How to succeed in learning a foreign language

Task 9: CAE Objective, Test 4, p. 113: 3- competition entry – Can you help others to study well? Win a prize by sharing your experiences!
What have you learnt about how to study languages effectively? Write and tell us how it’s done!
What advice would you want to give new students about what they should and should not do in order to study well throughout the year and to get good marks in exams? You should explain how your own experiences have informed the advice you give.

How to succeed in learning a foreign language

It is known that some people learn a foreign language more easily than others. Researches carried out in Applied Linguistics show that this is due to many facts. One of them is the relationship you establish with the language you intend to learn. So, before learning it try to answer the following questions: Why am I learning this language?, What does learning a language mean?

You may think learning a language is knowing its structure, its grammar. Others will define it as the ability to communicate with native people. The former definition is called, in linguistics, language learning, whereas the second, language acquisition. Why not combining both of them?

Many people might have told you not to think in your mother tongue, but how to avoid the interference? Well, I am pointing some facts based on my experience as a languages student.

I have been learning English for about ten years. I used to study Spanish and French. The first thing I tell you is that if you want to be able to communicate well, speaking must be a regular exercise. As I haven’t practised it regularly, my French is not good at all. I usually speak Spanish with some colleagues, but the language I use most, apart from my mother tongue, is English.

Don’t panic when you don’t understand what your teacher says. A good teacher knows what the best way of approaching his students’ problems is. My mother, when learning English, used to translate every single word in the texts she was reading. Definetely, this is not good. Try to get the meaning through the context. Afterwards, look up the words you don’t understand in a monolingual dictionary. Keep a file with the new words you learn.
Listening is regarded as one of the most difficult abilities. So, why don’t you listen to songs on the target language? Try to transcribe what you are listening to. Penfriends may help you develop writing skills. Despite the fact they are unusual nowadays, a penfriend is a way of exchanging stamps and postcards. Moreover, you can use technology to help you. That’s why MSN became so popular. With a microphone and good will you can even improve your pronunciation and fluency.

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