We have a special treat for all of you who like the ‘Brazilian way’ of doing things.
From the 15th June the iconic Shepherds Bush Pavilion on the Green (next to the Walkabout) is being transformed into a samba zone to World cup football and entertainment.

Featuring all the Brazil games, the venue plays host to a huge all seater terraced arena with a massive 16m-HD screen and full surround sound providing an electric atmosphere and uninterrupted views of the Brazil games. We just got word that Brazilian super star Sergio Mendes (Mas Que Nada/Black Eyed Peas) (20/6) will be coming down to entertain the crowds and perhaps even join in with the live music. The games also feature an after party with live samba from Rodrigo Lampreia, DJ Otto (Tru-Thoughts), outdoor terrace with bbq and late cocktail bar.

As if that wasn’t enough it’s only £5 entry.

This is the home from home for Brazilian aficionados in London.

Tues 15th June 1930 Brazil v Korea
Sunday 20th June 1930 Brazil v Ivory Coast
Friday 25th June 1500 Brazil v Portugal

Facebook Invite

http://www.worldcupcarnival2010.com/venue.htm

(Click to enlarge)

Temos uma oferta especial para quem adora o jeitinho Brasileiro de fazer as coisas.

Dia 15 de Junho, o icônico Shepherds Bush Pavilion (ao lado do Walkabout e O2 Shepherds Bush Empire) será o palco Londrino para os jogos do Brasil na Copa do Mundo, trazendo muito samba, diversão e futebol.

O pavilhão conta com mega arena e arquibancada confortável para que todos se sintam em um verdadeiro estádio de futebol. Os jogos serão transmitidos em um telão de cinema HD de 16 metros com surround sound trazendo a energia da atmosfera brasileira. Já temos confirmada a presença (no dia 20 de Junho) do astro Sérgio Mendes “Mas Que Nada” diretetamente de Los Angeles, que vai animar o povo e dar uma canja. Além disso tudo, haverá um after-party com bateria de escola de samba, música brasileira ao vivo com Rodrigo Lampreia e DJs.

Se isso tudo ainda não é suficiente, custa apenas £5.

World Cup 2010 é no Shepherds Bush Pavilion, a casa dos Brasileiros em Londres!

15 Junho 1930 Brasil v Corea
20 Junho 1930 Brasil v Costa do Marfim
25 Junho 1500 Brasil v Portugal

Today’s tip is slightly more nerdy, but still free and simple if you stick to the basics. A great way to learn a language; and particularly improve your listening skills, fluency, muscle memory and pronunciation is by listening and singing along to music in the language you are learning. There are a load of studies on how music can improve memory and focus. I won’t go into those now but I think intuitively we know that music can change our mood (for the better and worse) and for most of us remembering large chunks of a chorus is inherently easier than a paragraph from a book.

So today is all about using music to help your fluency, but following the theme of tools and gadgets we’re going to focus on a great free tool called Audacity. Audacity allows you to slow music down while maintaining close-to-the-original pitch and tone, so you can master the lyrics at a pace you can manage without having to distort the words.

First things first, we’re going to be working with MP3 files in this example (though if you have music in other digital formats it will probably work), this is a standard music format and is likely what you have on your digital player (unless you have an Ipod in which case read this tutorial). If this is all Greek to you (and you don’t happen to be learning Greek) see the bottom of this article for links to more information.

1. OK, so we’re assuming at this stage you have a supply of MP3s in the language you want to work with (otherwise try Amazon), so now go to the Audacity web page http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ and download and install the latest version (currently in BETA) for your system.  For licensing reasons you also need to install a separate MP3 encoder/decoder called Lame, instructions are here.
   

2. Once installed you will see a screen looking like this – don’t be intimidated by it, you can do a million things but we only want to do one for now.
   

3. Next you need to open the MP3 file to work with so go to File > Import > Audio and find the file on your hard drive, then click Open
   

4. If you have done this correctly it will look like this:
   

5. Go to Effect > change tempo (NB specifically “change tempo” not “change speed”)
   

6. From this screen you can set the amount of speed change you want. There is no right or wrong setting, if the song is naturally slow you may not need to reduce it much, but start with a small amount (say 5%) and increase as you go, use the preview function to give you an idea of how much it has slowed down.
   

7. Once you have clicked ok, you will notice the wavy lines look like they’ve been pulled apart a bit, click on the play button at the top:
   

And there you have it. If all has gone well you should hear the song in good pitch (this will deteriorate somewhat the more you reduce the tempo so you need to find the balance), go through the song a few times and then try speeding it up.  You can then either export the slowed down version back to MP3 for your music player, or just keep it in Audacity.

As part of the process it is well worth writing out the lyrics as you go as well it will only add to the value you will get from this exercise, use it as a fun listening test and have your tutor or a native speaker friend check it out.

Have fun!

Oh, as promised here are some additional links:

Convert iTunes to mp3

Buy mp3s from Amazon

What are MP3s?

Installing the MP3 encoder in Audacity

Years ago I was a member of an amateur drama group and we did a production of On The Razzle by Tom Stoppard.  There was one line for a waiter in Italian.  It was gobbledegook to all of us initially except the stage manager who was Italian and helped with the pronunciation.  When  the play was over, not only the actor playing the waiter, but every single one of us knew that line perfectly, including exactly what it meant, the correct pronunciation and cadence and I still recall it perfectly twenty years on.

That was just one line, but what about several scenes or even a whole play?  I know it’s possible to learn a mathematical proof by rote without understanding it, but I have a hypothesis: you can’t do that with language.  Unlike maths it’s instinctive – learn the dialogue, know the language.  So, this was my experiment – creating a language course based around a script.  I’ve pulled together a group of friends to practice with – we’re just performing to each other, but even after just one session we all learned a huge amount of dialogue, shared language knowledge with each other and most importantly we spent the whole three hour session laughing and having fun.

Here’s what to do:

• Remember my article How to Learn a Language Matrix-style ? Start by raiding your DVD or Blu-ray collection.  You’re looking for DVDs that have many language options for both audio and subtitles.  If you can’t find one in your current collection, you can always go online and order something specific.  I chose L’Importanza Di Chiamarsi Ernest – the 2002 Miramax film which I have dubbed in Italian with both English and Italian Subtitles available (“In una borsa?!!”)
• Get a group of friends who also want to learn the same language – it’s going to be easier if they’ve already covered the basics and are not complete beginners.
• Pick a scene with interesting dialogue between two characters (or more if it suits your group – you’ll each understudy multiple parts).
• Watch the scene first with no subtitles in Italian to see how much you understand (probably very little).
• Play it again with Italian subtitles to see how much more you can understand this time.
• Next play with English subtitles so that you get the whole sense of the scene.
• Now, it’s transcription time!  Play the scene again with Italian subtitles, stopping at each line.  Everyone transcribes the dialogue.
• Compare notes, get your dictionaries out and ensure you’ve understood the all the vocabulary and idioms used.
• Finally, pick parts and spend the rest of the session taking turns at recreating the scene until you’re comfortable with it.
• Your homework is to learn the lines by the next session.
• Next session, perform the scene and start a new one!

If you want to go a step further and are feeling techie, you can do what I did and rip the audio and the subtitles to help create the scripts in a tidier form.  I put the resulting MP3s on my phone and listened to them constantly to help the dialogue sink in.   This is entirely legal so long as you own a genuine copy of the original film, and vital if, like me, you need to be a little creative finding the time to practise.

I promise you, you won’t find a quicker or more fun way to improve your language skills!

Gareth

How often do you use lack of time as an excuse for not improving your language skills?  We all do it, but the truth is you have far more time available to you than you realise.  The trick is doubling up.

Whilst it’s true that in order to improve your speaking skills you need to practice speaking, you can improve your foreign language comprehension simply by listening more – and the great news is, you can often do this at the same time as doing something else.  Think of all the extra time you reclaim if you were to listen whilst:

There are dozens of hidden pockets of valuable time secreted throughout your day, you just need to get some content on your phone or MP3 player and keep your earphones with you in order to use them.

One final tip: put your audio player on loop.  Repetition is the key to comprehension!

Of course you can transfer our Free Word of the Day onto your phone as one source of audio content, but in my next post, I’ll be giving you some ideas for getting hold of more substantial samples to work with – without spending a penny.

At the end of this series of posts, we’re going to be releasing a new gadget (and some other great new features) on BitesizedLanguages.com so make sure you read through to the end to find out what we have in store for you…

To kick things off let’s look at the simplest but one of the most revealing tools: the humble sound recorder.

Whether it is recorded through your PC, Mobile phone or MP3 player; one of the best (and cheapest) self-improvement tools is recording your own voice for playback. Working one-on-one with a tutor is of course ideal, however when that isn’t an option recording your own voice is surprisingly revealing. While you may cringe at the thought, here are 6 reasons why recording yourself speaking in a foreign language is great for self-improvement:

1. As most people know the voice you hear from within your head is not the same as that which others hear so it is impossible to be really self-critical when assessing your own pronunciation.
2. When you’re speaking your brain naturally skims over the bits that you are fumbling on so what sounds to you like poetry may actually be coming out in quite a broken fashion.
3. One of the things that often leads to the broken speaking above is relying on “safety words”, often things like “yes”, “no”, “ok” these are often words that are your default response to a question you’re still processing (to buy you time so you don’t feel silly). This isn’t strictly a singular activity but when practising with another fire up the recorder and listen for these habits – then fix them.
4. Recording your voice and then teaching yourself what you did wrong is an excellent way of improving not only your pronunciation but also your general ability, teaching is often the best way of learning.
5. It’s fun! Get over the cringe worthiness of your voice, laugh at your mistakes and then fix them. Whether you do this or not you will still have those habits so better to notice them, laugh about them and then fix them!
6. It’s (probably) FREE! All modern PCs & Macs, many mobile phones and MP3 players have recording devices built in (or accessible with a cheap microphone).  It doesn’t have to be Dolby quality, you just need to be able to work out your habits and weak points.

So, give it a try there really is no excuse not to!  Please do share your stories with us in the comments below, we love hearing from you.

Have fun!

Simon

Both of these things can be achieved simply by really understanding the role that these memory tricks have, namely establishing a mental hook so the word is forced into your short term memory. What they are not are speaking aids you should be using in the normal flow of conversation.

Fellow Bitesizer Gareth commented on the last blog that mnemonics in particular are great for words that just “won’t go in”. I’m a bit more enthusiastic than that in that I believe at very least a memory association for most of the words you look at will speed up your recollection and can be a good default option. Perhaps I don’t have as good a natural short term memory but I find that particularly at an early stage of learning most words don’t actually sink in without one of these tricks (or loads of repetition which can often be impractical if not tedious). What I remain acutely aware of however, and with practice this just becomes second nature, is that once I have the word in my mind that the mnemonic or word association becomes a background tool only to be used if I’m struggling to recall a word.

Once you have the word held in your mind, it is vital that you work on establishing both contextual patterns (i.e. by using the word in context as often as possible) and muscle memory. While above I described repetition as tedious; what I am specifically referring to is the unconstructive, flashcard-after-flashcard repetition that seems to pass the time but not achieve all that much. Repetition in terms of speaking phrases over and over, writing stories and sentences that use as many words as possible or trying to converse with native speakers is absolutely vital, and for me personally very satisfying.

Memory aids provide a foundation, contextual repetition solidifies muscle memory and embeds the word in your long term memory, and in the times when a word just won’t come out the memory aids can provide that little kick to keep the conversation going. Gareth mentioned “letting them go” when they have done their job, for me it is more about understanding their place, and not using them as a crutch – this is pitfall number 1 to avoid.

The second potential source of problems is the possibility that by allowing tenuous links between words (because they mean something to you) that bad pronunciation may be encouraged. This can happen because your associated patterns aren’t a perfect match. In my example I used the word “itu” which is Indonesian for “that” and my mnemonic was “’Eh Tu Bruté’, now that is Shakespeare!” The problem here is obvious; “itu” is not the same as “eh tu”) and if I relied on the mnemonic literally then I would end up pronouncing something that wasn’t actually a word (or worse meant something inappropriate!) This is an important issue and one you should be conscious of, but my own experience is that as long as you stick to the process that is: mnemonic first then follow up with the contextual repetition second, the risk of dodgy pronunciation can be minimised. Remember you should start practicing with the word in context as quickly as possible to iron out any glitches, the word will become part of your natural vocabulary without needing the mnemonic any longer.

As a part of the rigorous academic testing we do as part of our daily routine here at Bitesized I’ve been working on some language learning games lately, one in particular around mnemonics and flashcards. I’ll talk about those in a future post, but last week I was able to knock off about 60 new words with no more than 10 minutes review per day using mnemonics, so if you haven’t done so already I urge you to give them a go, let us know how it works out.

Have fun!

Simon

Reciprocity is the social aspect of learning and it’s one of the easiest of the learning muscles to build, in fact. You can learn on your own, but even when you learn from a book or CD you’re getting information from someone else. As social animals we’re hard-wired to receive information from others in a special way; we bounce off each other synergistically.

Team or Group Learning
If you’re not already part of a group, why not form one? Group learning can be extraordinarily powerful – in fact there’s a huge body of research on group dynamics in education. Groups also provide a regular structure that you are unlikely to have learning on your own unless you’re incredibly disciplined.  Group learning also has certain pitfalls, so it’s important to understand what they are and to turn them into opportunities. Mixed learning speed is one issue: you may be the fastest in a group and get frustrated if the group slows you down; or you may be the slowest and feel embarrassed and eventually check out completely as you feel left behind. The trick here is for the extremes to help each other. Teaching something is absolutely one of the best ways to learn it properly. You can’t teach something you don’t fully understand. If you’re the slow one, you can benefit from multiple teachers (more on this in a minute). In well-integrated learning groups everyone benefits. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Being open to feedback
This is a critical learning skill. If you shut down or get sensitive every time someone gives you some critical feedback then you are missing out. Treat every piece of feedback as gold, even if you don’t agree with it, try it on anyway and see what happens. There’s always something to learn.

Being attentive to others
Pay attention to other students, not only their successes but their mistakes and why they make them. Analysing other people’s performance can really enhance your own.

Using empathy: stepping into others’ shoes
This is especially important to deal with group differences. The more effort you make to understand the other members of your group, the better you will integrate with them and be able to use them as learning resources. Don’t get frustrated with other people, try to understand them.

Imitating others
Try to find out what the other students are doing that helps them learn quickly, whatever it is you can mimic them. Mimicry is vital to learning – and I’m not talking about copying in an exam! In language, mimicry is the only way you will perfect your accent, your pronunciation, intonation and stress. Pay attention and copy!

That’s it for now on this series. I hope you’ve found it insightful. Let us know how you get on with building your learning muscles!

Gareth

The next trick, again one some people will have used before, is an extension on simple associations known as mnemonics. As usual, a handy definition of a mnemonic comes from Wikipedia which defines it as :

“…a mind memory and/or learning aid. Commonly, mnemonics are verbal—such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something—but may be visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Mnemonics rely on associations between easy-to-remember constructs which can be related back to the data that is to be remembered. This is based on the principle that the human mind much more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, sexual or humorous or otherwise meaningful information than arbitrary sequences.”

I said it was a handy definition not a simple one! The key bits to keep in mind as far as I’m concerned are the last three words “than arbitrary sequences”. These go to the heart of the problem we often face when looking at new vocabulary. In a nutshell the problem is that without lots of background exposure (as a young child may get being around people speaking), a solid knowledge of the language’s patterns or some other specific reason why a word may stick in your mind, when we first look at a foreign word, as far as our brain is concerned, it often represents little more than an arbitrary sequence of letters. Unless we can establish a mental pattern in that sequence and relate it to something with personal meaning, it may as well be scribble on a piece of paper.

Mnemonics can help us establish this pattern and they do this by transforming the word into something you can visualise. With this definition you can see the example I used in the last post is actually a simple mnemonic rather than merely a word association. The word in Arabic for “tourism” is “seeaha”, not really much to hang my hook on there, but by breaking it down into a series of smaller patterns it instantly becomes more memorable.

The first bit “see” and the second bit “aha” are already two things that have a meaning to me: I “see” things every day and every now and then have an “aha” moment, so these are a good starting point. Next step is to work out how those words could relate to tourism: this is a very simple example for me (it need only mean something to you personally), for some reason in my mind there is a perfectly logical relationship between tourism/tourists and people saying “See, AHA!” when they see something amazing.

Another example in Indonesian the word for “that” is “itu”.  I distinctly remember in my high school Indonesian class – a long time ago now, ahem – saying to myself “’Eh Tu Bruté’, now that is Shakespeare!”

From these two examples you can see the pattern your brain forms may be totally arbitrary and may not even make sense by itself. Don’t worry the more obscure, funny, personal or rude the mnemonic the better.  Remember it is about creating a pattern, as long as it means something to you, use it.

In the next post we’ll look at a few more examples, some tips on using these tricks effectively and also some of the pitfalls. For now however if you’re staring at a pile of flash cards why not mnemonics a try? At first it can seem cumbersome and slow, but as with word associations the payoff is usually worth it, and you will get better/faster over time. Despite my personal faith in them as an aide-mémoire I still catch myself being lazy and just trying to memorise through repetition, but I invariably come back to mnemonics on the 50th cycle through a pile! Do a comparison with 20 random words, 10 using mnemonics and 10 not and see how it goes.

Let us know how you go, maybe even tell us some of your examples; we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Have a great day everyone!

So far in this series on building learning muscles, we’ve looked at Resilience and Resourcefulness.  In this third article in the series, it’s time to take a good look in the mirror.  Let’s look at Reflection.

Reflection is about watching yourself learn, about taking time to construct a mental mirror and holding it up to your learning strategies, tactics and methods.

We look in the mirror to make ourselves better and if we don’t look, we won’t see what we could improve.  When was the last time you actually took stock of your approach to your language learning?  Is it working?  Have you improved?  Can you measure the improvement?

Why note grab a pen, or open a Word file and answer some of these questions right now:

• Why are you learning?  Think of three reasons why you want to speak French or German or your language of choice.  Let yourself get excited by them again.
• List five ways you can remember that were really effective at learning or improving.
• List five experiences in the past that weren’t so effective.
• What are your bad learning habits? Are you still doing them?
• How often do you practice?  Is it enough?  What else could you be doing?  If it feels like a chore, go back to your reasons for learning.  Think how amazing it would be to speak fluently or with more confidence when you travel.
• Ask yourself honestly: how’s it going?  Are you on target? If not, what can you do right now to get back on track?

Taking time to reflect on your learning is vital if you want to learn effectively.  But don’t just look in the mirror – make sure you act on what you see if it isn’t working.

Gareth

The most straight forward memory trick for learning new vocabulary is word association.  Word association is simply a process of linking a foreign word to its native meaning through a connecting word (one that sounds and means something similar to the foreign word but also has an association with the native word).  For example in French the word for “Women” is “Femmes” the most obvious word association is probably “feminine” which sounds like “Femmes”, has a similar root meaning and is also clearly linked to the word “Women” in English.

Women -> feminine -> femmes

OK it’s not rocket science to try and link foreign words to those that are familiar to you, you no doubt do it naturally on words like this, what is important to think about however is what is going on when you make this association.

This is more easily demonstrated when you look at a less obvious example.  In Arabic for example, the word for “tourism” is “seeaha” – kind  of a tricky pair to link the same way as above – but  to me the word instantly makes me think of tourists looking at some magical site and saying “see… aha!”  OK it’s a stretch but it only need make sense to you personally.  What this type of association demonstrates is that more than anything else, memory tricks like this are usually about providing a mental hook, a reason for your brain to actually engage with the word you’re looking at as opposed to just seeing it on a page.

I’m sure you have at some point had a pile of flash cards that you just could not seem to memorise?  More often than not the reason you cannot remember the words in your pile is simply a matter of mental engagement.  Your brain has an annoying habit of switching off when it sees a stack of similar looking notes flashing before your eyes; word associations (like bright colours or pictures) force it to see each word distinctly. Even if the association itself means something only to you, it instantly gives you a personal take on things that kicks your brain into gear.

The initial hook is usually enough to embed the word into your short term memory, so that you’re not starting from scratch the next time you see the card.  Then, by simple repetition, it will become embedded into your long term memory, the association only required for a mental confirmation if the meaning becomes hazy later on.

So, let’s put this to the test.  When you’re next going through your pile of flashcards, choose ten in which you will specifically try and use word associations and then ten others you will just try to memorise through repetition then compare the results. Naturally some words may prove too difficult to link (in the next post I’ll talk about “mnemonics” which offer a little more flexibility), don’t spend too much time on them for now.  Associations will get easier with practice, but for now just pick some easy ones to get started and see how you go, the additional time to think about the association is usually far less than time spent going over flashcards repeatedly without the mental hook.

Good luck! Please do let us know how it goes in the comments below.

Simon