Take advantage of your time learning a foreign language

Learning a foreign language is time consuming. Most of us think that we aren't able to learn because of lack of time. And, as you should know regarding languages, the more you study and practice the more you learn.

Problably, you could take advantage of your spare time. Espacially, when cummuting to work. People who live in large cities spend long hours during the day communting (by undergroud, train or bus) from home to work place.

There are different activities you can do. You can take your class notes and read them. Also, you can read books in your target language. In addition, if you have an eBook or smartphone you can listen and read.

There are some web pages that offer audio recordings with transcripts. Here, you can see some examples for Russian or for English. You should look for suitable recordings for your target language and level.

Then, upload the recordings and transcripts to your eBook or smartphone. During your communting you can listen and read the audios. Later at home, you can search new words and work the grammar points. This way you will improve your listening as well as your reading skills, your vocabulary and your grammar knowledge.

Everyday you could do it for 15 minutes on the train or bus. This, at the end of the month, could be about 5 or 6 hours of extra work. And this will help you to improve faster. Hence, take advantege fo your time... commuting.

Links

Babelan, you can meet people and practice your target language. Check it out.

Lyrics Gaps. A fun way to learn languages

Lyrics Gaps is a fun method to learn and improve languages through music and typing in song lyrics.

On Lyrics Gaps, there are different activities with music videos to practice different languages: karaokes, quizes and fill in the gaps exercices for different levels (beginner, intermediate and expert). With these activites you can improve your listening skills and broaden your vocabulary.

They have got, also, a community, where you can review and add exercises of your native tongue. In additon, there is a new functionality for teachers to create and costumized the exercices.

The languages that you can practice are: Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan.

Study Tips: How can I improve my English?

Recently, I read a short but useful post with learning tips. Read the whole post here: Study Tips. There, you'll also find some related and interesting links.

In a nutshell, Melanie (an English teacher) states that:

Learning English takes a lot of time, patience and effort. It’s not always fun and easy! In order to improve your English, you need to make English a part of your life. Do something in English every day!

time + patience + effort = success

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan.