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The Most Difficult and Easiest Languages to Learn

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If you like to travel, chances are you’ve come into contact with a lot of different languages. It’s considered polite to learn a few courtesy words like “Hello” or “Thank you” in the local language, but unfortunately, just a few words won’t make you a polyglot. Depending on your own native language, some languages will be a lot easier to learn than others. Here is an overview of the top 3 easiest and most difficult languages to learn as an English speaker to get you inspired. 

Top 3 easiest languages to learn

1. Norwegian

Norway, the land of fjords, Vikings and Northern Lights. When you hear Norwegian for the first time, you might not consider this an easy language to learn. However, Norwegian is a Germanic language, just like English. As you dive into the language, you’ll notice you already know quite a few words. Another important reason why Norwegian is pretty easy to learn is because of its grammar. There is only one form for each verb per tense, which is basically heaven for anybody who has trouble with conjugating verbs. The thing that scares most people about Norwegian is the pronunciation, because it does sound a bit alien when you listen to it, but there is actually a lot of leeway when it comes to pronunciation in Norwegian. This is because there are a lot of different dialects and accents in Norway, so not many people know the “correct way” to pronounce many words.

The most difficult part of learning Norwegian is finding someone to practice with. Because Norwegian is a Germanic language just like English, many Norwegians also speak fluent English and will most often switch to English if they notice you are not a native Norwegian. You can use this to your advantage too, if you’d like to teach English as a foreign language in Norway. Before you can start teaching English abroad, you’ll have to get TEFL-certified, though. Here you can find information on the #1 Best Online TEFL course to get you started. Whether you’re a seasoned teacher or just starting out, this comprehensive TEFL course offers the flexibility, affordability, and quality training you need to succeed in the field of English language teaching.

2. Spanish

Spanish, while it is not part of the Germanic language family like English, is still considered one of the easiest languages to learn in the world. Spanish is one of the Romance languages and is derived from Latin. A lot of English words are also derived from Latin, and that’s why “delicioso” and “artistico” sound so familiar. Another great thing about Spanish is that it is a phonetic language, meaning that many words are pronounced in the exact way they are spelled.

The only drawback to Spanish is grammar. There are quite a few different verb tenses and exceptions that you’ll have to memorize. This drawback doesn’t measure up to the advantages of learning Spanish, though. It’s such a well-known language that you’ll find a language-buddy to practice with in no time.

3. Italian

Italian is another Romance language. Though not as widely spoken as Spanish, Italian is still a well-known language. Italian sentence structures are similar to English sentence structures and pronunciation is pretty straight forward. There is also a certain rhythm to Italian that makes it easier, and more fun, to learn. The most fun thing about learning Italian is the food, though. Some delizioso gelato, anybody?

Top 3 most difficult languages to learn

1. Mandarin Chinese

English is the most spoken language worldwide, and Mandarin Chinese is a close second. So, when you learn Mandarin Chinese as a second language, there are quite a few people around the world you can talk to. It’s not going to be an easy journey, though.

Mandarin is a tonal language, which means the same word can mean a different thing depending on how you pronounce it. Mandarin has four different tones, and they make it very difficult to have a simple conversation. If you have the wrong tone, you’ll say an entirely different word. On top of Mandarin being a tonal language, it also uses characters for its writing system instead of letters. It’s pretty to look at, but a lot more difficult to study and memorize.

2. Arabic

There are quite a few things about Arabic that are different from the English language.

To start, Arabic doesn’t have vowels in writing. Next to that is the fact that Arabic is read from right to left, has a different alphabet and has completely different sounds than what you know in English. The sentence structure is different too, following verb, subject, object word order.

3. Finnish

Given that the first easiest language to learn is Norwegian, this one might surprise you. Finnish is just like Norwegian, a Scandinavian language, but not a Germanic language. Finnish isn’t part of the Indo-European language group, which means it doesn’t have any shared roots or cognates with other common languages in Europe. The truly difficult part about Finnish is grammar. Finnish has no less than 15 grammatical cases and each and every verb can have up to 200 (!) possible endings. And let’s not forget about the change in spelling depending on these endings. To top it all off, Finnish also has several words that can be translated to full English sentences. For example, “Kalsarikännit” means “Drinking at home in your underwear”. Given the difficulty of this language, it’s not so crazy that the Mayor of Helsinki suggested to declare Helsinki an English-language city where highly skilled international workers can rely on the English language instead of Finnish.

Fun fact to really convince you to learn Finnish: “Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas” is an actual word. It means “aeroplane jet turbine motor assistant mechanic non-commissioned officer-in-training”, so it probably won’t come up in any casual conversation.

Learning a new language is always a challenge, but there are few languages that are easier to learn than others. If you’re a native English speaker, you’ll most likely be drawn towards Germanic languages like Norwegian or Romance languages like Spanish or Italian. On the other end of the spectrum are the most difficult languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Arabic and Finnish, which require a bit more dedication to fully master.

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Education

How to Take Advantage of All the Tech Potential Your College Offers

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In the past, everyone interested in attending college had some difficulties. They had to write a lot in notebooks or search for information in books from libraries. Today students can do it with much more ease. The process of finding information is simplified now. Writing papers as well as communicating with teachers has become more comfortable than a few years ago.

That’s why scholars can be more involved in the education process and use their time more effectively. Nowadays, everything is aimed at simplifying life, including education.

With the overwhelming digitalization, everything can be found on the internet within seconds. Students can find content on Google instead of going to the library. The learning atmosphere becomes more pleasurable. The online environment can provide information in all possible formats:

  • text
  • video
  • audio
  • photos, etc.

If you need to prepare a dissertation, you don’t need to go to the library or even search for information on Google. Use a custom dissertation writing service to complete the task. That saves time and effort for something else.

New technologies are transforming models of learning. They change so fast and give new opportunities. Educational institutions are becoming more modern. Students and teachers have access to many digital and academic resources. These partnerships make it easier for scholars to study the material. It’s also easier for teachers to explain new material and assess knowledge.

There are some ways that help to use all the tech potential that your college offers:

Gamification

The ability to engage students is one of the largest advantages of gamification. For sure, it can be more effective than standard coursework. That’s why scholars will be more involved in the learning process than in traditional learning.

Games can make learning much more enjoyable. It can help students understand tough subjects like math or computer programming. It saves time for scholars as well as teachers. This also encourages participation, engagement, and collaboration.

Gamification often uses storytelling as a guide through the learning adventure. Connecting lessons with gamification and real-world situations is a perfect way to educate. This tool can show characters from books on real people or demonstrate different life situations. It’s easier to explain these connections to students with certain examples. Besides, it makes memorizing more fun.

Distance/Online Learning

This teaching approach became essential during the onset of the global pandemic in 2020. One of the consequences was schools, colleges, and universities switched to distance learning. Additionally, online courses have become very popular.

These courses provide teaching to people who want professional growth. This option is also suitable for people who do not have enough money to get new knowledge in prestigious colleges. Distance education allows individuals to attend lectures from everywhere. Even if the teacher or the learner are on different continents.

The next advantage of distance or online learning is the individual approach. One can choose extra subjects and courses which they find interesting.

Technology in Education

Technology in the classroom is a blessing. The access to digital materials supplements the classroom. Additionally, it helps tutors introduce new learning approaches. They can show everything on a projector, show videos or infographics.

Thanks to technology, transformations happen in the classroom of modern schools. The blackboard, chalk, and classroom globe used to be the top “gadgets” in the classroom. Nowadays, students and teachers have access to artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Students can:

  • watch a 3D movie about the ancient world in history lessons
  • visit any part of the world in geography.

Another important point here. Technology makes it possible to resort to the best assignment writing services to save more time for pleasant activities. Isn’t it another nice bonus that college students should take advantage of?

A Combined Learning Environment

Videos, animations, and collages are the most popular ways to learn new information. Students can communicate in a way that is most suitable for them. For example, text messaging. Even introverts who struggle with teamwork have the opportunity to reach better results. They can express themselves safely because they feel confident in their surroundings. They can watch lessons via Zoom and communicate with teachers or mates in messengers. Even explore ancient civilizations through videos.

It also allows students to:

  • keep notes in electronic documents
  • have access to the learning material.

So, technology in education makes learning smarter and more suitable for everyone.

Social Media

Social media is already a great part of our lives. That’s why some educators choose to include it in the education process. You could create a Twitter page for the class where you can update them on particular things. Or create a Facebook group for your class where students can ask questions. You could even make an Instagram account where you could post video- and photo-based lesson programs.

What is the goal of using social media within the education process?

They are:

  • to give students an area where they can communicate with each other
  • to reply to any questions that they may have
  • to get the community of the classroom to a place where a lot of students already are.

Today’s students are not only required to learn, but they also need to have fun while doing so. That’s why educational technology suggests they have fun while learning. It also allows them to stay motivated and enthusiastic about their studies. So the learning process can be fun as well as useful.

Likewise, educational technology can improve mental and physical health. By using these tools, students can improve their learning. They can also enhance mental skills. It helps to improve their academic performance as well as physical health.

Final Words

As you can see, the importance of technology is increasing day by day. Furthermore, its influence on education is huge. It is important to use technology in education on the right path, with many traditional pedagogical methods continuing to exist. Besides, the computer is not suitable for every situation. So, it is up to lecturers to keep a balance between future-ready teaching and the good old offline education.

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Top eLearning Trends in 2022

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The world of e-learning is evolving rapidly in the 2020s, with new technologies, platforms and approaches making the process of learning online easier and more intuitive than ever before. Below we’re going to look at the top e-learning trends we’ve seen emerge over the past year.

Join the Zoom Revolution

While video conferencing and chat software has been around for a number of years already, the format really came into its own in the 2020s in the wake of a new demand for remote communication methods. 

When considering use cases for Zoom, people tend to think of business meetings or catching up with friends. But this software is also increasingly being put to use as a teaching tool. 

From online classes to private tuition, video conferencing technology has emerged as a growing trend in e-learning circles. Platforms like Tutorhunt specialize in connecting people with teachers in specialist subjects, ranging from learning a language to trigonometry and music lessons, for live video classes. 

Certain subjects are best studied in this way, as one-to-one feedback is often a crucial part of picking up a complex skill. Whereas in the past you may have had to travel to a nearby city to find someone capable of teaching you a niche topic, now you can do so from the privacy of your own home.

Cut Through Fake News

The internet is a big place and is full of a lot of information. Accordingly, not all that information offers the same quality or degree of reliability. With a few exceptions, there’s little preventing anyone uploading a video to YouTube, or writing an article on WikiHow, for example, and declaring themselves to be an expert on the subject they’re speaking about. 

While this is ultimately a good thing, as the internet has become a home to free and open access for both sharing and accessing information, this can lead to issues when you’re in need of reliable data. 

One of the top e-learning trends thus far in 2022 has been a growing awareness of the value of restricting, or prioritizing, your learning from reputable sources. After all, those wanting to identify the best US slots player among a sea of competitive platforms would be best served in seeking this information from leading sources of journalism within the gaming industry such as PokerNews. 

Likewise, the American Horticultural Society’s website and materials is always going to, on balance, be a better place to gather information on the basics of gardening when compared to an unverified TikTok channel.

Pick and Choose

Various e-learning platforms have developed around different business models. Udemy, for example, lets people buy courses outright and work through them at their own speed. 

Skillshare, on the other hand, offers a subscription model similar to Netflix. This makes it a good option for those who like the process of learning in general, or who prefer to move between different areas of study frequently. 

Skillshare will give you unbridled access to its 30,000+ courses for a single yearly fee, letting you work on graphic design one week, and cooking the next. This also makes it a great option for those with busy lives who would prefer to eke out time to pick up skills and learn subjects when they have a spare moment, rather than commit to seeing a course through from start to finish.

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How to Master Persuasive Writing to Prepare for SAT

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One of the problems you will encounter in your studies is writing from an academic perspective. Although the advantage of any academic writing is the ease with which you can convey your ideas, you need to become familiar with essay types, as each has a specific function that will determine the way you communicate through the text.

In this opportunity, if you want to prepare for writing an essay on the SAT, you must take into account that you will have to read the argument put forth by the author and develop your persuasive essay on how he/she develops his/her argument. The idea is that you analyze their thesis statement and explain it in a coherent, cohesive, and organized essay. If you buy persuasive essay, you can look at an example of such a text.

Now that you know what is required of you in an essay on the SAT, you need to follow these tips while preparing for the test and practice in a real-world setting. In this case, you need to prove that you will be able to write assignments when you go to university, so go for it!

1. Check Out the Instructions on How to Write a Persuasive SAT Essay

It’s not enough to know the structure of a persuasive essay. Knowing how to understand and follow the instructions is the key to successfully taking the SAT and getting into college.

Generally, the instructions that are given when you are required to write an essay assume that you must demonstrate that you understand the passage being analyzed (main idea and key ideas), understand how the author constructs his/her argument (use of evidence, stylistic use of argumentative ideas, statements), and as a result, create a persuasive essay that is organized and accurate (this implies that you cannot write another type of essay).

The difficulty is that you must prepare your essay with the instructions in mind to avoid including irrelevant ideas. A typical example of this type of question for an SAT persuasive essay is as follows:

Write an essay in which you explain how [author name] builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience that [approach].

2. Prepare Your Arguments Before Writing

It is not advisable to write my essay as ideas come to mind, because when you send the essay out for revision, your writing may become unclear and incoherent. Before you start writing, the best college writing services recommend preparing your arguments in the form of a text outline in a separate place. Imagine that you are going to cook, and the first thing you need to do is to have the ingredients and utensils on hand before preparing the recipe.

You should do the same in this case: make a text plan by thinking about how you are going to answer the question. Your answer should consist of the main idea or thesis statement. Then prepare secondary ideas that will help you support it.

As you plan, choose which position you want to take, and think about how you can articulate that position clearly and directly. Find information in academic sources to learn how to write a thesis statement for this type of essay.

In your outline, include ideas that you could use as arguments to support your thesis statement, based on the structure of a persuasive essay, as we explain below. Five to six paragraphs will suffice.

3. Master the Structure of a Persuasive Essay

Since every essay has its own purpose, in an argumentative essay you should strive to convince the reader of your position regarding the author’s approach. To do this, you need to master the structure of a persuasive essay so that you can connect ideas logically. Your persuasive essay should have the following structure:

Introduction

In this part, you should grab the reader’s attention, give an overview of the argument, and conclude with a thesis statement (the main idea you are going to defend). You can do this by asking a simple or complex question that will make them think about the topic, with descriptions that create an image in the reader’s mind so that they connect with your text against the background of the topic.

Development

Developmental paragraphs (you can write two or three) include examples that will allow you to support the aspects you are going to analyze. Each paragraph should begin with the main idea (e.g., what the author does) and include secondary ideas that serve to explain how the author does what he or she does. You can paraphrase the ideas he or she expresses. Developmental paragraphs can be written preferably in 4-7 sentences.

Conclusion

Repeat your thesis statement in other words. You can mention examples used in your argument in two to four sentences. Do not include new ideas in the conclusion, as this can lead to inconsistency.

4. Diversify the Ways to Persuade

Although this sentence sounds pretty obvious, your focus should be on how you are going to create a logical thread of ideas for a persuasive essay on the SAT. In general, you should present your arguments in a way that not only convinces the reader but also keeps their attention.

There are many ways to write introductory sentences, such as expressing an opinion (I think), opposing (however), indicating the order of ideas (firstly, secondly, thirdly), concluding (finally), highlighting points (benefits), and adding ideas (additionally).

Other ways of constructing an argument are comparisons and hypotheses. This type of structure is learned by mimicking existing models. It is important to remember not to assume that your audience has in-depth knowledge of the topic. You should always put yourself in the reader’s shoes, and if you need to give background information on a topic, you should be able to do so.

Another important point to include in your conclusion is to urge the reader to take a stand and take action. This can be a statement indicating the need for immediate action, a question inviting the reader to reflect on the problem, or a recommendation of steps to take so that the reader has an idea of what to do.

Final Words

Finally, you need to apply revision to your writing. At this point, you should check to see if your text follows the guidelines given in the SAT, whether it holds the reader’s attention throughout the text, whether your paragraphs contain convincing evidence to support your thesis, and whether they are easy to check when reading.

Also, whether your connectives make it easier for the reader to understand, whether you form a strong thesis statement or whether it needs strengthening, and whether your concluding paragraph calls for thought and action. In addition to these stylistic elements, check your grammar and spelling.

The advantage of this SAT practice is that not only will you learn how to write a persuasive essay, but you will also get an idea of the types of essays you will probably have to write when you go to university.

Also Read: Motivational Quotes for Study That’ll Get You Started Right Now

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