You need very good study habits in order to effectively study a foreign language. College language classes go through about twice as much material as high school language classes in the same amount of time. College level language classes frequently assume that you have a complete understanding of English grammar terminology and build on this knowledge in studying the grammar of the foreign language. Although some college classes emphasize grammatical structure and reading and writing skills, most are also interested in having you learn how to understand and use the spoken language. You have to be well-organized in order to learn these four skills at one time. If you are taking a language for the first time, this section will give you some useful tips on organization of your study habits.
SOME TIPS ON LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE
Learn the Alphabet and the Dictionary
Very early in the course learn the alphabet of the language. Knowing the alphabet thoroughly can be a great aid in quickly and accurately using the new language’s dictionary. Knowing the dictionary will be a great aid in looking up meaning, spelling, and pronunciation of new words and phrases.
Learn to Write Early
You should learn how to write the language early so that you can make your own flash cards. Laborious hand printing of the typed words or characters of the language is very difficult. In most languages, writing is different from merely hand printing and can save you a great deal of time in making flash cards which have words or phrases or sentences on one side and the English translation on the other side. In some languages, such as Russian, learning to write is an almost completely new skill. However, time spent in mastering the writing skill early in the course pay off in time saved later!
Learn Pronunciation While You Are Learning to Write
It helps to have some code showing you how the word sounds. These sound clues may come from a pronunciation section of your book or your dictionary, or you may simply make them up yourself. The idea is to get an approximation of the sound of the foreign word written in English. You can make your estimate of the sounds by listening closely to tape recordings by experts in the language. This English estimate of the proper sound of a foreign word or phrase should be checked early by your instructor before you accidentally begin overlearning a mispronunciation. By the end of the first year of the language you win probably have no need for the English phonetic estimate of different words. The reason that this need will decrease is that as you learn to correctly pronounce a large number of words in the new language, you win begin to learn what sounds go with which combination of letters in a given word. Later, when you see that same combination in many other words, you will immediately know that sound and you will no longer have to write down an English estimate of the sound of combination. However, when you are just starting out, the estimate of the sound in English is valuable. The major limitation of this technique is that some of the special sounds in some foreign languages do not have an English equivalent. You should spend a great deal of time with your laboratory instructor mastering these special sounds. The reason you need your instructor's help here is that his ear is trained to hear these sounds, whereas most of the other members of your class will not have had sufficient contact with the language to recognize or accurately reproduce these special sounds.
How You Can Bring The Language Into Your Everyday Life
One of the best ways you can learn a language is to become totally immersed in it, using it all day every day in every contact with other people as you might do if you were living in the foreign country or were enrolled in an intensive 12-hour-a-day language school. Because you do have other classes to take care of, you will not be able to totally "live the language." However, there are several things that you can do to make your language study a more direct part of your everyday life. Label the items around your room with their foreign names. Include on the label 2 or 3 foreign sentences about the object. Try to make conversational comments in the foreign language every day. Engage in conversation with first generation Americans with knowledge of the foreign language. Try to meet foreign exchange students who speak the language you're studying, perhaps by joining an international students club or association join the foreign language club. After your first semester, try to read the campus library's copies of newspapers and magazines in the language you are studying. Record the sound track of foreign movies. Memorize common phrases from the sound track such as “Let’s go to dinner," and avoid phrases like "Kiss me, my succulent pigeon!" unless you happen to know such a bird.
How You Can Increase Your Vocabulary In The Foreign Language
When you learn new words, learn them in the context of sentences you can use. Memorize the vocabulary at the end of each lesson even before you start that lesson. Scotch tape part of the list of new vocabulary words to your morning cereal box, another part to your favorite mirror.
Above all, use flash cards. Buy the ready printed cards but make most of your own. On each card include sentences in which the word or phrase is correctly used. If it helps, put a phonetic code of the correct pronunciation of the word or phrase on the card. Have between 15 and 20 cards in a packet to memorize at a time. As you go through the entire pack, cull out the ones that you get right four times in a row and put them aside. Zero in on the remaining ones, especially those you are missing about half the time. After they are all in the desk drawer, take them out and review them to reinforce what you have just learned. Then go on to the next pack of 20. You should expect to be learning between 40 and 60 new words per week in this way. You can practice your flash cards while waiting for a date, while in line at the supermarket, while waiting at the laundromat, or while walking to class. With flash cards, you can space your practice effectively, using small bits of time which are available to you at different times during the day. By using recitation with your flash cards you can practice your pronunciation while you are learning the meaning of the word. A word of caution in this respect: be certain that you can correctly pronounce the words that you have included in your flash cards. If you are reciting the incorrect pronunciation of the word or phrase on the flash card, you are mislearning and will have to relearn how to correctly pronounce the word at a later time. A tape recorder can be an invaluable aid to correct pronunciation.
How Tape Recordings Can Help You Learn
Tape recordings can be made of the regular class sessions, of the sound tracks of conversational video tapes and language films, and of the tapes and other recordings being used in the language audio laboratory. Tapes of the lecture can be useful for the times that the instructor uses the language. In the playback, listen for the way he pronounces the phrases and sentences and try to imitate his pronunciation. The same procedure is useful with any other types of language tapes.
Be selective when listening to tapes made in your classroom. Do not waste time studying the poor pronunciation of the other members of the class. Learn the phrases which the instructor uses frequently. Replay and imitate these phrases many times until you can say them quickly and accurately. It's a very good idea to write out what is being said so that you can read it as you hear it and practice pronouncing it. Your own homemade flash cards of the phrase and sentences you have taped in class can be very helpful in this seeing, hearing, and pronouncing exercise.
When you first start to memorize spoken sentences, you have to decide how much of the sentence you are going to imitate at one time. Students differ a great deal in this ability. Some can accurately repeat a very long sentence, listening to it from beginning to end before stopping the tape recorder and repeating it. Other students find it easier to pronounce and practice each three- or four-word phrase several times before going on to the next phrase, and later putting all of the phrases together into a final series of repetitions of the entire sentence. The best way to decide how much of a sentence you will practice pronouncing at one time is to try out the whole sentence at first. If you find that after 5 or 10 tries your pronunciation still does not sound much like the professional taped version, then try half a sentence or a third of the sentence for 5 or 10 times. If you still are having difficulty, replay just 2 or 3 words of the sentence at a time, learning the first 2 or 3 and then learning the next 2 or 3, etc. It's slow going at first, but your speed will increase as you learn how to pronounce more words correctly.
Use your own tape recorder as a way of extending your laboratory practice. Most college language labs give you only a couple of hours per week of practice in listening and speaking. This limit on the availability of the lab occurs because several different language classes use the same lab facilities. The Spanish, French, German, Russian, and
Language Study Requires Good Learning Skill Organization
When you are learning a language, you need to be well enough organized so that you can use several learning skills. You need a study schedule which allows you to spend several hours every week in order to keep up with the volume of new material to be learned. You need to become very adept at recitation and memorization so that the material is learned so well, the correct response is almost automatic. You need to distribute your practice on the language in order to make use of small bits of free time. Massing your practice into four hours on one day is not nearly as effective as dividing your practice into eight half-hour sessions spread out over two days. You need to have very well-organized study habits when you begin to learn a language. If you are not very well-organized, it's better to delay taking a language for a semester or two, giving yourself a chance to develop some effective organization of your learning skills.
He Who Procrastinates is Lost
He Who Procrastinates is Lost
Language learning is cumulative. You may average as many as 40 new words per week, or about 600 words in 15 weeks. If you skip the words during the 4th week's lesson you will probably have difficulty understanding the 5th, 6th, and other lessons, because one week's work builds on the next. If you put off your studying until the week before the mid-term exam in a language course, you will probably find that you are hopelessly behind. The best way to avoid the problem is to spend an hour or two every day studying the new language.
How To Use Your English Grammar To Help You Study a Foreign Language
It's useful to review your English grammatical terms as a step toward learning the foreign language grammar. Terms such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, definite articles, subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, etc., should be reviewed so that you will have a good working vocabulary in grammar. When you get into verb tenses and conjugation of verbs, emphasize what the English translation is. This will make the meaning of that particular verb tense more clear. Over-learn the conjugations so that they come to you automatically. When you are doing this automatic recital learning, try to keep in mind how you would use that form of a particular verb in a sentence and always tie it in with the general rule of grammar your text is illustrating with that verb. Ask your instructor if there is a "verb wheel" which he would recommend as a further aid to learning. These circular "wheel" summary charts of key verbs are sometimes useful study aids.
The word order of some foreign languages is quite different from the English word order for the same sentence. In this situation, the word-for-word English translation may not make much sense. If it looks muddled, try to memorize the entire foreign sentence as a whole and check its English Translation. After you have done this with a large number of sentences, the unusual word order will come to you quickly and will be immediately understandable. However, if you continue to have difficulty memorizing the sentences in the unusual foreign word order, go back to the word-by-word English meaning, but at the same time keep in mind what that real correct translation of the total sentence is. With this double translation, word-for-word and as a total sentence, you should be able to learn the new word order.
A similar problem occurs with idioms. These commonly used phrases do not make sense when translated one word at a time, but have to be translated as a whole. For instance, the Spanish verbal phrase "tenet seis anos" means "to have six years" if translated word-by-word, but this idiom actually means "to be six years old." Idioms should be memorized as a whole phrase, completely bypassing any word-by-word attempt to remember them. It's also useful to try to memorize them as they are correctly used in several different sentences. Such in-context memorization can make them more meaningful.
Many language courses start out with words that look like English words and have about the same meaning. These cognates, as they are called, can help your reading ability but can confuse your pronunciation. For example, the French word "different" looks like "different" and means "different" but is not pronounced like "different." On the other hand, some foreign words will look like an English word but have a different meaning. For example, the French word "comment" looks like the English word "comment" but it means "how" rather than comment. A safe bet is to always check a familiar-looking foreign word in the dictionary. It may or may not mean what it appears to mean.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TESTS
You may be tested on your ability to read, to write, to listen with understanding and to speak in the foreign language.
How You Can Prepare For Written Language Exams
You may be asked to write a translation of words, phrases, or entire sentences from the language to English and vice versa. You have to be ready to translate in either direction. In your review for a written test, start with the foreign language and cover the English translation that is in your book or that you have carefully deciphered. Then recite or write down the English translation. Be sure that the translation you are studying and reviewing is an accurate one. Do your written translation on a separate piece of paper and not between the lines on your textbook. Otherwise, when you review you will be distracted by the translation you have jotted between the lines. Make corrections of all translations you hand in and have returned. These "old papers" may be very useful in reviewing for the mid-term and the final. Once you have mastered the English translation of the material, go back and cover the foreign language. This time look only at the English and try to recite and write the proper translation into the foreign language. Notice that the suggestion is to both recite and write. This can give you practice in pronunciation, writing and spelling at the same time. A note of caution. Accent marks and other special markings are considered to be a part of the correct spelling in most foreign languages. If you leave off the accent marks, you will lose points on spelling.
How You Can Prepare For Listening and Oral Language Exams
One kind of listening exam involves hearing a sentence in the foreign language, then writing down your translation of what was said. The foreign sentence may be given aloud by the instructor or may be on tape. Usually it is repeated one time. The best way to prepare for such an exam is to tape the important sentences which have been used in your text, your lectures and the lab. Then be certain that you have an accurate translation of each sentence. Next, play back the first sentence several times until you can verbally give the correct English translation without hesitating, then go on to the second sentence and do the same thing. After you have gone through all of the sentences in order from the first to the last, mix up your replay, spinning the tape forward to the fifth sentence, then on to the eleventh, then to the eighteenth, then back to the sixteenth, then back to the eighth, etc. This random replay will keep you on your toes and enable you to concentrate on understanding the sentence, no matter in what sequence it appears in a group of sentences read aloud for your exam.
The structured conversation examination is both a listening and an oral exam. The pattern in this exam starts with the instructor making a statement or asking a question in the foreign language and then asking you or another member of the class to respond, asking another question in the foreign language to keep the conversation going. Here you have to listen carefully, make a quick and accurate mental translation of what was said, and then say something appropriate and with correct pronunciation yourself in the foreign language. Most of the conversational material the instructor will use in such an exam will come from bits of conversations which you have already seen in the lab, the lecture and the textbook.
Of course, the combination and sequence of conversational phrases may be slightly different from the sequence in your book and lab. In studying for this kind of exam, you should run through the practice conversation you have on your lab tapes, your lecture tapes and your text. Concentrate on understanding and responding quickly with accurate pronunciation. First memorize each conversation phrase, emphasizing pronunciation and meaning. Then practice short sequences such as "How are you?", "I am fine, and you?", "I'm also fine. How's your friend?", etc. Once you have mastered these simple sequences, then alter the pattern. Instead of "I am fine," put in "I am feeling terrible" or "I am only so-so today" or "I have a headache," etc. Instead of "How is your friend? ," alter it to "How is your brother? " or "How is your older sister? ," etc. Then tape a few practice conversations with a friend and play back the tapes, making corrections in pronunciation and meaning as you go along. If you do all of this, you should be in good shape for the listening and oral conversational examination.
