Just like there are two sides to every story, there is no one text that will reveal everything. Your best bet to getting the full story? Treat your language study like your diet… eat something different from the menu whenever you can.
Not only would it get boring eating the same food day-in, day-out, but you wouldn’t get to experience anything outside of your usual. So, why not treat yourself to something different from the language menu to keep your appetite high and your experiences growing.
Sure, publishers all give you false hopes and dreams of learning a language to absolute fluency in a matter of minutes, but I hope you’re not that naïve. Let’s be serious for a moment… learning a language takes time. Time that can be reduced if you use it wisely.
Instead of struggling on to the end of a book in hope of it all making sense, take advantage of a few other materials and it might just make sense.
I am a huge fan of dialogue-based courses such as Assimil and Linguaphone (the older courses) and don’t hesitate in suggesting these to anybody that will listen to my ramblings. They are fantastic in my opinion, but even these two goliaths don’t tell you the whole story.
Personally, I feel the need to make use of some drill work to consolidate understanding and verbal fluency, which is where Foreign Service Institute style courses come into play. But why stop there?
In addition to these, including texts that offer an overview of a language have many positives. I’m talking about things like the Teach Yourself and Colloquial series. Verbal courses like Michel Thomas or Pimsleur offer a lot in terms of getting you going in a language, but please… don’t be fooled by their marketing. The advanced levels will not make you advanced in ability in the grand scheme of things! And on a similar note, phrasebooks are not just for tourists… they’re great for finding useful sentences and for light reading when you don’t really feel like “studying”.
Of course, once you become somewhat proficient in your target language, instructional texts can become redundant. This is where you need to turn to native materials; that is, things that are produced for the native-speaking population. I mean books, newspapers, television shows, movies, etc. Feel free to introduce these at an early stage if you are comfortable with that method.
I personally like to loosely follow Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which is, using material that I can understand around 90% and that way I’m always pushing myself but not torturing myself through constant thumbing through a dictionary or stuggling for meaning. Others that have been successful in learning several languages contradict me in their methods and promote the use of native material from the outset. People as noted as Kato Lomb (a veteran of 17 languages) being one of these that learned a great deal by reading things of interest to her. I have to admit that much of my Spanish study has been in this fashion and it has worked for me on a passive level due to similarities with other languages I have some knowledge of. And I also watch way too much Japanese drama for my own good… But these things can’t be helped.
Basically, what I’m saying is… make use of whatever you can… make use of whatever works for you… and leave yourself open to new ideas. If you are new to learning language then the chances are that you may not use your time efficiently, but don’t be disgruntled, it comes with experimentation. And you will become an efficient learner through keeping your mind open to the new and even strange ideas that spring into your world.
Take me for example. In the beginning I would study a textbook for roughly 90 minutes. The same level of material I can now digest in 20 minutes, and it’s only through experimenting with different things that I found out how much time I was actually wasting from simply believing what I was told to be true.
Find what works best for you and remember that there is no gospel truth to how to learn a language.
My personal suggestions to give you ideas:
The Big 3
- 1x dialogue-based course; Assimil or Linguaphone.
- 1x drill-based course; Foreign Service Institute.
- Phrasebook for carrying around and reading for when I have a few minutes throughout the day.
Also nice
- 1x language overview; Teach Yourself or Colloquial.
- 1x verbal course; Michel Thomas or Pimsleur.
Read about how I use these in the Multiple Phases article.
Next Step
- Parallel texts through to novels and newspapers.
- Audiobooks and news reports.
- Movies and television.
- Skype and language exchange.
To get you over that Intermediate hump in the road to fluency or just for added ideas, read about how I use these in the Next Step article.
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