{"id":835005,"date":"2016-03-16T10:12:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T10:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/?p=835005"},"modified":"2016-03-16T12:40:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T12:40:25","slug":"3-tips-learning-new-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/compatibility\/2016\/03\/3-tips-learning-new-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Tips for Learning New Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"hello\"Since I was younger, I have been trying to learn new languages. I’m a native Spanish speaker and of course, my first try was English. I have to say that it was hard\u00a0although\u00a0I studied a lot, repeating things in my mind, listening to music or watching films with no subtitles. However I always felt that I was missing\u00a0the magic touch for it. That some people have that gift and I wasn’t one\u00a0of them. Nevertheless, I liked learning\u00a0a lot and at that moment I thought it would be useful someday, even just for asking for a cheeseburger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The first time I went to the USA I was shocked because I couldn’t speak English. I could barely get words out of my mouth. I went back home thinking that all my\u00a0English-learning\u00a0was a waste of time. Then I decided to try again, and I realized that I did understand and I could talk, but I was ashamed or too shy to try. So after a long process of getting rid of those fears I decided to talk, no matter how I sounded. I made up words when I didn’t know the right one, used my hands, made sounds, used examples. When\u00a0I got fear\u00a0out of my system then\u00a0I started to communicate with other people. Let’s say I started really learning English.<\/div>\n

1. Speak without fear\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After that I moved to France and something similar happened there. The only difference at that time, was that I wasn’t afraid to try to talk anymore. However, I noticed something different: I was better prepared and I wasn’t afraid to talk, but a lot of people didn’t understand a word of what I was saying and many could\u00a0clearly understand me. With the time I realized that people who are willing to understand you will always try\u00a0regardless\u00a0of your accent, your mistakes or their lack of time. So, my first tip would be just talk, don’t be afraid to be wrong or make a fool of your self.<\/p>\n

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\"hamburger\"2. Go with the flow<\/strong><\/p>\n

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People appreciate it when\u00a0you don’t break up the flow of\u00a0the conversation. Am I saying that you can’t talk because you speak slower than others? No, I’m saying to try not to ask questions such as „how do you say…“, just talk. I know that sometimes you really need to, but if possible\u00a0try to avoid it. Your brain is amazing and you can build bridges to fill that vacuum.<\/div>\n
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3.\u00a0Read out loud<\/strong><\/h4>\n

If you feel that you are still not ready to go into the unknown, there is a small exercise that I used to do. Prepare some\u00a0text in the language you are learning and read it out\u00a0loud. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand half of what you are reading. The idea is to exercise your mouth. I guess you have heard that talking is an exercise, well, it is true. Depending on the language you want to learn you need to use different muscles of your vocal apparatus and there is a high probability that there are some of them that you have never used before. That’s why\u00a0there are some sounds that we feel are impossible to repeat like the french \/r\/. Doing this\u00a0exercise will help you discover those muscles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These are my simple findings after trying to learn 5 languages and only learn 2 finally. If you ever have the possibility, just go to another country\u00a0and learn the language you want.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Andres\"
Andr\u00e9s Cifuentes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I’m a front-end developer with 4 years of experience. I work at OnTheGoSystems as a WPML supporter in French, Spanish and English. I’m really passionate about WordPress and good practices. I’m also a new technologies lover and I’m always looking for finding new and better solutions for improving user experience. I adore traveling and learning new languages, new challenge: Learning Portuguese!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Since I was younger, I have been trying to learn new languages. I’m a native Spanish speaker and of course, my first try was English. I have to say that it was hard\u00a0although\u00a0I studied a lot, repeating things in my mind, listening to music or watching films with no subtitles. However I always felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102444,"featured_media":835059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1371],"tags":[10574,10575,10578,10577,10576],"class_list":["post-835005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compatibility","tag-languages","tag-learning","tag-practice","tag-tips","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835005"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860439,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835005\/revisions\/860439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpml.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}