What Does English Sound Like to Non-English Speakers?

I found this video many years ago and thought it was really fascinating.

Over the past few months I have been around many languages. Many of these languages I don' t understand a word of. Others I can pick up one or two words, or even a phrase.

Stumbling upon this video after being exposed to all these languages was certainly a new experience. It almost feels normal to listen to as I am, in a way, used to hearing sounds and even associating meaning with the sounds, but when strung together these sounds become gibberish.

What do you think? Do you like the sound of English? Is this an accurate depiction of the language?

Never-Ending Hindi Resource List

In a previous post responding to those of you asking how I am learning Hindi. I said that I use as many resources as I can and promised to share a list.

I learned about keeping "never ending resumes" in college. It's the idea that you build a resume that grows as you do. This list is the same way. I will continue to add resources as I find, discover and use them.

Enjoy the resource list below. I will post some details about these in future posts. If you have specific questions, please ask. 

Conversational
Learn Hindi on FB (Anil Mahatho)  
Pimsleur helps a lot with sentence order but only for a small portion of sentences 
Chatting and texting

Grammar
Learning-Hindi.com
Anil Mahato on YouTube
Hindi U on YouTube

Vocabularay
Crazi Lassi on You Tube
MyLanguages.org 
hinkhoj.com

Speaking
Spending time with Hindi speaking friends
Creating YouTube videos in Hindi "Black Girl Speaking Hindi"
Mango - log on through a public or University library database list

listening
Hindi U on YouTube 
Bollywood Movies and Songs
Guli Guli Sim Sim - Sesamie Street
Shaka Laka Boom Boom - Kids show

Writing
Flashcards
Writing in the script for my typed notes from Learning-Hindi.com
      I will post a pdf file of my notes when it is finished

TenguGo Hindi App is the best I've found for the alphabet 

Beelingual - this app allows you to select texts and has some great tools for studying a variety of reading topics

Reading
Kids Stories
Alphabet phone App - My favorite is TenguGo Hindi
looking at Hindi meems on Google+ and then using the translator to check and learn the words I don't know
Mango
Hindi Bible
Learning-Hindi.com has some great reading lessons

Beelingual - this app allows you to select texts and has some great tools for studying a variety of reading topics

Thinking
Pimsleur Lessons
Mango
HindiPod101 helps with all areas
Doulingo it's out!! I just finished the tree and am writing a review!

Misc.
Flashcards
Painting using Hindi (Helps things stick) 
Sign Language (mathcing signs or actions to words will help with recall)

http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu/urdu/

A friend just sent this site to me. I will tellyou more in the future 

I will be sure to make a list of the Best Places to Start and to my Favorite Resources. I will continue to update this list as I find more resources I find helpful and I will continue to edit and revise...this post is a work in progress :)

What are some of your favorite language learning resources?

How I Am learning Hindi and The Brain

My Indian Culture Class and a Volunteer/Friend...More about my students

People all over the web and in real life have been asking how I am learning Hindi and honestly the answer is that I am using as many resources and techniques as I possibly can. There are many arguments for the best method and honestly I think that many of these arguments are valid; however, none are complete. I believe that more than one tool is necessary for learning a language.

Your brain doesn't function on one level but many. Learning a language is not learning one skill but many at the same time. The more connections we make the more we will retain.

Teaching language arts to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has helped me to see the varied ways that the brain learns. Though my students brains work differently than many of us, it's almost easier to understand and more plain to see these layers.

Oversimplified, the more teaching styles you can combine into one class the more brain activity will take place creating more connections which means more will be retained and recalled later because of these connections.

This is especially true with language. It is is fascinating to see the differences between how reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills are developed. These four areas are developed at different speeds and through different types of practice. They are also different for different people.

Another critical aspect to language learning is being able to think, both on the subconscious level and the more structured grammatical level. Both of these are essential to understanding a new word order and sentence structure and therefore language.

Pimsleur argues that language learning in schools is messed up because we focus so much on grammar and though I 100% agree that the way kids naturally learn is ideal and Pimsleur was onto something huge with this idea, I also realize that the world a baby grows up in is different than the world an adult lives in. That being said I am using as many children's resources for learning Hindi as I can and surrounding myself with the beautiful language while using other more traditional adult language learning resources at the same time.

I suppose this is enough for one post. I will list the resources here soon and plan to share specifics about individual ones later...

If I trick people into thinking I am Indian...

Can you tell? Either way, I absolutely love this photo. 

...maybe they will speak Hindi with me…

At the the Diwali Night celebration at least one guy thought that I was Indian. Not gonna lie, I pulled it off well (see above).

I know he thought I was Indian because he just started speaking Hindi to me. I was not ready with a Hindi response but was able to respond in English (which is a frustrating but common theme these days), but then I was excited he spoke Hindi to me and I got shy and just walked away…

hmmm maybe I if I work on my social skills a bit, people will talk to me in Hindi ;)