How to Learn a Foreign Language: A Practical Guide with Tips and Resources

How to Learn a Foreign Language: A Practical Guide with Tips and Resources
Author: Jeff Blum
Publisher: Jeff Blum
Total Pages: 109
Release: 2021-09-25
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN:

Learning a language can be a daunting process. Should you self-study? Take a course? Buy a software program? Hire a private tutor? What kinds of learning systems are available and which might be right for you? How about the myriad online resources available? And, very importantly, where should you begin? Oh, by the way, how long will all this effort take anyway? You will find the answers to these questions in this short but thorough guide to learning a foreign language. Author Jeff Blum has taught English and studied four languages (Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Thai), but he still struggles just as anyone must when learning a language. Jeff did extensive research on all aspects of language learning in an effort to improve his own efforts and he has carefully curated that research into this guide to help you with your efforts as well. In the book you will find: 1. A look at the systems and techniques advocated by various language learning experts and sites. 2. A consideration of personal factors in learning a language (motivation, personality, goals, etc.). 3. A discussion of the 8 language learning blocks with recommended resources for tackling each. 4. An overview of the most popular language learning products on the market (Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, etc.). 5. A comprehensive set of resources to aid you with whatever approach to study you pursue. Whether you are young or old, beginner or advanced, studying your first foreign language or your fifth, there is something for you in this book. If you are a language teacher, this book might help you better understand what your students are up against while giving you ideas and extra resources to aid your teaching efforts.

Fluent Forever

Fluent Forever
Author: Gabriel Wyner
Publisher: Harmony
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 038534810X

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

Becoming Fluent

Becoming Fluent
Author: Richard Roberts
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2017-02-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0262529807

Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning: evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children. An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign lanugage by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

Fluent in 3 Months

Fluent in 3 Months
Author: Benny Lewis
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0062282700

Benny Lewis, who speaks over ten languages—all self-taught—runs the largest language-learning blog in the world, Fluent In 3 Months. Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.

The 4-Hour Work Week

The 4-Hour Work Week
Author: Timothy Ferriss
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0307353133

Offers techniques and strategies for increasing income while cutting work time in half, and includes advice for leading a more fulfilling life.

Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
Author: Kat— Lomb
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1606437062

KAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.

On Being a Language Teacher

On Being a Language Teacher
Author: Norma López-Burton
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0300189583

On Being a Language Teacher provides an innovative, personal approach to second-language teaching. Through illustrative personal anecdotes, this text guides new and aspiring language teachers through key pedagogical strategies while encouraging productive reflection by classroom veterans. An ancillary website provides online videos to complement the text by showing an experienced teacher applying the book’s lessons. In a market dominated by dense theoretical approaches to language pedagogy, this text provides an instantly accessible, practical set of teaching tools for educators at all levels. Its accessible style and affordability give it the flexibility to serve as either a primary or a supplemental text for teaching assistants, students in credential programs, or undergraduates in applied linguistics courses.

Ultralearning

Ultralearning
Author: Scott H. Young
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0062852744

Now a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Learn a new talent, stay relevant, reinvent yourself, and adapt to whatever the workplace throws your way. Ultralearning offers nine principles to master hard skills quickly. This is the essential guide to future-proof your career and maximize your competitive advantage through self-education. In these tumultuous times of economic and technological change, staying ahead depends on continual self-education—a lifelong mastery of fresh ideas, subjects, and skills. If you want to accomplish more and stand apart from everyone else, you need to become an ultralearner. The challenge of learning new skills is that you think you already know how best to learn, as you did as a student, so you rerun old routines and old ways of solving problems. To counter that, Ultralearning offers powerful strategies to break you out of those mental ruts and introduces new training methods to help you push through to higher levels of retention. Scott H. Young incorporates the latest research about the most effective learning methods and the stories of other ultralearners like himself—among them Benjamin Franklin, chess grandmaster Judit Polgár, and Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman, as well as a host of others, such as little-known modern polymath Nigel Richards, who won the French World Scrabble Championship—without knowing French. Young documents the methods he and others have used to acquire knowledge and shows that, far from being an obscure skill limited to aggressive autodidacts, ultralearning is a powerful tool anyone can use to improve their career, studies, and life. Ultralearning explores this fascinating subculture, shares a proven framework for a successful ultralearning project, and offers insights into how you can organize and exe - cute a plan to learn anything deeply and quickly, without teachers or budget-busting tuition costs. Whether the goal is to be fluent in a language (or ten languages), earn the equivalent of a college degree in a fraction of the time, or master multiple tools to build a product or business from the ground up, the principles in Ultralearning will guide you to success.

How to Learn a Foreign Language

How to Learn a Foreign Language
Author: Paul Pimsleur
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2013-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1442369027

In this entertaining and groundbreaking book, Dr. Paul Pimsleur, creator of the renowned Pimsleur Method, the world leader in audio-based language learning, shows how anyone can learn to speak a foreign language. If learning a language in high school left you bruised, with a sense that there was no way you can learn another language, How to Learn a Foreign Language will restore your sense of hope. In simple, straightforward terms, Dr. Pimsleur will help you learn grammar (seamlessly), vocabulary, and how to practice pronunciation (and come out sounding like a native). The key is the simplicity and directness of Pimsleur’s approach to a daunting subject, breaking it down piece by piece, demystifying the process along the way. Dr. Pimsleur draws on his own language learning trials and tribulations offering practical advice for overcoming the obstacles so many of us face. Originally published in 1980, How to Learn a Foreign Language is now available on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Pimsleur’s publication of the first of his first audio courses that embodied the concepts and methods found here. It's a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the mind of this amazing pioneer of language learning.

Learning Languages in Early Modern England

Learning Languages in Early Modern England
Author: John Gallagher
Publisher:
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198837909

In the early-modern period, the English language was practically unknown outside of Britain and Ireland, so the English who wanted to travel and trade with the wider world had to become language-learners. John Gallagher explores who learned foreign languages in this period, how they did so, and what they did with the competence they acquired.