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April 30, 2011
It may be cliché, but it’s no less valid: if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. That’s as true in your language learning as it is in other endeavors.
If there’s one advice we can send your way, it’s to always have a plan of attack for your language learning. Identify the different activities you will perform and create a schedule for each of them, so that you don’t spend your days making up activities on the fly. Similarly, set milestones for each week and month, so you can watch your progress.
Some students I know refuse to plan ahead since it feels like a waste of time. According to them, it’s hard to anticipate how lessons will go, especially if this is your first time learning a new language.
While that last part is true, it’s not a valid reason to not plan. Creating a plan helps you organize your language learning; not doing so leaves you having to improvise on the fly. When it comes to effectiveness, the former will always leave the latter in the dust.
The trick to planning is to keep the plan flexible. If your initial plan is off-base (e.g. your language software lessons are proving much more difficult than you assumed), you’ll likely realize it early — you can then rework the plan, change your activities and create a new schedule. That approach is much better than doing everything by the seat of your pants, which leaves you with no structure to follow and no guidelines to base your actions on.
April 28, 2011
Language learning will take some money. You’ll need to pay for lessons and learning materials, after all, apart from needing to have a good chunk of time to spare (which can equate to money, too, depending on who you ask).
Good news is, it need not be frustratingly expensive. If you spend your money wisely, all you’ll have to do is fork out for a few basic things — your hard work will take care of the rest.
- A primary language software. Review what’s available, then find the one that is best suited for your learning style and situation. For the most part, pricing for most full-featured language software are no more than $50 apart, so don’t skip one that you feel is a great fit because another title’s cheaper — good material pays for itself in the long run.
- Other costs. Apart from a primary language program, all other expenses, from books to videos to website subscriptions, can be considered optional. If you must pay for anything else, I recommend a membership to a language club with a chapter in your area. Having people you can practice with can help accelerate learning better than many tools out there, provided you keep up faithfully with your regular lessons.
April 26, 2011
Almost all intermediate language learners can now speak their target language a fair amount. While slow, they now have both the skill and confidence to interact with native speakers and be understood.
The next hurdle for most intermediate learners, whether they’re mastering French, Spanish or some other foreign language, is usually either of these two items:
- They’re still having difficulty understanding native speakers. If you’re in this situation, you probably just lack more practice interacting with native speakers — a common problem with learners whose primary conversation partners are fellow second-language speakers. Fortunately, there are many ways you can address this: go out and interact more, watch movies in the target language (making sure you understand the dialogue, of course), listening to songs and other similar activities.
- They still translate words and phrases in their head before speaking. This is a major problem for many language learners, whether they’re working with a private tutor or a language training software. The best way to remedy this problem is to continually practice thinking in the target language — that’s the only way you can begin to process thoughts and ideas without translating. It’s hard work and you’ll probably feel like pulling your hair a few times. Do realize it’s a necessary step if you’re aiming for real fluency.
April 25, 2011
Bored with your regular language lessons? It’s a normal phase to go through. There are many reasons why you may be feeling this way, though, and you’ll need to address the correct reasons if you’re going to get over this hump.
Some people can get bored because they do the same things over and over. You spend the mornings getting lessons from your language program and doing the exercises. At the end of the week, you then meet up with a study group to practice speaking and interacting in the target language. While that sounds like a perfectly reasonable schedule, boredom really could inevitably sink in.
In that case, a great way to get over the temporary snag is by upping the ante a bit. You know, make it a little more challenging than usual. Learning new words and memorizing them has probably become so par for the course that it barely makes you pay attention, so spice it up a little by raising the difficulty ever so slightly.
Problem is, how do you make your regular lessons and practice just a tad more challenging? One way is to do more in the same time period. If your language training software has you learning 10 new words per session, bump it up a bit by doing 12. Instead of doing just the allotted exercises, go back to past exercises and do them again.
Fact is, people engage their faculties best when the demands on them are a little greater than usual. Put in such situations, they also end up giving more than the usual. As long as the challenge isn’t over your head, it’s the very thing that will keep you from boredom.
April 23, 2011
While working with a language software is one of the best ways to learn a language, it can be a lonely undertaking. This becomes especially true when you’re devoting a hefty chunk of time to it every day, as some people do when they’re trying to accelerate their learning.
For many learners, the bulk of the time they devote to learning a language is spent working with their materials. Staring at a screen and interacting with software may not be the worst thing in the world, but it is a pretty isolating activity. The further you go into your lessons, the more you are likely to feel this.
That’s one of the distinct advantages of learning in a classroom setting. You get people to socialize with on a regular basis, even while getting your language training. Of course, the same medium does have its own limitations, but we’ll get to that another time.
Suffice to say, keeping yourself from burning out as a result of all the “alone time” you spend is part of the balancing act for students who use a language teaching software. The pressure to keep that from happening is on you, so you have to find ways to reach out beyond the confines of your computer — seek out practice opportunities, find learning buddies and do things that add an element of socializing to your language learning efforts.
April 21, 2011
I’ve been hearing about some people using Twitter for language learning lately. While I’m very skeptical about anyone’s ability to adequately acquire a language using a “140 characters at a time” medium, turns out there really are people attempting to use that social platform for helping others learn foreign languages.
For the most part, what I’ve seen are interesting secondary learning sources. You know, feeds that offer services like “word of the day” or “ask the language expert.” These are nice additions to any learner’s language suite. Don’t expect them to be helpful as a primary learning material, though — they aren’t designed for that.
Here are some ideas for extending your Twitter use as a language learning tool:
- Tweet in the target language. A couple tweets a day spouting a foreign phrase you learned is a fun way to apply new language items you pick up. Who knows, a fellow language learner might catch it and even start a Twitter conversation with you in the target language.
- Find other language learners. Search tags and other facilities to find other people interested in learning your target language. There are probably more people you can connect with than you’ve ever imagined.
- Subscribe to feeds from native speakers. At the least, this will give you instant material to practice reading skills in the target language. You might even end up making a friend or two.
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