What are the wrong ways to learn a language?

Question

What shouldn't I do when learning another language?

Answer 1

The biggest mistake is to translate! The greatest impediment to learning a new language is translating that language to/from your native language, You must start thinking in the new language immediately, as translation slows you to a standstill. The most effective language class I was ever in was a "German for Foreigners" course at a small business school in Zurich, Switzerland. There were about 15 students in the class from all over the world, and we had no common language. I remember two Americans, a Greek, an Italian, an Iranian, and a Finn, for example. The teacher HAD to teach entirely in German. And by the end of the six-week course (three hours every weekday), all of us were speaking German well enough to enjoy conversing with each other. If we had all been English-speaking, the teacher (who spoke English perfectly) would have "helped" us by translating, and we would have learned much more slowly.

Answer 2

I think the wrong way to learn a language is learning from a book all the time. You need to use the language often, listen to native speakers, and imitate their pronunciation. The greatest satisfaction from learning a language is being complimented by a native speaker, saying something like "you speak just like a native speaker" or "you have good pronunciation" or "wow i thought _____ was your first language!". To achieve this, you have to use the language often, make mistakes, correct yourself, imitate native speakers and perfect your pronunciation. There's a reason why people can become fluent in a language after about 1-3 months when they participate in student exchanges. It's because the most effective way to learn a language is to interact with locals and learn from native speakers.

Answer 3

In addition to the good advices form Maple and Alpine Alli, do not ignore the basic orthographic and phonetic rules of the language You want to learn.

Do not behave as a normal adult, learning something difficult, and being afraid of failing.

Be as natural and spontaneous as children, try to imitate all the tones, intonations and phonetic sounds. Allow the muscles of your tongue to be familiar with the new sounds and phonetics.

To an English native speaker is really hard to really avoid the use or application of English phonetics on the rest of languages, so try and make efforts to learn the basic pronunciation rules of the languages You want to learn, and do please, do not spell as You do in English. The main mistakes for a native English speaker is to pronounce the vowels, always under the English rules.

In the case of German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese the sound of vowels are "pure" and normally the same in all the words. This is a big difference versus English.

Other big fact is that in German, Spanish, Japanese, and Italian, among other languages, almost all the vowels and consonants forming a word have to be pronounced, and this is not the same in English.

So, try to learn the basic rules form the language You want to learn, and avoid all the phonetic, orthographic, and spelling rules of English, because almost all do not apply in other languages.

Best wishes on your Languages Adventure

Answer 4

Aside from Maple's good advice:

Don't try to learn German in Zurich because once you leave the classroom you won't hear it anywhere.

and

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. If the person you're speaking to understands, it IS working! A French teacher I know put it this way: There are no mistakes, only differences. (I don't quite agree but it's a good attitude to have.)

and

Respect, and if possible love, the speakers of the language you're learning. I grew up as an English speaker in Quebec and, well, there's animosity there. Nothing made me want to improve my French like having children who have it as one of their first languages. And now the same goes for Swiss-German.