How to: learn a new language

If you have read my last blog post, you would know that I want to try something different: a lifestyle topic where I give you advices on every day things.

This is going to be my first post ever of this new topic, I hope you like it.

How to: learn a new language — tips and advices

As you may know, I’m Italian so English isn’t my mother tongue, but I can understand it and I can make others understand me.

 So I thought about giving you some tips on how to learn a new language.

Obviously I suggest you to learn a base by online lessons or taking them by people who teach the language you want to learn.

For example I started learning English at school where my New Yorker teacher taught me the grammar, the culture in England, United States and Australia and I also did some listening & comprehension, conversation and reading.

It could help you to reach at least a low level (and not start from zero).

But if you don’t want to take lessons or right after you took them, there are a few self-making options:

1 – READING: books, newspaper’s and magazines are really helpful if you read them in the language you want to learn. Especially newspaper’s because journalists use an update version of the vocabulary.

For books I suggest you to start from those you have read in your own language, so you can easily understand what’s going on in the story.When you feel confident enough to read a book that you’ve never read then do it.

I personally started by reading the first Harry Potter book, which I read in Italian when I was eleven years old. The Fault In Our Stars was the first book that I read in English (and I didn’t know the story).

2 – LISTENING: you can enjoy a song, sing along or dance to it but they can help you to learn new words or whole sentences too.

Folk songs can give you informations about the culture, the traditions and the customs of the places where the language is spoken.

I still listen to English radio or try to guess the lyrics of an unknown song or go and look for the lyrics online and try to translate it by myself.

3 – LISTENING &WATCHING: This is personally my favorite step, because it involves tv series, movies and the news which are great to improve yourselves in that language.

You can watch movies that you know well in the selected language or just watch never-seen movies/tv series with subtitles underneath.

From my experience I can tell you that a thing that helped me a lot to learn English is youtube. If you read one of my previous posts you’ll know that I love youtube and youtube videos, because they’re cheering and full of any kind of tutorials.

I watch far too many British youtubers and also a bunch of American and Australian, they really helped me to improve my English. I would say that they did half of the job of all the other step summed up together, and I’m not exaggerating.

Youtube is full of youtubers from every country so when you feel confident enough to watch something that can also cheer you up, go and watch some videos.

At the beginning it won’t be easy, I’m going to be honest I had to see videos many times before understanding every single word. Sometimes I still don’t get everything they say.

But the most important thing is that you keep practicing and you don’t give up. Give time to time and slowly you’ll understand almost perfectly the language you decided to learn.

I hope this will help you some way or at least gave you the inspiration for other kind of steps that I haven’t mentioned. (If you want to share with others your tips on how to learn a new language feel free to do it in the comments, so we can all try to improve ourselves)

My August Playlist

My August Playlist.

It's September and that means only one thing: My August Playlist!

This month has been full of music. My Everything by Ariana Grande came out, as well Trxye by Troye Sivan. I watched the Video music Awards so I had the chance to hear most of the song that I added on the HRN list sung live.  Even if Beyoncé was the absolute queen of this year VMA’s, I really loved Ariana Grande, Jessie J and Taylor Swift’s performances.

But let’s get into the playlist:

Hot Right Now

English Love Affair – 5 Seconds of Summer

Geronimo – Sheppard

Gasoline – Troye Sivan

Just a little bit of your heart – Ariana Grande

Anaconda – Nicki Minaj

Shake it off – Taylor Swift

Bailando – Enrique Iglesias

Fly – 11:11

This freaking song – The Janoskians

Drunk in love – Beyoncé

(it didn’t come out in August, but during this month I’ve been obsessed with it)

Old But Gold

Uptown girl – Billy Joel

The name game – Shirley Ellis

I want it that way – Backstreet boys

Jump in the line – Harry Belafonte

Tengo la camisa negra – Juanes

Part of the revivals (such as: Backstreet Boys, Juanes) happened thanks to MTV. I heard Uptown girl while I was watching The Simpsons, it was the episode where Homer wanted to join the hippie life.

Harry Belafonte’s song was played randomly by my iPod.

The name game is such an oldie, but at the same time it’s my favorite among all of them; I was re-watching Asylum and listened to that song again.

Tell me which ones were your favorites during the month of August, so we can share songs or even entire playlists.

P.S. I want to try a new thing on this blog, I would love to introduce the section “Lifestyle” where I give you some tips and advices on everyday stuff, obviously based on my experience. 

Let me know in the comments if you would like to have that new section, as soon as I can I’ll give you a little clue of how it’s going to be. 

My cheering-up video list

My cheering-up video list

We all have that bad day when we're feeling extremely low. I do too as a human being.

When I’m having one of those days I’m always going on youtube to cheer myself up. Sometimes I also listen to music locking myself in my bedroom, but most of the time I prefer youtube, because it really helps me to focus on something else that’s funnier and makes me laugh.

A couple of days ago I was having a bad day, so I decided to write something about it on my blog. But then I thought: why don’t I post something that can help other people to feel better?

So I wrote down a list of all the youtube videos I watch when I’m feeling low, hoping that can help you as much as it helps me (or even more!).

Two boys with helium - Marcus Butler & Caspar Lee
Outlast scary and funny moments - Pewdiepie
Youtuber Innuend Bingo - ThatcherJoe & PointlessBlog
Oscars 2014 Lookbook - Levi Bernhardt 
Long pubes || Story Time - Mazzi Maz
Twin Mail 3 - JacksGap
I will go down with this ship - Danisnotonfire
The Thief - OmgHarrisonWebb
Australian boy does accents - Troye Sivan
The Dizzy Challenge - ThatcherJoe & Caspar Lee (I know this video came out last night, but I laughed so hard that I needed to add to my list)

My July Playlist

My July Playlist

I would love to start a series that will be called “ My (Current Month) Playlist ”.

I love all kind of music and my tv is stuck on mtv music twenty-four hours a day. For that reason I decided to start this series because it could help you to find out new artists/songs or just do a little revival. In fact I’m going to make a playlist which will be divided in two parts:

1) “ Hot Right Now ” which will deal with the newest songs of the month or of the season. And that I obviously liked and enjoyed.

2) “ Old But Gold ” which will deal with the old songs that I’ve been listening to again during the current month.

I also would like to read which have been your favorites by using the abbreviations HRN (Hot Right Now) and OBG (Old But Gold).

My July Playlist is:

Hot Right Now

Happy Little Pill – Troye Sivan

Break Free – Ariana Grande

Amnesia – 5 Seconds Of Summer

Papaoutai – Stromae

Cassy’O – George Ezra

One – Ed Sheeran

Bang Bang – Jessie J feat. Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj

Old But Gold

Wake Me Up Bifore You Go Go – Wham!
9 to 5 – Dolly Parton

Obla Di Obla Da – The Beatles

In The Summertime – Mungo Jerry

La Vie En Rose – Edith Piaf

I will tell you how all those revivals happened.

The radio played Wake Me Up Bifore You Go Go, while I listened to 9 to 5 because it was just after 5 Seconds Of Summer’s Try Hard.

I decided to listen to Obla Di Obla Da because it’s always cheerful and the revival of Mungo Jerry’s song comes from Just Dance 2014.
Last but not least, La Vie En Rose was picked up randomly by my six years old cousin.

Welcome to my corner

Welcome to my corner.

I thought so much about a nice way to introduce myself and my new blog. At the end it came out that I couldn’t do that in a better way than telling you where everything started.

I was ten years old when my big sister came home holding a book in her hands. She was so excited that I started getting really curious. After a couple of months I stole that mysterious book from her bookshelf and opened it.

I began reading:

“ CHAPTER ONE.

The Boy Who Lived

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal… ”

Page after page, I was slowly falling in love with the saga and becoming fold of reading.

Today that little ten years old girl is seventeen, nearly eighteen, and she is really grateful to the woman who created her world.

Sometimes I think if I grew up like this, partly is also thanks to that amazing woman.

I’m always trying to be brave and unselfish as a Gryffindor, intelligent and careful as a Ravenclaw, loyal and honest as a Hufflepuff and last but not least smart and ambitious as a Slytherin.

I fail, I know. I fail a lot. But I never lose the strenght of keep trying to better myself because if others made it, why can’t I?

I’m very grateful to J.K. Bowling because she made me love reading and taught me a lot of things. Harry Potter isn’t just a book/movie for me; he’s a dear friend of mine who grew up with me. He made me understand that everyone is special in his own way, you don’t necessary need to have a lightning scar burning on your forehead for it.

Thanks to Harry Potter I understood how courage and friendship are valuable; how being dedicated is important; how keep fighting after all isn’t useless.

The Weasley’s taught me the value of the family.

Sirius black, instead, taught me how the truth will always be revealed because lies have a short lived.

In Italian we’re used to say “ Never judge a book by its cover ” and Luna Lovegood made me understand that, because her intelligence sometimes was underestimated because of her strange behaviour – which is absolutely brilliant, in my opinion.

A blog post without pictures is like nutella without chocolate: sad. So I took a bunch of photos of my Harry Potter collection.

 All my books.

Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them, The Tales of Beedle the Bard & Quidditch Through The Ages

My beloved Harry Potter pillow.

My Ravenclaw pin, which was completely made by myself. (That’s why it’s a bit ugly, but I love that anyway)

All my DVDs (Dealthy Allows part one and two are missing, I’m still working on that!)

Once I made my own wand, but I’ve lost it. I hope I’ll find it sooner or later.

I know that I might be too young to make a bucket list, but I couldn’t stop myself from writing it down. Three things that I wrote are:

• Go to the Warner Bros Studios in London;
• Visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando or in Japan;
• Receive my Hogwarts Letter.

So, here it is: an Harry Potter child grown up and still waiting for her letter, who decided to open a blog to share with you her life and give you some tips about almost everything.