Fluent City’s 12 Favorite Moments of 2012 in Pictures

by Mandy Menaker

It has been a terrific year at Fluent City. During 2012, Fluent City added Japanese, Russian and Hebrew classes. Our 10 Brooklyn classrooms and rented Manhattan classroom spaces were filled to capacity. We secured a convenient and terrific Manhattan space by Times Square. In addition, we raised over $1000 for Sandy relief and the New York Food Bank through our commitment to donate a percentage of signups in the weeks following Sandy. Our Williamsburg space became home to several orphaned organizations in the aftermath of Sandy including the Bellavue Survivors of Torture. We got closer with our regular coworkers, the funny folks over at Hypervocal. We even became a film set used by College Humor, Practical Jokers and Brooklyn Independent Television! Yep, 2012 has been pretty excellent. Here are 12 of our favorite moments of 2012 in pictures:

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5 Reasons Fall is the Best Season to Study a Language

by Mandy Menaker

Fall is filled with all sorts of amazing things: pumpkin bread, apple picking, MLB World Series games, costume hunting, Oktoberfest and hot cider. If you need more incentive to get pumped, try out a language class at Fluent City for the first (second, third, or fourth) time. Here are just a few reasons that fall is the best season to study a foreign language.

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Five Back to School Tips from Fluent City

by Mandy Menaker

It’s that time of year again: Target is lined with Lisa Frank folders, Best Buy is offering gratis printers along with your computer purchase, and clothing stores are claiming the right accessory will help make you look cool. Yep folks, it’s back to school shopping season. If you are ready to relive the excitement of prepping for a grade school class but have advanced past fifth grade History or seventh grade Algebra, sign up for a French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Hebrew class with Fluent City and use these back to school tips to make sure you stand out as the coolest kid in the quad…erm…Williamsburg lobby.

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App for Practicing Portuguese

When asked for good apps to study Portuguese, student Diana says, “Oi a todos! I use Mind Snacks its fun and easy to use. Tchau, Diana”

Check it out online here: http://mindsnacks.com/

Rio 2016 Olympic Games

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBXeuVHFmlY

Check out what games will be at the 2016 Rio Games while practicing your Portuguese comprehension!

Portuguese Interviews

http://www.canallondres.tv/Canallondres_Todos_os_Videos.html is actually from London, but it’s all in Portuguese. They have a large amount of interviews with Brazilians living in London. It is a great resource for students to sharpen their listening skills.

Brazilian culture, food, language, travel tips

http://www.brazil-compass.com/ is actually in English, but it has a lot of great posts on Brazilian culture, food, language, travel tips, business…

Make Your Own Flashcards!

http://www.quizlet.com – Create a free account to make your own online flashcards or search for other sets already made. study, play games, practice pronunciation and more! Great for language study outside of your Fluent City classes.

Making the Olympics Multilingual, Part One: The Basics

by Megan Heise

The next 17 days are about to get real, as some of the world’s greatest athletes converge on London to duke it out for international honors and world fame in the Games of the XXX Olympiad. Meanwhile, the rest of us will flock to the houses of our friends with cable, pick teams in all the events the USA isn’t in, and invent epic Olympics-themed drinking games that we’ll inevitably forget by the time Rio 2016 rolls around. And while the official languages of the 2012 Olympic Games are English, French, and, well, English, we polyglots can still show off our language skills and impress our friends with our ability to mute Bob Costas and provide riveting voice-over commentary in a foreign language.

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5 Reasons Portuguese is the Perfect Summer Language

by Erica Wendal

1. Everybody else is already taking Spanish

You’ve heard how Spanish and Portuguese are distant cousins right? Well, it can be argued that Portuguese is the more difficult of the two. So leave the child’s play to all your other friends trying to brush up on the 2 years of Spanish they had in high school and saddle up for a more challenging (and rewarding) language. You’ll impress the room at parties and every Brazilian you meet will be so grateful that you’re not trying to communicate with them in Spanish!

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