Before We Begin...

Hello. Welcome to Language Briefs. Before you dive too deep into the articles on this site, I thought it might be good to talk about what this blog is and isn’t meant to do.

I’m Learning, Too.

First of all, keep in mind that I am learning along with you. I don’t teach anyone a foreign language (except my kids, but that doesn’t really count). I don’t consider myself an expert in any language. I’m just a girl who loves languages and loves learning languages. I started this blog because I was frustrated about some of the things I couldn’t find online and thought I could help fill that gap.

All the articles you find here are written at my own current level. That means that you might occasionally find a mistake (please let me know if you do so that I can correct it). Think of me as that girl who sits next to you in your language class and has really tidy handwriting so you always ask to borrow her notes. These articles are my class notes. Not real class notes. I self-study these days. These are my notes from across my own resources, the interwebs, and whatever else I can get my hands on. I hope you’ll find them useful.

I Do Things a Little Differently.

Second, my approach might be a little different from what you’ve found elsewhere. I tend to get frustrated at the beginning of learning a language when I can’t see how the pieces fit together to form the bigger picture of that language. As a learner of anything, not just languages, I am definitely on the “big picture person” side of the spectrum. Because of this, I try really hard to emphasize how things fit together. I think of this as the “outside-in” approach. I believe the most effective way to learn is to start with the most general concepts and work your way down to the details.

So. Many. Lists. (And Schedules.)

Third, I love a good schedule, but I can’t seem to stick to it. To me, it’s more about knowing what’s possible. Ideally, I like to find someone else’s schedule and try it out, take what works for me, and move on. I was surprised when I couldn’t find many premade schedules or checklists to follow for language learning. Making a schedule is a time-consuming process, and it’s not actually as personalized as most people would have you believe. So I’ll be sharing my schedules and checklists so that you don’t have to spend time guessing how you want to arrange your study time and you can just do the studying instead. If a schedule I post doesn’t work for you, don’t use it. I’m sure there will be another one posted soon or you can make your own.

You can find them all here as I post them.

I’m a Language Rebel.

I know you’ve probably read that you should learn a single language at a time, or a maximum of two. But those two must be at different levels and from different language families. You must learn each language to at least an intermediate level before moving on to another. So *they* say.

But you know what? Language learning should be fun. At least, it is for me. And what is most fun for me is dipping into several of languages.

So, while my primary focus at the moment is learning Russian and improving my rusty college Spanish, sometimes I like to shake things up and work on something else for a few days. With that in mind, you might find a post about one or more of these languages in addition to the usual Spanish and Russian from time to time:

• Portuguese

• Ukrainian

• Korean

• Irish

• Scots Gaelic

• Norwegian

• Romanian [we'll see if I have time for this one... my son asked to learn this summer]

Those posts will likely be few and far between, and this blog will stay focused on Spanish and Russian for the foreseeable future.

If you disagree with any of this, that’s okay, too. Do what works for you.