What are these language learning skills you ask? Here is a short list.
Reasoning Skills
Let’s say you’ve been learning French and want to solve a French word search puzzle. When you pick a word from the list to find, you begin thinking in French too, which is an important step on your way to becoming fluent in French.
Spelling
To find a word in a word search puzzle, you must first examine the word in the list. Then, you will memorize and look for that exact spelling in the puzzle. Finally, you will look at the word in the list again to cross it out. All of this focus on each word helps you to remember the way that it is spelled. This is good practice.
Vocabulary Building
With word search puzzles, you can build your vocabulary in your native language or in the foreign language you are studying. Each word search puzzle has about 10 to 20 words, give or take, and the words are usually all related to a theme in the title. In your native language, you may occasionally come across new words, and in a foreign language, that short amount of time that you focus on each new word, its spelling and its meaning all contribute to help you improve your vocabulary. Plus, you can find word search puzzles at all levels making them a useful language learning tool for everyone.
Reviewing Vocabulary
Word search puzzles are a fun way to practice for tests and to go over older material in the course of a school semester or term, or even at home if you are using the puzzles as a self-study tool.
Differentiations Between Similar Vocabulary Words
Sometimes words look or sound the same. Like beach and beech or sight and site. Solving word search puzzles that feature these different words will help you to learn and remember the differentiations between these similar words.
Color-In Word Search Puzzle Books
These fun books combine the artistic joy of coloring plus the added challenge of finding words in the word search grid. The shape of the letters in the puzzle grid can be colored in after you find a word and so can the words in the word list. These are perfect for both adults and children.
The History of Word Search Puzzles
The first crossword puzzle, published in the New York World in 1913 was created by Arthur Wynn, a journalist from Liverpool. Then, in 1968, Norman Gilbat, in an attempt to get people interested in his publication, published the first word search puzzle in the Selenby Digest, in Oklahoma.
By the mid-1980s, schools around the world had begun to use word search and crossword puzzles to help their students improve vocabulary and spelling.
Today, and with the ease of the Internet, millions of people solve word search puzzles, crossword puzzles, word fit puzzles, anagrams, cryptograms, word jumbles, and more! Both online and in print. Word puzzle books are everywhere now, in bookstores, kiosks, mini markets and supermarkets.
The Greek War of Independence lasted from 1821 to 1832, after which the Greek kingdom was established.
A few decades later, leisure travel to Greece began, and the writings of foreign travelers to Greece were considered a significant source of information on the condition of modern Greece at that time.
Here is a sample of one of these travelogues written by John Pentland Mahaffy in 1876. The text is presented in parallel text format, accompanied by its Greek translation.
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Ίσως δεν υπάρχει πιο συναρπαστικό ταξίδι, για κάθε άνθρωπο των γραμμάτων, από το να φτάνει στην Αθήνα μέσω θαλάσσης.
There is probably no more exciting voyage, to any educated man, than the approach to Athens from the sea.
Κάθε ακρωτήριο, κάθε νησί, κάθε κόλπος, έχει την ιστορία του.
Every promontory, every island, every bay, has its history.
Εάν γνωρίζει τον χάρτη της Ελλάδας, δε χρειάζεται κανένα βιβλίο-οδηγό ή οδηγό για να του αποσπάσει την προσοχή.
If he knows the map of Greece, he needs no guide-book or guide to distract him.
Εάν δεν το γνωρίζει, χρειάζεται λίγα Ελληνικά για να ζητήσει από κάποιον κοντά του το όνομα αυτού ή εκείνου του αντικειμένου.
If he does not, he needs little Greek to ask of any one near him the name of this or that object.
Και αρκούν μόνο οι ονομασίες για να ξυπνήσουν όλες τις αναμνήσεις από την κλασική του παιδεία.
And the mere names are sufficient to stir up all his classical recollections.
Αλλά πρέπει να αποφασίσει να μην σοκαριστεί με τις λέξεις «Αίγινα» ή «Φαληρόν», και ακόμα και να του πουν ότι είναι εντελώς λάθος ο τρόπος που τα προφέρει.
But he must make up his mind not to be shocked at ‘Aegina’ or ‘Phaleron,’ and even to be told that he is utterly wrong in his way of pronouncing them.
Ήμασταν πολύ τυχεροί που φτάσαμε στην Ελλάδα το βράδυ, με ένα υπέροχο φεγγάρι να λάμπει πάνω στη καλοκαιρινή θάλασσα.
It was our fortune to come into Greece by night, with a splendid moon shining upon the summer sea.
Τα ποικίλα περιγράμματα του Σουνίου, από τη μία πλευρά, και της Αίγινας από την άλλη, φαίνονταν ξεκάθαρα.
The varied outlines of Sounion, on the one side, and Aegina on the other, were very clear.
Αλλά στις βαθιές σκιές υπήρχε αρκετό ακόμα μυστήριο για να τροφοδοτήσει τη φλεγόμενη ανυπομονησία να τα δούμε όλα με το πρώτο φως της ημέρας.
But in the deep shadows there was mystery enough to feed the burning impatience of seeing all in the light of day.
Και παρόλο που είχαμε περάσει την Αίγινα, και είχαμε συναντήσει την βραχώδη Σαλαμίνα, ακόμη δε φαινόταν ο Πειραιάς.
And though we had passed Aegina, and had come over against the rocky Salamis, as yet there was no sign of Piraeus.
Έπειτα φάνηκαν τα φώτα στην Ψυττάλεια, και μας είπαν ότι το λιμάνι ήταν ακριβώς απέναντι.
Then came the light on Psyttaleia, and they told us that the harbor was right opposite.
Ωστόσο, ήρθαμε όλο και πιο κοντά, και κανένα λιμάνι δε φαινόταν.
Yet we came nearer and nearer, and no harbor could be seen.
Τα άγονα βράχια της ακτής φάνηκαν να σχηματίζουν μια αδιάσπαστη γραμμή, και πουθενά δεν υπήρχε σημάδι εσοχής ή άνοιγμα στη στεριά.
The barren rocks of the coast seemed to form one unbroken line, and nowhere was there a sign of indentation or of break in the land.
Αλλά ξαφνικά, καθώς γυρίζει το κεφάλι μας που χαζεύει την Ψυττάλεια, εκεί όπου οι Πέρσες ευγενείς στεκόντουσαν σε απόγνωση γνωρίζοντας τη μοίρα που τους περίμενε, το πλοίο έστριψε προς ανατολικά, και μας αποκάλυψε το πλήθος από τα φώτα και τα καράβια του φημισμένου λιμανιού.
But suddenly, as we turned from gazing on Psyttaleia, where the Persian nobles had once stood in despair, looking upon their fate gathering about them, the vessel had turned eastward, and revealed to us the crowded lights and thronging ships of the famous harbor.
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This is an excerpt from Greek Travel Diaries by 19th-century Writers: Greek-English Parallel Text Volume 1.
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