My name is Jennifer and I turned 27 years old in May 2009.
I first became interested in studying foreign languages when I was
14 years old, and I hope to become fluent in several languages. Currently,
I'm concentrating on four: French, German, Italian, and Spanish; but I
do try to study some other languages when I have time: Dutch, Swedish,
Croatian, and Russian. Eventually I want to study most of the Indo-European
languages, as well as other languages outside of the Indo-European family,
including some signed languages.
I graduated from Clio High School in 2000 as valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA. I received my Bachelor's Degree from the University of Michigan-Flint in 2004, where I double majored in French & Linguistics and French & International Studies as well as minored in International & Global Studies. I was a tutor for my university in Linguistics, French and German as well as in the Writing Center and I was also involved in the Linguistics Club and International Student Organization.
I studied Québécois French at Université Laval in Québec City for 5 weeks in the summer of 2003. I was an English Language Assistant in Annecy, France, from October 2006 until April 2007 and in Cluses from October 2007 to April 2008. I am currently working as an English lecturer at the Université de Savoie in Chambéry and I absolutely love it.
I have been PACSed to
my French boyfriend,
David, since March 2007. We recently moved to Chambéry from Annecy with our cat,
Canaille, but we'd like to move to Quebec or Provence. Since David just became a French civil servant, we probably won't be leaving France anytime soon. The rest of my family, however, remains in the United States - including my dog, Brandy.
Eventually I would like to do my PhD in Linguistics with a focus on second language acquisition and pedagogy. I'm most interested in L2 vocabulary and phonological acquisition in adults and how to teach pronunciation effectively in the classroom using technology. I'm also interested in informal speech, slang and cultural vocabulary and why these useful subjects are always missing from textbooks, and especially from pronunciation dictionaries.
I completed my Master's degree in Linguistics with a specialization in Teaching English as a Second Language at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, in 2007. I was the Graduate Assistant for the Linguistics Department in 2005-2006 as well as an ESL instructor in the Intensive English Program. You can view my C.V. if you're interested in my accomplishments and you can download some papers I wrote for my university coursework on the Linguistics page.
Other than languages, I am also interested in Canadian and Australian studies, world history, military history, geography, jazz & big band music, astronomy, Greek & Roman mythology, Egyptology, biology, and pathology. I've uploaded most of my travel photos to web albums, and you can read my blog if you'd like to learn more about my everyday life in France.
This website began as a collection of notes from my high school
French class in 1998. I will be forever grateful to Madame Refice,
my first French teacher, for giving me an understanding and appreciation
of the French language that led me to create this website. I've
been continually adding more languages and linguistic-related material
over the years. The academic and teaching ESL pages were written
by me during my undergraduate and graduate coursework. Half of the
language tutorials were written by me, and I write them as I learn
the language. I wouldn't consider myself completely fluent in any
foreign language yet, although I am nearly fluent in French.
The tutorials focus on the basic grammar and vocabulary points of each language, but I am trying to incorporate more authentic language, slang, and informal ways of speaking. I am the author of the following tutorials: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish and Bosnian, Croatian & Serbian. The following tutorials were written by others: Portuguese, Icelandic, Faroese, Welsh, Ukrainian, Russian, Finnish, Indonesian, and Turkish.
I want to thank Malin for helping with the Swedish page; Natasha
and Emir for helping with the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian page; Jan
and Peter for correcting the Dutch page; Daniel Roche for writing
the Icelandic tutorial; Johan Petur for writing the Faroese tutorial;
Vremita Desectia for writing the Indonesian tutorial; Olavo Germano
de Sousa Neto for writing the Portuguese tutorial; Ivan Karmin for
writing the Ukrainian tutorial, Stephen VanZuylen for writing
the Russian tutorial, Josh Pirie for writing the Finnish tutorial, Ömer
& Mehmet Sener for writing the Turkish tutorial, Rafael for adding
Portuguese vocabulary to the Romance Languages page and Myles for helping
with the IPA transcriptions.
I created this site to help others learn foreign languages, not to earn money. This site will always be free because I believe that education should be free. However, Paypal donations are very welcome. If you are not comfortable using Paypal, please e-mail me at ielanguages [at] gmail.com for a mailing address in France or the US.