Any useful tips on learning another language?

Question

Just began the long process of learning French. I realise it's gonna be a lot of hard work and patience, just wondering how many hours a day I should dedicate to learning, any useful learning techniques, what's the best home study course? I am using the Lingaphone study packs.

Answer 1

I study French too and have been for six years. I've also been studying German for 3. I've taken ASL and Russian, both for a year (those were my credits).

The best way that I've found to learn vocabulary is to do it drill style, meaning write each word 3 to 5 times. This may take a long time, but I've learned 200 words in a week by doing this.

I suggest, for grammar, listening to French songs and translating them. You may find some that you enjoy which makes it more fun to translate! I've done this since I started taking French, and without realizing it, you begin to develop an ear for the language. I can now decide if a sentence "just sounds funny" or if it sounds "right."

I would suggest at least an hour a day reading, listening, speaking, and writing (not an hour a day on each, although that would be better). You could either do 15 minutes on each or an hour on each, switching off. Of course, if you spend more time studying, then you will learn it faster, but be careful because if you study for 2, 3, 4 hours straight, you won't retain anything that you learned after the first hour or so, so if you decide to study more than one hour a day, be sure to have breaks in between. I would also suggest that you set a specific time to study; studies have shown that you retain more by developing a routine for it. As for speaking, try replacing common phrases like "what's that?" with the French phrase, "qu'est-ce que c'est?" You could also do it with "Where is (my pen, my book)?" which would be "où est (mon stylo, mon livre)?" If you have a friend that knows French, you could do French-Only Days. Me and my friend did that a couple of times and we loved it!

Also a good way of learning vocabulary is, if you like to write, writing little stories that use the vocabulary of the chapter you're on. It's easy to get bored of the drill method. You could also draw pictures and label them (with a house or parts of a car for example) or create acronyms.

I'm not so much an expert on online programs but having someone with you who speaks it well really really helps. If you can go to France, don't hesitate! But if you do go, they will want to speak English with you, but hold your ground and speak French back to them :P

Hope this helped! You'll learn which methods work for you as time goes on. French is an awesome and beautiful language, so have fun!

PS you may not be able to translate or read much at first but don't worry about that. As your knowledge of vocabulary and grammar grows, you will slowly feel yourself getting better and better. I would not suggest trying to translate a book, for example, word for word if you have just started studying French because then you're bombarded with vocabulary, and frankly, it doesn't help you learn vocabulary. But after a while, you can try to start to read beginner books and work your way up.

Answer 2

Without a doubt, the best way is to be in the community of the language you wish to learn. It sounds like living in a French-speaking community isn't an option for you. After you've learned some basic vocabulary and have finished some of your Lingaphone activities, I recommend you find a person who is a native french-speaker who wishes to learn English. You could meet maybe once a week and spend half the time speaking each others language. This will definitely help you learn and that person can catch some of your mistakes. My point: You can't learn it alone, at least well. Good luck!

Answer 3

You can learn a lot in an hour a day. Start with simple conversations (most modern language text books start that way) but don't worry about grammar in the beginning. Personally I would trade off the Linguaphone course for Michel Thomas CDs or tapes. His course is so natural that you can't fail to learn. There are 8 CDs in the course and they all concentrate on speaking and listening.

After you feel happy with some basic French go to France or Belgium (or Switzerland or Canada) for a couple of weeks and immerse yourself in the language.

Answer 4

The easiest way to learn a language is to live it. When i left college i was offered a job in Paris, so i moved over there and within about 3 months i was conversationally fluent in most aspects of the language. I had sudied it for 5 years at school, but to be honest that was no use to me at all, other than telling people what my name was and where i lived! I know it's not always practical to up sticks and move to another country, but flights are cheap enough these days that you could pehaps go over a couple of weekend every other month, go do some shopping, sit in a tabbac and chat with the locals?
I admit it sounds a bit extreme, but i promise you will learn tonnes more than just by repeating tapes parrot fashion.

Answer 5

The best way to learn any language is to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible. If you are trying to learn French, try to take a trip to some French speaking area, if you are in the US, Canada is probably the easiest. Listen to the natives speak and don't be afraid to speak with them. The next best thing is to read in the language. Any Borders or Barnes and Noble book store will have books in French. Another great technique is to set all of your DVD's to French and watch them until you can understand them.

Learning the language on your own or in a classroom setting is only half the battle. You really have to be immersed in language to become fluent.

Answer 6

One tip is to listen to native speakers. I have an american french teacher in high school and I can converse fluently with her in french but when I turned on the french tv or movies or music at first I didn't have a clue. I had to go back and spend about a year listening to native music and TV so that I could understand native speakers. The accent makes a big difference, so save yourself the trouble and stay away from other french-speaking people of where ever you live!

Answer 7

The Lingaphone course is very good, but as you have just started did you consider (borrowing from the library) some tapes which are meant to teach young children French ? They are excellent because they are meant for real beginners, tapes, books with pictures, they will give you loads of confidence. Speak the language as much as you can, say it out loud when you are alone. If you can afford to take a French holiday. do so. Go to classes if you can where you can converse with others, practise as much as you can. My teacher used to say " When you are walking along the street just thinking, and you find your self thinking in French, then you`ve cracked it !" But that will be a long way away for now. Good Luck.

Answer 8

I can only point out that learning another language is HARD so you need to really immerse yourself in it. Put a post it on every object in your house saying what it is in french. Buy all the books, newspapers, magazines, check all the websites you can find and try to translate them. Buy a dictionary and learn new words every spare minute you have. Talk in french as much as you can, try to find a friend or at least pen-pal or phone-pal. Tell your friend not to be shy to correct you. Work hard and don't get discouraged. I also like the "Pimsleur" tapes very much, you can use them in the car, they go slowly and work very well. Practice, practice, practice!

Answer 9

Buy a French newspaper and read it, looking up every word you don't know, its a slow process at first but it does work. This improves you vocabulary but of course not you accent. You really have to speak to a French person for that, but if you know the words you are half way there

Answer 10

Hi!!! I am a spanish native speaking and i speak perfect english.
In the beginning many years ago, I had english classes, then I went for an exchange program to USA and in my university i was plenty of classes in english.
I good way to start learning another lenguague, is to take a look to the grammar, learn a basic vocabulary and watch cartoons in French!!
The cartoons describe every single thing that is going on in the story, they have slow conversations and very good pronunciation. You can turn on the caps-caption of your tv.