Tools That I Use While Studying at Home
Do you know that anyone can learn a foreign language in 6 months without even inviting a tutor? Tutors help students organize their time and feel responsibility paying them hourly, but if learners don’t have problems with self-organization, they may even not need anyone. What they need is to learn 5 tools which have already helped thousands of learners successfully master needed language.
Reading, listening, speaking and writing are 4 basic activities which students can master practicing on their own. Of course, if the language is sophisticated and requires additional skills like Korean, learners should better start with a korean tutor but after some time they will have enough skills to practice it by themselves.
5 tools helping you to learn the foreign language faster:
- Listen to music in an original tongue or with translation: Listening is a crucial part in learning any language. When people listen to music, they try to identify words to make the sense of the song clear and understandable. When they watch films, it is much easier because they watch scenes intuitively understanding what’s going on and what heroes are talking about. If people combine these two activities considering them seriously – soon there will be no problem listening to what native speakers talk about;
- Read books and magazines in your needed language: Reading is also an important activity because this way students can widely enrich their vocabulary mastering grammar structures which will soon help them write compositions or essays. Of course, one doesn’t need to memorize all the words encountered and it is better to start from easier texts but the more students read, the more they understand the sense of any new text;
- Test grammar skills using free online quizzes: Grammar is one of the most difficult parts in any language but the one everyone can practice without a tutor regularly testing their grammar skills. Assign practicing one or two quizzes weekly, always evaluate your progress analyzing your mistakes – and you will quickly become more fluent;
- Practice, practice, and again, practice: Register to exchange websites, chat and call friends from your country, which vocabulary you learn, practice with friends who already knows it. Even if you don’t have any person fluent in a foreign language, don’t be shy to talk to yourself, to express your thoughts in this language. Don’t be afraid of mistakes, be afraid of laziness and irregularity in learning;
- Write! Almost all students are afraid of writing because if they have difficulties in expressing thoughts in their language, they will probably feel the same while writing in the language they don’t know well. Those who write regularly, master any tongue much easier and soon they become much better in grammar and vocabulary use. It is also better if you know someone who can check your letters for mistakes.
How to organize yourself studying at home?
Studying by yourself is more difficult than studying with a tutor because doing so student feels less motivation and responsibility for regular lessons. That is why one should make learning the language his or her priority making the 3 following activities:
- Ask yourself, why do you need to learn that language: if you do not answer this question before studying, you will not have any incentives to get deeper, the same way as with any science;
- Practice with timer: students should always assign number of hours a day they will spend on education and supervise whether they use that time efficiently. Practice any activity with a timer so you will stay more organized and think faster;
- Never miss any time for practicing: the drawback of self-studying is that you don’t have fixed hours and you can switch this time to any time you want. Try assigning fixed hours, and you will be the same way responsible like you are practicing with a tutor.
The more you organize yourself, the faster you will learn a foreign language. As you spend half of a year on one language, you will learn the second in 4 or 6 months, and soon you will master them like nuts.
