Q: What’s the best way to build French, Spanish and Italian Vocabulary? A: “Word Groupings”

Q: How many sentences can you make with 60 words. See below for the shocking answer!

When words that work together are correctly grouped then the number of sentences a learner can make with them grows exponentially….this means that the learners ability to express him or herself grows super fast. Really, really super fast – read on.

In KLOO we have grouped decks of cards into 4 main themes: “People”, Food & Drink”, “Place” and “Everyday Objects”. In each deck there are 60 cards.  For instance, in the “People” deck there are nouns like “doctor”, “policeman”, “sister” mixed with verbs like “to meet”, “to like” and “to visit” alongside adjectives like “friendly”, “clever” and “kind”. Learners can effortlessly make sentences using KLOO’s design registered ColourSense cards (watch this 1 minute video if you want to see how )…so guess how many sentences you can make with one deck of KLOO cards?

2.9 million!!

Yes with one deck of KLOO cards, players will learn how to make

2.9 million sentences!!!

It works with every deck, every time.

So why, oh why are kids (including mine) sent home with words that aren’t grouped together? I have no idea…especially as it has been proven over and over (and over) that the best way to build vocabulary is to put new words into context i.e. by putting words into sentences you help to lock new words into the long term memory. (Watch this video to see how)

Can you believe that by grouping words you a) lock words into your long term memory and b) turbo charge the ways in which you can express yourself? So if you’re learning a language make sure you use resources that do this.

Luckily KLOO has learned this lesson and done it for you.

Have fun learning a language. Play KLOO!

KLOO has award winning games in French, Spanish, and Italian.

Related articles

• Your Daily Word (futureglobejapan.wordpress.com)
• Studies Find Vocabulary Instruction Lacking (eyeonearlyeducation.com)
• Puppies helping students learn vocabulary words (fox59.com)

The 5 Pillars of Language Learning

The 5 Best Ways to Learn a Language

There are important principles to learning a language. These principles are proven and will massively improve the rate at which you pick up a language. Conversely if you don’t use them, language learning becomes a hard slog to Moscow in Winter. Unfortunately many language resources, don’t use these principles and, as a result, learners mistakenly believe they have no aptitude for learning a language. It’s not true – you do! You just need to use the the right tools.

Here are the 5 pillars of language learning. We embedded these into our language learning games to help you learn a language faster, more easily and have fun! As a result you don’t have to study, write or work – just play and have fun.

1. The best way to build vocabulary is through DISCOVERY LEARNING. That is the natural way we learned our first language. Hardly any products use this. Discovery Learning involves discovering what you want to know, when you want to know it. Some scientists call this the “Aha! Moment” or “Eureka Moment”. It’s when you “get it”. This is how our brains are hot-wired to learn a language. See how in this 2 minute video.

2. FUN is a hugely important factor but often overlooked. Many people give up learning a language because it becomes a chore. However if you enjoy it, you do it more. The more you do it, the more you learn. KLOO won Best Board and Card Game of the Year for being fun.

3. CONTEXT is crucial. By putting words into context you give your new vocabulary meaning. Meaningfulness is a central plank for getting words into your LONG TERM MEMORY. The best technique for learning words is to seek the meaning of a word (because you need to know it) and then use it in a sentence. Using it straight away helps to lock it in. See how in this 2 minute Video.

4. GENERATIVE means learning how words fit together to make a sentence rather than as unconnected words (as in vocabulary lists).  If you learn how to use words in sentences you rapidly build up the number of ways you can express yourself. With just one deck of KLOO® you can make nearly 3 million sentences.

KLOO won Best Board game of the Year

5. REAL PEOPLE means interacting with real people as opposed to learning from screens or audio devices. We learned our first language by talking with other people and all research shows this is the best way. Speaking with others will massively reduce your learning time.  The person you are interacting with does not have to be fluent. A friend, parent or colleague who is willing to interact and learn with you will make a big difference.

KLOO does all this to make learning a language fast and easy………….and fun.

Have fun learning a language!

Related articles

• Language Learning Recommendation: Lang8 (expertscolumn.com)
• Why learning a second language is like a giant Sudoku Puzzle (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• The F Word in Language Learning – FUN (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Correlation between age and language learning ability. (youngcosmopolitanist.wordpress.com)

The last 10 minutes of a language lesson make all the difference

End of language lesson fun keeps them wanting more!

Language is not the easiest of subjects. Some young people find it very difficult. I know I did when I was studying for my O’Levels. But recently I was recalling how my old Latin teacher, Mr MacDonald, used to always allow a bit of fun at the end of class after maybe 45 minutes of hard grammar and translation work. He would create quizzes and allow us to write our own sentences on the blackboard for other students to figure out. We of course created the funniest sentences we could – often embedding an “in-joke” for the rest of the class. We thought we were being very clever – but I can see now that it was Mr MacDonald who was very clever. He brought fun into the subject and as we left the classroom there was banter and laughter and happy memories. As a result Latin, despite being one of the toughest disciplines, was in fact a much loved subject. It’s an old show business maxim to Leave them wanting more. But I think really this could just as easily be a teaching adage.

On the topic of end of lesson fun, one MFL teacher recently wrote this re KLOO (you can find it on Amazon)

“I like to end my lessons with something fun and a bit different than the rest of the lesson. I’ll often say to my students, “What would you like to do? Reading, a song, noughts and crosses, hangman, Kloo?” and 9 times out of 10, the answer is Kloo!! Not only do students love it but it is also really useful and the progress they make when working from one deck to the next is brilliant.” Lindsay D, MFL Teacher, Northants

The great thing about KLOO, is that not only is it hands-on fun – which kids seem to really love these days of ubiquitous high tech – but it is in fact 16 different games in one deck of cards. That’s a lot of end of lesson fun. And within seconds it will have students, even beginners, easily making sentences up to 14 words long – and effortlessly learning new vocabulary as they play.

KLOO MFL Language Games are available in French, Spanish and Italian. Check out how easy it is to make sentences by watching this short video.

You find out more about our MFL Language Game here

Related articles

• The F Word in Language Learning – FUN (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Why learning a second language is like a giant Sudoku Puzzle (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Learning Another Language? Intimidated By Grammar? Don’t Be! (tutoringtoexcellence.blogspot.com)

Why learning a second language is like a giant Sudoku Puzzle

Why language is like a puzzle to be solved

Learning a language is like a giant Sudoku

If you have read my blog before you’ll know that I am a games designer – who also loves to learn languages. I enjoy games and the challenges they pose. I can get quite lost in crosswords, Sudoku and chess – sometimes for hours. I think my love of games is why I also like learning languages. In many ways learning a language is like a giant Sudoku puzzle in the sense that there are three phases. At first you make fast progress. In the middle progress becomes very slow and, then finally, if you persevere, it becomes easy again! This has been my experience in learning Italian…and the fact that it gets easy again should give hope to all language learners currently stuck in the sticky middle!

The Flying Start

The KLOO Reading Bug

When you first start learning a language you can get off the blocks very fast. Often you find words that are common to both languages,  you learn simple greetings and are introduced to  simple sentence structures. In a short time you can make a lot of progress – and it all seems quite easy…just like the start of a Sudoku puzzle when there are obvious numbers to enter.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. In both Sudoku and language learning, the road in front of you turns from being a smooth and flat to being a muddy uphill track with loose scree on the slopes to send you backwards. This is when the going gets tough.

The Difficult Middle Game

The KLOO Reading Bug finds the going tough

In languages you will inevitably come up against difficult and unfamiliar grammatical issues, idioms and tricky words. Piecing the language together becomes arduous with strange beasts like gender, gerund, the imperative, reflexive verbs and much more complex terms. However, do not fear! I am here to tell you now, that in both Sudoku and language learning, you need to stick in there – because it does get better and the rewards will come! At some point you will start connecting all the loose ends and it becomes much easier. If we return to our road metaphor – we will reach the brow of the hill and can start see the downhill slope on on the other side. Your learning will pick up speed again. Oh Sunny Day!

Filling in the Gaps

Did it ! The KLOO Reading Bug

If you are a Sudoku player you will know that the end game is very easy. You are simply filling in the gaps and connecting your knowledge up. It is the same with learning a language (on a much bigger scale!). You have learned the infrastructure of the language and are now inserting into your framework missing information. The knowledge you have already learned helps cement in the new knowledge. Indeed you find you can now read books in a foreign language and suddenly realise you have just read a whole page without having to look up the meaning of a word. You have now almost mastered a whole new language.

A Language Learning Game to help when the going gets tough

KLOO, the language learning game I designed, can help language learners  just as they are hitting the tough middle part of learning. It recently won ToyTalk Best Board or Card Game of the Year but more importantly it was designed for and approved by my own children! They knew all the salutations and simple statements in Italian, but were then finding it very difficult to wade through the sticky middle bit. So I devised KLOO with scraps of paper and we played around the kitchen table. I wanted them to be able to make tens of thousands of useful sentences in a foreign language (see the video below) as well as be able to build their vocabulary painlessly as they play (see second video). Most importantly I wanted to make language learning fun – just as it got more difficult – by turning language into a game!

If you are looking to improve your French, Spanish or Italian – take a look at KLOO!

Learn how to make sentences in French, Italian or Spanish in seconds

Build vocabulary in Spanish, French and Italian as you play

Related articles

• The Secret Sudoku for Kids Sudoku For Kids – 120 Printable Sudoku (news522.wordpress.com)
• Learning French like a Parrot can seriously slow you down (languagepie.wordpress.com)

The F Word in Language Learning – FUN

The FUN way to learn a language

Learning a language abroad becomes is a necessity

The most powerful way to learn a language is through necessity. Drop yourself into a foreign country and you’ll soon find out how to exchange simple pleasantries, order food, give directions and learn the basics of daily living. Because you have to. The mind becomes extremely efficient and determined when it becomes a matter of eating – or not!

The fun way is also the best way

However, when language learning is not a necessity, like for most of us, it becomes a more of a “Like to do”. Many people have “learning a language” on their wish list. I do (in Italian). But when it’s a non-essential wish – you are going to need something else other than hard necessity to drive your learning – and that will come from enjoyment…or put another way, FUN.

When you find something entertaining your mind locks onto the task in hand – that’s why we will spend hours and hours playing all sorts of games on tablets, solving puzzles or watching films. We enjoy these pastimes. They’re fun!

So let’s make language learning fun. Although language learning is not known for being an especially easy or fun subject to learn – it can be!

The Language Game that makes Language Fun

Learn Italian KLOO Cards

If it’s fun you are after, then take a serious look at KLOO. This award winning language game has people talking French, Spanish and now Italian in seconds. People become animated, engrossed and start shouting out foreign sentences to score points. Teachers are reporting amazing things:

I like to end my lessons with something fun and I ask my students what they would like to do. Reading? A song? Hangman? KLOO? 9 times out of 10 they say KLOO.  Anouck, B.

My students get so lost in the game as they fly round the board – they don’t even notice they are learning. Lindsay, D.

There was so much laughter it disturbed my head of department who congratulated me on making French so much fun. Isaac, G.

At first I though KLOO was just another game. Then I realised this was different. It’s fun. it’s intuitive and it works. It’s a wonderful way to learn a language. Prof Jack, L

Have a look at how easy it is to make a sentence in French for instance (it’s the same for Spanish and Italian). You get one point for each word in your sentence. Then you race cars around the Race to Paris game board and score more points by translating as many words as possible. First one to Paris wins!

Now tell me that’s not fun

Related articles

• Brighten Up Spanish Lessons with Language Fun (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Learning French like a Parrot can seriously slow you down (languagepie.wordpress.com)

Indisputably the best way to learn a language – bar none

What’s the best way to learn a language?

From a book? No

From a CD? No

An App? No

Computer? No

Phrase book? No, NO

Foreign TV? Absolutely not

Classroom whiteboards? Still no.

What then?

Another human being.

Yes speaking with other humans is the best way to learn how to speak with other human beings. No technology beats it. Ever.

Does the other human need to be fluent or a teacher? No. Just someone willing to learn too. With the right tools two humans will learn a language very fast.

Is this opinion or proven?

Proven. In countless studies. Over and over. (See Linguistic Prof. Kendall King, Ph.D. and Linguistic Prof. Alison Mackey, Ph.D, The Bilingual Edge)

So to really power boost your language learning – find a language buddy.

The next tricky bit to learning a language is to find the right tools. With the wrong tools your language learning will stall. With the rights ones it will fly.

The Best Resources for Learning a Language

Now you are learning with another human, what features do the best language tools have?

This is what I have learned:

• CONTEXT is crucial. By putting words into context you give your new vocabulary meaning. Meaningfulness is a central plank for getting words into your LONG TERM MEMORY. The best technique for learning words is to seek the meaning of a word (because you need to know it) and then use it in a sentence. Using it straight away helps to lock it in.
• The best way to learn is through DISCOVERY LEARNING. That is the natural way we learned our first language. Hardly any products use this. Discovery Learning involves discovering what you want to know, when you want to know it. Some scientists call this the “Aha! Moment” or “Eureka Moment”. It’s when you “get it”. This is how our brains are hot-wired to learn a language.
• GENERATIVE means learning how words fit together to make a sentence rather than as unconnected words (as in vocabulary lists).  If you learn how to use words in sentences you rapidly build up the number of ways you can express yourself.
•  FUN is a hugely important factor but often overlooked. Many people give up learning a language because it becomes a chore. However if you enjoy it, you do it more.

A game to consider

We have created a multi-award winning game that ticks all of those boxes. It’s called KLOO and there are games in French, Spanish and Italian! A customer of KLOO recently said this on Amazon:

Played one deck of French with a friend who can speak French and has done for quite a few years. After three turns I found I was speaking sentences in French (think I did once before at school but can’t really remember and certainly did not understand how to make the sentences). A couple more turns and I could understand how they put the sentences together. Suddenly there is light at the end of the tunnel I stand a much greater chance of being able to help my daughter. My French had improved at least 10 fold by the end of the game. There were even words in the game my friend had not come across which she was getting the French dictionary out to check on, (all were correct). She enjoyed it so much she is planning on buying the game for her relatives. Christine

Watch this video below and see how easy it is to make a sentence. You’ll learn words fast too.

KLOO Language Games start at just £12.99….compare that with software offerings, DVDs, audio CDs etc etc. Have fun!

Related articles

• Talkin’ Baby Talk – Language Development Activities (everydayfamily.com)
• Learning French like a Parrot can seriously slow you down (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Q. What is a second language for? (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• Chomsky on Language (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
• The Language Exchange (thesavvysenorita.wordpress.com)
• Wellington College Presentation, Eliminating Failure in Language Learning, February, 2013 (johnbald.typepad.com)
• Bilingual People Are Smart (collincomptwo.wordpress.com)

Learning French like a Parrot can seriously slow you down

French Language Learning Tips

Don’t learn to talk French like a Parrot!

We’re not parrots! So why do we still learn parrot fashion?

Independent research has shown that some, much used learning methods, are totally inefficient ways to learn a foreign language.

The main practice to be placed in the naughty corner is learning by rote (this includes vocabulary lists, phrase books and repetition exercises). Dr. H. Douglas Brown in his excellent book “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching” states that if you learn using such products and methods you are likely to suffer from “Systematic Forgetting” – a scary thought which roughly means “in one ear and out the other”. There are strong scientific reasons for this phenomenon.

Rote learning involves the mental storage of information that is random and unconnected with other bits of information. Its insular nature means it is unlikely to be retained – a bit like someone asking you to remember a random telephone number while they dial it. You hold on to the information to complete the task in hand. Within minutes, however, the information has been forgotten. Alas.

The best way to learn to speak a language is through Meaningful Interaction with humans!

On the other hand meaningful interaction is the best possible way to learn a foreign language. This means talking a foreign language with another person. That other person does not have to be fluent. They can be friend, member of the family or colleague who wants to learn the language too.

Creating Context is the key to learning a language

Dr Brown goes on to expand the point:

“Too many languages are filled with rote and practice that centres on surface forms. Most cognitive psychologists agree that the frequency of stimuli and the number of times spent practicing a form are not highly important in learning an item. What is important is meaningfulness. It appears that contextualized, appropriate, meaningful communication in the second language seems to be the best possible practice the second language learner could engage in”

A French MFL Game that makes learning French Fast, Easy, Fun and Meaningful!

How about a game that uses the principles that Dr Brown extols? That puts words in context, makes them meaningful and involves social interaction (not screen interaction).

Only KLOO does this. Multi-award winning language games that are growing fast in schools and at home. Check out the video below – it shows how easy it is to make French sentences with KLOO cards.

KLOO language games are also available for learning English, Spanish and soon – Italian.

Dr H. Douglas Brown is a professor of MA-TESOL at San Francisco State University and has written many books, articles and textbooks on language teaching.

KLOO is an award winning MFL resource in French and Spanish and a proven way to build vocabulary and make sentences in  a foreign language

Related articles

• The key to learning a language is context (languagepie.wordpress.com)

Related articles

• Parlez-vous l’Internet? French Language Lessons on Skype Win E-Learning Award for Verbalplanet.com (prweb.com)
• Brighten up French Lessons with some language fun (languagepie.wordpress.com)
• How Do Primary School Children Learn Languages? (tutoringtoexcellence.blogspot.com)