Does learning Italian in a school increase a student’s fluency 21122018
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Does learning Italian in a school increase a student’s fluency?

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21st December 2018
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Does learning Italian in a school increase a student’s fluency? The Museum of Knowledge team is often asked such questions due to the rise of various online programmes that seem to give the impression that the requirements for students to learn Italian should be conducted in a traditional classroom environment.

Learning Italian in a traditional classroom setting will give students a substantial foundation but in order to achieve results and succeed in examinations, students will need to read around the subject in order to reach optimum proficiency. Such proficiency can only be achieved by having a profound understanding of the subject area, and in this case of both the Italian language and the Italian culture.

Students can improve their Italian by travelling to an Italian-speaking country or region such as Italy or parts of Switzerland. Travelling to regions where Italian is spoken widely will certainly open the mind and enable students to be even more fluent. Reading Italian newspapers, listening to the radio in Italian and watching some Italian films are also techniques that are proven to be extremely beneficial as these techniques will also help students to improve their Italian skills as well as their level of language fluency immensely.

How to improve Dutch as a foreign language and meet native speakers 14122018
Learn Dutch

How to improve Dutch as a foreign language and meet native speakers

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14th December 2018
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The Museum of Knowledge explains how to improve Dutch as a foreign language and meet native speakers. There are of course plenty of ways students can practice their spoken Dutch online as well as many forums that are now also readily available thanks to advances in technology.

Of course the easiest way to speak Dutch with a native is via face-to-face learning and this can be easily achieved if the learner visits the country where the language is spoken. However the problem with this is that the dialogue is not always structured and not everyone can travel on a regular basis to the country where the language they are learning is widely spoken.

The idea behind online language learning used by the Museum of Knowledge is to provide a more in-depth and structured way to perfect the Dutch verbal and listening skills of students who have chosen to learn Dutch. This aspect is key as many people wish to improve their verbal competency, but forget that their listening skills are also paramount to their progress and eventual success in both professional and social settings.

Online forums are plentiful as well as immersion techniques that the Museum of Knowledge will be launching by September 2020.

 

 

Two Museum of Knowledge top tips to learn Portuguese 07122018
Learn Potuguese

Two Museum of Knowledge top tips to learn Portuguese

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7th December 2018
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Two Museum of Knowledge top tips to learn Portuguese include adopting structure in the language learning process.

This structure can be achieved by ensuring language learners interact with well-spoken Portuguese language speakers. Portuguese language learners will need to spend some time memorizing words and grammar in order to ensure that they can communicate to a high standard. They will also need to have confidence to go out there and put into practice what they have learnt in theory.

The second top tip to learn Portuguese with ease is not to be afraid of making mistakes when communicating verbally with native Portuguese speakers. Alternatively, Portuguese language learners can learn Portuguese through forums and language learning programmes online.

How to use vosotros and ustedes in Spain and Latin America 30112018
Learn Spanish

How to use vosotros and ustedes in Spain and Latin America

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30th November 2018
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The Museum of Knowledge explains how to use vosotros and ustedes in Spain and Latin America. In Spain, language speakers often omit vosotros (you plural informal) from verbal communication. In its place, the polite form ustedes (you plural formal) is more common in spoken language.

 

Vosotros or ustedes?

It is more common both in Spain and in Latin American to remove vosotros from dialogue altogether, meaning that a phrase such as “tenéis la opción de seguir adelante” (you have the choice to move forward) is spoken in the same way in both Spain and Latin America. This leads language speakers to add vosotros at the start of the phrase that is sometimes not used in either Spain or Latin America.

 

How often is vosotros used in Spain and Latin America?

Even in Spain one may rarely hear vosotros spoken, but usted is often heard used in both Spain and Latin America. For those language learners who read more classic books/ novels however they will definitely see vosotros in both Spain and Latin America used abundantly.

Spanish is a very long flowery language, with sentences always particularly long compared to Germanic languages such as English so it would not be surprising if Spanish speakers remove the word vosotros from their verbal communication to save time!