LingQ App - Review

 

I have been a Duolingo fan for 10 years.  It is exciting when I find another language app that is comparable to Duolingo.

Pros

* content is FREE to all,

*14 languages Spanish, German, French, English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese & Italian 10 more in beta development

*read & listen to many texts and import your own

*spaced repetition of words

*tracks your learning vocabulary and marks new words in blue (press for dictionary translation)

*80+ languages in many topics

* includes 1000s of hours of audio

*push yourself with challenges ie 1000 words or 90 days

*import content from anywhere ie books, posts, news etc

Cons

* there is a subscription 

* a little chunky/ clunky in appearance so could be improved in an update

*not sure how much easier the web version is to the app

*not sure how easy it is to install the necessary apps to import on the web version. might be harder on ym my mac.

 

Polygloss App -Review

I have been a Duolingo fav for 10 years.  It is exciting when I find another language app that is comparable to Duolingo.

Pros

* content is FREE to all, or a subscription for extra features

*bright colourful images

*create your own captions for their images, encourages creativity & humour

*increase your active learning vocabulary

*80+ languages in many topics

* includes some audio

*make language learning friends

*best for A2-B2 learners who have a foundation working vocabulary

*give  award points other learners for their writing & creatvitiy

*receive awards points for your writing & helping others learn

Cons

* there is a subscription if you want to access the game more often and not wait a while to get more energy points &/or replies

*nervously waiting for your reply, you may want to write a few sentences to someone else while you wait

 

Postcrossing arrived from England, USA, Belgium, Germany, Finland , UK and Czech

I am so happy another post card arrived safely.  This post crossing is from the United Kingdom.

If you look below, 15 days is much quicker than the average 38 days from Uk to Australia. It is very impressive! Some of the hold ups from the pandemic in international post must be better at the moment :-)

What a lovely surprise! 3 postcards in my letterbox on Friday afternoon.  

Wow! All 3 took 18 days travel each.

Two more postcrossings arrived Finland and Britain!

  Unfortunately only one had a Postcorssing ID on it.  So, I have lodged the info and ccrossed my fingers that the lovely people at Postcrossing can cross match the info on the car dwith cards leaving on that dates from Britain to Australia to determine the right one ASAP.  In the past, I have been very impressed how quickly they sorted it out :-)

This card below has such a friendly message. Even when my husband read it, he immediately wanted to send a reply if we can so he can tell them he is also a secondary teacher. And I am the avid postcrosser in our house!

Another postcard arrived from Germany.  It took 24 days which is 4 days longer than the average postcard I have received in the past from Germany. Must be a bit of back log.  I wonder if it is slowed because of covid delays or people ordering more parcels in November ready for Christmas.  The postcard has a statue from her home town of Bremem, Germany. Some animals take part in a fairy tale.

Wow, she sent the postcard on Halloween. She celebrated by grilling marshmallows together. Yum!

And she and her friend like watching Game of Thrones.  I haven't tried watching it yet.

World Walking November 2022

 

This moth Ihave ben walking across Italy.  On the World Walking app, I can log my daily steps to walk virtually across many walks around the world.  I love it because in this pandemic it may be harder to travel but I can still experience the world from home. I am 33% into a 450 km journey. More famous cities may be Venice and Bologna. I am enjoying that if I hit the "eye' button I can see Google Street view when I am up to on my walk. I have travelled to this part of the world when I was 19 years. I was lucky enough to see Venice, Bologna and Verona when I worked in Gambugliano (near Vicenza).

For those interested, you even see a little bio on the monuments along the way.  It is almost like seeing it and being there in person.

Which languages do we want to learn?

 Blog Quiz Results

1. Which language(s0 do you want to learn?

2. What is your mother tongue?

3. How did you learn languages?

4. Which blog posts do you enjoy the most?

Click on link above for all quiz results :-)

Top 8 languages we want to learn are:

1st is French,

2nd is English, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Japanese, Swedish and Welsh.

Safe arrival in Canada :-)

November Postcrossing update

I am so excited my post card to Canada arrived in 47 days. I am always relieved when another one arrives safely as weather can hold up it being delivered to the addressee. 

As you can see below, the travel times vary greatly even across Europe. But the more postcards exchanged to and rom the country the more accurate the average is getting.

Australia <> Europe

Finland 17 day average

Belgium 23 day average

Switzerland 26 day average

Australia <> Asia

India 36 day average

Safe arrivals in in Belgium, India, Germany and Finland

Sent & Arrived in October

I can’t believe this postcard arrived in 20 days from Australia to Belgium. I am glad it made it safely, and excited to see where my next received cards arrive from in my letter box.  This month my postcards have already made it safely to (speedy 24 days, ave 36 days) India , (slow 38 days ,ave 22 days) Germany & (slow 47 days, ave 20 days) Finland.

Below is average days travel for each postcard sent overseas grouped by destination country.  Postal services vary in service from country to country as well as can be affected by covid and natural disasters. So, averages in 2022 vary from 20 to 169 days (which is over 5 months in transit). 

 I celebrate each postcard caught.  I don't want to disappoint the waiting post crosser so if it is not caught safely, I make sure to resend a postcard again to the same address so they don't miss out.

Received in 2022

Usually postcard arrive from the top few countries with the most post crossers: Germany, Finland, Holland or USA. I have never had a card from Africa so far. I would love a card from Italy or Wales or any place I know a little of the language.

A lot of post crossers are demanding and make specific requests for their post card collection, I love any but most excited when they are map or culture cards where I can learn more about the language, people or place.

Fingers crossed and checking my letter box daily for fun mail and not always bills lol.

Which blog posts are of most interest? Any requests?

  I am making this blog in the hope of helping at least one learner who wants to study on their own as a beginner.  I am a trained teacher, so I m making my own journey with languages I have not yet tried using the same process I used at school, university and then teaching children.

Please let me know in this QUICK multiple choice survey about what interests you for your languages journey so that I can make it more useful to more people.  With 4 questions about your langauge, your target language, your learning history and which blog posts you enjoy the most :-) 

Please answer my QUICK languages poll:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W6GVWJQ

Below is a screen shot from the first question.  It includes 28 languages and room to add more languages you want to learn.

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

***** I would love to know which posts are of most interest to you and if you have suggestions for my next posts :-) *****

Please FOLLOW if you want to receive future posts :-)

Safe arrivals in China. Japan, Finland, Russia and Taiwan

  Germany and USA are more commonly sent.

Also sent to China, Japan, Finland, Belgium, India, Russia and Taiwan.

I sent 8 post cards yesterday.  I can't wait to see if they come over many days.  Usually, they come in batches of 2 to 4 cards in my mail box, not spread out one per day.

Teach Yourself Beginner's Polish - Review

Teach Yourself Beginner's Polish on Amazon

Description: 250  pages, A5 textbook with exercises and keywords

Includes 15 sections

Sample sentence inside;

  Polish    Nie. Nie jestern glodny. (No. Not I'm hungry.)

  English   No. I am not hungry.

Pros:

• organised by 15 sections
• 2 audio CDs
• normal font size
• some black and white illustrations
• English/Polish  vocabulary
• key to exercises
• pronunciation guide

Cons: 

• first published 2009
• no index with page numbers

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Teacher Yourself Cantonese (Chinese) Review

Teach Yourself Cantonese on Amazon

Description: 428  pages, A5 textbook with exercises and keywords

Includes 26 sections

Sample sentence inside;

  Cantonese    Keuih sing mat-yeh a? (What is he surnamed?)

  English   What is his surname?

Pros:

• organised by 26 sections
• 2 audio CDs
• includes index with unit numbers
•  normal font size
• some black and white illustrations
• English/Cantonese  vocabulary
• key to exercises
• pronunciation guide

Cons: 

• first published 2006, 2010

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Short Stories in Danish for beginners - Review

Short Stories in Danish

Description:240 pages, A5 with exercises and keywords in bold

Includes 8 chapters

Sample sentence inside;

  Danish    Mit navn er Daniel.

  English   My name is Daniel.

Pros:

• organised by 8chapters
• normal font size
• Danish to English glossary for key words
• some black and white illustrations
• multiple choice answer key for each chapter in index

Cons: 

• no audio
• no pronunciation guide

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Short Stories in Dutch for beginners - Review

Short Stories in Dutch

Description:224 pages, A5 with exercises and keywords in bold

Includes 8 chapters

Sample sentence inside;

  Dutch    Wat is er, Julia? antwoord ik. (What is it, Julia? answered I.)

  English   What is it, Julia?  I answered.

Pros:

• organised by 8chapters
• normal font size
• Dutch to English glossary for key words
• some black and white illustrations
• multiple choice answer key for each chapter in index

Cons: 

• no audio
• no pronunciation guide

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

Please FOLLOW if you want to receive future posts :-)

Top 10 countries of postcards

  

See my other blog post on postcrossing. Every postcard you send you get another in exchange from a random country.

*****

Today, one arrived in USA after 29 days (usually between 22 * 42 days for USA to & from Australia)

See picture below of the top 10 countries I usually exchange postcard with.

Below is all the countries I have received International postcards from since 2008, including from my languages learning list Romania, Phillipines, France, Italy, Poland, Japan, Germany, The Netherlands and Finland.

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Postcrossing off to FINLAND

 

See my other blog post on postcrossing. Every postcard you send you get another in exchange from a random country.

*****

I usually buy 10 international postcard stamps at a time.  

Today, I sent my last one, until I buy more on pay day, to FINLAND.

See picture of my last 25 postcards received from a mixture of contries, including Germany, Japan, Spain and Finland.  You get a surprise country in return, usually from the countries that have more postcrossing members.  It is more likely you will be paired with Germany, Finaland, USA and The Netherlands.  I love getting snail mail that is not bills ... but I get extra excited if I get my first posstcrossing postcard from a country I haven't got in my collection yet.

I love my scratch travel map to record my languages I am dabbling in as well as countries I have in my postcard collection.

ScratchTravel Map

Happy September 1st! Happy 1st day of Spring in Australia.

And Happy 8th birthday to our standard poodle, Billy. He is a beautiful dog to grow up with our child.  And they are almost birthday twins.  Actually, born 7 days apart exactly.  This time next week we will have an 8 year old in our house :-)

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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First 100 words in Italian - Review

1st 100 words in Italian

Description: 32 pages, picture book with and nouns showing gender (il/la etc)

Includes 14 topics

Sample vocabulary inside;

  Italian   la pecora il cavallo la mucca

   English   the sheep the horse the cow

Pros:

• organised by 2155 chapters
• normal font size and shows English translation
• full colour illustrations

Cons: 

• no pronunciation / audio
• no verb
• no pocket size
• no glossary / index

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Schaum's Italian Grammar - Review

Schaum's Italian Grammar

Description: 356 pages, textbook with exercises and keywords in bold

Includes 11 chapters

Sample sentence inside;

  Italian    Lo studente lavora molto (The student works a lot (1 word)

   English   The student works a lot.

Pros:

• organised by 25 chapters
• normal font size
• index of verbs
• glossary Italian/English
• companion audio recording online
• answer key
• index with page numbers
• pronunciation guide

Cons: 

• no illustrations

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Intermediate Short Stories in Italian - Review

Short Stories in Italian Intermediate

Description:208 pages, A5 with exercises and keywords in bold

Includes 9 chapters

Sample sentence inside;

  Italian    Lui le sorruse in risposta. (He at her smiled in response).

  English   He smailed at her in response.

Pros:

• organised by 9 chapters
• normal font size
• Italian to English glossary
• some black and white illustrations
• multiple choice answer key for each chapter in index

Cons: 

• no audio
• no pronunciation guide

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Short Stories in French for beginners - Review

Short Stories in French

Description:256 pages, A5 with exercises and keywords in bold, with some black and white illustrations

Includes 8 stories

Sample sentence inside;

  French    Qu'est-ce que tu veux, Julie? 

  English   What is it that you want, Julia?

Pros:

• organised by 8 stories
• normal font size
• answer key for each chapter

Cons: 

• no audio
• no pronunciation guide

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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Short Stories in Turkish - Review

Short Stories in Turkish

 Description: 208 pages, smaller than A4 book with some black and white illustrations

Includes:

• 8 beginner short stories (from 4 pages to 3 chapters long)
• 5 - 15 multiple choice questions 
• a story summary
• and a vocabulary list for each story

Sample sentence inside;

    Ben buradayim (I'm here)

Pros:

• vocabulary in bold
• English/Turkish dictionary in index
• normal font size
• answers to multiple choice quizes in index

Cons: 

• no audio resource: via App store or Google Play
• no pronunciation guide
• not pocket size but A5 (chapter book size)
• no index of vocabulary to find page number

Please COMMENT if you like my work and want to encourage me to continue for other learners :-)

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