Language Learning Made Easy

language learning made easy

I’ve summarized professor  Alexander Arguelles’ video, because I think this is crucial for language learning. 

There is no magic trick that will help you become fluent in 1 month, but there are very effective approaches to learning a new language and if you combine them, you will surely become fluent.

If you’re learning a new language, the most important thing you need to consider is – what type of language learner are you? 

1. If you:

have a more deductive approach, which means that you’re better at listening to and observing the language first and learning through that, rather than starting with plain grammar points from a textbook

have a fair degree of intuition

like to observe a phenomenon

feel somewhat comfortable with ambiguity for a while, until things become clear

are someone who can feel comfortable being corrected when they realize they were wrong, rather than getting confused and frustrated because they went down an initial path that turned out not to be correct (so you actually learn from being corrected and you don’t get confused by it)

then, these manuals are best suited for you: the Assimil Language Series, the Linguaphone Series, the Cortina Methods.

2. If you:

have a desire to have things explained to you beforehand in a nice and clear way

have a logical and analytical mind (which is usually the product of education in general)

have a need for a systematic approach (basically if you’re most comfortable with a book which is going to introduce the grammar according to an agreed set of methods or an organized plan)

then, you should try out some of these manuals: the Hugo Series, the Made Simple Series, the Teach Yourself Series, the Buske Series. 

3. PAY ATTENTION TO PATTERNS!!!

the most important part are the patterns of a language

no matter what type of language learner you are, I think it’s really clever to incorporate this method into you learning. 

a language is actually made up of patterns which constantly repeat themselves and that is THE KEY TO FLUENCY

repeating the patterns over and over again, until they become natural, until you no longer have to conjugate the verbs in your head before speaking

when you become really good with patterns, your sentences will come out naturally, and patterns are what will get you to fluency

I’ve provided the links, where you will find a review of the books, so that you can have an idea of what they look like. You can find most of these on amazon.

There is also an amazing blog on here, which provides free books, and I think that you can find half of these series for free there.  @lovelybluepanda

7 Daily Reminders

1. My self worth does not depend on what others think and say about me.

2. My self worth does not depend on how I look or what I weigh.

3. My self worth does not depend on my marks or performance.

4. My self worth does not depend on my number of followers.

5. I am enough just as I am.

6. I can succeed despite a bad day.

7. I am beautiful and valuable – and will treat myself with kindness and respect.

Tday I was listening Nesbo's audiobook in norwegian. This picture is about me. 100%

IELTS ACADEMIC PREP

Hey, I'm looking for someone who plans to pass IELTS academic certificate. My teacher recommended me, to find somebody with similar goal, just to talk about nothing and use the language.

Probably, if you provide studyblr we have much to talk about haha.

If you're interested in some speaking sessions - feel free to write DM.

omg how did you get 9.0 in ielts!!! this is so impressive! any advice?

Thank youvery much, Anon! Warning: long post is long. Also, disclaimer that I took theGeneral IELTS test, not academic, so the test subjects and tasks will beslightly different.

Generaltips:

Don’tstress out over not having studied enough. IELTS is an aptitude test, not aknowledge test. You can’t really “study” all that much for aptitudetests.

Read allinstructions very, very carefully (more on this later).

Explicitlyask native speakers you talk to to correct you when you make mistakes, even ifthey feel like it would be rude.

All capswriting is allowed on the sheets for listening and reading (or at least it wasat my test center), so if you, like me, write your lower case Ns and Us roughlythe same, this can help you avoid losing points.

This maynot be an issue for you, depending on where you are from, but make sure youwrite all numbers the way they are written in English. E.g. in German, a 1 isnot just a vertical line, but a vertical line with a nub on top, whichfrequently gets misinterpreted as a 7 by native English speakers, and everytime I’ve written a 7 the German way (with a short horizontal line through thestem at half height), English-speakers have asked me what the duck kind ofletter that is. *shrugs*

Forthe listening part:

Listen toa lot of podcasts, with varying accents. You want to train your ear torecognize words even if they are not 100% pronounced the way you’re used to.

Know thatall information is given in exactly the chronological order that it will bepresented in (aka the answer to the first question will be very early on in theaudio sample, before all the other answers.

You willonly hear each audio file once, so if you find that you missed the info forsome question (say you are looking at question 2, but you hear the answer forquestion 3), don’t panic. Mark the answer for question 3, continue listening closelyand mark the answers for 4, 5 and so on. Come back to question 2 when the audiois over and take your best guess.

Forthe reading part:

Read thetasks EXTRA CAREFULLY. In my test, some of them only allowed one answer, inothers it was “mark all applicable options”. Don’t get these mixed up. If thequestion allows more than one answer, there is almost certainly more than oneanswer.

Incontrast to the listening part, information in the reading part can be all overthe place.

They LOVEparaphrasing their questions in the opposite way of what’s presented in thetext. For example, the question may ask “Which style of clock became popular inthe middle of the 20th century?” when the text may say “FollowingWWII, most pre-war clock styles except for the Thingama-clock fell out offashion”.

Forthe writing part:

Trywriting a short letter and a short essay on anything, in order to get a feelingof how many lines it takes you to write 150 and 250 words in handwriting. Youwill almost certainly not have time to actually count your words, so if you caneyeball it by lines/pages, that will save you some time.

You haveto hit the minimum number of required words. Writing more is ok (unless it’sexcessive, as in, you write 500 words when you were supposed to write 250), butwriting less than required will cost you points.

Becareful to read the instructions. If they ask you to address specific details, makesure to address each specific detail.

Try notto repeat any phrase too often, brush up on your synonyms. E. g., “essential”,“necessary” and “obligatory” all mean roughly the samething and if you can use all three rather than say “necessary” threetimes, this will get you points.

On theflipside of this: if you are not 100% sure that a word means what you think itmeans or if it is really spelled as you think it’s spelled, don’t use it. Forexample, I know I’m almost bound to misspell the word “bureaucratic” wheneverI use it, so I would never have dreamed of using it in the test.

Also, don’tforce the synonyms beyond what’s reasonable, i.e. if the rest of your text isnon-technical, don’t just break out technical jargon just to avoid repetition.

Last but not least, remember you are not being graded on your opinions only on your presentation, e.g. if the essay topic is “Should marijuana be legalized?”, the examiners don’t care if you’re pro or contra weed. All they care about is that you can present both side of the argument in a structured manner and write a nice conclusion that makes some sort of grammatical and narrative sense.

Forthe speaking part:

Pick anyrandom topic that is appropriate to the test you’re taking (in my general testit was “beauty standards”, for example, while in an academic test itmight be… I don’t know… “grading systems” or something like that).Then set your stopwatch on your phone and try to talk about that topic for 2straight minutes.

The keyto the speaking test is to brainstorm very quickly and then be mentallyprepared to hit a roadblock. For example, before you need to talk for twominutes, you are given a piece of paper and a minute to think of what you willsay. Jot down quick buzz words, rearrange them if you need to. It doesn’t haveto be pretty. You’re not getting graded on your notes. Then, when they tell youto speak, take a deep calming breath and start talking.

If youare a fast talker, deliberately force yourself to talk slowly. I felt like Iwas talking at the pace of a snail and yet I was still done half a minute early.If something like that happens, if you lose your train of thought or you don’thit the time limit, quickly acknowledge it with a smile, pick something youalready mentioned and dive into more detail there. For example, my “twominutes” task was “describe a person you know who you think isbeautiful”. I had picked one of my co-workers, so when the instructor toldme I still had time left, I smiled and said “Oh my gosh, really? Well, asI said, she has this uncanny ability to look beautiful no matter what she does.For example, last Halloween, she dressed up as an old witch and let me tell you,even with the fake set of crooked yellow teeth and the wrinkles she stilllooked amazing!”

Remindyourself before the test starts that nothing you say in there has to be thetruth. You just need to say it like you mean it. My co-worker didn’t dress upas an old hag, but it made for a nice mental image that I could spend 30seconds describing.

A goodway to get some time to sort your thoughts in the dialogue part, and something that will also getyou points, is if you rephrase the question given to you or acknowledge itotherwise, then dive into an example. For example, the first question for me afterthe monologue was “do you think we place an unhealthy emphasis on aspecific beauty standard in our culture?” and I answered it with “Oh,I certainly do think there is a specific beauty standard, at least as portrayedby the media, and it is definitely unhealthy and in many cases even unrealistic.Take for example the traditional “flowing waves of hair”–that’salready ridiculously difficult to achieve for anyone with really straight hair,such as many Asian people, or people with very curly hair, like people ofAfrican descent. It’s a very biased standard.“

One lastthing, if you know you use a lot of filler sounds/words (“like”, “uh”, “so”, “well”,“anyway”), enlist somebody to help you with practice and keep track of howoften you say them. Let them show you the list at the end of your practice.Take a moment to quietly die of shame. Repeat the practice segment again, onlythis time, when you feel yourself hitting a mental block where you wouldusually use a filler, deliberately stop talking, take a deep breath, and try tocontinue in any way that is NOT a filler word. One or two seconds of pause arebetter than using “like” or “uh” every sentence.

Good luck!

15.04.2020

Quarantine challenge

Week 4. Day 3

What would be your advice to you from five years ago?

Don't give up on something you like just because someone doesn't like it. Follow your path. You can't help someone who doesn't want help.