UNUSUAL TIPS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS.

Hey guys!

If you're learning a foreign language, you might have heard a lot of tips for language learners like: read books, watch movies or listen to songs in a target language, learn a certain amount of new words per day, do grammar exercises.

You try to do all these things and still feel that you're not moving forward in your learning...

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Well, it doesn't surprise me, because I've been there and done that: I've been learning English for more than ten years already and just last few years were really productive when it comes to my improvements. Guess why... I've totally changed my attitude to learning, I realized that to learn a language, you need to surround yourself with it, and the most important - surround yourself NATURALLY!!!

What I am trying to say here is that you should be 100% involved in the process of learning, and to be involved, you should connect your learning process to the things you're interested in!
If you don't like watching movies, why would you watch movies in your target language, you will simply not enjoy the process and you'll learn nothing or almost nothing.

First, you should think about the things that interest you. You like cooking and learning Italian, go ahead and search for a new recipe of pizza, but in your target language, try to cook while watching a video of Mario preparing pizza and explaining all the steps in Italian with all the intonations. Not only you will learn how to cook but also you'll improve your Italian pronunciation, intonation and learn new words and expressions naturally!!!

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One more thing you can do is to set up your devices to your target language. We use our phones and computers every day without thinking, we already know all the functions, they became automatic, if we change the language, it will not prevent us from using the phone, but it can help learning vocabulary related to phones (computers). That is what surrounding yourself with the target language is.

Make it a habit to learn every day! But not in a boring way! Find a native speaker of your target language (there are a lot of applications for language exchange like HELLOTALK or TANDEM, where people can help each other learn) and ask them how to say ''I'm going shopping'' in their language, when you're actually going shopping. Or ask them how to say ''I can't sleep'', when you really can't fall asleep.

(my own screenshot of Hellotalk chat)

If you don't like talking to people, and prefer to learn by yourself, try speaking to yourself. All the time we talk to ourselves in our head without even realizing, it happens like 'Well, what do I have to do now? Let's see...to do the dishes or .. nah, to lay on the bed'; try to do this inner thinking in your target language, yeah, maybe it'll sound like a baby talk, but it'll be fun.
When I was little, I often pretended being an American named Cassandra, I would approach people on the streets asking them something like''Excuse me, I'm searching for a toilet'', or I'd go to a playground, where children don't know me, and start speaking English to them )

And the last, but not the least, reward yourself for what you've accomplished instead of blaming yourself for fails!
I had a horrible student, if we compare him to others, he was progressing so slowly. But he would underline his achievments to me: ''Look, today I didn't mix up ВЕТЕР and ВЕЧЕР! I rule''. That's the right attitude!!!
Count your achievments!

Look back and say to yourself: ''Today I know more than yesterday!''

See you!

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