Every day I study languages. Yes, every day. I've found that the best way to keep studying is just to keep studying. When you let languages lie for even a few days, the start-up process can be rusty. So I made a rule with myself to study just a little each day. A little can be as little as 10 minutes - 5 minutes per language - or as long as 2-3 hours on days when I have a lot of time or I'm enjoying myself. But as long as I get that 10 minutes in, things keep moving along. Here is a bit about my daily study routine:
1. DUOLINGO Every day I go to https://www.duolingo.com/ and put in at least 10 minutes. I will never stop raving about Duolingo, because it's just that good and it's free. The system is simple. The lessons are bite-sized, so they're very good for people who are "too busy" to study a language; yet they are also thorough - covering reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as grammar, vocabulary and expressions. I study French, German and Spanish, but there are also courses in Italian, Portuguese and Dutch, as well as courses to learn English and a number of courses currently in development. Here are some pictures from the site:
2. READING The second part of my language study is reading. I don't do this every day, but some days I read in French or Spanish. I always read out loud. I think it's important to read out loud because it builds on speaking skills and calls attention to words which I need to look up pronunciations for later on. I also go to my dictionary every single time I'm not sure about a word's meaning. Now this is something I specifically tell my students not to do in their English classes. I encourage them to read for the gist, so they don't spend weeks trying to read one book or even one chapter. The thing is, though, I'm not on a time schedule. I actually do have weeks to spend reading one chapter, and the point of my reading is to learn new words and phrases. So I look up every single word or expression, and then I either write them down in my notebook or I write the definition into the book. Then, time permitting, I go back at the end of my reading session and re-read that section out loud, but this time I understand all the words and can cement them into my brain in context. I've learned and/or solidified a lot of vocabulary in this way, and my reading rate is improving. I recently finished reading a graded reader version of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and am currently working on "Harry Potter a l'Ecole Des Sorciers" as well as an article in French Marie Claire.Eventually I hope to add some German reading into my daily routine.
3. FOREIGN FILMS Watching foreign films is another way I work on language learning. It tunes my ear much more than using online lessons, since the speakers have different accents and often talk more quickly. There's also a lot more use of colloquialisms. I didn't learn the German expression "Genau" on Duolingo, but I sure heard it a lot in "Generation War" and "Die Welle." Similarly, the use of "genial" as "cool" in French didn't really register for me until I heard Julie Delpy use it three times in one conversaton in "2 Days in Paris." There's no way I'm ready to understand without subtitles yet, but I still feel there's value in this input. There's also value in getting a window into the cultures of other countries, although it's important to beware of reading too much into what we see through that window. Imagine if someone randomly selected 10 American movies and tried to understand our whole culture based on those!
4. OTHER METHODS There are a lot of other language-learning methods I'm eager to try in the near future. I came across these French podcasts recently, for example: https://nativefrenchspeech.com/en/articles_kind/Episode%20of%20podcast.They're a bit fast for me, but they offer transcripts as well, and when I have a little bit of time or when I'm going to do some house-cleaning I think I'll give them a try. Memrise can also be useful, though the lessons are user-created and therefore vary in quality. I'm also considering putting together a French club, or perhaps a foreign language club, in the fall. It'd be nice to gather some people together to speak in French, German or Spanish. Fortunately, my husband is also studying German through Duolingo, so I am able to exchange some conversation with him. For a variety of language resources for quite a few languages please see also this page: http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons I haven't had time yet to mine its riches, but there seems to be a lot of worthwhile stuff on the site.
In the end, no matter what tools you use, I think studying a language successfully simply comes down to a combination of desire and going slow and steady. If you study a language you truly enjoy and permit yourself to study just a little every day, I think you'll find success. But what if you hit a roadblock? It's important not to concentrate on how much you don't know. As a language learner you will hit points where you grow frustrated (endings of words in German make me a little nuts, let me tell you), but it's important to remind yourself how much more you know than you did before. Instead of thinking: "I can't say X in German" think "I can say Y." Yeah, I can't use the past tense yet, but I can order dinner, and I can tell someone I'm going to Austria. Could I do that one year ago? No. Hence, success.
Are you studying a language? What is your study routine? What are some web-sites and methods you'd recommend? Please share in the comments!
http://www.forvo.com/ provides recordings of native speakers pronouncing vocabulary words. This is particularly useful for me - someone who self studies - to get a real understanding for how a native speaker pronounces a word and not just how I think it should be pronounced. They sometimes even have multiple people pronouncing words, so that you can hear any potential differences in pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! Thanks for posting about it!
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