Collette
How did you learn your target language? I'm learning French and obviously italki.com is a part of my learning. I'm also using other resources such as reverso.com, TV5Monde, Rosetta Stone, FI3M, and french media and incorporating reading, writing, viewing and speaking. Using a variety of resources has built my vocabulary far more quickly than focusing on one program. However, I am feeling scattered. What did you discover to be the best way for you to learn? Thank you!
Jul 22, 2014 2:57 PM
Answers · 9
2
Reading, listening, speaking. Do that a lot, with any income, and you'll get it right. More specifically, first of all I opened a Twitter account to follow and write to people who speak my target language, then I mixed everything, I found LingQ very helpful, as it's a place where you can read and listen a lot of different things with definitions, or at least translations.
July 22, 2014
1
Personally, I've learnt English best through music. That way, you keep listening to natives singing - autrement dit: speaking. Not only do you pick up the right pronunciation but you also gain useful vocabulary though the process :) More importantly: it's fun and touching! ..One thing I still remember from my neurosciences lecture (if not the only one..hem ^^') is that memory works a lot better when it's combined with emotion (something we kept as a survival strategy lol ;P). If you're not a massive music fan though, you can try finding series you really enjoy watching. Same idea. The more you're hooked, the more you practise (perfect procrastination excuse too!). Basically, it all comes down to making the things you learn more personal, I'd say. Learning from a school book doesn't work very well because it doesn't mean much to you.. for e.g., the first sentence I learnt in English was "Fasten seat belts"..you can't see the point in that, can you?! Apart from the fact that you must go through tedious moments to reach a better level..someday...which is true, but it's not exactly the most uplifting perspective either lol so make it more fun, and more 'you' (sounds like a crap add lol). There are words I'll always remember because they're related to a nice memory, like when I first watched East Enders with my 'English mother' and the word 'daft' came out (surprise, surprise..). Now every time I hear someone say 'daft', it makes me smile. Enough rambling. Hope that helps you a little ;)!
July 22, 2014
1
Goals. You need goals. This can be anything from writing an email requesting information, to telling a short story, to booking a hotel room, to solving a problem... the level of complexity is up to you. You're taking in the information and building your knowledge, but where shall you focus it? Input is fine, but we also need to reproduce what we take in.
July 22, 2014
Everything depends from type of learner you are. I passed a test (in the internet, but I forgot where was it)to choice the best way for learning(not only foreign languages). I am "reader-writer" type, because I read a lot and I'm a visualizer, I memorize visually. But writing for me, is crucial to test, what I read. Frankly speaking I don't have any problems with spoken language, I don't bother with French pronunciation, because It is much easier for me to learn how to pronounce than to find a word or phrase. I also see, that many people who are native speakers of one's language don't bother with pronunciation. However, I learn French Grammar and Vocabulary through Polish software, called Supermemo, very useful.
July 23, 2014
I've learned english only by watching american drama (with english subs) and reading/commenting on website (reddit, ...). It's very good to build vocabulary, but I know I lack some basic grammar rules. For korean, I tried to do the same, but it's not as efficient. Korean is much harder to understand by listening, and I don't have enough vocabulary to read popular website in korean. So instead I'm focused on learning vocabulary and revising grammar rules while practicing on italki (only recently for the last one).
July 23, 2014
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