Fast Easy Way to Learn a Language by Bill Handley

Author:Bill Handley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2011-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Learning a language is more than vocabulary

People sometimes tell me that there is much more to learning a language than learning the vocabulary. This is true. There is no argument about that. Their point seems to be, though, that I am teaching others how to learn vocabulary quickly and that vocabulary alone is not enough to allow them to learn the language. Rejecting my vocabulary learning techniques for this reason is like telling a footballer not to practise kicking the ball because football is more than just accurate kicking. Accurate kicking is an essential skill — just like vocabulary building. Students need to know as many words in their chosen language as possible. I am obviously not telling language learners to drop the study of grammar and sentence construction and all of the other skills they need. What I am saying is that learning a vocabulary is important: here is an easy way to do it. Learning the vocabulary of our target language is part of our adventure — it is not an unwelcome chore.

Recent research has shown that when we learn a second language our brain develops a speech centre for that language. With each successive language we learn, we develop new speech centres in our brain. It has been shown that these speech centres are independent of each other and have no physical connection to our memory.

As you memorise words in your new language, they are firstly stored in your short-term memory, then in your long-term memory and, with use, they become part of your speech centre. Because there is no physical connection between your memory and your speech centre, many people connected with language learning oppose memorising foreign vocabularies. I am not convinced. The new words you learn by memorisation become part of your knowledge of the new language with use and are there in your speech centre to use when you need them.

Combine the main method of learning vocabulary we have just learnt with the passive and active method of soaking up the language and you will find it can only help. It will certainly speed up the process. I say, use any method you can that helps you reach your goal.

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