Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language E-Book

Bill Handley

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 248

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Fast, Easy Way to Learn a Language is essential reading for anyone studying a language at school, for business, travel or just for pleasure. Well-known inspirational teacher Bill Handley speaks 15 languages at various degrees of fluency. He is passionate about learning languages and believes language learning should be an adventure. In this book he explains: * how to have fun building your vocabulary in record time * the easy way to get to grips with grammar * why you should use more than one textbook * how to use your 'lost time' to learn faster * what to do when you feel like giving up * how to write your own 'survival skills' course. Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language will have you speaking your new language in no time. The book explores all the important topics: active and passive learning, mastering a different alphabet, using recorded material, planning your own immersion program, making effective use of the internet and much more. It includes special advice for school and university students. This is the fun way to learn a language.

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1: Why learn a language?

Reasons for learning a language

2: Preparation

Using your time well

You will be your own teacher

Choosing a language

Setting goals

3: Choosing your tools

Recorded language courses

Textbooks

Dictionaries

Phrasebooks

Cassettes, CDs and MP3s

Reading for pleasure

Internet

Radio and television

Flashcards

Notebooks

Studying at school or for an examination

Tools: a summary

4: Getting started

Learn how to read the language

Learning from your textbooks

Using the phrasebook

Using your notebooks

The 80/20 rule

Choose your vocabulary

Formal or informal

Alphabet

Bribe yourself

5: Make your own survival course

6: Learning a different alphabet or writing system

When the alphabet or writing system is entirely different

Transliteration

Learn to recite the alphabet

7: Using a dictionary

8: Recorded material

Imitate the music of the language

Complete language courses

Other recorded material

9: Vocabulary

The fast way to a huge vocabulary

Active learning

Other ways to learn vocabulary

Learning a language is more than vocabulary

10: Your plan

First day

Second day

Third and fourth days

Fifth and sixth days

Seventh day

Week two

Weeks three and four

Week five or six

11: Using ‘lost’ time

What is lost time?

Taking time from other activities

Learning on the job

12: Enjoy light reading

Comics

Jokes and joke books

Books, magazines and newspapers

Reading materials on the internet

13: Language classes

Formal lessons are a form of self-discipline

Getting the most out of your language class

Finding the right language class

14: Meeting people

Meeting native speakers

Attending functions

Making friends

Visit the country

Get out into your local community

Don’t worry about making mistakes

15: Grammar

The importance of grammar

A simple grammar lesson

Putting grammar into practice

16: Plan your own immersion program

The benefits of immersion days

Preparing for an immersion day

Suggested plan

Immersion-day outings

Mini–immersion days

17: What if you just don’t feel like it?

Your contingency plan

Discouragement

18: Using the internet

Getting started: using search engines

Language courses on the internet

Online dictionaries

Online reading materials

Web translations

Internet radio

Audio files

Video files

Shopping for language tools online

Language course websites

19: Advice for school and university students

Learning ancient languages

20: Language addicts

21: How to make a comeback

Afterword

Appendix A: Model survival course

Appendix B: Language websites

First published 2005 by Wrightbooks

an imprint of John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall Street, Milton Qld 4064

Offices also in Sydney and Melbourne

Typeset in Bembo 11/15 pt

© Bill Handley 2005

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Handley, Bill.

Fast, easy way to learn a language.

Includes index.

ISBN 0 7314 0335 5.

1. Language acquisition. 2. Language and languages. 3. Second language acquisition. I. Title.

401.93

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover design by Rob Cowpe

The numbers given in the chapter headers throughout this book are written in the following languages: English, Greek, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Indonesian/Malay and Finnish.

Other books by Bill Handley

Teach Your Children Tables

Speed Mathematics: Secrets of Lightning Mental Calculation

Speed Maths for Kids: Helping Kids Achieve Their Full Potential

Preface

I have written this book because I love learning languages. I believe that anyone should be able to learn a language superbly well in a year. You should be speaking the language in your first week of study.

This book is about learning a language the fast, easy way. If you really need to, you should be able to learn almost any language quite well in a month. After just one month, you should be able to travel through the country, ask directions, drive, order meals, book a room and hold simple conversations. I tell in this book how I learnt basic Italian in two weeks without taking time off from my job or spending long hours studying, using a very good language course that taught me the language that I needed. It is possible to learn to speak intelligent and useful sentences in a week. I will show you how you can do it too.

Whatever your reason for learning a new language, whether you want to know enough to survive a weekend in the country or you want to be able to give presentations or negotiate in the language, this book can help you learn it faster and more easily.

Bill Handley

Melbourne, Australia

August 2005

[e-mail]

<www.speedmathematics.com>

Introduction

I was already fascinated by the idea of learning and speaking a foreign language before I began school. I thought that learning a foreign language would be like learning a secret code. I would be able to understand talk that none of my friends or family could decipher. I could use a special language that no one else knew, or have secret conversations with someone who spoke the language. I persuaded two girls who lived next door to teach me French after they came home from school every afternoon. They enjoyed playing teacher and willingly cooperated. They would give me written notes with the numbers and days of the week written down. I was too young to read but that didn’t matter — I asked my father to read what they had written. However, his pronunciation was nothing like what the girls had told me. I remember I kept telling him he was wrong and he kept telling me that he was reading what they had written.

When I was about six or seven years old, my father took a special training course related to his work. His method of consolidating what he had learnt was to come home and teach me his summary of the training program for that day after our evening meal. Although I was so young I still understood most of what he told me. (Or I thought I did.) One evening he came home and told me he had attended a special lecture on how to learn effectively. He explained that you have to link new information to information you already know. If the connection is strange, crazy or even a bit risqué, all the better. I never forgot this, and used this basic strategy all through school and college — especially for cramming before exams. I have applied it to study in general and also to learning a foreign language vocabulary. Using this method, my students have memorised more than a hundred words and their meanings inside an hour. I will introduce you to this approach in this book.