There are many advantages of learning a foreign language. One of the most exciting advantages of learning a language is that it opens doors for you around the world! Being able to converse with others and make new friends using a foreign language is great fun and also very useful if you are visiting that country! Of course, a huge advantage and a great benefit is the ability to demonstrate that you are motivated and driven to learn new skills. This is particularly useful for college applications, university applications and employment applications.
Our World English Schools, providers of high-quality summer courses since 1989 welcome up to a thousand students from over 50 countries each summer with many students returning year after year. Read below for some ideas of how to make learning a new language more fun!
Idea 1: Why don’t you try listening to music to learn a language, any kind of music in the language you are learning is a great place to start. Try looking at the song lyrics and singing along, taking the time to look at translations of the lyrics so this helps you understand the words and meaning. When you first start there will be a lot of words you don’t understand but by looking up the vocabulary it became much easier to understand these words in other songs. The more songs you listen to, the more familiar you become with the vocabulary and meaning.
Idea 2: Try watching your favourite films and TV series in the language that you are learning. Choose a series that you enjoyed watching in your native language and then find the series online in the language that you are learning.
Idea 3: Try and surround yourself with the people of the language are learning. This is a great way of meeting new people and particularly easy to do if you come and study on one of our summer camps.
Idea 4: Why don’t you have a go at seeking out one of your favourite recipes in the chosen language you are learning and have a go at following the instructions in a different language? You could even try watching step by step culinary instructions. Quality step by step cooking videos can be found by googling on the internet!
Tip 5: Eat out in an authentic restaurant! Track down where native speakers of your target language own restaurants. This will introduce you to authentic food, and often the menu will be partially or fully written in their home language. You can chit-chat with the hosts and waiters to your heart’s content, allowing you to try out your language skills and maybe even make friends!
I hope some of these ideas will help you make learning a language more fun and inspire you that there is no time like the present to get started with learning a new language today!
