It's Good to Be Bilingual! 8 Reasons you Should Learn a Second Language

Do you speak any other language apart from your mother tongue? This question is becoming more and more popular among professionals aged 20-40. Why should we learn a different language from ours? Is it trendy? Would we get more chances to find our soul mate? Or is it just a reason to become more competitive in the job market? Being bilingual has hundreds of benefits; however the most important reason to learn a new language is that you desire to learn it. In this sense, motivation seems to be the key to the whole process - and in this multilingual world, here are eight truly persuasive reasons to become a language learner.

img ©Berto Garcia

1) You´ll Become a Multitasker

Studies have shown that multilingual people have better task capacities. According to a study from Pennsylvania State University, bilingual individuals become smarter as they get used to working in two different language systems. In this sense, learning another language is also a good way to improve your memory (Bilinguals are better at retaining shopping lists and names). This is because the brain is like a muscle that works better when it gets exercised!

2) Learning a Third Language Gets Easier!

This is very simple. Once your brain has started working in a foreign language (which involves getting used to different constructions and memorising rules), it will be ready for a third one! This means that you will be more aware of language and you could even develop a better ear for listening. Several experts said that the action of learning a new language can make you better in speaking your mother tongue. It´s all about advantages!

3)Free Access to More than One Culture

img ©doktoraw on Flickr

This is one of the most beautiful treasures hidden behind languages. Who doesn't want to find out more about other cultures and traditions? If you become fluent in another language, you will have the chance to get close to people. You can make new friends and maybe you can find love. But it's not only about the people, it's also about the pleasure to read a book in the author's language and forget about the translations (You can actually feel what he or she felt while he was writing the novel). And of course, you'll be able to watch a film without subtitles and hear the actor's real laughter. And yes, that is priceless!

4)You’ll Become Someone Else

It is said that people change personality when speaking another language. Have you ever thought how would you sound in Spanish? This language, for instance, is often related to warm people and physical proximity. This is because once you learn a language you also learn the social procedures of that culture and may find yourself picking up a few new social habits outside the constraints of your usual circles.

5)Bilingualism can Delay Alzheimer's

Several studies have revealed that for monolingual adults, the mean age for the first signs of dementia is 71.4; however, for those who speak two or more languages, the mean age for those first signs is 75.5. If bilingual brains can better resist dementia, I guess it's well worth it to give it a go!

6) It Can Open Doors For You in The Job Market

As companies become more international, there is an important need for employees that are fluent in different languages. People with language skills are more valuable in the global job market. The knowledge of more than one language is necessary in most sectors. For instance, the travel sector is one of the most attractive, especially for young professionals. International companies such as Expedia offer different types of careers with languages all over the world. Remember: Try to offer what others don't have.

7) Travelling Will Be Even Better!

We all know that English is considered as “the international language”, however we also know that it's not the same going to Italy and speaking to the locals in English as if were to do it in Italian. Wherever we go on a holiday, if we don't speak the official language of the country we are visiting, we'll be missing all those little things and secrets that make that destination so fun. Speaking Spanish, for instance, is today incredibly useful for travelling. Have you ever thought of how many Spanish speaking countries you could visit in the world? There is no doubt: You speak the language, you win.

8) You´ll Become More Tolerant

Last but not least: Being able to speak another language will make you more tolerant and can encourage people to cut down racism. In other words, it will encourage you to be more open to others. And don't forget that once you can communicate in another language, you will also be able to bring new perspectives to other groups of nationalities and help them to be more tolerant.

After reading this, I hope you are now curious to learn a second language and discover the great fun that there is behind it.

It's good to Be Bilingual! by Marta Lopez Garcia was first published on Fluent, The Language Learning Blog. Join our newsletter for more language learning tips and a free copy of the Guide to the Best Language Learning Resources.

Language Learning Methods: Will Immersion Teach You A Language Faster?

As I was replying to a comment on this lovely blog the other day, I got to read more about one of my regular reader, Angel. She is a Pokémon nut and challenging herself with the impressive language combination Mandarin, Japanese and Russian. Such an ambitious and fearless lady. You'll be hearing more from Angel very soon as a regular writer here on the blog

In her comment on my blog, Angel mentioned immersion classes. She says:

Another reason I'm reviewing Japanese again is one of the interviews I saw in your book mentioned immersion. I want to take immersion classes once I finish reviewing everything (and) make sure that I'm not just going by the level I ended up at in college.

What's an Immersion Language Course?

Immersion is an interesting topic, and one of those words that always come up in language learning a bit like "polyglot method" or "language exchange". There is a bit of misinformation and myth around when it comes to the topic, so I decided to give you guys the Fluent summary.

First of all, let's look at the word. The OED has immersion as the "deep mental involvement in something" and points out that in foreign language learning it means your teacher will only teach you using the foreign language. That's all - immersion is not dependent on where you take the class or who you're learning with, it just means fewer explanations and more target language content. You do not have to live anywhere but where you live right now to make this work.

Advantages of Immersion in Language Learning

Many language learners dream of immersion classes as they promise quick results and otherwise unattainable levels of confidence, all wrapped up nicely with an impressive target language accent.

And all of this is kinda true - immersion works particularly well when building up to bilingualism, that means speaking two languages at practically native level all the time. This type of class challenges the brain in unique ways while forcing a learner to engage with the way language is used. There's no time for getting lost in grammar and rules, the point is to listen, copy and learn how to use language right.

Some more reading about advantages of immersion can be found over at Omniglot.

Guided Immersion Classes

Stephanie from To Be Fluent is an immersion language teacher in Canada, and she's keen to point out that sometimes explaining complex grammar and style issues does require English. But here's how she describes her classes:

We do lots of grammar, and also lots of reading and discussion. We read an article and discuss current affairs every morning. We also work a lot on oral interaction: asking and answering questions, telling stories, listening to dialogues (most of them work-related), doing role-plays of work-related situations (ex. running a meeting, giving instructions to a new recruit, dealing with problems at work, writing a memo). We also make time for "fun stuff" like watching French TV shows and playing games.

Immersion classes sound great! The key ingredient that the learner must have along with some determination is clearly time: It cannot happen while you're spending most of your days out of the foreign language environment. A true immersion environment requires at least a few hours spent speaking the new language, every day. That's probably why many people develop a simplistic view that learning a language comes naturally as a result of moving to a new country. The better logic looks like this: No fluency without classes, no immersion without time, but time can definitely equal immersion and will give you results.

Andrew Weiler, who writes at strategiesinlanguagelearning.com, makes the important point that people forget the dream of "Learning like a Child, naturally, carefree" is bobbins, because adults are not children. Immersion classes used too early in language learning will result in frustration and the feeling that you're "stupid" for being unable to learn just by copying. Your ego thinks it can understand things first time, and you'd be denying yourself a core understanding if you jumped straight in at the deep end.

And furthermore, immersion is a teaching method that focuses on communicating by sound and vision and can neglect important learning methods like note-taking and revision. The way to use it is key here.

Conclusion

Immersion is a trendy word among language learners and I have an allergy to trendy sometimes (anti-authority streak? teenage rebel?), so I do not personally use the word when describing how I teach or learn a language. The thing I find particularly important when I teach a language is that "immersion" must not mean "there is a teacher rambling at me in a foreign language and I can understand every 6th word".

Immersion will be right for you if you can follow these three simple rules:

1) Commit

As we've seen above, immersion means putting in the hours to study a language. Of course listening and reading are core parts of this, but producing target language sentences every day is another big part. Immersion classes work extremely well as language learning holidays or short programmes, but they're much rarer as ongoing programmes over the years. So when you decide that this is your chosen language learning method, make sure your schedule can handle it.

2) Structure

Good immersion tutors know that the key is to adapt your teaching and content to the skills or the learners. With that in mind, it's easy even for complete beginners to learn through gentle immersion, and I believe that the structure of guided lessons is a perfect environment. If you feel that you have to tackle immersion-style learning all by yourself, make sure you have Skype and italki ready for real world practice.

3) Know Your Limits

If an overambitious learner may use a bombardment of random target language content as a learning technique, they might as well just look at a flag for an hour. Don't put unreasonable demands on your understanding. Instead, know that it is a lot better for your learning to address the words and structures that you don't know, than to hope you will just assimilate them as if by magic. The "copy and speak" method does work, but only if you actually understand the input that you are getting.

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Behind the Scenes of Fluent's first Online Course: French Grammar for Beginners

I'm very excited today as I finally get to write to you blog folks about my new online course. Its subject is French Grammar - the full thing covering everything students need to complete level A1.

This awesome course contains 15 video lectures, documentation, quizzes and a certificate at the end - a full package which would cost you hundreds in personal tuition, but is on sale for $75. You can register for a place on French Grammar for Beginners today at the special rate of just $35 - this expires on 31 January.

In today's blog post I'd like to tell you how and why the course came into being.

Why make an online course?

French Grammar for Beginners is a new venture, which my longest-standing readers may know as what started out being French on a Windowsill. I would grab my laptop and record my own explanations of grammar, using the best grammar book I know as an inspiration. In these video lessons, I combined my teaching experience with my own memories of learning French. The idea was to give simple examples and make sense of grammar in a way that everyone can understand.

French on a Windowsill was great. The videos on YouTube received excellent feedback, my favourite of all being a simple:
 

You are AWESOME.

This stuff felt great, but I strongly believed that I could offer students a better product, and not at private tuition prices. Last year I started investigating how I could turn French on a Windowsill into a full-on English course. I considered selling the videos on my online shop along with supporting materials, or teaching them as a series of webinars, but none of these offered my learners the great interface, fast download speeds and easy access that I wanted them to have.

Eventually, I came across Udemy. The website is a modern marketplace for online courses and allowed me all the things I wanted to offer, like:

• Mobile apps so learners can watch my videos wherever they are
• A choice of watching the videos online or downloading them
• The option of offering you quizzes and progress reports
• A forum for student questions, which I can respond to publicly

So last year I started working on creating this new version of French on a Windowsill. I recorded two extra lectures to make a full A1 level grammar course complete, I added transcripts and exercises and uploaded all my videos to Udemy. There is also a new intro video, which I will share with you in today's post.

French Grammar for Beginners was complete - my first online course!

Why is it important to learn as part of a community, even online?

1)  Groups keep you coming back
Learning is one of the many things in life that are more fun when they are shared, and many students start making friends on forums and courses which keep them coming back, talking about the subject and ultimately succeeding at their missions.
2) You're going public
Think about the last time you endeavoured to make a big change, like following an exercise routine or cutting Facebook time out of your day. Did you enlist others on your journey or perhaps even
3) More answers means better answers
The internet is built on collective knowledge - it's democratic, and you can benefit from this every day. A question asked or experience shared in a course like French Grammar for Beginners can be viewed and answered by everyone on the course and just like on Quora this has the potential to give you access to the best and brightest learners and teachers, anytime.

So, here's my conclusion:

The combination of community and learning at your own convenience was the perfect way of showing you how online learning is changing the world. It used to be a privilege for scholars at Harvard and Cambridge, but now online learning is bringing in a new age.

How you can study on French Grammar for Beginners

Guys, I hope I've shared my reasons and also ignited your understanding of how online courses can help you learn a language at really great value. For just $75, French Grammar for Beginners features

• 15 video lectures with tables and documentation for downloading
• Revision quizzes to test yourself
• Great mobile learning through the iPad and iPhone apps
• Support from me - I am checking this course regularly and personally responding to student queries

Here's the special offer for you

French Grammar for Beginners will be available with at a price of just $39 all January (standard price $75). Yes, for one more week only. This is less than the price of a single language lesson and a discount for only 50 learners. Just click and have a look around Udemy to see the video intro and free preview lectures.

I'm a learner on Udemy myself, by the way. To preview own course and find out which classes I am taking online, please check out my Udemy profile.

Fellow language learning bloggers: If you would like to promote this course while earning as an affiliate, you can send me a quick email today and I'll provide further details.
 

Kerstin's 3 Steps for Learning Topical Vocabulary

Topical vocabulary means the words and expressions that all relate to one topic, for example cookery, education or firefighting. Today's article introduces a foolproof 3-Step Method, plus get involved by posting your next vocab topic in the comments, and we'll feature you in a blog article next year.

Why is this useful?

If you make it your goal to learn all the words in a language, you'll never know when you're done. Setting a goal like "500 words" is also though, because who counts all the new words they're learning?! So bring on the topical approach. You can get into a topic you're interested in and feel like you're really getting somewhere.

Learning topical vocabulary is not difficult - here are 3 steps to success:

1. How much do you know about this in English or your native language?

The key here is to set your goal posts right, so that you'll know the detail of what your topic is all about. Plus, remember that language is never isolated from what it talks about. In other words, the success in remembering vocab is based on knowing what you're talking about. If you want to write like an expert about history, better know the facts before the words.

For example, I once worked at the fabulous Panaz, who make all kinds of flameproof fabrics. I was their Export Sales Administrator, on the phone all day taking and confirming orders in French. I could have learnt all the words for fabric and upholstery I wanted, but these customers wanted someone who first knew her stuff, and then knew all the words for it.

So here is Step 1: Be sure you know what you're talking about, and then you'll know which words and expressions you need.

2. Note it down, then relax-repeat-remember

Forget talent - repetition is the heart of success. Many people recommend "SRS", which means a spaced repetition system. In other words, you will have to go over words again even if you remembered them today. The repetition of running through those lists is what makes it go in, so it's got to be a routine for a week or two. Remember Fluency MC? It's relax - repeat - remember.

For more ideas on getting that vocabulary to stick, check out 6 Techniques for Learning Vocabulary.

Step 2: Follow the 3 R's: Relax, repeat, remember.

3. Test yourself twice

It's easy to check how many words you know, so make your first test an article in the paper and a TV show about your topic. With libraries, the internet, YouTube and Facebook at your service, I challenge you to find something you couldn't read a lot about in almost any language. How about searching for the #tag on Twitter (see below)?

Now for the second test, maybe a little bit more daunting but this is going to be more fun too: Have a conversation, chat about the topic, go listen to someone and say what you think! Of course it should be possible to bring most conversations around to your chosen topic (and an amusing challenge, too!) eventually, and then throw in the new words, ask questions and feel the power. You've just become an expert!

Step 3: Test yourself once by consuming, and twice by producing language.

Twitter search result for "Flameproof" in German - there really is media for anything

Favourite topics?

As always, I want you guys to get involved and think about how this article will serve you best, so you are invited to write a comment below and tell me what your vocabulary topics are. How about Christmas, cookery or knitting? Or look at the cool Sally Holmwood, who's currently studying personal banking words for her part-time job in an international bank.

Don't miss out on the launch of the Fluent Guide to Vocabulary Learning for Self-Directed Language Learners.

Thanks for reading this article on Fluent - The Language Learning Blog. Don't forget - if you sign up to our newsletter, you will receive a free Guide to the Best Language Learning Resources!

Linguistic Gift Ideas 2013

Hello blog readers, this Friday we are entering the final few weeks before Christmas! Yes, Hanukkah is over and so are the modern inventions Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and I helpfully dozed all the way through them. Well, here I am, better late than never, in bringing you this year's Linguistic Gift Ideas.

The Gift Ideas Board

On my updated Pinterest board, I have lots of good stuff from cute French t-shirts to funny language guides and travel books. Please have a good peruse and root around the board, and let me know what you're giving for Christmas this year!

Follow Kerstin H's board Linguistic Gift Ideas on Pinterest.

Awesome FlashSticks landed in the Shop

Sticky word notes, they're my number one. In all honesty, these are a learning tool that always works.

If you want to give some as a gift or it's too much effort to make your own, someone has now invented FlashSticks: pre-printed Post-It notes in four languages and designed for your chosen learning level. I am genuinely excited to be offering packs of FlashSticks through the online shop on my website! They are pre-printed, colour-coded and really fun. SO recommended.

Order by 19 December for Christmas delivery in the UK, and by 14 December for delivery within Europe (all posting dates are on the Royal Mail site).

Amazon Link

And just in case you're buying something on Amazon for Christmas this year, please consider going through this link here for US/this one for UK and supporting my blog. It doesn't cost you anything extra, and I get a little commission from them. These links land on my book Fluency Made Achievable, but will work no matter where on Amazon you go from there. Thanks guys!