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May 31, 2011
If you’re just starting to learn a new language, more and more materials are focusing the lessons on memorizing complete phrases, instead of studying grammar or memorizing individual words. While that process sounds backward, it’s actually a logical sequence as it is how most second language speakers actually learn.
Remember survival phrases? Those are the basic foundation for most learners — specific phrases that will be useful in everyday life if you’re in another country. Memorizing them allows you to have a collection of situational language elements that you can quickly fall back on when needed.
Words Come Easy
When you memorize phrases and understand their meaning, it becomes a lot easier to discern what the individual words mean. You may not even need a dictionary — you can sometimes figure things out from context.
Similarly, grammar is also easier to understand when you already know a good load of useful phrases. That’s the way things worked with your native language, after all — you went to grammar school already knowing how to speak and relating the concepts (e.g. verb tense, plural nouns, etc.) to those, not the other way around. In fact, going the other route could end up more confusing than helpful.
May 27, 2011
Ever tried learning a new language before? If you failed at that early effort, you’re probably discouraged from trying to learn again. In fact, many people hesitant about learning a second language have cited that very reason for their reluctance — they’ve tried and failed in the past.
While your apprehension may be valid, previous failure doesn’t mean you’ll experience the same thing if you study a new language now. In fact, it’s more likely that your new experience will be very different.
Why? For the simple reason that the learning landscape has evolved a lot in the last couple of years. New language learners have plenty going for them these days.
- More choices in material. These days, you’re not just limited to classroom teaching, books and CDs. New mediums for learning have risen, such as language instruction software, that bring a whole different set of benefits to students.
- More advanced learning tools. Modern language software don’t just really on traditional grammar and translation instructions. Instead, many of them employ new interactive techniques that really hasten the learning process far beyond what you can accomplish with old methods.
- More free resources to use as secondary materials. Remember when you had to borrow books from the library to get free secondary materials like phrasebooks and dictionaries? That’s far from the case now, as you can literally find thousands of free resources online for practically any language.
- More practice opportunities. Gone are the days when you needed to find people in your area to practice with. With the social web, you can connect with tons of people to learn languages with, whether in person (meet-ups) or online.
May 25, 2011
As good as your language software might be, anyone studying a language can derive immense benefits from actual, real-world practice. In fact, some argue that you can’t truly learn a language if you don’t get to practice it in face-to-face interactions with people.
Finding opportunities for practice will abound when you’re in a country that speaks the language. Just befriend a couple of locals and you can likely practice your heart out. Things get a little more dicey, however, when you’re not. It’s not easy to find opportunities to speak Italian when you live in the middle of Nashville, after all. Or Russian when you’re living in Mumbai. And so on.
When you’re in a country that doesn’t speak the second language you’re learning, you’ll want to find ambient opportunities. By that, we mean throwing yourself in situations with slightly higher chances of being around people who speak it. That way, you can engage in small talk, chit-chat and even just a few greetings as a form of practice.
Here are some ideas:
- Cultural centers. If there’s a cultural organization in your area that caters to the nationality who speaks your target language, getting involved with them could really help you. Call them up and ask if they have any events coming up that you can attend, such as art exhibits and theater performances.
- Expat hangouts. Many hotel lobbies and bars are filled with expats of various nationalities. So will certain establishments that cater specifically to foreign clients. Hang out there and you might chance upon potential people to practice with.
- NGOs and volunteer groups. Many volunteer organizations are closely tied with specific nationalities. Do note that you will likely have to volunteer and do actual work for free.
- Ethnic restaurants. These types of establishments are regularly patronized by people from the foreign country the establishment is tied to. If you want to be around many Indians, try an Indian restaurant. Same goes for Japanese, Vietnamese, German and others.
May 24, 2011
One of the problems with learning languages on your own is that there are a million possible places to start. This makes it especially daunting for first-timers to begin, as they could very well be wasting their time focusing on vocabulary terms that would end up unused in their inventory.
It’s especially difficult since not all languages are the same. The equivalent of a very helpful common word in English, for instance, may be a rarely used element in another language, so a direct comparison isn’t the best route to take.
Fortunately, there are other ways to figure that out:
- Survival phrases. Go online and look for a language’s recommended survival phrases. Those words and phrases are recommended as “survival” tools for a reason — they’re an absolute necessity for anyone visiting the country.
- Phrasebook. Go to the “basics” chapter of a phrasebook and you’ll find the phrases that are likely to be of greatest importance there.
- Check your language software. As with phrasebooks, many language software include a “basics” or “essentials” section, which lists the barebones words and phrases all beginners should know.
- Going by parts of speech. This is actually my favorite, especially if you have some time to learn. The idea is to study words by the most common parts of speech. I suggest studying pronouns first, then prepositions, then basic verbs (as in, super simple action words), then adverbs of time, then adjectives. Nouns and more advanced verbs are things you can probably pass up, as you’ll eventually come across them during your language courses, readings and practice interactions.
May 23, 2011
Immersion is one of the fastest ways to acquire language skills. Being thrust in an environment where you’re forced to adapt can lead some people to make great strides in their language efforts.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that immersion is not for everyone. In fact, it brings its own share of problems. Make sure you know them before deciding that traveling to a foreign country and gutting it out with the locals is exactly what you want to do:
- It’s exhausting. Immersion is a lot of work, both physically and mentally. It thrusts you upon a high-pressure scenario where you’ll need to adapt, lest be left standing in a corner with nothing to do.
- It’s terribly frustrating during the first couple of weeks. Imagine being in a place where nobody speaks your language and all you know of theirs are ten survival phrases you memorized during the plane trip. Things as simple as ordering food and finding the nearest bookstore can lead to frustrating experiences.
- You can end up learning bad language habits. Immersion is an unstructured environment for learning — you can pick up just as much wrong things as you can correct ones. Without a teacher to watch over you, misheard phrases you use that go uncorrected are likely to be fossilized into semi-permanent habits. They’ll take a lot of work to undo.
May 21, 2011
One of the benefits of learning a language for fun is there’s no pressure on you at any point. In fact, you’ll have to create some pressure on your own, lest find yourself slacking off most times from a lack of actual incentive to study.
If you can motivate yourself to work on a daily basis, a 30-minute a day session should be ample enough training to help you gain decent facility within six months to a year. By 30 minutes, we mean that’s all you’re really going to put in — no extra readings while riding the train, no passive practice when reading the news and no checking flash cards every 30 minutes or so.
You can break that 30-minute training into something like this:
- 10 minutes for listening
- 10 minutes for reading
- 5 minutes memorizing a new word or phrase
- 5 minutes speaking practice
The idea is those 20 minutes you spend listening and reading stuff in the target language will get you hands-on acquaintance with how the language is used. The other 10 minutes, which you’ll spend memorizing a new word and speaking can slowly build up your stock of the target language.
This approach is far from an ideal if you need to learn a foreign language in a short amount of time (a language training software can help you better with that). If you want a relaxed, pressure-free language learning experience, though, this 30-minute plan can do it for you.
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