8 Top Tips for Mastering Languages
Hey everyone!
Your Student Communications Leadership team is launching a weekly series where we post tips that are relevant to Pymble life, including academics, time management, and co-curriculars. This week, we present to you…
8 Top Tips for Mastering Languages
Tips kindly provided by Kathie Ong (2024 Languages Captain, who has learnt French, Latin, and Spanish) and Evelyn Zhu (Academic Learning Prefect).
- Buy a good dictionary! Collins is recommended (and they’re all colour coded, too, lol).
- Speak modern languages as much as possible. Try speaking into a voice memo and then reflecting on that.
- Immerse yourself in the language. Reading books, listening to songs and talking to people in the language you are learning is good for vocab practice.
- Never waste an opportunity to practice, especially speaking. Don’t be scared to speak. Even if you say things wrong, you’re learning and people will understand that.
- Try to think in the language. Translate your thoughts into that language.
- Conjugation. Memorise all the endings, stems and any irregular parts.
- Constant repetition. Regularly practice vocab using active recall apps like Quizlet and Anki.
- Regularly update your grammar notes. Do this every time you learn a new concept – even if you think you’ve got it memorised, it’s always good to have it written down, just in case.
From your Student Communications Leadership team: Maya Garg, Abby Christopher, Kitty He, Catherine Li, Nicole Fan and Charlotte Peng.