDIT**: Like so many of the apps and programs I have reviewed in the past and loved or hated, Vocab Ninja is gone. This happens when the programmers decide it’s no longer worth it, money runs out, nobody uses it, or, as is the case of certain programs such as WeSpeke, the company is…
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One of the biggest excuses that people like to offer up when asked why they choose not to learn a foreign language is that they don’t think that they will ever have cause to use it. They indicate that they have no plans to travel or live for an extended period of time in the…
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I’ve always found fluency to be a tricky topic to come to terms with, both for myself and with other learners. When it comes to language learning, competence is a continuum; a fact that seems lost on many newer learners who have their eyes on a giant red target they might as well have placed…
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Update: Unfortunately, Lingua.ly has closed down its site and cancelled its mobile app. I’m really disappointed to have to break this news, as it was one of my favorite learning tools. I wish the lingua.ly team all the best in their future endeavors. :-/ If there is any language learning plugin you need to snag…
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