Do you need to quickly learn a language because you are traveling?
Do you have a trip abroad pending in a few months due to work needs, or for any other reason, which requires you to stay in that country for a few months, and you want to learn the language of that country, at least enough to communicate with the natives? Don't worry, in today's article we are going to give you the practical advice you need to be successful in your endeavor. You just have to be patient, diligent and honest with yourself, setting achievable goals.
Have an active attitude
From the moment you have decided to study the language, you must start learning, time is short and you have to take advantage of it properly, later we will give you options for it. Firmness and courage are elements that should not be lacking from the beginning to the end. Don't be shy at first when writing or speaking, no matter how little you have learned yet. It is about gaining confidence in yourself from the moment you start the study.
Do not abandon the oral aspect
All languages have peculiarities that distinguish them from others, try from the first moment to catch the intonation and try to capture the tones that are different from Spanish to study them with more entertainment, until you manage to pronounce them as the natives do. Today it will not be difficult for you to achieve the accent of the languages, given the amount of accessories that you have at your fingertips to capture the tones, to record your imitation and listen to them, in order to correct them, until you see that you have achieved it.
As soon as possible connect with natives
Make sure to connect as soon as possible with natives of the language you have chosen, to chat with them, first in writing; Have a dictionary handy and do not worry about the speed of writing, of course, you must be honest and warn your contact that you are a beginner and he will understand it and even help you by giving you advice.
It is no longer encouraging or advisable when studying alone, that you spend hours studying and not taking action, it is quite boring and dangerous, because you will not gain confidence in yourself. From this moment, you must keep in your memory that learning a language is to share it. On the other hand, talking with people who pursue the same goal, or with natives , motivates more than isolating yourself with a book and you run less danger of abandonment.
During your studies, forget about Spanish
In order not to get bogged down, you must put Spanish aside, and learn the style of the language you are studying. Constantly thinking about comparing your new language with Spanish does not lead to anything, but to slow down, your head must be focused exclusively on the new language. Therefore, we advise you to have your room decorated with posters, photos, phrases of the new language, things as simple as these will help you a lot.
On the other hand, your effort should focus on knowing, the more the better for when you are in the destination country, do not be too surprised, or feel disappointed by it.
Learn a lot of vocabulary
If you still have at least three months to go before you leave Spain, you should set a goal that will stimulate you, such as learning as much vocabulary as possible. In this direction we advise you:
- Dedicate yourself at the beginning, after studying the language, to collect all the same words from both languages. If the new language is Romance, you will have won a lot, because there are hundreds of more or less the same words and with the same meaning. As you copy it, try to retain them, look for a personal method to remember those words. Only with these words, if you carry it out from day one, you will have the impression that you already know enough of the new language.
- Also from the beginning, you put everything on your part to learn the rules of conjugation of verbs , their endings. This should be a priority.
- All the days you must learn a lot of vocabulary that you can easily master, and also the infinitive of a verb. Suppose you have the three months we said before, and you decide to learn 6 words and 2 infinitives daily, in total it would be 90 days, you would learn 540 words, plus those that are identical in both languages, for example French and Spanish are hundreds. To this we must add the two daily infinitives, that is, 180 infinitives, which we can easily use, because you already know their conjugations.
Set achievable goals and you will achieve it
Consistency is the mother of success, but it needs encouragement to maintain it. If you propose something that is superior to you, that you cannot master, failure is guaranteed. Consistency with achievable objectives is more effective than proposing what you know that you will not be able to develop, in reality, nobody knows you better than you. But sometimes, we get out of hand with over-optimism.
You should always be looking for a motivation that serves as a source of inspiration and easy commitment to achieve. Believing that because you spend more time than you should, because you are in full swing, can lead to failure. On the contrary, if with the primary goal that he has proposed, you see within a few days that you easily exceed it, go up one more step and so on, the opposite is fatal. If you think that you are going to get to speak more and better on the fast track and then it does not turn out to be like that, it can disappoint you and all your desires will go to waste.