Nothing too technical here… this is just a short post about how to trick yourself into learning. I’m sure you’ve heard countless times before how you should learn in context… but it can be a little vague at times right? So… in laymans terms.. the mythical in context beast is one that pretty much means “try to live in your language”
By that I mean your target language should become part of your everyday life and routine. And what are some ways to do this? Watch tv, read a book, listen to the radio, go to the local market, etc.. One of my favourites though is cooking… and this is where the digesting part comes in.
We all have to eat… so combine the two. Use Google – or better yet, use your target language’s search engine, like Naver for Korean – to find some recipes for some of your favourite dishes from the countries that speak your language… Even if you’re not a culinary genius, chances are that your disastrous attempts at cooking the food will still be edible and you’ll learn vocabulary items for the ingredients and methods, as well as just getting some practice at reading procedural texts in your target language… which will help you with reading instructions for other things and what-not.
If reading recipes isn’t your thing… try i-Tunes for podcasts or videocasts of the same kind of thing. I learnt a lot of Korean recipes by watching cooking shows and just reading recipes online.
So.. get in the kitchen and start digesting your target language!
