How to study foreign languages: a very brief guide
I’ve learnt/am learning Mandarin, French and German as foreign languages (and am no way qualified) but I hope this will be useful in some way :)
I’ve always wanted to study languages and come from a 3 generation language brokering household (and the problems that’s caused!) yet grew up as the lone monolingual in the sea of bilingual relatives, which has caused a lot of anxiety in the way of languages.
So the first thing is that you have to want to learn it, not just to do it for school’s sake. I’ve been in both boats, and the second one sucks. It makes it so difficult to learn, and trust me - it’s not worth it. Do it because you love it. Here are 700 reasons to learn a language! Personally, I do it so I can connect with a whole other culture. Being bilingual is my current goal. Ignore the ‘most useful’, ‘never going to use it’ etc. I really regret not taking up Latin and one of my mother’s biggest regrets is not taking Arabic. Just do it.
The number one thing to do is immersion.
Put little Post Its with the e.g. Japanese word for lamp on your lamp, for example. You may want to colour code these, or put a little key in the corner to tell you more about the word (case, declension etc.). There are premade ones here.
Make a colourful poster with some vocab/grammar rules and put it on your wall.
Listen to the music, embrace the culture (v. important!) perhaps with Youtube videos, TV or podcasts. This is great for picking up slang, accent and learning to converse.
Try thinking in the language!
Read in the language, even children’s books/fairytales or magazines! By way of books, it’s always a good idea to start with something you know, like Harry Potter. Try a reader or newspaper.
There are tons of free, great websites out there. There are classics but there are more fun ones, like Lyrics Training where you have to fill in the blanks of a song as you listen to it! (It’s actually really hard.)
Invest in a good dictionary (free/paper/online etc.)
Downloading a free dictionary in the language to mother tongue on your mobile/Kindle etc. is also possible.
If this is independently, try to stick to one course and supplement that, instead of jumping around several different courses. Once you get to a proficient level, you can start spreading yourself thin.
Second is to find a community. Self-learning with a book is all good, but find friends. Friends willing to test you, support you, chat with you in their native tongue etc. Go to meet ups, attend conferences or competitions. Rope your friends into doing it.
Thirdly, record. One of the most important things is vocab - and make sure you have it.
No matter if on apps like Duolingo, Quizlet, Memrise, Anki etc. or in personalised little colourful notebooks, this is important.
Maybe make flashcards to take with you on a bus ride!
Remember that vocab is like, huge so a step at a time - so do this every day if you want the best results. You want long term memory esp!
However, there are only a few hundred words you need to know for conversation. For a class, that’s another story. So if this is independent, you only need to learn the first few hundred most common words to be conversational.
You’ll need to know the writing system for this. From the very beginning, you need to start writing and thinking in the actual system, whether it be in Cyrillic or the Japanese writing system. Don’t depend on the Latin, if that’s what you’re used to.
Learn the pronunciation of each letter/combinations initially, which will help in pronouncing words.
Spaced repetition is the best way to learn vocab. Just learning lists won’t work in the long run. This is when apps become your friends.
Instead of translating words into your heads, try learn it as it is. When you learn vocab in your mother tongue, you match it to an image or scenario in your mind. Therefore, as you’re effectively relearning life, just start memorising vocabulary in pictures, not in e.g. English. So for flashcards, you may want to do it foreign language to picture/sentence scenario instead.
Although consolidation is great, don’t review too much. You’ll put yourself into a slump because you won’t feel like you’re going anywhere.
Know your grammar. Learn your rules until you don’t have to think about it.
#4 - remember that learning a language is like learning how to walk again. It’s hard. Don’t be discouraged (see number 2). Find motivation all around you and think of a goal. Don’t feel ashamed - native speakers love to help do things like Skype calls, you just need to let them help.
5) If you’re studying for an exam or doing this at school, keep a copy of the spec, required word list and the textbook by you when revising.
The most important thing is for the grammar to come naturally to you like your mother tongue so you can listen to what they’re saying instead of translating it in your head.
Remember that you’re ultimately learning for learning’s sake.
Don’t just stick to class resources, try many different things out there (see 1).
But as per usual, know your spec, today’s course outline, read ahead, take notes, ask questions, converse (all with a dictionary on hand).
But trust me when I say that if you just memorise your vocab list for the quiz, you won’t remember it by the time you come to exams. You have to consolidate, and the easiest way to do that is 1).
Ask your classmates to pool doing vocab, so perhaps one person do a few topics each (making lists/uploading to Quizlet etc.) so you don’t have to spend so much time doing it.
It’s quite difficult to cram, so don’t rely on it.
Your teacher will have a ton of resources and will only be happy to help. Don’t pay unless necessary.
SIX - PRACTICE but the normal studyblr rules apply e.g. breaks, water, atmosphere, scheduling etc. etc. (I can do an in depth post if you want it specific to langs). Also, learn from your mistakes. Not only do you write it out, saying stuff out loud is key. Voila - your golden ticket: speak it.
My mother is bilingual, learnt two langs for fun and one for uni. She likes her vocab done in tables, and her grammar done in topics, with loads of examples. She is a firm believer in travelling and practicing, rewriting etc. etc. I now use apps for my vocab as I have too much to rewrite and not enough time and I keep adding words to different topics and it won’t make sense. For topics, I do it Cornell style/outlining notes and for literature I just do it how I normally do lit - annotate in the book with flags and highlighting etc. etc. Don’t forget that this isn’t all your revision - the best way to make sure you memorise literature is past papers and asking yourself questions. And quotes. For lit guys, seriously - quotes.
Just remember learning a language is not just learning words, it’s part of a culture. Try something like ‘My goal is to try get a native to think I’m native too for 30 seconds’ (quite popular among polyglots) because that’s actually really hard! This will require some people watching - mannerisms, clothing etc. but that’s always fun! Make friends. Remember it’s the people that count. Find people on Tumblr or pen pals even to write to.
If you would like a more in depth post on any aspect (if you’re a beginner, or doing any exam) and I will post my notes and methods at some point if someone wants them. Also, I specialise in German if that helps anyone?