Some nice pictures

Hey! Since we have pictures on Internet Polyglot I thought you'll like some of them. Here are my favorites (so far):



http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1060140


http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1060250


http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1060270


http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1060370



http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1010260


http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-image.html?imageId=1010300

[New feature] Chat page

A new addition to the collection of Internet Polyglot features. If you like online chatting and also think that it can improve your language skills, please be welcomed to the Internet Polyglot chat page: http://www.internetpolyglot.com/public-chat.html

More images! Random word on home page.

A new feature has been added today: a random word on the home page. When you press an icon with two green triangles pointing to the right you see a randomly picked word in all languages of InternetPolyglot. And it has a picture too! It looks like this:


Now you know what is "to be sleepy" in many languages :) . Press the "Next" icon, learn another word and enjoy a fine picture.

Images in Lessons

Now some of the language lessons have images in them. There are only a few now but their number started growing and very soon almost all of them will have pictures that will help visualizing your learning process and make it more fun and efficient.

To take a look at the pictures go here: http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-en or any other list of lessons and move your mouse over one of the icons of a photocamera. Voila, you'll see something like this:


It means that this lesson has images associated with its word translations. If you click on the large image that is opened in the popup, you'll enter the lesson. For example this one: http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lesson-4602101010 and you will see that all words there have this camera icon. Move your mouse over it and enjoy high quality pictures that, we are sure, will improve your abilities to memorize more foreign words.

How to Memorize Words

One of the first steps we take when learning a language, be it our mother tongue as children, or a foreign language later on in life, is expanding our vocabulary by memorizing words (usually nouns and adjectives at first). Memorizing is done naturally when we're living in an environment that forces that particular language on us (such as our homes as children, or as visitors in a foreign country) but it can also be "forced" through several methods. The following article will try to present some of these methods that could help you learn how to memorize words faster when learning a foreign language.

Flashcards

Flashcards are the basic tools for word memorizing and although they are used mostly with small children, they can also be useful for grown-ups when learning a new foreign language. Basically, a flashcard is a piece of carton containing an image of a noun (usually nouns, although they can oftentimes contain colors, actions and so forth) with the appropriate word describing it and possibly, a small text that explains what the object is. They are a good way to take your first step into the vocabulary of the foreign language you are learning and they can be fun to use together with your children.

Using Mnemonic Links

A mnemonic is generally described as an abbreviation or a symbolic representation that helps humans memorize a certain "something" easier. Mnemonics are used to enhance and develop the assimilation of data into memory and there's no better use to them than in learning a new language. Since when you're gradually building your new vocabulary for the new language you will inevitably translate and think those words out in your mother tongue, you can use such a mnemonic to make this translation easier to memorize. For example if you've just learnt how to say "seaside" in the foreign language you're studying, imagine a picture of the seaside and then switch back between the native and foreign language words of what you're seeing. The image, which is easier to remember than a word, will act as an intermediate between the two languages.

Memory Enhancement Medication

There are several natural supplements out there that help you memorize stuff faster and for a longer period of time, as well as help with concentration during the learning process. Some of the herbs that are known to have a memory enhancing effect include Ashwagandha, Reishi, Ginseng, Bacopa, Mucuna Pruriens or Fo-Ti. Ginseng is one of the most popular in the list and it is widely used as a supplement in language learning classes as well as generally used by students before exams or during the school year. There are no side effects to these herbs but you might be allergic to one, so it is best if you visit your medic before taking any of them, asking if you are allowed or not to start a long or short-term memory enhancement plan.
There are also several vitamins and nutrients that could help out with memorizing new words, the list including: carnitine, lecitine, carnosine, choline, inositol, tyrosine and several others, but these are not the point of our discussion.


Visit http://www.InternetPolyglot.com for word memorizing lessons and games.

New button in the menu

I've just placed a new button at the bottom of the left menu. The button looks like this:

My dearest Internet Polyglotter, if you like the site, if you think that using Internet Polyglot helped you in your language learning endeavor, if your vocabulary increased because of using of Internet Polyglot, you know what to do, right? :D

Let me tell you how your donation will be used:

1. We have long lasting plans to place pictures on the site so that words and translations have colorful, eye-pleasing images.
2. We want to have sound in our lessons.
3. We want to improve the game statistics - organize contests.

And lots of other cool things are waiting to make your language learning more efficient and fun. This donation will help make it possible.

How to Improve Your Vocabulary

Picture learning a new language as building a house from scratch. You can't wait to handle the design, buy the furniture or decorate the rooms, but first you need to go through the hard process of actually raising it from the ground. The vocabulary of a language is both its foundation and it contains the words that you will have to use as "bricks" when building it and although it's not crucial to have a huge amount of bricks, the more you have the bigger the house, hence the higher the comfort. Actually, taking the discussion back to the linguistic field, studies have shown that we only need 100 or so "core words" from a language's vocabulary in order to be able to handle basic communication. But that's comparable to having a single room apartment, when you might need a 2 story villa, so we need to see how we can improve the number of bricks we can use :).

I'm presuming you already have a relatively solid grasp of the basic vocabulary of the language you're trying to enhance, or we wouldn't be talking about "improving" one's vocabulary but rather on how to learn it from scratch. If you've learnt the language from a course book or with the help of some online lessons, you probably have a limited amount of basic words, since these courses focus on a little bit of everything, including spelling, grammar, pronunciation and so forth, leaving little room to concentrate strictly on your vocabulary.

Reading and listening are two of the most important ways of increasing your vocabulary in a specific language. Whenever you have the chance to listen to someone speaking that language, or if you get your hands on some article written in it, make sure you do your best to understand it, focusing on the words that you don't know. If you can't "guess" them out of the context, have a dictionary near you to help you out with these new words. Especially if you're reading instead of listening, make sure you get the pronunciation right for the new words (dictionaries usually offer the pronunciation of the word besides its translation).

Another good way to increase your vocabulary is to engage in interactive activities in that particular foreign language. Educational games can be a fun way of expanding your word pool as well as playing a computer game in that language, trying to relate what's happening on the screen with what you're reading/hearing in case you stumble on some new words.

Last but not least, you could practice what language courses call the "A new word each day" game. Make it a habit to look up a new word in the dictionary each day and memorize it. Of course, you shouldn't stop at rare, practically useless words; instead, focus on commonly used words that are new to you, words that you actually have the chance of using in day-to-day conversation. If you combine this method with other vocabulary improvement ones, the daily amount of new words will probably be high enough to make it count, but small enough to not overload your memory with stuff that you are just going to forget the next day.


Increase your foreign language vocabulary at http://www.InternetPolyglot.com by playing online games. The site contains thousands of lessons in different languages from English, Spanish, French, Russian to Hindi, Turkish, Ukrainian and many others.

Home Versus Travel-based Language Learning

When you’ve set your mind on learning a new language, you are in the position to choose how to start learning it. You basically have three options: starting a practical home-based language learning course (possibly an online one), starting a so-called “travel-based” learning experience that would have you travel to a country speaking the language you intend to learn for at least a couple of weeks, or a combination of the two. We’ll try to dissect these two language learning methods and compare them to see which one is best (or which one is more appropriate for you).


First of all, home-based language courses have two great advantages: they’re cheaper and they’re more comfortable. Regardless of the language you’re learning, you’ll most likely find dozens of “Learn it yourself” course books as they are in high demand. If they’re structured correctly, these courses can actually build a solid foundation for the foreign language you’re learning if you can spend enough time and energy to truly focus on each lesson and tackle any problems you might be hindered by.


If you prefer, you also have the option of taking a free online language course provided by one of the many sites focusing on language learning (such as Internet Polyglot for example). These free online courses are even more comfortable (and cheaper of course) than if you would learn from a course book but they can sometimes be less structured, which makes it extremely important to focus on finding an excellent course to take on, rather than simply start with the first one that turns up in your search engine for the phrase “free online language course”. If possible, find an online language course that offers both written lessons and spoken ones (through E-media). They are extremely useful in correlating spelling with pronunciation and generally getting you used to the language you’re about to learn (not to mention that stimulating two senses, hearing and seeing, doubles the effect of the learning process).


Travel based language learning methods on the other hand are definitely more expensive and they might disrupt your daily routine. They are usually taken in vacation periods, but if you work online for example, you might even set up a small “office” in the country you’re aiming to learn the language of. This way you can keep to your daily duties and start learning at the same time.


The advantage of a travel based language is obvious. By getting plunged straight into an oasis of foreign words, your brain will focus on adapting and understanding the new language a lot better. Correlations between images and words are made a lot easier in this case and even a short trip to the supermarket for example, will get you to learn a few words and get you used with the new language. In a couple of weeks, you’ll already be able to say some of the basic words and some phrases and if the travel period is longer you have every chance of being able to conduct a short conversation with basic words successfully.


To conclude, it must be said that neither of these methods can guarantee you’ll be a fluent speaker of the new language after they are “complete”. Their purpose is solely to create a basic foundation for the new language, a foundation that will be useful later on if you want to further focus on the language and actually learn it in detail. Each method has some strong points (grammar and spelling for home-based, pronunciation for travel-based) and some weak points (pronunciation for home-based and spelling for travel-based for example), which may lead to the idea that a combination of the two is the best way to go, since they complement each other quite well.

Site translated to Italian

Is your native language Italian? Or maybe you are learning or interested in learning Italian? In both cases check out Internet Polyglot in Italian! Here is how you can switch to Italian in the Internet Polyglot menu:


Benvenuto!


And as usual, our joke of the day:

The Mystery of Childbirth


A boy was assigned a paper on childbirth and asked his parents, "How was I born?"

"Well honey..." said the slightly prudish parent, "the stork brought you to us."

"Oh," said the boy. "Well, how did you and daddy get born?" he asked.

"Oh, the stork brought us too."

"Well how were grandpa and grandma born?" he persisted.

"Well darling, the stork brought them too!" said the parent, by now starting to squirm a little in the Lazy Boy recliner.

Several days later, the boy handed in his paper to the teacher who read with confusion the opening sentence:
"This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations."

5 Reasons Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language

During the modern age, with globalization at its height, knowing one or two secondary languages has become more than a simple feat of high class and intelligence but also a strict requirement in many occasions. Whether it’s for professional, social or personal reasons, learning at least one foreign language is a must for anyone that wants to keep his or her head up high in today’s society. Let’s take a focused look on 5 of the main reasons that should turn you towards learning a foreign language.

1. Professional Requirement

This is probably the main reason for which one would learn a foreign language. Many professions require the knowledge of at least one or two foreign languages, depending on the field of the job. Most jobs may ask that you know an international language such as English, French, Spanish or German or a business-specific language such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian and so forth. If you’re a native English speaker you may have it a bit easier, since English is the main international language (and one that is present the most often in job descriptions) but knowing a secondary might also prove vital.

2. Social Bonus

Yes, knowing a foreign language (or more) is definitely a social bonus. There’s definitely a steep hill to climb between being presented as someone that doesn’t know any foreign language whatsoever against being presented as a polyglot. Another case when knowing a foreign language can be literally a social blessing is when meeting a foreigner whose language you can speak. They’ll be extremely impressed by your ability to talk with them through their own native tongue, although you’re on home grounds and this fact can single handedly create a great impression around you. If the foreigner happens to be part of a business meeting, this impression can turn to a successful business partnership, bringing you both professional and social satisfactions.

3. Family Communication

It’s often the case where a couple formed out of persons of diverse nationalities understand each other through a commonly known international language such as English. However, they’ll soon want to start learning the other person’s mother tongue, not only for a better communication, but also out of respect for them.

4. Personal Satisfaction

Learning a foreign language is one of the highest intellectual goals that one could have, on a personal scale. Think about a difficult puzzle, or math problem that takes months if not years of constant studying in order to be solved. The process of solving it may be a hard, arduous one but the yell of joy at the end is well worth it. It’s the same case with learning a foreign language: the learning process is not easy and you’ll have many small issues and problems to tackle along the way. You’ll have to focus on various aspects of the problem, such as spelling, grammar, reading, pronunciation and so forth. If you keep the problem in sight however and if you don’t lose interest in it, the chances of solving it are extremely high and the intellectual fulfillment that you get at the end is incomparable to anything else.

5. Keeping Your Mind Healthy

It’s been scientifically proven that by learning a new language, the process stimulates your brain in such a way that it will make you more keen on understanding and learning other subjects, including “real” disciplines such as math, physics, chemistry and so forth. Learning a new language requires the memorizing and understanding of several thousand new words and concepts, which offers your brain a good training for future occasions where memorizing is a must. After studying a foreign language you’ll have better results with studying for exams, with information assimilation and generally, with keeping your mind healthy and “active” even at older ages.

For more information, visit http://www.InternetPolyglot.com