Why?
Some people just love to learn new languages. Apart from that reason, some might want to learn as they are going to travel, doing business in foreign country, social communication, hobby, and even for their partners.

What?
Choosing what language to learn can be a bit difficult. You might want to learn popular languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian; apart from English. All those languages are official languages of the United Nations (UN). Some other popular languages studied now a days are Korean and Japanese.

How?
Few tips for beginner on how to learn new languages effectively:

• Set your goal. For example be able to watch foreign drama without translation.
• Study the common words, such as greetings, thank you, etc. you may find that very helpful in your lan.
• Learn new words from children song. Children songs are programmed to help a beginner to learn the language (like children).

For advanced study of languages, get hold to the nearest language teacher to assist in your learning process.

As a student of language, you have to read textbooks as they make up a big part of your leaning toolkit. But what about books on language?

For those of you looking to take a break from studying but who still want to read, you may wish to consider JP Davidson’s new book out call Planet Word. If you have a fascination with languages, it has come highly-recommended as it uncovers everything about how language evolves and is still changing today.

In it Davidson says there are more that 6,000 different languages spoken in the world at the moment, but that there will only be 900 left by the end of the century.

The foreword is written by famous English actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry who states "The way you speak is who you are and the tones of your voice and the tricks of your emailing and tweeting and letter-writing, can be recognised unmistakably in the minds of those who know and love you".

The book reports that the ♥ (heart) has become the first graphic to enter the Oxford English Dictionary and asks the question, does this mean that we on our way to a language without words?
 

As the end of the year draws near, now is a good time to stop and reflect on what you have achieved this year as a language student.

Did you set yourself goals at the beginning of the year? If so, now is the ideal time to check each goal and whether you think you have achieved what you set out to do.

If your goal was to get an introduction to the language of choice, and learn some key phrases and vocabulary, then how did you go? If the answer is good, then congratulations on your progress.  The next questions you need to ask yourself are:

Am I going to continue studying the language further or not?
Is there another level that I can do?
If I am planning on continuing my studies, what are my new goals?

Gaining fluency in a foreign language does not come overnight; rather it takes a lot of hard work and energy. Take what you have learnt this year and go out into the world and enjoy it.

Here is a wonderful quote that sums it up:
A different language is a different vision of life. ~ Federico Fellini

Some people find watching movies with subtitles annoying, but for the language student, these subtitles can become a useful learning tool.

Check out the foreign film section of the DVD/video store in your area to see if you can pick up some movies in the language that you are studying. The best option is to find a film that is actually spoken in the foreign language and has English subtitles.

Watching a movie can be a lot easier than just listening to a sound recording because although you may not understand what is being said, you may be able to work it out in the context of what is happening visually on the screen.
If you are still struggling to understand, then use the English subtitles for clarity.

If you have the option of turning the subtitles on or off, try watching the movie a few times, the first with it on and the next with it off. Because you know what is going to happened in the film, you will be able to concentrate more on what is being said the second time around.

This is wonderful way to strengthen your listening skills so give it a go!

Very early on in this blog we looked at the many different reasons people choose to learn a foreign language and the best way to do it.

When I moved to Japan to live many years ago my grasp on the language was very basic, to say the least! But I was determined not to let language be a barrier and I wanted to experience everything that the country and its wonderful people had to offer.

For someone who loves sport, including this as one of the ways for me to learn Japanese became immediately obvious. And although I had played and watched many sports over the years, sumo wrestling was definitely not on the list.

Sumo is a Japanese style of wrestling and the national sport of the country. It originated in ancient times as a performance to entertain the Shinto gods and many of the original traditions are still used today.

I became fascinated with the sport and watched it both on television and when I could, attended tournaments (there are six every year, each one lasting 15 days). These are still amongst my most treasured memories of my time in Japan.

I grew to learn the names of the players, the rules they played by and the language of the game.  Okay, so I didn’t pick up every word being said but my point is that because I had an interest which became a passion, I had a willingness to learn.

If you find a good enough reason to learn your language of choice, it will make it easier and a lot more fun!

Approximately 23 million people have Dutch as their native tongue, making it seventh on the list of languages spoken in the European Union.

Although most of those speakers live in the Netherlands, Dutch is also used by half of the population of Belgium (mainly in the north) and interestingly, it is the official language of the Republic of Suriname in northern South America.

The Dutch have long been recognised as one of history’s leading maritime nations and many words of Dutch origin are still used in this field today. Some examples include: deck, yacht and freight.

Dutch is a Germanic language which means speakers of German, English, Danish and Swedish will find a lot of common factors. Dutch spelling is supposedly easy compared to many other languages, as too is the basic grammar principles. If you are able to grasp the rules of how to conjugate regular verbs, then you are away. Unfortunately, irregular verbs are a different story and must be learnt by heart.

Two of the hardest parts of learning Dutch grammar are the word order and pronunciation. There is a guttural ‘g’ used that most English speakers will find hard to master. Again, like learning any language that is foreign to you, the best way is to expose yourself to speakers on a regular basis or by listening to everything and anything you can. Try listening to the radio, (eg. BBC World Service), watch a movie or search out something fun like YouTube that can be spontaneous and harder to understand than a usual language learning CD.

There are a lot of Dutch-speaker Australians so ask around and see if there is a local organisation in the area you live or work that you may be able to visit or meet up with. In one of my workplaces I had three Dutch speakers who liked nothing better that “chat” over their morning coffee.

Dutch has three articles: the indefinite article ‘een’ (a) and the definite articles ‘de’ and ‘het’ (the). Luckily you do not need to use different articles or adjectives for subjects and objects, and adjectives are inflected according to the type of noun they precede (de or het + noun).

When I travelled to the Netherlands in 1994, the capital Amsterdam was packed to capacity as people celebrated the Queen’s birthday long weekend. Unfortunately my Dutch was non-existent but the locals were wonderful and luckily for me, many were fluent in English and more that happy to help me out.

By Vicky

I recently read an article on where not to learn Japanese from which started me thinking about language and how it is an ever-changing creature.

The following resources may be useful to help with reading, writing and comprehension, but when it comes to speaking, these following points may be worth considering:

Don’t learn from novels as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from scientific journals as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from newspapers as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from road signs as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from advertisements as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from phone texting as no-one talks that way.
Don’t learn from manga (comics) as no-one talks that way.

As a native English speaker and mother of young teenagers, it is a constant battle for me to keep up with their ever-changing language. They constantly bring home words that I recognise but with meanings that are completely new to me. 

It may be the answer for students of a new language – learn from the youth of today as the words they use now will be in the dictionaries tomorrow, and everyone will talk that way!

By Vicki