Fun Language Learning

Although learning a language is daunting, I find that with these methods, my revision sessions for AS Spanish pass so quickly. The great thing about language learning is that you can have fun viewing media as you would anyway, just in a different language.

You could dig out your old Nintendo DS or Wii, change its language settings and revisit some of your favorite childhood games! For example, you can pick up a lot of silly idioms in Animal Crossing. 

At first, it's hard to understand a word, but keep a notebook of everything you pick up, and use spanishdict to translate them. (My favorite word I've picked up? "Erizo", meaning "hedgehog".)

A website which also makes language learning into a game is the wonderful Duolingo. It's available in so many languages, is very addictive, and can be used as an app as well for learning on the bus.

The best foreign language music to listen to is the music that you already know in English! (For me, this is basically every song ever used in a Disney film or a Broadway musical.) On youtube, you can find translations of these into many languages. 

The same goes for watching the films- check out the back of your DVD cases to see if any have dubs or subtitles in your language. I had a great afternoon once with the Spanish dub of High School Musical 2.

If you're into youtube and vlogs, you could check out the vloggers in your language to hear natural, fast paced dialogue! My favorite spanish vlogger is laspalabrasdefa - although I understand roughly 1 in every 10 words, listening to the native accent is always great.

Finally, if you're a reader, I recommend books where English is written alongside your language, like the Penguin parallel texts. A trip to the library also scored me a bunch of bilingual children's picture books, which are very cute, and re-reading the Harry Potter series is super fun when you can recognize words from the English without having to consult a dictionary too often. ("lechuzo" = "owl".) 

Go forth and babble your lingoes, friends! I hope you learn a new word today.

-L✿