Learning a new language, such as French, is challenging for most people. And the older you are the harder it seems to be and the less motivated you are to learn a new language. After all, you have got through life this far without knowing another language so why start now? We live in a society where everyone is occupied with work and we are under pressure to get results fast and to learn to talk a new language fast. However, learning a new language is never easy and will take some dedicated time and concentrated effort to overcome the barriers and pick up that language.
Firstly, to learn a new language you have to learn the alphabet system of the language. For languages like Chinese, Japanese or Korean the alphabet is very different to English. Therefore, these languages are considered to be more time-consuming to learn especially reading and writing the language. Second, you have to learn the phonetics of the language. The way consonants and vowels are sounded out is different in every language. Thirdly, you need to learn as many words as you can which may take a while as you will need to know about 1000 words vocabulary to begin to be fluent in the language.
Next, you have to learn word properties as the properties will tell you how to construct a meaningful sentence. The easiest way to learn and understand how to construct sentences is by listening to a native speaker of that language. It is recommended to not learn grammatical rules when first learning a language because you will be de-motivated by the apparent illogical structure of the language. Every language has rules of grammar that you will just have to learn at some point but don’t worry yourself about that in the beginning. Just start learning the language and start using it to engage foreigners in conversation.
When you learned to speak English as a child you did not learn the rules of grammar of the language first. You learned single syllable words such as cat, dog, big, small, hot, cold etc. Then you graduated to two syllable words eg mother, father, brother, sister etc. You would have learned some simple on syllable verbs eg talk, walk, run, eat, sleep etc. Next you learned some adjectives that enabled you to be more expressive. Finally you started to construct simple sentences eg I am cold, you are sleeping, I like small dogs etc. You would not have learned to read and write until you could fluently speak English. And you certainly did not learn grammar until you could read and write English basics and attended school. In fact when you were speaking English at age five you probably didn’t even know the alphabet.
Why is it that most foreign language courses commence with teaching complex rules of grammar? This is an unnatural way to learn a language. Not to mention students become bored very quickly and their rate of learning slows down.
Learning a new language should be fun and easy. Motivation is the key element to learning any language. And a teaching method that keeps students motivated through the early stages of learning a new language is the key to successfully transitioning the student to advanced language study and fluency. Once a student becomes fluent learning more of the language is much easier and fun. The student develops a high level of confidence with the language and actually enjoys communicating with native language speakers.
When you attempt to speak a new language to a native speaker they will be impressed that you are trying to learn their language. Don’t think they will laugh at you if you get it wrong (which you will occasionally). Everyone knows it is difficult to learn a new language especially for adults. A native speaker will greatly help you with your pronunciation and fluency. So give it a go and don’t worry about saying the wrong thing.
The best approach is to copy the way we learned to speak English as a child. The absolute best way to learn is by listening and repeating what others are saying. This is what you did as a child. You copied your parents and family. Even though you did not really understand everything initially that did not matter. The child just copies and learns. So how do we do this?
We use Language Software that allows the student to work through the language from the basics to the advanced by copying a native language speaker. The language software makes use of interactive learning activities and entertaining word games that result in greater memory retention and a faster learning outcome. Fun learning games always help students to stay motivated during the learning process resulting in a faster, easier and more productive learning experience.
And the best language software on the market is Rocket Languages.
