How To Conquer Anxiety When Speaking

Whether you become nervous speaking in your native language or not, many second language learners have anxiety speaking to target language speakers. You may stay silent or stumble over your words. These reactions are generally associated with a lack of confidence. You may believe your not competent, you can't recall the words quick enough, or perhaps you have general social anxiety.

Build Your Portfolio As A Novice - Part 1

Having only recently graduated college, I am still living through that "transition" period - partially because I was a liberal arts major, and mostly because I have varied interests and projects. But whether I am working on translation or web development, I still need one thing to get my career going - a portfolio.

The concept is nothing new  - but my experience has been in the art world. So now that I'm experimenting in a different venue, I've written down a method that I (and others) can reuse when trying to figure out how to start their portfolio without much experience.

There are general tips: use whatever you already have, for example. But there are many cases (especially if changing careers), when you may need to create a few new items.

6 Tips On Learning Culture Without Visiting The Country

What should you know, before you travel?

Learning a language is incomplete without culture study. You may get hints from grammar - honorifics, for example - or idioms. But the right words are only the first step towards approaching the wealth of culture packed within a language.
The best part? You don't need to travel to your target country to get started.


So, for the purpose of this post, what is culture? It's really an umbrella term for varied thoughts, actions, histories and other unique identifiers of a certain group of people. A culture can be at a a national level (Germany), regional (Bavarian), social (high-class) and familial (your family vs. mine).

So how can we learn about other cultures, especially at a more intimate level?

4 Tips to Start Speaking Your Second Language

Speaking is often the most difficult aspect of language learning – and it isn't always because of speech anxiety. Simultaneously producing the correct conjugations and declensions (i.e.. case systems) can be frustrating. However, there are ways to improve outside of speaking with a partner.

How To Prepare For Your First Oral Exam

For many exam season is approaching rapidly, and I know for many language students, this includes oral examinations. Mock conversations, meant to be spontaneous and fluid, are often intimidating and anxiety-producing. Here are six tips to help you prepare for your exam.

Language Goal: C2 German in India

Learning another language in another country may seem counter-productive, but this isn't too far of a stretch. Benny the Polyglot did it with Arabic in Brazil, and now I’ll be pushing myself the extra mile while living in India.

5 Tips for Reading International Fiction

Last week I wrote a bit about why branching into international fiction is a good idea - but I barely touched on how to do it. Whenever you come in contact with another culture, there's going to be some complications in understanding, even if the story is similar to something you may read at home. So how can we get the most out of reading outside our culture?

What Coding and Language Learning Have In Common

Back in the bygone days of Myspace I learned my first foreign language. Eager to express my "individual" pre-teen self, I scurried over to W3schools and learned enough CSS and HTML to code my own layouts. With the rise of Facebook, I gradually shifted platforms, leaving my coding experience behind until college.

As I am now brushing up on my coding skills - and learning a few new tricks, I've noticed it's much easier to figure out than when I was 13. But that has little to do with age, and more about language experience. If you know how to learn another language, you can learn to code, and vice-versa. 

Courseless: Holidays and Language Breaks

When I took Spanish in high school, I rarely studied during the semester, let alone during Christmas or Summer break. Maybe the week before classes resumed, I may scramble for my list of verb conjugations and important vocabulary words, but that was it. It wasn't enough to learn the language, or even relearn it.

I realized that breaks can be detrimental when I started again with German. You might be able to make it two weeks without loosing too much, but even then you'll need time and dedication just to recall what you last studied, let alone what you studied at the beginning of your course.

No one is saying you need to bind yourself to a chair and force the language down your throat. I've been there - it doesn't help. Instead, I found it's better to spend 10-30 minutes a day reviewing, especially if your goal is just to keep up with a college or high school course. And you can do this multiple ways:

One is to simply take your textbook and reread grammar and vocabulary. But I don't have to tell you that this route is the most boring one you can take.

Screenshot from memrise.com 

For vocabulary, I tend to use Memrise, a flashcard program. You can create your own set or use someone else's. You might even find your textbook! This free program also encourages you to make interesting and fun memes for words as a memory exercise. If you get a word wrong in spelling or multiple choice, you'll get to see it again along with your meme. In addition, this program uses a spaced repetition model to help you retain what you've been over. Basically, after a certain amount of time, words that you've already mastered are readmitted into your study stack, giving you a chance to brush up.

I've gotten really addicted to this program over the past few months. There are some study sets for movies. For example, I used this set for the first 10 minutes of the German film Goodbye, Lenin!, and after finishing my study-set, I could watch the opening scene without subtitles! You can also download an app on your phone, so you can practice just about anywhere.

Another great way is simply to write, whether it be a diary, a short story, or just information about your family and friends. Of course this depends on your level, but I find that writing not only helps me practice vocabulary, but also grammar - without having to reread all the rules!  Also, because you are writing things relevant or interesting to you, the vocabulary will stick better. And of course, if you have someone you can speak with, you should do that too!

I also like to do small things related to what we've learned. Sometimes I'll take a topic that we've discussed - let's say, the weather, and I'll google weather report videos. One video may be two to three minutes, and I may watch a few of these. That will be my review for the day. The more you use the words in context, the better they will stick. Listening practice also gives you an idea of the natural flow of the language. When I was recovering from jet-lag, I used this form from Saudi Arabia. It has English underneath the Arabic, but it let me practice reading and writing basic information.

No matter what method you use to study, whether it's what I've suggested or not, the main idea is to study for a short amount of time everyday during extended holidays. A few days off are never bad, but as scholarships and finishing general education requirements are important to all students, 30 minutes a day reviewing language material is better than trying to cram it all in the last few days of the break.