March 31, 2010
You’re already taking second language lessons, so might as well do what you can to maximize the benefits you get out of it. These study tips should help make your learning more effective.
1. Do some pre-reading.
If you’re attending a class, always do some early reading on the to subjects scheduled to be tackled. It always pays to have had previous time to think about topics before class – it helps you understand the lesson better, as well as think more critically. Additionally, reading notes from previous days is great to help you establish context and continuity, regardless if you’re attending a lecture or sitting down with a language learning software.
2. Prepare questions and responses.
Again, this advice is geared more towards those who are taking a class or getting private tutoring. After doing some early reading, prepare questions for areas that are currently unclear, as well as parts of the lessons you may have strong feelings about. You can refer to these later during the actual lessons.
3. Take notes.
Always take notes of your lessons. It’s highly doubtful you’ll remember everything you hear (or read, for that matter), so having ideas on a separate notebook in a form that makes sense to you will help a lot for later reviewing.
March 30, 2010
Building a vocabulary is much like beefing up your repertoire of skills in any discipline: it’s best to draw from as many resources as you can. While getting the basics handled from a primary language program is fine, using the variety of resources available to you should help you expand your stock of words faster.
Why Variation Works
Most of the time, the best mediums used to teach the basics of a language aren’t necessarily the most ideal way to build a solid vocabulary. That’s why we recommend expanding your horizons beyond it. There are plenty of materials out there designed for the express purpose of vocabulary work alone. Try them and you are likely to find ones that fit your learning style very well.
Types of Resources
If you like things old-school, you may want to pick up a book or tape of vocabulary-building lessons. A quick search on the web can also turn out plenty of paper-pen-thesaurus style exercises that you can take part in. While they’ve been replaced, in some ways, by software equivalents, flash cards remain a popular learning material for folks building a stock of vocabulary in any language.
For those more inclined to newer techniques, you can download computer games and software all designed to facilitate vocabulary learning. Highly-popular with younger language learners, many of them are available for free.
March 27, 2010
It’s the man, not the methods. That’s what some people say about language learning. If you have the characteristics that make you an ideal candidate for acquiring a language, then the process shouldn’t be that hard – regardless of whether you take a university class, a language trainer software or a comprehensive book.
What are these ideal qualities they’re talking about?
1. Belief in yourself. Unless you have brain problems that make you different, you are wired for learning languages, just like the rest of us.
2. Aptitude. The more natural ability you have with languages, the better your results will naturally be.
3. Ability to take on another persona. Early in your language learning, it’s very beneficial to imagine yourself in a native speaker’s shoes. Talk like him, act like him and, pretty much, try to be him. It’s a great way of internalizing usage of the target language and getting yourself accustomed to an important habit among successful second-language speakers: sounding and acting differently.
4. High tolerance for ambiguity. The ability to receive unclear input, yet continue to take a stab at it is crucial to learning languages. Half the time, communication you receive from native speakers will be ambiguous (your fault, since you’re not yet versed in the language). Being able to take that in and attempt to further the interaction is priceless.
5. Knowing yourself. The better you know the kind of learning styles you prefer will ultimately determine how effective the medium you undertake will be. That’s why we frequently stress the importance of finding out how you learn best.
March 26, 2010
Everyone can learn a new language. Some, however, do it faster than others. Here are three factors that can play a huge part to boost your language learning speed
1. Better primary language learning material. If you enrolled in the most convenient class you can find or bought the first language tutoring software you found in Google, there’s a good chance you didn’t make enough effort to find the best available primary learning material for you. If your current one isn’t working as well as you hoped it would, try reevaluating your choice.
2. A native-speaker willing to assist you. If you can find even one native speaker (or accomplished second-language speaker) willing to help you, that can improve your learning capacity by leaps and bounds. Pay them if you have to. The amount and depth of language learning activities they can add to your arsenal is way beyond valuable.
3. Stronger discipline. Some people are just better students than others and, most of the time, the underlying factor comes down to discipline. Can you stick to your regular schedule or do you frequently find yourself putting things off? Are you fully present when it comes time to study or does your focus drift somewhere else?
If you can have those three things in your arsenal, there’s little to stop you from advancing your language learning in an expedited manner.
March 25, 2010
Unfortunately for many intellectuals, languages are not like academic subjects. That’s why learning them usually doesn’t follow the same “sit down and listen” approach so prevalent in much of traditional schooling.
A language isn’t something that a person does, the way you would do science or math. Instead, it’s something that “happens” – an experience – between people. When individuals experience the world by themselves, it’s called perception; when they experience the world together, it’s called language.
To learn a language, you’ll have to join with people and experience it. Sure, you can sit in your room with your language tutorial software and stock up on elements of the language in your arsenal, but at some point, you will have to go out into the world to use it to truly integrate them into your set of skills. Don’t let that scare you, though. Communing with people doesn’t have to mean jumping in to foreign streets and trying to strike up a conversation with everyone that passes by.
When you sit with a speaker of the language in a room and you attempt to make out what they’re saying, you’re experiencing the language together. When your tutor points at items in a room and you tell them what that thing is in the target language, that already falls in line with that. There is a ton of value to be gained from preset lessons (such as those in a classroom or a language software). However, there are elements of language learning it just doesn’t satisfy that only communing with other people can.
March 24, 2010
Many formal language learning methods can be both emotionally and intellectually demanding.
The former is par for the course. It’s tough to stretch your comfort zones, interact in a new language and risk rejection without getting emotionally worked up. Being emotionally invested in language learning is, as far as current learning methods go, unavoidable. There are things you can to lessen the anxiety and negative feelings, though, from meditation to deep breathing to other types of mental health practices.
The latter, on the other hand, is only a prerequisites for some learning approaches. If you sign up for a course where grammar lessons and vocabulary exercises are the norm, then it becomes an intellectually challenge too. However, if you eschew those kinds of materials and go for less-structured methods (such as language tutoring software based on simulated immersion), you can easily remove the intellectual demands.
Some people prefer to be challenged intellectually. Others don’t. Depending on how you want to learn language, you should definitely make a choice whether you prefer one or the other. Both sides of that comparison can work, by the way, provided they are a good fit for what you’re willing to give.
Do you find grammar books especially daunting? Do you hate having to take notes, study textbooks and follow detailed instruction? Then look towards language programs that minimize intellectual demands. If, on the other hand, the intellectual aspects of learning make the emotional demands easier to meet for you, then you’re likely to benefit most from an approach based upon traditional instruction.
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