Why is my post on learning Spanish so popular? Spanish is one of the top five foreign languages learned. More people on Duolingo are learning Spanish than any other non-English language.
You can use your Spanish is Spain, Spanish speaking islands such as Majorca, Minorca, Tenerife, all over South America and central America, Mexico, and signs in the USA. What's more, Portuguese and Italian are very similar so Spanish. Latin is also helpful. So if you already know any of those languages it helps. And if you want to learn another language after Spanish, you will have a head start.
The readership of my travel blog posts.varies wildly. When the day ends an the new count begins I have 650 readers yesterday but only 6 today. But I have nearly 24 hours to build up the readers.
So I look at where are my readers and why? I check by week, day and now. I check by country of origin of readers, which is listed in descending order of numbers. Then I check which posts they are reading.
I would expect my readers to be in the English speaking countries of the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
What about the other countries? Presumably these countries either have lots of expats or if I travel there I shall meet lots of locals who are keen to speak to me to practise their English.
I look for keywords. Which posts mention the USA or Russia or Italy?
The same goes for China, Singapore, England, Scotland, Wales, Singapore, Portugal.
Flag of the USA.
Often the top of the list is the USA. They have the high population high literacy, the most English speaking readers. Also they want to learn Spanish.
In Europe I have many readers in Italy. Is that because I refer to the Roman alphabet, or pizza and Italian food, or learning Spanish?
I have lots of readers in Russia, sometimes more in Russia than in the USA? Why? Because I mention learning Cyrillic, a Russian keyboard, and a Russian chocolate festival.
To my amazement I find that over the course of a week, my post on learning Spanish attracts readers way beyond the other posts. I check under 'View' and find that nothing succeeds like success. When I go to view which is what the public sees, Google is promoting my post on learning Spanish first.
Do you want to visit these countries and practise your languages? Or practise your languages ready to visit these countries?
London is great for British English, Polish, Cantonese in the Chinese restaurants.
Welsh flag showing the distinctive red Welsh dragon contrasting with green and white horizontal bands.
Welsh
Drive along the M4 or take the train from Paddington to Wales. Cross the border into Wales the the signs on the stations are all bilingual. I enjoy the sing-song Welsh accent when they speak English. I like to hear them speak Welsh, especially the lovely Welsh songs sung to harp music.
The USA is great for American English and Spanish.
Canada, especially Ottawa, is great for English and French written like in France and spoken with a Canadian accent.
Flag of Bulgaria.
Russian and Bulgaria are great for picking up Cyrillic.
Greece is great for Greek.
Israel is great for Hebrew.
Belgium is great for both French and Dutch.
Singapore has leaflets and MRT train announcements and MRT station announcements in English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay (similar to Indonesian) and Tamil.
China
Easy to pick up the signs with Chineasy.
Japan
Spoken Japanese is easier than Chinese. No tones. All monotone. The written language is pictures and simplified pictures (which is how our sound-based Hebrew-Greek-Roman alphabet started). Think of the sign for no smoking, a cigarette with a cross through it, or road signs, or washing labels on clothes, symbols common to several countries, although they would say the words differently.
Korean
To impress your friends, learn Korean.
Too difficult?
Try Esperanto.
Esperanto Flag
Can't cope with languages? Start with Esperanto. Only 16 rules. Esperanto means I hope. I hope you like it and find it easy.
Useful Websites
Travel
singaporeair.com
Comfortable and efficient, lots of films with subtitles, and free languages to learn online onboard. Member of Star Alliance if you are gathering miles or wondering where to spend them.
Languages
duolingo.com
Simple to use on your phone, multiple choice questions. Very good for languages where the andwer is more or less obvious, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, German.
memrise.com
Enables you to save your personal memory aids, and see those created by others. Handy for the harder languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages. Please share links to your favourite posts.
You can use your Spanish is Spain, Spanish speaking islands such as Majorca, Minorca, Tenerife, all over South America and central America, Mexico, and signs in the USA. What's more, Portuguese and Italian are very similar so Spanish. Latin is also helpful. So if you already know any of those languages it helps. And if you want to learn another language after Spanish, you will have a head start.
The readership of my travel blog posts.varies wildly. When the day ends an the new count begins I have 650 readers yesterday but only 6 today. But I have nearly 24 hours to build up the readers.
So I look at where are my readers and why? I check by week, day and now. I check by country of origin of readers, which is listed in descending order of numbers. Then I check which posts they are reading.
I would expect my readers to be in the English speaking countries of the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
What about the other countries? Presumably these countries either have lots of expats or if I travel there I shall meet lots of locals who are keen to speak to me to practise their English.
I look for keywords. Which posts mention the USA or Russia or Italy?
The same goes for China, Singapore, England, Scotland, Wales, Singapore, Portugal.
Flag of the USA.
Often the top of the list is the USA. They have the high population high literacy, the most English speaking readers. Also they want to learn Spanish.
In Europe I have many readers in Italy. Is that because I refer to the Roman alphabet, or pizza and Italian food, or learning Spanish?
I have lots of readers in Russia, sometimes more in Russia than in the USA? Why? Because I mention learning Cyrillic, a Russian keyboard, and a Russian chocolate festival.
To my amazement I find that over the course of a week, my post on learning Spanish attracts readers way beyond the other posts. I check under 'View' and find that nothing succeeds like success. When I go to view which is what the public sees, Google is promoting my post on learning Spanish first.
Do you want to visit these countries and practise your languages? Or practise your languages ready to visit these countries?
London is great for British English, Polish, Cantonese in the Chinese restaurants.
Welsh flag showing the distinctive red Welsh dragon contrasting with green and white horizontal bands.
Welsh
Drive along the M4 or take the train from Paddington to Wales. Cross the border into Wales the the signs on the stations are all bilingual. I enjoy the sing-song Welsh accent when they speak English. I like to hear them speak Welsh, especially the lovely Welsh songs sung to harp music.
The USA is great for American English and Spanish.
Canada, especially Ottawa, is great for English and French written like in France and spoken with a Canadian accent.
Flag of Bulgaria.
Russian and Bulgaria are great for picking up Cyrillic.
Greece is great for Greek.
Israel is great for Hebrew.
Belgium is great for both French and Dutch.
Singapore has leaflets and MRT train announcements and MRT station announcements in English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay (similar to Indonesian) and Tamil.
China
Easy to pick up the signs with Chineasy.
Japan
Spoken Japanese is easier than Chinese. No tones. All monotone. The written language is pictures and simplified pictures (which is how our sound-based Hebrew-Greek-Roman alphabet started). Think of the sign for no smoking, a cigarette with a cross through it, or road signs, or washing labels on clothes, symbols common to several countries, although they would say the words differently.
Korean
To impress your friends, learn Korean.
Too difficult?
Try Esperanto.
Esperanto Flag
Can't cope with languages? Start with Esperanto. Only 16 rules. Esperanto means I hope. I hope you like it and find it easy.
Useful Websites
Travel
singaporeair.com
Comfortable and efficient, lots of films with subtitles, and free languages to learn online onboard. Member of Star Alliance if you are gathering miles or wondering where to spend them.
Languages
duolingo.com
Simple to use on your phone, multiple choice questions. Very good for languages where the andwer is more or less obvious, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, German.
memrise.com
Enables you to save your personal memory aids, and see those created by others. Handy for the harder languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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