How to learn a foreign language without the pain Part 1
A few simple techniques that will help to make learning a language interesting and productive, and painless.
In the story describe a hypnotic method for teaching foreign languages: connect to a special device, settled comfortably in an armchair, and after an hour we Wake up already with perfect knowledge of the language. Beauty! And no suffering is true, and enjoy the process too.
But this magical device has not yet been invented, and foreign languages still need to know, so I’ll have to learn the old fashioned way, through books and dictionaries. And although language learning is a long and difficult job, there are a few rules that will help you make it a lot easier.
Determine why you learn the language
This is very obvious advice, but what to do if you formulate your goals really important? So you will be able to prioritize and make language learning more interesting and productive. You need to learn how to conduct business correspondence in English? Or you want to read “the Little Prince” in the original? Maybe you want to chat with friends from Spain in their native language?
To properly prioritize, you need to answer two questions.
What language skills you need at the moment?
Listening? The letter? Oral speech? Reading out loud? Understanding of the text? All of these skills together make up the language; of course, ideally, they need everything, but if you choose some of the most important and will work on them, you’ve moved on (besides, all language skills are interrelated — if you lift one, you automatically raise and others).
In the end, if you only want to read and understand texts, e.g., scientific articles or technical documentation, it is possible to do even without knowledge of phonetics, and speech for this purpose you just do not need. If you believe that some skills you don’t need, you have the right to postpone them for later.
So prioritize based on your goals and existing knowledge. If you important to first learn to understand what is written, try to read more books and blogs; if you want to watch movies in original language — learn to perceive it by ear. Other skills connect with the time when you Will feel more confident in the major.
What is the vocabulary you need?
If you are interested in any particular field of activity, you should focus on it. For example, if you urgently need to learn how to conduct business correspondence in English, you will need a common business formulas, and the vocabulary of your industry and makes sense in the first place to teach these words. Agree: if you work in the fashion industry, words related to astronomy can wait a bit.
Do not forget: first, learn basic vocabulary, then — special! No matter what field of activity you focus your attention, you always need a common vocabulary — some of the most common names and verbs, adverbs of time and place, prepositions, introductory words… If you need to write or speak in a foreign language, and you have no base, you will have nothing to bind your special vocabulary.
There is an option in which language you need for anything fancy is not needed — you just like to teach him. Such a motive — getting pleasure from the process — also has a right to exist! Safely learn and read whatever you like.
Do not grasp it all at once
Five books, two grammar textbook, three dictionaries, ten online portals for learning a language is all fine, but in this situation you will not know what to grab in the first place, and to learn the language will be difficult. Try not to throw: found the tutorial — excellent, on it and engaged. If it seems that in the other tutorial material is given in more detail, you can always refer to it as a source of additional information, but best not to try to go through it from cover to cover along with the first.