This is the third part in my series about learning languages. The first part dealt with questions regarding why one should learn a language and if it's possible, and the second part was about what you can do to learn. This part contains some further tips and tricks, some things I've picked up during my language studies.

Things to watch out for

   Old friends

   False friends

   Semi-false friends

   Proverbs
Additional Tools

   Take advantage of the fact that we're living in the future

   Online forums

   Internet friends

   Kid's shows 

Closing Comments

When you start learning a new language you will notice a lot of similarities and differences. Even though the differences can seem confusing and daunting at first, both are things to be on the outlook for, because both can help you learn and remember your new language. Here I'll give you a list of some common groups of things that can be good to be on the lookout for.

Old friends

If you’re learning a foreign language you can look at each word as an enemy to conquer or a new friend to make. But almost any language you try to learn will not only be full of new friends/enemies; there will also be a lot of old friends that you should use to your advantage.

The most common reason for finding old friends in your language studies is loanwords. Almost all languages have incorporated lots of words from other languages into their own and it’s often hard to know where a word originated.

English is sort of a hub for a large number of languages. English has its root in Germanic languages, just like German, the Scandinavian languages, Dutch and so on, so there are a lot of similarities with those languages. But it has also borrowed heavily from languages like Latin and French, so it has a lot in common with the Romance languages as well.

And in modern times the exchange has frequently gone the other way as well; there are very few languages that hasn’t borrowed some “modern” words from English. So as long as you know English you will always almost always find some old friends that you already know when you try to learn a new language. And if you know any other languages this will frequently help too.

So no matter what languages you know and no matter what language you choose to study, be on the lookout for these old friends and be sure to use your familiarity with the words to learn them quickly.

False friends

Almost as common as the old friends are the false friends. These are the words that look or sound just like something you know, but mean something entirely different.

Take for instance the Swedish word pregnant. Even though it looks just like the English word about being with child, it doesn’t mean anything like that. Its meaning is more along the lines of clear and concise.

If you’re trying to learn a language it might seem like things like that would be terribly confusing, and of course they can be. But it can help you too, if you treat it right.

When you find something really surprising like that you will probably notice it. A word that means something that is totally dissimilar to what you think it would mean will stand out and you'll catch it; the probability of these false friends giving you any trouble is small. But when you do find them it is very easy to remember them. Anything that seems very odd or silly is easy for our brain to remember, because it will activate it in entirely different way.

When you find a word that means something entirely different than you expected it to, don't avoid it because you think it's confusing but embrace it. Think about how odd it is that the words are similar but has such different meaning and you'll never forget it.

Semi-false friends

This is another category to watch out for. This is my name for a number of words that have been borrowed from one country to another but changed its meaning, or frequently lost a part of its original meaning.

There are many examples in for example Japanese. The word mishin is derived from the English word machine,but in Japanese it just means sewing machine and no other kind of machine. No-to comes from note but in Japanese it just refers to notebooks, not any other kind of note. The word waishatsu comes from white shirt, but in Japanese it has nothing to do with color. A waishatsu is a button-down shirt of any color.

That list can be made much longer and you can often find similar lists about any other language. Again this is something that might seem confusing, but you can use it to your advantage. Find the humor in the fact that a word has changed meaning when going from one language to another, laugh a bit at it, and you'll see that you'll remember it very easily.

Proverbs

Proverbs, sayings and idiomatic expressions are some of the most interesting things about learning a foreign language. They often give a bit of insight into the culture where the language evolved, and they can really be fun to learn. To me they also feel easier to learn than many other sentences, because they usually have a certain ring to them that make them more attractive. If you learn proverbs from the language you're trying to learn, you'll both learn a lot of words that are in them, learn to express yourself more naturally and let you understand more of the language.

Wikiquote's proverb category is a great resource, with long lists of proverbs in different languages along with translations and some examples of equivalent sayings in English. It can be very fun to just browse lists like that and compare the proverbs to the ones that you are used to.  

In the previous part I shared my recommendations of some tools to use when you're learn languages. Here is a list of some other things I've found advantageous.

Take advantage of the fact that we're living in the future

One of the main characters in one of my favorite webcomics, Questionable Content, once said that we live in the future. Not everyone thought this was really correct, but I tend to agree with him.

Tons of stuff that was science fiction just years ago are commonplace today. We have mobile phones and we can access the internet practically anywhere. We have high speed internet connections that let us transfer huge amounts of data readily to almost any part of the world. We can watch videos streamed directly to our computer whenever we want. We have our own, personal printing presses in our computer printers. And so on, and so forth.

We shouldn't forget to take advantage of any such modern convenience we have access to when we try to learn a language.

One of the best things that have become available for us in recent years are websites with user-uploaded videos. YouTube, Vimeo and Google Video are popular sites that you should check out. Just make a simple search with something like "learn Russian", or whatever you might be interested in, and see what turns up. There are many spirited amateurs (and some professionals) who have videos up about languages. VideoJug is another good site with lots of instruction videos. Unfortunately the only language videos I could find were about Spanish and British Sign Language, but if you are interested in either of those you should check it out.

I have also found courses for many languages on Wikiversity. Just search for the language you're interested in and you'll probably find at least some basic information for a starting point.

Online forums

There are many forums for language lovers out there and they are great places to ask questions if you don't have a native speaker of the language you're learning available. If you have something that you're having difficulty translating or if you're wondering if you're saying something correctly you can always ask in a forum. There is usually someone out there who will be happy to help you.

Try searching for "[your language] forum" or something similar in a search engine, and you might find a forum especially for the language you're trying to learn. Or just search for "language learning forum", "language exchange forum" or anything like that and something will turn up. The Language Learning Forum at How-to-learn-any-language.com is a popular example.

You can also try searching directly for the thing you're having trouble with; odds are great that someone has already asked the question you're going to ask and have gotten an answer.

ProZ is a site for translator and translator resources. If you visit their site you'll find KudoZ, which is a place for people to help each other with translations and explanations of terms and short phrases. I have often come upon that site when I've done Google searches for complicated phrases in a language I'm learning, and it seems to be a good place to get answers to tricky questions. They also have a more general forum that you might want to check out.

Internet friends

In the previous part I mentioned how important it is to have friends who speak the language you're learning. The internet is a wonderful tool to use if you need to find such friends.

Interpals, Polyglot and Pen Pal Party are popular resources to find penpals around the world, and you can easily find many other sites like that. There are also entire sites dedicated to providing penpals from one particular country; just search for something like "russian penpals", "chinese penpals", or whatever you might be interested in, in your favorite search engine and you'll probably find one.

Again it is also very important to remember that we're living in the digital age. In previous generations you could also find penpals in other countries, but you were pretty much limited to text communication. Even if you could call someone on the telephone it is usually prohibitively expensive to call another country, so you could rarely have your overseas friends check your pronunciation for you, or hear theirs.

High speed internet connections have changed that. If you get yourself a halfway decent microphone you can have voice chats or record soundfiles and send to your friend. Don't hesitate to use that, even though it might feel embarrassing at first. It's a very valuable tool when you're practicing your pronunciation without a real teacher.

Kid's shows

In the previous part I also mentioned that it is good to enjoy culture in the language that you're learning. I also said that it can be hard to understand things meant for adults very quickly.

But you can start watching TV in your target language very early in your language education, if you just choose the right shows. I suggest starting with some entertainment meant for children. I would especially recommend one of the shows where there is a host or hosts who talk a bit and show some various little skits and cartoons.

Shows like that are usually essentially language courses in disguise, and better yet they are language courses that you can often see for free.

In children's programs they often talk carefully in easy sentences, allowing you to understand it easily. They also state things that are very obvious, and often repeat themselves. A common occurrence is one character pointing at something and saying "Look there's a..." and another character responds "Yes, that's right, it's a..." or maybe "No, silly, that's not what it is, it's a..." For the children who already know the language that is meant to be training to recognize those things, but for you it's language training. You'll learn some sentences for discussing what things are, and you'll learn lots of words.

There also tends to be a lot of counting and other such activities in those programs. You already know how to count, but you might not know all the numbers in the language you're learning yet. And even if you do it will be useful repetition.

So I highly recommend shows for kids, and if you have a friend in a country where the language is spoken I'm sure you can get some help in finding a suitable one.

These were all the tips about language learning I had for now. Be sure to check out the first two parts if haven't read them, and if you want to ask anything about the process of learning languages, please leave a comment I'll respond as well as I can.

I am also wondering if someone who is reading this is interested in learning Swedish. I've sometimes thought about putting together a beginner's course in my native tongue, but I don't know if there are many out there who want to learn Swedish. If you are interested in that, please leave a comment about it and I'll see what I can do.