10 Things Not to do When Learning a New Language
Friday, 13th February 2009
There is lots of advice available on 'must do's' when it comes to making your language learning a success. There aren't so many tips about what you shouldn't to do though, when really the two go hand in hand...
Here are ten things NOT to do when you begin learning a language:
1. Approach language learning with the idea that it is hard, that you’re unlikely to succeed, and that you have to take it dreadfully seriously.
2. Believe the claims of language courses that say you can learn a language in three months, a few weeks or even a few days. Or that they are complete, comprehensive courses that teach you all you need to know of the language. Some even claim that you can learn simply by listening to them a few times, and that there’s no need for textbooks. Somehow you will just absorb it all.
3. Learn long lists of unrelated words by rote, not worrying about how to use them or even practising using them in speech and writing. If you know about 3,000 of the most common words, you’ll be able to understand most of the language, so there’s no real need to learn any more than that.
4. Try to memorise all verb endings and other aspects of grammar. You just need to recite the conjugations and other patterns endlessly until they’re seared into your memory. After all, once you have learnt enough words and grammar rules, you should be able to understand and speak the language without problems.
5. Practise translating from and into the language you’re learning. This is a long-established way of learning languages so must work well and be suitable for everyone.
6. Only listen to any of the language you’re learning when you can understand it. If you try to do so before then, you’ll just get confused and waste your time.
7. Unless you can understand the written form the language well, don’t bother trying to read it. You will just have to look up most of the words in a dictionary anyway and won’t benefit from the exercise.
8. If you’re going to a language class, don’t bother doing any of the homework the teacher gives you – it just makes for extra marking, and it doesn’t really help you much anyway. Or if you do do it, wait until the last minute – there’s no need to spend too much time on it. There’s also no need to practise the language between classes – you’ll get all the practice you need in the classes themselves.
9. If you do study outside class, do it all in one mammoth session rather than spreading it out over shorter periods and doing a bit every day.
10. Don’t look for opportunities to speak the language outside class, at least until you speak it fluently and perfectly. Otherwise people will laugh at your mistakes and accent, and probably won’t understand you anyway.
Tags: english, spanish, french, german, italian, language, tailor-made
Posted by Simon Ager under Attitudes to Language Learning, Making Progress,
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