Learning a new language can be good for many reasons. Whether you are studying French, Spanish, or Chinese, learning a new language can be difficult. Here are some methods that worked for me, which I hope you will find useful. Before you know it, you'll be dreaming in your new language!
1. Don't only memorize
vocabulary.
The beginning language learner should aim for functional communication. Knowing 100
nouns in Italian is nearly useless if you cannot give your words action. Many language learning resources
will have you believe that being able to say "The ball is under the
car," is an important lesson for beginners. I disagree. There are many more
functional phrases the beginning speaker should learn first. As your functional
communication skills increase, filling in the holes along the way will become
easier and easier.
Hypothetical Scenario: You just found out that you
have to fly to Germany tomorrow and you don't speak a single word of German.
You only have time to study a few words in German before you have to leave.
Which word list below should you choose to study?
List A:
plane, food, sleep, money, passport
List B:
want, have, go, is, need
In this case and in most
cases, I recommend studying List B. Consider being in Germany after
studying List A. You can say five words. That's it. Conversation stops there
because all you have done is said a single word, after which no further message
can be added.
Now look at List B. You can use the single word
"want" to convey that desire about any number of objects in a German
souvenir shop. Body language is similar across many cultures (though I
recommend looking into this further before traveling to avoid potentially
offensive gestures). Learning to say "need" offers you the
opportunity to gesture that you need sleep or food.
Of course, this is a hypothetical scenario. To fully benefit
from the words in List B, I recommend adding a few other key words to your
vocabulary. Words like this and it, which will allow you to then point
to anything and everything and say "this." Forget learning 1,000
nouns. Focus your early efforts on a few key verb conjugations (I am, she is,
etc) and then add fancy nouns, adjectives, and prepositions, as you learn them.
This will result in more functional basic communication.
In addition, every time you add a new vocabulary word to
your repertoire, you will be able to do so much more with it! If you know the
words in List B and then you learn the word "car," you can now say want car, need car, have car, etc.
By focusing your early efforts on learning key functional language, you will
optimize your opportunities for communication. You will be surprised at how
quickly you can begin to understand and
speak back in your new language!
2. Don't forget to
use what you already know.
Believe
it or not, you know a lot about every single language spoken in the
world! Languages have been shown to develop similarly across cultures and
continents. This means that hundreds of years ago, when international travel
was much less common, the rules of language still developed in Asia as they did in Africa.
All
languages have defining features, such as intonation, which can help clarify
communication. For example, when I first arrived in France, I literally couldn't
understand more than a few spoken words. However, the voice inflection at the
end of sentences let me know when someone was making a statement or asking me a
question, in which case I was expected to respond. I remember initially spacing
out when someone would talk to me because I understood so little, but as soon
as I heard the inflection change, I would piece together a basic response. This
one simple cue allowed me to participate (however minimally) in conversation
which, as you will read later, is extremely
important.
3. Don't underestimate
your English vocabulary.
This
will generally be more helpful when learning Romance (Latin-based) and Germanic
languages, but there may be similarities you can find in other languages too,
especially since many languages use the English words for certain technology, such
as cell phones.
For those who are less familiar with language origins, I
have included a list of some of the Romance and Germanic languages, along with
some English similarities.
Romance Languages: French,
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Occitan
Germanic Languages:
German, Yiddish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Afrikaans
English Words Found in Other Languages (Cognates)
|
French
|
Spanish
|
German
|
restaurant
|
acento
(accent)
|
all
|
sandwich
|
familia
(family)
|
fair
|
garage
|
salario
(salary)
|
Alkohol
(alcohol)
|
photo
|
telefono
(telephone)
|
Maschine
(machine)
|
intelligent
|
radiante
(radiant)
|
Parade
(parade)
|
excellent
|
danza
(dance)
|
Ring
(ring)
|
As you can see, there are many words you already know or could easily figure out in your new language. These words are called cognates. More French cognates can be found here. Click here for more Spanish cognates. More German cognates can be found here.
4. Don't waste opportunities to communicate.
This is extremely important when you're learning a new language. Talk with anyone and everyone you possibly can who speaks the language you are learning. Complete immersion in another culture where the target language is spoken is usually the fastest way to learn a new language. By being completely immersed in French culture as a foreign exchange student, I was able to understand most of what I heard after just four months. After six months of complete immersion, I was able to say mostly everything I wanted.
Of course, complete immersion is not usually the primary option for most new language learners, which is why it is important to take advantages of opportunities to communicate with speakers of the language you are trying to learn. Join a Korean language club, or make international friends online. Human interaction is not always an option, which leads us to another "don't."
5. Don't only use one form of language input.
One of the best things I ever did for my French skills was to buy the CD of a French music group that I liked called Kyo. They were popular at the time and always on the radio. I liked a few of their songs well enough to purchase their album and, although I did not know it at the time, that CD is one of the best purchases I have ever made.
Listening to music reaches us on a level that spoken language does not. For example, most individuals who have a stutter when they speak will not stutter when singing. Some children with delays in language acquisition have been shown to respond to melodic language therapy. Do not underestimate the power of music. It is the universal language.
Here is what French music did for my language skills: I began to sing along with the songs and imitate the singers which further exposed me to the French accent and offered me a valuable opportunity to improve my own accent. After singing the songs for awhile, I really wanted to know what the words meant, so I began to translate. This was a very tedious process, as I had only been in the country for about two months at this point and my language skills were still very limited. However, translating the songs gave me an immediate and reachable goal.
I was no longer tackling the daunting task of learning the entire French language. Instead, I only had a few songs to translate. The songs exposed me to words to which I had not yet been exposed. My curiosity about the meaning of the songs turned into a language lesson that I could enjoy. After translating the songs word by word, I was then able to sing the songs with new meaning and purpose. Some words were hard to say, but it became an exciting challenge each time a song would play to see if I could say all the words correctly this time around. Unknowingly, I had become my own French tutor, and you can do the same and have fun doing it.
6. Don't be afraid to make mistakes.
It will happen. You will not be able to communicate in your new language as you do in your native language for quite some time. You may have to say some things differently because you don't yet know a word. If you are really nervous about making mistakes, try talking with a child. Even though his accent was better than mine, my six-year-old host brother was the only person with whom I could have a stress-free conversation in the beginning.
7. Don't ever think you are done learning.
Do you know every word in the English language? I feel that I know a lot, yet there are still many English words I have never heard before. This will also be true with the new language you learn. Even after two years abroad, I would still occasionally encounter a word I did not know, and I would expect the same to be true for you.
8. Don't forget to dream in your new language.
If you continue working on your language skills, you will reach a point where you will begin to think in the new language when you are speaking. That is, when I am talking in French, I am thinking in French at that time. When I first began learning the language, I had to take time to translate and think about what I was going to say. Just as you think in English when you are talking in English, so you will think in your new language when you are speaking it. Then one night you will dream in your new language, and you will realize it was all worth it.
Since learning French, I have applied these techniques to many other languages, including Russian, Croatian, and German with great success. Once you "unlock" the first new language, it becomes easier to learn more! Good luck with your language endeavors. I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Are there any techniques that have worked for you when learning a new language?
#foreignlanguage #secondlanguage #studyabroad #exchangestudent #french
There are roughly 2,000 languages spoken in Africa’s
fifty-three countries. About 40% of these are spoken by communities
of less than 5,000 people, and about 70% of these are spoken by less than
100,000 people. It is important to note that just because a language has a
small number of speakers does not mean it is endangered, but often this may be
the case in Africa. Language death is
inevitable for many of these African languages.
The question is will they become extinct in a hundred years, or thirty?
