tips for memorising new languages?

When I took French, I just used to write the verb meaning, verb conjugations, and vocab again. And again and again.

It helped me

 

Force yourself to think in that language. While having stickers on objects is helpful, having to actively discover a word you can't express in Spanish makes you find out that word and use it in context. I often decide to spend a full day thinking in one language and the next in another when I feel slightly rusty. It helps me a lot.

And read. Always read. Newspapers, novels, academic articles and so on give you an extremely broad vocabulary and help you recall words you vaguely know, but don't often use, or words with direct equivalents in English. And they help you form good structures and have idioms and other such expressions always in the back of your mind.

 

MEMRISE MEMRISE MEMRISE

Honestly, I hate learning words... But well, with memrise it works.
In 2 days I've learned about 40 korean words by working only a little

 

Think in the language- it helps a great deal

 

Find as much motivation as you can for it. Such as, find a good show that comes from a Spanish speaking country, that way you can see how they talk, how they sound, etc. It can also teach some of their cultural ways maybe.
Also, find a friend or someone who is also studying Spanish and motivate each other or whatever.
Hoped I helped broskio~

 

One thing that has helped me learn languages at twice the rate is to learn a word, then learn its opposite. So each word comes with a companion, and is therefore easier to remember.

For example: "here" and "there"; in the language spoken by the Inuit in Northern Canada, "here" is mani and "there" is avani.

I only had to learn that once.

 

This is a great idea. You might also want to learn words in sets - so you learn prepositions of physical place together and learn prepositions and conjunctions relating to time in chunks. It helps you command the basics.

I also advise physically acting out words if you're new to Spanish. For example, point things out to differentiate between words, to see whether something is "aquí", "ahí" or "allí".

And grammar is your friend. Spanish grammar can be a bit tricky, so sitting down with an old-fashioned textbook and doing grammatical exercises is so important to being able to command Spanish sentence structures fluently. I also suggest you familiarise yourself intimately with the subjunctive, because a Spanish speaker with a poor command of the subjunctive is scarcely a Spanish speaker.

And with vocabulary, don't learn endless nouns and verbs before learning conjunctions and prepositions and the grammar that dictates how all of that works. Having a really strong command of that core of the language means that you can fill in nouns and verbs in a template of the language you know, rather than piecing together nouns and verbs within incorrect structures.

 

I'm learning tirkish with duolingo, and i sorta have problems with this, also with pronouciation...

 

It's strongly recommended to use various resources to learn a new language.
Duolingo, from what I've seen, only teaches you sentences. To learn a language you have to understand its structure and lot of stuff that duolingo won't give you.
_____________________________

Anyone trying to learn a new language, it's for you.


Well, I'll developp a bit.

I'm learning Korean, and I'm only using one resource -which focuses on grammar and vocabulary- for now (have trouble focusing because of depression so I can't use 2 or 3 different resources at once).


By the way, this wiki is pretty useful. It's 4chan's int language learning guide
The Official /int/ How to Learn A Foreign Language Guide Wiki - Wikia

I'd also advise one to check the Reddit for their target language.

Once you can more or less understand stuffs, the best way to learn is to practice directly.


Read, talk, listen...

Read: Comics are the best, you know why ? Because you have pictures to understand the context. From there you have to use deduction (and a dictionnary from time to time), you'll begin to understand grammar concepts that you weren't taught, learn slangs, expressions and lots of useful stuff.
That's how I learned English even though I only had a mid-tier French middle schooler level.

Talk: It doesn't have to be via skype or directly -even though I'd strongly recommend it cause it helps a lot with pronunciation (I didn't and now whenever I speak English you can read "Je mange des croissants" written on my forehead). Forums, facebook or mmos are a must. Find some forums about your hobbies and go on, you'll improve your expression and comprehension.

Listen: Ahhh, that thing I'd only begun to try right before getting into college -majoring AND minoring in English studies. Good thing since every single lecture were given in English. Watching lots of youtube videos is a great plus as you'll still learn new words, but also get clues about how things are pronunced. Stressed syllables are my worst nightmare, and without those videos I wouldn't even have begun to stress those.


Having basic knowledge in linguistic can also help you a lot.

Oh yeah and I forgot, the MOST important part if you want to learn words.
The way you process the information plays a major role. Let's say you have the word "Fuego" which means "Fire", what people naturally do is to process the information this way.
[Actual Fire] <=> "Fire" <=> "Fuego"
They always use their native language as a fundation for remembering words.
It has flaws, one of which is TIME. If you have to think about actual fire, then the word fire then fuego, you lose time that could be focused on what you actually mean and the conversation.

The ideal processing pattern is:
[Actual Fire] <=> "Fire"
[Actual Fire] <=> "Fuego"

You have to be able to switch between languages. For example, right now, as I'm writing this post I'm thinking in English. However if my mom were to call me, I'd have to switch back to French speaking mode.
The Native Mode and the Target Mode should not interact as much as possible.

If I say "Fire", the image of actual fire pops in your head.
If I say "Fuego", the image of actual fire pops in your head.

Those different modes are one of the reason people tend to change their character and their outlook depending on which language they're using.
For example, expect your mind to make more distinction between genders as you'll learn Spanish.
In English, genders don't really go any further than he/she, his/her.
In Spanish, adjectives accord themselves to the gender of the subject for example. And objects have a gender, for example: "Una pelicula" is "A movie" yet "pelicula" is a feminine word. If you want to say that "The movie is good" -movie is neutral and so is good- you'll have to accord the adjective "Bueno" to the feminine, which gives: "La pelicula es buena".

People speaking languages that make a difference between gender tend to make this difference too in their head.

Well just to say that while learning a new language you're creating a new "you" that has to be separated from the actual you.

Yours truly, "Le bouffeur de croissants"

 

Try using Quizlet to memorize vocabulary.

 

I'll echo that using the language somehow is the best thing.

I had two languages in high school: French and German. I learned more German--even though it was a harder language, and I didn't take it as long--because the teacher actually forced us to use the language. Starting on Day #1, when most teachers were doing well if they got out the grading policy. However, we never really used French much. It was just endless worksheets. And, oh, yes, vocabulary words to be memorized. Funny thing--I did well on the vocab quizzes, but the words never stuck for long.

And as Aussie792 points out: it helps to know the grammar.

I later had a better French teacher, even though I had to start from zero, and it was interesting that he did very little with vocabulary. We got some words, certainly, but it was grammar that he hit the hardest. (Totally irrelevant, but the words that stick to my mind the hardest was for Voodoo doll. I specially asked my teacher, because I had a habit of getting "creative" on assignments sometimes, and mentioning a Voodoo doll amused me for one exercise.)

 

I think the best way to learn a new language is start using it. English is my second language, but as I use it to chat and write on forums and stuff, then speak to my friends and let them correct me whenever I say something wrong, it becomes almost a second nature to think in english now.

 

Talk to yourself in that language.

Expose yourself to it by watching TV shows or whatever in that language.

 

As a German learner, when I don't have access to other resources (e.g. speaking with others in the language, watching videos, reading things, etc.) I like to just sit down, keeping my thoughts as much in German as I can, and write. Often I find myself trying to express an idea I don't know the word(s) for, so I look it up and then immediately apply it. Since my memory makes the strongest connections when I visually process something and then copy it, that tends to work best for making words stick in my head. For that reason I also enjoy finding songs in German, working out their meaning, then copying down and memorizing the lyrics so that I can quickly recall them in speaking or writing as needed. Along that vein, I do recommend using audio/speaking and listening resources when possible in order to solidify the pronunciation of the words as well as the words themselves.

 

If you're alone (or with people you won't drive crazy with constant chatter), narrate your life out loud. Can't figure out a word? Make yourself grasp for different words to describe what you're trying to say.

For example: you want to say playground, but don't know the word. You have to say, that place where children go to play.

You'll find the more you do this, the better you'll know the "easy" words, leaving room for your brain to learn additional, more specific vocabulary. It's what you'd do if you *had* to speak Spanish to be understood.

 

Try using the words/phrases while talking to people.
Obviously they would'nt understand, so you'd have to explain what you said.
I've tried it and it helps.
And also there are apps for learning languages, ever tried Duolingo?

 

I've never considered this before. I finally started learning Czech tonight, so I'll be sure to try this when I have enough vocab.