I was wandering through Youtube and suddenly my attention was caught by this single. Both the name of the song and the cover of the video made me curious what's inside. Must admit, the words that started flowing along with the music clearly did justify my expectations and I became even more curious. This time about the cutie, who she is.
Long story short, she is beautiful, young (only 24) and she is talented. You won't find lots of information about her background, except a few words that was born in Scottsdale, Arizona and brought up in both Georgia and California by Armenian parents, surrounded by love and great music. Who is she?
Tada-dam-mmm! Meet Tamar Kaprelian, a promising singer, songwriter, musician, and even a pianist!
Enjoy the music. Let it cheer you up and inspire to make a new start in you life!
Happens that precious gems are hidden not only in a post but also in the comments below it, and deep diggers become rewarded with finding them.
I decided to create this pattern to challenge myself because I agree that wordiness often becomes a tomb of the idea.
Did you know that the Russian Tsar Nikolai II had spoken at least three foreign languages besides Russian? He knew French, German and English, and his English was just perfect. Dutch was he knew a little bit worse.
You will say he was a Tsar. No doubts, the Russian Tsar gained an excellent education.
But there starts another interesting chain of facts concerning his language teacher, Maximilian Berlitz. I am not going to retell the whole Wiki article, 
but the Tsar got an outstanding teacher and I wanted to draw your attention to one really bright point about him. Mr. Berlitz developed an absolutely efficient technique for learning languages and it happened accidentally. How so? While being ill, Maximillian asked his friend to substitute him on French classes which were given to English-speaking students. What was his surprise after he went back to his work! Turned out that his kind French friend knew yet zero English words! Nevertheless he didn't refuse the request. So, he started to teach the language by pointing out objects and naming them in French. No English word sounded on those classes! After six weeks these students started speak French semi-fluently, which was absolutely unexpected and considered incredible! Yet, Berlitz was Berlitz, after that case he developed his technique, taught lots of students and eventually came to Tsar. :)
What is the main point of this story? We can learn from successful experience of others. There are lots of polyglots nowadays. Many of them kindly share their own "language-stories". Recently I found this amazing video (see below) which made me really impressed with the scale of the project and with its motivational influence. Hence, I started to read the book which was represented in the video and got a great desire to share all this stuff with you, friends. I wanted to let you know how successful you can be.
They managed, so can you!
These same links you can find below the video on Youtube. The book is downloadable for free just after signing up (1) or you can buy it as a paper book on Amazon (2).
• The Polyglot Project Book: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/60429490/The-Polyglot-Project
• Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Polyglot-Project-Learn-Multiple-Languages/dp/1453898247...
Enjoy and get motivated!
P.S. Let me know if you started reading the book. I am swallowing its pages! =)
* * * * *
P.P.S. Wow! I managed to get the code of it. So, you can read it here!
Come in, I am happy to meet you!
Tea? Coffee? Okay, let's talk about how we have been spending our time here...
First of all, I wanted to thank all of you out of this nice company and other bloggers who commented in my blog. Good job, guys! I appreciate your comments! =)
Besides, during the last time I have been reading your blogs regularly and try to share my point of view if I have something to say. I would like to remember once more a string of blogs which had touched me especially. So, I am going to give a few remarks on them and along with this I want to introduce my friends to each other as at a real table. ;)
Actually, to arrange such a coffee-break I was inspired by heartfelt posts made by rose (My First Two Days in English Club) and Smiling moon (Warm feeling ^_^). I absolutely agree with Jason that proper communication is important and, quoting him, "there are kind hearts around".
Some pages which I had come across turned out to be really resourceful. Ika inspired a really vivid discussion These Are My Favorite english learning sites. what's yours? and so she started sharing really precious resources for learning English. Yum-yum, tasty page! ;)
Another vital information about Present simple or continuous-Test your English was published by Monika. By the way, check out her profile! You will be definitely amazed by the whole cloud of resourses on her page!
I often ask myself the same question as Alexandra: Multitasking. Does it exist or not?
After the first reading of this post I recalled my previous job. Nevertheless, reading along with listening also can be considered as multitasking. They say it helps to study English. Did you try it? I got a brilliant idea how to do this from Javier's post about A history of the world in 100 objects.
Are you going to stop on learning just English? Are you going to try other languages as well? Mimi Kao's thinking is far more outside the box. She asks Will you raise your child up as a bilingual? Also you can notice an interesting video in the discussion of her post.
There were a lot more interesting pages worth to mention. Sorry if I missed someone.
A couple of words about what I have noticed while reading your blogs. There are not few servises providing communities, forums, blogging etc. However, if I had to choose the community now, after I had wandered through other websites and their communities, I would choose MyEC again. Why?
Now I have always been thinking whose blog to visit and what to say. I am thinking of you, guys! =) I realize that I have to prepare my thoughts in English, so I started to catch myself on thinking in English sometimes. Wow, great feeling! Oh..., not everytime, just sometimes. Don't overestimate my English! ;)
The main thing, I concluded that warm community relations help to start thinking English. So, not just community helps, not just blogging helps. Warm communication is the thing which really helps in developing this particular skill.
Thus, I admit I really enjoy my dwelling on MyEC and my English goes on improving. :)
What could I do without you!
I am happy with my choise... How about you? ;)
Oh... this video below about communication
is what I have prepared as a funny dessert
.
Enjoy!
Well, I am giving you my big hugs! Come again sometimes... Okay?
I am starting this post not because I am using commas exactly as it should be. Not at all! The reason is I am learning how to use them properly. In my case learning starts with considering. Being aware of my poor memory I try to grasp the logic of a thing or a process and so I can memorize what is vital.
Some people don't use punctuation. When they are beginners, this is quite understandable.
Though I notice people who use complex grammar yet still almost omit using commas and even periods and capital letters. Once I read the article which related about really amazing things for me. Turns out that Deutsch people start every noun with a capital letter, Georgian don't have capitals at all, and commas and periods didn't exist in the Old Greek (not sure how about now). Correct me if I am wrong, for I wrote this from my memory (unfortunately, it's not my strong side).
Well, contemplating on these differences I concluded that dropping commas and other things might be explained by the background of each particular person.
So, dear friends, I have a couple of questions to you.
• Is punctuation important for you? What helps you to use it properly?
• Did you find any useful resourses on the topic, especially how to use commas? Share it, please!
• Does your native language have all those things like commas, periods and capitals?
• Does your background affect on your writing, especially punctuation? (I know, this question is a bit provocative one :) ).
In the end, I would like to share the information on the topic which I found while wandering in the immense internet space.
1) Commas on MyEC, besides the explanation of commas, here you can find links to learnabout other issues on writing and punctuation in particular.
2) Punctuation from Purdue Online Writing Lab, here it is the explanation about clauses and other annoying yet necessary things.
3) Punctuation discussion on Italki.com, someone says about SMS language. This is unfortunately true.
4) Cases in English, here they say about the Vocative case which requires separation by commas.
5) BBC commas quizz, check yourself!
By the way, if any mistakes in my writing, please don't hesitate to correct me. I am the same learner!
P.S. The picture above was borrowed from here on MyEC.
Aren't these two different? Though they match not bad, don't they?What do you mean by a friend? I would say, we have two diffrent meanings of the word "friend". Not sure, if not far more. But this number I can explain.
Actually, to start this post, I was prompted after I had read really deep thoughts on the Amal's blog.
In the beginning, I will bring an example. When I say "a glass made of glass", do you think both of these words of "glass" imply the same? Why haven't you mistaken? Apparently, you know that these are two and you consider the context.
Friendship on a website is some kind of acknowledgment or agreement. This kind of friendship mostly starts with agreement and then is presumably followed by relations between the two.
Well, one more example. To be a friend in both meanings is like to be a doctor by one's vocation or by his position. Each of them cures but you feel the difference, don't you? The best thing is when both of them match in one person.
• Kindly share your opinion, what friendship means for you? (both cases might be explained)
• When you accept a new friend on MyEC, what follows next?
• What should be next? What do you expect when accepted?
• And the last, do you agree with "two meanings" concept?
What did you think on all of this?
What this post is aimed for? Dear friends, I need your advice to improve my learning approach. Besides, while participating you might take advantage from this idea as well.
Lately, I noticed that reading articles on the internet became of great help to improve my English. In this post I am going to share:
Well, I have been studying English seriously for less than a year. What was before even is not worth relating. So, reading was far more difficult task for me even half a year ago. Now I can read articles of the average complicacy. I would like to take more benefit of it. Let's try it together!
Why articles?
What's my idea on that account?
My idea is to work on interesting articles in a special way. That is to make reports or blog posts unveiling the next:
Why your advice is needed?
See the red text above.
Well, I am going to work out kind of online course for intermediates like me. That is for everyone interested in this reading/writing activity. I mean it to realize the principal "Teach yourself". You might follow the pattern in the comments below such posts. So, you are welcome to create that very pattern to use it later.
At the end. Presumably the group is going to be called English Workshop.
Kindly share your advice!
I have always been fond of English. My first memories go far into my early school years when my Mom was assisting me to repeat vocabulary.
Well, what has helped me to approach my dream which implies good command of English? I decided both to analyse my experience (even for my own benefit) and to take the Challenge #25 at the same time.
One Ukrainian proverb says: "Any work has never been easy." This many times prevented me from frustration. And also this helped me to outlast it, for effeciency hardly ever has been apparent immediately. Time! Good work requires thinking, and thinking requires time. In turn, thinking is the main work of a language learner.
I have never expected that studying would be absolutely effortless for me. Once I read that learning the language is like learning to dance. Just different groups of muscles are involved. But actually in both cases you are supposed to acquire certain skills associated with muscle training. When speaking your native language everyday you sometimes even don't think what and how to say. It happens because of muscle memory. Well, and muscle memory still remains to be memory, hence it dwells in the very same place which we are trying to teach some new words. Absolutely, any memory dwells in our mind. Thus, repetition is the first of two main keys when speaking about learning a language.
Once I was told about one interesting interview with the first teacher of music who had taught singing to one of the most popular Russian singers. So, she was asked about the criteria or how she had chose whom to teach. Was it excelent hearing or voice? No! For a wonder, she answered that the most important criteria was the ability to think logically and to grasp the way and the reason of doing something.
Since the Challenge #25 requires telling the Seven Secrets, here they are a few extracts from my experience.
The title of one book I have read reads "You can't be taught a foreign language" (by Nikolay Zamyatkin). The passive voice doesn't succeed. So these suggestions above are rather hints than the immutable prescription. The work, the choise and the benefit are yours. You can teach yourself.
-- -- --
I'm aware I'm not perfect. If any mistakes, please let me know. I would be happy to learn them, frankly!
-- -- --
Any your thought regarding this is welcome!
