Learning a new language need not be confined to a particular method. The fact is, there are many ways to learn a new language.
Whether you’re learning the Chinese language, or French, Spanish, Hindi, or any other language, these unconventional methods could prove useful in helping you learn a new language.
1. Playing Video Games Rich in Dialogue or Description
Don’t take this as an excuse to start playing the first video game you can think of, because it doesn’t work that way.
You see, to learn a language through video games, you have to make a conscious effort. Otherwise, you’re just mindless playing a video game and eventually, you’ll forget about your goal and end up wasting time.
Luckily, these days, most dialogue-rich or description-rich games come with features such as being able to switch between multiple languages, often with subtitles, which is great since it allows you to build up your vocabulary.
2. Read a Children’s Book
Children’s books are a great, but unusual, way to start with because they’re not really that complex and they can often be understood even if don’t really know a lot of the words.
3. Watch Interviews
Watching television drama is great. So too is watching the news. However, watching interviews are the best. Because the exchange of dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee is conversational, you’ll be able to pick up on the nuances of the language better, and since you’ll be using the language mostly in conversational tones, it can be really helpful.
4. Use Your Computer to Your Advantage
If you’re trying to learn a language, switching your computer’s interface into that language might help you out a lot.
Because you use your computer every day, you’re essentially forcing yourself into a situation where you have to adopt or adjust or else you won’t be able to use your computer anymore. Sure, some programs will not have a translate and still use English, but most do. Also, by doing this, you’ll be able to understand what Native speakers of your learning language have to deal with when they’re using computers that don’t recognise their language.
5. Join a Chat Room or Social Group
Not just any chat room or social group, mind you, but ones whose majority of members are people who speak your target language.
By immersing yourself with people who speak the language, you’ll be able to add more words to your vocabulary.
6. Go Out on a Friendly Date with a Native Speaker
These days, because of the advent of smartphone technology, it’s so easy to land a date. Paired with the more liberal mindset of most people, friendly dates are no longer uncommon, even between total strangers.
So long as you’re upfront about it, most probably won’t mind teaching you how to speak their language for the price of having a nice conversation and coffee together. As an added bonus, you get to speak to a Native speaker of the language that you’re trying to learn, which is great if you want to practice having a conversation or want to pick up on the conversational nuances of the languages.
Keep in mind that learning the Chinese language, or any other language for that matter, takes a lot of time and effort, as well as practice. The more you invest into learning the language, the faster you’ll get better at it.
Having said that, these unconventional but highly-effective methods should help break the monotony of the typical language learning process and give you supplemental methods for learning a new language.
