I can help you learn English fast without leaving your home. No driving to classes or rigid schedule. I can focus on business English or to help you prepare for something specific.

If you think you are not good with languages or English, believe me you are. I teach and learn languages. I know how hard it seems. But with me you will make real progress.

Why am I the best teacher of English for you?

• Students make real progress with my lessons.
• I can focus on what you need. If you need help with a job interview or just grammar and conversation I can help. I can focus on business, medical, legal, IT English or your specific needs. Why? I am just not an English teacher but have had years of experience in business, as well as being well read and versed in many subjects.
• We can do the lessons with the video on or off. I think off is better in most cases, as it is about verbal skills.

What is the price of your English lessons on Skype?

• My price is $20 dollars for 60 minutes. For a native speaker with this much experience I think you will find this – cheap English lessons online.
• When you are ready – you just reserve a time and pay by PayPal.
• Write me at markbiernat@yahoo.com – Ask questions or anything you need.

More stuff to know about learning English online

• I like Skype because it is free and if used in the right way is as effective as meeting in person.
• Focused conversation is a very good way to practice grammar. I learned English by speaking, writing and reading and this is what you will do with me. Unless you love to do grammar drills you will make better progress with my method of ESL teaching.

Business English online

Although I teach on all levels from beginner, intermediate , advanced and proficiency and also children, I specialize in real world business English. I have a Masters in Economics and work in management for some of the largest companies in the USA and Europe. I know accounting, investing, IT to a very in-depth level as well as management, sales and negotiation skills. All these can be refined.

Writing on the Internet is different than other articles. Writing online is like writing for a old fashion newspaper. Start thinking how to  organize your content rather than SEO and making money.

Proper organization and authenticy  is all you need for ranking high in search engines and getting readers to get value from your posts. This will result in better sales, more readers and generally people will fall in love with you though your writing.

Write for the web so people read your blog

Do you want to know how to write for the web? Well first consider this, thinking is the hardest work there is, that’s why so few people do it. You need not just to write, but to write consciously. This means writing with your reader in mind. Who is your reader? A web user. Web users are impatient, scan and do not read. If they do read they need a lot of hand holding. They are also tired of poorly written content that is short and not in depth.

Therefore, when you write for the web I recommend:

• Write articles with research and authority of at least one thousand words. It is amazing how even a little research will help your post. Alternatively convey a personal experience that people can relate to. Make it real. For example, if you were depressed, tell people and describe how you over came it.
• Use headers like a book or academician would structure a paper, that is use an outline. Make your post hierarchical.
• Use lists which help readers scan. This is a list you are reading now.
• Write clear, crisp concise statements. Try to use less adjectives and sales words and more nouns. Avoid the passive tense, write short sentences and paragraphs. Earnest Hemingway recommended this last point.
• The best book on learning to write is On Writing Well by William Zinsser, it is better than any SEO book.
• The best book for the web specifically is called Writing for the Web is Susannah Ross.
• After you read these books write with one more thing in mind. SEO, that is make sure your post is keyword focused, but but use more synonyms than keywords.
• If you are selling something, do not sell, educate in an objective honest way. Create a resource. Well organized resources are the best link bait there is.
• Link out to trusted sites if it adds value.
• Some sites with a few good, well researched pages rank higher than sites that have legions of writers. These sites are a new form of spam on the web.

Other things to consider are learning about when writing for the web:

• Consider how to write for the web for high product conversion
• Think about how to write for the web to reduce your bounce rate

When a visitors land on your site they are disoriented. They are trying to figure out the navigation and sense of your site. Something that you take for granted because you designed it. But believe me when you have a visitor they are confused and try to identify if this site is what they are looking for. Do not let them bounce off.

The simplest way to test web usability – Find friend who is honest rather than nice. Stand over their shoulder and observe their behavior on your website. Ask them what they think. If you can not do this with a friend, find an enemy, often they are more honest. If you think you have a way cool website, users might not think the same. It might be too much flash. Too many images get tiring.

Conversely try to use one image per post to illustrate a point. Make this image personal not off of some photo stock site. Make the caption real and not spammy.

To reduce bounce rate make sure Google analytics is set up as well as Google optimizer with an A/B test. There are many free tools by this company. They want to help webmasters.

More tips on writing content

When writing for the web your writing must be clear, crisp and concise. When writing for the web don’t make them think. Writing for the web must have the following qualities to be effective:

• Consider the book Don’t make me think by Steve Krug. It is the best book on web usability.
• Qualify your visitor at once.  Tell them – “This page if useful to you if you are looking to …” then have a list. or “The purpose of this post is to …”
• Use lots of white space. Web readers scan rather than read. They scan pages looking for information. White space, that is short paragraphs and bullet points make this easy for your readers, uhm I mean scanners.
• Hold your visitor by the hand. Yes look at my language site. Notice at the bottom how I lead them to my purchase page.  claritaslux.com. People need this. I tested this with Google optimizer tool and it significantly improved my conversion rate.
• Use header tags for clarity, but not too many, H3 and bold  are the best, your title should be H1 and well written. The rest of your blog should be natural.
• If you want to see how to write, look at a blog written by Matt Cutts or watch his videos. Write blog content so readers fall in love with you rather than simply convey facts.  He writes an interesting blog full of valuable but personal content.  Everyone is looking for the secret sauces, well, his mantra has been write compelling content. I know everyone is really eager to promote that they have, but be patient.
• The post and website you are on now might not be the best example, as I am just starting to work on this website and it will take time.
• Of course read and reread your posts before you hit publish. I have delete countless long posts because I was not pleased with their quality.

Resources for writing for the web

The web is filled with gobily goop. It is the largest receptacle for recycled information in the world. Do not be an ehow, which is some people think is a content mill. Be yourself. Convey a personal experience. Also consider these tools:

• Grammar and style checker
• Resource page on writing for the web

Let me know your personal experience with writing on your website. Further, if you need any help send me an e-mail and I will take a look at your site.

It is very simple, the more you write on your blog the more search engine traffic you will get.  That is if your content is half way decent. That is what you need to know. Do not over analyze this search engine marketing stuff.  Write on your blog.

One of the most important parts about writing a blog, is actually sitting down and writing it, WordPress makes everything easy.  The hard part is to sit and write.

Do not be shackled by the bonds of excess thought. People spend a lot of time thinking abstractly. They think about how to make money online, how to write their blog or how to do best and do something with regards to SEO.  However, the truth it is the best way to do it is just to sit down and start writing.  You will struggle, you will be frustrated, but you will make progress.

Inspiration for your  content writing

Walking is the best way to start the ideas coming for WordPress blog content writing. If you need inspiration, take a walk, talk to your friend or your spouse. When you’re sitting on the couch with your eyes closed come up with ideas and perhaps jot them down on a notepad.  You can do your conceptualizing during your off hours when you’re walking and relaxing, even in the bath tube.  Many writers say walking is the best time for them to become inspired with new ideas.  I agree. However, when it comes to writing many people are great procrastinators.  They don’t know what to do or how to start. It is mostly fear that prevents them from moving forward. This is the way you should approach it, you should you start writing whenever something comes to  your mind and later go back and organizes and improve it.  The key thing is to start writing so the ideas start to flow.

I think ideas are like water, once they flow, they keep coming, but if they are stagnant and there is not action, they become muddy.

CW on how to write content for a website

I know my advice goes against a lot of conventional wisdom about writing. Conventional wisdom says you should map it out, plan out, organize a road map.  I think this is all very time-consuming. Often my best posts are those where the words just start to appear on the screen without me thinking about it.

The next step is to go back and you can arranger ideas.  Too much time is often wasted thinking about or planning about instead of actually writing and doing. Remember

‘he who hesitates is lost’.

Again I know this is sacrilege to many writers who say stop and think. But the best ideas come naturally from within you rather than trying to structure them in an artificial way. This is because you already know the answer in your subconscious, it is more about pulling it out.

I guess I am a Platonist in this regard.  All the answers in life are within, getting them out is the problem. This applies to blog writing.

Write first ask questions later

Wisdom follows action, not the other way around.

Therefore, the most important thing to write good content for your WordPress blog is to actually type and write.  You can put on classical music, you can open the window.  Remember only actually doing the writing will allow your blog will start to take off.  You don’t need to read to many books on how to write, just write.

Then later add headers and give it a little bit more keyword focus so its search engines can understand what you actually writing about.  Use a lot of white space and formatting so it’s easier for a blog reader to understand your post.  This is because blog writing is different than writing an academic paper. Make your ideas clear and easy to understand with headers and white spaces.  That is all you have to know about blog writing.  The rest is an expression of what is inside of you.

Let me know about your thoughts about how you get inspired to write content for your  blog and how you approach writing.

A well written blog post will help SEO

What is the point of writing a WordPress post? To give answers to user questions. Answers can be explicit or implicit, however, always clear and structured so the user can find the answer with the least pain.

Answers are what a search engine will reward.  Why? Because the humans that design the search algorithms want the search to be helpful for humans searching. That is

WordPress SEO in a nutshell, good writing. Do not focus on, links and one site factors too much. Think of your self as a writer.

Writing on your blog is the most important thing you can do for SEO.  The creativity side is another discussion, and is the most important part of

writing. Writing something that is unique and valuable.

However, the structure of writing is the purpose of this post on how to write for  WordPress. Perhaps if you have a structure then the idea can just flow onto the

page.

If you have read my blog you know that WordPress SEO is mostly about writing.  The on site and off site stuff will take care of itself with a standard WordPress

install and perhaps one or two plugins.

Anatomy of a blog post

I think the best blogs have posts that are varied in length and structure  according to what you are trying t convey. They do not obey the rules, even this post.

However, you need a starting point. If you were to have a conceptual framework about how write a WordPress post, this could help. I will give you one.

This might help not only beginners, but more experienced bloggers who have a mess in their head because they have read too much wrong information about how to write

for the web.

Therefore, lets get to work.

Writing a page title

Should be pretty close to what someone might type into a search box. – Why? Because your title is trying to answer a question.  If your title is jammed with keywords

it is not exactly answering the question what people are looking for and can be confusing.  However if it is short and close to the exact phrase what someone might

type into a Bing or Google search box then you know its a good blog post title.

Write WordPress post headers like the Times or the Post

Writing a WordPress post should be like writing a news story in an old time newspaper. Think of the London Times or the Washington Post.  Your most important information should go up top.  You should be have the headers almost tell the story. Your readers should be able to scan your WordPress post and be able to tell if the story will be of value to them. I do not like the idea of tricking people to read my post with some misleading headline.

I personally believe the headers should be more accurate descriptions rather than sensational attention grabbers. Why? You should be writing for the long term, not for ten minutes of fame. If you are concerned about traffic to your blog then a long term content strategy is the best.

Your WordPress post headers should read like the index of a book.  That is your H1 should be your title and H2 the chapter titles.  H3s could be used to give more detail, almost chapter descriptions.  They can be more long winded and metaphorical. On the other hand your h2s should be right on accurate, less is more.  Each header should neither spam keywords not be too cutesy.  They should be clear, crisp concise information about what the next idea is.

Keywords in your post headers

Headers are the heart of your WordPress SEO efforts and writing good content for your blog.   If you know nothing about SEO but just do a standard WordPress install (and forget about link building and social media) and write  creatively, then go back and add well written headers with SEO and your readers in  mind you will win.

That is the secret to SEO, in my opinion. Well written headers for your WordPress posts.

Why is this true? Think of newspapers.  It worked for newspapers for hundreds of years, why not apply what worked.  Header help the readers navigate the article and search engines know this.

You do not want to spam your post with keywords in the headers, or over use headers.  However, if your post is focused I think having a keyword or synonym in each one of your H2s could help your ranking.  If you use synonyms then this will reduce your chances of being spammy.

Why academic writing is good for your WordPress blog

Many people criticize academic writing. Now the trend is to write a WordPress post almost in chat style. For me as reader this like junk food.  I like to read some junky posts now and then, but if I want a serious answer to my question that I am looking for, I want sub stance, researche but also clarity and simplicity without jargon.

Therefore, perhaps the one thing you can learn from academic writing is use a thesis statement, and defend it (the actual writing style of academics of course is too dry for the web). However, ever post should have a thesis statement.  That is one sentence what you are trying to convey or argue or show. What is wrong with that? This introductory paragraph should contain your thesis statement

Write long posts for better ranking

Optimal length for me is about 1000 words.  I know this is a lot but I would prefer to go into detail. If people want to skip the detail they can and just read the summary.  However, long post not only serve the reader better but is better for long tail optimization.

Further, my long post seem to attract more visits.  People tend to link to them more and readers stay on the page longer.  All good for search engine rankings in my opinion.  The web is filled with cute 250 word posts, why not be different and write about something with authority and back it up with detail.

Lists in your post

For some reason my post with summary lists seem to rank better.  I use an Unordered list usually to summarizes the arguments in my post.

At the end of my post I use a list for external links that might be of value. This is done to help reader experience. Many people say I will lose page rank. I do not

care, if it helps the read it helps your blog. Just make sure that you link out to quality trusted sites.

WordPress posts tags, categories and keywords

I only use one tag which is the exact keyword phrase I am targeting.  I also use only one category for each blog post. Not only does this reduce duplicate content

issues, I think it makes it look less spammy and more focused.  I know many people write a WordPress post and want to add everything including the kitchen sick in

terms of tags and categories.  I do not like it.  It to me makes it cluttered.

HTML framework for writing your WordPress blog

Here is an example structure for you to use if you want to write a good WordPress post. Lets say it is 3000 words with many well organized paragraphs.

• h1
• h2
• h3
• h3
• h3
• h2
• unordered list
• bold
• bold

Summary of a good SEOed post written in WordPress

The purpose of writing for the web is to help people answer questions they are looking for, you know the things they type in the search box.   Like the Matrix, they are searching for answers.  Your post should be written to help them in a clear way, not a cutesy, sensational way, but a valuable way.  If you write posts like this search engines will reward you. It is a long run content strategy and this is what you should focus on, the long term when you are writing your WP posts.

If the content writing strategy for SEO is the way to promote your blog on the web, how can any person continuously create new valuable content that will help readers with their lives?  Interesting and active content  writing is the real trick of WordPress SEO in my opinion. How do you do it?

Writing content for your blog comes from within

Content should always come ninety percent from within. If you can create one hundred percent of your content from within all the better. What do I mean by the mantra that content for your WordPress blog come from within?

Three ways blog content writing comes from within

• Platonic view on content
• Unique physical brain
• Unique experience

Platonist view on content – I am a sort of Platonist in that I think the answers in life you already know. Your brain as been exposed to almost an infinite amount of information and stimulation in your lifetime.  Everyone’s brain has scanned millions of web pages, talked to millions of people, read countless books and newspapers and most important observed their environment with almost a photographic memory. This is the way your brain works and what it means to be living in our time.

I also believe that we are all sparks of the divine flame and each person is unique and sacred.  Just look within yourself and you will find you connection to the infinite and connection to the creator of all that is seen and unseen.

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour. – William

Blake

If you think this is too abstract and no applicable to blog writing content and WordPress SEO, think again.

Why your content is the best – You are smarter than you think. Your brain can process this information and extrapolate and put seemingly unrelated

ideas together into a new order to create a new understanding. This is what it means to be unique, everyone’s physical brain is different and the connections and

extrapolations your brain will put together will be different from someone else’s, therefore, your brain will have something unique to offer.

Experiences are stories for content – Everyone loves a story. If you are a story teller and can weave your own personal experiences into story that illustrates a point, then your content will not be some generic recycled information you see all over the web.

For example, one of my language learning blogs features someone’s personal experience with how they learned the Polish language.  This was a real life story, rather than abstract theory. Unless someone has the exact experience you have, which would be a story in itself, than you can be confident that your content writing will have a unique spin.

There are no experts in life.  Everyone will have an infinite number of things to offer to an infinite number of people.  You just need to have the courage and confidence to trust your own:

1. inner vision
2. brain’s insights
3. personal experiences

As a guide to writing content for your blog.

What does this have to do with blogging and WordPress SEO?  A lot.  Blogging today is about creating something interesting.  If you are stuck and do not know what do write about day after day, week after week, it is because you are looking too much on the web for inspiration.

Rather your real gift to others should be yourself and your life experiences, write about this and you will find the infinite source for writing content for your blog (and maybe some other revelations in the process) from within you. If you have read this post to the end, my question to you, is what are your thoughts about my view on blogging and content writing?

Students who do not even blog can use it for their admissions applications to graduate school.  Look I have a Master’s degree but I can still improve my writing.

After the Deadline to rank higher and improve your writing

Why will After the Deadline help you rank higher?  This sounds like a bold claim.  This is not 1999. Now search engines are more about user experience and include factors like site speed, semantic latent content, site structure and still links.  If your user experience is better, through better writing, people will like your blog more. If people like your site more, it will result in better user interaction. WordPress 3 is all about building an online community.  If your writing is good, people will say ‘I want to join the conversation’.  However, if your writing style is poor,  people get turned off fast.

Further, if you start getting a lot of comments to moderate you will notice that  many people who write in chat style. I will drop the comments from people who can not

write.  Now if they are valuable, using After the Deadline to correct, spelling, grammar and style is an easier way to rescue some of those comments.

If you want to try to improve your writing the WP plugin, which is free of course will help. You can get it in various forms from the Automattic site After the Deadline.

I would give this open source tool five stars. It will improve your posts’ quality and your writing in general. Some people criticize it that is not as good as Word, I disagree. Further it is an online tool and you do not have to pull up a heavy program like Word everything you want to check a commend for writing style.

Remember one of the main ways to rank higher is to write like search engines do not exist and there is no such thing as SEO.  The reason is this is the way search engines are ranking now, based on user experience. Let me know what you think of my After the Deadline review.

You can not teach anyone a language

The biggest mistake teachers make is assuming the responsibility is on them. Wrong. The student has to teach themselves. This is why so many people complain they never learned anything in language classes. They have this expectation that someone will put a language in their brain while they sit back.

You must tell your students this on day one. You must tell them clearly that it is their responsibility alone to learn English or any other foreign language and that it will take patience and work. Also tell them that there is no such person as a language genius. Only people who have an interest in studying.

You are not writing an English language book

Do not feel you have to hand prepare every lesson and print everything you can from the Internet for your special student. Why? There are people who write books for a living, grammar, vocabulary and all. If you think you can do a better job, than you should write a book, but do not waste your energy making special lessons for your students. You are here as their private English tutor and not to create a tutorial with full lesson plans and write a book for them.  I know this sounds hard but I know what I am talking about. Students have huge expectation and will drain you.  First day tell them they have to buy this book.  Make them buy a book.  I like Murphy’s grammar for English language students.

Give lots of homework

If you want students to learn pile on the homework. If they do not do it during class give them a really disappointed look and do it during class. Waste their time because they are wasting yours by not doing what you asked. They all have lame excuses. Simply say do these 3 chapters. During the start of the class do not go over every exercises only the ones they look like they do not understand. After which you must make them explain the rule to you, not you explain the rule to them. Them teaching you is more effective.

If they complain they are not learning, give them more homework. Almost all language students are like to whine. They have to understanding teaching and learning come down to the student studying. Class is just cream and fun where they can practice what they taught themselves.

If they speak advanced or upper intermediate English then teach them like you learned English in high school.  Give them reading and writing assignments from classic literature and have the discuss it in class.

If they need help achieving comprehension make them listen to the radio in English one hour a day. I use to make free English MP3s for download on my website for each student on the words they are learning.  But I do not as the students start to get demanding and needy and expect you to do it. Therefore, I just refer them to a professional disk or the radio. And yes I think radio is better than movies.

Learn English by teaching

You are a native speaker. Do not expect to know every rule. If you do not know the rule ask them to research it. In fact I make my students teach me grammar. They learn by teaching.

English language conversation lessons

Most of your lessons should consist of fun English language conversation. They could pay a non-native speaker to teach them useless things like the perfect tense. You as a native speaker should ask them about 25 questions during your hour with them.  I give my students an hour not some lame 45 minute or 50 minute class. You should just fire them off and let them speak. You should not speak too much, they should.

Speak slowly and clearly and relaxed, not like a NYC fast slangy talker with idioms they will not understand. You want to build their linguistic confidence. You are really a language coach.

Again you are not teaching them, you are having conservation and fun with them and correcting every or almost every mistake they make. They are really looking for practice as they had enough grammar on the perfect tenses in school. Find everything you can from movies to radio programs and video games to get them engaged in learning English. Your role is to build their confidence and make them enjoy learning so they are motivated to do their homework and keep studying with pleasure.

Keys to teaching English

• tell them they have to teach themselves the English language
• make them get a book and do homework about 1 to 3 chapters a week
• class should involve about 20% grammar and 80% fun but corrective conversation
• make them listen to the radio one hour a night if they need help with pronunciation or comprehension

If you have any questions let me know.  I also wrote this guide if you have not seen it, how to learn English fast. I teach English now only for fun.

Learning a language takes work

It takes blood sweat and tears. If you are new to America or learning the language of the Americans, British or Irish in a foreign country do not expect gain without pain. Many of my students over the years tell me they do not talent for languages. I tell them I have taught maybe 1000s of students from tutoring to the university level and it comes down to work.  I never meet a language genius in all my years of teaching. It is a fairy-tale or an exception you should not worry about. You need to focus on doing the work.

To learn English fast use a time machine

Please skip all the high-tech methods of YouTube and iPhone apps. I have never meet anyone to really learn a language this way. Why? It’s too chaotic and cluttered and for people with ADD.  You need to go back to the 1930s or 1940s.  That is the time of radio, books, flashcards and records (well now digital audio files).

• Buy a grammar book. I recommend Muphy’s grammar. He has English grammar in three levels, beginner, intermediate and advanced. Sit on this book and do the exercises over and over. Learn, then practice explaining the grammar to yourself in the mirror. That is teach to learn.
• Make flashcards on 3″ x 5″ index cards and learn about 20 words a day. Once you learn them, activate them by playing games with them with your friends with them
• Find audio files or get your neighbor to download a program called Audacity and record phrases for you. You need to learn basic words and phrases.  In the old days people use to listen to records in linguistic labs. They would memorizes entire sentences and dialogues without even knowing the meaning. I recommend this. Yes this is shocking but you re going to make to memorizes a lot until the language comes out of your ears.
• Listen to the radio in English. This is 100 times better than movies. Movies you can get visual clues and never really press your brain to understand the English but rather just watch the movie.  It is too passive. To learn English fast listen to the radio.
• Go to the Gutenberg project and download English language Audio mp3 free of classic works of literature. These are free and read by native speakers. Start with easy books by authors like L. Frank Baum.

The most important is doing book work. Then maybe listening to the radio.  If I had to learn English fast I would listen to the radio maybe 5 hours a day until my head hurt.

If you can afford a tutor in Gumtree and Craigslist there are many cheap ESL tutors.  Online there are may free tutorials but I prefer the 1930s approach of learning with books and radio. It’s more focused and people studied this way in the past and it worked. Let me know if you have any questions, or additional input on how to learn English fast, I have many ideas that have worked for my students.

I teach the English language and I would not say I am the world’s best writer. However, I recently discovered a tool that helps my spelling, grammar and style.  If you want to learn how to improve your writing in English and other languages fast, I have the idea for you.

Learn to write by studying your mistakes as they happen

I would highly recommend a free tool or Firefox plugin to  improve your writing called After the Deadline. This writing improvement thingy can help you in the following languages,  English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. If you are trying to speak Spanish, it will give put you Spanish learning on the fast track for development. I use it simply to write in English on my blogs, and it is embarrassing. It sees all the mistakes, especially in terms of writing style, I have made.

Learn how to improve your writing fast

The idea is simple, it will check things like grammar and style. This tool will give your writing a boost by showing your mistakes and why they are wrong.

Learning is about surrendering your ego

When you first use it, it will annoyed you. It might suggest that you to use less complex language or that you refrain from passive voice constructions. You might resist, however, do not.  I have read a lot of books on writing well.  They all say the same things and this writing tool has incorporated these ideas.

Further it will force you to proof read your writing. It is your personal writing coach or editor. I think one of the secrets to writing conveyed by William Zinsser and E. B. White is writing is about revising and checking over and over.

It will also make you a more aware writer. You will see words have meaning. To know this theoretically is one thing, but to learn to apply it is another. After then Deadline is a stern task master but think of it as free writing lessons.

Therefore, it is a much faster way to enhance your writing than the traditional method of taking English classes or reading books on the subject. It gives you instant feedback and shows you specific ways you can improve, rather than some linguistic theory.

What After the Deadline will coach you on

• Contextual Spell Checking
• Advanced Style Checking
• Intelligent Grammar Checking
• Custom Dictionary and custom rules

I would recommend you download it from their site,  learn to write. It is so simple you do not need a tutorial, just start writing. Below are some of the options you can use. I use them all.

Options for improving your writing

You will write better than reading lots of articles on the web or books on writing well.  It’s the fast way to learn. I believe that everyone has creativity. The real trick to creating is to put ideas on paper in a clear, crisp style.

Please let me know if you are trying to learn to write. I teach and study languages and I am always interested in people’s experiences.

My method for studying a foreign language

I have a simple method for studying a foreign language that has worked for me. That is flashcards. Not Rosetta Stone or nine hours of audio files, nor sitting in language classes, but simple flashcards.  For me real physical paper or note card foreign language flashcards work the best for me.

When I learned Polish I made my own. Below is the actual box of flashcards I created to learn Polish. I have some for French and Spanish also.

flashcards for foreign language learning

If make your own flashcards I would focus on learning verbs over nouns. Concrete nouns are the easiest words to learn. However, language by its nature is abstract. You need to learn abstract words and these are verbs and conjunctions and a few adjectives. Do not worry about learning words like window and cat. These are fun and easy words to learn but how often does a guy on the street talk about these. Is not a verb like ‘go’ or ‘take’ more important? Is not a word like ‘but’ or ‘although’ higher frequency? Really the verbs are were the action takes place in a sentence and if you understand the action you can understand a foreign language.

Why flashcards work

What is needed to learn anything from linguistics to your times tables, is testing and retesting your knowledge so your brain gets in the habit of recalling the information in a flash when needed. It needs to be drilled in over and over again. You need to create a good and bad pile for your cards. When you know a word well put it in with the good words you have learned. If you are only 50-50 put it at the bottom of the bad pile.

Keep doing this until you know the words. I do not care if you are good with languages or not, you will learn the foreign language vocabulary. Once your vocabulary is up to a few thousand words, you will be speaking your target language. Even if you do not feel you have a gift for languages.

Try it and you will see. Work smart and be patient. As a teacher of languages I think the biggest mental barrier to overcome is lack of patience. You have to set your expectations that it takes some work and practice and no one just speaks a language because they are gifted.  Believe me I teach students all day long and I have not seen language geniuses, only those who want to learn.

Once you are a the advanced level I recommend reading novels in a foreign language to increase fluency, but until you are at the advanced level try my method.

• Learn about two-hundred verbs really well and that is about all you need to get yourself speaking and understanding a language. The focus on abstract words until you know about two0thousand words total. Nouns you will pick up anyway.
• Use flashcards for self learn a language, as it forces you to recall words you have stored in your memory.
• This is my biggest advice for learning a foreign language by yourself, have patience.

Let me know your method for learning a foreign language and your experiences if you have had any.