My 6 Tongues

 I'm trying to focus on resources oriented to oral skills. I'm experiencing with "autologues" and I want to introduce "shadowing" in the near future. The Polyglot Kató Lomb explained that  doing "autologues" is very useful. "Autologue" means a conversation with oneself. She uses the term "autologue" because neither "monologue" nor "dialogue" covers the concept. I've been practising that for some days, at the beginning of the day, I explain to myself my plans for the day or maybe things about the previous day, then I ask myself a couple of questions about it. First of all I do it in my native tongue (Catalan), then I repeat the exercise in German and finally in French. I'm feeling some progress and I'm trying to perform this as a routine (routines are powerful in language learning). I also have to find the way to block some time to start "shadowing" in order to improve my pronunciation (m...

Steve Kaufmann és un dels poliglotes més coneguts, bàsicament per la seva presència a Youtube i a events internacionals relacionats amb el multilingüisme. En una visita a Barcelona va ser entrevistat per la ACN (Agència Catalana de Notícies). Parla uns 20 idiomes i diu que n'aprèn més fàcilment amb 74 anys que ho feia quan en tenia 15. Fes clic aquí per llegir l'entrevista de l'ACN (octubre 2019). Fes clic per escoltar una altre entrevista a Tarragona Ràdio (setembre 2019). Instagram: @My6Tongues

Alex Rawlings is a polyglot, citizen of the world. He was born and grew up in London and he is living currently in Barcelona. You can learn from his experience learning multiple languages with his book  " How to Speak Any Language Fluently ". In this video he gives some advice to learn Catalan. Enjoy!! Instagram: @My6Tongues

The EuroCom   method was created to encourage multilingualism in Europe. It was presented by Til Stegmann from the University of Frankfurt. This method teaches you to take advantage of your knowledge of one Romance language in order to read the other Romance languages. All over the book there are exercises for reading articles, ads, different texts written in different Romance languages. The method explains how to read 5 Romance languages simultaneously. The version I have uses Catalan as a sort of bridge language to learn how to read Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian. There are other versions of the book that use another Romance language as a bridge language: Eurocomrom - Els set sedassos (CAT) Eurocomrom - Les sept tamis (FRA) Eurocomrom - As sete peneiras (POR) ... This method takes a text written in a Romance language and applies seven filters ( sieves ) to it in order to 'decipher' the meaning. The 'sieves' or filters are: Fir...

Even though English is my 'best' foreign language I try to keep improving a bit every day. I struggle sometimes when I have to write something in a formal setting. Fortunately I found a book in one of my local libraries. I like checking the space they devote to language learning and I find some times little gems. This time the gem is a book called 'Writing Skills' by Anne Laws. It is designed to help non-native speakers to write business texts effectively in English. Even though you have a good level of English, it is still probable that some meaning gets lost in translation. You can find reliable sentences/expressions about stating understanding, making references, generalising, explaining, giving opinions and recommendations, expressing obligation/necessity, expressing degrees of certainty, focusing attention, contrasting... Here you have some examples from the book: About focusing attention... I should like to draw your attention to Clause 12 ...

I think Michel Thomas Method is a good kickstart in order to learn the languages it covers. In my experience, the best part of it is that you can achieve an A2 level very quickly, let's say in about 60 hours. In my case, after studying French at school and get a good level (I even used it comfortably working in the South of France) I lost my fluency because I devoted all my language study efforts to English for a long time. Michel Thomas Advanced French helped me to refresh my previous knowledge of the language. What's is interesting about this method is that you "only listen", no homework, no memorization.  The courses are recorded in a classroom situation, you can listen to the teacher (Mr Thomas) and two students, you become the third student in the class. It's a good place to start but you will need additional material for your reading and writing. After this update of my French with Michel Thomas, I will follow my French routines with th...

Currently I use English everyday, it's my preferred language for reading, watching videos and so on. Anyway,  I try to improve my English just using it as much as I can. I have conversations with teachers twice a week in order to reduce my accent. I have also started some routines to keep learning French and German. My goal is to consolidate my B2 (French) and my B1 (German) before summer. French is a lot easier for me, I find that written French is very similar to Catalan. German is more challenging even though my English helps me sometimes while studying it. I think you have to follow some kind of system that covers the language as a whole (grammar, basic sentences and a good deal of vocabulary), for this purpose I like Assimil even though I have tried other methods. I try to keep in contact with the languages on a daily basis. This is my current routine.                               ...