How can I learn a language without living abroad or having a native speaker as a friend?
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by Flynnatory
How can I learn a language without living abroad or having a native speaker as a friend?
1. I create language learning environment for myself. I set my phone in English, watch videos in English daily, listen to English songs and follow English speaking Youtubers/ content creaters/ teachers. While I'm surfing the internet, I come across many short educational clips. This is how I learn new words and phases gradually everyday. My preferences are on pronunciation, cultures and travelling. I'm a fan of "What are the differences between American, British and Australian English" kind of titles. I read aloud. Even though, I couldn't understand the text at first, with time, I get used to it and later on I can understand its content while reading out loud. I often imagine having a conversation with someone to practise speaking, and pretend to be on both sides of the conversation.
2. Understanding grammar is important for me because I don't want to only memorise them. I try to understand them first and then practise to get used to it. I recently have sticky notes posted to my bedroom wall. I write down words or grammar points that I haven't been able to remember yet and post them right next to my bed. Everyday before I go to bed, I sit against the wall and review them. Once they sink, they'll be moved to another wall. I call them the "work in progress wall (WIP)" and "success wall (S)". Looking at the success wall, it reminds me of how far I have come since the sticky notes keep increasing. You can actually count every single success if you need that little confidence boost. I sometimes go over the S wall again to make sure that I am still able to recall those words, if not, they'll be sent back to the WIP wall. I also thought of another way to review but I haven't tried it yet. If it works out, I'll update it. It'll be challenging, fun and also funny. 😂
3. I don't translate between languages. It's extreamly hard. Literally, I tried and I failed many times. For me, making up a new whole sentence in another language is much easier than translating. In my opinion, when I think, I don't think in any language. I just think. However, when it comes to communication there's a language involved. For daily conversations, I use whatever language that pops up first. In more formal settings, I have to force myself to only talk in 1 chosen language. This explains why I always mix up languages and sometimes ended up forgetting words in my mother tongue, sad truth though. 🤦🏼♀️ If you keep translating between languages, your response will be slowed down and you will probably get stuck for words that do not exist in some languages. I prefer linking new information to pictures instead of translations. Seeing a cat should tricker all the cat words in different languages, not just a word "cat" which can be translated to other languages. It's better to catch the vibes and understand native speakers' views (why they say it like that) towards their languages than to only stick to translation. Being able to switch between languages unconciously will cut response time in half in real-life conversations.
4. I allow myself to make mistakes while I'm speaking. Knowing the correct way of saying something doesn't mean that you can say it naturally. Our brain and muscle need some trainings. But knowing the correct way of saying it means that you can fix it next time. This is how I practise speaking without a speaking partner and it's why I love learning grammar so much.
5. I listen to my target languages as much as possible. Any input helps. It may be subtle but, believe it or not, it never goes to waste. I sometimes doubted myself if some words should be pronounced the ways I had heard because they were different from their spellings but if I continued hearing the same sounds from 3 plus different native speakers, I went on with trusting my ears. There was a time when I was walking on a street and unintentionally heard and understood people's conversations. That was the time when I realised that my listening skill had improved and my hard work had finally paid off.
6. I write in different languages. I personally like writing. Well I asked myself.. why not do it in every languages I know so that I can practise?
Here I come, writing about anything I could think of (that interests me) and hope it's worth your time reading them. In order to write well, I have to keep all information active. I have to not only recall grammar rules and a wide length of vocaburary but also carefully check when something doesn't feel right. I often ended up spending longer time writing than I expected because I invested so much time trying to figure out if there is any difference between two similar words, recheck my spelling (which is usually wrong 😅) and look up synonymes in dictionaries. Besides, I love using phases I don't normally use in everyday life to see if I will make a mistake using it or not. By doing this regularly, I could expand my language database, learn and re-learn what I might misunderstood. Most importantly, I can enjoy making my own funny and non-sense sentences while making mistakes because learning is all about making mistakes. It's simply part of the process.
My favorite word I keep saying to myself is "yet".
I don't know it "yet".
I don't have it "yet".
I haven't been there "yet".
I haven't done it "yet".
I haven't tried it "yet".
I haven't got it right "yet".
I'm not there "yet".
Since "yet" implies something hasn't happened, there is always a possibility, isn't it?
#flynnonJournaly
#flynnatory
24/06/22
6.58 p.m.
1 - Luckly, it's pretty easy for English, since it's a very widly used language, even if you don't switch everything, you still encounter it here and there over internet.
2 - That's litterally "the golden list method", but on the wall instead of a notebook.
Numbers 2-6 and your anecdote about "yet" spoke to my soul.
All of my languages share the same families and mixing them up has luckily been rare for me but when it does occur I do feel stressed. I need to find more space in the "yet" that being said just forgetting English has become my major feat. I am really considering re-learning it at this point. Dedicating the majority of my time to improving and learning other languages puts my native one on the back-burner.
I suppose what tends to happen is we can't compartmentalise the languages automatically so it is a case of frequency, what words we use more and feel more natural to us. If you don't use certain words often then it remains in the back of our minds, regardless of the language. Hence why we "forget" or "go blank" in our native tongues.
Writing is definitely very important but also reading!
I am not sure if you heard about this app before but I use an app called "Tandem" that provides an online immersion experience. It's free and I think it's worth checking out. Of course talking to strangers has some dangers but it is worth considering. They offer a lot of different languages, you choose your native language and the ones you are learning and you are exposed to natives of those languages and can conduct an online language exchange. It was launched in 2015 so it is somewhat new. I won't say it is the best thing in the world but it has propelled me to reach new heights in my language learning journey and provided me with more consistency. If you do try it out, I hope you benefit from it too.
Tandem is nice, but not that easy to find actual learners :(
@splinny Wow I've never known there is a name to the method. Actually, I knew it wasn't some thing new but one day I was just thinking 'where should I put sticky notes so that I can see them easily everyday?' and it happened to be on my bedroom wall. True, even if I don't do anything I will still encounter English here and there on the internet but I do think that passively come across something and actively try to do something will make a totally different impact, at least the commitment and enjoyment during the process. I believe that if people want something much enough, they'll find the way to achieve it. :)
@Kr15t3n So true, I agree on that word frequency. I think I need to use all the languages equally and stop being lazy with my mother tongue sometimes so that I can maintain them all and don't mix them up so easily. 😂 Thank you for your recommendation, I'll make sure to check it out.