It's been well over four months since I posted on my Basque learning. Basque is a fascinating language "isolate", related to no other and spoken by about 600,000 people on both sides of the western end of the Franco-Spanish border. Yes, I'm still at it and in this post I'll bring things up-to-date. Let's mine some tips from my story too, to help you sustain your … [Read more...]
My Russian TRKI 3rd certificate results: insights for your advanced language exam preparations
And then a great darkness fell across the land. And mighty earthquakes did shake the World. And pestilence and a plague of locusts descended. And there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Or, in other words, despite no small amount of sweat and toil, I've failed my Russian exam. But don't worry, this post isn't all about me wailing and wallowing. It's intended to … [Read more...]
Polyglot Gathering 3: the movie
"H2GF at Large" is back, this time with a vlog from the 3rd Polyglot Gathering. The film has been strewn across the cutting room floor here at Howtogetfluent Towers since I got back from Berlin (quite a few weeks ago) but now....(drum roll)....here's the vlog. It was actually at the 2nd Gathering, last year, that I decided it would be fun to have a go in this medium and I … [Read more...]
At the Polyglot Gathering 2016
Summer 2016 in Berlin began as language enthusiasts converged from far and wide for the third Polyglot Gathering. The sun was out, the temperature rose, the lilac bloomed. A bright yellow budget hostel in the Lehrterstrasse became once again, for four heady days, the pop-up capital of world language learning. I attended talks and workshops, practised my languages, drank my … [Read more...]
Project Advanced Russian or steppe-ing up for the TRKI 3rd Certificate
What we should be doing when trying to "level up" our foreign language abilities effectively at the advanced level? This is topical again for me after I took an advanced German exam a few months ago, because I'm a month into a three-month project: to improve my Russian and take an advanced Russian exam. If you're interested in levelling up your language … [Read more...]