Simple Methods for Language Learning

If you’re looking to learn a new language, these helpful ideas and tools from a fellow traveler can set you on the path to quickly and effectively learning to speak a foreign language.

Simple Methods to Learn a New Language

This is a guest post by Karen Bortvedt. Karen is a long-term volunteer with Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Cambodia. You can learn more about her daily life and work on her blog.

KISS

Learning a new language, especially one with a completely different alphabet, involves a whole lot of closely watching someone’s mouth … and then KISS.

While, yes, rumor has it that finding a significant other who is a native speaker of your new language can be very helpful, I am referring to the Keep It Simple Stupid acronym. 

I should probably get that tattooed somewhere, due to my innate ability to do the exact opposite. But when learning a language, simple is definitely the solution (though, calling yourself stupid may not achieve desired results).

The Basics of Language Learning

Practice was also key. For those first classes, I would literally tell my teacher what I had done the previous day (it was usually the same as the week before, and the week before that).

This really helped to build that basic, conversational vocabulary. And, I would often try to add details each day, just to keep the story interesting. This required new vocabulary. Thus, a new teaching/learning opportunity.

Conversation Partners

Since conversation was the goal, I found a language exchange.  I had done this when learning Spanish and, though not normally part of the study of Khmer, I insisted.

My language partner is a college student who is learning English. So, about three weeks into learning Khmer, we started meeting once per week and would speak half the time in Khmer, half in English.

Sometimes I had no idea what she was saying, but I powered through, asked questions, and got really good at following body language. Plus, I learned to understand the way people actually talk, not the textbook version.

Push Yourself

Even with all of this, the most important part of KISS is to not over think it. And, since I was living in Cambodia, that meant walking out my front door.

Literally, the dialogue in my head went like this: “Ok, all you have to do is walk out that front door. Walk down the street and enter the market. You need food anyway, just pointing will get you through. You can do it.”  

This process may have been repeated for a good hour before I got up my courage and left the house… I have never been more proud to come home with vegetables. They even made it in my blog.

Another KISS moment was talking on the phone.  There are certain tuktuk drivers that know all the places I would want to go. The catch is, one must make a phone call to arrange a tuktuk. Everyone said talking on the phone is the hardest part. “I have been here years and still don’t understand  people on the phone.”

So, KISS. I started picking up that phone a couple of weeks in and have been able to have conversations to a more and more detailed level ever since.

For further reading:

– Volunteer Abroad Profile: Maryknoll Lay Missioners
– Top Spanish Language Learning Tools: Teach Yourself Spanish for Travel! 
– Hawaiian language: what you should know before you go.             
– Review of Yanapuma Spanish Language School in Cuenca, Ecuador
– Rules for Intentional Travel: Learn the Language

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