Month: February 2016

Hi! I am Darren.

Welcome to my second blog.

• I hope that you like it.

Today I will be introducing the TV resources that I will be using for language learning.

I have Virgin cable TV with TIVO, and the resources I will be using in my challenge are:

• TIVO – You Tube
• TIVO – World Box
• TV5MONDE
• France 24 in English and French

These are my resources for my French studies.

I am beginning with French because I already know a little French from my school days, but I still class myself as a total beginner although I am familiar with the basics of the French language.

I will begin with You Tube.  It is part of my Virgin TV package which includes TIVO, and You Tube is an app on TIVO.

If you are not familiar with You Tube, it is available on the Internet,  or as an app.

I haven’t used You Tube on TIVO before, so I am going to familiarise myself with the controls, and get used to using it, by trying some French lessons for beginners.

I already know a little French, and this is why I am beginning my studies with French.  It should be easier to concentrate on learning how to use my resources without the distraction of also trying to learn an entirely new language.

You Tube French Lessons:

Okay, here we go!

The French that I know is so little that I can be considered a total beginner, even though I am somewhat familiar with the French language.  I really have forgotten all I learned at school, so I will begin, when I have finished writing this blog, with French 101 for total beginners.

Another resource that I have available to me on my TV is World Box.   I get this on TIVO. I will check this out now to see if it offers anything that will help me to learn French.

World Box on Virgin TIVO still seems to be in its infancy, it offers TV stations from around the world, but to-date it only offers ten TV channels to choose from, which may be a little disappointing, but it is better than nothing.

Luckily for French students, it does offer one French channel: “BFMTV” which offers news 24/7.

BFMTV is a commercial channel, so it has advertisements between the news, but this is good for students of French whom can learn a lot from them as an example of French popular culture.

My Virgin TV package also offers another two French channels that I can use:

TV5Monde:  this channel offers a variety of programmes such as cooking and gardening, which are aimed at learners of French and French culture.

FRANCE24:  this channel offers news 24/7, and is available in English and French, which is good for learning about French culture without the need to know the French language.

So, these are the TV resources that I will be using to study French.

I hope that you have enjoyed this introduction.  I look forward to sharing with you how I get on with them in my next blog.

Best wishes, Darren.

Hi!  I am Darren.

Welcome to my first blog!

I hope that you like it.

• First, I will start by introducing myself.
• Then, I will explain why I am doing a blog.
• Finally, I will finish by describing what my blog is about.

As you know, I am Darren, and this is my first blog.  I live in the UK, in a town called Halifax, which is in the North of England, in a County called West Yorkshire.  I have lived here for sixteen years, since 2001.

I was born in a city called Bradford, which is also in West Yorkshire near Halifax.  I lived in Bradford until I was twenty years old.  Then I travelled for a few years, living in the South of England, America and a town called Preston in a County called Lancashire in the North of England.

I have got a lot of time on my hands, because I am unemployed due to a long term illness.  I have ambitions to be a writer, and I think that writing a blog will be a great way to develop my writing skills.

Like most of us I enjoy my Internet phone and I use it as often as I can.  I was pleased to discover that I can use my phone to learn a new language, as there are many apps, dedicated to learning a new language, available in “Playstore”.

I was also pleased to discover that “You-Tube” has many language courses for beginners.

I was so impressed with these resources that it occurred to me that it would not be difficult to learn every language in the world, given enough time.

So, I began learning the Hindi language, which is the lingua franca of India.  I used apps and “You-Tube” and I made rapid progress.  My progress was so rapid that I began to think that it would be possible to learn enough languages to communicate anywhere in the World.

Then I had a “Eureka” moment and I realised that Hindi was the lingua franca of India, and that when I learned Hindi, I would be able to communicate anywhere in India.  One language – 500 million speakers

Learning Hindi alone would enable me to communicate with about 10% of the people on the planet.  That is because Hindi is a lingua franca.  I realised that if one lingua franca – Hindi – enables me to communicate with 10% of people on Earth, then I would only need to learn 10 lingua francas in order to communicate with nearly any person on Earth.

So, full of excitement, I decided to see what the main lingua francas are.

They are Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Russian, French, Spanish, Swahili.

Seven languages to communicate with almost anyone on the planet, and of course English which is also a lingua franca.

So I decided, there and then, that I had to learn these seven languages as soon as possible, and I set myself a challenge:

To learn all the main seven lingua francas within two years.

My blog is about that – the challenge to learn all seven lingua francas within two years, using only phone apps and the Internet.

So, I hope that you have enjoyed my first blog, and that you will read my next ones if you are as excited by my challenge as I am.

Best wishes,  Darren.

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