Originally posted on July 13, 2012

By Miranda González

As a teacher for LiveEnglish with Livemocha on Facebook, I usually like to start my class with a warm-up question like “What do you like to do in the summer?” or “If you had a million dollars, what would you buy?”

These warm-up questions serve two purposes:

1) Students get a chance to practice their writing and

2) They get to share their interests with people from all over the world.

These LiveEnglish students come from distinct nations and speak many different languages, but they make a lot of the same mistakes when writing in English.  How can this be?  English is tricky, and some parts are trickier than others, so to help you out, I’ve compiled a list of common English errors that I’ve seen while correcting sentences for LiveEnglish.  Take a look and see if you have ever made any of these mistakes:

Mixing up “in” and “on” with modes of transportation

You get in a car.  You get on everything else. (I got on the plane/bus/train/motorcycle/boat.)  Remember, a taxi is a kind of car, so you get in a taxi.

Confusing “in time” with “on time”

“On time” = punctually

Example:  I get to work on time.  I am never late.

“In time” = before a deadline or a time limit expires

Example: I got to the bus stop in time.  The bus was just about to leave.

Ending a sentence with a contraction 

INCORRECT: A: Are you happy? B: Yes, I’m.

CORRECT: A: Are you happy?  B: Yes, I am.

While it is normally fine to contract “I” and “am”, you cannot do it at the end of a sentence.  This holds true for all pronouns contracted with verbs.

Confusing “would like” with “like”

Compare these two examples:

I would like to go swimming.  <–This is something that you want to do at some point in the future.

I like to go swimming.  <–This is something that you enjoy and do on a regular basis.

Forgetting to use a determiner in front of a singular count noun

MOST singular count nouns must be preceded by some kind of determiner.  Some types of determiners are articles (a, an, the), possessive adjectives (my, your, his), and demonstratives (this, that, these, those).

Here’s a quick determiner test.  Let’s look at the noun “dog”.  Is it singular?  (Yes, there is only one.)  Is it countable?  (Yes – one dog, two dogs, three dogs…)  Then it MUST have a determiner.  Don’t let your singular count nouns go naked!

INCORRECT: I saw dog outside.

CORRECT: I saw a dog outside.  I saw your dog outside.  I saw that dog outside.

Using “the” in front of indefinite plural nouns

INCORRECT: I went to the mall to buy the clothes.

CORRECT: I went to the mall to buy clothes.   OR  I went to the mall to buy some clothes.  (“Some” simply means an unspecified amount.)

We don’t use “the” because we are talking about clothes in general.

If you were to add some information to specify what clothes, then you could use “the”.

Example: I went to the mall to buy the clothes that my mother had picked out for me earlier.

Counting noncount nouns

Noncount nouns can only be measured in units.  Some common noncount nouns involve categories, fluids, solids, gases, particles, and abstractions.  For this type of noun, you count the unit, not the noun.

INCORRECT: I bought three breads.

CORRECT: I bought three loaves of bread.

Making a noun plural when using it as an adjective

INCORRECT: I had vegetables soup for dinner.

CORRECT: I had vegetable soup for dinner.

While the soup may have a lot of vegetables in it, when you use a noun as an adjective, it must always be singular.

Using “for” and “since” interchangeably

“Since” is used with a point in time. Example: I have been here since 9:00 a.m.

“For” is used with duration of time. Example: I have been here for five hours.

Mixing up “I used to” with “I am used to”

I used to = I did something in the past, but I don’t anymore

Example: I used to climb trees when I was a kid.  (I no longer climb trees.)

I am used to = I am accustomed to

Example: I am used to living in the desert.  The heat doesn’t bother me.

About Miranda

Miranda is an English and Spanish teacher. Find her free English classes on Facebook every weekday at LiveEnglish with Livemocha.  She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, where she and her husband are raising two bilingual children. 

The post 10 Common Mistakes English Learners Make (And How to Fix Them!) appeared first on Livemocha.

Guest post by Luke Rudge

If you’ve ever learned a language, or are in the process of doing so, then chances are that you’ve been subject to learning the perils of a little thing known as grammatical gender. Native speakers of a gendered language make it look easy, but for non-native learners, especially if English is your Mother Tongue, then the challenge begins! You are dropped into the middle of a sea without any apparent rules, until you reach a land where everything and anything seems to come with a set of XX or XY chromosomes.

Stay strong! It is possible to conquer the apparent mountain of mass confusion that is grammatical gender, and this post aims to give you a little more clarity as to why this seeming inconvenience will become invaluable in your language-learning endeavors!

So what exactly are we dealing with?

Grammatical gender aims to classify certain aspects of a language into distinct groups, such as the French male/female dichotomy that is  ‘masculin’ and ‘féminin’ respectively. Grammatical gender usually affects the nouns of a language, but it can also cause other parts of speech to change.

Gendered words in English

We don’t really see this in English, except for certain nouns such as waiter and waitress, where the suffixes of these words have been inflected to denote natural gender. In other words, it’s easy to tell if the actor you’re speaking to is male while his actress counterpart is female. However, can we still create a similar distinction with doctor, builder and artist? This is where we can use our pronouns to help indicate gender: he and she; him and her; his and hers.

As for the distinctions of genders goes – both natural and grammatical – that’s about it for English.

Now let’s compare this to German

German has all of the above including not two but three grammatical genders, translated as masculine, feminine and neuter. For the German language learners and speakers out there who are reading, you are probably aware that there are no concrete rules as to which noun is assigned which gender and just to throw an additional spanner in the works, natural gender doesn’t always match grammatical gender. So if we take the example of ‘the sea’ in German, which has no biological gender, we can see that it can be referred to in three ways, each one with a different grammatical gender identifiable by their article:

• Der Ozean (masculine)
• Die See (feminine)
• Das Meer (neuter)

So, why do we have grammatical gender?

You may be thinking (and certainly wouldn’t be alone in doing so!) that these genders are just there to confuse; a remnant of an inefficient older part of language that has, somehow, remained in tact long enough to cause you headaches on your pathway to fluency. In fact, one of the most common questions I am asked while teaching languages goes something like this: “Why do they have le and la in French whereas we only have the in English?”

And it’s a very good question; why do we need this classification? English speakers seem to get along fine with a minimal grammatical gender system, so why do other languages have to go and make it all so complex?

Out of the many thousands of languages that are in use across the world, noun classifications such as grammatical gender are going to play a part.  To name a few reasons why these classifications exist, we can consider:

• Their historic context – some languages have evolved in such a way that grammatical gender is as important to them as the distinctions between there, their and they’re are to us in English. Nevertheless, some languages do evolve to a point where grammatical gender all but disappears, such is the case from Old English to Modern English
• The concept of animacy – perhaps in a more poetic sense, but giving an object a gender could also give some sort of life to objects, concepts or abstractions. Think about it… how many times have you heard someone refer to their vehicle as a “she,” despite having nothing biologically female to attribute to said vehicle?
• Their assistance in the disambiguation of situations and making utterances easier to understand…

Yes, easier! Grammatical gender can clear up ambiguity very quickly.

Grammatical gender in action

To exemplify this, take a look at this quote:

“Did you find my mascara and my nail file? It’s black.”

Okay, so these two sentences won’t be winning me any awards in creative writing any time soon, but they serve to prove a point. This is a perfectly acceptable, grammatically correct utterance in the English language, yet it leaves us with a momentary conundrum – which is black: the mascara or the nail file? It’s impossible to tell given just this information. The logical step would be to ask a quick follow-up question to clarify which object the speaker is referring to, but we can see here that there are no gender markings on the nouns mascara, nail fail, or the pronoun it.

Let’s now translate this into French:

“As-tu trouvé mon mascara et ma lime à ongles? Il est noir.”

We have now created a situation where we know exactly what is going on. In this case, we have both the ‘masculin’ and ‘féminin’ genders visible by the use of mon  and ma respectively, and the English pronoun it has turned into the French masculine pronoun il. We can match up mon with il, thus indicating that it is the mascara that is referred to as black and that the nail file is not being referenced at all.

We could also flip the gender of the pronoun to produce:

“As-tu trouvé mon mascara et ma lime à ongles? Elle est noire.”

Can you see how elle has caused a shift in meaning, and that we’re now referring to the nail file? Did you also spot that the adjective noire has gained the additional ‘e’ at the end? This is known as agreement, and is another grammatical aspect of many languages that occurs with regards to gender, number, animacy, tense… I could go on, but I’ll save that for another blog!

So how can you remember what is masculine, feminine, neuter, etc.?

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix or concrete way of telling for most languages. But don’t panic; each language has little hints to guide you along the way, for instance:

• Most Spanish nouns ending in -ez are feminine
• Most French nouns ending in -isme are masculine
• Most Russian words ending in -o or -e are neuter

You’ve probably guessed by this short list – and if you remember the English nouns that inflect for gender – that most indicators will be hidden in the suffixes of the nouns. A quick search online will give you a myriad of resources on your language of choice and how grammatical gender works in that language, and learning real-time with native speakers of the language will prove invaluable for mastering this skill. Remember, too, that even the most fluent of speakers will be occasionally caught out by an incorrect gender attribution! Nevertheless, it all comes down to one thing:

Practice.

The more you practice using a language, the more you’ll get used to its tricks and idiosyncrasies. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes but do be prepared to learn from them. If you cannot immediately remember the gender of a noun, try putting it into a sentence – a trained ear will let your instincts know that it’s une table, not un table.

Whether you’re free from the world of grammatical gender – such as in Afrikaans – or up to your eyeballs in noun classifications – such as the seven different varieties in Polish – remember to keep your chin up when it comes to grammar such as this. It may seem like a struggle at first, but it won’t be long until you can tell your le from your la and your das from your der. Your fluency will soar, and so will your confidence!

About Luke Rudge

Luke is a linguistics graduate and Teacher of Languages in Bristol, UK. His interests range from the inner-workings of languages to the greater aspects of different cultures. He can also be found over at his blog: colourlessgreenlinguistics.wordpress.com

The post Grammatical Gender. Or, “Why Mascara is Masculine.” appeared first on Livemocha.

Let’s have some more fun with English idioms

This time we will be talking about idioms that follow this construction:

“A __ in your __.”

In English, as in most languages, there are some pretty strange idiomatic and colloquial phrases that can make a language learner’s head spin*. Here’s a short list of some common – and some not-so-common – examples.

___________________________

A hitch in your get-along

This is a colloquial phrase used when a person is hobbled or slowed in some way by an obstacle or other impediment.

“This broken foot has sure put a hitch in my get-along.”

A frog in your throat

If you have a frog in your throat, you can’t speak or you are losing your voice because you have a problem with your throat.

“I can’t talk for long. I have a frog in my throat.”

A bug in your ear

If you put a bug in someone’s ear, you give him or her a reminder or suggestion relating to a future event.

“Is Emanuel going with us to the movies with us this weekend?”

“I don’t know. I’ll put a bug in his ear about it today.”

A look in your eye

This one can mean a couple of things:

• To look someone directly in the eye without fear or shame.

“You should go look him in the eye and tell him not to take your things any more.”

• When you can look at someone and can see that they have an idea, or are preparing to do something – often something mischievous.

“Uh oh. He’s got that look in his eye again. Watch out for water balloons!”

A twinkle in your eye

This idiom can be used is a couple of ways, too:

• If something happens quickly

“I gave my son a dollar, and in the twinkle of an eye, he spent it.”

• Represents a time before someone was born.

“This happened a long time ago, when you were just a twinkle in your father’s eye.”

A thorn in your side

A thorn in your side is someone or something that causes trouble or makes life difficult for you.

“That woman has been a thorn in my side since she got here.”

A chink in your armor

This term relies on chink in the sense of “a crack or gap,” a meaning dating from about 1400 and used figuratively since the mid-1600s. The phrase itself means ‘a vulnerable area’, as in –

“Procrastination is the chink in your armor.”

A bee in your bonnet

To keep talking about something again and again because you think it is important, especially something that other people do not think is important (often + about )

“She’s got a real bee in her bonnet about people keeping their dogs under control.”

A bird in the hand…

(OK. OK. I know this one doesn’t follow the construction of the others, but it is used frequently, so it’s worth the mention.)

This is a shortened version of the proverb “A bird in the hand is worth more than two in a bush”. The abbreviated version is used, it is understood that the rest of the phrase is implied.

“I should have taken that other job.”

“Yes, but, as they say, ‘a bird in the hand…’”

TIP – Don’t know what a phrase means? Google it!

If ever you find yourself faced with a phrase that you don’t understand, search for its definition in Google.

example:

search ➩ *make head spin idiom

definition: 1) Fig. “to make someone dizzy or disoriented.” 2) Fig. “to confuse or overwhelm someone.”

Need more help with your English language learning? We’ve got a lot of options:
Follow an English language course on Livemocha.com.

Join us for a live, instructor-led conversation class in the Livemocha Classroom.

Get one-on-one help with one of our tutors on tutors.livemocha.com.

Resources

TheFreeDictionary.com

UsingEnglish.com

Legalinsurrection.com

The post A What? In Your What? – A Lesson in English Idioms appeared first on Livemocha.

Our world-class development team is making great strides on a daily basis creating the best language-learning tool the market has ever seen. As we continue to build out our new platform and prepare for its release, we will be sharing updates about the user experience that we know will be of interest to our current and future community members.

And so, without further ado…

Community Comments Feature

Machine Translation by Google for Lessons

Updated Navigation Layout

Card Flip Animations for Vocabulary Cards

The post Release Updates for the New Livemocha Experience appeared first on Livemocha.

A student’s mother tongue is an essential link for learning English effectively

Guest post by Anthony Vaughan

Did you know that students have a mother tongue?  It seems like a funny question, yet all too often, students learning English are discouraged from using their native language in the classroom.  Is it possible that sweeping it to the periphery of a monolingual class may be wasting a valuable educational tool?

Local teachers’ insight

Teachers in a non-English speaking country are in an enviable training position.  Sharing a common tongue with their students, they have a greater insight into the linguistic ‘behind the scenes’ of their students’ minds.  Despite this insight, they may be told that the only way to teach English is by maintaining a strict “English only” policy and excluding local languages from the classroom.  I often wonder how realistic that is.

Why do students use their mother tongue?

The mother tongue then becomes a whispered phenomenon in the classroom.  It may be uttered when students come out of a temporary ‘lesson coma’.  They realise they haven’t been following the lesson for the last few minutes and seek to reconnect.  Or in mid-sentence, a new word has come up and the students want to know immediately what it means.  Sometimes students also resort to the mother tongue when they do not understand an instruction.  It is whispered because students think it is not allowed.  The teacher may have explicitly told students off for using it or imposed some sanction on the class to restore the English ‘order’.

Linguistic emotions

I think students seek mother tongue clarification simply to reduce anxiety and to be able to learn.  As such, it is a natural emotional response and arguably a useful learning tool.  Instead of denying this means of clarification, teachers can incorporate this kind of linguistic assistance at strategic times during a lesson.

Mother tongue planning

If the teacher does not provide boundaries and guidance, like any classroom management issue, the use of mother tongue could be to the detriment of contact with the target language.  However, rather than ignoring students’ linguistic anxiety, teachers can reduce it through planned educational techniques.  As a result, students have the opportunity to make conscious comparisons between their mother tongue and English.

Benefits of mother tongue

Use of the mother tongue can help students to understand English more thoroughly and make a linguistic connection between their native language and English.  It is also beneficial for them to become quicker at ‘code-shifting’, particularly if they are living or working in a multilingual context.  On another level, it also ensures that students maintain pride in their own language.

The interpreter

At the conclusion of a lesson, a perfect opportunity arises for teachers to reinforce target language from the lesson using mother tongue activities.  In pairs or small groups, students are allocated the role of speaker or interpreter.  If students have been discussing their daily habits, the speaker can explain them again, but this time, their interpreter will translate into mother tongue for others in the group.  This gives students an opportunity to peer correct any errors in either English or mother tongue.  Furthermore, students receive further reinforcement by hearing English and the mother tongue in sequence and noticing how they differ.  And … it’s pretty amazing to hear two languages bouncing around the room in an organised fashion, as if the students were interpreters at the UN.

_________________________________

About the writer

Anthony currently works as English Teacher Trainer at Mediterranean Bali in Bali Indonesia. Mediterranean Bali is a cruise-ship training centre assisting rural Balinese students to gain employment on cruise-ships.  He previously worked for three years as an English Language Trainer at International House Kuala Lumpur. You can check out Anthony’s blog Expat English Teacher here.

If you are learning English and would like to practice your conversation skills, join us in the Livemocha Classroom! 

The post Remembering a forgotten resource – Mother Tongues appeared first on Livemocha.

Let’s try a little exercise, shall we? Read the following story and see if you can find the idioms that are mixed in. Before you continue reading this post, answer these questions:

How many idioms are there? 

What do they mean? 

Is there an equivalent in your language?

 
I don’t know how the weather has been where you live, but here in Seattle we’ve been chomping at the bit for spring to finally arrive. It’s been raining cats and dogs here the last couple of weeks, and quite frankly, most of us are chilled to the bone, fed up with winter-like weather, and wish that the doom and gloom of the cold would shutter up until December or so.

Now that the sun is starting to show its face, we are happy as clams. 

_____________________

How did it go?

Here are the answers to questions 1 and 2:

There are seven (7) idioms in the story.

Here are their definitions.

• Chomping at the bit – To be ready and anxious to do something.
• Raining cats and dogs – To be raining in great amounts.
• Chilled to the bone – Very cold.
• Fed up – Bored or disgusted with someone or something.
• Doom and gloom – The feeling that a situation is bad and is not likely to improve
• Show its face - To make an appearance.
• Happy as clams/Happy as a clam – To be contented; very happy; as if your so pleased that your smile resembles the smile-like line made by two clam shells coming together.

Are there any idioms in your language that resembles any one of the above? Please share them in the comments below!

If you want to learn English, start learning today! Livemocha.com

Definitions provided by TheFreeDictionary.com

The post An exercise with English Idioms appeared first on Livemocha.

We always try to share helpful tips and tricks that we hope will help you achieve your language learning goals more efficiently, and hopefully ease the pains of the journey. Here, Alexandre Duval, shares some tried and true (and really helpful) tips that can apply to any language you choose to pursue.

Guest post by Alexandre Duval

Learning a foreign language can be pretty hard. It sometimes involves learning a new alphabet, it inevitably calls for the memorization of tons of new words as well as the assimilation of new grammatical structures. Learning English is not an exception to the rule: in order to be successful, one has to take it seriously. Nevertheless, there are some ways that can facilitate the learning process, especially when it comes to memorizing vocabulary. Here are five useful tips to learn English words and make them stick to your memory.

Force yourself to think in English

Anyone would agree that the best way to assimilate a new language is to do an immersion in a foreign country. This option, however, is not available to everyone for a bunch of structural or volitional reasons. Still, there are ways to get past this obstacle and improve your abilities to understand and speak English. One of these ways is to force yourself to think in English in daily situations.

First of all, we must ask: why do people want to learn English? Most of the time, they want to learn it because they wish to get around in everyday situations when they travel without having to wonder if they will be able to understand people and to be understood by locals. Therefore, learning specific fields-related vocabulary at the early stages of the learning process is not a good idea. You should not care about gardening tools’ or medical surgeries’ names. Focus on what is essential.

You will rapidly understand what is essential if you wake up in the morning and immediately try to perform every single thought in English. You want to book an appointment with a doctor? Think about how you would do that if you were in an English-speaking country. You want to make a new recipe? Think about how you would explain an English speaker the different steps you have to go through. You are walking on your way to work? Try to think about the things and people you pass by in English. And don’t forget to take notes so that at the end of the day you can look up the words you did not know earlier.

Read, read and… read!

If you can’t go on a long trip to familiarize yourself with English, an easy way to learn tons of new words is to read a lot of English articles, books, magazines, etc. Seeing new words is the best way to not only realize that you know too few, but it is also the best way to learn new ones. In effect, when you watch a movie in English thinking it will help you understand the language better but still miss one out of two words because it goes too fast, you are not exactly “learning”. You are just getting your ear used to the way English sounds… which is not bad… but not optimal either.

Reading children’s short stories, however, is a good way to start. Every time you come across a word you do not know, look it up in the dictionary and write down its meaning in your mother tongue. From there, try to write one or two examples of daily situations in which you could use this word. If you find a use for the word you just looked up, it is more likely that you will remember it, especially if you brush up on your vocabulary list every day.

Stick notes in meaningful places

Let’s say that just learned that when your toilet is clogged, you need a thing called a “plunger”. (This is certainly a useful word to know when you’re at the hotel in a foreign country! It will keep you away from the humiliation of having to mime it!) Instead of just repeating it to yourself a dozen of times, take a post-it, write down the word “plunger” and stick it on your home’s actual plunger. The more you see it, the more you will remember it. Same thing if you just learned the expression “too many things on the plate”: write it down with its meaning and place it in your cupboard. You will see it everyday and you will eventually get rid of the note when you know it by heart.

Watch movies with subtitles

A few paragraphs above, I was telling you that watching movies was not the optimal way to learn new words. I actually meant “watching movies without subtitles”. Indeed, watching movies WITH subtitles is a great way to be actively involved in the plot as you constantly have perform a task, that of following the script with your eyes. At the same time as you are hearing the words, you are seeing them: this allows you to unconsciously assimilate the pronunciation of words, which can sometimes be tricky in English.

Needless to say that subtitles have to be in English! If you watch an English movie but select subtitles in your mother tongue, you are actually destroying the very purpose of the exercise! Matching the sound of a word with both its spelling and the context in which it is used maximizes the time you spend watching an English movie. Also, you should consider keeping a notepad close by: take down the words and expressions you do not understand as the film goes by and once the credits start, take a few minutes to look these words up.

Mobilize your new knowledge

Forcing yourself to think in English, reading a lot, sticking notes everywhere and watching movies with subtitles will be useless if you do not make an effort to mobilize the things you learn. This means that if you learned five words or expressions on a given day you should try to use them the day after while you are forcing yourself to think in English on your way to work, for instance. Although your brain has a great absorption capacity, the words you learn will soon be forgotten if you don’t mobilize them. Just like a muscle, your brain needs to be exercised: every little effort you make to use new words in everyday life situations is grist to the mill!

About the author:

Alexandre Duval is a blogger for ViaRail. He writes about Canadian travel destinations and provides tips for visitors who are looking for exciting things to do in Toronto, where he lived for one year. He is currently completing a master’s degree in Montreal.

The post 5 Tips to Learn English and Make it Stick to your Memory appeared first on Livemocha.

When I was growing up, my parents made a concerted effort to expose me to music, culture, and travel. It’s because of their influence that I have such a passion for all of those things today.

Back in October I did a really fun Saturday Morning Music post that shared a style of music called Taiko which I heard as a child while in my mother’s tow. Today, my father has put together a selection of music for our listening pleasure that I am thrilled to share with you.

Here’s a quick note from my dad:

In 1967 I saw Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete in a small theater in Los Gatos, California.  It was a solo performance and i was immediately hooked with the Bossa Nova sound.  California in the late 1960s was a turbulent time of peace versus war. Listening to Bossa Nova was a peaceful break in the turmoil and helped me get through my university studies.

Kelly’s dad John Doscher

This music makes me smile and leaves me very nostalgic. You can be sure that I’m going to be tuning in to this post tomorrow while I’m having my morning coffee.

Enjoy everyone… and Thanks daddy!

Hug someone you love today, OK?

Bola Sete – Odeon (choro)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YSjfG3eJ3c

BOLA SETE - “Manhã de Carnaval”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAZxUz2DHME

Bola Sete: Tango El Bongo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcyC6Iqn-_w

BOLA SETE - “Meu Mundo Diferente”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvE0TUJtwTw

Bola Sete – Soul Samba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf3AK6ZqVno

The post Saturday Morning Music – Bola Sete and Bossa Nova appeared first on Livemocha.

Last week I posted this question on our Facebook and Twitter pages and received a deluge of comments from our community; people who know a thing or two about language learning.

How would you finish this statement?

“One of the most important lessons I have learned in my language studies is…”

What was the overall consensus?

Patience

Persistence

Don’t translate, understand

Talk to Native Speakers

Here are a couple of stand-out comments from our community:

Erik Sergeevich  No two languages are the same. There are similarities, but never the same. Same goes with cultures, nations, and their people.

Helge Moulding …that language often reflects how we think about everyday matters, and that it can be quite different from culture to culture. What may seem like common sense can turn out to be merely idiosyncratic.

Lizzie O’Brien There is ALWAYS an exception.

Victor Lopez Gago the more you talk, the more you make mistakes, the more and the faster you learn! Throw your shyness out of the window and start talking.

Jafet Pucheta that no matter how hard the challenge may seem, at the end of the day what it really matters is your dedication and hard work in order to accomplish your objective.

Jelena Delibasic that any language is a system. You just need to figure out how the system works and you’ll be at the top of your game!

So, how would you finish this statement?

Share with us in the comments below. Your words will inevitably help someone.

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts! It’s YOU, our community, that support and inspire us all to continue on our collective language-learning journey.

The post Words of Wisdom and Encouragement from our Language Learning Community appeared first on Livemocha.