Conquering Babel: A Practical Guide to Learning a Language

By Claire Handscombe

This time, you mean it.

You're really going to learn a language.

Yes, but how? Where do you even start?

Drawing on the author's years of teaching experience, this short and practical book points you to helpful resources, and answers questions like:

- how do I stay motivated?

- do I really need to learn grammar?

- why bother learning anyway when "everyone" speaks English?

- what are the best resources available for self-study?

- how can I find a good language tutor?

Clearly and entertainingly written, this short book is full of tips and tricks which will have you on your way to fluency in no time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claire Handscombe
• Release date: Aug 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781393217688

Claire Handscombe

Claire Handscombe studied French and Spanish at King's College, Cambridge, and has hundreds of hours' of experience teaching languages to adults. She is also the host of the Brit Lit Podcast, a fortnightly show about news and views from British books and publishing, and the author of Unscripted, a novel about a young woman with a celebrity crush and a determined plan.

Book preview

Introduction

Welcome to the adventure!

It’s my hope that this eBook will assist you in finding a language learning method that works for you.

To a large extent, I am drawing on my own experience as a tutor of French and Spanish, but the general principles outlined here will be useful for any language you are planning on learning, in particular European languages.

Staying Motivated

Yes, right now you’re feeling the buzz. You’ve just downloaded this book: maybe you’re lying in bed flicking from page to page on your newly acquired Kindle. Maybe yesterday you started going out with an attractive Italian man or came back from a wonderful holiday in Greece, or a literary character came to you in a dream and told you to learn Cantonese.

These feelings, however, will not last.

When it’s November and you’re wondering whether you really want to traipse out into the rain to your two-hour class or would prefer to stay in with a cup of tea and a good novel, you will need more than just the vague memory of a buzz way back a few months ago when the sun was shining and the living was easy.

TRY THIS...

Put this book down right now (or rather, click the button on your iPad that takes you to the notes function) and write down five reasons why you want to learn a language. You’ll probably be able to think of one or two quite easily. Push yourself and see if you can make it to five. What you come up with may well surprise you.

I did this a while back – the challenge was to come up with thirteen reasons why learning a language was a good thing, and I made it, though some, I admit, were tenuous. But don’t turn over the page and look at mine just yet. This process is important – it helps you to see what’s important to you. It will help you, on that November evening, to remember why you are doing this: not why some random woman whom you’ve never met thinks you should be doing this, but why you want to.

Later, when you make it out of bed and are in possession of Post-It notes, write the reasons out (yes, with a pen), ready to be stuck onto the wall in the room where you will study. You might also want to write them out on the first page of the notebook you will be using, so that you can remind yourself of them when you sit down to a session that you may or may not be feeling inspired by.

Done? Okay, now you can look at my list. But then come back and read the rest of this chapter.

SET GOALS

Most of you probably need no reminding of the importance of goals. And many of you will probably have heard of SMART goals. Goals give us something to aim for, and when we succeed, this motivates us to keep reaching for more goals. In the long run, this equates to progress.

Specific

I want to improve my French is a great goal. But how will you know when you have achieved it? Learning one word is technically an improvement. You probably don’t mean that, though. But then what exactly do you mean?

Some examples of specific goals might be:

-  I will read through A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (although see the section on being realistic).

-  I will complete all the exercises in Colloquial French.

-  I will strike up conversation with three strangers while I am on holiday.

Measurable

Some of your goals will take a few weeks or months to accomplish. You might find it helpful to break these down into smaller steps, so that you can measure your progress as you tick them off the to-do list. For example, if you really do want to read Proust by the end of the year, you could work out how many pages you ought to be getting through per day. This helps with motivation and keeps you on track. (And will probably convince you that you should perhaps start with something shorter than Proust.)

Achievable

For all except the superhuman, there is nothing more discouraging that an unattainable goal. I will speak Japanese fluently in six months may well be one of those (unless you’re living in Japan, and spending several hours a day studying, and even then...). On the other hand, goals that are too easy to meet do not motivate us much, either. Choose something that will