Languages
Sounding like yourself in another language
People frequently report having a different personality in a second language, and the reasons are more practical than mystical.
Languages
Learning one as an adult, and speaking before you are ready.
Languages
Listening in a language you are learning
Listening is the skill learners find hardest and practise least, and the gap has specific causes.
Languages
Reading in another language
Reading is the most efficient source of vocabulary available, and most learners do it in the way that works least well.
Languages
Keeping a language you already have
Languages fade without use, and maintaining one is a different task from learning it.
Languages
Speaking a language badly on purpose
Waiting until you are ready to speak is the most common way to never speak, and there is a case for the opposite.
Languages
Choosing which language to learn
The wrong reason to pick a language is usefulness in the abstract, and the right one is more personal.
Languages
Grammar and how much it matters
Learners over-study it and under-use it, and the research on how it is acquired suggests a different balance.
Languages
Translation and what gets lost
The idea that translation is word substitution survives contact with almost no actual translation.
Languages
Learning vocabulary that stays
Forgetting is the default and the methods that beat it are well established and mostly unused.
Languages
Why adults think they are bad at languages
The belief that children learn languages effortlessly and adults cannot does not survive contact with the evidence.
Languages
Practising a language without leaving home
Immersion is a set of activities rather than a location, and most of them are available anywhere.
Languages
Learning a language as an adult
Adults have advantages children do not, and the methods that work are different from school language teaching.