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.
Showing posts with label learn language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learn language. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2008
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Best Languages to Learn as an English Speaker
I’ve read some authors that bragged about how they can learn any language they set their minds to, regardless of cultural background, in a matter of months. While this seems unreasonable solely on the fact that it’s impossible to actually KNOW a language in that short a time span, the most outrageous fact that they claim is that they can learn languages at the same pace, regardless of what they’re actually learning. This means that in a few months, you could learn French and in that amount of time you could also learn Chinese. This is a rather silly thing to say come to think of it, since any language that isn’t at least related to English, not to mention having its own alphabet, scripts and specific grammar rules, will be tough as hell.
Ok, so we’ve established that languages like Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Arabic are hard to learn because they don’t use many of the values that Western languages abide by. But which languages are easiest for an English speaker to learn, in contrast? Let’s take a looksie…
German
German is by far the easiest language to learn if you’re already familiar with English, since the two are closely related, having the same Anglo Saxon ancestry. Many German words are very similar to English ones (haus – house, maus – mouse, etc) which makes it a lot easier to understand the German vocabulary and also pick things up from the context they’re placed in. However, one of the biggest problems with learning German (actually this is probably the ONLY problem) is the word combinations that are usually formed in conversational German. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, here’s one of the longest words in German and its meaning:
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz means “Beef labeling oversight transfer law”. Admittedly, it will be hard to spot the actual words in there (beef = rind, fleisch = meat, etikettier = label, etc) but believe it or not, for a German that actually makes sense. I could hurt your eyes even further with worse examples, but I’ll just keep it at that.
French
Well French is considered a language that’s easy to digest by many cultures, not just by English speakers. French has a lot of influences from English but in turn, it influences it back. The numerous wars between France and England throughout history sparked this cultural exchange. Although English has an Anglo-Saxon background and French is mainly a Latin language, there’s still a lot of resemblance in the two, as they share the same language layer created by nomadic tribes like the Celts or Gaels.
Spanish
Spanish might not have that much in common with English as the above mentioned languages, but it’s easy to learn because it’s an international language that can be picked up from the TV, music and newspapers. In addition, if you’re an American, you’ll have a lot of Spanish-speaking neighbors that you can engage in conversations with and that will help you out when learning this new language.
Ok, so we’ve established that languages like Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Arabic are hard to learn because they don’t use many of the values that Western languages abide by. But which languages are easiest for an English speaker to learn, in contrast? Let’s take a looksie…
German
German is by far the easiest language to learn if you’re already familiar with English, since the two are closely related, having the same Anglo Saxon ancestry. Many German words are very similar to English ones (haus – house, maus – mouse, etc) which makes it a lot easier to understand the German vocabulary and also pick things up from the context they’re placed in. However, one of the biggest problems with learning German (actually this is probably the ONLY problem) is the word combinations that are usually formed in conversational German. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, here’s one of the longest words in German and its meaning:
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz means “Beef labeling oversight transfer law”. Admittedly, it will be hard to spot the actual words in there (beef = rind, fleisch = meat, etikettier = label, etc) but believe it or not, for a German that actually makes sense. I could hurt your eyes even further with worse examples, but I’ll just keep it at that.
French
Well French is considered a language that’s easy to digest by many cultures, not just by English speakers. French has a lot of influences from English but in turn, it influences it back. The numerous wars between France and England throughout history sparked this cultural exchange. Although English has an Anglo-Saxon background and French is mainly a Latin language, there’s still a lot of resemblance in the two, as they share the same language layer created by nomadic tribes like the Celts or Gaels.
Spanish
Spanish might not have that much in common with English as the above mentioned languages, but it’s easy to learn because it’s an international language that can be picked up from the TV, music and newspapers. In addition, if you’re an American, you’ll have a lot of Spanish-speaking neighbors that you can engage in conversations with and that will help you out when learning this new language.
Friday, January 11, 2008
The 100 Crucial Words
Reading Tony Buzan’s book, “Using Your Memory” a while back, he mentioned something that I found strange: people only use up to 100 basic words in conversational speech, the rest of them being fillings. The number seemed awfully low, but as the author explained his reasons for reducing this to 100 words, it started to make sense. Truth is, we could get a conversation going with just these words, although not a very good one. These 100 crucial words do not include technical words, adjectives or slang, obviously.
When you’re starting out with learning a new language, these 100 crucial words should be your base point. From there on you can build up on your vocabulary, work on your grammar and polish out your pronunciation, slowly eliminating all the mistakes that can affect your language learning process. But what’s the most efficient method of memorizing these words? Does the phonebook method actually work? Or is it better to try and learn them in context. I’d say both techniques work and both have advantages and disadvantages:
Phonebook Method Pros and Cons
The phonebook method basically has you learning words from a vertical list, just like you would learn the numbers from a phonebook. Each word should have its corresponding translation on the same line and you should read the list by focusing on each word and its translation at a time, for around 10 seconds and trying to push it in your memory.
Usually, language specialists recommend against using the phonebook technique when trying to learn vocabulary, because if you’re dealing with a large list of words, by the time you manage to actually go through the list, you will have already forgotten the words at the beginning. However, seeing how we’re only dealing with a list of 100 words, the phonebook might just work.
Contextual Learning Method Pros and Cons
Learning words by deducting them from their context is a great way to improve vocabulary, but when you’re dealing with such a small word base as the crucial 100, it might be harder to create the context needed. Instead, what you could do is take sentences consisting mostly of words from the 100 list and try to contextually understand the OTHER words.
Both methods work quite well with the list and some people even prefer combining the two for great results. Personally, I find that both have flaws and tend to try and learn vocabulary through more diverse means, but if you think traditional learning methods may apply to you, then the above mentioned techniques should hold most of your focus, at least for the first 100 words.
When you’re starting out with learning a new language, these 100 crucial words should be your base point. From there on you can build up on your vocabulary, work on your grammar and polish out your pronunciation, slowly eliminating all the mistakes that can affect your language learning process. But what’s the most efficient method of memorizing these words? Does the phonebook method actually work? Or is it better to try and learn them in context. I’d say both techniques work and both have advantages and disadvantages:
Phonebook Method Pros and Cons
The phonebook method basically has you learning words from a vertical list, just like you would learn the numbers from a phonebook. Each word should have its corresponding translation on the same line and you should read the list by focusing on each word and its translation at a time, for around 10 seconds and trying to push it in your memory.
Usually, language specialists recommend against using the phonebook technique when trying to learn vocabulary, because if you’re dealing with a large list of words, by the time you manage to actually go through the list, you will have already forgotten the words at the beginning. However, seeing how we’re only dealing with a list of 100 words, the phonebook might just work.
Contextual Learning Method Pros and Cons
Learning words by deducting them from their context is a great way to improve vocabulary, but when you’re dealing with such a small word base as the crucial 100, it might be harder to create the context needed. Instead, what you could do is take sentences consisting mostly of words from the 100 list and try to contextually understand the OTHER words.
Both methods work quite well with the list and some people even prefer combining the two for great results. Personally, I find that both have flaws and tend to try and learn vocabulary through more diverse means, but if you think traditional learning methods may apply to you, then the above mentioned techniques should hold most of your focus, at least for the first 100 words.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
5 Ways NOT to Learn a Foreign Language
Yes, I know it’s a weird title to use, but bear with me, I’m trying to make a point. I often talk to people trying to learn a new language and they complain that they’re using some popular methods and are not getting the results they paid for. They got the “Learn Russian in a week” book and, oh my God, after a week, they’re still at basic vocabulary (if at all). This sparked the idea to create this article, where I’ll talk about 5 very “popular” ways of NOT learning a foreign language and messing up your language assimilation process:
1. Playing by the rules with a blindfold – I’m not at all against popular learning methods, in fact we promote quite a few of the tried and tested ones on www.internetpolyglot.com . However, I do believe that not all learning programs are suitable for everyone. A lot of people will just buy a book, or get an online language course and wait for the cherry to drop right in their mouth. Truth is, you’re better off thinking for yourself than letting someone else do the thinking in terms of what’s good and what’s bad for you. Did you try some word games and they were fun and you felt like you learnt something in the process? Then continue to try them, despite the experts saying that they’re useless. Did all the language gurus tell you to study after a stepwise plan but it’s not working for you? Then simply take off the blindfold and study with the help of the methods that you feel are right.
2. Grammar obsession – This is so common it’s becoming tragically funny. People are perfectionists and they’re trying to get everything right from day one. I agree that works with many fields in life, but language learning is not one of them. Learning a language is something organic, something that can only be grown through experience. Being obsessed with getting the grammar perfectly from day one is a serious time waster, since you’re going to assimilate all the grammar rules naturally, while reading, listening or talking to someone. I’m not saying it’s not ok to learn the basic rules and think them through, just don’t overdo it.
3. The “I Must!” Theory – Setting yourself up with a learning plan from day one is definitely great: “1 hour per day, from 8 to 10 PM, I will study” is a solid statement. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to skip a day or two, or you need to use those specific hours. If you study just because “you must” do it, you’ll probably not have explosive results. Studying when you’re not tired, when your attention span is maximized and when there aren’t any distractions is the way to go. Being too obsessive about your language learning schedule is definitely a great way NOT to learn that foreign language.
4. Lack of Reviewing – Every now and then, you should test what you’ve learnt so far, or you might end up having more lose strings than you can handle. Learning for a whole year without reviewing what you studied every now and then is awful. You’ll think you know a particular subject, because, after all, you studied it, but when you’re faced to use it in “real life” you’ll notice that there’s no shortcut on the desktop for it. Constantly reviewing and testing what you learned is the key here.
5. Lack of Diversification – This is also related to point 1. If you find a method that works for you, great! But don’t focus strictly on that one. Try to diversify your language learning, make your exercises fun, try reading, listening, talking, writing or a combination of the above. You can very well learn a language without diversifying your techniques, but when you’re faced to do something that you didn’t study for, you’ll be in trouble. For example, you can definitely learn a language just by reading and writing it down, but when you’ll be faced with actually talking it, you’ll have wished you diversified early on.
Hopefully you’ll be able to avoid these mistakes if you start up on learning a new foreign language. Although there are other traps and mistakes you should worry about, I feel it’s the above 5 that have the greatest negative impact on one’s learning process.
1. Playing by the rules with a blindfold – I’m not at all against popular learning methods, in fact we promote quite a few of the tried and tested ones on www.internetpolyglot.com . However, I do believe that not all learning programs are suitable for everyone. A lot of people will just buy a book, or get an online language course and wait for the cherry to drop right in their mouth. Truth is, you’re better off thinking for yourself than letting someone else do the thinking in terms of what’s good and what’s bad for you. Did you try some word games and they were fun and you felt like you learnt something in the process? Then continue to try them, despite the experts saying that they’re useless. Did all the language gurus tell you to study after a stepwise plan but it’s not working for you? Then simply take off the blindfold and study with the help of the methods that you feel are right.
2. Grammar obsession – This is so common it’s becoming tragically funny. People are perfectionists and they’re trying to get everything right from day one. I agree that works with many fields in life, but language learning is not one of them. Learning a language is something organic, something that can only be grown through experience. Being obsessed with getting the grammar perfectly from day one is a serious time waster, since you’re going to assimilate all the grammar rules naturally, while reading, listening or talking to someone. I’m not saying it’s not ok to learn the basic rules and think them through, just don’t overdo it.
3. The “I Must!” Theory – Setting yourself up with a learning plan from day one is definitely great: “1 hour per day, from 8 to 10 PM, I will study” is a solid statement. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to skip a day or two, or you need to use those specific hours. If you study just because “you must” do it, you’ll probably not have explosive results. Studying when you’re not tired, when your attention span is maximized and when there aren’t any distractions is the way to go. Being too obsessive about your language learning schedule is definitely a great way NOT to learn that foreign language.
4. Lack of Reviewing – Every now and then, you should test what you’ve learnt so far, or you might end up having more lose strings than you can handle. Learning for a whole year without reviewing what you studied every now and then is awful. You’ll think you know a particular subject, because, after all, you studied it, but when you’re faced to use it in “real life” you’ll notice that there’s no shortcut on the desktop for it. Constantly reviewing and testing what you learned is the key here.
5. Lack of Diversification – This is also related to point 1. If you find a method that works for you, great! But don’t focus strictly on that one. Try to diversify your language learning, make your exercises fun, try reading, listening, talking, writing or a combination of the above. You can very well learn a language without diversifying your techniques, but when you’re faced to do something that you didn’t study for, you’ll be in trouble. For example, you can definitely learn a language just by reading and writing it down, but when you’ll be faced with actually talking it, you’ll have wished you diversified early on.
Hopefully you’ll be able to avoid these mistakes if you start up on learning a new foreign language. Although there are other traps and mistakes you should worry about, I feel it’s the above 5 that have the greatest negative impact on one’s learning process.
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 :)
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 :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
