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Should I learn Russian or Czech when traveling to Czech Republic?
This question might seem very broad or opinionated but I did not find a better way to put it in short.
I like to travel to the Czech Republic and often times my English and German combined help me be understood. But that's not always the case.…
Umbranus
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What are all the concepts that you need to understand to become proficient at reading in a language?
Phonics seems to be important. What else is important? Do you need to know the formal rules of grammar?
By "reading a language" I mean reading aloud or silently (whichever is better for comprehension) and have listening comprehension also.
Explette
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order of studying languages to make it easier
If I want to study more languages, what is the best order?
EG I know that if I study Spanish, learning Italian would be easier then.
I was considering more, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Tagalog, I was thinking about Chinese, Japanese, Turkish,…
cornejo
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At what level of Chinese or Japanese should one start learning the writing system to avoid a plateau?
In my answer to the question Is it necessary to learn the characters of a language that uses logograms?, I pointed out that there are universities that teach Chinese or Japanese where the writing system is not taught before the students have reached…
Tsundoku
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For teachers : Improving oral communication skills in a language by identifying weak areas
How often can you improve oral communication skills in a language where you have some level quickly by identifying weak areas and working of them? (This could be the past tense or the most important strong verbs for example).
If so, is it easy for…
Olav
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3
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How can I decide when to begin reading short stories?
I just started learning Spanish, and I want to know what criteria I should employ when deciding if/when to begin reading short stories in my target language.
2dar
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3
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How important is accent for being understood in a given language?
When I learned English at school (in France), my teachers asked me to make effort to have an "England-like" pronunciation (which was difficult for me).
Today, I use the English language for my work (technical English, mostly) and I noticed that I…
Mathieu
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How do I measure the importance of a language?
At a couple of bookshops with dedicated areas for language learning, some languages get entire aisles, while other languages get just one or two books.
The number of speakers can't be the sole determining factor of a language. For example, Mandarin…
Golden Cuy
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Why retain vocabulary when there are dictionaries?
Usually, when we come across an unknown word, we can guess its meaning based on the text around it (assuming that all the words around are known). However, there are cases that the meaning of the word is crucial, and only guessing it is not enough.…
Ooker
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What are the advantages of using physical materials over electronic materials?
I notice that many language learners have many books with materials for studying languages. This question discusses the advantages of a paper dictionary over an online dictionary, however I want to know more about general materials. What are the…
LinLit
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How to render proper names having a hidden overtone in their semantic structure as it has essential meaning for prose fiction?
Should a translator create a new name using a potential of the target language and save its meaning, or omit this feature applying method of traditional transliteration?
user555
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What is my first language?
I'm very confused as to whether 'mother tongue' and 'first language' mean the same thing.
Considering the first three years of my life, I was surrounded by Hindi-speaking parents, so that makes Hindi my mother tongue, right? Then I began going to…
Mel
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Seeking Guidance for Self Studying Germanic Linguistics
I'm a native English speaker from the USA and I'd like to self-study Germanic linguistics. I've found little success understanding what a degree in the field would even look like because search engines love to render "Germanic" as "German".
I'm…
Nickolas Bogan
2
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2 answers
What exactly does e.g. "95% comprehension" mean?
I recently browsed the paper Schmitt, Jiang, and Grabe, The Percentage of Words Known in a Text and Reading Comprehension, The Modern Language Journal (2011).
Its main aim was to find the relationship between x% vocabulary coverage (i.e., the…
Rebecca J. Stones
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How to type the alif waslah on iPhone?
I have been using an Arabic keyboard on my iPhone for a while now, and one thing I can’t figure out how to type is the alif waslah.
For other markings above the ‘ا’ I hold down the key and I get options, but I do not see the alif waslah among…
