With the end of another year of school coupled with the advent of summer, I’ve found myself with a windfall of spare time. So, how have I been spending all these newfound hours? Well, working full-time, for one thing. But more importantly, I’ve been trying to invest my time into productive ventures that will yield a lasting return.
This summer, I am focusing on my continued learning and mastery of the Dutch language. Why Dutch? Two main reasons. First, some of my closest friends are Dutch and reside in the Netherlands, so I am naturally inclined to learn more about how they communicate in their native language (and who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to join in the conversations too!). In addition, I am researching careers in international business (in Europe and South America specifically) to pursue after graduating, and I’ve found that knowing the official language of a given country is a huge asset when conducting business abroad. There’s probably more positive side effect of attempting to learn this language, but that remains to be seen. Today, I’m going to share the top three things I think all people should use when tackling a new language, based on my own hands-on experience. Here goes!
Livemocha. The name may give you visions of sleepless caffeine binges, but in fact, it’s one of the most useful language tools out there. This free service offers courses in dozens of languages that are relevant, practical, and useful. But here’s the kicker: in addition to this, a social component adds feedback to the mix, as your exercises and writings are reviewed and constructively criticized by native speakers of your language of study. Even more useful, you can submit vocal recordings of yourself as you read passages in a given language, and your pronunciation can be improved as others give you feedback. I honestly am amazed that a resource this invaluable is available for free, but it is. Highly recommend!
A good textbook and good notes. This may seem like a no-brainer, but both are necessary. The former is important, the latter is absolutely critical. I’ve found that textbooks are most useful as a secondary resource, especially for those nagging questions about sentence structure and grammar. Right now, I’m using the Colloquial Dutch textbook, and it’s worked out great for me so far. Find a reading format you like, and stick with it. However, perhaps the critical weapon in your linguistics arsenal is your collection of notes. Find a good notebook, keep it organized, and write down what you learn - be it phrases, definitions, or any other related information. I’ve found it most effective to use a tandem of Moleskine notebooks - one large and one small - as my tool to chronicle my learning. You can check out what I mean below.
I use the larger notebook for grammatical rules and sentence structure, while using the small notebook for keeping track of phrases and vocabulary. For me, this has been an invaluable asset to my learning as it both forces me to think through information actively as I write it down (which serves as a memory aid), and acts as a tangible way of tracking my progress. It might work for you, too!
Pimsleur’s Language Learning Resources (CD or mp3). This isn’t 100% essential when just starting out, but it is definitely an asset. These audio files help you learn the language by first listening to it, and then comprehending it. This learning style may seem backwards initially, but in fact it’s rather intuitive, and highly useful for learning correct pronunciation and practicing conversational skills. If you’re serious about totally immersing yourself in a language in hopes of learning it, check this out.
As you begin to learn and discover more about your chosen language of study, you will inevitably come across myriads of resources to learn from. My advice? Take a minimalistic approach and pick a core group of two or three solid resources, and stick with them. That’s what I am doing with the aforementioned resources I listed just now, and it’s been working pretty well for me so far. But hey, there’s always more to learn and do, so I’m tweaking this formula as I go. Is anyone else out there learning a language independent from school? If so, what do you use? If you have any suggestions or thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments! As for myself, I’m off to study my sentence structure rules and declensions. How about you?
