Horrible two weeks

Past couple of weeks I was off from the computer and Internet and obviously from the Linguist but now I bought new laptop so I am back again and have started studying with the linguist. It was really horrible period for me. Firstly my old computer was broken down and in the UK , it cost a lot to repair the computer. So, I decided to buy a new laptop instead of spending money on repairing the older one. Finally, yesterday I bought a new one.
These ten to fifteen days were so horrible for me. I wasn’t able to access to the linguist site. So , actually I was totally away from the English language. I didn’t participate in group discussion nor I did study contents from library. Now I understood how it is important  to be in touch with the language. I am eagerly waiting to participate in group discussion so that I could feel more confident. I have to study hard and spend more time to speed up my language learning.  

Shashi’s reading report

Reading report of this week: From 15th May to 21th May

Shashi's audio report

• Listen to audio report:

1. Contents studied from Linguist Library:

• Turning an Interest into a Career – 2457 words
• India Arrival – 421 words
• India Red City – 679 words
• India the third city – 668 words
• Learning Vocabulary – 1137 words

2. Non-linguist contents:

• The comet magazine -1123words
• BBC world news – 2035 words

3. Books

• The next man in Texas – (page 45-80) 7,200 words

       

This week's Total = 15,720 words

Grand Total = 3,20,806 words

Shashi’s pronunciation report

Content studied : What's New At The Linguist

Linguist Digest: volume 1 Issue 23

  Shashi's Recording

  Mark's Recording
Transcript:

It’s been a slow month in the way of system updates so I thought I would take the time to talk a bit about the recent explosion of blogging, and to a lesser extent podcasting, on the internet. I’ll also talk a bit about the things that we’re doing to take advantage of these trends at The Linguist.

Many people don’t understand what a blog is. For many, the word conjures up images of some obscure technical thing. The reality is that a blog is simply a personal web page or journal that visitors can read and comment on. Combined with easy to use blogging software this makes it very easy for individuals to post their thoughts on their personal web page for everyone to view. If bloggers have interesting things to say, then others will be interested in reading them and they will visit the blog.

In a way, podcasts are nothing more than an audio version of blogs. They are distributed in the same way, as all podcasts are in the form of blog posts. Of course, the content of podcasts tends to be a little different and can very often take the format of a radio show but it is a convenient way for an individual to broadcast audio on the web.

At The Linguist, we have a few blogs and podcasts that we run and that we think are extremely useful to English learners… and all language learners for that matter. The first of these blogs, of course, is Steve’s Blog, The Linguist on Language. This is where you will find many of Steve’s tips on language learning and observations on all aspects of language learning from the importance of grammar to the examination of the teaching methods and approaches of others. We also run a podcast on this blog, which means that we periodically will be posting audio files on the blog containing conversations between Steve and other language learning experts and enthusiasts.

We have recently created a new Linguist Community Blog to which we have been posting some more fun features. In addition to news and updates about the system as they occur, we have been posting the corrected writing of our members, anonymously of course. These are posted under the category Members’ Chronicles and make for very interesting reading. You will also be able to subscribe to The Linguist on The Loose podcast here. This podcast includes conversations between Steve and Linguist members. Typically, these conversations will be both in English and then in the native language of the member (Assuming Steve speaks their language). Come and listen and read to what our members have to say. It’s well worth it!

I should mention that both blogs and podcasts can be subscribed to. This way you will automatically receive new posts and podcasts as they are posted. To do this you will have to use a blog aggregator program which is freely available on the web or for podcasts you can find dedicated podcast aggregators. For further information, click on the icons in the RSS Feeds area on both of the Linguist blogs.

Lastly, I want to direct you all to the links at the bottom of our front page. Here you will see links to individual podcasts with our learners and recent writing samples. You will see links to interesting podcasts with Steve in different languages. And you will see links to our Linguist blogs as well as links to blogs of current Linguist members who are blogging about their learning experiences on our site. Visiting these blogs will help you to quickly understand the world of blogging and podcasts and hopefully inspire you to investigate these phenomena further. Of course, any of you who have a blog or who will start blogging and would like us to add your blog to this list, please contact us. Enjoy!

what you say about laptop

I am looking for a good laptop. I am bit confused about which laptop is good. There are so many componies that it makes confused. I only know that while purchasing laptop we should look for it's RAM and HARD DISK SPACE. I think I should take a laptop with 524 or 1084 ram and a hard disk space about 60 to 80 GB. But which brand is reliable? There are packard bell, Toshiba, compaq, HP and sony. I am confused which one is best. and is there any other thing that i should check before purchasing? llike graphic card or wireless or any other thing. I haven;t knowledge of software or hardware. so please guide me so that I should not be dis-satisfied after purchasing.

Multiculturalism and language

In this podcast, Steve talks about multiculturalism and language. Following are the words and phrases that I found difficult for me.

Listen to podcast:

Difficult words and phrases:

• I am going to stray a little bit from subject of language learning -to start talking about a different subject from the one you should be giving attention to.
• Firm beliefs -the feeling of certainty that something exists or is true.
• Travel a great deal: travel a lot
• Culture is not tied to your ancestry: Ancestor means the former generations of somebody's family while descendent is a person who is related to someone and who lives after them, such as their child or grandchild.
• Ethnic origin: related to same national or cultural group.
• Heritage: features belonging to the culture of a particular society, such as traditions, languages or buildings, which still exist from the past and which have a historical importance.
• Convoluted: describes sentences, explanations and arguments, etc. that are unreasonably long and difficult to understand.
• This is typical of convoluted and self-contradictory thinking that a lot of intellectuals at our universities are peddling to young people: If you peddle stories or information, you spread them by telling different people.
• Secular: not having any connection with religion.
• Obligation: something that you must do.
• Staying power: If someone has staying power they always manage to continue doing what they have to do until it is finished.

DWN- struggle at the beginning

Deutsch-Warum nicht?  (German-Why not?)

I am getting familiar with German as I progress in it. Right now, my strategy is to just listen to contents over and over again. I am a bit lingered, as I didn’t find authentic content on the Net. However I feel that I should study some very beginner level content, as I am totally new to German.

There are some basic differences in German as apposed to English and I am trying to understand them. Firstly, in German, there are different articles for nouns depending on the gender of noun. In English, we use only “the” as a definite article, like the tree, the car, the book etc. However, in German, we use der, die, das before noun as a definite article. If the noun is masculine then we use der, e.g. der Man (the man), and die for feminine nouns e.g. die Frau (the woman) and das for neuter noun. So, it is better to learn the nouns with their gender to avoid confusion.

Also, when you meet with a new person or someone who is older than you, then you should address him more politely or more formally. There are different pronouns for formal situations and for familiar one. In German, people don’t use first names until you are close one (and some times it would take many years for you to become familiar). This is a good example of how language and culture are intertwined, and you need to be aware of this to avoid embarrassing yourself and others.

I’ve found two interesting sites, which provide good audio and texts contents for very beginner students. It is very difficult to retain the words that I have studied. It is also difficult to use online dictionary, as I didn’t find good electronic dictionary. I would try to form good foundation so that at least I could understand some basic words and phrases.

I would like to state here that even though I believe in Steve’s method, initially I prefer to study some basic grammar rule. At first when I started to study German, I found it very difficult to understand it, as I knew nothing about grammar. Then I decided to study some basic grammar rule like pronouns, verb table, alphabets and so on. This helps me understand the structure of sentences. Now I just read and listen to contents over and over again and build my own vocabulary.

Interesting Podcast from Steve’s blog

Today I have listened to the Podcast from Steve's blogon the importance of the words. I found it very interesting and informative. So I have made transcript for it. You may find it interesting.

Listen to the podcast:

Transcript : click to download word document

Shashi’s Reading Report

Reading report of this week: From 8th May to 14th May

Shashi's audio report

• Listen to audio report:

1. Contents studied from Linguist Library:

• Dr. Laura speaks with a mom who has an angry son – 926words
• Wal-Mart a History of Success – 488 words
• The Linguist part 1: Introduction – 1825 words
• The Linguist part 2: A start of Journey – 1823 words
• Dr. Laura speaks with a betryed housband – 852 words
• Personal#1 -378 words

2. Non-linguist contents:

• The comet magazine -784words
• BBC world news – 1495words

3. Books

• The next man in Texas – (page 1-44) 8,300 words

           

This week's Total = 16,495 words

Grand Total = 3,05,086 words

Shashi’s Pronunciation Report

Content studied : Your Language Adventure, part 6

Linguist Digest: volume 1 Issue 23

My recording

Steve's recording

Transcript:

The Linguist will link more and more example sentences using this term for you to review. These examples are not from a dictionary. These examples come from the content you are studying. As you study more content The Linguist automatically links more and more examples for you to study.

You can get on The Linguist system and see how these links create examples of words and phrases that are important to you. The Linguist system will ask you to regularly review these words and phrases and to use them in your writing and speaking. You will find that you will be able to remember new vocabulary better than ever. You will also become better at noticing new words and phrases in your listening and reading. This will help you to use them when you need to.

The Linguist is efficient. If your learning is efficient you will make rapid progress. Your success will encourage you to continue. You will feel more relaxed. When you are relaxed, you learn. When you learn, you want to put more time into your learning activities. You will find that you have the time to learn.

Soon you will see phrases and not just words. You will develop a sense for which words belong together. The Linguist system will train this ability in your brain. You will learn to speak correctly by learning phrases. You will not try to remember all the rules and exceptions of English every time you want to speak or write. This is an impossible task.

You will connect phrases to meaning and concepts. When you first learn an English word or phrase you rely on its translated meaning. But this will change. Gradually the relationship between the words and their meaning in English will become more important to you than their translated meaning. Your brain will be building the necessary network to think in English. Soon you will be operating comfortably and correctly in real English without translating into your native language. That is the wonderful thing about The Linguist's linking system, it will make you independent of your native language.

Your listening and speaking activities will also improve your pronunciation. As you are training yourself to notice words and phrases, you will also start to concentrate more on the pronunciation of individual words and phrases. You may start saying them out loud to yourself. You will find that you are taking more initiative in improving your English. If you wish to put special effort on pronunciation you can work on repeating vowel sounds, consonant sounds and full sentence pronunciation at the Pronounce section of The Linguist. Your tutor will give you feedback to help you. If you are especially interested in pronunciation you can seek the help of our Pronunciation Doctor.

New Linguist podcast site for English learners

The Linguist has launched a new podcast site: English lingQ (pronounced as English link). Each podcast will contain an interview, article, audio book excerpt etc… which will be either beginner, intermediate or advanced. After you listen to it a few times on your iPod you can come to the EnglishLingQ companion site where you will be able to study it using the LingQ learning system. Membership in EnglishLingQ is free for the first ten items you study so you will have plenty of time to decide whether you want to subscribe and become a full member of The Linguist. You may even win the chance to speak to our tutors or have your writing corrected. Of course, even if you don’t decide to become a full member, you can continue listening to the podcasts as long as you like.

This is a good podcast site for the English language learners or for those who wants to start learning English. These podcasts contain good authentic material that you can listen to on your iPod. If you want to study these content then you can do it by becoming linguist member just for as low as $20 per month where you can build your own vocabulary and can speak with native speakers.

So don’t waste time and start listening to linguist podcast right now.(It's totally free to listen)

Click to subscribe it now: