Tricks for learning languages

[Sweetener12]

Can anyone please share any good tricks to learn foreign languages that could work for children and adults? I've heard that watching movies with subtitles and talking to yourself in a foreign language helps, but are there any other useful things that had worked for you or your children? Thanks!

Read books you already know very well in translation in that language to expand vocabulary — depending on the level you’re at, this could be familiar children’s books.

I'll second Plesky: reading what you've already read in your mother tongue helps. Doesn't even have to be literature, I switched my favorite photo editor, Photoworks, to Spanish and read the tutorials in Spanish . Putting the stickers with the names of the objects on the said objects will help you to learn the words quickly, too.

Just joining regular lessons and lots of interaction really.

For books, there are graded readers, often with activities etc that are available for every age group and language level (for commonly studied languages not niche ones). To read real books, you need to be pretty fluent already having worked hard for years to get to that level.

For a bit of variety, there’s computer software like Rosetta Stone to practise with.

On YouTube, you can find things like Peppa Pig in many languages. The language is quite easy to access if you’re GCSE-ish sort of standard.

You only develop an "ear" for a language by hearing it used, so my advice is a bit like that saying "The best exercise is whichever one you will actually do." Try to find media you'd enjoy anyway, but watch/listen to examples of it in your target language. Sports, reality shows, sci-fi, whatever: even if it's just silly fluff, you can still feel good about learning!

Once you've begun to find your footing in a language, I've found that using subtitles in the target language is a really good intermediate step between having everything served up in English and going without them entirely.

I’m teaching myself a language (Welsh) on Duolingo and can recommend it for adults, teenagers and older children - over about the age of nine or ten. It could be used as a stand alone learning tool or to back up languages taught at school.

Agree with @Slydiad, you need to find things you enjoy and just stick to them, little and often. Duolingo can be good as Papergirl said, especially if you enjoy an element of gamification.

Apart from that - do you like scrolling through Insta/Facebook? Follow some accounts in the target language. Find some Netflix shows with English subtitles. Or find some YouTube vloggers in that language talking about stuff you're interested in. Try to find magazines/ comics in the language and leave them lying around where you'll pick them up.

Visit a country where the language is spoken. Nothing replicates the authentic experience of hearing native speakers.