11 tips for those who learn a foreign language on their own

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Instagram subscriptions will get you closer to native speakers faster than a grammar book.

1. Make Expression Cards

Everyone knows about flashcards - this method is the most popular in the process of language learning. You simply cut out squares from cardboard and write the word on one side and the translation on the other.

Lexemes begin to be remembered even in the process of making cards, but to heighten the effect, of course, you also need to consciously teach them, alternating directions and stages. But not everyone goes from words to phrases. Proverbs, fixed expressions, speech cliches, colloquial expressions - write on the cards everything that seems relevant, and memorize according to the same principle as words.

By repeating the card over and over again, you drive the material into long-term memory, using the mechanism of active active memorization of material: how to achieve better memorization results. And when it comes to live communication, you will not need to link words into a suitable phrase - the phrase will fly off the tongue by itself.

2. Mix words

“Language is a creative process,” says Chris Lonsdale, a New Zealand psychologist, linguist and educator, in his TEDx talk. Start small: make up phrases. Knowing 10 nouns, 10 verbs and 10 adjectives, you can think of 1,000 combinations of them. You can work according to the anagram principle, when it is necessary to compose as many words as possible from a set of letters.

Determine a set of words that will include different parts of speech, and write down on a piece of paper all the possible phrases that come to your mind. After that, filter out those that are not used in live speech.

You can check whether a particular combination exists in nature using dictionaries. For example, the Longman Dictionary leads to each word a Collocations column, which records the most frequently used language combinations. This practice will help develop spoken language and reinforce familiar elements.

3. Use prescriptions

It is not for nothing that we even begin to learn our native language from the words. No, we do not urge you to sew crochet hooks and sticks, but write a couple of sheets with the same word - perhaps. It is especially useful to do this if the writing of the language you are learning is not based on the Latin alphabet, but on a hieroglyphics or alphabet that is unfamiliar to your eye.

This method works at the level of a mechanical LINGUISTIC EXPERIMENT: STUDYING THE PROCESS OF REMEMBERING memory and helps to easily remember a memorized word by reproducing it on paper. And the visual memory is also connected to the mechanical memory, and it turns out a cool tandem, with which it will be difficult to forget what has been spelled out a hundred times.

4. Follow the media on Instagram

And procrastinate profitably. Finding native speakers of the target language on your favorite social network is easy if you use hashtags in the desired language and geolocation. You need to choose not those who post selfies that are not burdened with the meaning, but the guys who care about text content no less than about photo processing.

By adding bloggers from the country of the target language to your subscriptions, you can not only enjoy the content, but at the same time get acquainted with the colloquial vocabulary and get used to the new linguistic environment, just scrolling through the feed.

Here are some examples of English-speaking accounts for every taste and color:

• Passion Passport is an account with hundreds of inspiring photographs from all over the world, accompanied by equally inspiring stories from their authors.
• Alex Zouaghi is a London-based blogger who lovingly talks about his beloved city, also in two languages (for those who learn French, note).
• The account of the fox Juniper, whose owner describes the peculiarities of life with wild animals and their relationship with each other.
• Sharmili is a beauty blogger from New York with detailed analyzes and texts on the topic of cosmetics.
• Humans of New York is an interesting project that tells the stories of people living in New York.

5. Use visual memory

Standard columns of words, their meanings and pronunciations help to fix information visually. Create a table of tokens with translation and transcription on a specific topic and memorize them first in the order in which they were written out. Then swap and alternate the columns:

• remove the column with the translation and restore the values in spelling and pronunciation;
• leave only the transcription and try to remember the word itself and the Russian-language equivalent from it;
• shuffle the lines of each column and find the corresponding translation by connecting the word with the desired meaning with straight lines.

The easiest and most effective way to do this is by hand on paper. Such a scheme of work connects visual perception, and the alternation of columns and lines helps to transfer material from short-term to visual long-term memory, which has greater capacity and accuracy, according to the Visual Memory of Igor Utochkin, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Head of the HSE Laboratory of Cognitive Research.

If paper is outdated for you, you can use simple tables in Word or Excel. Although you still have to print, it will be easier to work with the connection of words and memorizing columns.

6. Glue stickers

Another fairly common THE SCIENCE BEHIND VOCABULARYSTICKERS method that should not be neglected is sticky notes with words. If you are just starting to learn a language, sculpt stickers on everything that comes to hand. At the same time, write on them not random words, but the name of the object on which you are gluing. So, going to the outlet or mixer, you will see every time what it is called.

If you are already familiar with all household items, write down the more complex lexemes that you need on the stickers. Pick a word of the day and leave a reminder of it on all surfaces you meet. Having memorized it, change it to a new one.

7. Come up with language parallels and rhymes

It is not necessary to try to rhyme a word with its immediate meaning - use associations. Simple rhymes on associations like "dog-leash" are easy to remember and don't give a chance to get confused. Have we already said that language is creativity?

If you speak a foreign language and decide to learn another one, you can use this advantage. Find words with the same meaning in different linguospheres and draw parallels between them: in sound, spelling. This works especially well if you are learning languages from the same language group, be it Slavic or Romance.

8. See pictures to improve pronunciation

Of course, ordinary pictures will not help you to speak, but detailed illustrations of the features of articulation when pronouncing a particular sound will greatly facilitate learning. Each language has its own nuances of sound and features of the formulation of the speech apparatus. In order to get as close as possible to the pronunciation of native speakers, study such pictures and put them into practice.

9. Change the language on your phone

A great way to learn new words is to do it “out of desperation. Can Your Phone Teach You a New Language? . Inconvenience will arise only for the first time, until you understand all the technical terms that you may come across. And then, you just look, and start thinking in a new language.

10. Listen in the background

That being said, you don't even need to understand what you are hearing. Surround yourself with foreign language everywhere: play 6 Ways to Simplify Your Foreign Language Learning radio or news programs while cooking or cleaning. This will allow you to memorize intonation, speech tempo, and pronunciation patterns.

11. Learn from your mistakes

Starting to speak in a new language, it is impossible to do without speech errors. There is nothing wrong with them, but they should not be ignored. If you made a reservation and noticed a mistake, correct it by repeating the sentence in the correct form. According to 6 Ways to Simplify Your Foreign Language Learning, bachelor of French and Romance philology and current linguist Allison Lones, this will help avoid similar shortcomings in the future and cement grammar in memory.

Learn the language the way you feel comfortable. But in order for the process to go faster and more efficiently, dilute the training with simple actions that are available to everyone in everyday life:

1. Memorize stable phrases using flash cards.
2. Get used to phrases using anagrams.
3. Write words.
4. Search Instagram for meaningful, foreign-language accounts.
5. Play with columns and lines to memorize words.
6. Glue helpful stickers.
7. Rhyme words.
8. Learn the peculiarities of pronunciation - the position of the lips and other organs of speech.
9. Surround yourself with language everywhere, even on your phone.
10. Hear foreign speech in the background.
11. Correct mistakes immediately.

Write in the comments which of these tips are you already using? Or maybe you have your own life hacks working?