To understand and speak a language, several thousand words will be enough to get by in conversation and while reading modern writing. You’ll need more if you’re going to tackle more specialized or academic writing, or perhaps if you’re going to become a translator or interpreter. But we all have to start somewhere.<\/p>\n
How do you know which words to learn and remember?<\/p>\n
We live in the digital era when the internet surrounds us everywhere. So, check the list of most widely used words in the language you’re learning or download some apps that show you popular words, helping you to remember them along the way.<\/p>\n
2. Write Something Every Day<\/h2>\n
Summary:<\/strong> Write blog posts, diary entries, shopping lists, notes to yourself or anything else that is already part of your daily life, but do it all in your target language. Using grammar in practice will improve your skills many times over.<\/p>\n Certainly, grammar is important, and no one is going to say that you shouldn’t learn it. But just writing sometimes, free of grammar concerns, is very helpful for language learning, too.<\/p>\n Regardless of the language, grammar is always tricky for non-native speakers (well, let\u2019s be honest: it\u2019s often tricky for native speakers, too). All those gerunds, tenses, infinitives and exceptions are useful when you write academic essays,\u00a0do research or write professional emails. You need to build a foundation of great grammar in order to speak and write correctly.<\/p>\n However, if your primary goal is to communicate, prepare for a trip abroad or master just the basics, don’t stress about this too much. If you’re seriously turned off by the nitty gritty of grammar, don’t torture yourself trying to remember all the rules at once.<\/p>\n Many learners get discouraged by the idea of studying grammar and end up avoiding their daily practice. Don’t procrastinate. On days when grammar fills you with dread, treat yourself to some movies, games or music videos in your target language. Keep building familiarity with the language every day, and\u00a0you’ll start learning grammar naturally.<\/p>\n Some educators recommend starting off with full immersion\u2014constant exposure to the language through a diversity of authentic materials\u2014and never cracking open a textbook or starting formal grammar study until you’ve developed basic proficiency in the language. You can always give this route a try!<\/p>\n Summary:<\/strong> To develop your listening skills, you can watch movies or TV shows<\/a> with subtitles, listen to a radio show in your target language, play games<\/a>, try to understand all words from your favorite songs and so on. Keep it fun and casual! Listening to\u00a0TED lectures<\/a>\u00a0is always a good decision, too.<\/p>\n While learning a foreign language, we usually pay lots of undue attention to vocabulary and grammar. Our goal is to learn how to read, write and speak.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all well and good, but we often forget about listening<\/strong> to a target language despite the fact that it’s key to understanding and communication.<\/p>\n Learners too often discover the hard way that speaking a language and understanding it aren’t the same thing.<\/p>\n Sometimes one can speak but can hardly understand native speakers at all while listening to songs or watching a movie in the target language. Never underestimate the importance of listening skills; you need to practice them on a daily basis.<\/p>\n Summary: <\/strong>If you’re at the beginner level of learning, children’s books would be the best option\u00a0for you. Intermediate and advanced learners can always try reading simplified versions of classics to learn some new words and grammar rules. If you’re pretty advanced, you can start tiptoeing towards the classics. Start with modern classics.<\/p>\n I bet your past or current language teachers have assigned you the task to read a book in the language you’re learning, make a vocabulary list<\/a> of unknown words from it, learn them and discuss the book in the classroom afterward.<\/p>\n Such exercises are great unless your teacher asks you to read classic literature in the target language. They often don’t, and instead opt for abridged and otherwise simplified reading material.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n First of all, it can be difficult to understand a plot and get pleasure from reading a book if you don’t know the meaning of most words. The “extensive reading” method encourages learners to choose texts where they know 95% of the words on any given page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Secondly, books of classics may contain lots of\u00a0archaic vocabulary (let’s take Shakespeare, for example). There’s no real need to learn all words from classics, as no one uses them in everyday language anymore.<\/p>\n However, many language learners make the mistake that teachers strive so hard to avoid\u2014they dive into deep, complex literature and other texts that are well outside their reading level. They want to read what they want to read, even if they can’t read it! As you may already know, it can be very discouraging when you don’t understand most of what you’re reading.<\/p>\n You’re not giving yourself the chance to develop good reading habits. You won’t learn how to get into the flow of a native text if you’re constantly stopping to use your dictionary. You also won’t be able to pick up words via context if most of the language is way above your head (for the time being), and this kind of deductive work is critical for learning a language effectively.<\/p>\n Summary: <\/strong>Use all sorts of resources for learning your target language: newspapers, vlogs, novels, short stories, comments sections, advertisements, grocery lists\u2014anything!<\/p>\n Going by the book is\u00a0one of the biggest mistakes you can make while learning a foreign language.<\/p>\n The textbook can give you all the essential building blocks, but it can’t take you much farther.<\/p>\n Have you ever heard the people speaking in the audio files accompanying English textbooks? They’re speaking perfectly correct English, but they sound a bit forced and awkward at times. That’s because they’re reading a script designed for learners. It’s easy on the ears, and great for becoming familiar with the basics of language, but you’ll probably never hear a native speaker who talks quite like that.<\/p>\n Slang, idioms, jokes, regional dialects, pop culture references…they usually can’t be learned from standard textbooks. To really understand native speakers, you must learn casual language.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t mean that you shouldn’t use textbooks at all. Some of them are worth trying, and one can find many reasons to use modern textbooks<\/a>: They’re well-designed, they provide useful content and a road map for learning, they give lots of practice opportunities and they usually offer audio components<\/a>.<\/p>\n One thing you could try for learning with audio and video is a language learning program such as FluentU<\/a>. FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n3. Watch TV and Listen to Radio and Podcasts in the Target Language<\/h2>\n
4. Read Books at Your Actual Level<\/h2>\n
5. Branch Out from Textbooks<\/h2>\n
![\"FluentU](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/try-fluentu-for-free.jpg\")
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