Tasting Life Twice

Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food.

Posts about Learning:

Eight Tools for the Language Learner

Eight Tools for the Language Learner

I've been learning Italian for the better part of the last fifteen years. It's a lot of work and not so easy doing it as an adult. But when I'm in Italy I can converse without switching to English, and that comes with a whole bunch of perks when I travel. But I have to keep it up in between visits, or all my conversation quickly goes by the wayside. 

If you are serious about learning another language, perhaps you too might benefit from some of these tools that have helped me to study, memorize and move further along the path toward fluency (and yes, it's a long path). Note that all these services offer the ability to learn languages other than Italian.

Learning a Language - Can You Use That Word in a Sentence?

Learning a Language - Can You Use That Word in a Sentence?

One of the challenges of learning a language is understanding how to best use all the vocabulary terms that you are learning. It's one thing to learn a word, but quite another to know how to employ that word in a sentence.
I think this is one of the most challenging things for me when I am trying to learn on my own, without my tutors available. Take the word impiegare, for example. It means to employ, to engage or to use. But I'm not entirely sure how it's used in a sentence and when I turn to various resources I get conflicting answers.