“just talking” to improve a language

Talking is a great way to get better at speaking another language.  It’s a way to put your language skills into action, practice listening for comprehension, and coming up with appropriate responses on the fly.  If possible, getting together for coffee or lunch once a week with someone who speaks the language you are learning is great!  Ask all of your friends if they speak that language, or know someone that does.  You might meet some people at an ethnic market or restaurant, or if you are so inclined, you could put an ad in the paper or local classifieds, such as craigslist.

This can be hard if you live someplace where nobody else speaks the language, though.  But of course, once again, the internet comes to the rescue!  The internet has long been a place to text chat with people around the world, and it is becoming easier and easier to use voice and even video conferencing.

You can go to places specifically aimed at learning languages, or you can branch out and try to meet native speakers who may share an interest with you on interest-based websites.  Here are a few I have used to meet and speak with.  For a pretty full-featured language site, I would recommend Busuu.com.  Even the free membership gets you basic lessons in English, French, German and Spanish, as well as a whole social networks of other people who speak many languages and are learning languages there.  They have live chat/voice/video included.  In theory, if you spoke portuguese and wanted to learn arabic, you could find a complimentary partner there to talk to.  I speak English and am Learning French, so I have found a lot of people to chat with there.  Sometimes it’s just a one-time chat, and other times te people become friends and I speak and write to them regularly.  Another place to go with voice capability is Second Life, a 3D world.  Second Life is not specifically a language learning place, but you can meet people there from all over the world and have a chat.  You can get free translators in Second Life, but be warned that they are sometimes inaccurate, and may also slow down your learning.  I have made a lot of friends there who are happy to let me try my French with them and are happy to get a little help with English from me, but it’s a big virtual world, and not everyone wants to get involved in that, nor do they all speak their own language very well.  There are some language schools within Second Life that build on the capabilities of SL, the best of which is specifically teaching English.  That would be LanguageLab.com.  Languagelab’s English City offers students a place to hang out and chat and have some fun in a supportive environment.  They don’t currently have a French program there, so I’m out of luck. 

There are a lot of social networks that have an international presence.  Lately I have been spending more time on Facebook, getting to know both French speakers and English learners.  Facebook’s text chat is a bit lame, so a lot of people who meet there end up using MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ichat or another application that has text, voice, and video to speak to each other.

You can meet people on a gardening website, book club, music site, whatever you are interested in.  This gives you built-in subject matter to discuss, too.  Use a translator to look up the names of some of your interests and put them in a search engine.  I’ve met people for years who are learning English in all the various places I have visited, so why not try the same?  It’s a little less direct, but you can follow your hobbies and improve your mastery of a language and make some friends in the process, then go on to try voice chat with them.

So get out there and just talk!

Can playing online games teach language?

I’m giving it a try in an attempt to try EVERYTHING to improve my french!  Here’s what I’m trying, and how you can try the same thing.

First, I used an online translator/dictionary to translate “games online” into french: jeux en ligne.  I typed that into google and found 4,410,000 pages – looks good so far.  I tried the first one, since it had several categories, and looked similar to game sites I have tried in English.  http://www.zebest-3000.com/

So here I was looking at a somewhat familiar format, and I was able to use a combination of the french I know and my familiarity with similar pages to figure out what everything was.  I’m happy to see “gratuits” – free games – here.  An interesting graphic catches my eye, and I read the description: Bienvenue dans le purgatoire.  Okay, that sounds interesting…

ipod language learning

I’m a rather busy person these days, and really, who isn’t?  I find it hard to make time for language lessons, but I still really want to improve.  One thing I have been using for the past year that has worked fairly well is my ipod.  It’s compact, convenient, it holds a lot of audio, and it can go just about anywhere.

I love anything that helps me multi-task, and with my lessons on my ipod, I can exercise my body and learn french at the same time!  It’s probably not going to work too well if you are a swimmer, but I find it works great for brisk walks around my neighborhood.

a useful tool

I’ve been using Pimsleur, which is a nice audio program.  My lessons are roughly 30 minutes long.  I have the whole series loaded in a playlist.  I like to go through the lessons two or three times, until the new stuff starts to stick, then move on to the next lesson.  There is a side benefit to this – I have a double motivation to get out there and exercise, and if I skip it, I notice both my fitness and my french suffer.

Online Dictionaries and Translators

I tend to have an online language dictionary open on my desktop at all times.  I refer to it while reading or chatting or writing in french.  While there is no perfect mechanical translator, I have found some useful resources that have different features.

This is what I’m hoping to avoid: