Vote Speaking Fluently!

May 17, 2012 by 7 Comments

Visibility online gets your message out there. Speaking Fluently has been nominated in The Top 100 Language Lovers 2012 competition. Voting has started now!

Please help me to get this site some more views by clicking on the link below and voting for Speaking Fluently:

Vote the Top 100 Language Learning Blogs 2012

I enjoy helping to motivate other language learners and to share my experience. You can be a part in helping to grow this site and Facebook Page further with me!

Thanks for your support! 🙂

If you sign up for italki and buy a coupon for language lessons through them, you can use the Promo Code below at checkout to get $5 OFF your order! So a $10 coupon costs you just $5! Use Promo Code: RICHARD

Categorised in:

This post was written by Richard

7 Comments

  • Fasulye says:

    Hi Richard,

    I have indeed voted for your blog already before you had advertised for it. I appreciate the quality of your blog, it is very informative and I like to follow your language activities,

    Besides this I am very embaressed about babla because I couldn’t nominate my own blog because they requested a Facebook membership and I am not a Facebook member, as you know. Only because I am not a Facebook member my blog didn’t have the chance to be on the voting list!

    Last year my own blog was on the voting list of babla and I had no hinderance in nominating it.

    Kind regards,

    Fasulye

  • Friedemann says:

    Hi Richard,

    I also voted for your blog, not so much because I am a frequent reader but rather because I think you deserve more attention and exposure. I like your humble and down to earth style and personality and your achievements speak of course for themselves. I don’t know what your plans are for this blog. I think many people underestimate how much work goes into putting together and growing a blog. I certainly don’t agree with what Benny writes on his blog and I am personally not a big fan of him either but I have to admit that his blog is one of the most professionally run language blogs out there and in order to get there one needs to make it a full time job I think.

    Frequency of updates is of course another important aspect and I realize that for example people like Luca only have so much time besides their day jobs to maintain their blogs. In the future I’ll try to stick around here more often with comments and suggestions.

    I have a question right here, off-topic of course, but you might care to reply anyway, which is the hotly debated topic of talent. All the known internet polyglots rebut almost unisono the notion that talent has anything to do with their achievements. I have to say that I have seen talent, unbelievable talent in fact, in so many domains, most notably in sports and athletics but also in music and other fields. There is no question in my mind that there are people with an exceptional innate gift for learning languages. I don’t know whether the Richards and Lucas are one of them but I am sure they exist.

    I think if polyglottery were a professional sports with a lot of money and fame in it I am sure the very top performers would be the ones that combine hard work and exceptional talent. In sports you can basically measure talent to some degree by measuring the body’s O2 uptake capacity, body dimensions etc. I am sure there is talent also in language learning.

    Looking forward to your comments,
    Friedemann

    • Thanks so much for your comment and for voting for this blog. You’re right that maintaining and being very active in replying to comments is tough (especially over a Facebook Page, Twitter, YouTube and on the blog). Sadly our time is limited with other commitments. I am trying to find better ways to manage that time though and I hope to continue to feed into the community more often moving forward.

      Your question is definitely valid and I am not one of those people who would say we are all the same. In fact I know we are all different. We all learn differently and to pretend that there is a no white elephant in the room would be ridiculous. Of course I also know that ANYONE can learn a language. Some people seem to have it easier than others for a number of reasons, one of which some may call “talent”. I am not a huge fan of the word “talent” when talking about languages because it is all too often used as an excuse not to learn, “I don’t have talent for languages”, or “you can do it, but you have talent for it”. To me they are just too easy to plug in and use as an excuse to not do something.

      On the 19×6 show I appeared in on Canadian TV, one of the polyglots said that people avoided the question and asked the other polyglots in the room if they were always top of the class in languages and found it relatively easier than their classmates. Well, of course they did. Does it mean that they have learnt their languages only because they have “talent”? Definitely not. They still need to put in the work. The key difference is that they know they can do it. Enabling everyone to realise that they can do it to is key in cracking the code for learning a language. Then putting in the effort required is the main thing we need to achieve the goal. Like all subjects, just having a “talent” because you find something comes natural to you is not enough. At school and at university, I found some of the better achievers were the ones who knew they needed to work that bit harder to do well. The ones who relied on the “talent” people assigned to them often fell down when the going got tough. 🙂

  • benblasto says:

    I was a silent reader until now, but now I went and voted for you, I believe their as to be much more blogs like your doing such a good work!!!

    Thank you!!!

    Ben

    http://www.lingolearn.com

    • Ben,

      Thanks, I really appreciate the time you took to do that. It may not have been the time for Speaking Fluently this year. 2013 has a good ring to it though, eh?… ;p

    • Nolan says:

      you cant,its difficult lgnauage,etc i must learn it to prove her, I can do.im not stupid and i always was top student in school and university.so plz help me and say what can i do to learn korean,faster than now.tankkkk U so muchhhh and sorry if my english,is not well I LOVE U,HYUNWOO SUNI LOVE U,KYEONG EUN CHOII LOVE U,SONNIEI LOVE U,SEOKJIN JINI LOVE U,HYEONJEONG KIMI LOVE U,HYOJIIN ANKISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS TO ALLLLLLLL =)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *