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My strategy for Latvian was roughly as follows: - Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life. -
by markvdb 6y ago
My strategy for Latvian was roughly as follows:
- Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life.
- Decide to do something about it.
- Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea.
- Always actively speak the language when in native company.
- Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts.
- Read childrens' books and written press.
- Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier.
That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
- bluGill 6y agoSounds like you lived in lativa just ensuring a ready supply of real life encounters as everyone speaks that first. Where I live English is dominant and even the significant Spanish speaking (Mexican) population sees me and switches to English, which they know better than my Spanish... My other target language isn't spoken in my community, but I plan on traveling to where it is spoken sometime in the future.
- ablekh 6y agoUnderstood, thank you. So, essentially, you have used the language immersion approach, on top of a light introductory course, enriched by regular vocabulary building. Sounds reasonable to me.