Change in Weekly publishing Day.

Due to some technical and operating constraints, we are changing the publishing day from Every Sunday to Every Tuesday. The second program would be published on Tuesday 30^th of September 2008, on or before 17:00 PST (Day Light Saving). We apologize for the inconvenience caused. We appreciate your co-operation.

Regards
Fanish
Editor in Chief
Radio Languages Network.

PDF Guides are delayed by 3 days

Hello all,

 

We are sorry to inform you that the PDF Guides are being delayed by 3 more days. This is due to some design modifications that we intended after receiving many feedbacks. Many of you have asked us to make PDF Guides in Bilingual. Hence, we are re-writing the entire guide in Spanish and in English. Hence, there is a delay in publishing of PDF Guides. You can expect the Guides on or before 28^th of September 2008.

We appreciate all your co-operation.

Regards
Prof. Juan

Learn Spanish with Radio Professor Goes Live!!!

Hello all,

We are launching our first lesson of our New Spanish Course through Podcast on 22^nd September 2008. This is slightly postponed from the previous date of 20^th September 2008, due to some unavoidable technical snags. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

We hope all our listeners and subscribers would co-operate with us.

 

Regards
Prof. Juan

Pronunciation and listening (continued…)

Audio Podcasts

A great way to improve your listening comprehension and pronunciation is with the audio Podcasts produced by Radio Languages Network. These Weekly publications are available in English and Spanish and consist of a 20 minute Program on Podcast covering a wide range of vocabulary and pronunciation techniques. The accompanying PDF Guide and Vocabulary Audio include a full transcript of the program plus vocabulary and notes.

Learning pronunciation

With your ears tuned to the sounds and rhythms of your Second Language, you'll find learning how to pronounce the language with very less difficulty.

If your language course includes a recorded pronunciation guide and exercises, listen to them until you have absorbed all the points, but don't try to learn everything in one shot. Beware of pronunciation guides that compare the sounds of your Second Language with your First Language. This can be misleading as the sounds, particularly the vowels, are often different.

Alternatively or additionally you could try finding a native speaker to help you with pronunciation. Ask them to speak slowly and to enunciate each word clearly. Then try to mimic them. Pay attention to the shapes their lips make, and also to their postures and any gestures they make.

Radio Profesor language courses are very good at teaching you pronunciation: when introducing new words they break them up and teach you how to pronounce each syllable. Rosetta Stone courses are also good for learning pronunciation: they include the facility to record your voice and to visually compare it with a native speaker's voice.

Once you've got a grip with the pronunciation of your Second Language, you need to learn how to map the sounds to the written form of the language. This is fairly straight forward for languages like Italian, Spanish and German, which have consistent and regular spelling. Other languages, such as English, French and Danish, present more of a challenge with their irregular and somewhat chaotic spelling. Learning a language written with a different writing system adds an extra level of difficulty.

Better pronunciation through song

If you enjoy singing, try learning some songs in the language you're learning. This is a fun way to improve your pronunciation and vocabulary. You could also try learning to sing poems and stories. Listening to songs in your Second Language is an enjoyable way to improve your listening comprehension, especially if you have the lyrics handy, so that you can follow them as you listen.

To be continued…

Pronunciation and listening

Some views on learning the pronunciation techniques of foreign languages and improving your listening comprehension.

Why good pronunciation is important?

Learning how to pronounce a foreign language like a native speaker is difficult but it's not impossible. The better is your pronunciation, people will understand you better and the easier you will find in understanding them.

Tuning your ears and practicing listening comprehension

Before you begin to speak a foreign language, spend some time tuning your ears to its sounds and rhythms. You can do this by listening to the language as much as possible via the radio, TV, movies and native speakers in your neighborhood or at your workplace. Listening to Podcasts is not a bad idea.

When you're trying to listen to your chosen language, you might understand a little or nothing at all, perhaps you may understand the names of people and places and the odd word, unless you're learning a language that is closely related to your First Language. You may even find it difficult to believe that you're listening to a real language that people are able to converse somewhere in the world. However, if you continue to listen to your Second Language as much as possible, you will gradually become familiar with sounds and rhythms of that language and you'll be able to pick some words and phrases. Eventually you'll understand most of the language, even though not completely in your Second Language.

There are a number of things that might help you in understanding radio and TV broadcasts:

• Rather than listening or watching at random, find out program list and choose one that sounds interesting. In this method you have an idea of what the program is all about.
  
• Set your goals, for example when listening to a news channel, try to make a note of main points, names, dates and times.
  
• Take out your vocabulary list and read through before tuning in. For example if you're planning to watch a travel program, revise places, clothing and food words.
  
• Even if you are unable to understand much, try to identify words and sentences and its structures.
  
• If possible listen to the news channel in your First Language and then try to listen to the News channel in your Second Language. as you are aware of the mains stories, you will find easy to co-relate between languages.
  
• Never listen to or watch Programs too much in one shot: if you're finding it very difficult, take a break and Try Listening to Songs in your Second Language.
  

Listening to songs in your Second Language is another way to improve your listening comprehension, if you have the lyrics written, you can follow them as you listen. The lyrics of major albums would available on the Internet.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY: NEED AND ITS IMPORTANCE by Prof Juan Sanchez

We at Radio Languages Network have decided to give a daily article about languages and our research findings through our Blogs, this is the premier edition of the article, feel free to add your comments and join the discussion.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY: NEED AND ITS IMPORTANCE     by Prof Juan Sanchez

Benefits of learning foreign language: Studies show that learning another language enhances the academic skills of any individual by increasing their abilities in reading, writing, and logical thinking. Studies of bilingual children made by child development scholars and linguists consistently show that these children grasp linguistic concepts such as words having several meanings faster and earlier than their monolingual counterparts. Everyone knows that reading skills are transferable from one language to another, but there are other benefits.

Benefits of foreign language studies: Children in foreign language programs have demonstrated greater cognitive development, creativity, and divergent thinking than monolingual children. Several studies show that people who are competent in more than one language outscore those who are speakers of only one language on tests of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

Medical Science has discovered that functional plasticity of the human brain is driven by language, and it is beginning to find out that knowing a foreign language can actually change the brain's anatomy by adding gray matter. Dr. Andrea Mechelli is a well-known researcher at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. Aided by experts from the Fondazione Santa Lucia in Rome, he recently completed research showing that brain density is affected by being bilingual or highly proficient in a second language

We will talk much about the uses of studying foreign languages in next post tomorrow

Promotional Preview Launch

Hi all,

 

This is Juan, you Spanish Teacher for this Course. We have launched the promotional preview for this course. Please use the link on the blog to subscribe in your favorite reader or in iTunes. I am excited to see you all with your friends and family on our first show on 20^th September 2008.

Regards
Juan
Spanish Teacher
Learn Spanish with Radio Professor.
Radio Languages Network.

Hola a Todos

Hi all,

I am Juan, your Spanish Teacher for this course. I would like to take this opportunity and introduce you to the teaching format of this course, it has 10 parts and each part is of 10 units. Each unit is of 10 Podcasts. So, we have a lot of things to come, we have already started producing our podcast, PDF Guides are under review. I would like to tell to all our listeners and Subscribers that, we teach language with a difference. We can help you speak with natives, where they would never know you are a non-native speakers. I have been teaching Spanish since last 25 years in the Post graduate school for languages in United States.

Join the Podcast today and let us explore the language together as a team. Let us tell all our friends and family about this podcast. We are providing this service absolutely FREE!!!

I look forward to see you all with your friends and family on 20th September 2008

Regards
Juan
Professor of Spanish Language (Retd)
Radio Languages Network

Welcome to Radio Languages Network

Hi All

We at Radio Languages Network are delighted to present the world with our another contribution towards language learning. We are starting the Spanish Speaking Course through Podcast, PDF Guides and Bonus Vocabulary audio materials. We intend to use the Spanish teachers who are really teaching Spanish in schools and colleges across the world. Hence, you can learn Spanish from an authentic source. We do not charge for our services, We have thousands of volunteers to support us. We keep all our service Completely FREE.

We know that you want to know the date of the first podcast. We will be posting the subscription Link here just few days before starting the promotional edition. We are starting the Spanish Speaking Course titled "Learn Spanish with Radio Professor" on 20th of September 2008. Subscribe to our podcast. The link will be made Available on or before 10th of September 2008.

Regards
Fanish
Editor in Chief
Radio Languages Network