The way to best learn a foreign language can vary from person to person. Still, two things are equally important to everyone:
Actively learning the language
Be sure to surround yourself with the language as much as possible while you’re learning it. Communicate with native speakers, listen to podcasts in the language, watch films or cook using a recipe written in the language. That way, all your senses are engaged, and you’ll learn the language in a more intuitive way.
When you learned foreign languages in school, the emphasis was often on memorising words and learning grammar from books. The disadvantage of this is that you have to think long and hard about how to use all those rules. By working with the language a lot, you subconsciously learn the grammar, the same way children learn their mother tongue.
First, learn to communicate in the language—perfection can follow later if you really need it. And remember this one crucial thing: It's completely okay to make mistakes!
Individual training is the most effective way to learn a language. In this way, a trainer can shape everything entirely to your skill levels, goals and interests.
Staying motivated
Learning a language is a complex task for your brain. As with many new, complicated things you want to learn, it can be difficult to push on and achieve your goal.
If you’re looking to learn a language, the following tips will help keep you motivated:
- Think about your reason for learning the language in advance. Maybe you think it’s better to learn business German, but in fact, you find it even more important to build a good relationship with some of your German colleagues. If you’re aware of this, it’s easier to hang in there.
- Know what you want to be able to do in the new language and break it up into several smaller goals. That way, you’ll know when you’ll be satisfied with the results. You can go on learning a language endlessly. If your final goal is a very distant dot way out on the horizon, you’re more likely to quit somewhere along the way.
- Learn a language that you find interesting, and fits into your world, daily work and situation.
- Learn from others. They can help you, correct you and, above all, compliment you.
Learning a language at Regina Coeli
At Regina Coeli, you learn foreign languages hands-on. You have private lessons from native speakers, and you communicate with them in your new language from the very first lesson on the topics you find interesting or necessary in your daily work.
During independent study hours, you generally work with authentic material such as articles from magazines, radio broadcasts and movies. You also get to speak with fellow students at the institute who may speak your new language as their mother tongue, so you get plenty of opportunities to practice!
Staying motivated isn’t an issue while taking a course at Regina Coeli. Like the other students, you follow the institute's rhythm, and the flow becomes almost automatic. Your trainers keep a close eye on how you’re doing and give you regular feedback on your progress. It is always lovely to hear how much progress you're making!
Experiencing the Regina Coeli Method
So many course members have experienced how nice it is to learn a language at Regina Coeli. We often hear that the personal attention feels so welcoming and that this makes the learning go fast and unnoticed. If you’d like to experience that too, register for a language course at Regina Coeli.