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Reading Babel, the author not the tower

  10/03/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Out of frustration at not being able to continue my language reading project of Harry Potter in several languages, I grabbed a copy of Isaac (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning, What I'm Reading Now
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Progress in Harry Potter

  12/24/2018       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

The biggie here is that the Norwegian version is on its way from Norway. A clerk there and I struggled with how to pay for (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

My Urdu lesson on the election

  12/02/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My friend has been gone for over a month now; he’s in India. I hope he’s back. We meet Tuesdays and today is Sunday so (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, grammar & language change, Personal language learning

Great acquisitional moment

  08/18/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I’ve told before here about the time the boy from Mexico corrected me under his breath when I failed to shift from y to e (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Acquired feature

  08/11/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Just now I was thinking about how to say to my yard guy that there was no one in Mexico with the money to pay (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, Personal language learning

Context can be misleading

  07/18/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I was reading Harry Potter in Urdu where the students are crowding into the small room preparatory to going into the Great Hall for the (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, Personal language learning

The Joys of Participles

  06/09/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I’ve been reviewing participles and their uses in Urdu by rereading Barker’s little essay on them. It is really quite a bit of material to (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, Personal language learning

How to verify the method

  05/25/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

As I pass through Chapter 6 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone and see my reading speed increase along with my vocabulary, the question (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Delving into Harry Potter (H.P.)

  12/29/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Now that I have caught up with the other H.P.s in the Norwegian version, I can speak to how that language provides the things I (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Spelling through reading

  11/16/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Dr. Krashen has said often that we learn to spell through reading. Today I had to wait for my wife to go through a medical (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, Personal language learning

Grammar paradigms through reading

  11/14/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The bristling morphology of Russian was my delight as I studied and studied. Eventually I was able to write and speak by 1994 when I (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Progress in Harry Potter

  10/19/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

At this point, a few pages into the first Harry Potter, I can say that my progress is remarkable. On two levels this works: those (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Spanish grammar point

  09/10/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I’ve got a great post showing an assignment my granddaughter got. Classic legacy. (BTW, that’s the name of her soccer league, too) But in checking (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

French and me

  08/16/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

From time to time in my writing on language acquisition I mention that it was my facility with French that convinced me Krashen is right (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

What’s wrong with a first edition of Proust?

  08/03/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I have googled till my finger tips are bleeding and cannot find out what the problem is with the 1927 Gaillimard paperback edition Proust’s A (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Derivative roots

  06/15/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My newest project, piled on top of about 8 others, is to write on cards all the foreign roots and foreign derivative affixes in Urdu (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, Personal language learning

Progress toward solid reading

  05/28/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

One of the tenets of CI in SLA is that input results in acquisition. In my situation, input will have to be via reading. Only (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

If not compelling then at least an outcome to head for

  05/15/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The importance of reasonably interesting reading is shown by my recent experience going back to a textbook I wanted to review in preparation for plunging (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

The lexicon falls before me

  05/13/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Finally, the last chapter of my introductory Greek book has fallen to my perseverance. The last 5 chapters overwhelmed me with vocabulary, so I am (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

The Great Multiheaded Vocabulary Project

  05/01/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Two new glossary projects. I am taking the vocabulary of the last 5 chapters of my Urdu textbook and the first chapters of my Greek (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

A unique concept with equivalents in various languages

  04/28/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Over the years, I have noticed each language has a word whose closest English equivalent is “compound”. Brian Barabe suggested the more descriptive “assembly area.” (Continue Reading)

Culture, Personal language learning

The nerdiest of the nerdy

  04/18/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Back in March I described my shift to vocabulary from grammar as a pillar of my language learning. It has reached new highs of craziness. (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

Shift to vocabulary

  03/18/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

For all the years I’ve studied languages, 60+ years now, my chief interest has been in grammar. I love studying it and using it. However, (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning
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