Tumgik
#also have to make the shared youtube stop giving ads in french and spanish
loadseries135 · 3 years
Text
Minitube Linux
Tumblr media
Distributing the Linux build of your app as a zip lets you provide one download and set of instructions for all of Linux. However, end user discovery and update management remain a challenge. Snaps fill this gap, letting you wrap your existing Linux build in an app store experience for end users. MiniTube Version 2.4 Updated, Install in Ubuntu/Linux Mint MiniTube is beautiful, lightweight and a native YouTube client. With MiniTube you can watch YouTube videos by typing keyword into the search-box and MiniTube will immediately loads the results. It offers two type of.
Information on all packages for project minitube. Packages for minitube. 80 package(s) known. In minitube-bin don't skip hashcheck and don't unneeded msg2 FabioLolix commented on 2020-12-09 17:50 Hello, this pkgbuild should have been called minitube-bin from the start. Minitube-bin exist and was abandoned by its maintainer, I' have adopted it and added you as co-maintainer. WordPress developer for iThemes, Linux fan, all-around nerd, and @chrisjean on Twitter. Fix: Minitube Doesn’t Play Videos in Ubuntu. I’ve been a huge fan of Minitube. I use it nearly every work day to run interesting videos to give me a nice sound backdrop to work.
Watch YouTube videos in a new way: you type a keyword, Minitube gives you an endless video stream. Minitube is not about cloning the YouTube website, it aims to create a new TV-like experience.Read more
Light on your computerBy consuming less CPU and less memory than a web browser, Minitube preserves battery life and keeps your laptop cool.
Great for kids! Very easy to use and with filters for inappropriate content.
Channel subscriptionsSubscribe to YouTube channels and be notified of new videos.No need to login with a YouTube account: more privacy!
Stop fiddling Just search for something. Minitube automatically plays videos one after another. Sit back and enjoy.
WindowsWorks on Windows 7/8/10 Also available on the Microsoft Store.
macOSWorks on 10.13 or better. Also available on the Mac App Store.
Debian & Ubuntuor build by yourself.Works on Ubuntu 20.04 (64bit) or better
Help translating Minitube to your native language! You can do it online onTransifex.
Need help? Found a bug? Have a suggestion? Head over to theForums.
Sep 11Minitube 3.6: the Javascript release
Aug 7Minitube 3.5 and Musictube 1.13
May 30Minitube 3.4
My kids just love this app! Easy to use and a great interface.. just love it!
WimDS
If you're looking for a way to check out YouTube clips outside the browser, it's a really elegant solution
Lifehacker
Makes it impossible to stop watching videos when what you should be doing is writing that program's review.
PCWorld
It's a terrific app that eliminates the need to poke around YouTube's Web site and navigate through a sea of ads, comments, and related videos you may not care about.
OStatic
Minitube allows you to search for videos in a breeze without any complications in between. Microsoft app remote desktop.
AppYourMac
It sort of subtly changes your perception of what's going on.
Linux Format
It's been a long time since I found a program that works out of the box and does what the blurb says it should. Minitube belongs on every multimedia PC.
Linux Magazine
I believe you succeeded well in your goal to make watchingvideos more like the experience of watching television, and more enjoyable.
Tim
I will be installing a copy of Minitube om my Mother's PC. I thinkMinitube would be a terrific way to introduce her to the world of Internetvideo. Friday night funkin all weeks game. She really LOVES television, so I think she will like using Minitube aswell.
Tim
My 4 years old is a big fan of Minitube ;-)
Roberto
A clean, modern interface and no requirement of third party plug-ins makes this program an invaluable tool
Tomaaato
My dad has even told me that this is without a doubt the program that he spends most of his time on (he does other things, but this is almost constantly open in another space playing some traditional Italian music or 1930s comedies).
Tomaaato
Great app! Was hesitant to buy, but it did what it said and was exactly what I was after!
James Bedford
Works very well and is genuinely useful.
Allan Campbell
At first, I was skeptical of the utility of Minitube. After installing it, and running it, I 'get' the purpose, and would gladly recommend it
Will, Stormfront Tech
Was dubious to buy .. sounded basic.. but thats the clever thing - it is! choose you search subject and off you go.. continious material on that subject - Simples! well worth it!
Murtha Piggott
Minitube features
Minitube focuses on a pleasing overall experience, not on having tons of features. Here's what Minitube can do:
Channel subscriptions without using a YouTube account
Compact mode: a small, always-on-top window
Take video snapshots at full resolution
Editable playlist: drag'n'drop and remove videos
Stop after this video: 'Last one, kids!'
Sort videos by relevance, date, view count and rating
Filter videos by publication date, video duration and video quality
Search by keyword, channel name or paste a YouTube link. Suggestions while typing.
Remembers recent keywords and channels. These can be cleared if needed.
YouTube categories: “Most Popular”, “Music”, “Games”, etc.
Related videos
Fullscreen mode: mouse cursor, toolbar and playlist autohide
Copy YouTube link to clipboard
Share on Facebook, Twitter or via email
Translated to more than 30 languages including German, French, Italian, Russian, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Chinese.
Thank you! Your download has begun.
Get the full version of Minitube. It comes with:
Free updates forever
Email support
Buy now or get the App Bundle for Windows
Thank you! Your download has begun.
Tumblr media
Get the full version of Minitube. It comes with:
Minitube Linux Not Working
Free updates forever
Email support
Buy now or get the App Bundle for Mac
Support the development of Minitube!
Continuing Linux development, bug fixes and support can only happen if there is money to support those activities. Thanks.
Donate
Minitube Linux 32
I’ve been a huge fan of Minitube. I use it nearly every work day to run interesting videos to give me a nice sound backdrop to work by. Mostly, I find myself playing AMVs, but I also enjoy just typing in random stuff to see what it starts playing.
However, a few weeks ago, it just suddenly stopped working. I was sad, but there was a lot of stuff going on, so I just left it broken. Today, I found the fix.
Minitube Linux
On Minitube’s install page, Flavio mentions removing the phonon-backend-xine package as a possible solution. I tried it, and it worked. Given that I don’t know what other software may rely on this, I tried reinstalling the package, and Minitube still worked. After rebooting, I found that it no longer worked again, so it seems that the package does need to stay removed. I’ve updated the following to only show removing the package.
Here’s how you can do what I did.
To verify compatibility of WhatsApp Messenger with Samsung GT-S5300 Galaxy Pocket To find Android version: go to 'Settings' - 'About the phone' - 'Android version' 2. WhatsApp Messenger is a FREE messaging app available for Android and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone's Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to let you message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and Voice Messages. Samsung galaxy pocket whatsapp.
Hopefully, you’ll be fast on your way to enjoying a fully-functional Minitube once again. If this doesn’t fix your issue, Minitube now has a forum that could help you out.
Good luck and happy Minitubing.
Did I help you?
Minitube Linux Mint 19
Send me a tip via Paypal.
Help with this site's hosting with my Linode referral code.
Tumblr media
0 notes
allenmendezsr · 4 years
Text
Top Text-to-speech App - Earn Top Commissions
New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/top-text-to-speech-app-earn-top-commissions/
Top Text-to-speech App - Earn Top Commissions
 Buy Now    
Ton of lifelike voices in many languages
Use power of Newscasters and Neural AI To Naturally Voice Over Your Scripts Without Spending Thousands Of Dollars
Get NewscasterVocalizer Now!
Absolutely Revolutionary Neural Technology
I’m about to show you amazing and absolutely revolutionary neural technology which not only delivers massive improvements in speech quality but it increases naturalness and expressiveness which are the two key factors in creating lifelike speech that is getting closer than ever to human voices.
Not only that…
The Style That Makes All The Difference
While quality is very important, what about style?
Human ear can tell the difference between a newscast, a sportscast, a narraction, and so on.
Human spokespersons adopt the right style of speech for the right context, which is critical to getting their message across.
Two Quick Questions
Have you ever seen a newscast video on a major media website which consisted of just slowly moving images and voice over text?
Have you ever seen a youtube video with a massive number of views which had just a youtuber’s voice over with images animated just with pan and zoom
If you answer yes to any of those questions you already know how powerful such videos are.
CNN, Foxnews, BBC, Mashable, and countless popular websites, blogs, and youtube stars drive massive number of views and traffic from those super simple videos.
What makes all the difference is voice over and the fact that they can produce significant number of those videos.
While a simple video with just pan and zoom of images is super easy to make, the need to pay a newscaster spokesperson for a large number of videos makes it prohibitively expensive.
Top media can afford that, and youtube stars use their own voice.
If you are a native speaker of the language you make video in, you can voice over videos by yourself, but it would take a ton of time you could use for more productive things.
If you do not speak the language you want to make a video in, or you want your video to be produced in multiple languages to maximize views and traffic, you are out of luck with expensive spokespersons.
How YOU Can Drive Views & Traffic
Today, I’m going to share with you new software called NewscasterVocalizer, which we’ve been working on for the good part of the year.
NewscasterVocalizer is a new, first of its kind, groundbreaking app, which allows you to generate fully featured newscaster, neural network, and traditional voice-overs.
NewscasterVocalizer is able to generate realistic sounding human-like newscaster, plus it includes all new neural voices, just recently released by Amazon Polly Newscaster service.
The Easiest Demo You’ll Ever See!
The Very First App On The Market With That Tech
NewscasterVocalizer is the very first app released to the market which is taking full advantage of that amazing technology.
And now, for the very first time ever, you can have not only the world’s most natural neural voice over, generated automatically with unheard before realism, but also there are newscaster style voices, which finally open ability to make newscaster videos to everybody.
On top of all that, you get a large number of alexa like quality voic
USA Today & Other Top Media Do It
The generated voices are so natural that it is really hard to say if the voice belongs to a human voice-over artist or it was generated by NewscasterVocalizer.
Amazon is already working directly with USA Today and Canada’s The Globe and Mail, among a number of other companies, to help them voice their texts with that new revolutionary technology.
Thanks to Amazon Polly Newscaster, their readers don’t have to read but can hear the news and other information.
All that is good for top media websites, but until now you could not get access to that groundbreaking tech.
That is changing today.
You Are No Longer Left Behind The Media Giants
You are no longer left behind the media giants or youtube stars with a massive number of views.
Also, while Newscaster Vocalizer makes amazing newscaster voice overs with unheard before realistic and engaging sound, it does not stop there.
It also delivers the entire set of brand new voices available through just released new revolutionary Amazon neural text-to-speech engine.
At the time when this video is created, there are no any videos apps which allow you to get direct access to voices generated using Amazon Polly Newscaster and their new text-to-speech engine.
Export Your Voice-Overs To Use In Any Videos App
Newscaster Vocalizer is an open export voice-over platform, which allows you to export your voice-overs to use in any videos app.
It can automatically store your created voice-overs into your dropbox, google drive, and amazon S3, plus you can also download a voice-over directly to your computer.
Newscaster Vocalizer provides a wide selection of natural-sounding male and female voices.
Newscaster Vocalizer’s natural pronunciation of texts enables you to deliver high-quality voice output, perfect for sales letters, explainer videos, video ads, affiliate video reviews and any other videos.
Here’s how easy NewscasterVocalizer is to use:
STEP 1
Select a language and voice you want to use
STEP 2
Paste your text
STEP 3
Click the create button
That’s it – those 3 steps will have you creating your next amazing voice-over in seconds.
Commercial License Is Included!
With the included commercial license, you can not only create voice-overs for yourself, but you can use them in videos you create for your clients, and even sell voice-overs directly, and keep 100% of the profits!
Imagine taking just seconds to create those voice-overs for your potential clients, or becoming a freelancer, and start selling them on popular sites like Fiverr, or Freelancer.com.
Listen To Just A Few Samples Of English Language Voices You Get Access To
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Sandra (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Ben (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Elsa (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Ken (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Karen (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Tara (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Mark (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Mike (newscaster)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Sue (neural)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Janine (newscaster)
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Sonya (neural)
That means you don’t have to install it, you don’t have to download it, and as you just saw, all you’ve got to do is select a language and voice, paste the text, click a button and it’s done.
Now I’m sure you’re wondering how great those voices sound, so let’s jump right in and hear some of them.
You Will Get Access To All Below Voices
Stop Paying For Voice-Overs
As you just heard, those voices sound very natural, to the point that it is hard to say that they were not recorded by human voice over artists.
So now you can finally stop paying big money to voice-over actors over and over again.
You can use voice-overs for yourself, in videos you create for your clients, and even sell voice-overs directly, and keep 100% of the profits!
What People Are Saying About NewscasterVocalizer
Comments from before official release
Exclusive VIP Access to NewscasterVocalizer
NewscasterVocalizer Monthly
Just
Just $9.95 today, then you will be charged $9.95 each month to continue with your VIP All Access Pass. Cancel Anytime!
Includes Commercial License
Get NewscasterVocalizer Now!
Virtually Unlimited Audio Files, each with up to 1,000 words*
Over 80% Off Normal Price!
NewscasterVocalizer One-Time
Instantly Save $49.75
Just
One-time payment for one year access to NewscasterVocalizer.
Gives you 5 Months FREE vs Monthly Option.
Includes Commercial License
Get NewscasterVocalizer Now!
Virtually Unlimited Audio Files, each with up to 1,000 words*
Over 80% Off Normal Price!
What People Are Saying About NewscasterVocalizer
Comments from before official release
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do I have to install NewscasterVocalizer on my computer?
A: No, NewscasterVocalizer is cloud software so you do not need to install anything on your computer.
Q:How much do updates cost?
A:All NewscasterVocalizer 1.x updates are FREE for the duration of the license. 🙂
Q:Is ordering completely risk free?
A:Of course. At any point in the next 14 days, you decide NewscasterVocalizer is not right for you, simply send us your receipt and we’ll promptly send you a refund. You will however, lose access to your NewscasterVocalizer account.
Q:How many voice-over can I create with NewscasterVocalizer?
A:With NewscasterVocalizer you can unlimited number of voice overs.
Q:Do you include step by step instructions?
A:Yes, we provide detailed step by step tutorial.
Q:What Languages & Dialects Are Supported
A:English (US), Chinese, Mandarin, Danish, Dutch, English (Australian), English (British), English (Indian), English (Welsh), French, French (Canadian), German, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Latin American), Spanish (Mexican), Swedish, Turkish, Welsh
Exclusive VIP Access to NewscasterVocalizer
NewscasterVocalizer Monthly
Just
Just $9.95 today, then you will be charged $9.95 each month to continue with your VIP All Access Pass. Cancel Anytime!
Includes Commercial License
Get NewscasterVocalizer Now!
Virtually Unlimited Audio Files, each with up to 1,000 words*
Over 80% Off Normal Price!
NewscasterVocalizer One-Time
Instantly Save $49.75
Just
One-time payment for one year access to NewscasterVocalizer.
Gives you 5 Months FREE vs Monthly Option.
Includes Commercial License
Get NewscasterVocalizer Now!
Virtually Unlimited Audio Files, each with up to 1,000 words*
Over 80% Off Normal Price!
Our Official 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
We also want to eliminate any stress or hesitation you may feel by taking the risk for you. You will get an entire 30 days to give the software a try. If you give our software and system a try and you decide it’s not for you, we’ll happily give you ALL your money back
There is 100% no­-risk
We’re here to support you, and unless we AMAZE you with our product, we won’t keep a penny of your money. If at any point you are unhappy in those 30 days, please contact us. We will quickly send you every penny back. No questions asked.
0 notes
eurolinguiste · 6 years
Link
This month, I completed my Add1Challenge Day 90 video pretty early for Korean. My teacher needed to travel, so the last few weeks of the challenge, I went full throttle with my Korean studies. 
I was pretty nervous about needing to record my Day 90 long before the deadline, but on Day 64 I took a deep breath, hit record, and made it 16 minutes. 
Now that my Korean project is done, I will continue to do some low-level maintenance on the language so that I don’t lose what I’ve learned until my teacher returns. But I have a new project or two in mind based on a few travel plans I have in the coming months.
On to #clearthelist …
If you’re new around these parts, #clearthelist is a linkup where we share our monthly goals, and by we, I mean myself, and Lindsay of Lindsay Does Languages.
We’d absolutely love for you to a part of our community. You can join us by adding a link to your own goal post below.
So let’s get started, sharing our goals and motivating one another to #clearthelist!
Please feel free to tag your posts or photos with either #clearthelist on your favorite social media channels!
Last Month’s Highlights on Instagram
  A post shared by Shannon Kennedy (@eurolinguiste) on Jun 26, 2018 at 9:12am PDT
Last Month’s Blog Highlights
Travel
Where to Find Croatian Food in Southern California // Plus  Croatian food vocabulary.
Two Days in Asunción // A fun guest post from Lindsay Does Languages.
Language Learning
5 Tools I Use to Keep My Language Projects and Resources Organized // How I keep on top of my language learning tasks.
Stop Planning to Learn a Language // And just do it.
The Ultimate List of Language Resources for Spanish Learners // Native material for Spanish learners including books, podcasts, tv shows, and songs. 
Last Month’s Goals
Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // A permanent item on my monthly list.
Read the next Language Reading Challenge book on my list. // In June, we read a book on learning strategies (any learning strategy, not just language related). I read a book called Never Split the Difference. It is about negotiating, which I believe to be an aspect of conversation and thus, a useful skill to learn as a language enthusiast. 
Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // I watched many of the Korean lessons I had bookmarked, but I’m making really good progress overall. 
Continue to meet my daily goal on LingQ for Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian. // Yup! I love watching my word count add up.
Add1Challenge // I completed my Day 90 video for Korean, but I’m still taking part in the Intermediate challenge (Add1Advance) for Japanese. I have a few weeks left of videos to record, but I’m really enjoying the challenge, my Mastermind, and getting so much practice!
Fun Interview with Olly Richards of I Will Teach You a Language
This past month, I had an opportunity to chat with Olly Richards about introverted language learning and minimalism in language learning. 
This Month’s Goals
Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // A permanent item on my monthly list. We’ve been doing a lot more reading together lately, so he’s keeping me on my toes!
Read the next Language Reading Challenge book on my list. // In July, we’re something written by someone who lives in a country that speaks your target language. If you’re an intermediate or advanced learner, you can read a book in your target language. If you’re a beginner, you can read a translation of a book.
Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // Now that my focus has shifted, there isn’t much in my YouTube queue that is for the language I want to work on. So while I still want to go through any Japanese or Russian languages I have bookmarked, my pace here will slow. 
Continue to meet my daily goal on LingQ for Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian. // Since I was able to do it last month, I hope to keep it up this month.
Add1Challenge // In July, I’m wrapping up the Add1Challenge for Japanese and Korean, and starting the next. For this next challenge, I also plan to participate in the Intermediate challenge, but this time, my focus language will once again be – Croatian! It’s been about six months since I last focused on the language (though I have been doing daily vocabulary study), and it’s time to give it my attention once again. 
In August, I’m really thrilled to have been invited back to LangFest as a speaker. I’ll be giving a talk on Croatian, and I can’t wait to share a bit about this incredible language with you.
Resources I Used This Month
A quick recap on the materials I am using.
What I Am Using to Learn Chinese
LingQ – my favourite tool
iTalki Lessons – I have weekly Chinese lessons
Memrise – I do 18,000 points minimum per day 
What I’m Using to Brush Up/Improve My French:
LingQ
Immersion (we speak franglais at home)
Listening to French radio/podcasts
Lingoci
What I am Using to Learn Russian:
LingQ
Perfectionnement Russe
iTalki Lessons
Memrise
Pimsleur
What I am Using to Learn Korean:
LingQ
Memrise
iTalki Lessons
Pimsleur
Glossika
What I am Using to Learn Spanish:
LingQ
What I am Using to Learn Italian:
LingQ
What I’m Using to Learn Japanese:
Lingualift
Memrise
iTalki Lessons
Pimsleur
Glossika
What I’m Using for Little Linguist
Baby Bear, Harry the Dog, Disney Fairy Tales, and a book about an Imaginary Friend
Little Pim
Finding Dory, Cars and other films/tv shows
Day-to-day interaction
Resources That Aren’t Language Specific
Add1Challenge
The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month
This month, I really am starting to feel as thought I’ve gotten the hang of managing my language projects. I’ve found a good balance in alternating which languages I study, which is my focus and maintaining what I’ve already learned. 
I have no doubts that I’ll continue to improve how I organize my studies and focus, but for now, I’m pretty happy with where it’s at. I feel like I’m starting to make significant progress with each of my languages in a way I hadn’t managed in the past, so I’m excited to see where the next few months take me.
Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month! Please join us by adding your post to the linkup below! 
Clear The List Linkup Rules:
1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.
2. Link back to this post. You can use our button if you wish.
3. Follow the hosts: Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages and Shannon from Eurolinguiste.
4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.
5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList
An InLinkz Link-up
<div align="center"><a href="http://eurolinguiste.com/tag/clear-the-list" title="Set your language learning goals as a part of the Clear the List Link Up hosted by Shannon Kennedy of Eurolinguiste and Lindsay Williams of Lindsay Does Languages"><img src="http://eurolinguiste.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/clear-the-list-sidebar-1.jpg" alt="Set your language learning goals as a part of the Clear the List Link Up hosted by Shannon Kennedy of Eurolinguiste and Lindsay Williams of Lindsay Does Languages" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
The post Clear The List | Monthly Language Learning Strategies Update | July appeared first on Eurolinguiste.
0 notes
eurolinguiste · 8 years
Link
After Lindsay and I decided to take a break from our language buddy study for Korean, there was a small part of me that wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep learning Korean, if I wanted to go back and study something I worked on in the past (read: Russian or Croatian), or take on something new.
This isn’t to say that I’m going to give up learning Korean completely!
I don’t think that I am going to drop Korean, but I may give up one of the other languages I’ve studied in the past because I really wanted to stop at eight. I’ve just always had this goal in my head, and when it comes down to it, I don’t want to try to juggle any more than that.
When Lingoda approached me to do a review, I had the option of studying French, German, or Spanish. And since I speak French at home and am not ready to do a German refresh yet, Spanish seemed like the best option so that I could really see how their program worked from the ground up.
But choosing Spanish wasn’t a decision that I made just because I needed to review something. It was already something that I was thinking about and the review only gave me the opportunity to pursue it.
Since I don’t get to talk about starting new languages very often, I thought it would be beneficial to document my learning process for you. So in today’s post I’ll talk about – Why I Chose to Study Spanish – What I Used to Start Learning the Language – Things That I Struggled With Learning a New Language (especially since it was similar to languages I have already studied) – A Summary of My Learning Strategy – Videos of My Progress Over the First Months
Why Did I Start Studying Spanish?
To be 100% frank with you, I started studying Spanish because I just got tired of people making comments about the fact that I *don’t* speak Spanish.
When people find out that I speak multiple languages and that Spanish isn’t one of them, they’re often surprised. Especially since I live in Southern California.
I get comments along the lines of:
“Really? You don’t speak Spanish?”
“I bet you’ll learn Spanish next.”
“Oh, why do you speak Croatian? You should learn Spanish.”
It was a little frustrating and it wore down on me to the point that even I started to feel like I really didn’t have any more excuses not to learn the language.
This was only part of the reason, of course, the other parts being that 1) it’s super useful for my work; 2) I *am* surrounded by it so immersion is easy; 3) I’ve started to really like it; 4) it’s not that far from other languages I already speak; and 5) I already own resources for it, so why not learn it?
And then, like Chinese, I started working on it and thought “this is the best thing ever.”
It’s been a love affair consisting of Spanish music, long Memrise sessions and #languagehacking videos ever since. And there are a lot of experiences available to me in my own backyard that I no longer have to miss out on because I don’t speak the language.
A Quick Side Note
The Spanish language isn’t entirely new to me. In fact, we were spoken to in it when we were children (I have family from Columbia and the relative who cared for us spoke to my brother and I in Spanish), but my parents quickly decided it was better for us if we just learnt one language so the transition was made to an English-only environment. I was probably about four years old at the time, so the only Spanish I remembered was “hola” and “agua, por favor”. I barely even remember how to count. During my lessons, I kept saying cinque instead of cinco for the number five!
I also had some exposure to Spanish a couple years back when my husband and I went to Barcelona. But again, I just crammed for the trip and forgot everything that I learnt immediately after.
So TL;DR – I really didn’t speak Spanish until a few weeks ago. At all.
Learning Spanish from Day 1
What I Used to Learn the Language
When I made the decision to study Spanish, I had two resources that I wanted to use. The first was Lingoda and the second was Benny Lewis’s book Language Hacking Spanish.
My first day, I worked through the first mission of Benny’s book. It gave me a bit of useful vocabulary and prepared me for my first lesson on Lingoda which was later that same day.
I then completed a couple weeks of lessons through Lingoda (five one-hour lessons total) while continuing to work through the various Language Hacking missions.
My tutors on Lingoda were absolutely excellent and I highly recommend them. Especially if you’re looking for structured lessons.
After my lessons with Lingoda ended, I continued to work through Language Hacking Spanish, but I knew that I needed to begin supplementing it with other materials so I added in Memrise and Coffee Break Spanish.
Language Hacking Spanish and Coffee Break Spanish both gave me a great “dip your toe in the water” introduction to Spanish while Memrise offered me an easy way to boost my vocabulary. But I wanted to quickly move past the beginner stage and jump right into the intermediate stage, so I decided to try out extensive reading (something I’ll touch on more in the near future).
When I started to do extended reading in the language, I found that my comprehension was surprisingly high. This is likely due to my background in French and Italian, but it gave me the feeling of a nice “win” as a language learner (which I really felt like I needed after studying Korean). It gave my language learning confidence a little bit of a boost, which in turn, made me love the Spanish language that much more. It’s amazing how much those little successes matter when it comes to maintain your motivation to learn.
Especially when you hit obstacles like I did when it came to speaking.
As a quick recap, the resources I used to start learning the language were:
– Online Language Lessons – Language Hacking Spanish – Coffee Break Spanish – Flashcards (Memrise) – Extended Reading (a book I bought that I’ll share as a part of the Language Reading Challenge)
Things That I Struggled With Learning a New Language
Language Interference
Spanish, along with French and Italian, is my third Romance language. Because of this, when trying to speak Spanish, I experienced more language interference with the language over any other I’ve studied in the past. For me, “por” was pronounced as the Italian “per”, “que” as the French “que”, “cinco” as “cinque”, and the list goes on.
It wasn’t my first experience with language interference, but in the past, it was usually my newer languages that affected my older languages, not the other way around. So this was pretty new for me.
For the most part, my interference issues could be summed up as follows: 1) When I would speak in conversation or read aloud, my French strongly influenced my accent and pronunciation. 2) When I tried to guess words that I didn’t know (or forgot), I usually pulled the Italian word out from my mental word bank rather than anything Spanish.
Time
Spanish is my ninth language and so finding the time to study it around maintaining my French and Chinese (and occasionally studying Russian, Croatian, Korean, Italian, and German) meant that I had to do a lot of prioritizing.
Especially since I also work full-time AND part-time, have a new baby, and other commitments.
Basically, what ended up happening was that I put all the other languages on hold EXCEPT for French, Chinese, and English (which are a part of my day-to-day life) and focused all my energy on learning Spanish.
I think that focus will pay off. Especially since I’ve made relatively quick progress that will allow me to go back to those other languages and take a break from Spanish without worrying too much about if I’ll lose it.
A Summary of My Learning Strategy
Since this may be the last time I learn a language from the ground up (at least for a while), I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience and summarize my strategy.
So here’s what I did:
Step 1: Selected a small number of resources to work with so that I wouldn’t be stuck working through the first few lessons from a variety of tools and not really make any forward movement with the language.
Step 2: I made sure that the resources I selected fit with the time I had to study the language. This meant I could only really work with one course book (Language Hacking Spanish), that I needed a lot of audio to work with due to the time I spend in the car (Coffee Break Spanish), that I needed something I could do during my short periods of downtime (Memrise), and that I could utilize during my lunch breaks at work (Lingoda or extended reading).
Step 3: I focused on Spanish and removed any other distractions (read: other languages, Facebook, Youtube binges, and the news).
Step 4: I made sure I had something to listen to passively just to get familiar with the sounds of the language and for when I was too tired to focus on an actual audio lesson (the Youtube music playlist below).
Step 5: When I noticed that a certain aspect of my ability in the language wasn’t where I wanted it, I focused on it and made sure that I had a resource that helped me strengthen it whether it was listening, speaking, reading, or writing.
Step 6: I wrote all my notes out by hand. There’s something about this process that helps me retain things.
And that’s it!
If you’d like to know more about my tips for starting to learn a new language, then I suggest checking out this post.
What about you?
What are some of the things you do when you start learning a new language?
And if you’re learning Spanish, do you have any tips or suggestions?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
apntag.anq.push(function() { apntag.showTag('ga_os_8544222'); });
The post How to Learn a Language from Scratch | My Experience Studying Spanish appeared first on Eurolinguiste.
0 notes