The Big Blue Marble Newsletter: Sample Article

After living a long time in one place and in the same rut, I feel that for a certain time it is enough, that I must refresh myself with other horizons and other faces...and at the same time must retire into myself, strange as that sounds. The superficial distractions of the journey do not interfere.
There are people who prefer to get away inwardly, some with the help of a powerful imagination and an ability to abstract themselves from their surroundings (for a special endowment is needed, bordering on genius and insanity), some with the help of opium and alcohol. The Russians, for instance, will have a drinking bout for a week or two, and then go back to their home and duties. I prefer shifting my brain, and going round the world to letting my head go round.
Perhaps, it is because I have a bad head after too much to drink.
Alexander Herzen

Tips for Learning Another Language

One of the best ways to travel-like-a-local is to learn a little bit of the local language before you leave for your vacation. You?ll enjoy yourself a lot more if you can talk to locals. Plus you?ll show people that you have interest in their lives. Most of the time travelers assume that learning the language is difficult; however, while it does take work, learning a foreign language can be fun. Here are my suggestions for making it fun:

• Look at learning as if it is a game. For example, rather than being exasperated by learning the Russian alphabet, I looked at it as if it were an anagram. Some letters were the same as English; others looked like the letters but had a different sound in Russia (for example, our letter ?p?= our letter ?r? in Russian); a few letters seemed like our letters writing backwards represented a sound in Russian (for example a backward English letter N in Russian acts like our double e like in see). Only six letters have no resemblance to English. By treating the Russian alphabet like an anagram, I could look at a basic list of Russian cognates (words that are similar to English) and read them quickly.
  
• If you are trying to learn a Romance language (like Spanish, French, or Italian) brush up on your English vocabulary. Many obscure ?college level? English words are similar to common words in Romance languages. For example, the word for kind in Spanish is amable, which is similar to the English word amiable (which also means kind).
  ?
• Try to find ways to associate new words with something in English. For example, I immediately learned the Russian word for work: ?rabotat?. I pictured robots tatting away on a machine. To my surprise, I later learned that the English word robot comes from the Czech word (which is closely related to Russian) for worker. For hints, on how to develop good associations, read the book How to Learn Any Foreign Language by Barry Faber.
  
• Don?t emphasize learning grammar at first, unless you have a special skill or passion for grammar. Schools emphasize grammar too quickly. You?re best to start trying to learn vocabulary and pronunciation. As a whole, grammar is frustrating and vocabulary is fun. When you?ve learned some vocabulary, phrases, and begun to get a feel for the pronunciation, move on to grammar. The best way to learn grammar is through a good exercise book with an answer key at the back. You?ll be surprised how much you can communicate without good grammar if you have a decent vocabulary and pronunciation. When I went to Guadalajara to study Spanish after two years of High School Spanish (and a summer as an exchange student in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico), I met an older Spanish teacher from Ohio. A couple times we visited places around Guadalajara together. She would try to speak to locals and draw a strange stare. I?d talk and the natives always seemed to understand. I could tell that she spoke more proper Spanish than me; but, I had better pronunciation and knew more everyday Spanish expressions than she did!?

In addition, try several different ways to learn the language.? You'll discover that some work better than others for you.? Here are some ways to learn that work for me:?

• Conversational courses. I recommend Pimsleur (www.pimsleur.com; I like their emphasis at the beginning level on building languages a step at a time great; however, after the beginning level, I grow tired of their approach and want more grammatical explanations and yearn for a written text. In addition, their advanced level courses are expensive, $200) and Living Language www.randomhouse.com/livinglanguage) (they do a good job of teaching grammar and useful everyday conversations).
  
• A vocabulary building exercise book. I like the 10 minutes a day (Bilingual Books) (www.10minutesaday.com) series. Their selection of vocabulary is useful and their methodology is easy to do on your own. When you reach a more advanced level, you may want to invest in the VocabuLearn products. For some reason, they select an odd assortment of terms which befuddles beginners but is helpful for more advanced level students.
  ?
• A phrase book. The best phrase books to European languages are from Rick Steve?s (www.ricksteves.com). His phrases are more conversational and natural than Berlitz. For non European languages, I?d recommend Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com) phrasebooks. They are not quite as conversational as Rick Steve?s but, they are an improvement over Berlitz.
  
• Local newspapers or magazine from a country that speaks the language you?re learning. Keep a dictionary close and select articles that seem to be written for ordinary people (I think local travel stories are great!). Be patient it takes awhile to read (plan on spending at least 30 minutes per article for a Western language.) If you read a few articles, the subsequent ones will be easier to read as you become accustomed to the publication?s tone and vocabulary. I would not recommend learning a difficult language, like Russian, this way. As a whole, you can?t get the gist of difficult languages easily through translation. They are simply too arcane. It took me almost four hours to read one article in Russian even after I?d studied the language for several months. For a long time, I thought that this was a sign of ineptitude. Then one day, I found a magazine written simultaneously in Russian and English. I realized that I had trouble reading the ENGLISH text. When I started to compare it to the Russian text, I noted that modern Russian translated into English sounded like reading a ponderous novel written in the 17th century! No wonder it was so hard to read an article.

• This is a sample article from the FREE Big Blue Marble Newsletter about my (Paul Heller) trips around the world, meeting along the way others who share the pursuit of following their dreams to travel and live in another part of globe. The newsletter also features many tips, program reviews, and other useful information gathered from the road to help you become a participant rather than a spectator in the daily life of distant corners of the planet. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter (and my Postcards from the Road), please send me an e-mail or fill out your e-mail address in the space indicated on the left side panel of this website.
• My Big Blue Marble website also contains hundreds of book reviews, links to other websites, tips, and blogs to help you to travel-like-a-local rather than a tourist. In addition, I provide inexpensive publications and seminars.
• I welcome your comments and contributions to The Big Blue Marble Newsletter. Comments will be posted on the Big Blue Marble blog.