Once you have chosen a foreign language to learn and started classes, or purchased or downloaded some materials, what are some ways to make learning your new language easier and more effective? (Need help choosing a language or materials for learning? Check this article!) Having taught German and Spanish to both children and adults, I am familiar with the difficulties and stumbling blocks that you may run into. Here are five strategies that will boost your learning power, and help you become a fluent speaker before you know it, no matter what program you are using.
1) Listen to your new language
When you are just starting to learn your language, it is important to get your ear used to its sounds. A foreign language will have sounds and clusters of sounds that are quite different from those of English. One of your first tasks is to learn to “hear” these differences, so that you will be able to mimic them as you learn to speak the new language.One of the reasons that people have trouble pronouncing foreign language sounds is that they don’t really recognize the different sounds when they hear them. To accustom your ear to your new language, you will need more than just the CDs or other instructional materials that you may have. Finding TV programs, pod casts and/or radio broadcasts in your language to listen to is the best way to expose your ear to the sounds of your language, because you’ll hear native speakers talking normally. You probably won’t understand a word at first, even if you’ve begun to study your language, but that’s okay. At this stage, you are just getting your ear used to the sounds. It may not seem like this could help, but it can really make a difference in your ability to make the sounds like a native speaker, and work you towards better comprehension. And remember, some of the sounds you’ll hear will seem impossible for you to mimic right now, but every human being is born with the ability to make every sound in every language. In fact, you did make all of those sounds when you were a baby! Only as you got older and began to acquire your native language did you gradually stop making those sounds. You can make them again if you start by listening to your new language as much as possible. Find a channel on TV that broadcasts programming in your language, and have it on in the background as you clean house or fold your laundry. Bring pod casts with you as you drive in the car, or have a radio station in your language streaming as you work on your computer.
2) Speak you new language
This seems obvious, but it’s funny how many people think they can learn a language without actually speaking it! Book learning has its place, but speaking a foreign language is a skill that must be actively done in order to build proficiency. It’s like tennis, for example. You might be able to learn about tennis from reading books and watching videos. You could learn all the rules, study up on who the current pros are and observe exactly how a good serve is done. But if you never get out on the court and play tennis, you won’t be able to do it! So how do you get speaking practice? It would be ideal if you know someone who is a native speaker who is willing to spend some time speaking with you on a regular basis. If you don’t know anyone, check in your area for adult ed courses, high schools or colleges where your language is taught, or social clubs and institutions such as an Italian-Americans club or even a Greek Orthodox church. Don’t be shy – ask in these venues if there is someone who’s willing to meet you for coffee once a week so you can practice your new language. This is something you should do from the very first week you start to learn – don’t wait! Of course, at first you’ll only be able to say “Hello, how are you?” and “My name is ___, what is your name?” But even exchanging a short conversation with a native (or proficient) speaker will be extremely valuable. If you schedule a weekly coffee meeting, it will also serve as motivation for you to be sure you learn at least a few new phrases by the following week!
If you absolutely can’t find someone to speak with, at least you should speak aloud to yourself on a regular basis. Buy some lessons especially made for your car, such as the Behind the Wheel series, and do the listen and repeat exercises over and over on your commute to work. (you may not want to do this in heavy traffic if it takes too much concentration – drive safely!)
3) Make Flash Cards
It may seem a tedious thing to do, but this technique works well when attempting to learn something that requires some rote memorization, like a foreign language. Make flash cards out of index cards by cutting the smaller sized cards in half so that they can fit easily in your palm and be tucked into a pocket or purse. Write your vocabulary word or phrase on one side, the English on the other. Then take them with you everywhere. A few minutes flipping through them while you wait in the dentist’s office, ride in the car (as a passenger!), or even stand in line at the grocery store will quickly add up to progress. Tuck them in your purse and flip through while you’re waiting for church to start. Stuff a handful in your jeans back pocket and test yourself in the cinema before the movie begins. Keep them on the coffee table and go through a few during the TV commercials. You get the idea. You should do both from English to your foreign language and from the language to English, by the way, and when going from English to the language, you should both say the word and spell it.
4) Listen to Music
See if you can find some music sung in your new language. If you’re learning Italian, for example, pick up a copy of an Andrea Bocelli CD, or grab the Gipsy Kings for Spanish, or Clannad for Irish Gaelic. Even if you’re learning a more obscure language, a bit of searching on the net and you should be able to find something that has songs in the language you are learning. (If you can’t find a CD, check youtube!) If it has the words on the insert, that’s great, or you can search on the net for lyrics to songs from the more popular artists. If you don’t have the lyrics to look at, that’s okay too. The main benefit to listening to songs in your language is that the words are often sung more slowly and distinctly than they are spoken, so you can hear native speakers pronounce the words at a pace you’ll be better able to mimic. Yes, mimic! As you listen to the songs, try to sing along! Just learn the chorus at first, and then try to add a few phrases at a time until you can sing along to the entire song. Do your best to mimic the sounds exactly, and practice, practice those that are difficult. Even if you have no idea what you are singing, the fact that your mouth is making the sounds and your ears are hearing them will combine in your brain to make you language learning progress more rapidly. Start with the slower songs, of course, and you may need to leave the faster ones for when you are an intermediate or advanced learner. This is because words sung to a fast pace are often shortened, blended into one another and just plain harder to hear than those in slower songs. This is something you can also do in the car, if you don’t want to expose those in your household to your singing!
5) Read and Write
This is the part that most people tend to find the least enjoyable, but reading and writing in your new language are important elements in becoming fluent. If your self-teaching materials have exercises or quizzes with fill in the blanks, write out the whole sentence instead. It takes longer, but the language will seep into your brain much better if you write out a whole sentence rather than just a word. Keep a language journal. At least three times a week, sit down and write whatever you are able in your new language from memory. When you start out, you may only be able to write one or two sentences, or maybe only a few random vocabulary words will come to mind. That’s fine, just do it regularly and make an effort to write more as you go along. It doesn’t matter what you write, as long as it is in your language, no English!! Don’t worry at all about spelling and grammar. The idea is to get you to think in your new language, the spelling and grammar will improve as you progress through your program.
Read a little bit every day in your new language. If you don’t have reading materials with the self-teaching program you’ve chosen, stop by a book store and buy something written in your language. Often you can find books with short stories, where one page is in the language with the facing page in English. These are okay, but if you buy these don’t make it the only reading material you have. Search Amazon for used text books that feature readings and short stories in your language. Sit down with your reading material and read a paragraph. Say it out loud as you read. Again, if you don’t understand it, that is fine. You’re hearing yourself speak in full sentences, and forming the words and seeing the spelling and sentence structure – all important to make your language learning easier and faster. When you have read your paragraph aloud, go back through and see how many words you can pick out that are either words you’ve learned already or cognates. (cognates are words that are similar to English because they come from the same origin, such as “coffee” and “café” or “delicious” and “delicioso”.) You should be able to spot at least a few, even in your first few weeks of study. Are there any words together that you recognize? Perhaps a phrase whose meaning you are able to decipher? Can you tell what the paragraph is about? If not, don’t sweat it. Settle for finding a few words in your paragraph, then read a new paragraph the next time. If you do this daily along with your program, you’ll soon find that you can make out more words, phrases, and then whole sentences.
These five techniques will serve to boost the learning that you are doing in your classes or with your self-teaching program. Remember, it takes dedication and practice to learn a new language and learn it well, but you can do it! Slow and steady wins the race, so be patient with yourself. Just try to do a little every day and don’t give up! With these learning strategies in place, plus some determination, you’ll soon be proficient in you new foreign language.