How to Approach Learning a

New Language
by Alison Turner

This is a free e-book downloaded from www.LingoGlobe.com

LingoGlobe - Language Exchange Community , All right reserved

www.lingoglobe.com

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Motivation
Why do you want to learn?
Are you doing this because you have to?
If you are, then you need a fresh perspective. It is worth thinking through the real
reasons you want to learn a new language. Your progress will depend on how
badly you want to learn and maintaining your motivation is key to your success.
Some people want to learn because they simply fall in love with the sound of the
language, or a culture in which the language is an integral part, or maybe they love
a person who speaks the language. For them , with such an emotional motivation,
progress will be rapid. I did a year of German at school and I never made it further
than Ich bin fnfzein jahre alt but you can be sure if there had been a hot German Assistant in my school, Id have tried an awful lot harder. So, try to connect
yourself emotionally with the language. Find something beautiful that catches your
imagination whether its a song in your target language, your favourite movie
with subtitles in your target language, a movie or book in the target language, a
city or landscape in a country where your target language is spoken. .. there are
many possibilities. Transfer your personal passions into your language learning. If
youre a big rugby fan, for example, start checking out the websites of rival teams
where your target language is spoken. Travel to one of their home matches. Make
the language beautiful in your own mind, and you will enjoy your experience of
learning, instead of trudging drearily to night class every Tuesday.

Exposure
Every language learner I have ever spoken to has raved about the benefits of total
immersion. I certainly dont need to go into detail as to why. When you switch
your brain to focus entirely in another language you will be astounded how quickly
it adjusts and processes information using an entirely new vocabulary. That leads
me to highlight two important ideas. The first is that any kind of exposure to your
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target language is useful reading the instructions for your new TV in your target
language (and in your native language safety first!), checking a website every
few days for news items in your target language, reading a novel in your target
language do not underestimate the value of even the smallest amount of time
spent concentrating on your desired new language. Second, your brain has the capacity to rewire itself in a new language. Total immersion brings it along more
quickly, but if you discipline your thinking and expose your brain to the new language, you are no less able to learn a language than anyone else. Its a matter of
desire and discipline.

Progress and discipline

You know better than anyone else how your brain works. Do you respond best to
visual stimuli or oral? Do you have a good memory? Are you better with facts,
sounds, or ideas? If youre still at school, or you just left, youll have strong memories of the best teachers, the subjects you were strongest in. Think about the
methods those teachers used, and why you enjoyed reading some text books and
not others. What was it about the classes where you excelled that helped your
performance? Try to incorporate those experiences into how you learn a language.
I can still remember the picture of a rabbit our French teacher showed us when I
was 11 and I never forgot the word lapin. That doesnt mean my brain is only
visual, but I know my memory is better when I associate a word with an image.
Equally, my memory is linked to my emotions. When I hear words in my target
language which I associate with subjects I feel strongly about, I am more inclined
to remember them. Some people write to pen friends because they feel connected
to someone who speaks their target language.
Those who arent fresh out of school will have discovered that learning doesnt end
in the classroom. You will be able to look back at your life experiences and recognise what learning techniques your brain has responded to. You can learn in a
thousand ways, including and combining listening to others, private study, the media, formal education, hands on experience. If one doesnt work for you, try anHow to Approach Learning a New Language

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other. But dont knock it till youve tried it. My dad has big farmer hands, but he
started painting watercolours in his sixties and discovered a delicate eye for colour.
Dont forget learning is as much about expressing and exploring yourself as it is
about developing skills and knowledge.
If youre serious about learning, and want to see some progress, you need to decide how youre going to measure your progress. You are in charge of how you do
this which on the one hand is enormously liberating, but on the other hand creates the temptation to slack off. Its a traditional notion, but setting targets is a
useful tool. Ask yourself, Six weeks from now, how much better at my target language do I want to be? Able to rhyme off 20 new words? Able to carry on a
conversation about my favorite historical figure? Able to describe my family and
home life? Or maybe your targets will be less academic maybe youll just want
to feel more comfortable in speaking, or have overcome a feeling of dread about
going to class, or to have lost the panic that rises in you when you hear someone
speaking your target language too quickly. You set your standard for learning (unless of course you are working towards an exam or under some pressure), so you
should set yourself a pace and try to stick to it. If you dont, youll achieve in ten
years what you could have done in one if youd only pushed yourself. But if youre
learning the language purely for pleasure, dont feel guilty about only escaping occasionally to the greenhouse for a little glass of wine and an indulgence in some
clumsy Greek phrases. No-one need know but you.

Communication
Language developed because we needed to be able to communicate. As a two
year old, I wanted to be able to convey that my eye was sore, or the cat smelled.
So, through a combination of gestures, facial expressions and eventually words,
one learns how to put across what one is trying to say. Equally, when learning a
new language, you should remember that you already know a huge amount, because you have the basics of communication, no matter what your language.
Youve heard the statistic that body language accounts for 55 per cent of communiHow to Approach Learning a New Language

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cation. This is, in fact, a distortion of what the studies of Albert Mehrabian concluded. What he did conclude was that our liking of a person and how much we
believe what they say is determined largely by their body language and the tone
they use. So words are important but they dont make up the whole picture. If
you think you can get by just waving your arms and rolling your eyes, then please
go ahead, but eventually youll get sore and have to start speaking.
At the risk of offending doctors and botanists galore, many say that Latin is a dead
language. My memory of Latin at school is certainly less than vibrant, and the reason for that is what every teenager argued When will we ever need this? When
will we ever use it?. Real lovers of Germanic languages, of course, know what a
great help a knowledge of Latin is. But in my adolescent world not very many of
my class went on to study languages, Medicine or Botany(and they asked the same
questions in Maths, Physics and Chemistry. In Latin though I do understand their
frustration. You must make your target language real and you must use it. Even if
you just talk to yourself while youre washing up repeat the vocabulary for items
of clothing, label the items in your kitchen cupboard, buy movies and music in your
target language, make friends with speakers of your target language. If you cant
totally immerse yourself in the language, you can do your best to create your own
mini-version of another country. If you have kids, talk to them in your target language they dont know if you are making mistakes if anything, theyll think
youre the coolest, cleverest person in the world (if they dont already). And it may
inspire them to learn another tongue. If you open your mouth and speak, you are
taking huge steps towards mastering the language. With your nose in a book, it
will remain maybe not as dead as Latin, but certainly as pointless as knowing Pi to
a thousand decimal places.
A more focused way to use your language is in a language exchange. If it is not
possible for you to live in a country where your target language is spoken, in our
mobile societies, it is hard to imagine not being able to make contact with a native
speaker of your target language. The internet gives unlimited access to other
learners who are willing to exchange their expertise for an opportunity to practice
their target language. It may take a few attempts before you find someone at your

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level, but dont give up. This is an ideal arena for practicing with someone you can
come to trust and get to know. It will make learning enjoyable and comfortable.

Support
Language exchange also offers a source of support for learners. You are in a
shared experience, encountering similar difficulties, fears, frustrations and enjoyment. Its important that you also make your friends and family aware of your
quest to learn. You might be surprised how much fruit this can bear in your education. When other people know that you are interested in something, they will give
you information that is relevant to your learning if they meet a native speaker of
your target language, if they see a TV programme you might be interested in. If
you know native speakers who are already fluent in your mother tongue, they may
be willing to converse with you in your target language to give you an opportunity
to practice. You should ask your family to keep you accountable explain to them
your targets and ask them to remind you of them and check on your progress. Ask
for their understanding if you need time to study, or silence to concentrate. Ask
for their patience if you want to listen to your language CDs in the car. But dont
overdo it in your zeal to learn. There is such a thing as, Forcing your family to listen endlessly to foreign language CDs and forbidding them to speak in the car.
Dont be that parent.
If you have a partner or friend who shares your desire to learn, all the better. Work
together and practice together. On another note, it is important that you dont feel
intimidated when you think others around you are progressing faster or are much
better at the language than you are. Comparing yourself to others can help to motivate you to work harder, but it can also make you less willing to speak and increase your frustration with what can be an already difficult process. In any learning experience you will encounter those with greater skill and those will less skill
than you. This is a fact. Dont allow it to be a hindrance.

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Practice
Ah yes, practice. Practice makes perfect. How many times did I hear that during
my seven years of piano lessons. Despite my burning desire to be able to play any
piece of music at will, my greatest piano achievement was to be The Entertainer.
Bless my father for being doggedly impressed with even this, but Im sure hed like
to have seen a greater return on his investment. The temptation is always there to
just get by in your target language. Many language learners reach a point where
we can manage in most basic situations the type of encounters which feature in
your first few text books, such as ordering food, buying something in a shop, asking the time, talking about basic situations. Then maybe the novelty wears off. If
you practice, you are forced to acknowledge the limits of your skills. You will almost always find something you dont know or are not sure of. That makes practice the most useful aspect of learning a language, but only when you combine it
with the discipline of follow up. When you hit a wall, you need to work out how to
climb over the wall, then remember and reinforce what you just learned.

Structure
And as I come towards my conclusion, I have to address the more dreary aspects
of language learning. There are practical items which you should consider if you
want to succeed. I already mentioned setting measurable targets, and this requires
a degree of structure. Dividing your time, deciding exactly when you want to
spend time studying and practicing, keeping your learning resources together and
organised (know where your dictionary is and keep your special language CDs
separate from the rap and blues), planning for exams, applying for exams, planning
holidays or immersion courses in your target language, finding pen-friends, on
LingoGlobe.com the language exchange community, advertising for a language
exchange partner, researching local language classes a lot of time consuming
work can be required on the road to fluency.

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Overcoming Fear
My concluding comments must address fear. For some people, a new language is
no more challenging than buying new shoes. For others, it is an arduous journey
requiring personal sacrifice and some loss of dignity. We often fear making fools of
ourselves. I want to emphasise that it is rare that you will find yourself in a situation where a language mistake will destroy your self-esteem. Few people will point
out your mistakes, fewer still will laugh, and often you would be amazed how few
people even notice. Those who are listening to you are listening for the purpose of
understanding you. If you are getting your message across, however imperfectly,
they appreciate your effort and will be enthusiastic to understand your message.
If, however, you refuse to open your mouth, you will not communicate anything
and you will not win the patience or sympathy of your listener. This is why it is so
important to speak as much as possible, even if you are your only audience. You
will become more comfortable with the foreign sounds in your ear and the strange
feeling in your mouth. Speaking another language will begin to seem a more
natural process.

So I send you my best wishes for learning your new language or indeed continuing
in your quest for fluency. I hope you enjoy the process and that the journey brings
you new friends and greater confidence.

And lets meet on LingoGlobe.com

my favorite language exchange community

How to Approach Learning a New Language