10 Easy Hacks To Help You Learn a Foreign Language More Efficiently
Sooner or later, somebody is going to ask you about your foreign language skills!
Do you speak French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Russian or German? If you master one or more of these languages, you have a much better chance of landing a better job.
Mandarin Chinese is now the first language in the world as regards the number of native speakers (1.051 billion) while Spanish comes in second at 577 million. It is spoken in 21 countries. As regards English, it comes in at about a third at 360 million.
But English is still the number one language when we consider native and non-native language speakers as the number is about 2 billion. That may well change as Chinese influence grows.
Knowing another language will open more doors and you have a much better chance of:
· Getting an interview
· Being more eligible for promotion
· Gaining a pay rise
· Boosting brainpower — it’s like a mental gym
· Opening fascinating doors to different cultures and lifestyles.
I taught English for over 40 years and in that time, the same old problems came up again and again. These are issues common to almost all foreign language learning.
These hacks will help you polish up your language learning skills.
1. Have clear goals
Decide which skills you want to give priority to once you have mastered some basic knowledge. Then, you specialize in these.
If you have to attend conferences, you will really need to polish up your listening skills. If you do a lot of phoning foreign clients and networking, you will put speaking as your top priority.
If you are required to carry out research, then your reading skills will be very useful. If you have to put together reports, then writing will be very important.
The ideal scenario would be where you can shine in all the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. A lot will depend on what your learning style is too.
2. Exploit your learning style
How do you learn best? Some people are visual learners while others do best by listening but the vast majority of us use a mix of styles with perhaps one style predominating.
I know visual learners who really do brilliantly with flashcards and pictures while if you are a kinesthetic learner, you will enjoy drawing diagrams, acting out and roleplay.
Look at the quiz here of 20 questions which will help you determine your learning style or at least the predominant one. That will help you decide which materials are best for you.
3. Don’t get too hung up on grammar
Unless you are writing a detailed scientific research paper, your knowledge of complicated grammar rules does not need to be extensive.
When border guards at the US frontier have to deal with Spanish-speaking immigrants, they are taught Spanish with emphasis on role play and videos. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency decided that a grammar-based language course was of little use.
The teachers concentrated on the simpler task-based approach and that is a much better fit for the guards and the people they have to deal with.
We must never forget though that grammar is still essential for basic communication and is the glue that keeps structures and patterns of language in place.
“I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.” ― Matt Groening
4. Buy kids’ books and comics
Enjoy reading children’s books and comics in the foreign language you are studying. You will have a much more relaxed approach to reading. Forget those simplified classics. They are not nearly as much fun.
What did Tim Ferris (the 4 Hour Work Week man) do when he had to learn Japanese? He started reading Japanese comics, and he claims that it was instrumental in him mastering that language.
When you get tired of all the comics, you can move on to tabloid newspapers, graded readers and short stories. The list is endless and if you have an e-reader, then you have no excuse.
I often tease my students when I ask them which books are on their bedside table as they should all be in the target language they are learning and not in their native language!
5. Listen like crazy
I am teaching a student who reached A2 level in English. I was shocked when she told me that her teacher had almost done no listening exercises with them in class!
She is at a severe disadvantage but has already started listening to simple videos on the British Council website to get up to speed.
Another student of mine watches the BBC News every morning as she puts the house in order before leaving for work. She may not understand everything but she is definitely making progress, she says.
There are now so many language learning apps that you can easily download on your phone. These are really a great way to supplement your normal lessons whether they are in the classroom or on Skype.
There is now no shortage of material as you have access to YouTube videos, MP3 podcasts, radio, quiz shows, and news broadcasts.
Make listening a daily exercise just like your workout — you can easily combine the two now with modern technology.
The best solution of all would be to opt for a full immersion course in the country where the language is spoken. But very few people have that opportunity.
6. Words are all I have to give
The good news is that you only need about 300 words in most languages to get by. As you progress, you will read more and you will acquire more and more vocabulary.
As I am a visual learner mainly, I really enjoyed using the AnkiApp (this is not an affiliate link) which uses a series of flashcards to help me memorize the words. These flashcards can have text or images as well as sound. French, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and German are among the many languages available on this app.
7. Start talking to native speakers
Phoning your penpal in the old days was expensive. Now, it is so easy to talk to native speakers. What better way than that to get your fluency up to scratch?
You can find them on The Mixerr site. This is free and provides great opportunities for chatting with people on Skype who speak your target language. You can even swap written samples by email for correction and offer a similar service in your native language in return.
8. Start writing
You will have plenty of written exercises if you are following a formal course in your target language.
But why not take it a step further? It is so easy now to have international penpals and communicate instantly by email. The list of languages at this free site is truly impressive.
Another great idea is to start writing things down in your foreign language.
These could be:
· To-do lists
· Shopping lists
· Diary or journal
· Calendars
9. Start exploring
A great way to start this new adventure in a new world is to begin exploring its geography, history, cuisine, and literature.
A vacation there is a must. You will have time to practice the language and also enjoy its food, and culture. Enjoy using the language to make friends and feel at home.
Remember when you didn’t even know one word of the language and you always had to ask for an interpreter or speak only in English?
When at home again, start cooking and use the recipes you found there or on the Internet. It is a great challenge to cook something using a recipe in the new language.
Do quizzes and enter competitions. If you are studying a European language, try the European Day of Languages site.
10. Don’t forget the cognates
There are lots of words which have a common ancestor (e.g. from Latin) and these you can find in Spanish, Italian and lots of other languages. They are known as cognates and they will help you to learn more quickly.
Everyone tells you to be beware of “false friends” where the words are similar in form and spelling but have completely different meanings. But these are much fewer than the ones that are actually similar.
A “false friend” in the French and English context is the word “grand”. In English, it means impressive and large. In French the word “grand” simply means large and it can even be dull and boring!
A Spanish and English example is the word “embarrassed”. In Spanish, the word “embarazada” means pregnant so that might lead to some misunderstanding!
When learning a foreign language, we often envy young children whose nimble and flexible brains can make the right neural connections. We, adults, struggle with that.
Follow the hacks above to make your challenging journey easier.
But the joys of learning a new language and opening up exciting horizons make it worthwhile.
“Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms.” ― Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger