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BRAVE Blog

4 tips for improving your pronunciation

4-tips-improve-foreign-language-pronunciationSo you’ve learned the vocabulary, the grammar, the expressions and the idioms. You’ve practiced and practiced and are feeling confident about your speaking ability, but then when you finally get a chance to practice with a native speaker, they keep asking you to repeat yourself. Why is this? Chances are that you are simply not pronouncing the words correctly.

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BRAVE Blog

English (Spanish, Chinese…) as a Magical Language

english phonetic pretty womanBilingual motivations have evolved, as foreign languages became more and more mainstream things to do and use. With some languages, though, curious side effects can be seen. This post is a curious look at the role of certain languages in cultures – and an invitation to discuss some polyglots’ more esoteric approaches. Don’t take it fully seriously – but do join in if you’ve got inspired by it!

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BRAVE Blog

How to Talk Back at Chris Lonsdale Fluently in Six Points

Human Brain Evolution Every time someone claims to have found a new method for learning a language, I pause and listen intently. It’s not unusual to discover something useful and really effective by paying attention to language learning experts. But there are also times when the expertise is not enough – especially when it’s connected to strong and bold claims. Can you really learn a new language fluently in six months?

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BRAVE Blog

Communication Strategies – Live Hangout, Good Articles, Your Stories

Hi all – today’s post is not really full of text 🙂 It’s a quick summary of a live session that took place this morning to supplement my Udemy course. The topic was “communication strategies” and I’d love your feedback on that!

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BRAVE Blog

Unlikely Language Learners Ideal: The Taxi Driver

taxi driver language learning

I pass a London taxi drivers’ school every time I walk back from the office. It’s a stuff of legends (see below for concrete reasons), but until now, I had no idea how helpful their experience could be to future polyglots. Is there anything you can learn from taxi drivers to help your foreign language study? I think there is.

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BRAVE Blog

Google Helpouts: 3 Obvious Uses (and 1 Brave idea) for Language Learning

google helpout foreign language learningI had a Google Hangout last week. This was a first! It was work-related and had a lot to do with language learning. Soon afterwards, I found out about Helpouts – a brand new idea for hangouts. Can language learners use Helpouts effectively? I think there are at least three good answers – and one brave concept!