22 Tips to Learning a Language

I came across this article the other day and thought it had so much of what we have been building up in our company, as strategies for learning.  I just thought it would be fun to read the experiences of a non-company, secular writer, and find he is using many of our own strategies and having success in language acquisition.  I have his permission to copy his article, editing a few words.  Credits to the article below ...  (My comments red italic throughout the text)

"When I arrived in Buenos Aires in the beginning of 2010, I could barely order food in a local restaurant. Two years later, I calmly explained the mechanics of Russian grammar to a Guatemalan friend… in her native Spanish.

Today, I’m quasi-fluent in Spanish, conversational in Portuguese, and low conversational in Russian. I’m not going to mislead you in thinking it was easy or that there’s some shortcut. I worded hard. Honestly, I’ve seen the supposed “hacks” for language-learning, and none of them worked for me. It took hours of study combined with stumbling through many, many conversations.

Here are some language-learning tips I’ve gathered over the past few years:

1. Conversation, Conversation, Conversation. If there’s a “secret” or “hack” to learning a new language, it’s this: hours and hours of awkward and strenuous conversation with people better than you in that language. An hour of conversation (with corrections and a dictionary for reference) is as good as five hours in a classroom and 10 hours with a language course by yourself.

There are a few reasons for this. The first is motivation. I don’t care how cool your study guide is, you’re going to be far more invested and motivated to communicate with a live person in front of you than a book or audio program on your computer.

The second reason is that language is something that needs to be processed, not memorized. I’m no expert on language learning, but in my experience staring and memorizing a word in a book or with flashcards 100 times does not stick the same way being forced to use a word in conversation a mere two or three times does.

I believe the reason is that our minds place more priority on memories which involve actual human and social experiences, memories which have emotions tied to them. So, for instance, if I look up the verb for “to complain” and use it in a sentence with a new friend, chances are I’m always going to associate that word with that specific interaction and conversation I was having with her. Whereas I can blow by that same word 20 times with flashcards, and even though I may get it right, I haven’t actually practiced implementing it. It means nothing to me, so it is less likely to stick with me. 

(I believe he is so right ... maybe the flashcards would be a secondary mean as you reach the "brain-melt" stage mentioned below.  Also helpful to learn the first hundred words.  There is a place for it but you have to be wise to choose its use.)

2. Intensity of study trumps length of study. What I mean by this is that studying a language four hours a day for two weeks will be more beneficial for you than studying one hour a day for two months. This is a reason why so many people take language classes in school and never remember anything. It’s because they only study 3-4 hours per week and often the classes are separated by multiple days.

Language requires a lot of repetition, a lot of reference experiences, and a consistent commitment and investment. It’s better to allot a particular period of your life, even if it’s only 1-2 weeks, and really go at it 100%, then to half ass it over the course of months or even years.

(it avails our system as a good one)

3. Classes suck and are an inefficient use of time and money. All things considered, you get a really poor return for your time and effort in group classes. There are two problems. The first is that the class moves at the pace of its slowest student. The second is that language learning is a fairly personal process — everyone naturally learns some words or topics easier than others, therefore a class is not going to be able to address each student’s personal needs as well or in a timely fashion.

For instance, when I took Russian classes I found verb conjugations to be simple because I had already learned Spanish. But an English classmate struggled quite a bit with them. As a result, I spent a lot of my class time waiting around for him to catch up. I also had a German classmate who had already been exposed to cases, whereas I had no clue what they were. I’m sure he ended up waiting around for me to figure it out as well. The larger the classroom, the less efficient it’s going to be. Anyone who had to take a foreign language in school and retained absolutely none of it can tell you this.

(His comments are on target, but we can get the best of both world: time for intensive studies at the beginning and hours to practice and homework).

4. Start with the 100 most common words. Not all vocabulary is made the same. Some gives you a better return on investment than others. For instance, when I lived in Buenos Aires, I met a guy who had been studying with Rosetta Stone for months (not recommended). I had been working on and off with a tutor for a few weeks, but I was surprised by how he could not follow even the most basic of conversations despite months of study and living there.

It turns out, much of the vocabulary he had been studying was for kitchen utensils, family members, clothing and rooms in a house. But if he wanted to ask someone which part of town they lived in, he had no idea what to say.

Start with the 100 most common words and then make sentences with them over and over again. Learn just enough grammar to be able to do this and do it until you feel pretty comfortable with all of them.

(Excellent information and idea!)

5. Carry a pocket dictionary. This made a much bigger difference than I expected. I carry an English-Spanish dictionary app on my phone and I used it all the time when I live in Spanish-speaking countries. My first two weeks in Brazil, I was lazy and kept forgetting to download an English-Portuguese application. I struggled in my conversations A LOT during those two weeks, despite knowing basic Portuguese.

Once I downloaded the dictionary, there was an immediate difference. Having it on your phone is great, because it takes two seconds to look something up in the middle of conversation. And because you’re using it in conversation, you’re that much more likely to recall it later. Even something that simple affected my conversations and ability to interact with locals a great deal.

6. Keep practicing in your head. The other use for your dictionary is that you can practice while going about your day and not talking to anyone. Challenge yourself to think in the new language. We all have monologues running in our head, and typically they run in our native tongue. You can continue to practice and construct sentences and fake conversations in your head in a new language. In fact, this sort of visualization leads to much easier conversations when you actually have them. For instance, you can envision and practice a conversation about a topic you’re likely to have before you actually have it. You can begin to think about how you would describe your job and explain why you’re in the foreign country in the new language. Inevitably, those questions will come up and you’ll be ready to answer them.

This may be the first time since you were five years old where having an imaginary friend is an advantage. If you have no tutor or anyone to practice with, you can construct conversations with your new words and grammar in your head. You can do it while you’re eating lunch, sitting on a bus, shopping for groceries, wherever.

7. You’re going to say a lot of stupid things. Accept it. I have a few examples of how this is true.  Um, yeah… It’s going to happen. Trust me.

(Learn to laugh at yourself and don´t take correction too serious!)

8. Figure out pronunciation patterns. All Latin-based languages will have similar pronunciation patterns based on Latin words. For instance, any word that ends in “-tion” in English will almost always end in “-ción” in Spanish and “-ção” in Portuguese. English-speakers are notorious for simply adding “-o” “-e” or “-a” to the end of English words to say Spanish words they don’t know. But stereotypes aside, it’s surprising how often it’s correct. “Destiny” is “destino,” “motive” is “motivo,” “part” is “parte” and so on. In Russian, case endings always rhyme with one another, so if you are talking about a feminine noun (such as “Zhen-shee-na”), then you know that the adjectives and adverbs will usually rhyme with its ending (“krasee-vaya” as opposed to “krasee-vee”).

(Excellent technique!)

9. Use audio and online courses for the first 100 words and basic grammar.After that they should only be used for reference and nothing more. There are a lot of study materials: Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Berlitz, DuoLingo, etc. These courses are great for getting you from absolutely no ability in a language to being able to speak basic sentences and phrases within a few days time. They’re also good for teaching the most fundamental vocabulary (words such as: the, I, you, eat, want, thanks, etc.).

But the weakness of study materials is that they don’t allow for much useful practice. The greatest return on investment in language learning is forcing yourself to speak and communicate with others, and when you’re sitting in your bedroom with a book or a software program, you’re not being forced to formulate meaning and significance in the new language on the spot. Instead, you’re encouraged to parrot and copy concepts and patterns you’ve observed elsewhere in the materials. As mentioned before, I feel that these are two different types of learning and one is far more useful than the other.

(Set goal organizing your hours, aware that we are privileged to have the chance to invest full time in studying the language.)

10. After the first 100 words, focus on becoming conversational. Studies have shown that the most common 100 words in any language account for 50% of all spoken communication. The most common 1,000 words account for 80% of all spoken communication. The most common 3,000 words account for 99% of communication. In other words, there are some serious diminishing returns from learning more vocabulary. I probably only know 500-1,000 words in Spanish and in most conversations I never have to stop and look a word up in my phone.

The basic grammar should get you speaking fundamental sentences within a matter of days.

“Where is the restaurant?”
“I want to meet your friend.”
“How old is your sister?”
“Did you like the movie?”

The first few hundred words will get you pretty far. Use them to get as comfortable as possible with grammar, idioms, slang and constructing thoughts, jokes and ideas in the new language on the fly. Once you’re able to joke consistently in the new language, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s time to expand your vocabulary out.

A lot of people attempt to expand their vocabulary too quickly and too soon. It’s a waste of time and effort because they’re still not comfortable with basic conversations about where they’re from, yet they’re studying vocabulary about economics or medicine. It makes no sense.

11. Aim for the brain melt. You know how when you do a lot of intellectually-intensive work for hours and hours on end, at some point your brain just feels like a lump of gravy? Shoot for that moment when learning languages. Until you’ve reached brain-gravy stage, you probably aren’t maximizing your time or effort. In the beginning, you’ll hit mind-melt within an hour or two. Later on, it may take an entire night of hanging out with locals before it happens. But when it happens, it’s a very good thing.

12. “How do you say X?” is the most important sentence you can possibly learn. Learn it early and use it often.

13. One on one tutoring is the best and most efficient use of time. It’s also usually the most expensive use of time, depending on the language and country. But if you have the money, grabbing a solid tutor and sitting with him or her for a few hours every day is the fastest way to learn a new language I’ve ever found. A mere two hours a day for a few weeks with a tutor in Brazil got me to at least a respectable conversational level — i.e., I could go on a date with a girl who spoke no English and maintain conversation throughout the night without making too much of a fool of myself.

Speaking of which…

14. Date a girl who speaks the target language and not your native language. Talk about investment and motivation. You’ll be fluent in a month. And best of all, if you make her mad or do something wrong, you can claim lost in translation.

(Singles out there, with our company, careful with this one :)  !!!  Rules have not changed haha)

15. If you can’t find a cute girl to put up with you, find a language buddy online. There are a number of websites of foreigners who want to learn English who would be willing to trade practice time in their native language for practice in yours. Live Mocha is a great resource of this (I’m not a huge fan of their lessons, but the ability to video chat with other members is priceless).

(Language exchange in person, one of the best and cheapest way to learn a language!)

16. Facebook chat + Google Translate = Winning.

17. When you learn a new word, try to use it a few times right away. When you stop and look up a new word in conversation, make a point to use it in the next two or three sentences you say. Language learning studies show that you need to hit a certain amount of repetitions of saying a word within one minute of learning it, one hour of learning it, one day, etc. Try to use it immediately a few times and then use it again later in the day. Chances are it’ll stick.

(I cannot agree more!)

18. TV shows, movies, newspapers and magazines are a good supplementation. But they should not be mistaken or replacements for legitimate practice. When I was getting good at Spanish, I made a point to watch a couple movies each week and read an article on El País each day. It was helpful for keeping me fresh, but I don’t believe it was as good as use of my time as conversations.

(I find it helpful watching a move I have watched already, knowing what is going on already allows me to pay closer attention to the constructions and grammar, using the text)

19. Most people are helpful, let them help. If you’re in a foreign country and making a complete fool of yourself trying to buy something at the grocery store, ask random people for help. Point to something and ask how to say it. Ask them questions. Most people are friendly and willing to help you out. Learning a language is not for shy people.

20. There will be a lot of ambiguity and miscommunication. Fact of the matter is that for many, many words, the translations are not direct. “Gustar” may roughly mean “to like” in Spanish, but in usage, it’s more nuanced than that. It’s used for particular situations and contexts, whereas in English we use “like” as a blanket verb covering anything we enjoy or care about. These subtle differences can add up, particularly in serious or emotional conversations. Intentions can be easily misconstrued. Nuanced conversations over important matters will likely require double the effort to nail down the exact meaning for each person than it would between two native speakers. No matter how good you are in your new language, you’re not likely to have a complete grasp over the slight intuitive differences between each word, phrase or idiom that a native speaker does without living in the country for years.

21. These are the phases you go through. First, you’re able to speak a little and understand nothing. Then you’re able to understand far more than you speak. Then you become conversational, but it requires quite a bit of mental effort. After that, you’re able to speak and understand without conscious mental effort (i.e., you don’t have to translate words into your native tongue in your mind). Once you’re able to speak and listen without thinking about it, you’ll begin to actually think in the foreign language itself without effort. Once this happens, you’re really hitting a high level.

And the final level? Believe it or not, being able to follow a conversation between a large group of native speakers is the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place. Or at least it was for me. Once that happens, and you’re able to interject, come in and out of the conversation at will, you’re pretty set. After that, there’s not really anywhere else to go without living in the country for at least a year or two and reaching complete fluency.

22. Finally, find a way to make it fun. As with anything, if you’re going to stick to it, you have to find a way to make it fun. Find people you enjoy talking to. Go to events where you can practice while doing something fun. Don’t just sit in a classroom in front of a book, or you’re likely to burn out fairly quickly. Talk about personal topics which you care about. Find out about the person you’re talking to. Make it a personal, life experience, or else you’re going to be in for a long, unenjoyable process which will likely end up in you forgetting everything you learned."

(this part of your learning will be so personal, that is when you take full advantage of your learning styles.)

Article adapted from Mark Manson, his blog (secular, not company related)

Cultural Incidents

Intercultural encounters are at the heart of the overseas experience; you can’t very well live and work abroad without coming into contact with the local people. When these encounters go wrong, and turn into cultural incidents, they become a serious threat to expatriate effectiveness. Unless this threat is met and eliminated, an expat cannot expect to have a successful overseas assignment.  The following deals with why these cultural incidents are so dangerous and how to prevent them.

Cultural incidents may cause you to turn against the local culture.

• You begin to make negative judgments about the local people.
• Subsequent interactions may reinforce these attitudes.
• You tend to see only those things which reinforce negative attitudes.
• You begin to look for ways to work around the local people.
• You may try to get locals to change some of their ways.
• Negative attitudes may cause one to limit contact with locals or avoidance of them altogether.
• Avoidance of the locals tends to increase negativity towards them.

Cultural incidents may cause you to avoid the local culture. By avoid the local culture:

• You spend your time alone or with others from your own country
• You withdraw from the local culture and live abroad without leaving home
• You submerge yourself in an expatriate subculture. While expat subcultures are a mixed blessing they may create environments that are difficult from which to break free. Life in the expat community may be a sterile, unsatisfying proposition. There are missed opportunities. One may discover they could have shared as many values and interests with the locals as with the expats they forced themselves to spend time with.
• Retreat into an expat community may not be a decision to avoid the local people, but rather the failure to pay enough attention to how time is spent.

• Some people just never adjust to a cross-cultural experience.
• To be truly effective in the overseas assignment, you must break through the desire to withdraw from the local culture.

Causes of Cultural Incidences

• We believe that other people are like us, and so they should behave like us.
• We learn right and wrong behaviors from our own cultural conditioning and think of them as normal.
• We depend on other people to be like us because of our cultural conditioning.
• We think what we do is right and that everyone should behave that way because of our cultural conditioning.
• We may be sensitive to globalization and cross-cultural training, but we do not behave that way. Logic does not override instinct.

Solutions to Problems Caused by Cultural Incidents

• Realize that our expectations of other’s behaviors rather the actual behavior of the local people is the problem.
• Stop assuming other people are like us.
• Become aware of your emotional reactions to cultural incidents.
• Recall moments when you were upset or agitated by something a local did, and look at yourself. Stop reacting emotionally.
• Learn about the local culture by observing the locals in action, asking them about specific behaviors, and through reading about or taking classes in the local culture.
• Realize that you may not see or understand something that does not constitute meaningful behavior in your own culture.
• Realize that you may misinterpret what you see because the same behavior may not mean the same thing in different cultures.
• Observe the local people.
• Go to the local people, and talk to them about their culture.
• Study about the local culture through reading or attending a class or intercultural training program.
• Adjust your expectations as you learn about the culture.
• Realize the process of cross-cultural adjustment is slow and gradual.
• Realize that local people may assume you understand their culture and that you are deliberately and knowingly behaving badly.
• Understand that the behavior of people in other cultures tends to fall into three broad categories: things they do you admire and adopt for yourself, things they do you don’t like but learn to live with, and things they do that you reject because they violate your fundamental values of identity and self-esteem.
• Accept the fact that cultural knowledge may not always explain the behavior of local people, and may not neutralize cultural incidents.
• When you cannot comply with what you know is culturally expected, explain why. This may show that you are cultural sensitive, despite the fact that you don’t behave in a cultural appropriate manner.
• Admit that there are certain things about the local culture that you will never be able to accept.
• Realize that becoming culturally effective does not men becoming a local; it means trying to see the world the way the locals do and trying to imagine how they see you.

A Model of Cross-Cultural Interaction

• We expect other people to behave like we do, but they don’t.
• Thus a cultural incident occurs…we react (with anger, worry, etc.).
• We become aware of these reactions… rather than the natural tendancy to try to avoid the local culture or a local to avoid contact with us.
• We realize it is our own behavior (expecting cultural sameness) that causes cultural incidents.
• We are thus motivated to learn about the local culture.
• We begin to expect the local people to behave like themselves.
• And there are fewer cultural incidents.

Another Model of Cross-Cultural Interaction

• The local people expect us to behave like they do.
• We behave the way the local people expect.
• And there are fewer cultural incidents.

(taken from The Art of Crossing Cultures by Craig Storti, pp. 47-95.)

Tiempo Otoñal

I love this time of the year! I am looking for new ways to enjoy it and at the same time, learning a bit more from my country. I am starting today, visiting the Medieval Fair in Alcalá de Henares. I heard it will be worth every minute of it!

I would like to share a few ideas:

1) Some city governments through places such as Casa de La Mujer, Universidad Popular, etc offer some day trips to different places, countryside or not. You could enjoy an outside day in a beautiful historical town or enjoy an indoor day visiting a museum or cultural place.

2) Make a list of books you would like to read. Try to match learning and fun. For example, I would be drawn to any craft magazine or book. So, for me, a good idea would be to find several books on that topic to enjoy my reading and learning new vocabulary at the same time! Have them handy for those evenings you just want to sit down and enjoy a cup of tea under a lap blanket.

3) Look for courses offered by Escuela de Idiomas or Universidad Popular. Some "Ayuntamientos" do not have them, but they will have classes offered by community buildings, etc. They may offer photograph, history classes, language conversation classes, sewing, etc. It is nice to make new friends over coffee during class break! I know that some of the UPAs in Madrid, offer a class in which you visit different museums and cultural places of the city. Yo will have a guided visit with friends. It cannot get any better!

I guess it is a time to get excited to be indoors but still, have plenty of occasions to learn and enjoy our country! Happy Fall!

Making your Learning Style work for you!

Here are some more practical suggestions pertaining to each learning style:

Visual Learners:
use visual materials such as pictures, charts, maps, graphs, etc.
have a clear view of your teachers when they are speaking so you can see their body language and facial expression
use colour to highlight important points in text
take notes or ask your teacher to provide handouts
illustrate your ideas as a picture or brainstorming bubble before writing them down
write a story and illustrate it
use multi-media (e.g. computers, videos, and filmstrips)
study in a quiet place away from verbal disturbances
read illustrated books
visualize information as a picture to aid memorization

Auditory Learners:
participate in class discussions/debates
make speeches and presentations
use a tape recorder during lectures instead of taking notes
read text out aloud
create musical jingles to aid memorization
create mnemonics to aid memorization
discuss your ideas verbally
dictate to someone while they write down your thoughts
use verbal analogies, and story telling to demonstrate your point

Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners
take frequent study breaks
move around to learn new things (e.g. read while on an exercise bike, mold a piece of clay to learn a new concept)
work at a standing position
chew gum while studying
use bright colors to highlight reading material
dress up your work space with posters
if you wish, listen to music while you study
skim through reading material to get a rough idea what it is about before settling down to read it in detail.

Using Tutors

Taken from the article, “Your First Language Learning Tutoring Session” by Reid Wilson

1) Don't worry about speaking much for the first month.
Waiting will lower your anxiety level, which will help the words you're learning "stick"; it will free up time for major vocabulary absorption; it will give your ears a great opportunity to process the language and get an idea of the sound of it, which will aid future pronunciation; it will allow you to concentrate on processing language as a means of the communication of meaning; and it will keep in focus the focus of the first month: massive vocabulary acquisition.

2) When your tutor says a new word, don’t repeat it.
If you do, your tutor is likely to correct your pronunciation, and then you'll say it again, and back and forth and next thing you know your anxiety level is building and you're off track on your main goal for the time being. Similarly, if you tutor encourages you to speak, remind him that for now you're only interested in listening and comprehending.

3) Make working with a tutor “comprehension-led learner-directed language acquisition."
Concerning the learner-directed part, that means your tutor is really a "language resource person" and not a language teacher. You are in charge. You plan and direct the sessions. Of course, if you like suggestions your tutor makes, use them. But if you don't, politely suggest that maybe you can do that some other time...

4) For your first session, use two basic activities.
One is called Total Physical Response (TPR) and one is called Total Physical Response with Objects. (If the picture book was ready that would be a third activity. I've also got a book called "Lexicarry" that you can use starting in a couple of weeks.)

5) With Total Physical Response, your tutor gives you basic commands such as "stand up" and "sit down", which you then respond to.
(He will demonstrate each command when he first says it.) To some extent it is inevitable, but don't worry about English translations for what he is telling you. If he says something and then he stands up, stand up when he says that word--the fact that you are thinking "stand up" in English isn't necessary or perhaps all that helpful. The trick is to learn to process and respond to the language in and of itself without having to translate everything back to English.
Once you get the hang of things, coming up with new words isn't difficult. The time to not do it is in the middle of a tutoring session. You and your tutor can decide who will make the list of new words, but it might be easier for you to. I can help too. Here's a sample list of words you can use the first day. Of course you can modify this: stand up, sit down, walk, stop, turn right, turn left, turn around, raise your hand, raise your leg, lower your hand, lower your leg, come here, go there, walk backwards, clap your hands, stomp your foot, touch your head, touch your eye, touch your nose, touch your mouth, cough, smile, laugh, and cry.
If you ever give a word in English that you tutor doesn't know, just demonstrate it for him!

6) For your first day of Total Physical Response with Objects.
Bring out a pen, a book, a piece of paper, a book bag, a cassette tape, an empty cassette tape case, a magazine and a newspaper, and then sit on chairs at a table. That gives you ten objects to learn. With these nouns you can easily learn these ten actions: point to, touch, pick up, put down, give me, take, put, throw/toss, catch, and turn over (flip). Learn to respond to the question "Where is the _____?". Finally, learning to respond to the phrase "Put the pen _____ the book.", you can learn spatial relationships like in, on, under, to the right of, to the left of, beside, between, in front of, behind, close to (near), and far from.

7) Encourage your tutor to give you enough repetition and review.
Ideally he would give you two words and keep repeating them until you've got them down, and then add a third, and then repeat the three until you have them down, and so forth. It may be that by the time you are on the 15th and 16th words the tutor hasn't gone back and reviewed the previous ones enough. Remember, you are "in charge" and can teach him how to best teach you. Numerous small minor corrections along the way, politely delivered and reinforced, will best produce the results you desire. Likewise, if you feel the two of you are going too slow, you can ask that things be sped up a bit.

8) Record the sessions.
That way you can go back and listen to the recording after the session is over. You can act out the commands physically or in your mind's eye. In addition to recording, feel free to take the very last part of the session to have your tutor write down the words that you learned that day.

9) Keep track of how much time you spend talking with your tutor in English.
Of course any friendship you develop will be based on English for now, but I'm guessing you don't want to spend a good part of your lesson time speaking English! Some days you will be tempted to speak English for all of your time--only you can be the judge of how you should spend your time and money, but pressing on even on the hard, tiring days will one day be rewarded with true language ability.

10) Always remember that your tutor is much more than a source of linguistic information.
He's a person, both an individual and part of the language community you would like to participate in. In his mind are more language and cultural knowledge than you will ever have about the community you are now living in. See your tutor as a gatekeeper. Allow him to let you in to his point of view, allow him to show you how his people do things and how they think about things, give him some grace when he does things that seem weird to you as an American, be a friend, and, above all, always be a learner. If you do these things, you will find yourself becoming more a part of his community and of his culture, and through that your language learning will increase at a rate that many others only dream about. And you'll make a great friend, too

Language Strategies That Can Help You Master A New Language

Listening

Strategies to increase exposure to the language:

Attend out of class events where the new language is spoken
Listen to talk shows on the radio, watch TV shows, or see movies in the language.
Listen to the language in a restaurant or store where the staff speak the language.
Listen in on people who are having conversations in the language to try to catch the gist of what they are saying.

Strategies to become more familiar with the sounds in the target language:

Practice sounds that are very different from sounds in my own language to become comfortable with them.
Look for associations between the sound of a word or phrase in the language with the sound of a familiar word.
Imitate the way native speakers talk.
Ask a native speaker about unfamiliar sounds that I hear.

Strategies to prepare to listen to conversation in the target language:

Pay special attention to specific aspects of the language (the way the speaker pronounces certain sounds).
Try to predict what the other person is going to say based on what has been said so far.
Prepare for talks and performances I will hear in the target language by reading some background materials beforehand.

Strategies to listen to conversation in the target language:

Listen for key words that seem to carry the bulk of the meaning.
Listen for word and sentence stress to see what native speakers emphasize when they speak.
Pay attention to when and how long people tend to pause.
Pay attention to the rise and fall of speech by native speakers—the “music” of it.
Practice “skim listening” by paying attention to some parts and ignoring others.
Try to understand what I hear without translating it word for word.
Focus on the context of what people are saying.
Listen for specific details to see whether I can understand them.

Strategies for when I do not understand some or most of what someone says in the target language:

Ask speakers to repeat what they said if it wasn’t clear to me.
Ask speakers to slow down if they are speaking too fast.
Ask for clarification if I don’t understand it for the first time around.
Use the speakers’ tone of voice as a clue to the meaning of what they are saying.
Make educated guesses about the topic based on what has already been said.
Draw on my general background knowledge to get the main idea.
Watch speakers’ gestures and general body language to help me figure ou the meaning of what they are saying.

Vocabulary

Strategies to learn new words:

Pay attention to the structure of the new word.
Break the word into parts that I can identify.
Group words according to part of speech (nouns, verbs, etc)
Associate the sound of the new word with the sound of a word that is familiar to me.
Use rhyming to remember new words.
Make a mental image of new words.
List new words with other words that are related to it.
Write out new words in meaningful sentences.
Practice new action verbs by acting them out.
Use flash cards in a systematic way to learn new words.

Strategies to review vocabulary:

Go over new words often when I first learn them to help me remember them.
Review words periodically so I don’t forget them.

Strategies to recall vocabulary:

Look at meaningful parts of the word (prefix or suffix) to remind me of the meaning of the word.
Make an effort to remember the situation where I first heard or saw the word or remember the page or sign where I saw it written.
Visualize the spelling of new words in my mind.

Strategies to make use of new vocabulary:

Try using new words in a variety of ways.
Practice using familiar words in different ways.
Make an effort to use idiomatic expressions in the new language.

Speaking

Strategies to practice speaking:

Practice saying new expressions to myself.
Practice new grammatical structure in different situations to build my confidence level in using them.
Think about how a native speaker might say something and practice saying it that way.

Strategies to engage in conversations:

Regularly seek out opportunities to talk with native speakers.
Imitate conversations in the target language as often as possible.
Direct the conversation to familiar topics.
Plan out in advance what I want to say.
Ask questions as a way to be involved in the conversation.
Anticipate what will be said based on what has been said so far.
Try topics even when they aren’t familiar to me.
Encourage others to correct errors in my speaking.
Try to figure out and model native speakers’ language patterns when requesting, apologizing, or complaining.

Strategies for when I can’t think of a word or expression:

Ask for help from my conversational partner.
Look for a different way to express the idea, like using a synonym.
Use word from my own language, but say it in a way that sounds like words in the target language.
Make up new words or guess if I don’t know the right ones to use.
Use gestures as a way to try and get my meaning across.
Switch back to my own language momentarily if I know that the person I’m talking to can understand what is being said.

Reading

Strategies to improve my reading ability:

Read in the language as much as possible.
Try to find things to read for pleasure in the language.
Find reading material that is at or near my level.
Plan out in advance how I’m going to read the text, monitor to see how I’m doing, and then check to see how much I understand.
Skim an academic text first to get the main idea and then go back and read it more carefully.
Read a story or dialogue several times until I understand it.
Pay attention to the organization of the text, especially heading and subheadings.
Make ongoing summaries of the reading either in my mind or in the margins of the text.
Make predictions as to what will happen next.

Strategies for when words and grammatical structures are not understood:

Guess the approximate meaning by using clues from the context of the reading material.
Use a dictionary to get a detailed sense of what individual words mean.

Writing

Strategies for basic writing:

Practice writing the alphabet and or new words in the target language.
Plan out in advance hot to write academic papers, monitor how my writing is going, and check to see how well my writing reflect what I want to say.
Try writing different kinds of texts in the target language (such as personal notes, messages, letters, and course papers).
Take class notes in the target language as much as I’m able.

Strategies for writing an essay or academic paper:

Find a different way to express the idea when I don’t know the correct expression (such as use a synonym or describe the idea)
Review what I have already written before continuing to write more.
Use reference materials such as a glossary, a dictionary, or a thesaurus to help find or verify words in the target language.
Wait to edit my writing until all my ideas are down on paper.

Strategies to use after writing a draft of an essay or paper:

Revise my writing once or twice to improve the language and content.
Try to get feedback from others, especially native speakers of the language.

Translation

Strategies for translation:

Plan out what to say or write in my own language and then translate it into the target language.
Translate in my head while I am reading to help me understand the text.
Translate parts of a conversation into my own language to help me remember the conversation.

Strategies for working directly in the target language as much as possible:

Put my own language out of my mind and think only in the target language as much as possible.
Try to understand what has been heard or read without translating it word for word into my own language.
Use caution when directly transferring words and ideas from my own language into the target language.

General Language Learning Tips

General Language Learning Tips

Set realistic and attainable goals
If you know in advance what you would like to be able to do in the language you are studying, you can select courses or adapt your approach accordingly. If you are mainly interested in reading, for example, you will want to spend less time perfecting your pronunciation. If you are interested in everyday communication, you will be able to translate classroom activities into steps toward that goal : instead of seeing a dialogue about dining out as a mere dialogue, you will see it as a chance to develop your functional ability to order food in a restaurant. Remember to keep your goals realistic: Language learning is a complex and long-term investment, and you can expect to go through stages in your ability to use the language that change as you progress.

Take an active approach to learning
Don't expect to learn language "by osmosis." Only you can truly take charge of your learning. You are the most important participant in language learning and you have to approach the task actively. This does not necessarily mean that you have to be talking all the time-- listening or reading for meaning and trying to identify new features of the language are also important. It may help you to:- set a schedule for regular study. Language learning happens bit by bit, so the best strategy is to plan some time for study every day. (Waiting until the last moment before a test, then cramming, of course, tends not to work very well in the long run.)- take note of what works for you. If you find that a particular kind of activity seems to help you, for example if you remember vocabulary better when you try to use it in a sentence, try to continue using that strategy whenever you can.- take note of what works for others. Talk to classmates or other fellow learners and your teacher about how they learn, and what suggestions they may have for you.- keep track of your learning, perhaps by writing a diary or keeping notes on your successes and failures- in class, pay attention to interactions between the other people present. Try not to tune out what is going on when you are not talking.- in class, use the opportunities you have to practice the language in meaningful ways. Take an active role in classroom discussions, whether they occur in small groups or with the class as a whole.

Use what you already know
You should not be reluctant to use all the knowledge you already possess when learning a language. Among the things you know are:1) how grammar works. You may not be able to talk about all the rules of grammar, but as a speaker of English you can tell what functions words have in sentences. Lewis Carroll took advantage of this knowledge when he wrote The Jabberwocky: "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...You can tell, for example, that "slithy"describes the "toves," whatever they are, and that "gyre" and "gimble" are words referring to actions, and that these actions could be described in different ways: "They gyred." "They gimbled." "They used to gyre, but now they are gimbling." and so forth.2) a lot of words. Your knowledge of vocabulary can help you to figure out the meanings of many foreign language words. (Add a list of cognates from French, Spanish and German + and exercise to identify their meanings.)3) facts about the world. You know, for example, that dinosaurs are extinct, so that a text about living dinosaurs would either be referring to the past or to a fictitious situation.4) how certain predictable situations normally occur. When you go to a restaurant, you expect that certain events will take place and others will not. You will receive food and pay for it, but no one will wash your hair or manucure your fingernails. You can use this knowledge of universal "scripts" for predictable events in order to fill in your understanding of the language.

Strive for meaning in language-related activities
To acquire language, you have to participate in meaningful interactions. When people use language, they convey information but they also provide social meaning about how they feel in a particular situation, or how they evaluate what they are saying (see the Sociolinguistics Test). As a language learner it is important to try to understand both kinds of meaning. It can help you learn to be appropriate in the language if you take note of how language varies depending on the situation, for example how people of different social status say the same thing. Paying attention to nonverbal communication, such as gestures, facial expressions, touching and physical distance, can also help you to understand both social and referential meaning.

Pay attention to the forms of the language
Studying grammar and vocabulary will help you, but probably only in an indirect way. This does not mean that you can afford to ignore the forms of the language, only that the best way to learn to use grammar and vocabulary is to experience them in meaningful contexts, while you are focusing primarily on what is being communicated. You will find that your ability to focus on form will increase along with your language ability. In the beginning, it will be relatively difficult to think about what forms of grammar are being used at the same time that you are trying to understand what is being communicated. Practicing grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation will be much easier to do as a separate activity from trying to use what your know in communicative activity. As your proficiency increases, however, it will be ever more appropriate for you to refine your ability by paying attention to the ways that more expert language users manipulate forms, and comparing these with your own use of similar forms.

10 Memory Tricks

10 Memory Tricks Adapted from an article by Sylvan Learning Center

Use memory techniques to remember lists and simple grammatical rules. Below are ten memory tips that will help you.

The alphabet system. Associate images which are represented by the letters of the alphabet. This is a great method for remembering long lists of items in a specific order. For example, "A is for apple, B is for boy."

The link/story method. Invent bizarre or funny stories to link items to remember. For instance, to learn primary colors, develop a story such as: "The yellow bird grabbed its red parachute and flew into the blue sky."

Acronyms. Make a word out of the first letters of the item to be recalled. For instance, the letters that spell HOMES represent each of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.

The journey system. This system uses landmarks on a journey. To remember the first four presidents of the United States, take this journey: On our way to Washington, we saw our friend Adam, who wanted to go to Jeff's house to play a new video game called Mad (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison).

Movement learning. Songs that include movement help one remember the song's vocabulary. "Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes" is very effective.

Excitement and sound. When reading a book aloud, add inflection and excitement to the story; this will help you remember it. "Fee, fi, fo, fum," boomed the giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk." The emotion of the story through the words that you act will increase interest which will help one retain more of the information.

Rhyme and rhythm. This is an effective tool for remembering dates or simple grammatical rules. Example: "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Or: "I before e, except after c."
The number/shape mnemonic. With this system, you build imaginary pictures and use numbers to represent the shape of the object. The number seven could be a boomerang, for instance.
Color code. The use of color is linked strongly to memory. If you need to remember the original 13 colonies, color-code a United States map. If you need to remember the masculine or feminine articles before a word, write masculine words in one color and feminine words in another color

Acrostics. In a poem that is an acrostic, the first or last letter of each line combine to spell out a word or phrase. Here's an example:
Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Earth needs us to do our best to keep things clean. Caring for the planet is everyone's job. You can do your part to save the environment. Collect metal, paper, and plastic for recycling. Litter free is how it has to be. Everybody should work together to keep the planet clean.