Learning a new language is always tough. They say the best way to do it is to immerse yourself in the culture, but when we don’t have the opportunity to live in that country for a year, we must find the keys to learning another language. What do we need to know?
Discover effective strategies for mastering a new language even when you can’t immerse yourself, all while pursuing your goal to get an FRM certificate online.
Learn the Common Vocabulary
When you are figuring out how to learn a language, one of the best ways to begin is to learn the most common words. Say you are learning Spanish, mastering the foundational elements such as greetings, common names, and days of the week in Spanish, becomes a stepping stone for broader language proficiency.
A pivotal step in Spanish language learning involves building a foundation of common vocabulary, as this empowers learners to navigate everyday conversations with confidence and ease.
This can help you build your understanding in daily life and will help you follow basic conversations quickly. This is also something that you can test more effectively because you will either be able to pick out those root words more easily or see where the conversation is going more effectively.
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Regular Testing
One of the biggest problems in learning a language is when we get put into that test environment, everything completely goes out the window, which is why we need to start reducing our fears of those tests by taking them on a regular basis.
We are then effectively inoculating ourselves to the idea of testing, forcing us to prepare better. There are plenty of resources out there to test your abilities, such as Speech Ace’s oral reading fluency assessment, and it also gives you a far better understanding of how far you’ve come.
Practice Speaking
One of the biggest misconceptions about learning a new language is that it’s all about the written words. It is far more essential to know how to speak the language because even though you speak English fluently, you don’t know how to spell every single word.
The same thing applies to another language. One of the key parts of learning a language is recognizing sounds and reproducing them.
Instead of prioritizing grammar or vocabulary, which can build up your reluctance to speak, you can start by practicing your vocabulary out loud and record yourself speaking the new language.
If you are trying to immerse yourself in a language as much as possible, find an online platform that communicates entirely in that language, such as a radio station, and listen out for those key sounds and words and speak them out loud. This will help you build your confidence.
Find What Works for You
It can be overwhelming to absorb every learning method, technique, tool, or style, so you should opt for a couple that works best for how you learn.
Understanding your learning style, whether you are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, can help you get to grips with the material better. If you are an auditory learner, repeating everything aloud will help it sink in.
And we have to remember that while learning and growing are incredibly important to help us learn a language, we won’t become fluent in a matter of weeks.
We should always manage our expectations and remember that when we become incredibly confident with one part of the language, something will invariably trip us up; it is not a race, but you will get there!
