Your Language Learning Preferences
As language learners, we all have our own unique ways of learning and acquiring foreign languages. However, sometimes we may find ourselves struggling unnecessarily while learning or just feeling frustrated with our progress. In these situations, it can be helpful to take a step back and reconnect to our learning preferences to optimize our language […]
Performance-based Language Goals
The start of the year is our favorite time to set new language learning goals. After reflecting on the past year, we plan ahead for the next twelve months. We dream about where we’d like to be with our target language, one year from now. Most people set their goals according to the CEFR (Common […]
Learning Thai: My Second Attempt
I always prefer to learn skills on the first try. But, sometimes, it doesn’t work like that. I may need a second, third, or even fourth attempt. That was my experience with the Thai language. I tried to learn it in 2020, put it on hold for a year and a half, and got back […]
Singing in German (Week 13) – Wrap-up of the Project
During the last week of December (and the first one of January), I further explored the voice preparation with the spaghetti exercise described in the Week 11 article. I tried looking for more ease and a sense of freedom in the voice production. I had a number of good experiences in that regard. In fact, […]
Singing in German (Week 12) – We Sing As We Train
This may sound like something extremely obvious, but many times we forget completely about it: we sing as we train, as we practice. That means that, in order to be able to achieve a specific result when we sing a song, we need to practice that a good deal consistently. We need to train our […]
Singing in German (Week 11) – Taking the Larynx Down
As I mentioned before in this series, many of the exercises with do in class with Patrick exert an indirect influence on certain parts of the vocal tract. One example I mentioned in the past was the act of yawning or sobbing. Both take the larynx down and are good resources to have an experience […]