(Kiswahili Kidato cha Tano)
Notes1
Topic 1
MATUMIZI YA SARUFI na UTUMIZI WA LUGHA
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Topic 3
UTUNGAJI
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Notes2
KISWAHILI AS A LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION
Although
Kiswahili is widely spoken in all these East African member states, it is only
in Tanzania that the language has been
given the status of both the national language and that of the medium of
instruction in all basic education institutions.
Tanzania,
along with Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, belongs to the East African
community, a regional intergovernmental organization that aspires to lead the
five countries into a political federation (East African community website).
Kiswahili is the African lingua franca
of Tanzania. In the education system it serves as the
language of instruction at primary school level. From secondary school and
onwards, however the medium of instruction is English. This is an issue that
has caused a lot of debate over the years. Many publications and a lot of
research on the issue suggest that the current language policy is an obstacle
to effective learning and teaching because students as well as lecturers are
not sufficiently competent in English. Therefore it has been argued that the
medium of instruction should be Kiswahili, also at post primary level.
Although it seems obvious to many
educationists that learners learn best through a language they understand well,
there is also considerable support for retaining the English medium in
Tanzania. The proponents of the English medium often argue that globalisation
makes it important to keep the English medium, that the Kiswahili language
lacks the necessary vocabulary to function as an academic language or that such
a change is too costly for a developing country like Tanzania.
The main objective of this study is to
explore and gain insight into the various views concerning the medium of
instruction at post-primary level in Tanzania with a special focus on higher
education and the University of Dar es Salaam. The opinions of lecturers,
professors and students were sought through open-ended interviews, employing
the interview guide approach. The study also involved document analysis of
Government policy documents, newspapers and earlier studies and publications on
the issue
OVERVIEW AND HISTORY
Tanzania, like many African countries,
boasts a wealth of indigenous languages. At last count, over 127 languages were
spoken in this country of 37 million on the east coast of Africa (Gordon 2005).
Tanzania differs from some of its neighbors in that a lingua franca, Swahili,
is spoken as a second language by a vast majority of the population and is a
straightforward choice for a national language. Swahili is a Bantu language in
structure and vocabulary, making it closely related to many of the country’s
local languages, but it also draws a great deal of its vocabulary from Arabic
due to the influences of coastal trade. Swahili is the mother tongue of the
Swahili people living along the coast and in Zanzibar, as well as of the
younger generations of city dwellers. An estimated 30 million rural Tanzanians
are second-language speakers, using their local language at home but Swahili
for cross-tribal communication (Gordon 2005). In 2004 the National Kiswahili
Council estimated that 99 percent of all Tanzanians spoke Swahili as at least a
second language (Brock-Utne 2005).
A common educational dilemma in
multilingual African countries is what to choose as the language of
instruction. In the absence of an ethnically neutral lingua franca, any choice
will be seen to favor certain ethno-linguistic groups at the expense of all
others. According to Alidou (2004), this was not a problem prior to
colonization, when each community used its own language to educate its
children. Education across ethno-linguistic groups was not necessary until the
arrival of colonialism and Western education, when formal schools were
introduced and children who spoke different languages were often placed in the
same classroom. The problem of multilingualism in the classroom had a simple
solution for most colonizers: simply teach in the colonial language. In
Tanzania 2 , however, the choice of a colonial language was less obvious.
Swahili, widely spoken by the arrival of the colonizers, could be used as
easily as the colonial language to bridge linguistic gaps in the classroom.
Today, Tanzania and Ethiopia are the only countries on the continent to use
national languages rather than colonial ones throughout the primary school
system (Alidou 2004).
Nonetheless, Tanzania has not escaped the
medium-of-instruction problems plaguing so many other African countries.
Although Swahili is used in primary education, English is the medium of
instruction at the secondary and post-secondary levels. There is an ongoing
debate over whether this is the optimal amount of English in Tanzanian schools,
with compelling arguments for both English and Swahili as primary media of
instruction; this controversy will be addressed in the following sections.
Swahili had its first taste of official status during the German colonial rule
beginning in the late seventeenth century, when it was designated for
nationwide use in education and colonial administration. After some controversy
over whether German or Swahili should be used as the medium of instruction in
schools, Swahili was eventually chosen, although the colonial government’s
motivation for this decision has been called into question. Rather than
desiring Tanzanians to learn in a language they spoke because it would advance
their education, did the administration perhaps hope to prevent Tanzanians from
learning German and thereby acquiring a sense of equality with their
colonizers? (Roy-Campbell 2001: 41).
The most straightforward explanation for
their decision is that since the goal of the government schools was to prepare
Tanzanians for employment in the colonial bureaucracy, using the convenient
lingua franca already spoken by nearly all potential employees both in schools
and in colonial administration was most practical. This promotion of Swahili as
a language of education and administration during German colonial rule was
instrumental in the language’s spread as a lingua franca in Tanzania
(Roy-Campbell 2001: 42).
When the British government took over
administration of German East Africa following World War I, Swahili was
preserved as the language of instruction in the first five years of primary
school, but the medium in last three years of primary and all of secondary
school was switched to English (Rubagumya 1990). Colonial administration was
also now carried out in English. Roy-Campbell (2001) argues that the British
administration had a concrete plan to train a small minority of elite
Tanzanians to assist in colonial administration, while for the rest of the
population the aim was to maintain very low levels of education.
This could be seen in the “Ten Year
Development and Welfare Plan for Tanganyika,” put out by the colonial
government, which stated that ideally 100 percent of the population would
attend primary school and only 4 percent would attend secondary school
(RoyCampbell 2001). This proposed imbalance more or less holds today, with
secondary school enrollment still drastically lower than primary school
enrollment and among the lowest in Africa at 5 to 6 percent in 2000 (World Bank
Group).
In 1954 the Tanganyika African National
Union (TANU), the political party that fought for independence from British
rule, used Swahili as a tool for uniting the different ethnic groups it sought
to represent (Rubagumya 1990). Tanganyika gained independence in 1961, with
Julius Nyerere, a former secondary-school teacher and founder of TANU, as its
first leader. His vision was of a country united under ujamaa, or “familyhood,”
a political philosophy of socialism and self-reliance. Nyerere adopted an
aggressive nation-building campaign that included promoting Swahili as the
language of public life and transforming
HOW TO LEARN A LANGUAGE FAST
– PART 5
12. Focus on comprehensible input
If your goal is learning languages fast, it’s
key to familiarize yourself with the concept of comprehensible input, or the
idea that you should read or listen at your level or slightly above it, based
on notable linguist Stephen Krashen’s theory of language acquisition. When
you’re new to learning Spanish, it’s probably too early to watch an entire
movie in Spanish. Instead, you’ll want to find material just above your
level at every stage of your language learning journey. As a beginner, this
will likely be those short, simple dialogues we discussed earlier. You’ll soon
start understanding more than you think and be ready to read stories or
non-fiction material. First, reading gives you everything you need for
comprehensible input – you can study at your own pace and highlight any vocab
you don’t know. Stories are particularly effective because their structures are
universally relatable, so the stories you know in your mother tongue can help
you understand.
Beyond that, stories allow you to have an
experience that engages your entire brain in the learning
process instead of just the left brain that may be involved when you’re
only learning grammar. Activating different parts of your brain helps you form
new neural connections, leading to better long-term language retention. “This
is how native speakers learn their own language,” Richards says, “We didn’t
learn English by studying grammar rules. We learned from our parents reading us
books.”
13. Set
Learning Goals to Learn a Foreign Language
Language-learning
goals are best if they are short, simple and easily measurable. Many of us
embark on studying a language by saying, “I want to be fluent in Japanese in
six months!” The problem is, what is fluency? Fluent in what way? Casual
conversation? Reading and writing? Discussing legal issues for your business? Instead,
it’s better to set clearly defined goals. Start with something like, “By
the end of today, I will know how to greet someone and introduce myself. In two
days, I will learn how to ask someone what they do for a living and explain to
them what I do. By the end of the week, I will know how to procure food and
avoid starvation.”
And to
get you started, I’ll give you the goal of all goals, the milestone that will
take you furthest on the path to fluency: “Master the 100 most common words in
X weeks/months.”
14. Focus on the most important vocabulary
It’s not possible for anyone to know all the
words of a language, even native speakers. It’s simply impractical anyways,
because you probably won’t need it in daily life. If your goal is to learn
quickly, then prioritise the most important vocabulary that you will use most
often. If you’re learning business English, for example, then you
probably want to focus on vocabulary related to your job. But if you’re learning
a language for fun, you likely want to prioritise slang and informal
vocabulary.
By the way, that’s the other advantage of
learning a new language with Lingoda. All classes are broken down into
unique topics: some for grammar, some for business, and even fun topics like
philosophy. This makes it easy to learn the aspects of the language that are
most relevant for you.
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Know that you can never learn any language “completely”. A language changes constantly, uses neologisms or occasionalisms, shifts the meaning of a neutral word to a derogative or euphemized connotation, has highly specific or scientific terms and rarely used, archaic expressions, posesses a variety of regional dialects – and not even the most well-versed native speaker could have possibly have mastered all. You learn any language your entire life.
So I assume that you want to achieve some grade of fluency and do not expect to learn an entire language.
You’ll need a good foundation in your target language, before you can start immersing yourself in it. A toddler wastes a lot of time by listening and guessing, but we can be more effective:
- memorize the most frequently utilized words (on the internet you may find a list such as “top 100 words used in *insert target language*”). Listen how they are pronounced, repeat the pronounciation otherwise you will memorize a rather off pronounciation, which you internally guessed by spelling it like your native language or your ridiculously exaggerated imagination of how the target language sounds. Been there, made this dreadful mistake. Just no. Simply listen to the original pronounciation. Don’t learn from a script.
- Learn some basic phrases (Hello, Thank You…) you’ll need in daily life
- Progress to learning the most important grammar rules. Only the most important. If there are 20 tenses it’s of no use to learn all of them at once. Instead, learn those that are most frequently used, and which allow you to express yourself on a basic level. If there are various exceptions in declension of some nouns, ignore them, because they’ll only confuse you, unless it is a very very important word like one from the top 100. Crucial grammar rules usually consist of; a) Use of basic adjectives b) Use of frequent tenses c) declension of nouns d) Pronouns e) Structure of simple sentences (“Syntax”)
- Learn how to pose questions, because most languages have very special and varying ways of doing this, and you’ll often need to pose questions when you’re not very fluent in a language, to ask for clarification or explanation.
- Identify “false friends” aka common words that sound/are written like a word in your native language, but have a different meaning. Here’s an example: le chat = cat in french, not “chat” as in an online chat or to chat. German “bekommen” means to get something, like a gift, and is not to be confused with English “to become” – to turn into something/grow up to be. Btw. Gift is the German word for poison! Polish pronoun “my” means “we”. Polish “krew” means blood, not crew… Really false friends can ruin a conversation. You’d not like to accidently say something offensive in your target language. Learn the false friends with greatest diligence
- Use “good” friends as your beginner’s vocabulary. Good friends are words that sound the same and have the same meaning in both your native and the target language. An example: contact – becomes German Kontakt.
- Learn 5 new words each day. Every 3rd day repeat the entire vocabulary you know. Twice a week – test your grammar. Or create yourself another rigid plan of repetition, and stick to it.
- Be creative with your yet limited knowledge: try to write a simple story or dialogue, describe pictures and things. Simple rote learning of grammar rules wouldn’t teach you how to exert them in spontaneously formed sentences.
Before progressing between the aforehead mentioned steps, memorize well. Don’t overrun it, otherwise you’ll understand no more than half of all rules, and make unnecessary mistakes. Don’t try to learn all rules on a single day, you will forget half of it, feel overhelmed by your incompetence, and that wouldn’t be effective. Break it down into “small chunks”. You need a good foundation before progressing to the complex stuff. If you have trouble memorizing things, find some memorization strategies; memes, funny analogies, create akrostichons for grammar rules or make a song about it – really music works wonders to burn something into your longterm memory.
This article gives a nice overview of different memorization techniques: Memorization Strategies – Learning Center
If you think an online language portal like Duolingo helps you with that, use it, but do not let it be your only source for language acquisition. Personally I did not like Duolingo, because it is extremely unflexible in the expressions tested for (e.g. it often will not recognize synonymes), and doesn’t allow you to be creative with the newly learnt phrases.
The next step is immersion.
- Familiarize yourself with the pronounciation of the target language by listening to music in it. Look the lyrics up and try to understand them. If there is unknown vocabulary – search the words in a dictionary and memorize their meaning.
- Write more advanced texts in the target language: Letters? A Diary? A story? Dialogues? A political discussion? An essay? Poetry? Whatever is on your head, write it down. Or sign yourself up in an online forum – maybe one that’s about a fandom you like? Of course you could simply start using Quora in your target language (does not guarantee that all target languages have a Quora page)…
- Read in your target language. It can be child’s stories. But you must be interested in the story, otherwise you’ll loose interest and reading will soon feel like a chore. Most “Lectures for language learners” are so boring and badly written, that it’s no wonder when the reader begins to doubt his dedication. Yes, I’m talking of these terrible detective-stories and those who are drained in some forced p.c. message. No, search for original texts targeted at primary school children. If you like science fiction stories, there will certainly be a sci-fi adventure for 4th graders. You can also read comics or graphic novels. If you think you’ll have an easier time understanding a book you have already read in your native language, then read the translation of it in the foreign language.
- Watch movies/series. In the beginning you can use subtitles (in the target language! Not your own!) to familiarize yourself with the sound of the original spoken language, but progress quickly to watching without any subtitles. The subtitles will not help you to understand spoken language better, so stop using them. Instead rewatch the scene you did not understand.
Remember : you must not learn the most intricate grammar rules, and exceptions, because while reading, you’ll be immersed in them and absorb them subconsciously. If you have a good foundation of grammar rules and vocabulary, you will be able to tell the rest from context. It may be hard in the beginning, and you’ll be forced to reread a page or chapter several times and feel compelled to look up the meaning of a particular word in a dictionary. However I advise you NOT to look up every word you do not understand. Looking up a word should be the last resort, if you are truly unable to figure out the basic meaning of a sentence and plot, having reread it several times. Not looking up everything will school your understanding of the language and challenge your brain to think in new, multiple ways – and using your intelligence cannot possibly be a bad side effect.
Disclaimer: I am no expert. Just some 17 year old pesudointellectual, who happens to be fluent in 3 languages, but compared to many others this is not worldshaking, given that two of these languages are my native tongues. If my advice helps you, I am glad. But don’t be fooled by the professional demeanor.
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That’s how I found myself miserably holding a plate filled with green pepper in the streets of İstanbul-Turkey.
I had to stop by and share my opinion when I saw this question while browsing through quora. As an African young student who currently speaks and writes English, French, Turkish and not forgetting my mother-tongue Lamnso, here are some of the things I am convicted you need to do in order to learn a new language quickly and efficiently while having fun.
Before we get there, here is something that I think everyone should understand before diving into this new adventure and experience.
The relationship of the languages you speak and the language you want to learn plays a critical role in determining how fast and effortlessly you are going to learn the new language. Being in class with scholars from countries around the globe such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Iran, Russia, Egypt, Nigeria etc, the time difference in learning the Turkish language between us was humungous. While most African students like myself struggled not only with pronunciation but with understanding the sentence structure of Turkish language which by the way, is utterly different from English and French, the others were able to express themselves conveniently within the first month of lectures. Their languages belong to the same family as the Turkish language, meaning it takes lesser time for them to learn. Check out this article on Wikibooks:Language Learning Difficulty for English Speakers for more information on this.
So now, with that out of the way, let’s get the ball rolling…
- Take a Trip.
How fast do you want to learn this new language? 4 months?. 9 months? or 1 year? Then here is what you must do. Get your travel bag-pack and move to an environment where you know this language is spoken the most. You got to inundate yourself in it. You have to be in a place where almost everyone speaks this language. Everywhere you turn your ears should pick up sound waves that correspond to this alien language. This way, you will inherently force yourself to learn so fast that, your brain will have no choice but to start messing sense out of the chaos. I call this making use of our survival instincts. This is precisely how I was able to fluently speak French within 4 months and the Turkish language with 7 months. I moved from my hometown-Bamenda in Cameroon to the capital city Yaounde(90% french speakers). Later I then moved to Istanbul-Turkey where I learned the Turkish language.
- Get a Tiny Notebook.
We had this beautiful smart lady from Mongolia in our class who in her free-time kept starring at her little notebook where she had written words, phrases and so much more. I even met her coincidentally inside the bus but she didn’t recognize I was the one sitting next to her until I said merhaba (meaning Hello/Hi in English). In less than 2 months, she could speak Turkish so fluently that the rest of us, had no choice than to listen and watch in admiration when she started speaking. We could not even understand more than 70% of what she was saying. That is how good she was. The magic was in her tiny little notebook which she carried with her everywhere she went. Get your own little notebook today and write down new words you come across daily in the language you are learning. In your time of relaxation or anytime you want during the day, browse through it and as you do this your brain will automatically and permanently save this in memory without stress or much effort. Keep jotting down words and sentences daily on your notebook and you will be amazed not only on how much you have learned but also on how much you can remember.
- Get a Friend.
Its actually hard to admit but it turns out Gabriel was right. While I was struggling to have some boring conversation in Turkish with strangers, a couple of my friends were having scintillating chats with their newly found Turkish girlfriends. Guess what..? Their speaking improved prolifically more than mine. I am not saying you should get a new girlfriend for every language you want to learn. Rather, I am saying that go out there and make some new friends who are fluent in the language you wish to learn. Hang out with them and practice your speaking. Chat with them on social media like WhatsApp to further hone your writing skills. This I assure you will be quite effective.
- Watch Movies and Listen to Music.
When I asked a friend of mine from Albania who I play table tennis with, how many months he attended the Turkish course to be able to speak Turkish like a native speaker, I was mind-blown by his response. He said he had never seen the four walls of a Turkish language class. He spent his time in Albania before moving to Istanbul, watching Turkish TV shows and movies and listening to some beautiful heart-touching music. I followed his foot-steps and it tremendously improved my listening and also speaking ability. You can do the same to any new language you want to learn. Watch the movies with subtitles to widen your vocabulary and at the same time, your ears will rapidly adapt to the accent of the native speakers.
As a final note, learning a new language is normally a slow and gentle process that takes time and often should not be overly rushed. You may feel overwhelmed at the beginning but trust me, it gets easier. Hang it there and don’t give up. Let the reason you decided to learn the new language be the fuel that keeps the flame of motivation going no matter how hard it might seem. Learning this new language will unlock certain parts of your brain while creating new neuro-connections which will definitely result in a smarter and better you than your old self.
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The best method for learning a foreign language is by doing the following:
- Have a purpose for learning the language: As long as you have a purpose you’ll have reason to study.
- Have a need to study the language (this is different from a purpose, btw): If you need to speak the foreign language, you will. This is the reason why so many English speakers speak only one language. Who needs more languages if everyone already speaks ours? Your desire to learn the language is what will keep you learning the language.
- Study the language making sure to focus on the type of interface you need most for the language (writing, reading, listening or speaking).
- Get plenty of interaction and practice with the language
Now for what not to do:
- Don’t fear mistakes because you’re going to make mistakes.
- Don’t fear discomfort. You’re going to be uncomfortable.
- Don’t fear looking or sounding stupid. In English, if Shakespeare is the smart guy, guess what, you’re at the other end of the scale.
Remember that the point of language is communication. This means your goal is not to have perfect grammar or to sound like the most revered speaker or writer of whatever language you’re learning.
The goal is to sound like YOU, but in the other language. It is to connect with people and a culture. What this means is that should not be focusing on getting the absolute best accent. You’re not a spy. You only need to sound good enough to be understood. BUT if you do insist on having a good accent, don’t be surprised when you find out that normal English and perfect English are very different.
You should not focus on learning every word in the dictionary. Sometimes you know the absolute perfect word for things and the local population doesn’t. It is better that you have the ability to describe whatever it is that you need to.
You should not focus on having absolutely perfect grammar. Good grammar is good enough. Everyday grammar is a very distant relative of perfect grammar and flawless grammar makes some people nervous outside of formal settings because it often makes them feel under-dressed.
You should
You should focus on being appropriate and using the right registers. This is what people will notice. If you’re saying, “G’day sir/madame. How do you do?”, in a “Hey, what’s up?” situation, people won’t care that your English is good. They’ll be more concerned about the weirdo, they’re going to have to communicate with for the next few minutes.
Ditto for the other way, if you’re in a fancy hotel and you ask, “Where’s the crapper?”, they just might invite you to leave.
Appropriacy is key,
Tips for actually learning the foreign language
My subjective view is that you should get all your education from educators including your teacher, books, online tools and websites, and get as much practice as you can from real speakers of the language.
Why?
Educators
Educators will be able to tell you the answers to questions that native speakers accept as something “just sounds right”, whereas to you, it just sounds inconsistent.
They can usually explain and justify inconsistencies. Native speakers either won’t know or won’t agree on the true and correct answers.
Speakers of the language
Speakers are the trial by fire:
The functionary at the government office or even better, the barista who answers your coffee order with:
- Anything else with that?
- Will that be small, medium or large?
- Whole, skim, coconut, soy or oat milk?
- Would you like an extra dash of (whatever) in that?
- For here or to go?
- What’s your name?
- Please pay at the register/till.
- Will that be cash check or credit?
- Could I interest you in a shop loyalty/fidelity card?
- And, ‘Mind if I have your ZIP/post code?
With a line of 8 stressed out Parisians breathing down your neck, your teacher is unlikely to offer you this level of stress, training and role play. And this is just picking up a cup of coffee.
You need real life situations for this.
So, as you learn more and more of the language, you will spend less time with the teacher and more time with people who use the language in every other capacity.
Last bit of advice
Don’t be annoyed when you get to the bit or bits of the language that are weird. Different languages have some nutty things connected to thing that make absolutely no sense from our perspectives but are normal or even necessary in the context of the customs and culture of the speakers of that language.
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Depends, what language you want to learn, English or some other language.
- Develop interest: By this i simply mean make yourself curious, figure out why you want to learn that particular language- the reason could be any- lets say cuz you like K-Drama that’s why you want to learn Korean, or anime made me learn Japanese, German might offer me better job opportunities, could be anything, or simply i watch La Liga, which made me curious to learn Spanish. Remember in order to learn a language in a most effective way is to create a connection with that language. That connection will really help you to see the language from a distinctive point of view, that will be only yours.
- Take professional help: Now that you are full with excitement and curiosity to learn the language, seek a professional help, like a language tutor or language school.
- Explore: language school will teach you grammar, help with language nuances, now its your turn to make yourself comfortable with that language. That means, you need to start exploring the ways which can help you to become pro. Like talking to natives, or applying for scholarships in the target language country or may be you can start teaching as well. Teaching will help you understand the nuances of a language much more effectively and give you confidence.
Most importantly you need to be consistent with the language, practice daily, learn something new daily, read the history of that target language country, get yourself familiarised with the demographics and geography of the country, and make some good connection. Just remain curious, that’s all.
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Let’s see some examples.
Faster than a hamster. Even if hamsters do actually learn foreign languages, they clearly keep it a secret. As much as the academic community is divided with regards to anything else, here they’d be in accord that hamsters are pretty useless at language learning. So, whatever you do you’ll learn faster than a hamster.
Faster than a child. It is said children learn faster than adults, but it doesn’t mean age is a barrier. The ability to learn doesn’t decrease with age. As an adult you will probably need different approach, and you won’t have 10 hours a day of a free native-speaker input. But, what you’ve got is years of learning experience: you know what methods work for you. In a game of “a lazy child who does’t learn for a purpose” vs. “your highly motivated self” you can beat the kid for sure.
Faster than people in language courses. Doh. Easily. When learning on your own you can always keep your study sessions right at your level and make sure you improve every time you pick up a book (without having to bear through *the very same* mistakes and questions of your co-students).
Faster than a polyglot. This could be hard. Polyglots have already hacked for themselves what method helps them learn a language most efficiently. This is while you were learning to scuba-dive, fix Mac hard-drives or to trade stocks. We all have different skills, and language is like any other skill, in that it takes time and practice to develop it.
It will be hard to catch up with the polyglots’ years of practice. But, thankfully a lot of those pro language learners have blogs where they share their tips and experiences. So… make them your mentors and incorporate their methods into your own deliberate practice routine.
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Hi,
Here is what works best for me:
1) Primary focus on language production (speaking and writing).
Everything I learn or read I verbalise and rehearse many times. I make sure that my lips are moving all the time and I hear my voice 🙂 For example, I close the book and retell what I’ve memorised and I record myself on video or audio. If I feel that my mouth hurts after each learning session, it’s an indicator that it was fruitful and rewarding practice.
2) Have no fear of making mistakes. It’s a natural part of the learning process. Take a note when in doubt about some point and check it later with native speakers.
3) Apply all the new info directly into practice.
Practice is key. Everyone knows it, few do it in full power and for real.
4) Consistent practice.
Practice a little every day, even if it’s just 15-30 minutes. It really adds up over time.
5) Immerse yourself fully and make sure you have lots of input.
Surround yourself by language with social media, podcasts, documentaries, films, youtube films on the topics that you are deeply interested in. I tend to listen to something in a foreign language when doing some household chores or walking.
6) Adjust activities to your energy levels.
I leave receptive activities (reading and listening) to my energetically lowest moments during the day while focusing on language production when I am mentally sharp.
7) Spaced repetition.
Use apps like Quizlet or Anki for vocabulary and go back to your notes regularly. Check out Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve for exact time frames when you need to revise.
8) Mind Maps.
I love writing down everything and making charts and mindmaps.
9) Shadowing technique.
It’s so effective for me. This is where you repeat what you hear as closely as possible. I usually listen to each sentence in a text or video, pause and repeat with the same intonation and accent. A great way to improve pronunciation.
10) Conversations with natives.
If you have the possibility to practice with native speakers or pay for private tutors, do it.
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First, someone should formulate goal properly.
“Learn language” term is commonly used and absolutely wrong.
Language is a set of skills:
- Listening
- Speaking
- Reading
- Writing
Attempt to look at language as something whole, IMHO misleading, at least in the context of “i want learn as fast as possible”.
What do you want to do with language?
Travel? You need basic listening and speaking.
Work as translator? You need very professional level of reading and writing.
Ability to paint Chinese hieroglyphs, will not help you to understand spoken Chinese. At all.
So, first, you need to decide which skill you need first and train this skill directly.
What means directly?
You train swimming by swimming, and reading by reading.
You can ask: how I can train speaking when I cannot speak at all?
Well, you need to practice with dialogues, phrasebooks, translators, basic speaking apps. And then find speaking partner.
What if you want all skills, e.g. you want be proficient and fluent?
It will not be quickly. It will take years. Years of using language. And it will take forever of learning language (without actually using it).
And, anyway, I would concentrate my efforts, first, on speaking-listening and after several months start to read- write.
…………
I can tell you what worked for me.
I studied French for 5 years at school but it didn’t work for me, not that I was interested in making it work.
Then, over 30 years later, I had the opportunity to work & live in Lausanne, Switzerland, where they spoke French; the office language was English. And I decided to learn French.
I adopted a three pronged approach.
1) I got an English French dictionary, bought a French newspaper every Saturday, and would read it by translating it word by word. This was excellent for building vocabulary.
2) I set my alarm clock radio to a French news station (deliberately NOT music). This allowed me to listen to French speech. I would try to translate fragments I heard. Several minutes later I would pick another half sentence to try. Just extracting the words was hard.
3) I watched French television with French subtitles; news, shows, movies, whatever. Like with the radio (except the words were given to me), I would translate a sentence, and a few minutes later do another one.
After about 3 months, and literally overnight, something happened in my brain. The radio came on, and everyone was speaking slowly; so slowly that I could hear each word separately and clearly. Obviously it was ‘speak slowly for foreigners day’. But no; my brain could suddenly ‘hear in French’.
Things developed rapidly after this. I bought a French dictionary (no English) as my vocabulary was extensive enough to understand the definitions in French.
When I could laugh at French jokes in real time on the TV, I knew I had made it.
Sadly, my time in Switzerland finished early due to the DotCom boom becoming DotBomb bust, and I left after 7 or 8 months.
That was over 20 years ago; I never kept up my French, and it’s probably mainly gone. I like to think I could resurrect it quickly if I needed/wanted to.
……………
- Come up with writing projects for yourself
Practice doesn’t make you perfect, but definitely improves your English writing skills.
Focus on the area(s) that you want to be good at. For me, I wanted to make my writing deep instead of flat, so I created 20 writing prompts to practice.
For example,
Instead of saying, “I felt lost in my 20s because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”
I changed it to “I’d spend an hour every night, writing out things that interested me or seem interesting on a white A4 paper, hoping that something would come up. An hour later, I still drew a blank.” To add more specific details of what a depressed situation looked like.
If you’re interested in blogging, you can rewrite a blog post that you found online by using the same title.
Again, the more you practice, the better you become. Be persistent.
- Hit that Publish button (often)
source: giphy.com
There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your work out there.
Medium has a great community and lots of readers (approximate 60 million) every month. To be honest, it’s quite intimidating if you’re just starting out and to publish your first post. But eventually you’ll get comfortable at it.
Don’t be afraid of critiques. You may not even get any clap or share or comment, and that’s fine. The beauty of constantly putting things out there is that it’s a track of your progression. You may feel like deleting your first few posts after you’ve published a significant amount because they looked horrible. Well, just leave it. Everyone’s first draft is ugly (except for some unicorns).
That’s all the tips I have to help non-native speakers improve writing.
Whichever tip you pick, just remember that the more you write, the better, quicker, and more confident you’ll become.
Share some of your thoughts or techniques in the comments that you use to help you get better at writing.
Let’s tune out the self-doubt and go the distance!
