Charlotte is studying French and Hispanic studies at uni and is spending the second six months of her year abroad as an Erasmus student at the Universidad de Córdoba in Spain. She bought a Spanish idioms book for a different way to boost her language skills, as learning typical idiomatic expressions is a very useful way to help you understand the language better, to help you feel more like a local (and never get caught out!) and, of course, to help you ace language oral exams! Find out her verdict on learning idioms on a Kindle.

It's so tricky to decide on the language resources you need on your year abroad. You obviously want a small dictionary on you at all times, right? But might it be better to keep a vocab book in your bag, jot down new words and look them up in a much bigger dictionary when you get home? A big dictionary contains the more obscure words which you're likely to come across on your year abroad. But then again, what will it do to your 15kg luggage allowance? Are eBooks or apps the answer?!

A friend of mine has an enthusiastic French-loving 14 year-old son who is keen to continue his language learning outside the classroom - not in a pushy-parent way, but in a 'why can I only learn French according to my timetable?' sort of way. I said I could come up with ten fun, interactive, multimedia ways to keep French fresh in his mind in the evenings, weekends and holidays, and thought I would share them with the world - just in case there are other parents (or Language Assistants!) in the same situation. First and foremost though, here is the Why Study Languages? site to kick-start the enthusiasm.