How to learn a foreign language

1. 0 Course Intro: It's often said that the best way to learn a foreign language is to travel to a country where that language is spoken. But what if you can't or don't want to travel? Or what if you're looking to improve your language skills? Before a trip. In this course, you will learn tips and tricks on how to improve your grammar, listening, and speaking skills. I will also provide you with of resources to maximize your learning. By the end of this course, you will have a clear path on how to efficiently achieved fluids. Learning a foreign language can be difficult, but with the right tools, it can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Some benefits include deeper connection to other culture, events, your career, better memory, more flexible and creative thinking. And it's also great for traveling. You might be a beginner at learning a language and don't know where to start. Or maybe you feel like you're stuck at a plateau and could use some guidance. The ideas presented in this force are easy to follow and designed to help you make progress as fast. My name is Andrew simpler, and I speak four languages. I've been teaching English and French for over ten years and I'm also an optimize coach. I know how difficult it might seem, but I promise you, if it was profitable for me, It's 100 possible for you too. You just have to believe it and take the right action. The course is suited for beginners and intermediate alike. So sign up and start making progress and you're employing language learning to date. 2. 1 How To Choose A Language To Study: In this lesson, we will cover how to choose the language to study. Maybe you want to learn your first foreign language or your fourth. Learning a language is the long-term commitment. So it's important to choose the language that you find attractive. And that will motivate you get some clarity on your ideal language to study by answering these three questions. Number one, are you interested in the cultures that use a particular language? Checkout, movies and music from countries in which language is spoken. You can look at the history, even their political situation. Studying a language is much more than learning just grammar and vocabulary. You are immersing yourself in a new civilization. So this question is particularly important. If a language that interests you have a variety of standards dialects, for example, European or Brazilian, Portuguese, American or British English, European, or Latin American Spanish. You should consider the number of speakers of each dialect and what you personally would like to do with the language like reading or maybe traveling. Number two, how different is the language from your native language? Some languages are more difficult and time-consuming than others to learn. The main predictor of how difficult a language will be for you to learn is how different the language is from your native language. We'll you have to learn a new script. Is its pronunciation straightforward and consistent like Italian and Spanish, for less predictable, like English. Grammatically. Does the language use many noun cases like Hungarian? Does it have several grammatical levels of politeness and formality like Japanese, the Foreign Service Institute, FSI, REXX language is according to how much they differ from English. Further languages from English, the longer it will take native English speakers to learn. For example, Spanish takes considerably less time than Japanese for native English speakers to learn. Number three, what other languages is the language-related too? Languages are organized into families. The Indo-European family includes a vast number of languages ranging from Spanish to Hindi. And subgroups include the Romans family in Germany, family, et cetera. Awareness of language family structures, these useful in several ways. For example, you can estimate the languages similarity to English. And if you plan to become a polyglot, you can plan your long-term goals. If you learn Spanish or Portuguese, for example, you will find it much easier to learn French later on, because those three languages are closely related members of the Romans family, which consists of languages derived from Latin. So your task for this lesson, even if you have already decided on your target language, do some research to learn something new about it. For example, a checkout. It's dialect, it's language family, it's FSI, difficulty level, and make a list of possible resources you're going to use. In the next lesson, we'll talk about how to find the best materials to learn your language. I'll see you in the next video. 3. 2 How to find great learning materials: In this lesson, we're going to talk about language learning tools and materials, and how to evaluate whether particular materials will help you get the job done. I hope to help you save both time and money. Let's start with apps, mini language learning apps, available with different purpose. In quality. Some options include memorize, anki, ln Q enclosed master, memorize an Anki flashcard like system that use space repetition algorithm to help you review vocabulary when you want just about to forget it, which isn't excellent tactic for long-term retention. Ln Q allows learners to read and listen to reading materials in contexts. Close Master allows learners to sturdy example sentences. But it's sentences are sometimes not necessarily authentic for reliable, but both sides of valuable tools for serious learners. Other popular options such as Duolingo, provides slow-paced, gamified Beginners lesson that many learners enjoying. These lessons can provide a decent way to get a basic sense over languages structure, and grammar. However, the sentences are often, are often inauthentic and unrealistic. In the coffin, introduce beginners to uncommon words, rather than focusing on high-frequency words. Starting with apps can be cheaper than relying on courses, tutors, or books. I encourage you to try as many websites and apps as possible to discover what works for you. Now let's talk about books and audio. Textbooks can be expensive, heavy, and boring. However, they tend to offer valuable and reliable grammar and vocabulary instruction. For intensive learners. Many include online audio and video components. I think you should only use a textbook if it comes with audio. You can find older textbooks in use bookstores or on Amazon for very affordable prices. But be careful about books and audio courses that makes crazy promises such as master Spanish in one week or Japanese in 30 days. Fluency is a lifelong journey, not a week or one month sprint. Before you invest in new language learning tool, here are some questions to ask. What levels are included? Does the difficulty level match my current skills and goals? Does this material teach the vocabulary? I want to learn? The explanation skier is the material written by native speakers or experts or audio recordings included that every free online resource is trustworthy or useful. Even some of the most well-known and popular language learning sites do not teach vocabulary in context and do not use real example sentences written by and for native speakers. Finally, let's talk about learning to speak the language. Learning how to speak is often the most intimidating task for learners. The best way to learn to converse in your target language is to speak with native speakers as often as possible and about as many topics as possible. Thanks to the Internet, it is now easier than ever to find conversation partners. You can find them on language forums such as those on Reddit, Discord, Facebook groups, or on platforms like I taught he Halo Top Ten them and meet up. In the next lesson, we'll talk about how to put all these resources together to create a customized curriculum designed to help you meet your language goals. 4. 3 Designing Your Curriculum: In this lesson, we're going to talk about designing your own curriculum for success. Polyglots like Benny Lewis and local and very yellow, I've achieved their goals by designing their personalized curriculum. And I'd encourage you to do the same. One way to describe language is in terms of the four basic language skills. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In your learning, you will need to address each of these skills. And whenever possible, you should choose activities that integrate or four skills, since each reinforces the other. All four skills require knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. So make sure you have materials for your target language that cover each area. For example, you could use a book to practice reading and writing, audio recordings, to press, to practice listening and conversation group or partner to practice speaking. Think about with skill you want to focus on the most. Reading is crucial for vocabulary acquisition. But if you are studying a language with an unfamiliar alphabet, you should probably start with speaking to avoid feeling overwhelmed. If your primary goal is to be able to have conversation with native speakers, you can emphasize speaking and listening. Think about concrete action you'd like to be able to perform in your target language. For example, asking for directions, visiting a doctor, ordering at a restaurant, acing a job interview. No matter which kill you want to focus on, you need a solid foundation of vocabulary and basic grammar. Reading is super important as reading improves your vocabulary and grammar skills. Linguist Stephen Krashen argues that maximizing comprehensible input through extensive reading and listening is the best way to learn a language. Structuring your curriculum, you can use the textbook to structure your curriculum, since the chapters usually have a logical sequence. But this isn't the only way. You can also use skilled checklists, several checklists to choose from. You can even merge them and use different tasks from each one. For example, the American Council on the Teaching of foreign language, AAC, CFL, is categorized by level and skill, meaning reading, writing, speaking, listening, and presenting, and many tasks are related to social interactions. There's also the association of language that's very in Europe, a LTE which gives concrete example for the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Cfr. It includes survival, social tasks, work task, and sturdy base stats. Create a steady schedule. Make a schedule for your typical day and block out all the times you are busy. This will give you an idea of when you can schedule review sessions and intensive study periods. I've recommended a minimum of 30 minutes a day. In the key is to be consistent. You can make meaningful progress in a language in short study sessions. Advantage of moments like when you are waiting in lines or commuting on public transportation, you will be surprised how little moments like this quickly add up. Flashcards, whether physical or digital, have always been a popular way to review vocabulary quickie. For digital flashcard. I particularly like Quizlet and ink. If you'd prefer to make your own physical flashcards, you can use index cards. Remember that studying vocabulary without contexts is helpful only for review. And it's much more effective to learn vocabulary in context. So consider using larger cards and authentic example sentences. Word lists can also be helpful for quick review. You can keep a list of 20 or 30 vocabulary words in your pocket, right? The English words and its translation in the target language and review regularly. Make sure you are practicing recognition, which is looking at the foreign word first. And recall, which is looking at the English word for it. We call these hard, but it's very effective for long-term memory. It's crucial about above all, that you listen to and speak along with your audio program as often as possible. You can practice writing. Then check your writing by working with a navy speaking tutor in your local community on websites like I talky or length eight. So to recap, consider all four skills. In terms of concrete actions like can-do statements and evaluate your progress. Make a schedule, be consistent and don't overwhelm yourself with too much content at a time. Take advantage of little moments in your day to accelerate your learning. And finally, use flashcards and word list to increase your vocabulary. In the next video, we'll talk about how to apply contextual learning. I'll see you in the next one. 5. 4 Contextual Learning: In today's lesson, we will discuss how to apply on textual learning. As a language learner, you can optimize vocabulary and grammar sturdy with contextual authentic sentences. If you think about it, this is how native speakers and counter language and use it. You might be tempted to isolate the word, put it onto a flashcard, and start memorizing. Don't get me wrong. Using flashcards is great. But in the long term, this technique can prove detrimental for your learning. You run the risk of number one, misusing the word, and number two, forgetting it. Instead of work-based flashcard tried to include a full sentence. Fluency is achieved one sentence at a time, not one word at a time. Involving your other senses may also be great, including native audio and images will help you to better remember the words. Let me give you some tips for studying vocabulary in contexts. Learn words, thematically, learned list according to topic. For example, business, medicine, or transportation. This will help you to make associations. You can read news articles. The news is a fantastic source of authentic material. When I was learning Spanish, I used to read plenty of news article. The vocabulary you find in the article may be specialized. You may find collocations. It's also very likely you will find many colloquial phrases. You can also read stories like news articles. Fiction has a story element in stories can help you to better retain the new information. The most efficient path to fluency is through mastery of high-frequency words, meaning the most used, 2 thousand to 3 thousand words. They cover about 80 per cent of most conversations and texts. Mastering these terms will help you to communicate on a general level based on vocabulary, someone at this level is considered to be an intermediate learner. One more thing, when you encounter a new word, try to learn all the variations of that word. For example, a noun might also have a verb, an adjective form. Doing this will help you to expand your vocabulary and will help increase your confidence when it comes to using the word. In the next video, I will help you learn how to approach the study of grammar. I'll see you in the next one. 6. 5 Studying Grammar: Now I know what you're thinking. You're wondering if you need to study grammar to learn a language. I know grammar is hardly the favorite topic of most learners and I can totally relate. Many of us can remember the standard teaching approach in foreign language classes that traumatized us and made us believe that communication can't happen without flawless grammar in by memorizing complex rules. So that's certainly not the case. But still, grammar isn't essential in necessary component for achieving fluency. The grammatical rules of a language are just the patterns of relations between parts of speech, meaning the interaction between nouns, adjectives, prepositions, etc. In other words, you need to be able to put the language together to make coherent sentences. Start small, memorize meaningful language chunks. It's not a good idea for beginners to put a strong focus on grammar. Grammar explanations only start to make sense when you can compare them against your first-hand experience of the foreign language. If you haven't acquired it yet, you'd be better off focusing on developing a basic understanding of the grammar by interacting with simple language. So you should aim to build your own arsenal of language jump. Basically, prefabricated phrases and parts of sentences that can come in handy in a wide range of situation. By doing so, you'll be improving your grammar and vocabulary at the same time. Most of all, it gives you something to work with you when you're making your first attempts at communicating in the foreign language. A good phrase book can help you with that. Peak out the expressions that are relevant to your own needs and interests. Language learning apps like Duolingo and close master are also good sources for studying chunks. They offer lots of sentences that you will see over and over. The ones that you find relevant and useful for you. We've already established that you need to expose yourself to comprehensible input. Reading and listening in your target language can be a fantastic source of chunk. Just be ready to capture them on a notepad or a note-taking app. And once you've gathered a few new phrases, transfer them to some external system that you will use to memorize them. We've already spoken about flashcards. They are also relevant for studying grammar in contexts, though you memorize them as big structures, chunks can be pretty flexible. Once you get comfortable with them, you'll be able to change one or more words to express the different idea without much effort. You also have to find content that is just the difficulty for your current comprehension skills. You must make sure that your consumption of foreign media isn't entirely passive. Being generating, engage with the language makes you much more likely to gain valuable insight into its grammar. Try to rewrite paragraphs from the texts in a different tense, repeat entire sentences after the speakers and try switching a few words around. Challenge yourself to find sentences using a specific grammatical feature, example future, past. Write them down and look for patterns, you get the idea. The point is to use your media consumption as an opportunity to play around with the scaffolding of the language and not just passively observing it. Lastly, don't expect to see immediate improvement. It takes time for grammatical patterns to sink in and become second nature. That's your grammar skills. And get your feedback. Believe it or not, the best way to improve your grammar in a foreign language is to make a ton of grammatical mistakes. Learning grammar from textbook makes the most sense when you at least at the intermediate level, if you do it too early, you will most likely end up feeling lost and overwhelmed. At that point, many of the disgust structures will look familiar to you. But most technical explanation will intuitively makes sense to you. Grammar is no less or more important than any other major language competencies. You can't expect to be able to communicate well without a decent comment of grammar. Just as you can't make proper use of the grammar with a limited vocabulary or poor listening skills. This is why, if you care about efficiency, you should aim to work on more than one skill at the same time whenever possible. In the next lesson, we'll focus on how to create an immersive experience. I'll see you in the next video. 7. 6 Creating An Immersive Experience: In today's lesson, we are going to talk about how to create an immersive experience. As an enthusiastic learner, you may want to surround yourself in your target language. But traveling to another country, It's expensive. Despite this, it's possible to create an effective atmosphere for learning. Here are some suggestions to create an immersive environment at home. Great target language, newspapers, magazines, and books. Some of these may be free online, so you might have to buy. You can find great resources on Amazon. You can also try searching your local library for free materials in your target language. Invest in watching some films. Do this with or without subtitles. If you're a beginner or intermediate learner. Look forward. Talk shows, dramas or documentaries. Tried to find a popular news site in your target language. Try changing your computer language as well as that of your social media sites in yourself. It can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but with a little bit of time, you get used to it. You can play games in your target language. Because nowadays popular games even offer language options, at least for the subtitles. Practice your hobbies in your targeting, find friends. You can do this through forming a language exchange or visiting a middle group. Label everything if you are interested in passive learning, try labeling everything in your room with its target language equivalent. Cooked food from your target country. This is a cultural activity, but it's a fun one. Try reading the recipe in your target language before you start. Most likely, there will be a video recipe in your target language. Listen to the radio. If you are an advanced learner, podcasts in your target language are super useful. Ultimately, there are numerous ways to incorporate language into your daily life. Of course, you can combine these activities with flashcards, high-frequency words to solidify the new knowledge. So today, we learned that language learning can include numerous activities to help you master each skill. But of all the skills, listening can be one of the most difficult to master. So in the next lesson, we'll be focusing on listening comprehension. I'll see you in the next video. 8. 7 Improving Listening Comprehension: In today's lesson, we will focus on listening skills. They can be difficult to practice because a lot is expected of you and listening. You must be able to understand and respond immediately. Not being able to differentiate words or comprehend meaning is frustrating, especially if you can speak, read, and write without significant issues. Luckily, there are quite a few methods to practice listening. Dictation is the act of writing something down as you hear it. Well, multiple benefits. A study by Marilyn see fisher shows that after an exercise, students were able to better differentiate between words in Dane who their pronunciation and spelling. Any learner at any level can use dictation. You can use both films and audio for dictation. Have a transcription handy for self-correction. Test yourself by limiting how many times you listen to the audio. Like two or three times maximum. If you're a beginner, start small, listen to 30 seconds or one minute segments, and then work your way up to longer recordings. When watching films or listening to music. What the speaker says, you will not only improve your pronunciation, but also develop an intuition for the language. Try stopping the audio after every sentence and repeating it. Say the words out loud multiple times. Listen to yourself, which is super-important until you feel you have mastered the words. After a few minutes of audio crossbow program and try to summarize what you just heard. Be as specific as possible. Then try to stick your opinion on the matter. As you advance in this practice becomes easier. You should begin to summarize the audio has in place. You will be training yourself to quickly recall information and personalizing it. When you practice listening skill, it is vital to have a transcript for self-protection purposes. You may not know the words no, reporting. And transcripts are useful for checking yourself. It is also important to hone your active listening skills. Make sure there are no other distractions or noise. Concentrate only on what is being said. Before dictating or summarizing. Listen to the audio clip once and its entirety so you can get the gist of what the contents start writing or summarizing during the second repetition. Keep in mind that YouTube videos, news, and films can also be used for listening practice, assuming that they include a summary of a transcript of the material. In the next lesson, we'll talk about why and how you should self evaluate your progress. I'll see you in the next video. 9. 8 Evaluate Yourself: So far, we've focused on tips, tricks, and methods to learn a language. In this lesson, we're going to talk about evaluation. It's important to understanding where you are in order to make adjustments and optimize your time and efforts. It's not necessary to evaluate your learning every day or even every week. You won't be able to see a massive difference between two days. Instead, try evaluating yourself every one to three months. Go back to the beginning and look at your language goals. Did you write down specific items you want to accomplish? Or did you use can-do statements? Did you plan to achieve the A2 in three months, 100 words a week? Review your goals. If you're using a checklist, which simply check off the boxes for each item you can successfully performance. You can also try taking an online practice exam. This will give you an idea of what to work on. It's super important to keep a good record of how much time you spend a day, what time of day you practice, what you've learned, what topics you had a problem with. If you don't do as well on these practice exams as you would have liked. You can go through your notes to see which methods or goals did not suit your needs. If you want to evaluate your weekly or monthly growth through short activities, you can try these activities, record yourself speaking, and compare it to an earlier recording. How has your pronunciation change? Can you use more vocabulary than before? Can you form more complex sentences? Write an essay and have it checked? Did you make fewer mistakes than last time? Different mistakes. Do you see any recurring errors? Create a time test based on what you've learned and take it a week later. Did you pass? When do you need to work on? One more thing? It can help to have a reward system. This will keep you motivated to do well. Whenever you accomplish a task or see improvement. Try buying yourself something from a wishlist, ordering something special to eat, or watching a movie, maybe in your target language. In the next lesson, we will cover how to overcome the largest obstacle for language learner, the intermediate plateau. I'll see you in the next video. 10. 9 The Intermediate Plateau: Congratulations, you've made it this far. We've covered a lot of ground in this is the last stretch. In your language journey, you will eventually encounter the intermediate plateau. Plateau is usually described as the feeling of being stuck when your progress is no longer appearance. If you don't see the point in starting anymore, you may have reached this stage. This sensation typically happens at the intermediate to advanced level. In part because as a learner, you can understand 60 to 80 per cent of your target language. And your communication skills are good enough, but they are not yet fluid. Linguist Jagger Richards describes the plateau as unnatural speech, limited vocabulary gaps between input and output, and lack of complex grammar usage. Despite this list, the learner is close to fluency. They just have to push through this one last hurdle. Progress isn't immediately obvious because you must now delve into specificities. In other words, you need to start using broad terms like carp or instead use mug, don't blur or dummy task. Here are some tips to help you from the plateau to fluency. Practice more complex grammar topics. It's easy to become complacent and stick with simple grammar construction. Don't fall into this trap. Practice forming long sentences and using new conjugations. If you use the sentence flashcard method mentioned in previous lessons, you already have good habits. Said vocabulary goals. Decide how many words you want to learn a day and continue to learn vocabulary thematically. Our vocabulary of about 5 thousand to 6 thousand should get you through to the next level. Challenge yourself by reading material just above your level. This will expose you to a new vocabulary and grammar. Watch television or movies without subtitles to simulate a native watching experience. Continue to speak with native speakers. Try interacting in the forum or writing blog posts in your target language. Push yourself to enter only in your target language. Remember, learning a language is a marathon. In order to achieve fluency, it takes time and consistency. There will be times when you feel too tired when this happened. Try only doing five-minutes of work if you really need a break. Passively sturdy by listening to music or watching a movie in your target language. Don't become addicted to passive studying. While it may be enjoyable, it's no substitute for active learning. 11. 10 Conclusion: Congratulations on finishing the course. I'm happy and honored. I appreciate you trusting me with your invaluable time. And I hope you were able to find valuable ideas and tips to help you get to the next level in your foreign language learning. And I would also appreciate you leaving an honest review about the course. You'll review will help me a lot and will also help others find the force. If you need anything, don't hesitate to leave me a comment or a question. And if you want to get in touch, you can also find me on Instagram at the handle below. Thank you for taking the course and I wish you the best in your foreign language journey.