HOW TO STUDY A FOREIGN LANGUAGE1

IN CLASS...

•     Attend regularly!  It's your best chance for practice in speaking and listening and your opportunity to ask questions.

•     Don't tune out!  Participate as much as possible, even silently, when others are called on in class.  See if your answers match those of your classmates.

•     Pay attention to how words and phrases are pronounced. Concentrate on new and unusual sounds.  Learn how these sounds are produced (differently from English): do you round your lips?  Does your voice (intonation) go up or down?  Does your breathing change?  Repeat the words and phrases silently to yourself several times.

•     Pay attention to how words are written.  Unlike English, many languages are written the same way they are pronounced with few, if any, silent letters.  Note spelling conventions and diacritical marks (for example, accent marks), as these often show a different meaning: hablo = I speak; habló = he spoke. 

  OUTSIDE OF CLASS...

•     Make flash cards with new vocabulary in the target language on one side and the English equivalent on the other.  Be sure to include important information about each vocabulary item, such as gender (masculine? feminine?), plurals (-s?  -er?), and irregularities (does the vowel change?) on the target language side.  Example:

•     Add pictures or symbols to the target language side if that helps you remember.

•     Learn words and phrases in context rather than by themselves.  Try to learn "chunks" of conversations rather than just a single word.  For example, in a greeting you should try to remember

                   ¿Cómo estás?               How are you?

                  Bien, gracias.                Fine, thanks

      rather than separate cards for "cómo," "estás," "bien," and "gracias."

 •     Study every day for short periods rather than once or twice a week for longer ones.  Spend 15-20 minutes a day on vocabulary: start with a review and then move on to new words and phrases.  You will feel more confident when starting your homework.

 •     Keep a two-page notebook with the target language on one page and the English equivalent on the facing page.  Review by looking at the target language list and recalling the English translation.  Then look at the English list and write out the target language words.  Try to write out all the forms (singular/plural, different verb forms, irregulars).

•     Watch for sentence patterns: what comes first in a sentence?  In a question?  How are the patterns similar to and different from English?

•     Watch for cognates, words that look the same or similar in both languages:

            universidad  (Spanish), université  (French), Universität  (German)

      But watch out for "false friends," words that look alike but have different meanings:

            simpático  (Spanish) ≠ sympathetic      simpático  = friendly

•     Find out the resources available at North Park:

      •     tutors

      •      listening lab (Media Services, in the lower level of the library): tapes, videos

      •      computers: Internet, Web Assign, Spanish Department web pages, Power Point slideshows

•     Form a study group or find a study partner.

•     Complete all assignments and projects.  Instructors rarely assign "busy work" that leads students nowhere.  Because much of a language is reinforcement, even the most repetitive exercises will be beneficial.

•     Accept the fact that every language has exceptions and irregularities.  These are usually due to historical reasons.  Can you explain why "went" is the past of "go" rather than "goed"?  I can't!

•     Become familiar with some basic grammar terms.  If you don't know a verb from a pronoun, you will find it harder to figure out which words change when, or which words belong in different parts of a sentence.

•     Look for opportunities to use the language.  If you are studying Spanish, keep an eye and ear open for Spanish: walk around the neighborhood and guess what signs mean.  Listen to Spanish radio stations or music and try to pick out a few words that you recognize.  Watch Spanish TV (ads, soap operas) and see how many expressions (greetings, numbers, vocabulary) you can understand.  But don't expect to understand everything, or even half of what you see or hear.

•     Have fun.  Learning a language is hard work, but there are payoffs - friendships, self-enrichment, possibilities of using your language abilities later on when you travel, and development of your analytical skills.

BAD IDEAS...

•     Don't try to translate everything word-for-word.  First of all, it's slow and inefficient.  More importantly, it's impossible.  For example: How do you do?   This phrase is used when meeting someone for the first time.  The speaker is not asking how you do something!  Also, there are idiomatic expressions, such as "Out of sight, out of mind," which an early computer translation program rendered as "Invisible Idiot!"

•     Don't try to use logic all the time.  In English we say "I like coffee," but in German and Spanish, they use "Coffee is pleasing to me" to say the same thing.  Why?  There is no logical reason!  That's the way that those languages work.

•     Don't try to get everything right before you speak.  Some students think too long and hard about how  to say something and not what  they are trying to say.  Even saying part of a sentence is better than saying nothing.  Take a chance!

•     Don't say "I can't!"  Instead, say, "I'll try!"

1 -        a few of these ideas were taken from "Tips for Students Studying a Foreign Language" by Learning Services at the University of Texas, Austin.