Many of you will know (mostly because I spent
the vast majority of the last year complaining about the French language!) that
I recently completed a BA in French Studies at university. I came out of it
with a 2:1, which I was incredibly chuffed with and after finishing my degree
I’ve suddenly found myself re-attracted to the rush and the thrill of language
learning. Over the course of my life so far, I’ve been educated in 4 languages
and I have a natural attraction (and arguably a natural talent? I don’t know…)
towards language learning. I have experience working in English, French,
Maltese and Italian and am always excited to learn new words in new languages.
My boyfriend has Spanish family, some of whom live out in Spain and have limited English skills. He’s said from day 1
of us getting together that one day he might want to go and live in Spain and
obviously if I’m included in the equation then, I need to be able to speak
Spanish. I’m going to be blunt here and say that prior to the last few weeks,
my Spanish knowledge was absolutely nada, with the exception of the few obvious
phrases that EVERYONE and their dog knows.
(I can also say chorizo and paella in a VERY
convincing Spanish accent. If that’s not a skill, then I don’t know what is.)
This week, Isobel, the Marketing Manager for a
company called Flash Sticks got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to do a
little collaboration with the brand on my blog. I JUMPED at the opportunity to
try out the brand for a number of reasons, but mostly because I actually
considered contacting them myself a few months back but chickened out at the
last minute. I was AMAZED that they wanted to collaborate with ME, little me
with this tiny little book blog but hey, I’m definitely not complaining.
I absolutely LOVE this system. I love how the
post it notes are colour coded depending on their gender (I absolutely SUCK at
remembering the genders of words, even now after years of studying languages,
so this will help me endlessly!) I also love how easy it is to use the app
alongside the post-it notes: scanning them through allows the word to be read
out to you for ease of pronunciation. Spanish pronunciation is pretty simple
but hard for my French-orientated brain to comprehend sometimes. I still
occasionally pronounce the words in a very bizarre warped French accent. Bad
habits die hard.
I’ve been using the system for a few weeks now
and absolutely can’t recommend it enough if you’re looking for a way of
consciously learning a language and don’t have much time on your hands to sit
down and crack open the books. The fact that there’s an app and a PHYSICAL aspect
to the learning is definitely appealing to me- just stick the post its around
the house and you’ll be learning and remembering, which is the important part,
the words in absolutely no time at all.
I have a little code to share with you
all, courtesy of the team at Flash Sticks. If you fancy learning a new language
and subscribe to the premium package, Flashsticks will send you out a set of
their Flashcards absolutely free of charge, across any of the six languages in
either beginners or intermediate level! Sounds like a bargain to me, and the
programme is definitely worth giving a go. If you’re a busy soul dying to brush
up your language skills, then this is definitely the one for you!
What languages can you speak? Which do you want to learn? Let me know your language learning stories in the comments below!!
