Learning a foreign language in 12 months-Part 2:
How to apply the new language in order to speak it fluently

fluent in 12 month

You have presumably read our previous article
Learning a foreign language in twelve months – Part 1.
In this article you will find practical ways to improve your knowledge of a foreign language.

Easy learning: Foreign language films

We have found that after learning enough vocabulary it is necessary to watch between 100 to 200 hours of films or TV programs.
If you watch TV programs, films or news reports you will find you will understand the larger part of them.
 
How we do it at 17 Minute Languages?
(Our CEO recalls how he learnt Spanish)

personal tips for learning

β€œIn order to learn Spanish, I bought myself a pile of DVDs in Spain, mainly series.
Series have the advantage of affording a lot of viewing at low cost.
 
The series always had a Spanish language option with either English or German.
I watched the first episode in my native language with Spanish subtitles. Then I changed to Spanish with subtitles in my native language.

After many episodes, during which I got used to Spanish, I then switched to Spanish with Spanish subtitles.
The subtitles are always short and based on simple vocabulary, whereas the spoken language is always more complicated with a larger vocabulary.
By this means you also learn synonyms with similar meanings.

I always had a dictionary available, just in case.
 
After a few hours you will be able to enjoy films in the foreign language as much as in your native language.

learning with tv series

In my opinion, if you already have enough vocabulary, then this method is one of the easiest and most pleasant.
One can enjoy the films and learn the language at the same time.
By the way it is not necessary to go abroad to buy foreign language films.
Most DVDs have multiple language options, that are noted on the back of the DVD case.
There are also online retailers, most of which have branches in other countries.”

Language learning with Books and Wikipedia

Books are also very useful for consolidating vocabulary.
 
Buy simple books and a dictionary.
If possible buy the book in your native language so that you read paragraphs in your native language and the foreign language.
After only a few chapters you will already have the larger part of the vocabulary that the author uses.

Wikipedia is available in many languages.
 
We recommend the article of the day.
These are articles that have been rated as very interesting by a large number of readers.
 
On Wikipedia it is possible to read the same article in several languages.
Wikipedia has been translated into over 280 languages and dialects.
On the left hand side of the page in the menu it is possible to see which languages the article has already been translated into.
 
Every day new articles that have high ratings are published.

Another advantage of using Wikipedia:
It will also improve your general knowledge.

Now we wish you fun and success learning your new language!

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