Dedicating your time to language learning can be tough. As with any other part of your life that you find difficult to dedicate your precious time to. After all - you have to deal with the responsibilities and priorities in your life. On top of managing your career, a family, perhaps kids and the challenges you face on a day to day basis. So it makes sense to feel a little overwhelmed when you’re strapped for time. Keeping that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of ways to dedicate your time to language learning, which will help you stay product...

Learning a language is no mean feat... ...It involves a lot of effort and, above all, a lot of cognitive processing. For decades, the language learning and teaching field has posed the great question: how to best learn a language? Shameless plug here but if you are in Birmingham in the UK and you want to learn Spanish, you could enrol on one of our Spanish courses in Birmingham to give you a head start. Anyway, shameless plug over! It stands to reason there is no easy answer. If there was, then every teacher, coursebook and institution would be follo...

The problem with learning vocabulary... ...is that it is often seen as a simple matter of equating one word with one meaning. For example: the Polish word for bread bun is bulka; the word for butter is masło. So, if you put them together to get bread and butter you get: bułka z masłem. Piece of cake – expect that is what bułka z masłem really means in Polish: piece of cake, as in: well, that was so easy it was a piece of cake! Unfortunately, when it comes to learning vocabulary, the example above isn’t unique. In fact, most words have a vari...

So here’s the thing. Everybody is different. And that’s especially true when it comes to learning any skill. Languages included. You may be aware of, or have seen information about different learning styles, and how tailoring your learning to suit your own particular style can make you a more efficient language learner. The truth is that it is a lot more complicated than that. Scientific study after scientific study has proven inconclusive. I.e. it’s not clear at all whether tailoring your language learning strategies (or any learnin...

This morning I read an article in a national newspaper looking at mobile technology in the language learning classroom It divided schools up into two groups: Schools which allow learners to use technology in lessons (such as UKLP Bristol where our Spanish courses in Bristol allow phones and electronic devices in the classroom) Schools which don’t allow learners to use technology in lessons From the teachers’ part, there is always the argument that smartphones and tablets “disturb lessons” – they are a nuisance and distract learners ...