{"id":1006,"date":"2011-01-21T21:02:43","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T21:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2011-01-21T21:02:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T21:02:43","slug":"language-learning-laziness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/21\/language-learning-laziness\/","title":{"rendered":"Language learning laziness?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Polar-bears-are-lazy-too.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Polar-bears-are-lazy-too.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Polar bears are lazy too\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1007\" \/><\/a>I don\u2019t mind admitting I\u2019m incredibly lazy when it comes to things I should do, but don\u2019t have a strict deadline for. This even extends to language learning \u2013 if I hadn\u2019t signed up for a class (which I feel obliged to go to), then my intention to learn Spanish would never come to anything.<\/p>\n<p>So when I came across the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.menospeak.com\/index.html\">Me No Speak<\/a><\/em> series of books, it struck me as a great idea \u2013 but also one that means my latent lazy tendencies would come to the fore. <\/p>\n<p>The <em>Me No Speak<\/em> books are filled with pictures and phrases that travellers can point to instead of trying to find the word in the local language. Their tagline is \u201cWhen you can\u2019t say it, point to it.\u201d They cover a range of destinations, from France to China and Turkey to Thailand. <\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m glad to see that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.menospeak.com\/AboutUs.html\">creators<\/a> of this series still think people should attempt the local language, but it seems to me that people would be more likely to put this in their bag and use it as a replacement for the local language. One of the things I enjoy overseas is all the nodding and smiling that happens when two people don\u2019t speak each other\u2019s language but are trying to communicate anyway. The surprise element also makes for good stories \u2013 you think you ask for a plate of noodles and instead a plate of something else appears, that turns out to be delicious anyway (or not). <\/p>\n<p>Has anyone used one of these books? Did you find it helpful?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t mind admitting I\u2019m incredibly lazy when it comes to things I should do, but don\u2019t have a strict deadline for. This even extends to language learning \u2013 if I hadn\u2019t signed up for a class (which I feel obliged to go to), then my intention to learn Spanish would never come to anything. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,200],"tags":[123,939,941,940,327],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-acquisition","category-translation","tag-language-learning","tag-language-learning-laziness","tag-language-picture-books","tag-me-no-speak-books","tag-spanish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}