Daily Archives: February 22, 2009

“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.  logoEven 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.  logo_languagelab

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!