Introduction...of sorts

Welcome to this languages learning blog!

Here you will find a collection of posts holding a veritable myriad of ideas, tips, tricks and activities to help you learn any language you desire. My co-bloggers and I have tried to make all our posts as universal as possible, that is to say applicable to independent, high school, primary school, university or adult language learners in every context and situation. Although we have strived to reference wherever possible, the vast majority of the information and advice on this blog has been inspired by individual experience of language learners. As to myself, I am a language learner studying Spanish and Portuguese, having grown up bilingual with English and French (trilingual if you include Creole!), so I take a personal interest in practicing what I preach, as well as preaching what I practice, so to speak...

This blog has both general language learning advice, University specific advice and is currently developing more advice specific to individual languages. Posts are arranged by date, so please explore the various entries on the panel to the right. To begin with, I would suggest reading the post on why learn a foreign language: http://1ofmanyvoices.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-learn-new-langauge.html...And I hope that this resource proves useful to you in your language learning...

How do I learn a new language?? Introduction

Language is in fact a skill. It's a habit you picked up from your childhood. I don't believe that people are "good" or "bad" at languages, because if you are able to communicate in your mother tongue, then you are, in essence, a successful language learner*. Keeping that in mind, picking up the habit of a second, third or even fourth language isn't so daunting, considering you succeeded so well at it the first time!

Bearing that in mind, it is useful to break language down into four separate areas. Thinking about your mother tongue, let's assume it's english, try and think of all the ways in which you encounter language...Speaking to people, listening to music, reading the paper or books or road signs, texting friends, writing emails etc. All these activities in which you encounter language can be divided into four specific skill areas, or four different things you are doing in each activity: Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking. Breaking the entire concept of "learning a Language" down into these four areas makes planning to learn it a WHOLE lot easier!!

You will find that resources may or may not be geared towards all of these skill areas. For instance, a comprehension based text book with lots of passages and questions is useful for developing reading skills, yet not so helpful in practicing Speaking. Many textbooks come equipped with audio CDs and speaking exercises incorporated. These are most useful as general opinion is that learning is most effective when most senses are engaged**. In this sense, an activity where you saw some of the language written and read it outloud, listening to your own voice as you speak each word, and then wrote down answers to the questions or perhaps a summary, would be the most effective of activities in that it involves all four skills tasks AND your senses of sight, sound and touch (whilst writing).

Breaking language learning down into these four areas allows the learner to plan for their learning. Whether you are in Primary, Secondary School, College, working full-time, part-time or not currently employed, it is important to monitor each of the skill areas to ensure they are recieving the attention they need. Find ways of challenging and excercising each skill area and practice, practice, practice!

In order to learn new material to practice with and progress in your language learning, use already designed resources such as textbooks, online course materials or the school or course curriculum. These will give you a clear projection of how you are expected to progress in your language learning over a period of time. HOWEVER, do not rely entirely on any single resource. Supplement your learning with as many authentic resources as you can! The internet is a wealth or resources from online news channels, newspaper websites, tandem partner exchange programs, music videos, films and TV programs etc. Try meet native or very fluent speakers and practice with them. If you're in school then your teachers and language assistants would probably be more that happy to sit and have a conversation in the language with you. If you go on holiday, try not to speak English to the local people, try ordering food, asking directions, talking about the weather and making enquiries all in the native language. This is probably the best way of all to learn language.

This is just a short introduction into thinking about learning a language. I will shortly post more specific ways of learning and practicing each of the target skill areas: Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking.

*There is debate about language learning vs language acquisition but for the purpose of this post, all that is FAR too complicated!
**This is true for any subject, not just language!!

Interview with a Spanish Language Student

Name: Jack
Studying: French, Spanish and Portuguese
Mother Tongue: French and English
Strongest Language: French
Future Plans: Teaching, Travel, Writing Novels and Short Stories

1. Why do you want to learn languages? Languages make travel and communication easier and they provide insight into different cultures and societies. Language opens the door to the world. They are also an AMAZING skill to have, favoured by all employers and often just very impressive.

2. Why these particular languages? I’m already bilingual, speaking English, French and Creole (An Island Dialect), so Spanish was a no-brainer for me. Being one of the most widely spoken languages it has obvious strategic appeal. It I love Hispanic culture, particularly Latin American. I love the music and grew up listening to Gloria Estefan, Silvio Rodriguez and have always been fascinated with that part of the world without having the opportunity to travel there. Portuguese followed on from there, for its usefulness in Brazil and lusophone Africa as well a Europe.

3. What kinds of resources helped you in your University Language learning? I’m not a conventional language learner as a Dyslexic/Dyspraxic I find Grammar rules and linguistics quite complicated and hard to grasp, and learning things off by heart does not work for me! I like to use more authentic resources such as music, films, native speakers on the news, in interviews or in person, books etc. I believe you learn language best when immersed in it, so I try to surround myself with Spanish: playing music or movies, having words of songs or poems up on my walls, writing texts in it and speaking it to whoever will listen (and occasionally to myself!). Anything can be a resource really, I put my email accounts, mobile phone, computer, facebook account, camera etc into Spanish or Portuguese and you wouldn't believe how much that helps with undertstanding and confidence!

4. How do you improve your Reading? Writing? Speaking? Listening? I improve my reading by simply: Reading. Practice makes perfect. I use a technique of highlighting everything in a text that I DO understand, and speculating on what I DON’T, before looking it up or asking someone.
I improve my writing by again, simply: Writing, I practice writing all kinds of genres of Texts. I write summaries to practice vocabulary; commentaries and essays to practise structure and register; leaflets, stories and articles to practice fluency, and email exchanges with penpals or texting friends to build up competency and learn colloquial usage.
I try to speak as much as possible in Spanish to native and non-native fellow students like myself. I also have little debates in my head sometimes of a particular theme, and speak aloud to myself when hovering or doing the dishes alone. I also learn the words to songs and sing them to practice pronunciation, intonation and cadence, and I find this REALLY helps.
I don’t really practice listening as it comes to be as a byproduct of all the other skills. I listen to music, movies, news reports and my friends speaking Spanish and absorb it quite subconsciously I guess…

5. What are your Strengths and Weaknesses in learning Spanish? I’m a self-starter and that really helps. I also connect language with the context, it isn’t just a set of rules for me, its relevant to what I see on the news, what I hear in Shakira’s latest song, what I read in the Newspapers everyday.
My weakness is that I often overlook the details of language learning as they frustrate me, and this is detrimental to the progress of my formal and academic Spanish. I should spend more time on my writing and formal register.

6. What is the hardest part of learning Spanish? The Grammar and the subjunctive. As someone with learning difficulties, learning finicky little details like gender or complex and rare conjugations goes completely over my head, and I struggle to retain rules and irregularities. I also don’t respond well to many formal language learning resources such as text books and even some teachers as they adopt a linguistic point of view using lots of linguistic Jargon that always means very little to me. I may not know what the subordinate, colocative clause of the third person in a cognate is, but I do know how to use it!

Interview with a Portuguese Language Student

Name: Catalina
Studying: Spanish and Portuguese
Mother Tongue: English
Strongest Language: Portuguese
Future Plans: Travel, Charity/Missionary work and possibly Teaching

1. Why do you want to learn languages? I began learning Portuguese because I started attending a Portuguese speaking church and I wanted to communicate with my boyfriend’s family who are Brazilian. The benefits of learning Portuguese for job opportunities did not have anything to do with my decision to pick up the language.

2. How long have you been learning Portuguese? For just over three years although I didn't really have any guidance or support from teachers in the first two years. At the moment I can understand most Portuguese literature and have a conversation with a native Portuguese speaker about anything (within reason- nothing about science and stuff!) My pronunciation is one of my strengths. I have quite a good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. But I need to improve on more formal Portuguese.

3. What kinds of resources helped you in your Learning? Going to church and listening to Portuguese throughout the services was a great help when I started learning. Speaking to Brazilians helped to improve my pronunciation and pick up vocabulary and grammar. It also helped with my confidence. The main thing that helped was that I was completely surrounded by Brazilians most of the time so learning was more real and practical. It was and still is a lot more fun that way. On the other hand I wish I had used more resources like grammar books to make sure I was speaking correctly. Now I spend more time reading and looking through books and guides rather than practicing my speaking.

4. How do you improve your Reading? Writing? Speaking? Listening? I improve my listening by watching the news in Portuguese and taking notes, and watching films.. I improve my reading by just practicing and making sure I understand what the text is about instead of focusing just on words that I don't know. I improve my writing by using synonyms and using new words.

5. What is the hardest part of learning Portuguese? The hardest thing in Portuguese is the difference between Portuguese from Portugal and from Brazil and the fact that the books are not always reliable on which word is used where. My advice would be to focus on your weakness because I was very happy (and still am) to chat to someone in Portuguese but I always put off writing something which meant my speaking is much better than my writing. Spend more time on the things you are least comfortable at doing. And hopefully you will get better at the weaknesses and you will be a more well rounded Portuguese speaker! Yeah but don't stress just have fun with it! =)

Interview with a French Language Student

Name: Channah
Studying: French, German and Russian with a little Japanese
Mother Tongue: English
Strongest Language: German
Future Plans: Linguistics and Teaching probably

1. Why do you want to learn languages? It’s really interesting and exciting - unless you learn and study it you don't realize all the complex things that go on inside your head when trying to construct sentences and speak everyday. Grammar is fun. You can learn rules which you then have to apply all the time when using the language. I also like how when first learning a language, how you can see yourself improving as you learn more vocabulary and grammatical structures, and it is really satisfying as you see yourself progressing and becoming more confident

2. Why these particular languages? I have always studied French and don’t want to stop learning. German is really grammatically interesting and I feel a lot more confident in speaking this language. Russian is exciting. Its alphabet is like a code and once you know which sound each character represents you feel you have achieved a lot and it opens up possibilities of understanding so much more. Just started doing lunchtime taster Japanese course – again, another (or in fact 3 different) alphabets is challenging but really satisfying to learn.

3. How long have you been learning them? I have been learning French since I was 11. At GCSE the language seemed to ‘click’ for me. Currently, I understand the majority of French that I hear and I really enjoy reading and writing but I lack a lot of confidence with speaking. It’s almost as if a barrier comes up when I’m in certain situations with French – I have no confidence and consequently I’m unable to say anything.I started German 3 years ago at the beginning of A-Levels. I am now at a similar level in German as in French. This year I have become more confident with speaking German, I think because I live with another student studying German and we often speak German together. I like feeling equal when speaking a foreign language and that rarely happens with native speakers so that may be why I often get quite nervous and say very little in the presence of native speakers.I have been learning Russian for about a year. I found learning Russian quite frustrating at first as I wasn’t able to express all the things I could in my other languages.

4. What kinds of resources helped you in your Language learning? At GCSE and A Level, we spent an hour a week with the language assistants and I got a lot out of this. My language assistants from my school are probably the only native speakers I am reasonably comfortable speaking to and still like to keep in contact with them. I enjoy reading looking at Grammar Books as they provide the key to how the language works. When I first started learning German, I got myself quite a concise grammar book which I read and learnt the main, important grammatical differences which I’d have to get to grips with in order to pick up the language. I am still surprised how easily I managed to do this in such a short space of time. I really enjoyed finding out about the grammatical differences and similarities between German, French and English.

5. What resource do you hope to make use of in the future? Maybe speaking more to native speakers… although sometimes, I prefer learning languages without the help of native speakers. I think it’s really cool how non-native speakers of different languages communicate together – it’s a shame that English is often the lingua franca. I often think it doesn’t matter whether one sounds native or makes mistakes as long as the speaker is competent enough to get a message across, however, I don’t like the thought that I will sound foreign and make mistakes, even if they might be able to understand me perfectly well.

6. How do you improve your Reading? Writing? Speaking? Listening? I like to keep mini flashcards of new vocabulary I learn and I listen to podcasts in the target language, just to get used to listening to that language. I also put the language of my phone, email homepage and other computer accounts like facebook and Blackboard into French so I get used to seeing the it on a regular day-to-day basis.

7. What is the hardest part of learning French? Probably the fact that I’ve been learning the language since I was 11, but I still make so many mistakes and even if I keep learning the language for the rest of my life, there are always going to be things I get wrong and I will always have an English accent when speaking French. This might sound like quite a negative attitude, but I think, once you realize this, but love learning languages nonetheless, it means you don’t have to set yourself the near-impossible task of native-like competency, but can relax and enjoy learning it with the aim of being the best second-language learner of French that you can be.

Interview with a German Language Student

Name: Autumn

Studying: English, German and Spanish at University

Mother Tongue: Hungarian

Strongest Language: English

Future Plans: Possibly teaching, Linguistics, Working for the EU, Diplomacy and D efinately Travel!!

1. Why do you want to learn languages? Personally I feel fascinated about language learning because I believe that it allows me to access a greater part of the world we live in directly and gain an insight into how other people […] think about and see the world.

2. Why these particular languages? When I started primary school I had already been learning English, so the only other option was German at the time. It was the same with French when I went to secondary school; I simply had no other option. And then Spanish was actually my own choice mainly because I felt intrigued by and wanted to explore Latin American culture.

3. How long have you been learning and how competent are you at your languages? I have studied German for 11 years, French for 6 years and it is my second year studying Spanish. In German I am quite advanced in all skill areas. I generally feel confident about using the language in various formal and informal real life situations. Surprisingly in spite of only starting Spanish one year ago I would rate my competency between pre-intermediate and intermediate and I have built up quite a lot of confidence too in such a short period.

4. What kinds of resources helped you in your Language learning? Well, at high school I was not really relying on online sources unlike now at university, it was simply not common practice at the time I guess. Instead, mainly based on the recommendation of my tutors, I used selected material in print that was designed to help language learning. Also, I enjoy reading simply for pleasure in foreign languages, so for example I have read books and magazines. And not to forget native speakers and other language learners as excellent resources; I have always liked practising with others.

5.What resource do you wish you had made better use of from the start of your language learning? Definitely other speakers [of the language] whether they are also language learners or native speakers. Besides that, I would say the unlimited variety of resources on the internet.

6. How do you improve your Reading? Writing? Speaking? Listening? When I read I like […] to underline and highlight things I find noteworthy. I have developed my own elaborate marking system to work with texts, using different codes and symbols. I find this method much more effective than solely listing words in a book. It slightly changes the outcome of reading when I decide to focus on the theme of the text and only try to pick out elements that are directly linked to this theme. While at high school I also used to write summaries and commentaries on readings and form questions to them as if I was designing my own listening comprehension task.

With respect to improving my writing skills I now benefit from sending emails to my foreign friends or my fellow students. Or even just texting my friends in a foreign language who study the same language does help. Apart from that especially in German I used to write my own stories or topic-based essays and imaginary letters that really improved my writing skills.

To improve speaking there is the good old method of memorising dialogues by heart so one can then apply those phrases in real life. I know it may well sound a bit boring but it actually worked out well for me in German. Also, having at least one form of a safe environment where one feels comfortable to speak up is essential. It can be a class or a group of friends or a language teacher or a native-speaker friend, there are numerous options.

In order to improve my listening skills I search recordings online. For example newspaper websites normally have news clips and one can always find interesting ones. They are nice because one can go back and listen to them several times as opposed to listening to a live radio show for example. I like watching movies with foreign sounds and subtitles and I listen to foreign music over and over so I cannot actually help gradually understanding more of the lyrics just by being exposed to it constantly. I have had the chance to benefit from having conversations with native speakers, so if one has an opportunity to do so I would highly recommend not missing it; it is probably the most effective and authentic way to improve listening and speaking skills.

7. What is the hardest part of learning German? For me personally the hardest part of learning German is regional differences in pronunciation and colloquial phrases in everyday speech. Even though German is considered to be a “difficult language”, I would recommend trying to enjoy it and make use of it! Most importantly, find some kind of motivation for YOURSELF personally that will help you fight through the hard times of language learning!

Studying a Language: Writing

Writing in a foreign language is, in my opinion, a step up harder than reading. It presents the language learner with the challenge of producing the language themselves, pulling together everything they know about gender, conjugations, vocabulary, and tone in one piece of written work. However, writing tasks do still allow the learner the comfort of not having to produce the language spontaneously, as they would have to when speaking. Here are some ideas to practice writing and actually produce written work in the target language.

1. The spring board into writing is reading. Familiarising yourself with how the target language is written will allow you to, in turn, write it competently. (See my post about Reading Skills http://1ofmanyvoices.blogspot.com/2009/12/studying-language-reading.html)
2. WRITE WRITE WRITE. Text your friends in the language (preferably those who are also studying it or this may lead to some confusion!). Find yourself a tandem partner or penpal and exchange weekly emails. Keep a diary or journal in the target language. If you fancy yourslef the creative sort, attempt some poetry, short stories or even plays. Give yourself a topic a week and write however many words about it: your opinion, what's happening, describing it etc. Don't worry too much about correctness, you will find that the more you write the more aware you become of your own mistakes and you will find yourself improving in a very natural, almost subconcious way!
3. For written tasks, make mindmaps or lists of
4. all the key words you would need to use. For instance, if you are to write 300 words about the environment in your area, list or spidergram all the related words in the key language such as 'environment; pollution; recycling; toxic' etc. Find other pieces of writing on the subject and see if they have any interesting turns-of-phrase related to the topic, and try to incorporate them into your writing WITHOUT PLAGIARISING. (stealing someone's work and giving them no credit for it!). Make a list of these expressions and along with your key words tick them off as you write to make sure you've used them all.
5. Try different sorts of writing activities to practice different grammatical structures. Write about your childhood or a past event to practice the past tense. Write about your plans for the future to practice the future tense. Write about your dreams for world peace and a stop to climate change to practice the subjunctive. Write a description to practice your use of adjectives.
6. Use Synonyms. As your language progresses so should you range of vocabulary. I chose a set of key words that often come up in essays (such as 'problem' 'advantage' 'disadvantage' 'opinion' 'create' 'announce' 'said') and found 5 synonyms for each one, and made lists I can refer to whenever I have a piece of writing to do. Not repeating the same word a million times in a piece of work really improves the quality of the writing.
7. Make use of language setting on computers and use spellcheckers. Another good trick to check for spelling mistakes is reading your piece of work from the last word to the first (backwards, basically). This way the words really stick out on their own as you're not reading for understanding.

This post is particularly about the SKILL of writing in another language. I hope they are helpful, and I will be posting a general writing post about academic writing in general...enjoy!

Studying a Language: Reading

Reading skills are ESSENTIAL when learning a language. It is also, in my opinion, the least daunting of the four skill areas to master. When you read, you (usually) have the time to try and decipher unfamiliar words, to recognise the spelling of something which you may have difficulty understanding when pronounced in the language. Whilst recently in a French GCSE classroom I asked some students practising for their oral exam "Qu'est-ce que tu vas faire demain?" and was met with an array of blank expressions. However, when I wrote down the question in front of them, they recognised the words that they had not understood and were able to answer. Reading allows the language learner the luxury of taking their time, returning to unsure or unfamiliar words and phrases, speculating on meaning from spelling or similarity to other languages. Here are some ideas to make the most of your reading tasks and practise reading skills in your own time.

1. Firstly, READ READ READ. As much as possible. find Newspapers, books, online articles, textbooks, poems, song lyrics, appliance manuals, emails ANYTHING. For this skill, really, Practice does make perfect.
2. Read a text through several times. First ascertain the general meaning, maybe using Skim reading (letting your eyes skim over each sentence only picking out key words) not worrying too much about words you don't know. In exam conditions, you have limited time to spend on reading, so focus on reading for gist (using Skim reading) rather than understanding every single word of the text. Focus building up Speed and Understanding, and then attention to detail.
3. If you feel that you are struggling to understand, use the trick of highlighting or underlining everything you DO understand, and you will see that invariably there will only be a handful of words or phrases that you don't.
4. When dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary or expressions, before heading straight for the dictionary or teacher, try guess what they mean. Use clues from the surrounding words, i.e. if the sentence is speaking about what you do on holiday, the unfamiliar word is unlikely to have something to do with the Middle Eastern Peace Process or Molecular Biophysics (if there is such a subject...). Try to work out whether the word looks or sounds like any word you know in any other language, e.g Spanish embajador = English Ambassador. You would be surprised how many words in Latin and Germanic based languages are similar in this way. Note down your guesses for each word and then check it with a native speaker or a dictionary. For an extra push ;) give yourself points or rewards for each one you get right!
5. If a sentence is long and you are losing the gist of what is meant then break it down. Insert full stops and make it into small sentences, that way, you won't lose your train of thought.
6. Use colour, post-its, drawings etc as much as possible. One student devised her own marking system where she underlined certain types of words, circled key terms, highlighted unfamiliar grammar etc. Others colour code i.e blue for new vocabulary, orange for terms they may want to use later, green for everything I understand.
7. There is a dysfunction of the eyes in some people, often in dyslexics (like myself) where black text on white backgrounds is difficult to see. This is called Visual Stress Syndrome(see this website for more info http://www.visual-stress.com/what.htm). I struggle with this, and for this reason always try to use blue pens, many colours and coloured paper. It really makes a world of difference! Research also shows that people with Visual Stress benefit from using Coloured Overlays over text when reading, which can be bought from most reputable stationary stores.
8. As your language skills become more advanced in all areas, try reading increasingly challenging and diverse texts. At University level you should be comfortable reading journalistic articles, academic writing, narrative, poetry etc. Read and make note of what makes these different styles so distinct; is it the choice of words, the grammatical constructions, the themes being dealt with, the use of literary devices etc? Cultivating a critical awareness of different types of text will greatly benefit your reading AND your writing skills in the target language .
9. Read aloud. Once you have an understanding of the text (or even if you don't), read aloud to yourself or someone else and focus on your accent, pronunciation and intonation. Strictly speaking, this is of more benefit to you Speaking skills but it will definately help built confidence and hopefully, your reading speed.

For more ideas, consult your teachers and/or fellow learners about how they learned to read in the target language. Ask them for advice and resources if need be. The internet, once again is a wealth of written resources, as is travel if you should be so lucky!

Acknowledgements to Dr Patricia Romero de Mills (2008), Emese Racz (2009) and the University of Southampton Centre for Language Study.