Romanian Progress

My focused Romanian study is going well. I am listening to dialogues exclusively in the car during my commute. I will plan on taking the Interpreter test for the Coast Guard Auxiliary at the end of January, after beginning to speak the language exclusively with my wife in our home. This Sunday we go to a Romanian liturgy and party.

I'll keep you posted.

A New Language Goal

I've resolved today that I'm going to charge my reasonable Romanian into a much stronger tool, with the plan that I will attempt to become a certified Romanian Interpreter for the Coast Guard at the end of January.

I'm a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Auxiliary has an Interpreter Corps that supports the U.S. Coast Guard. Maybe my Romanian's good enough right now to pass their tests. I don't know. But I don't want to leave anything to chance. I'm taking another large course with the Coast Guard in January which will have me driving some long hours back and forth, during which time I will be listening to my Romanian dialogues. I will also now move in the direction of speaking only Romanian at home with my Romanian wife.

I'll make regular updates on this blog about the progress of my attempt.

It's All About Vocab

I ask my students, what would they think if they heard someone who didn't know English come up to them as ask "Me Water Drink Want!"

Well? What is this person trying to say? They always assume, correctly, that the answer is "I want to drink water."

And that's why I stress vocabulary over grammar as the primary place to direct your efforts when trying to learn a new language.

The free word lists I give away on my websites are a tool I've used, but there are some other really nice collections I've found that you may find useful.

Arabic
http://arabic.desert-sky.net/vocab.html
http://iteslj.org/v/a/
http://www.madinaharabic.com/Vocabulary/General/html/

Spanish
http://iteslj.org/v/s/
http://www.lingolex.com/spanish.htm

Romanian
I'll be honest, since not many people study Romanian, I think my word list is one of the best free products available. But these people have put together a very nice product:
http://www.happychild.org.uk/freeway/romanian/index.htm

Getting Back to Basics

No matter how long I have been studying a language, I have found value is sometimes starting all over and going back to basic vocabulary and confirming that I have the most essential words utterly mastered.

For anyone interested in them, I'm making my own personal list of basic vocabulary items available for free.

You can download PDF files of my materials for Spanish, Arabic, and Romanian and free MP3 files of the words at my website.