How to Learn A Foreign Language
A lot of people think that in order to learn a foreign language, all you need to do is to learn a different word for every word you know in English.
Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. While learning new vocabulary is a large part of learning a new language, it's not the only part. Other languages are put together differently than English is, so you also need to focus on grammar and idiomatic expressions.
Let's take a closer look at each of these.
Vocabulary
You might assume that for every word in English, there is a corresponding word in every other language in the world. Not so. In both French and Spanish, for example, there is no difference between
house and
home—they use the same word (
maison and
casa, to be specific) for both concepts. However, as writer Bill Bryson points out, "both French and German can distinguish between knowledge that results from recognition (respectively
connaître and
kennen) and knowledge that results from understanding (
savoir and
wissen)" (14). Spanish does the same thing: to know a person is
conocer; to know a fact is
saber.
Sometimes other languages do things that just don't make sense to us in English. Bryson notes that "all the Romance languages can distinguish between something that leaks into and something that leaks out of" (14), and even more perplexingly, that "the aborigines of Tasmania have a word for every type of tree, but no word that just means
tree" (15). This may not make sense to you as a speaker of English, but it makes complete sense for native speakers of those other languages. All we can do is shrug our shoulders and accept it. After all, there is plenty in English that doesn't make sense to speakers of other languages.
Other languages also have
gender, meaning that all nouns are either masculine or feminine. (Some languages, such as German, have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Other languages have even more.) The gender of a noun often has nothing to do with whether what it represents is actually male or female. If this seems confusing when you first encounter it, don't let it be. Just accept the fact that some words will end one way and other words will end another way.
Even more confusing to English speakers is the concept of
case, which refers to the role a noun or pronoun plays in a sentence. If we say "the dog chases the cat," we will use the exact same words (albeit in a different order) when we say "the cat chases the dog." Same words, different order, and thus different meanings. Other languages will actually use different forms of the words
dog and
cat to indicate who is doing the chasing and who is being chased. You won't run into this too much with Romance languages (Spanish, French, and Italian, for example), but you will encounter it a lot with Germanic and Slavic languages.
Gender and case are really more of a grammar issue, but you begin to encounter them when you start learning basic vocabulary. So while we're on the subject, let's talk about...
Grammar
You've been learning grammar since elementary school. For example, to form the plural of nouns, you add
-s to the end of the word, except for certain words to which you have to add
-es. To form the past tense of most verbs, you just add
-ed, except for irregular verbs.
The bad news here is that every other language has its own unique system of grammar, and all of them bear little, if any, similarity to English grammar. For example, in English, we have only two present tense forms of
speak:
speak and
speaks. These words aren't very specific about who is doing the speaking, so we always use subject pronouns: "I speak," "you speak," "he speaks," etc.
In Spanish, there are six ways to say
speak in the present tense:
hablo,
hablas,
habla,
hablamos,
habláis, and
hablan. However, these are very specific about who is doing the speaking, so in Spanish, the subject pronouns are often omitted. For example, "yo hablo" means "I speak" and
only "I speak", so it is often shortened to "hablo."
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that all the rules you have been learning about English grammar (and which great writers from Shakespeare to Twain made money breaking) simply aren't going to apply to the language you are learning. You are going to have to learn an entirely new grammar. The good news is that other languages generally have less complicated grammar systems than English, or at least, there are fewer exceptions to the rules.
Idiomatic Expressions
An idiomatic expression is an expression that you can't deduce the meaning of just from the words. A good example is "it's raining cats and dogs." Someone learning English may know the meanings of the words
raining,
cats, and
dogs, but they could never figure out what "raining cats and dogs" means from those words' meanings alone.
Languages are surprisingly full of such expressions, and English is no exception. You're not aware of them because you grew up hearing and speaking them. In English we say "it's cold," but in Spanish we say "it makes cold." In English we say "I am hungry" or "I am thirsty," but in Spanish we say "I have hunger" or "I have thirst." In English, we take a walk and tell the truth, but in Spanish we give a walk and say the truth.
I think you get the idea. Language is made up almost entirely of expressions like the above examples. A lot of times you just have to learn them, but there are things you do to make learning them easier.
Some General Tips to Make Learning a Foreign Language Easier
I know this is a lot of information to take in, so you may want to focus just on the following points for now.
Get organized. You are going to have to memorize a lot of material, so you need to deveop a system for keeping track of your notes, quizzes, tests, and study aids.
Study every day. Don't put off studying and then cram for tests or exams. Cramming may help you with the test or exam, but you won't remember anything after it's over. Learning a foreign language is cumulative—what you learn this week is based on what you learned last week, and what you learn this week will form the basis of what you learn next week. Stay on top of things and don't fall behind.
Forget what you know about English. English is a unique language—there simply isn't another language that is structured the same way. How you form the plural of nouns or how you form the past tense of verbs in another language will be different from how you do the same thing in English. There are reasons for the way English does things, and there are reasons for the way other languages do what they do. You don't need to know those reasons. If you find yourself stressing out over the question "why do they do it that way?" just tell yourself "Because that's the way it is," relax, and move on. (You can always learn about those things later, in a class called "linguistics.")
Remember that the purpose of language is communication. You're going to have to learn a lot of material, and at times the amount of new material may seem overwhelming. Remind yourself that learning another language is not rocket science—millions of people learn this language from birth and do just fine with it. If you become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of material you have to learn, take a deep breath, relax, and focus on learning to communicate instead of just memorizing stuff.
Don't just learn a language—learn a culture. Learning about the culture behind a language (and in the case of Spanish, there are many cultures) makes learning the language more real. Learn where this language is spoken (and why), learn about the food, the customs, holidays, and other traditions associated with that culture. It's fun, it's interesting, it takes some of the stress off, and it gives you great practice with the grammar and vocabulary you are learning.
Use "total physical response." TPR is a technique where you mime the action of the word you are trying to learn. For example, if you are learning comer, which means "to eat," you would mime using a fork. This doesn't work for every word, but it's great for learning verbs and some nouns. Here is a YouTube video that demonstrates this technique in a sixth-grade Spanish class.
Move beyond the textbook. Once you have a little bit of grammar and vocabulary under your belt, you might want to explore some literature in Spanish or whichever language you are studying. You may not understand everything at first, but you will certainly recognize certain words and phrases, and gain a greater appreciation of the language you are studying. If you are studying Spanish, you can view some bilingual Spanish-English books of poetry and short stories in my bilingual bookstore.
Ask for help when you need it. Your instructor is there to help you. If you're confused about something, chances are there are other people in class who are also confused about it, so don't be shy about raising your hand and asking. If you're just plain lost, let them know. Your instructor can't help you unless they know that you need help. Most importantly, if you have access to a language lab, be sure to use it.
Now that we've covered these points,
learn how to use a Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary.
Other Resources
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