How to: learn any foreign language (fun tips and tricks by Chris, a travelling dutch student!) blog post #3

Yep, that's me speaking Indonesian to a bunch of Balinese school kids! It's such an amazing feeling to succesfully speak another language in such cases! Like most Europeans, I can speak multiple languages. I have noticed how native English speakers are often amazed by people who posess the ability to speak multiple languages. In the Netherlands, most people are more or less used to learn several languages. It's even a compulsory part of the education here! During the years, I have learned five languages: English, German, Spanish, Indonesian and of course, Dutch! Many people would love to speak another language but simply don't know where to start. I have never put too much effort into learning and maintaining these languages. I never made time to take language courses but I found myself some amazing tips and tricks which are definitely worth sharing, enjoy!

Trick 1: Use subtitles
Like many other people, I love watching TV Series in my free time. I was wondering how I could also make this a bit of an effective thing (instead of simple leisure time). Learning languages is one of my passions so I tried to combine this passion with a little amusement: Tv Series. I have watched several seasons of "The Walking Dead" and "Lost" with spanish subtitles. Unconsciencly you will learn new words episode by episode and also the yet unknown grammar starts to make sense after a while!



Trick 2: Travel and integrate with foreigners
Another trick to efficiently learn other languages is to integrate with the other culture. During my 4 months of volunteer work in Borneo, I was able to learn Indonesian. By living amongst people that natively speak the language might just force you to learn the language and I believe it's the best and most fun way to learn a new language. Often, people are enthousiastic to help you figure out their language. They will love it when people are interested in their language and culture.
Trick 3: Daily word lists It's been so effective to me to write down a daily list of words I wish to learn that day. When you're home, at work or on the road, this technique will help you learn new words every day. Just repeat reading the words a several times. You can also repeat reading previous word lists after some days and you will definitely start remembering the words. After a short while they will just stick in your head! Trick 4: Mnemonics It can be quite difficult to remember certain words in the very beginning. If certain words are difficult to remember, it is often effective to use mnemonics. As "good" means "baik" in Indonesian, you could tell yourself you're "good at baking". When searching for the word "good", it will remind you of baking, and remembering the word baking might help you remember the word "baik". After a short while you'll easily remember that "good" means "baik" and you will no longer need to use the mnemonic. It might seem to be a lot of effort to remember a single word but believe me, it's worth the effort! Trick 5: Music Another useful trick is to start listening songs in the language you wish to learn. As series might help you read, write and remind words, listening to songs are of good aid to learn the pronunciation. If you really like a song, read the translation of the song a several times so that you keep rembering the meaning of the text when you keep playing the song over and over:-)! Trick 6: Use dictionary books/apps Something I found very effective was to use word books and applications to search for words. No, it's not awkward or rude to quickly search for a word to clarify your message. An application on your mobile phone is the easiest way to find words and immediately use them in conversations. It facilitates conversations and also helps you to remind the words because you've already effectively used them yourself!

Trick 7: Your "new language" diary I used to write a message in a diary using my new language every evening before I go to bed. Most of the time I used Google Translate to immediately notice whether my story was correctly written. Writing down simple things and immediately observe the correctness of it, helped me to improve my control and capacity.

Happy learning!! If you enjoyred reading this post, just let me know! Also check out my previous posts:
#2:The life of Chris: a travelling student, adventures and habits: click here
#1: Introduction: an ambitious dutch student travelling the world: click here