I have a little thing I am proud of: I speak five languages. Some I speak really well, with some I need to gain more confidence. What I want to tell you about is how, in my opinion, you could learn to speak a language by yourself.
1. Start at a young age.
As early as possible. I know, it is a very basic rule and I might seem ‘Captain Obvious’, but some people underestimate the importance of learning a foreign language at an early age. I have my experience: I started learning French when I was four. I didn’t care that my own language has a different alphabet, and I didn’t care that French has a lot of rules of reading and even the pronunciation is hard (I spent so much time practicing the ‘R’! Well, I also had a hard time learning the famous Russian ‘RRRRRRRRRRR’). When you are young, you have a better ability to learn. And you certainly have a lot more free time. I hope some teenager will read this post and gets more motivated to start learning a new language. I have a lot of examples of my school classmates who didn’t care about learning English and now, when they have a lot on their plate, they regret a lot: the memory is not as flexible as before, the brain is full of all sorts of information and there is not so much space for learning new vocabulary and grammar.
2. Watch series/movies without subtitles in your own language (better with no subtitles at all)
It is hard, I know. I have been through that. And it is totally fine if you don’t turn off the subtitles in the beginning. The problem is that you start reading, and you don’t really focus on listening. Language is mainly about speaking and listening, it is really important to develop these skills. What I also suggest is to watch the same movie once in the language you are learning (no subtitles!), then your own language, then again the language you are learning (no subtitles again!).
3. Read without the dictionary.
Of course, sometimes it is important to pick new vocabulary and translate all the words you meet on the way. Nevertheless, when you read and translate all the time, you lose the pleasure of reading a good novel. Try the following: put aside the dictionary and just read. Some words you will understand throught the context, and if you see the same unknown word appearing all the time-then take the dictionary and write the word down.
4. Speak.Speak.Speak
I have been living in Finland for almost 4 years and I have studied it before coming. Do you think I am fluent?No. I almost never use Finnish in my everyday life. I use every opportunity to speak English because I feel more confident. I can speak Finnish, but I have a language barrier which I hope I can break sometime. Meanwhile, I went to Spain as an exchange student with a very limited knowledge of Spanish and in 6 months I became fluent. How did I do it?No one there spoke English to me and I didn’t even try to speak anything other than Spanish. Spanish at the University, Spanish at home, Spanish at the parties with friends- and in three months I already felt very relaxed and confident. Don’t be shy, just speak! Mistakes don’t matter, they will disappear if you practice. With the natives try to speak their language, even if you fail, you have a terrible accent – you are making an effort and no one should laugh at you for trying,
funland life 