About I Kinda Like Languages
In short, I kinda like languages is a website with full free introductory language courses for everyone without registration. Our language courses are inspired by the Socratic Method, the Michel Thomas Method, Code Academy and many others. They are made by volunteers and published upon approval.
Main principles behind our courses
- Learning step by step - we introduce new things gradually and one by one. We seek to firstly give you very concrete practical examples or specific rules, and then to abstract from there to larger rules and patterns. The alternative would be us giving you grammatical tables, endings and rules without much context, and we do not like that.
- Using mnemonics and repetition - we try to help you remember words and sentences by highlighting similarities between them and English, using various associations, and repeating them from time to time.
- Practicing right away - a core principle in our courses is that you have to participate. We constantly ask you to apply the material you have learned by answering questions and constructing sentences in the language you are learning.
- Focusing on core material - since our courses are short and limited, we try to focus on the really important stuff, on things that make a difference. What are they? Well, I made a post on what the basics of a language is a long time ago.
The best way to experience one of our courses is to take one. If you do not feel like learning a language right now, you can also have a look at our blog.
The story behind this site is a long one. It was started by a single author (Linas) around March 2009, initially as a means for him to share his own language learning adventures. After a while, the website started hosting some language courses in an open format. Both the blog and the language courses died down in around 2011, and they sort of lingered there until January 2016, when the site got a complete remake. Linas is currently working on updating this site, and also running his other language project Interlinear Books, which seeks to bring literature to language learning. If you are interested in any of this, feel free to contact the owner.
Attributions and acknowledgment
- TEMPLATED: design theme we adapted;
- Unsplash: some images used in the design of the theme;
- Wordpress: the blogging platform we use;
- Kris Hocker: our WordPress theme;
- Codrops: some dynamic input effects we adapted;
- Carl Kenner: Japanese and Arabic alphabet courses we hosted since the early days of the project;
- GBarto: an Uzbek course we published in the early days of the site;
- campbellfairs: a Luxembourgish course we hosted in the main selection of courses;
- Erik Groenendijk: a Dutch course we had published on our site.
- and many others: who have contributed to the site with their time, comments, efforts and countless other things.