Learning languages

Have you ever thought how important learning languages is in your life? Not knowing the language is almost the same as being not able to speak at all. We use language everyday, but how can we improve our language skills efficiently?

Learning mother tongue is easy, because you hear people speaking that language from the moment you born and hear it everyday. Though, the fact, that native language classes are not only in schools, but also in universities (at least for one term) means that it takes a lot of practice to speak fluently ant correctly even in native language. But what about learning foreign languages?

In my opinion, to learn foreign language efficiently, one must use that language as much as possible, that includes speaking, listening and writing. I have learned English as my second language, and by now I can hardily say that I have tried and used many different methods, and found some of them more effective than others.

I think that language learning is not only about rules and vocabulary. The most effective way that I found is watching movies or TV shows in original language. That way you will not only extend your vocabulary, but also learn to use your vocabulary in any given situation. Also, you will learn both – speaking AND listening at once. This method is not only very effective, but can also be really entertaining, thus – you will not get bored easily.

Other effective method is communicating with other people. If you have an opportunity to visit the country that is speaking that language which you are learning – take it, it’s obviously the best way to improve your language skills. If you do not have that opportunity, you can always communicate with other people over the internet. That could be done by having a pen friend, or, as in my case, communicating with foreign players in multiplayer games. The only problem is that other people can also make lots of mistakes, so at least basic language knowledge is required to sort out correct language from errors, so that you do not learn other people’s mistakes. Anyway, this method is also quite entertaining and interesting.

The two previous methods, although interesting, effective and entertaining, they are not enough if you seek perfection. And that’s when learning language rules and doing various exercises becomes important. So, I think, that the third efficient way to learn foreign language is to learn it, if possible, in school, university or to sign up for a special courses.

To sum up I can say that those are obviously not all available methods of learning foreign language. There may be hundreds of them, and you just have to choose the one that are suitable for you. You just have to remember, that there is only one important thing – you have to use that language as much as possible, and everything will come with time. It just needs practice.


References:


http://www.uniquetranslations.dk/picts/book.jpg