MAKING IT FUN

People learn faster when it’s fun. Try learning a language now, but don’t just imagine grammar drills or vocabulary lists. There are several ways of incorporating games and recreational activities into your language course, and that will let you reinforce what you take up in class while making friends, discovering new things, and even watch a favorite movie on a weekend!

TALK TO FRIENDS…IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Reading about a language is useless if you don’t try to speak it and test your sentence structures and vocabulary in actual conversation. If you’re lucky you already know someone who can speak the language fluently: family, peers, neighbors, associates, or people from your school. Schedule language dates and speak that language when you’re out. Have dinner this Friday or have a party. It’ll be great! If you’re taking up Spanish you can even have a Spanish menu, with tapas and paella.

If your friends can’t speak the language then make friends who do. There are plenty of chances to do hat on the Internet. You have your pick of pen pal websites that will connect you to those who speak the language (they in turn want to speak to someone who wants to learn the language you speak fluently.

WATCH A MOVIE

Today’ DVD’s have language functions that let you switch the dialogue to major languages like Spanish, French, Chinese, German and English. Try watching your favorite Hollywood blockbuster in another tongue. You can also watch foreign language films. They are available at the library, or even at online stores. Your teacher can probably recommend a few.

Movies are not only fun and entertaining, but they let you see a living language: expressing ideas, moods, emotions, and moments. What a great way of inspiring you to a master it to a level that will let you understand the nuances and say more than “Where is the bus station?”

READ BOOKS, COMIC BOOKS AND MAGAZINES

Magazines often use big visuals and short text, and so are an excellent way of practicing reading in another language. You’ll find that most major magazines have a foreign edition while Reader’s Digest comes in almost every language in the world. Read the ads as well, or ask for mail order catalogues, flyers and brochures.You can also read books (again, most classics have been translated) and visit websites.

These reading materials can help enhance your vocabulary and can be a welcome escape from homework. While you won’t understand the material right away (magazine especially tend to use colloquial expressions, while literature can be quite full of idioms, metaphors and complex sentence structures)

Those who are just starting may enjoy comic books, which provide readers with plenty of context clues.

Learning another language is really an act of dedication, patience and perseverance. You need to practice and to really study the different sentence structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

You can do this by taking a class. A teacher will not only explain the concepts but will provide useful study materials. But how much you learn still depends on your own commitment to learn. Even if you enroll in a fancy intensive course with the best teachers in the world, you will have to practice after class. This will enable you to master the pronunciation, increase your vocabulary, and learn the different sentence structures.

It takes much patience and practice to imbibe the different aspects of language. However there are some tested tips that have helped other students learn laster and more efficiently. .

Choose the right school for you

Just because your cousin learned French in two months at a particular school doesn’t mean you will have exactly the same kind of experience. The teaching method of the school must be matched according to your learning style. If your personality and natural way of learning does not fit their curriculum you will discover that everything feels like an uphill battle. As one person described it, “it’s a lot like using your right hand to write when you are left handed.” Your cousin may have flourished in that school but if you do not have the same kind of temperament and learning method then you have to work doubly hard to learn everything.

Supplement the classroom materials

Teachers will provide grammar drills and vocabulary lists but remember that there are other ways of reinforcing what you learned. Read books, watch movies, and talk as much as you can to native speakers. You can join a language club or foreign language discussion group.
Study everyday

Language is not something you can learn overnight. Unfortunately many students try to do this by cramming everything before an exam. It is more effective to study at lest half an hour to one hour every day, twice a day. You can do this even if you are busy. For example, write down several irregular verbs on index cards and then carry them around. You can master a set while waiting in line at the grocery or while driving in the car. And of course, you can reinforce what you learn by reading magazines in another language or watching foreign movies.

Some students go to a class thinking that their brains are like sponges. They just have to passively sit there and take down notes and miraculously they will emerge from the class fluent in the language they are taking. Unfortunately what they discover is that they will take much longer to master the language. Months can pass before they even understand the basic lessons. They can fail exams and even the class. And only then do they wake up and realize that they have a problem.

And then there are the students who enter the classroom excited to learn. They actively participate and study the drills religiously. In other words they realizing that language learning is work, and they promise to work hard. They master the basics and realize learning becomes easier and easier as they go on, since they have become more familiar with the language. What kind of student are you?

Do you try to master each lesson?

It’s important to understand the basic concepts before proceeding to the next one. As language experts say, the process is sequential. If you don’t get one idea, you will be even more lost when the teacher introduces a more complicated one. Let’s say you are already confused by direct-object and indirect-object pronouns. Don’t let it pass. Go to the teacher after class and ask for additional instructional materials. Practice. Huddle with your classmates and ask for their help. Otherwise you’ll be utterly confused when you start learning reflexive verbs.

Do you find new ways of practicing?

Technically your homework may only be pages 57 to 75 of your grammar book. And then you do it. Are you done for the day? No! The really successful students know that as you understand a language, you have to practice it frequently, read texts and articles in that language, enhance your vocabulary. Don’t just stick to the homework your teacher assigned. Spend time on the subject matter. You can even get additional study materials from the Internet to reinforce what’s in your textbook.

Remember that language is about familiarity. By exposing yourself to other materials you become more attuned to the language and more attuned to it.