Saturday, November 21, 2009
By name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
- First you need Some Basic knowledge of foreign language by asking friend of your to teach you how to read in language you want to learn, if none is available then you should take course in education institute, but only to learn basics of reading.
- Remember, language is a system and not a set of words, therefore, it is better to try to understand system rather than memorising a set of dictionary words
- Stay away from programs and systems that advertise you to learn foreign language in fast effective way for fee, these programs tend to be short term solutions and ineffective as far as I believe.
- Make sure to use foreign language dictionary without any native language words, such as Russian-Russian dictionary if you want to learn Russian language. You can find many online dictionaries or simply use google.com or wikipedia in language that you are trying to learn.
- You may use dictionary softwares that will make it easy for you to locate and find meaning of words, such as stardict, goldendict, ... etc. You can add as many dictionaries as you like to these programs and change settings according to your preference.
- You should watch useful programs or listen to radio (online many can be found for free.)
- Quality of programs should be high, music has many repetitive words and tend to be language poor as well as movies, therefore, it is better to avoid them.
- While listening to radio, you can read, even if you are not sure that u read accurately, the quality will improve as u read more and listen more. In other words, experience will teach you and improve your understanding and language skills.
- Your brain will compare what u hear with what u read, therefore, better reading skills will automatically be acquired
- Notice, it might be better to lower volume, higher volumes tend to cause headache
- Nevertheless, u can listen to radio while doing any other task, no attention is required and volume can be low, because your brain is learning constantly.
- Also, repeat what you hear on radio. This method will improve your pronunciation and grammar. It will be hard at the beginning, but reward should worth the effort, in shaa Allah.
- It is advisable that you listen to radio for several hours in a day while at home. Let radio play in the back while you are doing your regular home tasks.
- Brian Tracy said " Turn your car to mobile university ". In other words, try to listen to radio while driving your car. If you drive for 1 hour a day, that is 7 hours every week of foreign language classes. And as I mentioned before, make sure to listen to informational programs that are rich with words.
- Good way to learn language is by finding people who can speak it and talk to them, but many times it is difficult to do. For this matter, you can find a language partner on language exchange websites such as sharedtalk.com
- It is advisable to read at least one hour per day. Set schedule and stick to it.
- Start by reading children literature. Then move to reading blogs, news, or whatever you like. But please remember, that anybody can write a blog, but not anybody can write a high quality book. Books language tends to be better, and more accurate grammatically.
- Use chrome internet browser feature to google the words you do not understand ( highlight word then right click and then choose from menu search google for "highlighted word or phrase", sometimes using google images reveals meaning fast.
Mind your foreign language
We all speak to ourselves in our mother language. Try to talk to yourself and think in the words of foreign language. At the beginning, when your vocabulary is still weak, it will be difficult, but still possible for at least name of few things. Then, you will notice that your mind will be busy with remembering words from f.l. you try to learn and with structuring sentences. In other words, your mind will be cooking and learning and remembering foreign language as you try to think and talk in f.l.
Try to make it part of your life.
As example, when you search for information online using foreign language keywords, use google translate first and later type these words by yourself. If you read news, or newspaper on daily base.
At first it will be difficult, but later you will catch up and start to feel more and more comfortable with new language. Remember, it is all about practice.
And on, and on..
Find a Foreign Friend
Try to make a friend who's mother language is your target language and in return teach him your mother language. Their is many language exchange sites were you can find such person. At these sites you can meet such people and then chat, talk to them through any chat, or internet phone. Sharedtalk.com is one of them. You can teach him for an hour and let him teach you for an hour or secession for secession. Try to make each secession in one language without exception. As example, when you teach him your mother language speak only in your language and make sure that he talks, writes in your language.
How to learn writing using Internet ?
Each language has its' nature for which this method may not work.
However, you can use dictating websites that has a text read in foreign language and actual text. In other words, you listen and write and after that you correct your mistakes. It may take some time but you can learn how to read accurately using this way and without need for paid teacher to dictate you every day. For keyboard, either print out an image of foreign language keyboard and stick characters to your keyboard, or simply keep the print out in front of your monitor and you will memorize position of letters by experience. Also, you need to install keyboard of F. L. on your PC and switch between 2 languages keyboards using some shortcut keys.
You can find online, speech to text website. They will help you to read accurately, and you can record text voice in order to write it later
And start to study grammar, especially grammar of accurate writing, please read down.
How to improve pronunciation
You need to find certain words and phrases that improve your tongue by continuous repetition. In English language they called tongue twisters. It is phrases such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." Please note, that you should concentrate on reading them accurately, and then try to repeat them many times and as fast as possible.
How to learn Grammar.
You can watch grammar classes on youtube.com or other online video sites, and you can read grammar articles, posts online. Please remember, that best source of information is books. Anyone can post anything online, but only expert can write good book on subject matter.
The main problem you will face when studying grammar is misunderstanding, because of weak vocabulary. Here Wikipedia should become your friend. Search for each grammar word on Wikipedia and that should increase your understanding of grammar.Another tip, don't be afraid to swim in Wikipedia, it will increase your language dramatically as you search for one word after another. Again, make sure that Wikipedia is in foreign language.
Stages of learning- beginning stage ( learning tends to be boring, language seems strange and difficult to understand )
- discovery stage ( learning tends to be more interesting,learners starts to consciously or subconsciously discovery language grammar, however, understanding is still low and retention is difficult)
- mastering stage ( learning is easier, deeper understanding of language starts to appear, learners becomes more comfortable with language and reading as well as talking becomes faster )
Quantity not Quality ( in other words, do not care about understanding and reading everything accurately, concentrate on high quantity of words u hear and read)
- Reading better than hearing, number of words per minute are higher when person read fast ( 150, 300, to even 600+ words per minute with some readers) than when he listens to radio or TV ( around 120 words per minute)
- faster reading will lead to faster learning, ways to improve speed of reading
- using books such as 10 days to faster reading which is available on amazon.com or other books,
- using computer programs that can force you to read faster, and u can input texts u read as u wish. Mere watching of words should improve and stimulate language abilities.
- Please note, that naturally the speed of reading foreign text will be slow at the beginning.
- Higher quantity will naturally lead to faster learning of language.
As final word, please be sure that learning and mastering foreign language will give you enormous feeling of satisfaction.
Please leave you questions, comments, suggestions below!
Regards, Samer, the sole author of this article.
Thank you.
