March 15th, 2010
I struck up a conversation with a lady on the train to Waterloo this morning when I spied her perusing a French Phrasebook. “Learning French?” I chirped. She laughed and we spent the entire journey chatting about the trials and tribulations of learning a new language and the difficulties of French in particular. It was a wonderfully sociable change from the usual tense commuting atmosphere.
Our conversation reminded me just how intimidating learning a new language can be once the initial excitement wears off. Not all languages have the same learning curve but in French in particular there is a vast amount to learn in the beginning. New sounds to master, new accents on letters, masculine and feminine nouns and articles, all those confusing verb conjugations and that’s not even counting the irregular verbs, new tenses to learn and so much more! Simon gave some great advice about how to keep the truck rolling, but what if you’re stopped before you’ve even started? How do you get and stay motivated?
First things first: Manage your expectations. Be realistic. There’s a lot to get through, that’s just a fact. It’s going to take time, so be ready for that and relax about it if you’re not fluent after a week.
Second: Get clear about why you’re learning. Write your top three motivations for wanting to learn a new language. When the going gets tough, remind yourself why you’re doing it.
Third: Set yourself clear goals with a timeframe. What can you have mastered by next month for example? Don’t take on too much.
Fourth: Put study time in your diary and stick to it. Whether it’s ten minutes in the morning Monday to Friday, or an hour every Sunday, find a schedule that works for you and stick to it.
Five: Make it social. You’ll be more likely to stick to it if you get a tutor or find a language buddy or group to practise with.
Learning a new language is a long road to walk. Congratulations for starting it! You will get there eventually.
Gareth
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March 12th, 2010
These days I spend a lot of time thinking about the process of learning a language: what are the common steps, what are the common pitfalls, which words or phrases are really the most use when you find yourself in a foreign airport wondering what to do next?! Identifying high value concepts/elements in languages can speed up the learning process, by high value I mean words that can add maximum depth to your conversation with minimal learning overhead.
So, here we go; this is my top 10 most important words and phrases when starting a language. The list below is a bit of fun of course, but in all seriousness understanding which words/concepts are actually important to learn is a topic rarely discussed in traditional language courses. It probably seems obvious when it’s raised but concentrating on how to name all the animals in the zoo is rarely as important as mastering joining words in a sentence, though for some reason many language learning tools seem to imply the opposite.
My top 10:
- “Hello” – for obvious reasons, just being able to say this usually wins serious browny points in a foreign country, people engage with people they perceive as making an effort.
- “Thank you” – again for obvious reasons, you can’t get by without this one.
- “There is” – in many languages can be interchanged with “is there?”, this can be broadly interpreted in many situations.
- “Already” – gives you context and can again be both a question and a statement in many languages.
- “This/That” – often the difference between the two can make a big difference in conversation.
- “Why?” – With a pointed finger can mean “why is it so?”, “why did you do it?”, “why is there a problem?”. It can get you in to trouble when trying to understanding the answer but people can often interpret very laterally.
- “May I have” – or the equivalent, in many languages the literal translation is just “give me”, please and thank you are not required, either way understanding the convention can be very useful (and help you avoid taking/giving offence).
- “What” – obvious, the most important word for building your vocabulary, and or avoiding something dodgy in a village market stall!
- “I want” – this can indicate intent to do something in many languages as well as a desire.
- “Finished” – can often be interpreted as a question, a statement or a demand – all very useful at different times
I would love to hear your thoughts on this below please do leave a comment; share your Top 10,20,30 or a story about when some particular words have come in handy.
Simon
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March 10th, 2010
How to learn a language Matrix-style
You’ve seen the film right? Keanu Reeves downloads knowledge of Kung Fu and various other martial arts straight into his brain. Well, guess what? You can’t do that with languages. Not yet anyway. However, I discovered something rather marvellous the other day: The Matrix may be able to help you with your language learning after all…
A French cousin came to visit for a week with her son and one night we decided to watch The Matrix together. Since he doesn’t speak much English, I was going to put French subtitles on but I discovered to my surprise that my bluray version had various voice-over options in multiple languages. So instead we watched with French dubbing with English subtitles! I was even more suprised by just how impressive the dubbing was. I’ve watched French dubbed films before and some of the voices are, frankly, comical. Not so with The Matrix. Neo sounds like Keanu Reeves, Morpheus sounds just like Laurence Fishburne, and Trinity like Carrie-Anne Moss – all speaking French! Even Agent Smith has that wonderfully deliberate Carl-Sagan-esque delivery that Hugo Weaving first voiced.
The Matrix may or may not be your first film choice, but how many other films might be in your home DVD or Bluray collection secretly hiding a couple of hours worth of foreign language exposure? Definitely worth a look…
Gareth
You’ve seen the film right? Keanu Reeves downloads knowledge of Kung Fu and various other martial arts straight into his brain. Well, guess what? You can’t do that with languages. Not yet anyway. However, I discovered something rather marvellous the other day: The Matrix may be able to help you with your language learning after all…
A French cousin came to visit for a week with her son and one night we decided to watch The Matrix together. Since her son doesn’t speak much English, I was going to put French subtitles on but I discovered that my Bluray version had various voice-over options in multiple languages. So instead we watched with French dubbing and English subtitles! I was then further surprised by just how impressive the dubbing was. I’ve watched French dubbed films before and some of the voices have been, frankly, comical. Not so with The Matrix. Oh no. Neo sounds like Keanu Reeves, Morpheus sounds just like Laurence Fishburne, and Trinity like Carrie-Anne Moss – all speaking French! Even Agent Smith has that wonderfully deliberate Carl-Sagan-esque delivery that Hugo Weaving first voiced.
The Matrix may or may not be your first film choice, but how many other films might be in your home DVD or Bluray collection secretly hiding a couple of hours worth of foreign language exposure? Definitely worth a second look…
Gareth
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January 29th, 2010
Learning a language is like truck pulling at the strongman contest: it seems nigh on impossible at the beginning, but if you keep practising and building up your mental strength you can feel yourself moving forward. Then, as you overcome inertia, the wheels start rolling and you’re away, building vocab, grammar rules, listening, speaking and writing skills with each step forward. As with truck pulling however, to continue making progress you must keep the process moving—however slowly—to avoid the return to inertia. After a week or two away from the books the wheels start to slow. After a month without flashcards you’re almost standing; and after two it feels like “what language?” (or “Damn that’s a big truck!”). When that happens, the likelihood of you getting the thing moving again anytime soon is pretty slim and if you’re like most people (statistically speaking), it’s at this point your Tuesday evening Italian class becomes your pub quiz/Lost series 53 night (“just for this term”)…
Whether it be by keeping up with your Word of the Day, studying your books every night or hiring a tutor every week, make sure that you at least try and do something related to that language as often as possible (ideally don’t even let a day go by without at least thinking about a sentence in your chosen language). By keeping the truck going (however slowly) over time you lock the language into your mental framework, it stops being something you’re studying and starts being something you do. This is quite a different frame of reference when you think about it. The first is something that you can give up because “it was too hard” or “I was busy”, the second however, is a part of who you are—it may not be perfect but you can’t give it up any more than you can get rid of your first language.
So, at the very least commit to something so simple you can’t possibly make an excuse not to do. The word a day you’re learning will soon be 30 words a month and 365 words a year, not only will your language inevitably improve, as it locks itself into your mind it becomes something of a self-fulfilling routine, one that carries you through the inevitable ebbs of enthusiasm and lets you drive the truck forward when you’re back in the right frame of mind.
Simon
What do you do to keep the truck moving in your language learning? We’d love to hear from you, leave a comment below and share with the Bitesized Community….
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January 14th, 2010
As part of our spiffy new services we’ve started a language blog. We’ll be posting useful language learning hints and tips, plus announcements about our upcoming service improvements and new services. But it’s not all about us, if you have some useful tips to share, why not send us your ideas and we can can share those too.
You may have noticed that the Bitesized Word of the Day services is also now available on Twitter. If you want to follow us, here are the links:
http://twitter.com/frenchbites
http://twitter.com/spanishbites
http://twitter.com/portuguesebites
http://twitter.com/italianbites
http://twitter.com/germanbites
Enjoy!
Gareth
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