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Greetings Scrivvers!

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In these newsletters, I try to highlight the works of others.

Language learning is a big industry. Besides the big names, like Pimsleur, Berlitz, Assimil, Teach Yourself, Langenscheidt, and Rosetta Stone, there are hundreds of companies producing materials for languages. Everything from course books to phrasebooks to audio courses to software packages for learning.

It can be pretty overwhelming.

There are also a lot of people who have created their own one-person companies to help others. It might start as a blog about their own experiences that grows into a course creator. It could a small website that starts publishing language books. Or it could be a teacher who wants to take their knowledge directly to individual students.

So I am always looking for those who have worked to build something of their own to contribute to other's learning. I've been building language learning resources for over 20 years. I know how important it is to have someone in your corner saying "Great job! Keep it going!"

One of the sites I wanted to highlight is created by a teacher to help others learn Serbian. You can read all about her, her books, and her website below.

If you can, help promote other projects like hers. We all need support.

Thank you!

Marina Petrović has created a couple of books to help you learn basic Serbian. They are all beautifully illustrated in full color.

Gde je ključ? Где је кључ?- Učimo srpski sa Marinom (Where's the key? Where's the key? - We learn Serbian with Marina) - A fun book for learning Serbian by reading an interesting story both in the Serbian Cyrillic script and Latin alphabet.

Šta možemo da vidimo na selu? (What can we see in the countryside?) - This book helps you read and practice Serbian in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. It includes specific vocabulary to study.

Ko je ko? Učimo srpski sa Marinom (Who is who? We learn Serbian with Marina) - With this book you get easy reading in Serbian, both in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet, with follow-up exercises. The focus is on finding boys and girls with similar names: Jovan, Jovana, Ivan and Ivana.

Gde su deca? Где су деца? (Where are the children? Where are the children?) - Learn how to say where you are in the city, where you are going to, and what you can do there, in both in Cyrillic and Latin Alphabet.

Marina Petrović also produces a blog for learning Serbian. Titled simply "Learn Serbian Blog", it has useful posts and articles spanning 13 years! Starting with "Is it difficult to learn Serbian?", the topics include "How do I say my name and address in Serbian", "Breakfast in Serbian", "Serbian Tongue Twisters", "Where is the cat?", and "Past tense of Biti".

The site also has fun video lessons, audio podcast and grammar explanations, so if you are learning Serbian and if you need digital teaching materials, you'll find the links to all the useful stuff right here.

Marina graduated from the University of Novi Sad, English Language and Literature in 1995. She is an EFL teacher with more than 20 year experience of "face to face" teaching and 10 year experience of online teaching and instructional design.

She's been teaching Serbian online since 2008 and her site contains links to courses, both created by herself and others. If you want more personal attention, you can schedule Skype lessons with her.

Make sure to visit her site!
https://www.learnserbianblog.com/

Learning Serbian isn't easy. Marina even says this in her first blog post.

Learning any language takes a huge commitment in time, effort, and even money. A good source for learning needs to not have just materials to help you, but also a way to motivate you.

But while so many people talk about ways to get motivated when learning a language, what about what causes people to lose interest?

I wrote about some of the most common reasons for people to give up on learning a language. They include using the wrong approach, frustration at progress, and burn out.

You can read the article in Parrot Time here in Motivation Killers in Learning a Language.

We also have some books for learning Serbian. For new learners, we have Beginner's Serbian Word Searches.

These are great for students or kids with 100 puzzles full of words for the beginner to find.

The words come from a mixture of categories such as animals, food, clothing and family. They can be found horizontally, vertically, or diagonally in any direction in a matrix of letters.

Both Serbian and English words are hidden in the puzzles to double the challenge. Hours of learning fun!

It is available from Amazon here:
Beginner's Serbian Word Searches