Stephen Covey’s famous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
polyglot Steve Kaufmann, founder of LingQ language resources, mentions seven habits of effective polyglots:
BE PROACTIVE, go from passive to active take inititive. Find interests, find shortcomings and work on them. “good learners are the ones who take the initiative”
Be proactive and take the initiative.Begin with the End in Mind. Make a goal. “Try to visualize your goal, and work as hard as you can to achieve it. Start with the end in mind.”
Put First Things First “be proactive and a model they can follow. You have to do the things that matter and do them “now”. resisting distraction, setting priorities and doing what you have to do to achieve your goal
Think Win-Win. Language takes time, for all the failures try to see the small poisitves to keep you motivated.
Think win-win: all the time you spend learning a language, even if you struggle making sense of a difficult text, for instance, is time well spent, and with constant practice, you will improve.
Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. comprehensive. Understand and listen read culture and lang. don’t look at it as an awkward performance
Synergize synergy comes from combining the different language skills or tasks, in order to progress more quickly in all of them. Reading = culture & vocab & pronunciation. Review listen and speak to those that are new and difficult. Writing helps prep for speaking.
Sharpening the Saw success in language learning requires a solid vocabulary through listening readin. Review and practise grammar to recognise patterns.
https://blog.thelinguist.com/habits-effective-language-learners/
POLYGLOTS
authors of the FluentU blog discuss the Gems of Wisdom from 10 of the Best polyglots.
Learn from a child through listening even when in the womb.
Can learn language from any age as brain is language instinctive
Use available resources. Listen read online courses videos etc.
Go to the country and pracitse. Learn the culutre. Immerse yourself.
Create a good language and study routine.
Practise practise practise daily. Set goals. repetition.
Prepare mini speeches, pattern for common topics and answers. Speak in sentences rather than 1 short sentence
Use all your senses to learn
Make mistakes and learn from them .
- Don’t use your L1 for one hour every day.
- Memorise new vocabulary in meaningful context, and use a Spaced Repetition System to learn vocabulary.
- Make mistakes.
- Learn prefabricated chunks of language.
- Immerse yourself in the language you are learning.
- Identify patterns in the language.
- Don’t cram, but learn the language every day, from 15 minutes to one hour.
- Be consistent.
- Use material that you can understand (‘Comprehensible Input’).
- Don’t think of language as something to be conquered but as something to be enjoyed.
tips:
1) Listen to the audio material.
2) Practice pronouncing the words and speaking the dialogue.
3) Read the materials with audio, and then without audio
4) Repeat numbers 1-3 several times over several days.
5) Translate the dialogues into English (or your first language).
6) Translate your English translations back to the original target language
How do the languages differ how are they similar? use what you know to your advantage but even better ask what you don't know about and practise more to improve
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/how-polyglots-learn-language/
TED TALK TIPS
TED translators advice
https://blog.ted.com/how-to-learn-a-new-language-7-secrets-from-ted-translators/
- Get real (start with a simple, attainable goal).
- Make language learning a lifestyle change by finding a language habit that you can follow consistently.
- Play house with the language, using every opportunity to get exposed to the language.
- Let technology help you out: reset the language on your phone, change the language on your browser or use intelligent flashcards for memorising vocabulary.
- Think about language learning as a gateway to new experiences, doing the fun things you want to do anyway but turning them into language-learning opportunities.
- Make new friends who speak your L2, nearby or online.
- Do not worry about making mistakes.
