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.