#language tip

[whoviandoodler]

For people who're monolingual and learning another language, here's a little tip: you can't, don't have to and won't know all the words. You'll forget the ones you know for sure sometimes, even, and that's perfectly okay.

What's way more valuable for fluency is knowing how to say 'uh... What was that word again... [Insert your explanation of the thing]' and things like that, so when your brain freezes during conversation, you don't have to revert to your native language or google something, you can just help the other person get what you're aiming at.

[inthewaytoamultilinguallife]

How to maintain a language

Tip #1: Make image descriptions and/or video transcriptions for social media

[a-curious-studyblr]

it’s been a while since i’ve done this but god i forgot the pure joy of jumping around radio stations on radio garden, I just went from france, to italy, to a jpop radio in canada to a french canadian station. Just hearing talking in different languages, the weather, the traffic, random interviews, music I’ve never heard before. Then desperately googling whatever lyrics I think I heard, trying to find the title so I can add it to my language playlists on spotify. Especially with the pandemic and feeling stuck, it’s making me imagine that I’m in a car in the different countries, listening to a local random radio station 😭

language learning tip: Radio can be sooo good as there’s no pressure to like watch an entire series in a target language, or commit to a whole long podcast episode. Just listening to a radio station in the background while doing something else is perfect for me once in a while- some music, some talking, some weather updates, then more music. Even for beginners- I’m not great at Chinese, and even though I can’t understand the conversation, I’m still benifiting by getting used to the accents, the way of talking, picking out words I know and the cultural aspect of hearing new types of music/what’s popular in that country

[dumbassacademia]

French Language Tip

If you want to improve your pronunciation of French words, you should get a big mouthful of peanut butter and then speak. 

[languagebraindump]

[ravenlesslangblr]

Language practice tip #3932

This one works very well if you’ve got 3 and more target languages. I’m going to use an example of three for facilitation, feel free to adapt to your x target languages! (I personally use French, which is my fourth and Irish, which is my seventh! And I’m saying that in case someone wants to be language buddies)  Translate from a target language into another target language! It does sound pretty obvious and I’ve done it so many times before, but I’ve always used a language I spoke pretty well and a language I didn’t speak that well. But why not use both of the languages that you’re just learning?

Take an easy text. Like a song, a children’s book excerpt, a user manual (great for imperative in case your TL has it), a website, some random chat... the text should ideally not be very long, half a page or about 250 words is great for B1/B2 level.  I would usually prefer to use the language I’m better at as the language I will be translating into and the language I’m not that great at as the source language. In the analogy, it would be translation of a text in L3 (third language) into L2. Now, you should not be using your L1 or your first language or any language you know very well to help ‘bridge’ the two. Try to train your brain to only work with the two. Google Translate should be pretty helpful, you can only set it to those two languages. Of course, you’re allowed to use your L1 occasionally, maybe for checking or if you’re having trouble translating. You do get the idea though. Try to only use the two target languages, only use L1 if you really need it. Or maybe you’ve got another TL that you’re pretty good at, maybe you can try that one.  You’re also going to be training your brain not to automatically translate everything you read into your first language, which is very useful down the line. Hope you can use this exercise to improve your target languages, good luck!

[useless-denmarkfacts]

Pro Danish language tip

Make it sound like you’re eating the word.

Vore the word. Vore it.