7 Tips Every Wannabe Polyglot Needs

Any craft or skill in the world has its pros and amateurs and many times, the difference between the two is not necessarily natural talent, or hard work, it’s knowing the secret ingredient that makes the recipe what it is. Make no mistake about it, language learning is pretty much the same: know the tricks, you win the game. Here’s a collection of 10 useful tips and tricks on language learning for any wannabe polyglots out there:

1. Get Over Mistakes

One of the most annoying drawbacks when learning a language is fear of using it. Whether it’s fear of not spelling something right in an e-mail or letter, fear of sounding funny when speaking it or something similar, you need to get over making mistakes! So what if they occur? It’s the only way you can improve your language skills.

2. Set Yourself Stepwise Targets

Don’t go all out and plan to be proficient in a language, in a certain amount of time. Just take it stepwise, try getting to a basic level in the first few months, then improving your vocabulary in the next, then your grammar, then your speaking and so forth. Break it down into small bits, so you don’t choke on the bite.

3. Get Over Apparent Lack of Progress

Language learning is a flow that may or may not keep a steady rise. You might find yourself stagnating at some points during the process and it’s these that are the hardest to overcome, because you feel like you’re doing nothing apparently. Get over it!

4. Interests First

Are you learning Japanese for business purposes? Or maybe learning Brazilian to be able to communicate with your hot new Brazilian girlfriend? Whichever the purpose, study the language as if you would for that particular reason. Don’t stumble on small mistakes, get those economical Japanese terms so you can have a basic conversation, then build up on those.

5. Build a Solid Foundation

Again, if you have a solid foundation you can build up on it quickly and without too much trouble. Get the basic vocabulary down: that’s around 200 words that are commonly used, including common nouns, verbs and adjectives. Once you grab hold of that, there’s really nothing that can stop you.

6. Revisions

Happened to each and everyone of us in school, didn’t it? You learnt some long list of verbs in French class, but when it was time to actually use them the second time around, at the exam, you forgot them. That’s why revisions are always necessary, don’t lie on your back as soon as you’ve gone through the exercises, vocabulary practice or lessons.

7. Have fun While Studying

It’s been scientifically proven that if we learn something while we’re having fun, our brain assimilates that information a lot easier and for a longer period of time. Spice up your language learning habits, play some vocabulary games, maybe use some flashcards, or learn together with a friend. Anything that you deem as fun, is probably going to help you loads.

Finding Motivation to Learn a New Language

Learning a language is a HUGE job and let’s face it, procrastinator or not, huge projects scare us. Learning a new language is also a long term deal, so there’s really no easy way out of this: you’ll have to buckle up and roll with the punches. There are however a couple of tips and tricks that a lot of people use in order to find that motivational spark to language learning and I’m going to try and share them with you in the next few minutes.

Taking Things One Step at a Time

Whenever we take up on a huge job, it seems a little bit easier to do if it’s broken down into several parts. It might just be an illusion, because after all, the time and effort invested in the smaller parts will probably be equal to what you would invest if you would run the project heels to head, but it’s how our mind works and it’s how motivation gets pumped up. Imagine a language as a…sandwich. You have your bread, your mustard and ketchup, your baloney layer and of course, the tomatoes. In terms of a language, that’s vocabulary, grammar, spelling and speaking. Take your time to prepare each of these ingredients before even daring to drool about the sandwich itself.

Picking up Words from Your Environment

Chances are the language you’re learning is a somewhat popular one on the international stage and there’s plenty of opportunities to pick up new words and expressions from around you. Movies of course, are a great inspiration for French, Spanish, German and Italian. Wanna learn some Italian? Pop in The Godfather and try to repeat what the characters are saying (granted, you’re probably going to utter some nasty words). How about German? Well, pretty much any World War 2 movie will feature some native Germans speaking (Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan come to mind). And the examples could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. Yes, TV can dumb up people at times, but it can also help you turn into an efficient polyglot.

Motivational Posters!

Some people trying to lose weight will place motivational posters in or around their fridge with stuff like “No Cake for You Today!” or “Taste lasts for an instance, fat lasts FOREVER!”, etc. Well, although it’s an extreme method, it works. Maybe make a couple of posters saying “Have your learned your 5 new words today?” or whatever you find motivational. Trust me, as stupid as it sounds, it’s an effective way to make yourself feel guilty about not learning the language you’re aiming for :). Good luck!

The Best Language Learning Practices - Divide and Conquer

The Roman Empire’s battle philosophy was that no war should be fought heads-on, but rather the territories that were about to be conquered, or the forces that were about to be taken on should be divided and conquered separately. Well, language learning might not necessarily be a war, but it’s definitely a battle with a force to be reckoned with. Many people quit after the first months, or even weeks after starting a language course, because they’re overwhelmed by the complexity of this task. Obviously, it can and WILL get overwhelming if you take a language heads-on, that’s why the Roman tactic of divide et impera is a great way to get a hold of it.

First off, you should break down the language you’re trying to learn in components. Not all languages will have the same components and not all components will have the same difficutly. For example, learning Japanese will obviously have more elements than learning French, because you’ll have to learn the alphabet, gender structure and writing style in addition.

Some common language components include:

Grammar – the glue that keeps a language together. Learning grammar is a structured process and leaves less room for natural assimilation.

Common Nouns – A good part of a language’s alphabet is made of common nouns. People only use around 10% of a language’s vocabulary and most of these are nouns: common nouns.

Common Phrases – this part of the vocabulary is something that could really get you started in a new language. Oftentimes, we start our learning process by memorizing simple phrases like “hi, how are you”, “thank you”, “what’s the time?” and the likes.

Numbers – numbers are another good way to start off and they have the advantage of being memorized in a particular order, making them easier to remember, through association.

Alphabet – even sister languages might have alphabet differences and it’s important to learn of these small variations right off the bat. Obviously, trying to learn german and it’s few new letters won’t be nearly as tough as learning Russian, or Chinese; languages with a completely different alphabet, with completely different sets of rules.

So, take each of these components one step at a time and handle them individually and you’ll notice it makes a world of difference. The trick is that while learning one individual component, you’ll also be practicing several others, so you’re attacking your objective on several levels. Good luck, soldier!

5 Ways to Improve Your Vocabulary

I won’t give you the whole “each word in a language’s vocabulary is a brick that works towards building up the entire structure” kind of speech again (I did it in another post on the blog), but I have to emphasize on the fact that without a proper vocabulary base, it’s a lot harder to learn the other components of a language: grammar, syntax and even spelling and pronunciation. Since a lot of modern courses and exercises (including some that you can find on www.internetpolyglot.com ) focus on vocabulary so intensely, I thought about making a list of 5 of the most important techniques that you could use to increase your word count and make your vocabulary in a foreign language flourish.

Repetition

Our memory can be quite a rudimentary process at times and the only way we can get things (literally) in our head is by repeating them over and over again. Repetition can be helpful for assimilating harder words that you wouldn’t be able to pick up from context in a sentence, or if you’re using the phonebook method (having a list of words that you want to learn and trying to memorize them top to bottom).

Contextual Assimilation

Whenever you read a text in a foreign language that you’re studying and you find a word that you don’t understand, try to pick up its meaning from the context it’s placed in. The same process can be put to work when watching a TV show in that particular language.

Personal Relevance

Our memory, again, works in very mysterious was sometimes. It seems that the memory has an internal parsing process that blocks out information that is not personally relevant. For example, if you’re not especially interested in koala bears, watching a show on Discovery about them won’t allow really get you a lot of information, because the subject is not personally relevant. However, seeing Rex Hunt’s Fishing Adventures (with you being a huge fishing fan) will stock in a lot of information on the subject because, you guessed, this time it’s personally relevant. If you can make words personally relevant, you’ll also learn them better. This is where association and mnemonics kick in.

Visual Imagery

We store information a lot faster if it is transmitted to us via a visual signal than if it’s written or heard. Some may argue that in fact writing makes use of visual memory, since the characters you use in writing are graphical symbols. True, but it’s better if you associate words with objects that can be traced with more ease. Use flash cards if needed with this learning technique.

Word Games

Did you know that children learn words almost 30 times faster than an adult? That’s because children, at an early age, are actually “forced” to learn new words, in order to communicate. Obviously, as an adult, this need slowly fades away, which also degrades the word assimilation process. In order to hasten up your language learning, you could try and go back to being a kid and play some word games. These include puzzles, translation games, scrabbles and many others. You can find a lot of these fun word games at www.internetpolyglot.com .

How to Learn French the Easy Way

French is one of the easiest languages to learn as an English speaker. Is it? At least that’s what all the experts are saying, but on the other hand, not everything that applies in general is bound to apply to you. Some have it easier learning Japanese than French, simply because they can’t stand the language’s “softness”. If that’s not your cup of tea, then I suggest that you step off the French course and hop on to a Russian or German one, as those languages are definitely tougher and more rigid.

One of the first things you need to do in order to learn French properly is immerse yourself in the language. By spending more and more time reading in French and listening to French words, your brain will automatically try to mimic the informational input that it’s getting. Just like a baby, you’ll need to adapt to the new language, memorize the words and try to reproduce them. Can you say Ma-Ma? Don’t worry, you’ve been through this process before when you were a child and although adults lose their ability to learn languages as they grow older, you’ll still have the advantage of being there before.

From a grammatical point of view, French is not all that much different from English or any Western culture language (Latin or Anglo Saxon). Just like with German, French and English have several look-alike and sound-alike words, called cognates. Admittedly, the number of cognates in French is not as big as in German, when relating to the English language, but still, the few that are there make for a good building point.

One of the biggest problems that English speakers stumble upon when learning French is word pronunciation. Like I said earlier, French is a “smooth” language, words are pronounced in a much softer way than in English. It’s usually rather difficult for an English native to adapt to these pronunciation rules, so you’ll require a lot of practice. And don’t be content with the fact that you’re listening to French words being pronounced; you should also voice them out yourself. Don’t worry; no one will think you’re crazy if you talk back to your TV, if it’s for the purpose of learning French.

My suggestion is this: find a great online French course to work with, try it out for a couple of weeks and see where your starting point is. Are you a complete French newb that needs to take things slow in order to understand things? Or are you the type of learner that can skip a few chapters and still learn the language properly. Once you’ve settled this out, you can start with increasing your vocabulary (you can find several methods to do so at www.internetpolyglot.com ) . Good luck!

The CUTE Way of Learning Languages

In a guide written by Greg Thompson and his family, they talk about 4 main principles that make learning languages a lot cuter. The CUTE technique is called so because the acronym stands for 4 of the most important elements that come into play when learning a new language:

- Communing
- Understanding
- Talking
- Evolving

Let’s see what Greg was talking about and how you can benefit from these CUTE principles.

Communing

Communing refers to working with others towards learning a specific foreign language. This principle is based upon the belief that a language is not something that can be studied scientifically, but something that can be grown organically and only in collaboration with other flesh and blood people.

I agree that a foreign language cannot always be learnt by reading textbooks. However, while learning organically does have certain advantages, you can easily go overboard and get used to a lot of common mistakes that people usually slide by in conversations.

Understanding

This might seem like a no-brainer (and it is!). Of course understanding what people say will help you learn a language faster. The trick is to “understand” words that you don’t actually understand. Confused yet? What I’m talking about is picking up new words from sentences that you understand and deducing them from their context. For example, if someone says “words are harder to remember because they are long” you will have learnt a new word, by deducing what adjective means from the context. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Just make sure the context processing mechanics are well in place for when it does work.

Talking

This third principle is actually a third step in language learning. After understanding and being able to “think” in a foreign language, it’s time to start talking. You’ll be surprised to find out that it’s actually harder than it sounds in your head. Many times, when you’re faced with the need to speak in a foreign language without prior practice, you’ll think that it won’t be a problem, because in your head, you can “talk” perfectly. Your mouth and your brain will think otherwise when you’re actually going to start talking.

Evolving

This is not necessarily a requirement in learning a language, but rather a requirement if you want to keep up with that language and where it’s heading. A language is organic in nature, it changes, it adapts to current social standards, and it metamorphoses along with its speakers. Knowing how to evolve at the same pace with the foreign language you’ve studied is important, although not as CUTE as the other three factors I mentioned above.

Obviously, these principles need to be backed up by months, if not years of practice, exercises and studies. A language can’t be learnt in 10 days, despite what all those crappy language guides say. At least not if you’re serious about it and want to have control over that language, not just learn the basic vocabulary and be off to something else.

Finding the Time to Learn a New Language

I can’t stop smiling every time I browse the Internet or visit a local book shop and see those “Learn Chinese in 10 days” types of guides. It’s just silly, but people still fall for it, because learning a new language is a rather time consuming project and we’re all looking for ways to make it shorter. But seriously, 10 days? Anyway, if you’re looking for methods to cut down your learning to a couple of weeks, simply don’t. There are none. Your best bet is to try and structure your time so that you can learn over a longer period of time.

I’m a strong believer in online learning (obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t have started www.internetpolyglot.com ) and from the perspective of time consumption, it’s probably the best you’ll get. Sure, face to face language courses can be very useful, but they require you to relocate and for the most part, you can’t set your own time schedule. It’s difficult if you have to go all the way to a course when you’re feeling down and you’re not in the right move to learn. With online learning, you can simply put down the mouse and pick up from where you left earlier when you’re in the right mood again.

My suggestion is to break down your learning session in short chunks, over a longer period of time. Instead of hauling all that new information in your head 6 hours each day for a month, you’re better off taking smaller bites, say 1 hour each day, for 4-5 months. If taken in smaller chunks, information can be stored more easily and you won’t have to worry about learning saturation, tiredness or information overload. Don’t subestimate this aspect, having fun (or at least not feeling stressed out) during the learning process can do wonders.

At Internet Polyglot, we also focus on the fun aspect of language learning as a means to get information across and stored. Anything that’s fun in learning can be done in 10-15 minutes, such as playing a short word game, vocabulary quizzes, using some flash cards or playing language related puzzles. If you don’t have a lot of time at hand or if you’re just not feeling in the mood to start with an online course, those 15 minutes of playing during your lunch break will still be helpful. Obviously, the learning frame will be longer, but then again, it’s not like you put a lot of work into it :).

The only disadvantage of Internet language learning from a time-wise perspective is the many distractions that can appear on a computer. Instant messaging, online flash games, social networking sites and whatnot. They can all be very time consuming and they can easily redirect you from learning to wasting time. My suggestion is that whenever you start learning, regardless if you plan on doing it for 15 minutes or 1 hour, you turn off everything that can be a distraction. Close all tabs of addicting websites and try to fight to urge to “just check up on them” for the next hour. Close MSN, Yahoo Messenger or AOL so that no one bothers you. Myspace, Facebook and hi5 won’t miss you if you’re gone for an hour either :)

Top 5 Reasons to Learn Spanish

With around half a billion speakers world wide, you wouldn’t expect Spanish to be the subject of a “Why learn” type of article. Still, numbers aren’t always everything and some of you might want some more specific advantages of learning Spanish. Personally, I had great advantages from my Spanish language skills and throughout time, I noticed that a few patterns apply to people who learn this language. Most non-native Spanish speakers are people who travel a lot. Some of them learn it because they want to, others learn it due to necessity. But let’s assume you’re learning for fun, for the time being. What would be the main 5 reasons that could convince you to start up on Spanish? Let’s see:

1. Spanish is Easy – No, seriously, it is. It’s actually one of the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers. Spanish is quite common throughout the World and ever since you were a child, you were exposed to the Spanish language on TV, radio or, in some parts of the United States, in the community. This makes it a lot easier to learn the language later on, since you already have the “ear” to learn it.

2. Spanish opens the door for other languages – it’s true, once you learned Spanish it will be a lot easier to go for another language with a Latin substrate. Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, anything that’s related to Spanish will be a walk in the park. These languages can be learnt using the same language patterns, so once you got the hang of how Spanish needs to be assimilated, you will find it quicker to adapt to its cousins.

3. Travelling – Obviously, if you travel to South America or Spain, you’ll need to speak Spanish fluently if you want to make it a pleasant stay. Otherwise you’ll be going to your hotel room with your arms aching every night, due to the extensive body language that you used throughout the day. People in Spanish countries aren’t particularly keen on learning English and you can’t ask that from them anyway. It’s you who’s visiting their country, so it’s you who has a duty to perform in learning their language.

4. Business Opportunities – Regardless if you’re from Europe or North America, there are some very rich neighbors standing right next to you. Mexico for the US and Spain for Western Europe are two markets that need to be tapped, because they offer huge potential. If you want to conduct business in Spain, Mexico or any other Spanish speaking country for that matter, you’ll make a great first impression if you can speak the language of the persons you’re dealing with.

5. Cultural Understanding – The Spanish culture has been incredible throughout history and Spanish authors have left behind hundreds of thousands of books filled with interesting information. However, information is lost during translation, so if you really want to enjoy a book from a Spanish author, you’ll learn the language and read the book the way it was meant to be read: in the Spanish language.

I hope I made my point with these advantages of learning Spanish. If you need a starting point for your language efforts, visit Internet Polyglot and start the ride!

5 Advantages of Being a Polyglot

I read on someone’s blog a while back a few journal pages where the owner made a sort of wish list for the next 5 years. Her main wishes were to learn 5 languages in the next 5-10 years, including Arabic, French, German, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. When someone commented on the post, asking why she wants to be such a big polyglot, she simply replied: to be a citizen of the World.

I agree that the only true way we can be citizens of the World is by knowing each other, our languages and our cultures but I’m sure there are many other reasons an individual would want to learn a foreign language or two and become a polyglot. Here are mine:

1. International Business – I-business is more common than ever nowadays, with the Internet allowing us to outsource, freelance and close deals overseas without too much trouble. Being a polyglot and being able to speak in the language of the person you’re working with, or the person you’re working for weighs heavily in how the deal will end. Remember, not everyone knows English and you shouldn’t expect others to speak your language if you don’t put at least some effort to speak theirs. Check out these free online courses if you’re planning on learning a new language.

2. Travelling Opportunities – How many times have you thought about travelling to a remote, exotic country, but worried that you’ll have a hard time there due to lack of communication? It happens everywhere, regardless if you’re going to a country in Africa, or somewhere in Europe. If you can’t talk their language and they can’t talk yours, you’d best learn body language. Or, you can take up these free language courses.

3. Personal Impression – Let’s face it, when you hear a foreigner coming to YOUR country and speaking YOUR language, I’m sure it tickles your ego a bit. The same thing would happen if you would travel to another country and the natives would hear you speaking their own language. It can really bump your image (positively) in a native speaker’s eyes.

4. Social Status – Does making a lot of money automatically make you a great person? No, because money can be the result of luck or theft. Does knowing 3-4 different languages earn you this social status? Yes, because being a polyglot is clearly the result of some hard work and you can tap in on that aura that you’ll be surrounded with, regardless if it’s simply to gain an edge in society, in business or at work.

5. Explosive Learning – Learning a new language is a tough process that involves both short and long term brain cells to work full time. The reason the first language is hard to learn is that we’re not used to the learning process itself. Most polyglots will find that it’s easier to learn their 3rd or 4th language than the first ones, because by the time they reach number 4, their language learning process is already in full motion and is capable of assimilating information much quicker, through the patterns you already established with the other languages.

Are these reasons enough to become a polyglot? I hope so. But even if it’s for one of the above reasons, or just for the heck of it, becoming a polyglot is a great achievement and something that is heightening for any human being. So if you want to become a better human and a true citizen of the World, start by learning a few languages to back you up.

Internet Trips That Perfect Your Foreign Language

It has been stated on numerous occasions and in most specialty books and courses that the best way to learn and to build up on a foreign language is to live in an environment where this language is constantly present. The most obvious choice would be to visit or even move in a country that speaks that particular language but this often involves great costs and requires that you sacrifice a hefty amount of time for the trip (staying there for 2-3 days won't help too much, obviously). However, there is an alternative that can get you surrounded by the language you're learning without involving the costs and time requirements of actually visiting a foreign country: the so called "Internet Trips".

Internet trips will have you surfing the Internet for a learning location that is completely covered with the foreign language of choice. Using your favorite search engine, you could type in a common phrase in that language and click through the various sites resulted, in search of one that has some interesting information to read, view or listen to. If possible, try looking for a site that is completely built in that language, with as little English as possible. You need to feel "abroad" on this site, so it needs to be as foreign as possible in what regards its content.

Forums are also a great place to arrange an e-trip on. It doesn't really matter what the forum's subject is, as long as everyone or most of the participants in the discussions on are speakers of the language you're learning. Getting involved in the discussions, or even simply reading what others have to say about a subject will boost your vocabulary and general knowledge of that language. However, please note that it's a common fact for forum users to use slang, grammatically incorrect expressions or even common spelling mistakes.

The third option is to visit a "live chat" channel using one of the various programs designed for this purpose, or programs that offer live chat channels as an addition to their real purpose. Amongst such programs, we can include the IRC, DC and all of their variations. Visiting such channels gives you a chance to dynamically engage in conversations with native speakers of the language you're learning, but the same hindrance as in the above mentioned forum case remains: grammar and spelling are often sacrificed in favor of faster typing or simply commodity on these channels. Not to mention that sometimes the chat can get overly trivial for no reason, so you might be building on the wrong side of the vocabulary :).

This said, I wish you a safe journey. If you're after a more focused location for the language learning subject, you can skim through the numerous sites offering such services. If you find the language you're learning amongst those covered by these sites, try combining them with the above mentioned methods to get a better overall experience of your trip :).