#hsspanish

How to study for a language exam

How would I study for a French (or any other language) exam?

Well, that is not the easiest question to answer as it really does depend on what kind of exam you are talking about. It is certainly true that it is generally much harder to revise for language exams in a way that makes you feel really satisfied! This is because, by the nature of studying a language, there is always more you can know. I am a native English speaker, and I, by no means, know every word in the English language. As such…

Piece of advice #1:

Don’t stress if you don’t know something! There are always going to be ‘little things’ that you aren’t quite sure about or some piece of grammar that you’re uncertain about. 

Having said that, I obviously understand that it is incredibly frustrating when you think you know everything ahead of a test, and then struggle to answer or even understand some parts. As I have said, there will always be stuff you don’t know, so it is really a matter of limiting the amount of stuff you don’t know!

How can you do this?

Piece of advice #2: 

Be incredibly rigorous when you study. To me, it sounds like you are studying for your tests in a way that is allowing you to feel like you know everything you need, when you in fact don’t. So, you need to start to look for possible holes in your knowledge. When you study a piece of grammar, be sure to look up to see if there are any exceptions to that rule or any special cases you need to know about. 

Piece of advice #3:

Start a set of notes (they don’t have to be pretty) for new grammar nuggets that you pick up! Keep all of your grammar nuggets togeher and ensure that you know all of them.

Piece of advice #4: 

Check your work thoroughly, imagining it is your arch nemesis’s! Be extremely picky and really think about places you are likely to have made mistakes: agreement, verb conjugations and tenses, subjunctive/indicative etc. 

However, it is also possible that you are making little mistakes when you are writing French. Again, do bear in mind that a lot of French people make mistakes when they write French! However, there is one key piece of advice that you must follow…

Piece of advice #5:

Write what you know. Don’t write what you don’t know. If you try to use new vocabulary, expressions or turns of phrase in your test, the chances are you will get them wrong! Never try to translate from English into French, and then just write down the literal translation as many turns of phrase in English simply cannot be literally translated into French, and any attempt to do so will make no sense!

Piece of advice #6: 

Instead of translating literally, you should learn French phrases when studying for your tests (e.g. Je suis en train de… - I am in the process of…) that you can employ in any situation, to spruce up the quality and precision of your language. 

Piece of advice #7:

Be confident! This is one of the best pieces of advice I can give you. Learning languages is all about confidence. When you write or speak, you need to be critical of yourself, looking for possible mistakes, but you also need to have confidence in your own ability and in your own knowledge. If you’ve learnt grammar rules or new vocabulary, be confident that you can now use them correctly!