Sarra Manning's Blog

Spanish is one of the most popular languages that native English speakers are learning right now and it’s easy to see why.

In this blog, I’m going to break down my recommendations into the following categories.

Apps to learn Spanish
Websites to learn Spanish
Spanish movies
Spanish series
Spanish books
Websites that recommend useful Spanish materials

Keep reading to see these topics in more detail.

Apps To Learn Spanish

Spanish apps are so handy because you can do them wherever you are.

Whether you’re on the train or in the loo, most people have their phones with them all the time, which means you can do a bit of Spanish study no matter where you are.

Duolingo
SpanishDict

Websites To Learn Spanish

Having a website to learn Spanish can be super useful. Setting aside a time of day to sit down at your laptop and study can really improve your linguistic skills.

These are my top two favourite Spanish language websites.

Study Spanish
Spanishpod101

Spanish movies

Spanish movies can often be quite difficult to understand because the Spanish used is often a lot more complex than in a series. But if you’re an advanced learner then you should definitely consider adding some Spanish movies to your study plan.

Here are some of the must see Spanish movies if you’re a Spanish student.

Volver

La Mala Educación

Series

Spanish series are a great way to improve your Spanish listening skills. They’re fun, passionate and full of action, especially Netflix originals.

My current favourite Spanish series are:

La Casa De Papel

Elité

Las Chicas Del Cable

Spanish books

Which Spanish books you read will depend on the current level you’re at. Someone reading a Spanish beginner book will be have a very different level to someone reading a Spanish advanced book.

Best Spanish Authors
Spanish books for children

Here you can check out some of the most prolific Spanish authors out there or if you’re just starting out read the list of recommended Spanish children’s books to help you. A child’s book might have a basic story but the grammar will often be at a beginner’s level.

Websites That Recommend Spanish Materials

Sometimes what you need are websites that make compiled lists of the best materials available.

Check out these categories to find out the best materials available in each of them.

Best textbooks for the DELE exam
Best Spanish translation websites
Best Spanish language learning forums

 

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One of the biggest debates to do with language learning is the old input vs. output.

This might be a bit confusing for you because surely when learning a language you need both right? Well that would be correct, but many language learning techniques seem to focus on one more than the other.

Team input tend to put more focus on immersing yourself with the language as much as possible through listening, reading and exposure.

And team output put their main focus on speaking and creating sentences yourself as soon as possible.

Both have their merits and what you do will probably end up a mix of them both but let’s take a look at these two ideas.

Camp Output

Learners like Scott Young and Benny Lewis put their focus on output. For them this is the most important part of language learning.

Of course, you need some input to be able to output, but they think it’s vital that you start speaking as soon as possible, preferably from day one.

The sooner you start speaking and overcome your fears, the quicker your language learning journey will become.

Pros

You will start learning the language quicker
Fast results that you can see

Cons

This can be incredible daunting
You’ll find more people impatient with you when you know less of the language
People are more likely to swap to English

Check out Scott Young’s journey

Check out Benny Lewis

Camp Input

Camp input puts more focus on taking the language in.

The idea is for you to immerse yourself in the language and to get as much exposure as possible in the early days before you start speaking.

This can be done in a number of ways; through TV, movies, music, changing the language on your phone, living in a foreign country and more.

The idea is to take in as much as possible and then when it comes to the time to speak you will already have the vocabulary in place to start communicating.

Pros

When you start speaking you have more vocabulary
You get used to hearing the phonemes long before you start using them

Cons

It takes longer to start speaking
It may be more difficult to get over the fear of speaking

Check out Steve Kaufman, a famous polyglot who is a lover of input

So Which Camp Is Best?

Which camp is best will probably depend on your personality.

If you’re more outgoing and extroverted then you’re probably going to find camp output a lot more appealing.

However, if you’re more cautious or studios you could find yourself thriving in camp input.

There’s no one size fits all and different people have benefitted enormously from different methods and have still been able to learn the language regardless of which method they chose.

The key is finding the balance that works for you.

Don’t be discouraged if you try one method and you don’t have success. Adapt your learning tools until you find a way that helps you learn more effectively and happily.

And remember that language learning should be fun.

When people decide they want to learn a new language, one of the questions they ask is: “what is the easiest language for an English speaker to learn?”

If you’ve never learned a language before then it can be quite a task to try and learn Russian, Arabic or Mandarin.

With this in mind, it’s worth finding a language that is relatively easy for an english speaker to learn in order to get started.

Then once you’ve learned how to learn languages you can move onto the more difficult ones.

So let’s take a look at the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn.

Romantic Languages

The romantic languages are very easy for English speakers to learn. This is because:

They use the same alphabet
Many of the phonemes aren’t too different from ours
We share many words from latin
We use many French words from when the Normans invaded England

Although English is technically a Germanic language, it can be easier for a native English speaker to learn a romantic language rather than a Germanic one.

So which romantic language is easiest to learn?

We would have to say:

Spanish

Spanish is a very easy language for native English speakers to learn.

The best thing about Spanish is that it has pretty strict pronunciation rules. Once you’ve learned the alphabet and a couple of rules, you can have Spanish pronunciation down.

It’s not like English with though, through and thought. Spanish pronunciation is relatively consistent.

The other romantic languages that you might want to learn include:

French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian

These are all relatively easy for a native English speaker to learn with varying degrees of success.

Germanic Languages

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Although we believe that the romantic languages are easier for a native English speaker to learn, the Germanic languages are also relatively accessible for an English speaker.

This is because:

English is also a Germanic language
Grammar rules are more consistent than for romantic languages
Pronunciation is relatively intuitive for an English speaker
We share the same alphabet

Recommended Germanic language to learn:

German

After English German is the most spoken of the Germanic languages and it shares many words and roots with English, making it the natural choice.

German may be a bit trickier to learn than some of the romantic languages but it’s definitely achievable.

Surprising Languages

One language that is easy for English speakers to learn that may surprise you is:

Bahasa

Bahasa is spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia and is probably the easiest of the Asian languages to learn.

If you’re considering learning an Asian language but Mandarin just seems like too great a challenge, then Bahasa may be the language for you.

So there you have it, our list of the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn.

Of course, you may not be choosing your language based on ease, but if you are then we hope this list has helped you.

Hello everyone!

My name is Sarra and basically I’m a language nerd. And when I say nerd, I mean fully blown language geek.

I love learning languages, learning about languages, talking about languages. Basically if it involves languages, I love it.

I started this blog to share my experiences and opinions on the world of languages and to basically have an outlet, since most of my family members are sick of hearing about Russian, linguistics or Kanji!

Hopefully I will be able to build a small community here where other language lovers can join me and share in my passion. 

Why I Love Languages So Much

My love of languages developed quite young. I’d grown up in an English speaking house and had never really come across speakers of different languages before, apart from holidays to France with my parents. But even then, I wasn’t really engaging with the language and had no personal experience with it. My parents didn’t really speak any languages apart from a few phrases to help them get by in restaurants.

When I was about eight years old, my parents had friends of the family come to stay. They had been friends since they were in university and were now living abroad. 

Their friends came with strange gifts from countries I’d barely heard of but the thing that stuck with me the most is that they spoke a different language. 

We would be sitting in the living room chatting in English and my parents friends would turn to each other and start speaking in Spanish. For some reason I was enthralled. 

It turned out the wife was Bolivian and her husband had learned Spanish to speak his wife’s native language. As we got talking I learned that not only could they both speak Spanish and English, but they could also speak Portuguese, Italian and a little French.

When they told me this, I asked them to prove it and was amazed by what I saw. They laughed and flitted between the four languages. 

After that point I was enchanted by languages. Luckily enough I had very encouraging parents so when I showed an interest they enrolled me in Spanish classes straight away. 

Since then I have learned French, Italian and German, and I have dabbled in Russian and Mandarin. 

I want to keep learning languages forever and will be beginning a university course in linguistics next year.

This blog is to share my love of languages with you, to tell you about my journey along the way and maybe even inspire you to start a language journey of your own.

Every polyglot has that moment where they decided learning languages was for them and for people who really love it, they’ll all admit that that moment was a turning point in their lives.

I’ve had mine, maybe you’ve had yours and if not at least you’re interested or you wouldn’t be here reading this blog!

So thank you for taking the time to read my story, let’s dive into the world of linguistics together. 

 

I realise, as I started to compile my list of books that I most enjoyed reading this year, that a good sixty five per cent of my reading output is given to old books, mostly out of print, mostly written and set in the Thirties or Forties. Some of it is research as I’ve taken my passion for that period and started writing about it, but it’s also because I was obviously born a good seventy years too late.

Anyhow I did manage to read some new releases and these are the ones that I loved above all other.

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe

I adored Nina Stibbe’s memoir of her time as a nanny in 1980′s literary LondonLove, Nina: Despatches from Family Lifeso I couldn’t wait to read her first novel. Set in the 70′s, Man At The Helm is a funny but heartbreaking account of her parent’s divorce told through the eyes of nine year old Lizzie. Her mother and her two siblings move to a village and her mother, entirely incapable of fending for herself, ricochets from one unsuitable lover to another, though the children are convinced that everything will be all right once there’s a man at the helm again.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

I read Crooked Heart in one greedy, four hour binge on the train coming back from Edinburgh. I’d previously read and loved Lissa Evan’s previous WW2 novel, Their Finest Hour And A Half, so I knew I was in for a treat with Crooked Heart and yup, I was not disappointed. When Noel Bostock’s great aunt Mattie, a former Suffragette, stricken with dementia dies at the start of the war, Noel is evacuated to St Albans where he’s billeted with down-on-her-luck Vera Sedge. She’s a hard-hearted scam artist and Neil is a lost but resilient little boy and somehow they’ve managed to find each other. There are lots of different kinds of love story and Crooked Heart is one of the best kinds.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Most of her novels scare the B’Jaysus out of me but a new Sarah Waters book is always a reason to cheer. The Paying Guests, set in the 1920′s, is a looooonnnngggggg tale, stuffed full of detail that builds and builds with a creeping menace. Expect the usual Sarah Waters tropes of bitter, repressed women past the first flush of youth, sinister houses and murder most horrid.

It’s Not Me, It’s You by Mhairi McFarlane

Third novel from the wonderfully funny and rude, Mhairi McFarlane. I think It’s Not Me, It’s You is my favourite of her books, but she writes romantic comedy like nobody else. Her characters are real and flawed but utterly likeable and I am hopelessly in love with both Delia and Adam West (who, in my head, looks like Tom Hiddleston.)

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I don’t do dystopia. Nope, it’s not for me but I fell for Station Eleven hard. Had it sitting on my desk for ages but the blurb about a traveling theatre group roaming what’s left of the American MidWest twenty years after a killer flu pandemic, didn’t push any of my buttons. But then people started raving about it on Twitter and I read the first couple of pages and was hooked. The writing is beautiful and weaves through multiple narrators and a timeline that zips in and out of a world devastated and depleted by disaster.

Us by David Nicholls

One Day is a hard act to follow, but I think I preferred Us, though I way over-identified with the hapless Douglas as he embarks on a trip round Europe with his wife Connie and son Albie in a last-ditch effort to save his marriage. Though I don’t know why I way over-identified with a 50-something scientist.

August Folly by Angela Thirkell

Angela Thirkell was one of my big discoveries last year when Virago started reissuing some of her Barsetshire novels. I’m now reduced to buying the out of print ones for vast sums so I can read them in chronological order. (Anyone got a cheap copy of Northbridge Rectory I can have?) This is a review of August Folly that I wrote for The Guardian this summer. Oooh, get me!

NON-FICTION

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

I love J D Salinger so much that Franny from The Worst Girlfriend In The World was actually named after Franny Glass (of Franny and Zooey fame) and I’ve always been intrigued by Salinger, who withdrew from public life in the ’60′s. So Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about her time spent working as an assistant to Salinger’s literary agents in the mid-90′s was a must-buy. It’s not just about her relationship with Salinger and his work but a fascinating account of New York, publishing and being young and broke and making questionable lifestyle choices.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine

Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the iconic, all-girl punk band The Slits and this is her fantastic autobiography. She knew everyone from The Sex Pistols to The Clash to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren. But while she writes about her punk days and her life after The Slits, what I really loved were the earlier chapters which dealt with her wild teen years in my stomping ground of North London and how different life was back in the 70′s. One of my favourite bits is when Viv talks about trying to set up a band, in the days before a lot of people even had a landline, and it would take days of traveling around London to visit people and having to wait for them for hours if they weren’t in. I found this memoir hugely inspiring.

Hello, hello, hello!

I am so thrilled to be able to tell you my exciting news. I’ve signed a new two book deal with Sphere (a division of Little Brown.)

My next novel (title to be confirmed) will be released late 2015. It’s a story about a seventeen year old girl who runs away to London in 1943 to jitterbug with GIs and eat donuts at Rainbow Corner, the American Red Cross Club in Piccadilly. And it’s also the story of another teenage girl who runs away to London some sixty years later to escape a terrible secret, and the woman she becomes.

Policemen, soldiers and women dancing in street at Rainbow Corner. 8 May 1945

It’s a love story. It’s a story about finding somewhere to call home. It’s about impossible men. It’s about feeling safe. I think it will make you laugh and I hope that it will make you cry big snotty sobs in at least five different places.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who follows me on Twitter, that I’ve written a novel that’s not just a contemporary love story but is also set during the Second World War. I’m absolutely fascinated by the 1940′s and it’s always been by intention to write a story that’s partly set in that era.

I spent eighteen months writing this book out of contract – it’s been a real labour of love and I absolutely can’t wait for people to actually read it. Only a year to go!

Live on

Sarra x

This is the official announcement that went out today from Sphere.

Manning moves to Sphere in two-novel deal

• 28 October 2014

Manpreet Grewal at Sphere/Little Brown has acquired two adult novels by Sarra Manning, who is moving from Transworld.

Sphere has UK/Commonwealth rights from Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown in novels that “encompass a historical setting – a new direction that Sphere has plans to expand on with her next books”. The first of the two will be published in late 2015.

Manning’s new novel combines an uncompromising contemporary love story with a historical narrative set in London during the Blitz, when young women and GIs escaped the brutality of war by experiencing the giddy thrills of dancing at Rainbow Corner, the American Red Cross club at Piccadilly Circus.

Grewal said: “I’ve been a fan of Sarra’s writing for years and I’m thrilled to be welcoming her to Sphere as she moves in this exciting new direction. Sarra is a remarkable writer but her new novel takes her to another level entirely – it’s an epic, emotional and highly satisfying read that pulls no punches in its honest and unsentimental portrayal of the entire gamut of human relationships. Readers are going to love it.”

Manning is the author of four previous adult novels, including Unsticky and You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. Her most recent YA novels are published by Atom, Sphere’s sister imprint at LB.

I’ve been going through a huge box of papers from my parent’s house. Mostly letters to my mother from before she was married, some old payslips, bank statements and then I happened across this.

Nascent feminist, though she might have been, I don’t think my mother wrote this but she certainly thought it was worth typing out. I think it’s priceless. A carbon copy version of an internet meme.

USELESS CREATION – MAN

Men are what women marry. They have two hands, two feet and sometimes two women, but never more than one dollar or one idea at a time. Like Turkish cigarettes they are all made of the same materials, the only difference being that some are better disguised than others.

Generally speaking, they may be divided into three classes; husbands, bachelors and widowers. A bachelor is an eligible mass of obstinacy entirely surrounded by suspicion. Husbands are of three types; prizes, surprises and consolation prizes. Making a husband out of a man is one of the highest plastic arts known to civilisation. It requires science, sculpture. common sense, faith, hope and charity – mostly charity. It is a psychological marvel that a small, tender, soft, violet-scented thing like woman should enjoy kissing a big, awkward, stubbly-chinned tobacco and rum-scented thing like a man.

If you flatter a man you frighten him to death. If you don’t bore him to death. If you permit him to make love to you, he gets tired of you in the end. If you don’t, he gets tired of you in the beginning. If you agree with him in everything, you cease to interest. If you believe all he tell you, he thinks you are fool. If you don’t, he thinks you are a cynic.

If you wear any gay colours, rouge and silly hats, he hesitates to take you out, but if you wear a little brown beret and a tailored suit, he takes you out and stares all evening at women in gay colours, rouge and silly hats. If you join in the gaieties and approve of his drinking, he swears you driving him to the devil. If you don’t approve of his imbibing and urge him to give up his gaieties, he vows you are snow and ice. If you are the clinging vine type, he doubts whether you have a brain. If you are a modern, advanced, intelligent woman, he doubts whether you have a heart. If you are silly, he longs for a bright mate. If you are intellectual and brilliant he longs for a playmate.

Man is just a worm in the dust, he comes along, wriggles for a while and finally some bird gets him.

AND SO SAY WE ALL

Holla!

By now, I hope you’ve read and loved The Worst Girlfriend in the World

As a little add-on, I wrote this, which Franny and Alice would do well to remember.

THE BEST FRIEND MANIFESTO

Chicks before dicks.*

Your friend’s secrets are your secrets too. To the grave and beyond.

You don’t have to give your best friend your last rolo, but you do have to give them your second to last rolo.

Friends are contractually obligated not to let each other out in public in an outfit that doesn’t work.

A problem shared takes an awful lots of kettle chips.

Any boy your friend has expressed an interest in is off-limits. End of. You are only allowed to admire him in a supportive way, but that’s it. “Yeah, you’d look perfect together.”

Friends have veto rights before any photos of them are posted on the interweb.

If your friend breaks up with her boyfriend, it’s always his fault. Always. Besides, his eyes were too close together and his nostrils were too big and you never liked him anyway.

In addition, friends listen to Gretchen Weiner.

Friends share clothes, hair products, Instagram accounts, coursework notes but never eye make up, PIN numbers or any new item of clothing that hasn’t even been worn yet.

Never rat out your friend to her parents unless you’re pretty certain her life is in danger.

Friends bitch at each other but not about each other.

*Special Bendy Cumberbatch exemption clause.

Live on,

Sarra x

HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE IN A SARRA MANNING NOVEL

1. There is literally no one who understands you. The real you, that is, and not the shiny, glittering you that you show the world. It saddens and disappoints you, quite frankly.

2. Although you like to think you have increased word power you, like, say, ‘whatever’ all the time. See also whatevs, whevs, triple whatever. Whatever.

3. There’s a boy, a man, a manchild. He’s tousle-haired, slumbrous of eye, smirky of lip and lean of frame. He moves you in ways that would make other people write sonnets. You make mix-tapes instead.

4. Although you try to listen to your head, your sensible, level head, your heart is a wild beast that can’t be tamed or hold its drink and it gets you in trouble time and time again. Your foolish heart wins out every single time.

5. In times of emotional turmoil, which typically amounts for a large part of your every waking hour, you take refuge in a family-sized bag of potato-based snacks. Also chocolate. Much chocolate. Something about the combination of sweet and salt speaks to the chaos in your soul.

6. There is a dress. A perfect dress. When you find and purchase this frock, amazing things happen to you.

7. The previously mentioned manchild is incapable of speaking. Instead he drawls. Occasionally he purrs. Usually while slouching nonchalantly against a doorjamb.

8. There have been times when your entire life has taken on an entirely new shape in the time times it takes for someone to kiss you.

9. You live in London and you love the city’s frantic beating heart. Apart from when you actually live in a small, boring town where nothing ever happens.

10. Let’s not even talk about the hair.

11. There are at least three polka-dot dresses, two of them vintage, hanging up in your wardrobe. You can never have too many polka-dot dresses. You can never have too many vintage dresses. A vintage polka-dot dress is fashion nirvana.

12. You could never settle for a man who lacked the ability to arch one eyebrow. Or smirk. Or, as previously mentioned, slouch nonchalantly against doorjambs.

13. The ability to apply liquid eyeliner and your in-depth knowledge of obscure areas of popular culture are what sets you apart from the masses.

14. You often look younger than you are, but your soul is positively geriatric.

15. There is a kind of happy ever after but it’s not the kind of happy ever after that necessarily includes florid declarations of love. It may include bickering and the occasional china-smashing row at three in the morning. That’s OK. You’re suspicious of anything as sentimental and cliched as a florid declaration of love. Your happy ever after is still a happy ever after.

With apologies and much, much fond affection to The Toast.

Photo credit: http://favim.com/image/514989/

Hello, hello! Long time, no see.

I’ve been hunkered down on the fourth (yes, fourth!) draft of an adult novel. It’s a bit of a change-up for me and I can say no more about it because I don’t even have a publisher yet so I don’t want to jinx myself. But it is the novel I’ve wanted to write for years and I really hope it sees the light of day. So does my bank manager!

Anyway, onto more certain things and slipping my teenage head on. I’m very happy to say that my new YA novel, The Worst Girlfriend in the World, is now on sale.

Alice Jenkins is the worst girlfriend in the world according to the many, many boys who’ve shimmied up lampposts and shoplifted from New Look to impress her, only to be dumped when she gets bored of them. Alice has a very low boredom threshold.

But she never gets bored with Franny, her best friend since they met at nursery school. Friends are for ever. Ain’t nothing going to come between them. Girls rule, boys drool is their motto. Well, it’s Alice’s motto, Franny doesn’t have much time for boys; they’re all totes immature and only interested in one thing.

But then there’s Louis Allen, lead singer of Thee Desperadoes, the best band in Merrycliffe-on-sea (though that could be because they’re the only band in Merrycliffe-on-sea). He’s a tousle-haired, skinny-jeaned, sultry-eyed manchild, the closest thing that Franny’s ever seen to the hipsters that she’s read about on the internet and she’s been crushing on him HARD for the last three years.

She’s never worked up the courage to actually speak to him but she’s sure on some deeper level that goes beyond mere words, Louis absolutely knows that she’s his soulmate. He just doesn’t know that he knows it yet. It’s why he cops off with so many other girls.

So, when Alice, bored with callow youths, sets her sights on Louis it threatens to tear the girls’ friendship apart, even though they’re better than fighting over a boy.

They strike a devil’s deal – may the best girl win. Best friends become bitter rivals and everything comes to an explosive conclusion on their first trip to London.

Can true friendship conquer all?

Sounds good? You can read an extract here. Oh! And it’s already available as an ebook in the US, apparently.

I also now have a Facebook page, which you can like here. I kind of feel like I should be on Instagram but it would just be pictures of Miss Betsy, my dog and nothing else. Then there’s Tumbr, but it befuddles me and then I feel very, very old. *nan face*

My other big news is that I’m thrilled to announce that I will be appearing at the very first UK YA conference YA Literature Convention as part of Comic Con on the 12th and 13th July at Earls Court in London. I’ll be taking part in a panel on the Sunday, but there are so many amazing authors taking part, you may want to go both days. I know I do! Early Bird tickets are already on sale.

I’ll be doing at least one other YA event this year, I will keep you posted.

So, that’s quite enough exciting news to be getting on with, I think. I am going to try and blog a bit more. But the proof of the pudding is in the actual blogging.

Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend.

Live on,

Sarra x