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For English Learners (also Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish and French)

There’s never been a better time to learn a language than now. We have access to more resources than ever before.

This video was a timely remember that LingQ has lots of listening and reading resources for English Learners.



Lucas Fischer Raymundo said that he didn’t know any English seven months ago but through listening, reading and reviewing he can now speak English comfortably.

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Your English gets better everyday

Chris

Get More Out of Foreign (English) Language TV

Watch TV and learn a foreign language! Sounds good, sounds too good to be true and at the moment it is for most people.

The trouble with most TV is that it’s too difficult to understand so people stop watching. One thing that has worked for me is watching a lot of kids TV in Dutch. I’ve certainly learned a lot of language this way and I’m much more comfortable with Dutch now. The great thing about kids TV is that it’s easy to follow. Unfortunately, many adults don’t like kids TV. Another alternative is to lookup ‘How to’ videos on Youtube.

‘How to’ are good because the subject is restricted, they're usually laid out in steps and there’s some repetition in the language used.

Here is a video for English learners.

‘How to make the perfect cup of tea’

It’s American English and aimed at women who are on a diet. So the language is step by step, on the subject of tea and it’s about health.





1st listening

• How many people do you see in the film?
• What are the two main types of tea?

2nd listening

• What’s the name of the woman who makes the tea?
• First step – do you have to use cold aerated water?
• Which tea (black or green) do you use a kettle to boil the water?
• Do you need to wring out a tea bag?

If you’re really good try these questions – take as many listenings as you like.

• 0:00- 0:15 – woman has started to drink tea this winter. What three reasons does she give?
• What would the ‘tea police’ check, if they came to your house?
• Do green and black tea come from the same bush?
• Can you re-use water in a kettle?
• When the kettle whistles, you need to get to the kettle quickly. Why?
• How is the tea bag protected?
• 3:45 – 3:55 – Why does the woman put a saucer (plate) over the tea cup? 3 reasons.
• How long do you steep: Green Tea
o Black Tea
• What can you use to boil green tea?
• Why don’t you wring out a tea bag?

Dutch Language Resources.

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For me, finding language resources is one of the most frustrating things in language learning as I feel a lot of the time I’m just wasting my time.

For example, I like to listen to the language a lot but often I go to websites and there’s no listening or very little.

So here’s a list Dutch resources I’ve been using or come across. I have a preference for Dutch only material and most of the material is TV or visual.

Taalklas TV show episode 1-12

Taalklas is a TV programme for immigrants learning Dutch. Here they have the full length programme, which are about 20 mins long. They consist of an opening sketch, vocab section, a singing sketch and some grammar. Each programme is based on a theme, i.e. the house. The programme is Dutch only.

Taalklas website

Taalklas also have their own website. You need to ‘registreren’, which is simple. You write your name and they’ll give you a pass number. This website compliments the TV show by also having exercises relating to each show. There are also 12 additional programmes and sketches on the site.

Links on 2BDutch website

More links. On this page I’ve used the following;

Woordwijzen – a five minute TV programme that introduces 5-6 new words each episode. Dutch only programme for learners.

Doe Maar Gewoon – 10-15 minutes long. This programme is about dos and don’ts in Dutch life. There are two sketches, the first shows an immigrant person/couple not following Dutch customs and the second shows them doing it right. Dutch only.

Lyrics training

But there’s only 4 Dutch songs here.

Netherlands TV

Links to some Dutch TV.

Learn Dutch with translation

I haven’t used this as it contains translations that are hard to avoid. Maybe useful for beginners.

Dutch TV with subtitles

Dutch TV with subtitles in Dutch and a choice of five different languages. Dutch TV themes include, children, political, history, comedy and music programmes. I found these useful as a lot of the videos have a Dutch focus.

Dutch Soap

If you’re into soaps, then this show might be good for you. They seem to upload the full show onto Youtube.

This is not an exhaustive list. There must be lots of quality Dutch material out there. You just have to have the patience and look.

I hope this list gets you started. A lot of the links are from the 2BDutch website. I’m sure that Youtube has a lot of potential too.



If you know any cool Dutch resources, please let me know in the comments.

Doo-i

Grammar - video and script.

I decided to post the video again, even though it was in yesterday's post, which explains why I'm telling the story in this way. The script is below the video.



The Transcript

Hi, it’s teacher Chris and today we have a short story that will help you understand tenses better. Let’s start.

(the story)

Sam went to Vietnam last year. Did Sam go to Vietnam two years ago? …………….. No, he didn’t. He didn’t go to Vietnam two years ago. He went to Vietnam last year. Who went to Vietnam? ……………. Sam, Sam went to Vietnam. When did he go? ………………. Last year. He went to Vietnam last year. He went to the mountains to go hiking. Where did he go in Vietnam? …………… He went to the mountains. He went to the mountains to go hiking. What did he do in the mountains? ………... Hiking. He hiked in the mountains. He went hiking because he loves it.

Did he go shopping in the mountains? ………………. No, no, he didn’t go… no, he didn’t. He didn’t go shopping in the mountains. He went hiking in the mountains. He went hiking because he loves it. Does he love hiking? …………… Yes, he does. He loves to go hiking, especially in the mountains. He loves the scenery and (the) fresh air you get when you go hiking. Does he love the scenery or the fresh air when he goes hiking? …………………… Mmm, he loves both. He loves the scenery and the fresh air. In Vietnam he felt the mountain scenery was very special. Did he feel the mountain scenery was boring? ………………………… No, no, he didn’t. He didn’t feel the mountain scenery was boring. He felt it was very special. Did he feel it was strange or very special? …………………… He felt it was very special.

What did he feel was very special? ………………… He felt that the mountain scenery was very special. Where was the mountain scenery very special? …………….. In Vietnam. The mountain scenery was very special in Vietnam.

Sam loves hiking so much he said that if he had gone to China last year, he would’ve gone hiking there too. Did Sam go to China last year? …………………….. No, he didn’t. He didn’t go to China last year. But if he had gone, he would’ve gone hiking. Would he had gone sailing in China? ………………………… No, no, he wouldn’t had gone sailing in China. He would’ve gone hiking. If he had gone to China, he would’ve gone hiking. Why would have he gone hiking? …………………….. Because he loves hiking. So, if he had gone to China, he would’ve gone hiking. But did he go to China last year? No, he didn’t. He didn’t go to China last year. He went to Vietnam.

End of Story

English Grammar - a different approach to learning

I made this video last year and it uses an interesting approach to teaching grammar.

It doesn't concentrate on the mechanics of grammar but rather shows you the structure of the language through repeated use.

I read a short story and I constantly ask questions. You should answer the question. After a short pause, I also answer the question, so within the story, you get all the common grammar structures;

Sam went to Vietnam last year. positive structure
Did Sam go to China last year? question structure
No, he didn't. He didn't go to China last year. negative structure

The 'past tense' is the main focus of the video.



I hope you find the video useful. I personally think it's a great alternative to traditional methods of teaching grammar. In my view, people who learn languages ultimately want to communicate well in that language. I believe this approach is more helpful than the book approach.

I will provide a script for the video tomorrow.

English Video - In the Garden

I made this video last year, when I was living in Taiwan.

I describe what you can see or hear in the video. I use spoken rather than book English. The script is also provided as well as some questions to encourage you to listen again to the video.



Exercises for “In the Garden Part One”

1st Listening

What floor do I live on?
What ‘word’ do Americans use for garden?

2nd Listening

There’s a little bit of noise on video. Where does it come from?
Which one’s bigger, a flowerbed or a flowerpot?
What’s wrong with some of the coffee trees?
How many anti-mosquitoes plants are there in the garden?
‘Anti’ in English means against. ‘Anti-mosquitoes’ plants – Are they good or bad for mosquitoes?

In the Garden Part One – The script.

Hi everyone, welcome to the garden, you’ll have to excuse the noise because we’re outside and there’s cars in the street below. Um, I’m lucky enough to live on one, two, three, four, on the fifth floor and lucky enough to have this garden. American would say yard, ok, in this yard, or garden, we’ve got a flowerbed, over here, we’ve got some plants and some weeds.

Hello, eh, over here in the yard, we’ve got some flowerpots, and …. Not very successful here, we’ve got some dead plants. These are dead coffee trees. These are live coffee trees. Ah, we’ve got this plant, this is a, it’s supposed to be an anti-mosquito plant, it’s a kind of pepper. And this is anti-mosquito as well and over here, we’ve got some chili plants. Can you see? This is a chili, and a little rose tree here. So, we don’t only have flowerbeds, but we’ve got flowerpots as well.