How to Study a Foreign Language

There are several reasons you might want to learn a foreign language: perhaps you are traveling and want a few phrases to get around. Or maybe you want to read texts written in that language.

The reason you are learning a language will heavily impact how to learn it. In what follows, I will be focusing primarily on how to learn to read and write.

Think about how you remember things. Do whole sentences stick in your mind, as if you're hearing them again? Do you visualize what you've seen, considering connections between ideas like objects on a map? Or do you write things down to recall them?

Figure out what is your strongest learning method and use that as your primary memorization technique. However, don't forget to supplement it with the other methods, to reinforce what you're doing!

Learning by Hearing

One method for remembering grammatical terms (you will often need to learn many versions of a single term and how it changes) is to recite them into an mp3 player and replay them on a loop. You can play the terms over while you are commuting in the car or the bus, or hook up your player to your home stereo system.

Find music in the language you're learning, too, to impress its pronunciation and sounds into your mind. Even if you're not memorizing the lyrics, getting used to its tones will make reading it less foreign.

Learning by Writing

One method I've used successfully in studying Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit (languages which have different alphabets than English speakers are used to) is a white board. Purchase a small white board and some dry-erase markers. Or, if you would rather, buy a chalkboard and chalk.

Write your grammar, vocab and alphabet onto the board. At first, you'll probably be looking at a paper or some guide. As you progress, you can write terms over and over, erasing when you are done, or if you make a mistake.

Learning by Seeing

Flashcards are a tried and true method of learning a foreign language. I like the small size, but you may find writing on an index card is easier. Punching a hole in the corner and putting them on a ring keeps them all together and easy to flip through.

Be sure that you don't put too much information on the cards. Keep it simple so you can quickly move through them.

Another visual technique is to create charts on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of white paper. Organize verbs, noun patterns, etc. on these pieces of paper and, as you learn more of them, find a place where you can lay them all out on the floor or a table.

This will allow you to see the patterns in the language, which is central to helping your brain make connections and remember.