Efficiency is your friend.

About four years ago I met an American lady near Estepona on the southern coast of Spain. She previously lived and worked in America and knew no Spanish. This was unfortunate because she had a dream – to live and work in Spain. How to do? She solved her lack of...

What’s your plan for maintaining peak fluency?

In 1989 Stephen Covey published his book – The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Habit #2 was “start with the end in mind”. Sound advice. Let’s follow it! I don’t start learning a language until I have a plan in place to maintain...

Aren’t there meant to be laws against torture?

Like every other normal human being, if I want to remember things long term I have to review them from time to time. Recently, I went through a bad patch in my reviews getting only about 75% right. It was a painful, frustrating and annoying experience –...

Time

Few people who start learning a language appreciate the importance of time. It may sound obvious but never listen to what people say when you can watch what they do. Observing behaviour tells you the real story! When people quit learning a language it is usually for...

What’s your plan for when your plan fails?

Good morning! So my plan was to add 150 new words of Italian each day during November. That is around the amount added during a degree, learned in a month but that is a conversation for another day. The lives of adults do not always run smoothly due to the many...