So I’ve started. I’ve read the first page of Harry Potter book the first first in English, then in Spanish, then in Russian, then in (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Reading Babel, the author not the tower
10/03/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOut 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)
Progress in Harry Potter
12/24/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsThe 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)
My Urdu lesson on the election
12/02/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy 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)
Great acquisitional moment
08/18/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’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)
Acquired feature
08/11/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentJust 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)
Context can be misleading
07/18/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI 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)
The Joys of Participles
06/09/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’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)
How to verify the method
05/25/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs 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)
Delving into Harry Potter (H.P.)
12/29/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentNow 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)
Spelling through reading
11/16/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentDr. 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)
Grammar paradigms through reading
11/14/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe 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)
Progress in Harry Potter
10/19/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentAt 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)
Spanish grammar point
09/10/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’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)
French and me
08/16/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrom 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)
What’s wrong with a first edition of Proust?
08/03/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentI 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)
Derivative roots
06/15/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy 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)
Progress toward solid reading
05/28/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne 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)
If not compelling then at least an outcome to head for
05/15/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe 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)
The lexicon falls before me
05/13/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentFinally, 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)
The Great Multiheaded Vocabulary Project
05/01/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentTwo 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)
A unique concept with equivalents in various languages
04/28/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver 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)
The nerdiest of the nerdy
04/18/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentBack 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)