#learning english

Do you know these times when you’re sitting in front of your textbook, trying to learn these boring af vocabs you’ve seen 1000 times but still can’t remember and just wish to do something different (or hoping that the world explodes so you can at least stop)?

Well, there are more ways to learn a language and I think because we just learned how we “should” learn a language at school, we’re limited in creativity. Thanks to school it’s hard to think outside of this “textbook, vocab lists, tests, etc.” stuff but there are ENDLESS things you can do to learn a language.

Remember: everything you do in your native language, you can try to do in your target language!

This is for all the people who are tired and exhausted, who are thinking about quitting or don’t have fun with their target language anymore.

DON’T YOU DARE TO GIVE UP! YOU’VE COME SO FAR!

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Examples for different ways of learning a language:

• write a diary
• summarise an article about a topic you like (cooking, fitness, etc.)
• listen to a podcast/radio
• listen to music (while reading the lyrics)
• try to sing along with music
• read out loud while reading a book/magazine/blog/etc.
• watch movies/series/videos
• record videos in your target language or about how studying is going (progress, problems, etc.)
• write a blog (well hello there :))
• use apps that make it more fun (duolingo, memrise, lingodeer)
• chat with native speakers
• actually talk to native speakers ( I know what a crazy idea)
• read websites about things you’re interested in
• use social media only available in your target language
• change the language of your smartphone
• change the language of your pc
• change the language of your life
• play games in your target language (like not necessarily for learning it, I mean just playing a normal game IN your target language)  
• take online lessons with teachers that make you forget you’re learning
• do a challenge! (I love this one so much)
• find a learning group
• be active in forums (no matter about language learning or a forum in your target language)
• find a language exchange partner. (You should, seriously.)
• watch lessons on youtube
• read a (children-)book (with audio)
• talk to yourself 
• think in your target language (a fun way is to tell a story about your life while it’s happening like “I went down the road with a stranger always behind me, who could it be? What does he want? It got quiet… too quiet. I tried to keep calm but was it really a coincidence? All in the middle of nowhere?” I know I’m bad at this but I hope you get what I mean, think of it like reading a book.)
• learn vocabs with pictures, type in the word you want to know and ONLY look for pictures, try to feel the word. If you google for “strawberry” (in your target language and don’t know what it means) look at the pictures, the colours, how could it smell? Make a sentence with the new word. When was the last time you ate it? How was it?
• Write a story/book online or just for yourself.
• Make a mindmap
• Use a topic jar (a jar where you put in notes with different topics on it, you take one every day and write/talk about it)
• use social media to find groups interested in learning a new language or your target language
• translate texts and act like you’re a famous translator who’s the only person on earth who can translate your target language (for example if you’re reading articles about historical stuff, act like you’re the only one who can find out what happened back then and the whole world is counting on you!)
• try to solve random online tests
• listen to a song/audiobook/whatever and write down what you hear
• search for words you want to learn and build up (funny!) sentences with them or even whole stories
• read comics/mangas/etc.
• search for receipts  in your target language and pray to god you’re doing it right… if not, well you won’t forget the vocab again. Win-win situation. :p
• search for language learning groups near your living place and actually meet them (stay safe and check everything before)
• listen to children songs (I still remember the first children song I learned in English lessons… like… 11 years ago in 5th grade) these songs are supposed to stick… *cough* head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes *cough* sorry where was I?
• connect with language learners over Skype (useful groups of course like German trying to learn French, Frenchman trying to learn Turkish, Turk trying to learn German)
• write a list (you know… like I do right know so I don’t forget English)
• describe things you see (more fun with a partner)
• teach your target language to others
• listen to audio while sleeping
• take notes in your target language (I don’t mean for grammar rules or something like that, I mean notes you would take in your native language anyway)
• write a letter (so much better than an e-mail)
• write an e-mail (who has time for letters)
• learn rimes 
• learn jokes (it’s also useful for social interaction)
• talk to your pets (at least if they listen to you, if I start to talk to my cat she starts yelling into my face)
• translate songs and learn the vocab of it so you have more fun listening to it later
• think about a topic and write down every word you can think of and then translate them into your target language

doinglanguagestuff:

Do you know these times when you’re sitting in front of your textbook, trying to learn these boring af vocabs you’ve seen 1000 times but still can’t remember and just wish to do something different (or hoping that the world explodes so you can at least stop)?

Well, there are more ways to learn a language and I think because we just learned how we “should” learn a language at school, we’re limited in creativity. Thanks to school it’s hard to think outside of this “textbook, vocab lists, tests, etc.” stuff but there are ENDLESS things you can do to learn a language.
Remember: everything you do in your native language, you can try to do in your target language!

This is for all the people who are tired and exhausted, who are thinking about quitting or don’t have fun with their target language anymore.
DON’T YOU DARE TO GIVE UP! YOU’VE COME SO FAR!

_____________________________________________

Examples for different ways of learning a language:

• write a diary
• summarise an article about a topic you like (cooking, fitness, etc.)
• listen to a podcast/radio
• listen to music (while reading the lyrics)
• try to sing along with music
• read out loud while reading a book/magazine/blog/etc.
• watch movies/series/videos
• record videos in your target language or about how studying is going (progress, problems, etc.)
• write a blog (well hello there :))
• use apps that make it more fun (duolingo, memrise, lingodeer)
• chat with native speakers
• actually talk to native speakers ( I know what a crazy idea)
• read websites about things you’re interested in
• use social media only available in your target language
• change the language of your smartphone
• change the language of your pc
• change the language of your life
• play games in your target language (like not necessarily for learning it, I mean just playing a normal game IN your target language)  
• take online lessons with teachers that make you forget you’re learning
• do a challenge! (I love this one so much)
• find a learning group
• be active in forums (no matter about language learning or a forum in your target language)
• find a language exchange partner. (You should, seriously.)
• watch lessons on youtube
• read a (children-)book (with audio)
• talk to yourself 
• think in your target language (a fun way is to tell a story about your life while it’s happening like “I went down the road with a stranger always behind me, who could it be? What does he want? It got quite… too quite. I tried to keep calm but was it really a coincidence? All in the middle of nowhere?” I know I’m bad at this but I hope you get what I mean, think of it like reading a book.)
• learn vocabs with pictures, type in the word you want to know and ONLY look for pictures, try to feel the word. If you google for “strawberry” (in your target language and don’t know what it means) look at the pictures, the colours, how could it smell? Make a sentence with the new word. When was the last time you ate it? How was it?
• Write a story/book online or just for yourself.
• Make a mindmap
• Use a topic jar (a jar where you put in notes with different topics on it, you take one every day and write/talk about it)
• use social media to find groups interested in learning a new language or your target language
• translate texts and act like you’re a famous translator who’s the only person on earth who can translate your target language (for example if you’re reading articles about historical stuff, act like you’re the only one who can find out what happened back then and the whole world is counting on you!)
• try to solve random online tests
• listen to a song/audiobook/whatever and write down what you hear
• search for words you want to learn and build up (funny!) sentences with them or even whole stories
• read comics/mangas/etc.
• search for receipts  in your target language and pray to god you’re doing it right… if not, well you won’t forget the vocab again. Win-win situation. :p
• search for language learning groups near your living place and actually meet them (stay safe and check everything before)
• listen to children songs (I still remember the first children song I learned in English lessons… like… 11 years ago in 5th grade) these songs are supposed to stick… *cough* head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes *cough* sorry where was I?
• connect with language learners over Skype (useful groups of course like German trying to learn French, Frenchman trying to learn Turkish, Turk trying to learn German)
• write a list (you know… like I do right know so I don’t forget English)
• describe things you see (more fun with a partner)
• teach your target language to others
• listen to audio while sleeping
• take notes in your target language (I don’t mean for grammar rules or something like that, I mean notes you would take in your native language anyway)
• write a letter (so much better than an e-mail)
• write an e-mail (who has time for letters)
• learn rimes 
• learn jokes (it’s also useful for social interaction)
• talk to your pets (at least if they listen to you, if I start to talk to my cat she starts yelling into my face)
• translate songs and learn the vocab of it so you have more fun listening to it later
• think about a topic and write down every word you can think of and then translate them into your target language

An old post I often use recently.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, I hope you all are having a wonderful day. :)
 Lately I’m thinking about learning two languages at the same time. Usually I always was like “hell no, this is not going to happen” because I remember when I first tried doing this (without a plan or any knowledge how I could do that) I failed. Like really hard. I always switched up words and grammar, because I was learning them literally AT THE SAME TIME. For example when I tried to learn a new word, I learned it for language A and B simultaneously. Later I didn’t know which word belonged to which language. Or if I knew it in language A I just couldn’t get away from this word. No chance to remember it in language B.

___________________________

So the goal is to separate them as much as you can! You want to learn them at the same time but NOT together. Make them as different as possible.. You want your brain to connect these languages with different things. Now, it’s time to take a look on how you can do that.

• Don’t start them at the same time. I know first it sounds strange if you want to learn two languages at the same time but you shouldn’t start both on the same day. Because right at the beginning you have to learn the same words like “hello, how are you, my name is, bye, etc.” and as I said you want to separate them as much as you can. Just pick one and concentrate on it for a few weeks (like one month or if you learn fast even less) and then start the other one. This way you already know the very basic stuff in language A and don’t confuse it with language B.
• Don’t take similar languages. The worse you can do is learning two similar languages. First it sounds like a good idea, because of similar grammar and especially similar words, which could make you think “this way I learn faster” but it’s NOT the case.
  Italian and Spanish? Bad idea.
  German and Dutch? Bad idea.
  Russian and Ukrainian? Bad idea.
  The best is to take languages that aren’t even in the same language family.
• Take languages with different letters. This is a hack that can help you a lot. Especially if you are a visual learner, languages with different writing systems will make it nearly impossible to switch them up. I mostly learn stuff through seeing it. Like seriously, I can’t remember shit if I just hear it but I were able to learn 500 Spanish words for a test on the next day in 2 hours because I used a technique for visual learners. Of course I wasn’t able to keep all of them in the long term memory but it was enough to get an A. And I never ever switched up words (even if I learned them at the same day in two languages) if they were written in different letters, because if I remember a word, I see it in front of my inner eye. So to all visual learners: THIS is the best thing you can do.
• Use different colours and stick to them. For example always use blue for Russian and red for Spanish. It makes it easier for your brain to switch between them. You brain will associate the language with this colour. So if you switch from Russian to Spanish and your brain sees red it will automatically first use the connections it built up around this colour. And you connected Spanish with red. I don’t know how to explain that properly but if you see red your brain connects it with Spanish vocab because it’s “closer” than the Russian vocab.
• Use different times. Same as above. You connect one language with a specific time. For example after you get up in the morning you study Russian and before you go to bed you study Spanish.
• One of the languages should be a familiar one. This way you will have “less” work. For example if your native language is French then Spanish or Italian are good ones for you. But remember that the second language you chose should be as different as possible.
• Chose a main language. There will be a time when you question yourself, if this was a good idea. It will feel like you’re getting nowhere and of course you will think about if it’s because you don’t concentrate on one language. With a main language you will see more progress because you spend more time with it. A really great way to motivate yourself and if you don’t like the choice you made you can always take the other one as main language.
• Make a plan. I don’t know what else I could say about this because you probably all know what I mean. You have to make a plan WHEN you learn WHICH language for HOW LONG and WHAT you want to learn.
• Think in your target languages. As soon as you have an intermediate level, you can start using both languages at the same time and even practice them together. Try to translate from language A to language B. This way you can learn to think in your new languages because there is no need to think in your native language at all. At this point try to avoid your native language as much as you can.
• Take your time. You can’t expect to learn two languages as fast as you would learn a single one.
• Learn at different places. Same as the colour and time tip. Connect every language with another place. For example Russian is the living room and Spanish the kitchen. Or if it’s possible try to learn one of them at the library/park/etc.
• Connect them with emotions (and not only textbooks). For example speaking Spanish with your friends (happy, comfortable, etc.) and exploring Moscow while speaking Russian with the natives there (exited, nervous, etc.)
• Study both every day. I guess I don’t need to say more.
• Keep in mind that it’s even harder to keep your motivation. If you loose motivation in learning languages, it will be twice as hard to get back on track. Because everything will take twice as long. So if you find it hard to learn one language if you’re not motivated, you should consider learning one after another. Your progress will be slower if you learn two languages at once and if you’re not a person who can handle this, you should stick with one.
• Make everything different. I know I mentioned it a lot but just think about what you could change in your learning routine. You can help your brain to connect many things with language A or language B. You drink Cola while studying language A and tea while studying language B. Put a picture of Spain on your table while studying Spanish and one of Russia while studying Russian. Write with a black pencil in Spanish and with a grey one in Russian. Meditate before Spanish and work out before Russian (or other morning/night routines you do, followed by the language you want to connect it with).

I hope this post was helpful for you and keep in mind that if you just want to speak as many languages as possible, one after another will be faster. But if you want to learn both languages at the same time because you really like them, there is nothing stopping you. :)

I don’t know why this tickles my funny bone, but it does. Perhaps because I have done similar things in Chinese as what Kim Heechul does with English here?