Tower of Babelfish
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Tips, tutorials and resources to aid you on your path towards fluency.

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    • Tag Archives: site updates

    Announcing Workshops!

    Workshoplogo

    WorkshoplogoA few months ago, I put together a workshop at the University of Vienna on language learning. It was kind of a monster; we started at 9am on a Saturday and ended a bit after 7pm, with a 1 hour lunch break. 9 hours of teaching in a day. By the end, everyone was naturally a bit wiped out, but we had so much fun. I really like teaching in that format, and all the attendees really liked learning this stuff. The feedback forms were just overwhelmingly positive, and aside from a few suggestions to split the material into a 2-day workshop, it seems like we landed on a really good format for teaching my whole method in a weekend.

    So I want to do this a lot more often.

    Starting today, I’m planning two 2-Day workshops in Los Angeles for mid July, along with another 2-Day workshop in Vienna in November. I’m also interested in doing some East Coast workshops in August/September/October, though I don’t have quite the same network there as I do in Los Angeles/Vienna, so those are a little more tentative. But honestly, if I can drum up enough interest (let me know!), I’d happily flit around the world putting on workshops all the time. It’s fun to teach this stuff.

    Anyway, you’ll find all the details, along with a fancy video with clips from the Vienna workshop and comments from the feedback forms at the new Workshop section of the website. If you want to attend one, but I’m not offering one in your area, let me know. If I get enough interest in a certain region, I may set one up near you.

    On the Tagalog/Filipino language (and a book update)

    PhilippinesMap3-1Tagalog is the newest member of the language resource section, and it’s a pretty neat one.

    From the fascinating history of the language to its ridiculously easy pronunciation (English: Economics –– Tagalog: Ekonomiks) to its fairly wacky system of in-fixes (like prefixes and suffixes, just in the middle of the word: graduate + um = grumaduate), it was a fun article to write and research, and it should be a fun article to read, even if you’ve never thought about learning the language.

    And…one last reason you may wish to peruse the Tagalog resource page, even if Tagalog’s not your thing: this is the first resource page that matches the content of my book.

    Continue reading →

    When you forget a language: How to bring it back (and a video demonstration!)

    Forgetting.jpeg

    Forgetting.jpegA few months ago, I realized that I had forgotten a great deal of my French. My book was taking up 40-50 hours of every week, so I didn’t have extra time to study, and I didn’t really want to study French, either. This year is my Hungarian year, and what little time I have, I like to spend on that language. Languages benefit from focus, and so I try to avoid studying two of them at once.

    I needed some way to bring back my French without actually having to work at it, and I found it in the form of television.
    Continue reading →

    Total Site Redesign!

    UnknownAs you may have noticed, the whole site has been redesigned from the ground up in WordPress. Everything should be much easier to find (and much easier to update). I can use your help! If something is broken or looks weird, let me know! Send me a screenshot, if possible, and let me know what browser you’re using. Many thanks.

    Exciting book news coming soon!

    Video: The Sounds of French (aka “How to learn lots of new vowels”)

    The first French video is done, and it should be helpful for learners of any language.  French is an extremely vowel-heavy language, and the stuff I recommend in this video for developing those vowel sounds in your ear/mouth will be applicable to any new vowels.

    Here’s the link (or go to YouTube directly)

    The Vowels Video is done! Book Agent, pronunciation help, site updates, la la la.

    Video News: The last English Pronunciation and International Phonetic Alphabet video is done!  Check it out here (or directly on YouTube).  Future videos plans in the short term include: French/German/Italian Pronunciation.  Medium term: Russian Pronunciation.  Longer term: Who knows!

    Pronunciation Help: Once you’ve seen the vowel video, you can use these charts to compare your target language’s vowels to your own vowels.

    Book News: We’re represented!  The wonderful Lisa DiMona at Lark Productions is representing the book, and the final final proposal is just about ready!

    Site Updates: A few minor repairs, corrections and organizational fixes.  Added StumbleUpon buttons (go click them! Yay!).  A reader found a nice concise Spanish pronunciation guide that I’ve added to the Spanish section.  I’ve found some neat Chinese resources (for learning tones and entering characters), and I’ve put them up on the Learn Mandarin Chinese page.

    Hi Lifehacker!!!

    I’ve done just about everything I can to ensure the site will stay up and running, so let me know if something doesn’t work and I’ll try to fix it asap!  Also, feel free to ask questions over here, and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.  I’m not sure if I’ve gotten a Lifehacker login, so I don’t know if I can respond to comments over at the original article.

    Thanks for visiting and happy language learning!

    -Gabe

    Huge ridiculous update (New video, new store, new video page, blah blah)

    Wow I’m pooped.  Ok here’s what’s new:

    • The next pronunciation video is done.  Check it out here.  (or here for the direct youtube link)

    • The video page has been completely redone; it’s a lot friendlier.

    • The Tower of Babelfish Store is officially open, with its first product. (!)  As a thanks for helping to test out the store and see if I set it up at all correctly, the first 5 people who use the discount code Test_My_Shop will get a 33.33% discount. :) [Update: Store doesn't like being in frames.  I think I've found all the links that put it in frames and killed them - please let me know if you find one I missed! (thank you Mark)]

    • The first product is an English Pronunciation Anki deck, which covers all of the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols that are found in the English language, as well as recordings for each sound.  Here’s a note about the decision to sell Anki decks here. [demo link fixed - thanks David!]

    • Contact form has been changed to a WordPress plugin

    • All the social networking buttons now bookmark the individual pages they’re on, so if you click the Facebook share button on the Learn Italian page, it’ll share the Italian page to Facebook.

    • Video tutorial for importing compressed decks with media files into Anki (like the English Pronunciation deck) has been added.

    • CSSEdit is a magical thing!  Wordpress portions of site now look like the rest of the site!

    • Facebook like buttons  e v e r y w h e r e

    • Navigation menu replaced with something that should be a bit more browser/platform compatible

    • Sidebar now works, as does search function.

    If you find something broken, please let me know! I’ve changed at least 2 things on every page of the site and I imagine something got messed up.

    That’s all!  Cheers -Gabe