Hello, hello, hello everyone!!!! I hope you are okay and for those of you with assignments or exams I hope you are not feeling too stressed.
I am currently learning Polish and I thought it would be nice to share with you what I am doing to learn the language.
I already have two languages and learning a third one is quite easy in terms of grammar and pronunciation as I can find similarities between the languages that I already know.
There are a few tips that I would like to share with you if you are learning or planning to learn a new language.
1. Join a language class. For example, the Library of Birmingham offer different languages such as Spanish, Greek, German, French, Russian, Italian and many more (if you would like to know more, follow this link).
Enrolling in a course gives you far more knowledge than doing it by yourself. Most importantly, it gives you consistency and this is key when learning a new language. A language course gives you deadlines, and it organises the lessons in small goals so that you don’t struggle overthinking the amount of grammar rules, words and things you need to know.
2. A language app. There are many apps which are quite good for learning new languages. The one that I highly recommend, which is free, is called Dualingo and it is available for Android as well as for Apple.
This app won’t teach you everything, however it will make you remember the pronunciations and spellings by playing a game which only takes 5 minutes (this can vary, depending on how long you want to take). I set mine for every morning to spend 5 minutes on it and it is quite fun to do, and you can learn more than one language at a time. For every wrong answer you get, your life decreases, making you more competitive. And although you think it’s not getting in, it does, as with this app you can revise when they repeat those words that you keep getting wrong.
3. Children’s books. Children’s story books or grammar books help you gain the basics in a fun way.
The least you want when you learn a language is to become bored after a few days, therefore you need to make it as much fun as possible. Learning from children’s books is a good starting point as not only they are full of colours and pictures, they tend to be a lot thinner than the basic, thick, small writing book with just two colours for grown-ups. These books give you the motivation and engagement you need at the beginning to learn and complete the book.
4. Books with audio. When you are learning a new language, the key thing is the pronunciation more than the writing, because the main reason for having another language is to be able to communicate with a bigger society.
Audio books help you visualise the word and listen to the pronunciations, to help you pronounce them in an easier manner.
5. Board games. Word board games in the language you want are very helpful as well.
Getting language board games helps you interact with friends as well as developing your knowledge. I highly recommend it and you spend a really nice time playing, but at the same time learning, which is the most important thing.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my post and these five tips help you with your language learning.
“In learning the art of storytelling by animation, I have discovered that language has an autonomy.” – Walt Disney.
R.A.