How to learn languages effectively

Relax!

Interrupt your studies during the lesson and watch yourself. Feel your body. You will see your tense muscles which absolutely do not work in these consitions. For instance, your stomach is far tense that brings tention to your diaphragm and it in its turn affects the heart work and respiratory organs. You have a palpitation and a shallow breath. This kind of situation prevents you from controling your attention, comprehension and ability to memorize any kind of information.

One more part of the body which suffers from the tension is your jaw. Its tension is proved only during the meal and speech, in all the rest cases let it relax. Sure, it shouldn’t hang down to the knees, but you shouldn’t make it tense either.

Hands are another part of your organism which generates tension. While reading something or studying any information, let your hands be in a calm and relaxed condition. Don’t move your fingers nervously and don’t rub your hands with each other. Follow the principle – when your brain works, all the rest in your body is relaxed.

The less but oftener, the better!

There are often such “marathoners” who spend half a day with textbooks learning rules, words, doing exercises, reading texts and what not. They call it intensity, though it can be called as stupidity. It has already been said much about how much time a man should spend on every lesson. We shall remember you the principle proved by the experience – the less but oftener, the better. It means 10 minutes in the morning, the same time in the afternoon and in the evening are far more useful than only half an hour a day.

By the way, the principle of separation is unique and true not only with time but with the division of the language material as well. For instance, you had better learn five new words every two hours than try to remember a hundred words at one go.

Learning grammar try to divide this material into parts as well and exercise them separately at different time. For example, today you are to learn the plural of nouns and tomorrow you will learn the exeptions of this rule.

Quality - that is more important!

We are often asked to recommend how to enrich vocabulary. Everybody seeks to have a large individual vocabulary though the purpose should be a little bit different – the main thing is quality but not quantity. You should spend your time on expressions in common use. And you shouldn’t just learn the words by heart. Try to use them actively in your speech. The knowledge of about three hundred words and practical skills of their usage are a lot more useful than the knowledge of five thousand words which you just have written in your dictionary and spent plenty of time and energy to learn them by heart. Thus, pay more attention to making up sentences with every new word than find out how many meanings of this word you can learn.

Rely on the teacher but don’t slip up yourself!

There are no wonders in the world and those who belive in the theory that having paid much money for the education (evidently the more the sum is, the better the method is) and rests are drastically mistaken. There are no “super”! And nobody can teach anybody how hard they can try! A teacher even if he\she is a Solomon, and even if you have paid a fabulous price, can’t trasmit into your head all the knowledge he has. In fact, a teacher, his acquired experience, a textbook and methodology chosen by him can help you learn the language. The teacher together with all these components shows you the most effective ways to study the language. It will be of benefit to you if you undertake definite tasks: what do you need the knowledge of the language for? what do you want to aquire? And after having set these tasks and analising you lessons, you must work and work and work YOURSELF! So this is you who must teach yourself but not somedody or something. Only you yourself! All the rest will only help you.