Learning Languages
If you are into learning languages, you may be interested in knowing more about how to go about learning them. Learning languages is a fun experience that can improve your mind and lead to new opportunities in your life.
While learning languages is a fun activity, one also is probably interested in getting the most bang for one’s buck. That is to say, you want to learn your new language as quickly as possible and make sure your time is not going to waste. For this reason, I am going to share some tips with you so that you do not end up wasting your time like I did in the past. This way, you can be learning languages as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
I’m going to present three problems that often arise in learning language materials. Then, I will show you what I consider to be the most important thing when studying a foreign language.
Problem 1: Vocabulary lists. Many language learning books and textbooks work by having a long, boring phonebook-like vocabulary list at the end of every chapter that they expect you to learn. Using rote memorization to learn these long lists is not only a waste of your studies, but not very fun for you, either! Unfortunately, long vocabulary lists lose the context that makes the words important and humans learn language through repeated contextual examples; not a list of one to one translations of single words.
Problem 2: Grammatical rules. Explanations of grammar tend to be the meat of a lot of learning language programs. Unfortunately, learning these rules won’t make you a fluent speaker. It is much more important to learn natural phrases that you can use at a rapid rate. Learning grammar rules will only insure that you know grammar in the language. It will not give you the power to speak fluently or quickly.
Problem 3: Wasted language. Foreign language textbooks and programs will teach you phrases and words that are not necessarily useful for you at the beginning. What they teach you are words that are better suited for their grammatical explanations and word lists. They teach you sentences like ”The ball is behind the sofa” but will not teach you real phrases you might use like ”Want to get a bite to eat later?”
Let’s look at the most important point in learning languages: full, complete, natural phrases. It is unfortunate that many language programs would rather teach you unnatural language that is rarely spoken. If you use these resources, you will find that you will be unable to understand the language in real situations and you will only be able to say phrases like “The cat is large” or “How do you do? My name is Joseph Smith. I am pleased to meet you” which will have native speakers laughing at your stiltedness.
If your goal is to speak the REAL language, then you should focus your energies and efforts on the REAL language. Don’t waste any time on language that only exists in textbooks. Furthermore, do not waste any money on these textbooks or programs. Real, natural phrases will get you used to the natural rhythm of the language and immediately begin to condition you to sound like a native speaker.
I hope this article has helped you. There is much, much more to language learning and I share all of my tips, tricks, techniques and methods in the book I have written. If you want the fastest method to learn a language so that you will become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of months, learn thousands of words without worrying about forgetting them, master grammar and do all of this in an enjoyable, painless manner then you need to read Learn That Language Now!