As a
language learner, one of the easiest things that can happen is to lose
motivation as making progress becomes challenging and results hardly noticeable.
What is it, then, that distinguishes people who are actually successful from
those who never master a foreign language? As a Linguistics student at the
University of Vienna, I have done some research and selected two helpful articles
by experts who will help you to significantly improve your performance.
In 10
reasons you will fail to learn a language, the blogger and British polyglot
Olly Richards explains how you can improve the quality of your studies by
simply diagnosing what people usually do wrong. Extremely valuable information
coming from someone who speaks 8 languages and has been through the process
several times.
Found in http://bit.ly/2fQM4VM
Another successful
language learner who’s recently published his own series of books to learn
languages is Benny Lewis, author of FluentIn3Months. In How to learn a language
in hours, not years, Benny emphasizes the need of looking at our progress
in a matter of hours instead of years. We often claim we’ve been “learning a
language for X years”, but one really should take that with a pinch of salt.
Mostly, what the average language learner does is maybe open a book two times a
week for an hour and we deceive ourselves by saying we are being productive.
So, having
read what experts think, what can we start doing today to improve?
1.
Study Daily – It is no surprise that both these
experts and most language bloggers focus on this topic. Having a daily routine
where you are constantly learning and reviewing content is crucial. If you are
a busy person, try dedicating only 15-20min a day and you will already see a
lot of results.
2.
Focus On The Essentials – Not all vocabulary or even grammar
may be relevant to know at your current stage. Use your time wisely and learn
sentences that actually have an emotional importance to you and that are useful
in your daily life (e.g. if you don’t like soccer, there’s no point in learning
vocabulary that is specific to soccer)
3.
Speak ASAP – Whether you’re at a beginner or an
intermediate level, speaking from day one is an important step to measure your
progress as you move along. Yes, you will make mistakes as every toddler who’s
learning how to walk will fall. Learn from your mistakes and ask native
speakers to give you feedback.
Filipe de Carvalho is a Polyglot and a Linguistics
graduate student at the University of Vienna.
He speaks 6 languages and is constantly learning
new ones as well as doing educational research.
You can reach him on Twitter @ForkheadboxP2
