I’ve written a post about studying languages before, but it can be pretty difficult to study a new language, especially if you aren’t naturally good at it. If you’re struggling to study a language, then I hope this blog post will help you get higher grades!
- Learn a little bit every day
- Practice immersion
- Use flashcards
- Consume media
- Practice the grammar
Learn a little bit every day
If you want to learn a new language, then it’s important to study it daily. You don’t have to do much – even 15 minutes a day is enough to learn some new words. I like to use Duolingo for this since the activities are fun yet educational. By splitting up your learning into small segments rather than a massive weekly study session, you’re decreasing the animosity you might feel towards studying a difficult language.
Practice immersion
Immersion is a great way to study a language because it takes very little effort. Essentially, you’re trying to surround yourself with the language you’re learning. For example, you can label objects in your room by their names in your target language. Alternatively, you could change your phone settings to be in your target language. This is similar to how babies learn a language – by absorbing it from their surroundings.
Use flashcards
If you’re trying to learn a specific range of words, then flashcards are probably your best bet. You can find tons of Quizlet sets with words in your target language, or you can use Anki to take advantage of spaced repetition. Either way, the active recall that you use in flashcards can be very useful in remembering new words.
Consume media
Watching movies and tv shows in your target language can be a really fun way of studying the language. This works similar to immersion – you learn new words by being surrounded by them. Alternatively, you could also try translating a song in your target language to your native language.
Practice the grammar
Learning new grammatical structures can be incredibly difficult, especially if they’re different to the ones that your native language uses. I like using workbooks to practice using the new grammatical structures, since learning just the theory of grammar can be boring.
