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.

Kitabu. Book exchange site for language learners

As you know, Babelan.net is a community where you can meet native speakers and practice languages (language exchange). You can practice your speaking face to face, if you are in the same city, or virtualy (with skype, messenger, etc). Also, you can practice your wirting if you exchange language through a chat or e-mail.

There is another way of free exchange to learn and practice foreign languages. It's a new web page called Kitabu. And in a nutshell is a book exchange site for language learners.

How it works

It's pretty simple. If you have a book in good conditions, just fill in the form in the section "I have a book that you no longer need", and it will be collected.

And if you need a book that is available, you have to order it (in section "I want a book"). You'll just pay the shipping.

You can see that it is really easy. So far, there are books to learn English, French and German. And more will be added.

Reasons

There are different reasons to built a community like this that you can read here:

- Environmental: sharing books, save natural resources such as wood, save water and to prevent its pollution, save energy and prevent pollution.
- Collaborative consumption: there are books than you don't use any longer, but other people could take avantage of them.
- Economic: it's cheaper to share book than buying new ones.
- Convenience: you will receive at home the book your ordered.

Hence, If you like Kitabu join them and share its link: http://llibresidiomessegonama.wordpress.com

Language Exchange

If you want to practice, improve and exchange languages visit Babelan.

Am I capable of learning a foreign language?

What a question! It may seem difficult to answer it but the answer is pretty categorical: Yes. Anyone willing to learn a foreign language is capable of it.

There is another related question: is it easy? Now the answer is No. Everyone can learn a language although it requires time, an effort and the patience of a saint. Some people learn faster than others. And some have more spare time to study. However, in the end, you will speak a foreign language if you really want.

First of all, you must believe that you can get it. Also, you must believe that you are able to learn it. Then you will success.

In addition, you need to find a motivation. Some people learn languages for professional purposes. Also, there are people who like to travel and need languages. Having a fiance is another good reason. In fact, learning languages can be just a hobby. Simply find your goal.

You need to be a bit tenacious and to study or practice everyday a bit and never leave it. Everyday you can do different activities such as your homework (if you are studying in a language school). You can also read articles or special books for students of languages. You can often listen to your target language (thanks to internet you'll be able to watch videos, television programmes or to listen to radio stiations). Search web sites to learn your target language (there are dozens of them) or to practice with native speakers (e.g. here).

Finally, never forget that if you work everyday, soon you'll notice your improvement.

You can read these related previous post:

• Strategies to learn a foreign language
• Ten Commandments for language learning

If you want to meet people and practice languages with native spakers visit Babelan.

How to learn a language

So far on this blog, you can find several posts telling you some tips regarding language learning. They tell how to learn a foreign language easily and sometimes how to practice a language for free.

From now on, you can see a tab called How to learn a language with a collection of these posts published previously. We will add all the new posts with guidelines to follow when learning languages.

These are some posts that you can read so far:

Five tips to learn French or any language quickly

It tells ways of learning any language quickly.

Radio, a mean to learn languages

Thanks to internet, now you can listen foreign stations and practice your listening skills.

Simple ways to learn new words

Different ways to learn new words in Russian, although these tips are useful for any foreign language that you may be learning.

10 steps to becoming fluent in a language in 6 months or less

Interesting article with some tips to learn a foreign language in a few months.

Strategies to learn a foreign language

Learning a foreign language could be easier than you expect. You must work different skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. Just attending a class a few hours every week is not enough, you must work every day a bit at home. Obviously, the best way is to live in the country where the target language is spoken. Although, if you do not have the chance, you can improve so much in your home country.

Improving listening skills (tip)

As you probably know, internet offers endless chances of improving your listening skills: radio broadcasts, podcasts, videos, films, etc. Although, there are other ways of working your listening skills. The following is a useful tip.

Ten Commandments for language learning

Kató Lomb was a Hungarian interpreter, translator, language genius and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. She spoke 17 different languages. And she suggested the Ten Commandments for language learning.

Meet people from around the world (language exchange)

New technologies (skype, messenger, e-mail, voice, chat, webcam, msn,...) allow students to make new friends and talk in different languages.

Language exchange pubs in Madrid

There are different ways of exchanging and practicing languages. You can meet someone individually (face to face or virtually), although, you can also join a group of people who usually meet in pubs or cafes purposely  to speak in foreign languages.

These groups usually organize activities with the aim of learning languages: encounters, dinners, cinema, parties, excursions, sports, cultural visits, wine tastings...

Joining them you'll know people who speak English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, French, Japanese or Spanish among other languages.

In Babelan, in the section of Language exchange in Madrid, some language groups posted messages about their activites. Here’s a list of some of them:

Club LTL
Offers conversation & cañas every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 20.30 h. Mainly English and Spanish.
http://www.clubltl.com

Multilinkual
Cinema every Friday and right after language exchange at 4D pub. And other activities. Multilingual (English, German, Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, Spanish...).
http://www.facebook.com/groups/19988858992/

Downtown Madrid
Conversations in a bar every Thursday, from 18 to 23.30 h. Multilingual (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish).
http://downtownmadrid.es/idiomas.html

Madridbabel
Every Wednesday (20.30 h) and Sunday (19 h) language exchange at a cafe. Weekends other activites such as films, dinners, excursions, sports, parties, etc. Multilingual.
http://madridbabel.weebly.com/