Need advice from advanced students of any 2nd language
I posted a question earlier where I was talking about being discouraged. I was pointed to other posts and answers about feeling this way. What I really wanted to know are some tips from advanced learners of any second language as to the best way to study to increase your language skills. Did you find that it was best to concentrate on one thing until you had it down (exs: verb conjugations, or vocabulary) and then move on to something else? Or is it best to skip around with different skill? If you do this, will it all just come together at some point?
I know that everyone learns differently, and I know that practice of whatever kind is always important. I just feel I'm getting nowhere fast and would like to know how others might have gotten out of the rut, or put their study time to the best use.
Thanks for any help or suggestions!
4 Answers
I have been doing Spanish for almost seven years now and I would say that especially at early levels, some form of memorization is necessary. You cannot put things in context if you do not have the foundation. Needless to say, memorization should not be the focus of your studies. Most helpful for me was knowing all the conjugations. You should know them inside out, and be able to say them without thinking about it. Just run through them in your head when you are stuck in traffic, bored, waiting to check out etc. If you do not know the conjugations, then it will be impossible to speak fluently.
With a solid foundation of vocabulary(often learned in school through quizzes etc) and conjugations and grammar, it is important to move into exposure, and putting the language in context. As Austin mentioned, media is key in learning a foreign language. The internet is such a vast resource and its completely free!. Find a web site you like(you can even use youtube) to watch tv shows, read news etc. The key is that it interests you! I usually use rtve.es from Spain, so I would highly recommend that channel. They have everything in one web site. You don't have to overdo it, watching hours of content a day. Just try to do a little bit on a consistent basis
I would also try to read novels in Spanish. Start out with novels very basic, that were likely translated into Spanish. I would recommend looking at the books by Paulo Coelho(I recommend el alquimista). As you get comfortable move onto more difficult books. This is a personal strategy for me, Im sure not everyone agrees, but I would try to use a dictionary as little as possible. I would use the dictionary if the word appears several times and you do not know what it means, or if knowing the meaning of the word is central to understanding the story or sentence. I've seen classmates whose short stories are completely marked up with definitions and this does not help them understand at all. Focus on understanding the general storyline, not every tiny minute word that you are likely to quickly forget.
Another important part is speaking. It is often hard to find people living in my area who are willing to practice Spanish with me on a daily basis, so I would recommend getting skype or another messenger to practice. This is the last, and arguably the most important step to increasing your fluency.
I hope this helps. Keep practicing!
Try not to memorize but actually learn why something is the way it is in another language. Learn to master 1 thing at a time before moving on to learn new sentence structure, or tenses.
Try to expose the new language to yourself as much as you can in any media possible. Music, books, video, other people, or just talking to yourself.
You'll begin to have indications you are learning, like dreaming in the other language, or saying or spelling a word you weren't thinking of.
As far as getting in a rut, everyone does. Just force yourself to stretch the limit. It will be hard at first but it will get easier the more you use it.
For me, it is actually speaking spanish. I can type it much faster than I can say it. To me that seems odd but the pressure to speak without a mistake is enormous for me.
So lately I've been saying spanish a LOT more than I have been with hopes of ridding myself of that fear.
Goodluck!!!!!
Please make a search, thanks
Kd, there is a reason your other post was closed, this question has already been asked time and time again so you were given reference to search. It is my guess that Heidita suggested places that deal with the encouragement aspect and not necessarily the help part so please do as search of "advice for learning". There are many posts there which can help.
