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<\/a>Lecturer in Japanese Keiko Konoeda teaches an introductory Japanese course. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
We asked foreign language faculty and student tutors about their best strategies for learning a new language, whether it\u2019s French, Japanese, or ancient Greek. Here\u2019s what they said.<\/p>\n
1. Immerse yourself in any way you can.<\/h5>\n
Immersion is speaking, listening, and thinking in a new language as much as possible \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean you have to go to a country where the language is spoken, says Michael Lombardi \u201921, who tutors Japanese in the Academic Resource Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n Plenty of resources are available right on campus, such as \u201cgoing to language table sessions, seeing your ARC Peer Tutor, and immersing yourself in the vibrant Bates community,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Laurie O’Higgins,\u00a0Euterpe B. Dukakis Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies, presides over an induction ceremony for the classics honor society in 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Ancient Latin and Greek are somewhat different from modern languages, says Laurie O\u2019Higgins, Euterpe B. Dukakis Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies \u2014 the learning focus is often on reading, rather than speaking and listening.<\/p>\n O\u2019Higgins recommends setting aside quality time with the language. \u201cGive 20 to 30 minutes, six days a week, to learning new forms and vocabulary. Those must be the best 20 to 30 minutes you can spare, when your brain is at its best. Have the environment as quiet as is possible. Focus exclusively on saying the words, reading them, and writing them too, if it’s Greek. Then stop.\u201d<\/p>\n Communicating involves speaking, listening, reading, writing, and nonverbal expression. So does learning a new language.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best students practice writing by hand, read grammar explanations, listen to audio, practice speaking on their own, practice speaking with others, watch movies in the target language, and even practice acting out verbs or adjectives with their faces and bodies,\u201d says Justine Wiesinger, assistant professor of Japanese.<\/p>\n Language-learning resources are particularly abundant in libraries, says Associate Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi. \u201cAll the major newspapers have an online presence, and Ladd Library has a good selection of print newspapers and magazines in several languages. There are international editions of all major fashion magazines and many more online resources.<\/p>\n \u201cHave a favorite novel? It’s probably been translated into your new language, too. The resources are endless and often only a click away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are wired to remember rhythms and rhymes \u2014 song lyrics in a new language can help build vocabulary and grammar. My advice is to find a band you love to listen to in your target language,\u201d Michael Lombardi says. \u201cYou’d be surprised by how much variety there is out there!\u201d<\/p>\n Dennis Browne is an associate professor of Russian who’s been learning German for several years. Browne likes to rehearse personal stories \u2014 for example, learning car-related vocabulary in order to talk about a time his car broke down \u2014 and tell the stories to native speakers of German.<\/p>\n Associate Professor of Russian Dennis Browne serves sausage during \u201dthe Wurst day of the semester,\u201d an open house for the Department of German and Russian Studies. An associate professor of Russian, Browne has studied German for years. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cYou tell that story and find they don\u2019t use those words in everyday German,\u201d Browne says. \u201cThat’s useful because you realize that there are these technical terms, and then the terms people actually use.\u201d<\/p>\n Especially when a new language has a different writing system from English, it helps to associate feelings, images, and narratives with concepts you\u2019re learning, says Wiesinger.<\/p>\n In kanji, one of the Japanese writing systems, characters represent things or ideas as opposed to sounds. Research has shown that narratives help with memorization \u2014 for example, Wiesinger encourages her students to think of the Japanese character for charcoal, \u70ad, as made up of symbols that look like a mountain, a cliff, and a fire.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can imagine the shape of the mountains as you climb and the coolness you feel on your skin as you walk out onto a cliff, and then the smell of the charcoal fire you kindle, it will help retain the elements of this character in your mind and help distinguish it from similar characters, such as \u5ca9,\u201d which means rock, Wiesinger says.<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
<\/a>2. Dedicate time each day.<\/h5>\n
3. Do everything.<\/h5>\n
4. Listen to music.<\/h5>\n
5. Put vocabulary in context.<\/h5>\n
<\/a>6. Tell stories.<\/h5>\n