bestechlich ≠ bestechend

After devoting a lot of time recently to different language learning methods and approaches in the recent posts, I decided to go back to something more specific again today.
Look at the German adjectives in the title of this post. They look suspiciously similar, don’t they?
Beware, though!
Consider following examples:
Andreas Rickenbacher findet die Idee eines Staatsfonds [...]

The pros of learning a language in a group

Last week I discussed the cons of learning a language in a group, already mentioning some pro arguments (it’s really difficult to keep these apart). The main advantage of this method: interaction and fun!
I remember that the fun I had with the people from the group I learned with highly influenced my willingness to attend [...]

The cons of learning a language in a group (pros yet to come)

There are certainly many different types of groups in which you can learn foreign languages. Most of them, however, share the same features. You can learn in a language school in your country or go abroad for an organized summer language course; you can meet once a week or have daily meetings and so on, [...]

The pros of learning a language by yourself

Last time I discussed the cons of learning a language by yourself, now it’s time to turn to the pros. As already mentioned in the comments under the last post by my lovely readers (thank you!), learning on your own doesn’t necessarily mean learning without interaction with others.
On the contrary, feedback from and interaction with [...]

The cons of learning a language by yourself (pros yet to come)

The cons of this method of learning seem to pretty obvious: the inability to motivate oneself, to find the time to sit down and focus on studying hard. I tend to get distracted really easily, that’s a topic for a post of its own.
I noticed that it’s getting worse and worse with time and [...]

On different approaches to learning foreign languages

What is your favourite method of learning foreign languages? And which approach is the best and fastest? I have been considering this issue recently because I want to work on my language skills a little bit again soon.

The first question I really need to answer is to which language I want to polish (first). The [...]

Your vs You’re, It’s vs Its etc.

Inspired by a comment by The Honourable Husband (thank you!) under one of my January posts on mistakes often made by German natives and by a mistake I noticed on a blog of an English native, an English teacher too boot!, (I’d rather not link to it, why promote mistakes?) today, I decided to write [...]

Royal Wedding Vocabulary – Fashion

Have you been following the British royal wedding recently? I have to admit I’m a big fan of the British monarchy and hence have been watching and reading a lot about the fairy-tale wedding of the century.
Then I thought I might use my little mania for something good and write a post about it. And [...]

Little Easter cheat-sheet

Time flies and it’s almost Easter time again! The time between Christmas and Easter passed really quickly for me this time even though Easter is so late this year.
I always find it quite confusing how all the days of Holy Week because they have different names in various languages and I always tend to translate [...]

Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen?

It’s a tricky issue with the spelling of how much/how many in German.
But there are certain rules that should be remembered and followed:
1. according to the reformed spelling we always write wie viel and wie viele separately
Wie viel Zeit hast du noch? How much time do you still have?
Wie viel Geld brauchst du? How much [...]