How to understand native speakers: top tips

5 May, 2019  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

How to understand native speakers

Understanding native speakers is something many language learners struggle with.

Whenever I learn a new language, I get a bit of a shock. I learn a lot of vocabulary and a lot of
grammar. And then, when I’m ready to go out there and speak, I realise how little I actually
understand.

How is that possible, I think. I’ve been working so hard, I know so many words, I can even read
newspapers in the language. But I can’t actually understand what people are saying to me!
I’m sure you’ve been faced with a similar situation in the past. And don’t worry – you’re not the
only one. Being able to understand native speakers is something that comes with practice. There
are specific things you can do to make it happen, and I’m about to share them with you.

Are you ready? Read my tips below to learn about how to understand native speakers. And, if
you’d rather just watch my video on this topic, then here it is: 

Understand how letter combinations sound together

Speech is, of course, made up of words but, ultimately, it’s just a string of letters and sounds
combined together. Those letters and the sounds they make blend together to make longer
sounds, and then those longer sounds blend together to make even longer sounds. And that’s
what language is!

So, if you want to understand native speakers, your first step is to focus on individual letters and
letter combinations, and to understand how they sound together.

The best way to practise this is by reading and listening at the same time. You can look at a script
and listen to a recording of it, and pause frequently (as frequently as every couple of words) to see
how the different letter combinations sound together. You will be surprised what you will
discover. Sometimes words will sounds differently depending on what other words they’re
surrounded by.

The more you do this, the more you will begin to realise that native speakers’ speech is not one
long word at all…

Learn about filler words

My second tip for learning how to understand native speakers is to do with so-called ‘filler words’.

Filler words are basically words that don’t mean anything. They exist in every language. They’re
just words that people use when they speak but they don’t carry any specific meaning.

The word ‘like’ in English is one of them. People use it all the time, sometimes multiple times in
one sentence.

If you didn’t know ‘like’ was a filler word, you might be listening to someone and thinking they’re
talking about ‘liking’ something, or that they’re saying that something is ‘similar to something
else’. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. When you know it’s used as a filler word, you
can almost block it out so that it’s not distracting you from the real meaning of what somebody is
saying.

You can google filler words in your language and make sure you’re familiar with them. This will
definitely help you understand native speakers better.

Diversify your listening practice

If you want to get better at understanding native speakers, you need to diversify your listening
practice. What I mean by that is that you need to start listening to many different types of people,
in many different situations.
Often, when you buy a language course, the listening activities included in it will be scripted and
recorded by a native speaker who sounds a certain way. They’re likely to be a professional voice
artist who sounds fairly well-spoken and educated. Unlike many people you will encounter when
you use the language you’re learning to speak to native speakers. You will be talking to a variety of
different people, from different backgrounds and different regions. They won’t all sound the same,
obviously.

So, you want to make sure you’re prepared for that by diversifying your listening practice. To do
that, you can watch the news in your target language because often they’ll have clips of people
being interviewed on the street. Or you can watch youtubers because they’re from different
regions and you’re likely to encounter different accents when listening to them.

Don’t translate in your head

When you’re translating what somebody is saying in your head, you can’t really focus on what
they’re saying because they’ll always be a sentence or two ahead of you. You’re going to lose
track.

But how do you stop translating when it’s a real habit of yours? I’ve got a blog post and a video on
this topic so just check them out and you’ll find out!

Anyway, when you stop translating in your head, your ability to understand what people are
saying to you will improve massively.

Don’t be afraid to ask people to repeat

The best way to really understand native speakers is to ask them to repeat. It’s like pressing
rewind and play again on a language recording.

And – seriously – people don’t mind! Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with asking somebody to
repeat. They’ll be happy to do it and they will enjoy the conversation even more because by
repeating what they’ve just said they will allow you to understand better and be more engaged in
the conversation.

I hope you guys enjoyed this blog post! If you did, make sure you share it with your language
learning friends!

Top tips for speaking with native speakers

19 Feb, 2019  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

When I first went to France – in 2007 – I thought I could speak French. I’d done my homework
before going – I knew the grammar, my vocabulary was pretty good, I was reading novels in French
and even translating poetry from French into English at university!

But when I actually got there and was suddenly confronted with real French people, I realised that
I wasn’t as good as thought I was! I didn’t really know how to speak…

Well, I was good at giving presentations about climate change, and the pros and cons of living
abroad because that’s the kind of thing I’d be doing for my university course.

But having real conversations with real people? I mean, the kind of conversations where you just
chat down the pub about what series you’re binge-watching at the moment, a new trendy café
you went to at the weekend, or a nice new jumper you only just bought and it’s already shrunk in
the wash. No – I was definitely not prepared to have those conversations!

Over the years, though, I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’ve now got some tips for you that
you can use to make sure you’re ready for your first conversation with real native speakers.

First, let me say this – speaking is not just about speaking. Confusing, right?

What I mean is that speaking is about two different things. It’s about speaking and listening.
Communication is a two-way thing. You need to be able to speak but also understand, and
respond and react to what the other person is saying. When I was studying French at university, I
was good at speaking but I was also bad at speaking. Like I said above, I was good at giving lectures
about topics, setting out the pros and cons of various things, and so on. But I wasn’t good at
communication.

So, I’m about to share my top tips with you for how to get better at speaking with native speakers.
Let’s start with the speaking part!

Practise syllable pronunciation

Often when people face challenges when speaking with native speakers, it’s because either their
pronunciation is not good enough and they’re actually not understood, or they’re not confident
enough because of their pronunciation, which affects overall communication.

If you want to make sure people understand you and that your conversations flow, do some
pronunciation practice. What I recommend is that you focus on syllables rather than full words.
This will give you a little bit more focus and help you master the details of how words are
pronounced.

Find a piece of listening material, play it, pause it very frequently and repeat syllable after syllable.

Learn phrases you use frequently in your native language

Often when people learn a foreign language, they will learn random phrases that are suggested by
the textbooks they’re using. Or they will rely on reading material to identify the phrases they
should learn. This is useful but it has its limitations.

If you want to be a confident speaker, you need to learn and practise the phrases that you use, not
just the ones that are used in books. They way you speak is particular to you. You want to be
yourself when you speak a foreign language in the same way as you are yourself when you speak
your native language. You want to retain your individuality.

So, I recommend that for a couple of days, you go about your day and pay attention to the phrases
you use during conversations in your native language. Write them down, and after a few days you
will start noticing trends. You will begin to see which phrases you use the most and they’ll be the
ones you should learn and practise in the language you’re learning.

Practise conversation topics specific to you

This tip is the same as the one above, except it’s not about phrases but about whole conversation
topics. What are the things you tend to discuss during your day, when you’re with friends, out and
about in the shops, or at work?

Write them down for a few days and, again, you will begin to notice trends. These will be the
topics you should be practising whenever you practise speaking in your target language. There’s
no point practising random topics if you won’t be using them. Focus on the ones you really
need and use, for the most impact.

Be confident

Easier said than done, right? It’s crucial to learn to be confident, though, if you want to speak
fluently when speaking with native speakers.

My biggest tip is that you should understand that the other person is there to help you. They’re
not there to judge you or to point out your mistakes. They’re there to get to know you and have a
good chat with you. They’re interested in you as a person and in what you’re saying.

Acknowledging this will automatically make you more confident and help you speak more fluently.

Listening
Now that we’ve covered the tips related to speaking, let’s move on to listening. Like I said,
listening is a crucial part of the speaking process.

I’ve got lots of tips on how to understand native speakers in my YouTube video below, so make
sure you check it out (and subscribe to my channel!). I’ve got a couple of extra tips I want to cover
in this blog post as well, though, so read on if you’re interested!

Listen out for phrases, not words

My first tip relates to listening out for phrases, rather than words whenever you’re listening to
your target language. When you listen in a way that focuses on individual words, you might get
stuck when you encounter a word that you don’t know and don’t understand.

When you listen out for whole phrases, on the other hand, you’re more likely to understand the
gist of what somebody else is saying. There might be a word you don’t know in the phrase, but at
least you’ve got the phrase so you can figure out the gist or the context of what they’re talking
about.

This will help you get more relaxed about speaking and having conversations.

Listen to fast conversations

When you’re learning a foreign language, a lot of listening material you use is simplified for your
level. This is helpful because when you’re a beginner there’s no point listening to advanced
material because you won’t understand anything and get put off quickly.

However, when you’re past the pre-intermediate stage, there is some value in listening to real,
fast conversations, instead of simplified listening material. That’s because real people don’t tend
to speak slowly or in a simplified way. You need some exposure to real, fast language to get used
to it. It will be difficult and possibly quite overwhelming to start with but you will eventually get
better and better.

I hope you found my tips useful! Make sure you sign up to join my language learning community
and receive my top advice by email. Fill out the form below to sign up!

https://youtu.be/S1giwjK0G0o

How learning to say ‘box’ in English led me to fluency

5 Jan, 2019  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 245 days ago)

One of my earliest memories from my childhood is playing with my Mum and my little brother at
home, and my Mum teaching us some English words.   

She told us ‘a box’ is what we call ‘pudełko’ in Polish – my mother tongue – ’a dress’ is ‘sukienka’,
and ‘a book’ is ‘książka’. Almost 30 years on, I can still remember those were the exact words my
Mum taught us. So simple yet so powerful!   

At the time, it was just a game. There’s no way I could have known then what the point of that
game was. I didn’t know why it would be useful. All I knew was that there were some other people
in the big world who used other words to describe the simple everyday objects that we all knew.
And it was a fun thing to know a couple of those words.   

But as I got a little bit older, I began to understand that those words – ‘a box’, ‘a dress’ and ‘a
book’ – were part of a more complex reality. They were part of another language! The language I
would hear on Cartoon Network – a channel my brother and I watched without understanding
what was being said. Watching the cartoon characters, their actions and their facial expressions
seemed enough to get the gist of what was going on.   

It was around that time that I developed a funny habit, which became another clear memory from
my early childhood. I started spending time on my own in the garden at home, ‘speaking English’
out loud. Of course, it wasn’t English. It was just sounds that mirrored what I’d heard on Cartoon
Network and in American children’s films. It was my own version of American English.   

I would even tell my little brother that I was ‘speaking English’, and that he too would be able to
do it when he’s a bit older. I think he believed me!   

It was all a game, a bit of fun. Little did I know that it would lead me to the life I’m leading now.
That I would graduate with a distinction from a well-recognised British university, that I would get
married to a British man, that I would hold a senior editor role in an exciting organisation, and that
I would run a community, blog and YouTube channel for language learners in English!   
My Mum’s little game – teaching me how to say ‘box’, ‘dress’ and ‘book’ in English – led me to a
life where languages (not just English but several others!) are a focal point. It shows how powerful
exposing your child to a foreign language at an early age can be.   

And now I’m a mother myself and I want to open up this exciting world of languages to my own
daughter.   

When my daughter was born, I started reading to her very early on. I read to her in Polish to lay
the foundation of what would become one of her two mother tongues. I find it fascinating how
excited she is about looking at colourful images and hearing me say the words that describe them.
She can’t communicate with her own words yet but I’m sure the language she absorbs now will
stay with her forever.

And that’s why I’ve created My First Words. I wanted to help parents like myself introduce their
kids to foreign languages early on.

When you’re a child, learning a language is just a bit of fun. It’s not a ‘chore’ or a ‘task’. You can
incorporate it into your child’s usual activities, and make it interesting and fun. It can be part of
your bedtime routine or something you do together as a family. It’s easier to get them excited
about foreign languages than it would be once they’re teenagers or young adults.

So, with My First Words, you can start early. Because if you don’t, you never know the life that you
would have had, the opportunities that may never come up if you didn’t.    

You can find out more about My First Words here.

How to create a language learning routine

26 Nov, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

How to create a language learning routine

When you’re trying to learn a foreign language, it’s very easy to let things get in the way. There’s
always something that’s more important to do, it always seems like there’s not enough time, and
sometimes you just don’t have the energy or the motivation to sit down and learn new words.

Having a proper language learning routine can help you overcome this issue. It will help you
become more disciplined and stay on track with your language learning.

I’m about to share with you my favourite tips for creating a language learning routine. Are you
ready? Here they are! If you’d rather watch my video, here it is. Otherwise, read on! 

Language learning routine tip 1: start small

There’s an interesting metaphor I’ve heard one time that shows exactly what starting small means
and why it’s such a powerful approach.
The metaphor is flossing your teeth.

Apparently, many people don’t floss – they just brush their teeth. Dentists recommend flossing,
though, because it’s meant to be more effective than just brushing your teeth. So, if you’re not
motivated to floss every time you brush your teeth, start with flossing just one tooth every time.

When you commit to one tooth, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. You just need to pick up the floss
and do that one tooth. It’ll take you five seconds.

But while you’re at it, you might think that doing another tooth is not a big deal either. You’ve
already got the floss in your hands after all, and doing another tooth will only add a couple of
seconds to your flossing routine.

The key idea here is that you’ve committed to one tooth. And when you commit to one tiny thing,
you will automatically become more motivated to do more.

The same goes for learning a foreign language. Start small – commit to that one small thing you
need to do to move forward. Even if it’s just one word. Commit to that and more will follow. Once
you’re sat down looking up the meaning of one new word, you might do another one. And once
you’ve learned one, the achievement of knowing a new word will definitely motivate you further
and encourage you to do more.

Language learning routine tip 2: do what you already do 

You already have a routine of some sort, don’t you? In your native language, I mean. For example,
some people watch the news every evening. All you need to do is swap that for watching the news
in the language you’re learning.

There are certainly a lot of things like that that you already do in your native language and that
you could swap for foreign language activities. Maybe you like to find a new recipe a couple of
times a week before cooking dinner. Maybe you like to write a ‘to do’ list for the week ahead.

Identify the actions that are already part of your daily or weekly routine and start doing them in a
foreign language.

Language learning routine tip 3: write it down

Whatever you commit to in language learning, write it down. Write down your goals, your plans,
your commitments. But not only that – write down your progress as well. Don’t just write down a
stand-alone ‘to do’ list – make sure you accompany it with a review of your progress. Write down
the things that went well and the things that could have gone better. All of this will help you learn
more effectively in the future.

The action of writing things down in a journal can be part of your daily and weekly routine. Pick up
your journal in the morning when you’re having breakfast, and then again just before you go to
sleep.

To help you with this, you can use the Motivation Journal, which is a language learning journal I’ve
created specifically for recording your language learning goals and progress.

Language learning routine tip 4: Make the most of ‘dead time’

Dead time is basically time that you have but you don’t realise it. It’s the time that
passes betweendifferent things you do during the day, or while you do other things during the
day.

For example, when you cook. Let’s say you’re making pasta. You need to boil it for a few minutes –
that’s dead time. You’re just waiting for it to boil and not really doing anything as such. Use the
few minutes to learn a few new words or listen to a podcast in a foreign language.

Another obvious one is commuting to work (if you take public transport). It’s a perfect time to
practise your foreign language skills by reading an article in your target language, listening to a
podcast or revising vocabulary.

What are your favourite tips for creating a language learning routine? Share them in the
comments below!

How to learn grammar (and should you even do it?)

15 Jul, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

How to learn grammar in a foreign language

Grammar, grammar, grammar… I’m sure some of you hate the idea of it. And some of you even
hate the word itself! And that’s fine – not everyone has to love grammar. And it’s not true that you
need to learn grammar all the time if you want to be fluent in a foreign language.

How is that possible, you may be wondering. Well, I’m about to explain.

You can read on if you want, or just check out my video instead! If you like getting my language
learning advice in video format, make sure you’re subscribed to my YouTube channel!
So, here we go. How to learn grammar in a foreign language. And, should you even bother?

First, let me tell you something. Learning a foreign language is a bit like learning your native
language as a child. Children learn to speak their native language by being immersed in it. They
absorb it, so to speak, and they don’t need grammar books to master it.

Am I saying that it’s possible to learn a language without reading about grammar as a child but not
as an adult? Not at all! What I’m saying is that learning a foreign language can be a bit like learning
your native language and you can sort of replicate this process in your own study routine.

Here’s how.

How to learn grammar in a foreign language: tip #1

My first tip for you is to get a feel for the language you’re learning. Instead of learning the rules
first, do some reading and listening.

Even if all you read is a three-word sentence, that’s good enough! Familiarise yourself with what
the language looks like, how different words go together, what the sentence structure is like. This
will help you get a feel for the language without worrying about the grammar rules.

Once you’ve done that, you can move on to the rules and they will feel much less overwhelming
because you’ve kind of seen the language in action before.

This won’t, of course, work for everyone, as some learners prefer to read the rules first, but it’s an
interesting strategy to try out. So, see if it works for you and let me know in the comments below!

How to learn grammar in a foreign language: tip #2 

My second tip relates to learning phrases. You can learn phrases/sentences in a foreign language
without necessarily understanding the grammar behind them. And that’s perfectly fine.

Let’s take the English phrase ‘How is it going?’. You can learn it – and understand its meaning –
without understanding why the verb ‘go’ is in the gerund form, or why the verb ‘to be’ is in the
singular rather than the plural. And you will be able to use the phrase without knowing the
grammar rules!

Language is all about communication. As long as you can communicate, that’s what matters. It
doesn’t matter that you can’t recite the grammar rules that govern a sentence, as long as you can
convey your message and the other person understands what you meant.

I need to make another disclaimer here. If you do learn the rules, you will find it easier to create
your own sentences based on that rule, of course, so your learning may become more efficient.
But, like with the first tip above, it’s an interesting approach to try out so give it a go if you’re
feeling overwhelmed.

Don’t let grammar put you off 

The bottom line is, don’t let grammar put you off. Grammar is not everything. There are so many
more aspects of learning a foreign language. And sometimes, you learn grammar without even
knowing it. When you read and see the same structures over and over again, for example. They
become familiar and you begin to understand how they work instinctively, even if you can’t
explain why something is the way it is.

Anyway, I will be making more videos about grammar learning tips on my YouTube channel so
make sure you’re subscribed!

Best language blogs to help you learn any language

13 May, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

Best language learning blogs

Here’s my list of the best blogs for language learners!  

I will be updating this article regularly as I find more blogs that might be useful for you guys. I’m
also going to start with general language learning blogs, which are already included in this article,
and I’m going to regularly add lists of my favourite blogs for learning specific languages (French
and English coming next!).

Make sure you’re part of my community of language learners if you’d like me to send you an email
next time this article is updated with new blogs!

Blogs about how to learn foreign languages effectively

This list includes blogs about how to learn any foreign language. They’re blogs about language
learning methods and techniques, they have tips on learning grammar and vocabulary, ways to
practise your speaking and listening, tricks for organising your time and your learning schedule,
and staying motivated. They’re basically blogs about how to learn languages in general, rather
than blogs focusing on specific languages.  

5-Minute Language

That’s the blog you’re currently reading! It’s a place where I share my best tips and advice on
learning foreign languages effectively and independently, even if you’re busy.

You can either browse all of my posts, or check out specific articles about the following topics:

 How to learn and maintain several languages at the same time, or how to learn ‘just’ two
languages at the same time

 How to stay motivated when learning a foreign language

 How to learn vocabulary effectively

5-Minute Language is not just a blog. It’s a language learning community and it’s also a YouTube
channel that I’m currently focusing my energy on. Make sure you subscribe!

The Linguist

A blog by Steve Kaufmann. Includes articles about whether monolingual or bilingual dictionaries

are better for language learners, creating your own dictionary as a language learning technique,
and the three stages of language acquisition.

Fluent Forever

A blog by Gabriel Wyner. Includes articles about how to learn verb conjugation, why you should
use monolingual flashcards, and how to learn pronunciation effectively.

Languages Around the Globe

A blog by Brian Powers. Includes articles about the disadvantages of using language learning apps,
tips on what to do if you’re stuck on the plateau phase and not making much progress, and
different ways in which you can study languages while you work out.
Fluent in 3 Months

A blog by Benny Lewis. Includes articles about rituals that will help you learn a language faster, fun
grammar games that will help you learn grammar in any language, and must-know words and
phrases for any language.

Lindsay Does Languages

A blog by Lindsay Williams. Includes articles about how to use Spotify for language learning, how
to start learning a language without changing your routine, and ways to maximise Google
Translate for language learning.

I Will Teach You A Language

A blog by Olly Richards. Includes articles about why you should stop listening to ‘slow audio’,
scientifically proven ways to improve your memory, and ways to embrace your mistakes when
speaking a foreign language.

Language Surfer

A blog by Ron Gullekson. Includes articles about different ways to learn adjectives, what to do

after you’ve finished a Duolingo course, and a number of different ways in which you can start a
conversationwhen you’re doing a language exchange.

How to Get Fluent

A blog by Gareth Popkins. Includes articles about reading, such as how important reading actually
is for language learning and how to read in a foreign language for it to be effective, and articles
about exam preparation, including one about how to beat exam nerves.  

Joy of Languages

A blog by Katie Harris. Includes articles about unconventional ways to practise speaking without a
native speaker, why learning a language abroad doesn’t always work, and different fun ways to
learn a language.

Eurolinguiste
A blog by Shannon Kennedy. Includes a lot of articles about travel but also a good portion of
language learning advice, including articles about the role of writing in the language learning
process, how to overcome procrastination, and how to assess your own language skills.

FluentU Language Learner

A general language learning blog by FluentU. Includes articles about conversation topics you can
use during a language exchange, tricks for learning new alphabets, and one explaining what
the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is all about.

Fluent Language

A blog by Kerstin Cable. Includes articles about how to incorporate learning idioms into your study
routine, how to organise your language learning resources, and how to plan your week to make
sure it’s productive and successful.

Best blogs for learning French (coming soon)

Best blogs for learning English (coming soon)

Best blogs for learning Korean (coming soon)

More languages (including German, Spanish and Japanese) coming soon! If you don’t want to
miss out, make sure you’re a member of my free language learning community and I’ll send you
an email next time this article is updated with new blogs. Sign up for free by using the form
below!

How to learn a foreign language

2 Apr, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

 

How to learn a foreign language

So you want to learn a foreign language? You might be reading this because:

 You’ve decided to learn a new language and you’re looking for ways to do it effectively
and independently

 You’re already learning a foreign language and you’re looking for tips on how to make
your language learning process more effective, or how to make progress faster

I can help you with both. I’ve been learning languages for over 15 years now. I’ve tried and tested
different methods and strategies. I run this blog to share with you the things that have worked for
me so that you don’t have to repeat my mistakes.

Are you ready to find out how to learn a foreign language? Let’s get started!

1. Set SMART goals

I can’t emphasise this one enough – whenever you’re learning something, or trying to achieve
something, you need to be specific about what it is. ‘Learning French’ is not a goal in itself. Your
goals need to be smaller and more defined than that.

Not sure how to do that? Start by downloading your free ‘Learn Languages Like a Pro’ starter guide
below. It’s got everything you need to know to set your language learning goals right, including
examples of goals and a template you can use to write your own goals in. 

When people ask me how to learn a new language, I tell them to start with their goals. This is an
essential step so make sure you don’t miss it!

Click here to download your free starter guide.

I also have a video and another blog post that detail the process of goal setting for language
learning. Make sure you check them out as well:

How to set SMART goals for language learning [blog post]

How to set SMART language learning goals [YouTube video]

2. Schedule in your learning

One of the biggest obstacles that language learners encounter is the ‘lack of time’. They want to
learn but somehow other things get in the way. To prevent this from happening, make sure your
learning is scheduled in. In the same way as a doctor’s appointment would be. If it’s in your diary,
it will happen. If it’s not, it won’t.

You don’t have to be over-ambitious. Start small.

For more information about creating an effective language learning routine (and how to learn a
foreign language even if you’re busy), check out my video:
How to create a language learning routine [YouTube video]

3. Study the pronunciation of the language

When you’re learning a new foreign language, you want to be able to speak straight away. And no,
I don’t mean you will be talking to people straight away. But you will be saying everything you’re
learning out loud. Even if it’s just individual words.

To be able to do that, you need to know how the pronunciation works in the language you’re
learning. Every language has pronunciation rules you can learn pretty easily. Check how to
pronounce individual letters and letter combinations. Yes – there will be exceptions, but start small
and learn the rules first. Leave the exceptions for later.

4. Learn some basic words and sentences

Image credit:  Dmitri Popov

Once you know the main pronunciation rules, you’re ready to get started. One way to start is to
learn some basic words. I definitely recommend Duolingo or Memrise for that. They are both free
mobile apps that teach you pretty much any language you want to learn. And they’re great for
beginners.

The apps will teach you both some basic words and some very basic sentences first. The idea is to
learn some words to feel like you’re making some progress while getting to know the structure of
the language at the same time.
If you’re looking for more information about Duolingo, check out my detailed review of the app. 

5. Explore the structure of sentences a bit further

Look at some more basic sentences and try to understand how they’re constructed. For example,
where do adjectives normally go – before or after nouns? In English, they go before nouns (blue
book, not ‘book blue’) but in other languages it is the opposite. Try to get a general idea of how
very basic sentences work in the language you’re learning. It will help you create your own
sentences very soon.

6. Learn more words – a lot of them

Vocabulary is the foundation of any language. Your progress depends to a large extent on how
much vocabulary you know and can use.

So it’s crucial that you continue to learn vocabulary throughout your language learning journey.

You can focus on different groups of words if you prefer. For example, start with verbs. Choose the
10 or 20 most common verbs to start with. Ask yourself – what are the verbs you use daily in your
native language? In English, you probably use the verbs ‘think’, ‘know’ and ‘get’ quite a lot. The
idea is that you learn the most useful verbs first so that you can start making sentences as soon as
possible.

As with anything, set yourself vocabulary learning goals.

If you need more advice on how to learn vocabulary effectively, check out my resources on this
topic:

How to learn vocabulary effectively [blog post]

How to learn vocabulary effectively: top tips [blog post]

How to learn and remember vocabulary [YouTube video]

How to NOT forget vocabulary in a foreign language [YouTube video]

7. Learn verb conjugations

Verb conjugations are basically the different forms that verbs take in sentences. For example, in
English, the verb ‘to know’ becomes ‘know’ in the sentence ‘I know’, and it becomes ‘knows’ in the
sentence ‘she knows’. To make correct sentences, you will need to know how to conjugate verbs
(if you’re learning a language that uses conjugations – many languages do!) so make sure you
prioritise this!

It will involve a lot of memorisation but it will be worth it – I promise!

8. Practise active listening

‘Knowing’ a language, or rather being able to use it, consists of several different elements, such as
being able to speak or being able to write. Being able to understand spoken language is also one of
them. You need to practise listening as soon as you start learning. Even if you can’t say anything
yourself yet.
When you’re a beginner, listening practice will be quite simple. Listen to individual words and
repeat them out loud. Do this several times to make sure your practice is effective.

When you move on to sentences, you can make your listening practice a bit more complex. You
can listen to short recordings and try to paraphrase what you’ve heard, sentence by sentence. Or
you can decide what questions you’re trying to answer before you start listening and then listen
for the answers. This is called active listening’ – you’re not just hearing the language but you’re
listening with a purpose.

9. Read a lot

Image credit:  Freestocks.org

Reading is one of my favourite ways of speeding up progress when learning a foreign language. It’s
a great way to get to know the language – to discover new words and phrases, to understand how
sentences are constructed and how different words go together, to learn what sounds natural and
what doesn’t in the language you’re learning.

Reading practice should also be something you commit time to from the start. You can start with
children’s books or children’s stories you find online. They’re simple enough and don’t contain
very complex vocabulary so they can be a great resource for language learners!

10. Speak even if you’ve got nobody to talk to

Like I said at the start, when you’re learning a new language, you will want to speak straight away,
even if it’s just saying individual words out loud. With every new word you discover, find out how
to pronounce it and say it out loud. Find a sentence that uses this word (most dictionaries contain
examples), write it down and say it out loud.

As you become more advanced, you can start making your own sentences, writing them down and
saying them out loud.

11. Work on your confidence

Confidence is everything when it comes to language learning. You don’t have to be fluent to be
confident. Think about it this way – even if you only know how to introduce yourself in Japanese,
you know how to introduce yourself in Japanese and that’s amazing. Any Japanese person you
speak to will be impressed with that. You’ve made the first step and now you’re only moving
forward. And that’s what matters.

12. Track your progress

Progress tracking is essential when you’re learning a foreign language. That’s why having clear
SMART goals is so helpful – when you have goals, you’ve got something to track. You can look at
them every week or every month and see what’s gone well and what else you need to work on.

Make sure you celebrate your successes as well!

Are you ready to learn a new foreign language? Make sure you start by downloading your free
‘Learn Languages Like a Pro’ starter guide.

Click here to download for free. 

What’s the difference between the Past Simple and the Past Perfect in English?

31 Mar, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

This blog post is part of a new series for English learners on the 5-Minute Language blog. If you’d
like to be notified of new posts, make sure you join my community.

Are you ready? The first post in this series deals with the question of what the difference is
between the Past Simple and the Past Perfect tenses in English. It’s a question many English
learners ask themselves so a useful one to read up on!

What’s the difference between the Past Simple and the Past Perfect in English? 

The Past Simple and the Past Perfect are both tenses we use to talk about things that happened in
the past. However, we use the Past Perfect to talk about something that happened before
something else in the past. That ‘something else’ is usually expressed in the Past Simple tense.

Take a look at this example:

I  had  already  eaten  when he  called. (‘had eaten’ is in the Past Perfect and ‘called’ is in the Past
Simple)
This simply means: First, I ate, then, he called. Both actions happened in the past. The Past Perfect
tense is used to show that the action of me eating happened before the action of him calling.

Or this one:

When we  arrived, the film  had  already  started. (‘arrived’ is in the Past Simple and ‘had started’ is
in the Past Perfect)

The sentence simply means: First, the film started, then, we arrived. Both actions happened in the
past and the Past Perfect tense is used to show that one action happened before the other one.

Are you ready to practise? Take the quiz below! 

How to sound more fluent in a foreign language

13 Feb, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

Fluency is not just about knowing all the words and knowing how to use them. It’s not about
speaking quickly either. Fluency is about feeling comfortable speaking, and speaking in a way that
‘flows’.

Do you know what I mean?

Whatever stage of learning a language you’re at, there are things you can do to sound more
fluent. I’m about to share them with you. And don’t be put off if you’re only a beginner or an
intermediate learner – you will also benefit from my tips, in the same way a more advanced
learner will.

Are you ready? Read on! Or, you can watch my video instead if you like (and don’t forget
to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos like this one!).

Here’s my advice on how to sound more fluent, regardless of the level of actual fluency you’re at.

1. Pre-prepared phrases

If you want to sound more fluent, it’s good to prepare in advance. What I mean specifically is that
you could prepare some phrases that you’re likely to use in every conversation. Let’s call them
‘pre-prepared phrases’. A bit wordy, isn’t it?

So, what kind of phrases do I mean exactly?

Phrases you use to start a conversation, to add a point to a conversation, to react to something
the other person has said, or to finish a conversation. They’re the kind of generic phrases you’re
likely to use in every conversation you have in your target language.

When you’ve got the phrases ready, you won’t waste time looking for them when you’re busy
speaking your target language. Write them down in advance. Practise saying them – a lot. They
will become natural and you will sound natural when you use them as a result.

Do you use pre-prepared phrases already? If so, let me know in the comments below!

2. Responses to common questions

This one is a bit similar to the last one – you’re going to have to prepare in advance. Instead of
preparing phrases, though, prepare your responses to questions that are likely to come up a lot in
the conversations you have in your target language.

For example, your friends might ask you how you are or what you’ve been up to quite a lot.
Prepare some answers in advance. Write them down and practise saying them.

Having those ready-made responses will help you sound more relaxed and natural, and it will help
you sound more fluent as a result.

3. Intonation

This is quite a big one. And many people don’t realise it is! Many people think that speaking a
language well is about pronunciation – about knowing how to pronounce individual sounds or
words. Yes – pronunciation is important. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to say it’s not.
What I am trying to say, though, is that intonation is also very, very important.

What is intonation, you ask.

Put simply, it’s the musicality of language. It’s how language goes up and down when you speak.
When you ask a question, for example, it sounds different to how it does when you make a
statement or give an order. It goes up and down in different ways.

And why is it important?

Incorrect intonation can really prevent people from understanding you. So, study the intonation
patterns of the language you’re learning and try to imitate them when you speak. It will help you
sound so much more fluent.

Before we move on, why don’t you check out my article about how to sound more like a native
speaker?

4. Fillers

Another thing you can do to sound more fluent is familiarise yourself with the different filler words
that exist in your target language.

What are they? They’re basically a type of non-words that native speakers use to fill spaces
between words (for example, because they’re hesitating or thinking).

In English, for example, it can be the word ‘like’, which is something many people say even though
it doesn’t add any meaning to what they’re saying. Or the word ‘well’ at the start of a sentence.

If you know what the filler words are and know how to use them correctly, you will definitely
sound more fluent. Make sure you do a lot of listening practice, listening to informal language,
such as interviews, to understand how filler words are used in the language you’re learning.

5. Body language

The final tip I’m going to give you is not about what you say but it’s about how you use body
language when you speak. You might think this one is not really a fluency tip but let me tell you
something – how you use body language affects how fluent your speaking is perceived to be.

Body language affects how you come across – natural and relaxed, or anxious and lacking in
confidence. It can change everything.

Body language is also different in different cultures so make sure you study it carefully and learn to
imitate it when you speak your target language.

What do you do to sound more fluent?

Have you got any tips on how to sound more fluent? Share them in the comments below!

6 most annoying things about learning a language

26 Jan, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

Language learning is fun but it can be a little bit annoying sometimes! Don’t you agree?

In the video below, I talk about the 6 most annoying things about learning a foreign language.
Comment below with the things you find particularly annoying about language learning.

And remember you can read the post below if you don’t fancy watching the video!

1. You always know the answer *after* somebody tells you what it is

Imagine you’re saying something and you’re trying to remember a word that you already know
really well. You used it yesterday but for some reason it’s gone now. You can’t remember at all.

And then somebody tells you what it is and you go: ‘I knew it!’. Because you did. So why didn’t you
say? Annoying, isn’t it?!

2. Annoying exceptions to rules

Learning a rule in a foreign language takes 5 minutes. So why does it then take hours to learn all
the exceptions to that rule?! That is seriously so annoying.
3. You understand more than you can say

You read all the time – you read a whole book last week. But you can’t talk like that book. You
understand it but you can’t replicate it. So in a way you feel proud of yourself but you also feel…
annoyed.

4. Learning a language takes ages

It doesn’t take a month or two. It takes absolutely ages. And it seemed so easy when you were
starting out!

5. Watching films without subtitles is not *that* easy

You’re pretty fluent already, you can read no problem and you know a lot of vocabulary. Why not
watch a foreign film in its original version then? You put it on and you realise that you can’t
actually understand. Everyone is talking so fast. And they have accents as well…

So you put the subtitles on but that doesn’t help much because you can’t concentrate on listening
and reading at the same time. What a mess!

6. False friends are real

You new about false friends before you started learning. But what you didn’t know is how
annoying they were! And how many of them there were.

So you end up making embarrassing mistakes where you say something rude by accident because
it sounded like a perfectly normal word in your native language…

Silly things people say about learning foreign languages 1

10 Jan, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

In the 15+ years I’ve been learning foreign languages, I’ve heard my share of silly things people say
about language learning. I thought it would be fun to put this silliness together and make a video!

You can watch it below or, if you prefer, scroll down to read the post! Don’t forget I’ve got tons of
fun and useful language learning videos on my YouTube channel so head over there and subscribe
to make sure you don’t miss any future videos!

Here’s the write-up of the most silly things people say about learning foreign languages!

1. Why are you learning [insert language]?

Has anyone ever questioned why you’re learning the language you’re learning? And gave you all
the arguments against learning it? And perhaps also told you that you should probably just learn
French or another “useful” language?

The ‘why are you learning [insert language]’ question is a silly one and I probably don’t even have
to tell you why it’s silly.
We’re both language learners – you and I – and we both know that people learn foreign languages
for lots of different reasons. And sometimes they learn just because they want to.

We really shouldn’t have to explain to anyone, or justify, why we’re learning a foreign language.
We can do what we want. And we’re great!

2. I apologise for my [insert language]

Have you heard anyone start a sentence with ‘I apologise for my English’, ‘I’m sorry but my English
is not very good’, before proceeding to what they actually want to say? I certainly have.

Some people feel they need to offer an apology if they think their language skills are not good
enough. Good enough for who? They’re already speaking a foreign language! They’re already
making an effort to communicate! That’s definitely good enough so there’s no need to apologise.
Apologising is silly – trust me.

3. I’m too old to learn a language

That’s a classic excuse – and it’s silly, you guessed right!

Some people like to say that it’s too late for them to learn a language. And that children have it
easy because they learn so naturally, like they don’t have to do anything.

In fact, learning a language as an adult is not only perfectly possibly but it can also give you an
advantage. It’s because adults, unlike children, have the ability to reflect on their learning. They
know what they want to focus on, they know what they’re good at, and they have the ability to
adjust their learning based on that.

I know (and know of) a number of language learners who have learned languages successfully later
in life, including people who were never exposed to a foreign language in their early lives.

So, age is not an excuse!

4. Learning [insert language] is possible if you live in [insert country]

Anyone can learn a language as long as they live in the country where that language is spoken,
right? Have you ever heard anyone use it as a silly excuse? Saying that they could, of course,
become fluent in French if only they lived in France. But they don’t live in France so they can’t
learn it.

Trust me – it’s a silly thing to say. Millions, if not billions of people around the world have learned
foreign languages without ever travelling abroad. It’s perfectly possible. I never visited an English-
speaking country before I was 19, which is when I went to the UK to study at university. But I
learned English at home.

5. You need to know the grammar to speak

Know the grammar? Does anyone actually know all the grammar? It’s a silly thing to say that you
need to learn the grammar of a language first, before you start to speak. Just in case you don’t
make any mistakes?
Learning grammar is, of course, an important element of learning a language. But you need to do
more than that. And most importantly, you can – and you should – speak straight away, even if
you don’t know much grammar.

You will continue to learn grammar throughout your time of learning the language and you will
continue to perfect the way you speak. And make fewer mistakes over time.

So, are you ready? Start speaking today!

I hope you guys enjoyed this little post and don’t forget to head over to my YouTube channel to
watch my videos with my top advice on learning foreign languages.

Silly things people say about learning foreign languages 1

10 Jan, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

In the 15+ years I’ve been learning foreign languages, I’ve heard my share of silly things people say
about language learning. I thought it would be fun to put this silliness together and make a video!

You can watch it below or, if you prefer, scroll down to read the post! Don’t forget I’ve got tons of
fun and useful language learning videos on my YouTube channel so head over there and subscribe
to make sure you don’t miss any future videos!

Here’s the write-up of the most silly things people say about learning foreign languages!

1. Why are you learning [insert language]?

Has anyone ever questioned why you’re learning the language you’re learning? And gave you all
the arguments against learning it? And perhaps also told you that you should probably just learn
French or another “useful” language?

The ‘why are you learning [insert language]’ question is a silly one and I probably don’t even have
to tell you why it’s silly.

We’re both language learners – you and I – and we both know that people learn foreign languages
for lots of different reasons. And sometimes they learn just because they want to.

We really shouldn’t have to explain to anyone, or justify, why we’re learning a foreign language.
We can do what we want. And we’re great!

2. I apologise for my [insert language]

Have you heard anyone start a sentence with ‘I apologise for my English’, ‘I’m sorry but my English
is not very good’, before proceeding to what they actually want to say? I certainly have.

Some people feel they need to offer an apology if they think their language skills are not good
enough. Good enough for who? They’re already speaking a foreign language! They’re already
making an effort to communicate! That’s definitely good enough so there’s no need to apologise.
Apologising is silly – trust me.

3. I’m too old to learn a language

That’s a classic excuse – and it’s silly, you guessed right!

Some people like to say that it’s too late for them to learn a language. And that children have it
easy because they learn so naturally, like they don’t have to do anything.

In fact, learning a language as an adult is not only perfectly possibly but it can also give you an
advantage. It’s because adults, unlike children, have the ability to reflect on their learning. They
know what they want to focus on, they know what they’re good at, and they have the ability to
adjust their learning based on that.

I know (and know of) a number of language learners who have learned languages successfully later
in life, including people who were never exposed to a foreign language in their early lives.

So, age is not an excuse!

4. Learning [insert language] is possible if you live in [insert country]

Anyone can learn a language as long as they live in the country where that language is spoken,
right? Have you ever heard anyone use it as a silly excuse? Saying that they could, of course,
become fluent in French if only they lived in France. But they don’t live in France so they can’t
learn it.

Trust me – it’s a silly thing to say. Millions, if not billions of people around the world have learned
foreign languages without ever travelling abroad. It’s perfectly possible. I never visited an English-
speaking country before I was 19, which is when I went to the UK to study at university. But I
learned English at home.

5. You need to know the grammar to speak

Know the grammar? Does anyone actually know all the grammar? It’s a silly thing to say that you
need to learn the grammar of a language first, before you start to speak. Just in case you don’t
make any mistakes?

Learning grammar is, of course, an important element of learning a language. But you need to do
more than that. And most importantly, you can – and you should – speak straight away, even if
you don’t know much grammar.

You will continue to learn grammar throughout your time of learning the language and you will
continue to perfect the way you speak. And make fewer mistakes over time.

So, are you ready? Start speaking today!

I hope you guys enjoyed this little post and don’t forget to head over to my YouTube channel to
watch my videos with my top advice on learning foreign languages.

https://youtu.be/dXIKHKKRVEs

Language learning experts’ top tips and advice of 2017

7 Dec, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

 
Last year, I asked 18 different language learning experts and enthusiasts for their favourite tips
and techniques of 2016. I published them in a massive round-up article, which became very
popular with the language learning community.

I was really happy I could help so many of you by relaying those 18 people’s top advice. If you
didn’t see it last December, you can read it here:

Language Learning Experts’ Favourite Strategies in 2016

This year, I’ve decided to do something different. I’ve looked at loads of articles about language
learning published around the web in 2017 and selected 18 that, in my opinion, contain absolutely
essential advice.

I share them with you below. Before we start, though, I just want to invite you to download your
free guide to learning languages:

Download your language learning starter guide here

OK, are you ready for the top language learning advice of 2017? Let’s get started!
1. How to start learning a new language

This time of year is when many of us start thinking about new year’s resolutions. For us, language
learners, they’re often around becoming more committed to learning (studying more frequently or
getting to a higher level) or starting a completely new language that we’ve been interested in for a
while.

That’s why I’m going to start this round-up with a video I made earlier this year on the topic of
starting a new language. This video has been doing particularly well, which makes me think a lot of
you might be at the start of this wonderful journey that picking up a new language is.

If you’re one of those people making new year’s resolutions for 2018, make sure you check out the
video! Don’t forget to subscribe to the 5-Minute Language YouTube channel as well! 

2. Starting a language without changing your routine?

Some of you may be worried about the impact that your new year’s language learning resolution
may have on your lifestyle.

Will you have enough time to learn? When will you actually fit it in? Will have to give up any of
your other interests? These are all questions you might be asking yourself.

That’s why the second piece of advice from 2017 that I’m going to feature in this round-up is
Lindsay Williams’ blog post on how to start learning a new language without changing your
routine.

How to start learning a language without changing your routine

Lindsay is not promising the impossible, though. She does make it clear from the start that if you
don’t want to change your routine, your progress will be slower. But slow progress is better than
no progress – am I right?

3. Time hacking tips for more efficient language learning

If you’re interested in maximising your time, you should definitely check out this post with no
fewer than 24 time hacking tips from Fluent in 3 Months.

I decided to feature this article because it’s pure gold – it doesn’t just list time-saving tips but it
links out to entire blog posts for each tip. You’ll find out why the ‘just do something’ mindset is the
enemy of your progress, why 20% of effort is OK sometimes, and why ‘useless information’ takes
up so much of your mental energy (and what you can do about it).

24 time hacking tips from language hacker Benny Lewis

4. How to learn faster and remember more

Time hacking is not the only key to success when it comes to learning a language. Hours of going
through vocabulary lists, reading foreign newspapers and listening to audiobooks is not
everything. You need to make sure you’re actively acquiring the knowledge and skills at the same
time.

I’m not saying anything new here – you simply need to remember things to learn them (‘learning’
meaning ‘being able to use them’).

If that’s something you’re interested in, Anthony Metivier has some advice for you. And it may
involve zombies. What? Read his post to find out what I mean!

4 easy ways to learn faster and remember more

5. You’re not perfect and that’s OK

One piece of advice that I thought would be absolutely necessary to feature here comes from a
video I made that proved very popular with language learners.

It’s about a truth that nobody seems to be talking about. It’s a truth about the fact that language
learning is not easy. It’s challenging. And it brings struggle. It can be overwhelming. And it can
bring some anxiety sometimes.

And we’re not perfect so we don’t have to pretend we are. Watch my video to see what I mean:

The truth about language learning nobody talks about

6. Even polyglots forget things and that’s OK too

Steve Kaufmann says that forgetting things is an important part of the learning process. And that
many people are discouraged by that although they shouldn’t be.

It’s because it’s part of the journey. You learn things, you forget them and then you relearn them.

See Steve’s article for more details:

Even polyglots forget, and it’s an important part of the learning process

7. Tips on sounding more fluent even if you can’t remember every single word you’ve ever learned

Sounding fluent is not necessarily something that only very proficient language speakers can do.
You can sound fluent without knowing every single word in the language you’re learning. And you
can practise to get better at sounding fluent.

Alex Rawlings says on the Memrise blog that ‘fluency is a state of mind’. Do you agree? Check out
his article, which includes tips on how to sound ‘more fluent’.

10 top secret tips to sound more fluent

Language learning experts’ top tips and advice of 2017

CLICK TO TWEET

8. What is fluency anyway?

I’ve decided to feature another article by Steve Kaufmann from this year because I think it’s an
important one. Steve’s point in this article is quite different to what Alex Rawlings says in his (see
section above). He actually doesn’t believe that fluency is possible if all you know is a few hundred
words in a language.

To see how Steve defines fluency, read his article:

Levels of language proficiency: what is fluency?

9. How to stop translating in your head

In my experience, one significant obstacle on the way to sounding fluent is a habit many of us
develop when we learn a new language – translating in your head when speaking. I’m talking
about translating from your native language (trying to find words in the foreign language for the
things you’re trying to say) or the other way round (listening and registering speech, and then
trying to translate it into your native language in your head before you ‘understand’ it).

That’s why I made a video that I think is important to share in this round-up. It’s about how to stop
the habit of translating. You can watch the video (or read the post) here:

How to stop translating in your head when speaking a foreign language

10. Things you need to stop doing if you’re serious about learning a language

While we’re on the topic of habits, there are other things (apart from translating in your head)
that you should stop doing if you want to get to fluency in the language you’re learning.

One of them is learning ‘randomly’. ‘Random learning’ is what I call the type of learning that’s not
structured – where you don’t have any objectives or goals, and where you don’t really know why
you’re learning and what you’re trying to achieve.

Read the full article to find out what five other things you should stop doing immediately if you
want to get fluent.

6 things to stop doing immediately if you want to get fluent

11. Good habits of highly effective language learners

Habits aren’t always bad. In fact, developing good habits is an important part of learning a
language successfully.

For example, being proactive about your learning, seeking to understand before you get
understood, and ‘sharpening the saw’ – these are some of the things that Steve Kaufmann
discusses in his article about the seven habits of highly effective learners. Check out the details
here:
The 7 habits of highly effective language learners

12. My personal experience of becoming fluent in a foreign language

Earlier this year, I made a video about my personal experience of becoming fluent in English. Many
people commented on it saying that they didn’t know English wasn’t my native language, which
was very flattering!

I was really glad to share this experience because I think it can help not only English learners but
people learning any language. That’s because the tips I offer in it are pretty universal.

Watch it now and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel!

13. The importance of reading in language learning

One of the things I mention in my video about getting fluent in English (see section above) is the
importance of reading. Reading (and memorising vocabulary) are my all-time favourite things to
do and things that have the most impact in my experience.

That’s why I thought it would be great to feature Gareth Popkins’ article about the role of reading
in the foreign language learning process. Gareth talks about why some people might think that
reading can get in the way of learning (confronting the reading sceptics!) but, more importantly,
about why it makes sense.

How important is reading for learning a foreign language?

14. Inspiring books about language and linguistics

And while we’re on the topic of reading, I want to share with you an article by Lindsay Williams
that lists 10 inspiring books about language and linguistics.

She features Lingo (a book about the languages of Europe), Spoken Here (a travel book in which
the author shares his stories from his travels learning about more and less obscure languages)
and How Language Works (whose title says it all!). Check out the other seven in Lindsay’s article:

10 inspiring books about language and linguistics

15. All the speaking resources you’ll ever need

This round-up wouldn’t be complete without an article about speaking resources. And I’ve got one
for you. Or rather, Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages has one for you. And it is a gem packed
with resources, tools and techniques for those of us who are working on our speaking skills. Make
sure you check it out!

All the speaking resources for language learning you’ll ever need

16. A guide to learning with a tutor on Italki

Italki is an online platform that allows you to connect with other language learners and form
language exchange partnerships (for free), and partner with tutors (for a fee).

So, once you know all the tools and techniques you need to improve your speaking skills (see
section above), it’s time to actually speak!

Gabriel Wyner from Fluent Forever has written a great guide to learning a language with a tutor
on Italki. Check it out here:

A complete guide to learning a language with a tutor on Italki

Also, get a free $10 Italki credit here.

17. How to build sentences in a foreign language

Speaking a language is all about knowing how to use words – how to use them in the right context
and build sentences that make sense and sound natural.

That’s why I’m sure you will find this article from Benny Lewis at Fluent in 3 Months very useful.
He talks about sentence structure, how to familiarise yourself with it and how to learn to use the
correct word order in the language you’re learning.

Sentence structure: how to build sentences and use the correct word order in your new language

18. How to learn two languages at the same time

And finally, I’ve left this one for the end but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. It’s for those of you who
think one foreign language is not enough. There you go:

How to learn two languages at the same time

https://youtu.be/sVXXWNGZFZc

How to NOT forget vocabulary in a foreign language

4 Nov, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

How to remember vocabulary in a foreign language

This article is not really about memorising vocabulary in a foreign language. If you’re interested in
the topic of how to learn or memorise vocabulary effectively, make sure you read my three other
posts on this topic:

How to learn vocabulary effectively

How to learn vocabulary: top tips

How to use mnemonics to learn vocabulary in any language

What this article is about, though, is how to make sure that you don’t forget the vocabulary
you’ve already learned. Or, in other words, how to maintain the vocabulary that you have.

How to not forget vocabulary in a foreign language

As usual, I’ve made a video on this topic, for those of you who’d rather watch it, instead of reading
this post. If you don’t want to watch it, though, then read on!

Don’t forget vocabulary: spaced repetition

There are several things you can do to make sure you remember and maintain the foreign
language vocabulary that you learn. I’m mainly going to focus on one, though, because it’s
something that will have the most impact on the extent to which you retain the words that you
learn.

It’s called spaced repetition.

What is spaced repetition? 

It’s a learning technique that involves incorporating increasing time intervals between study

sessions. The time intervals should start small and get longer as time goes on.

For example, you learn a word today. You then revise that word tomorrow (an interval of one
day). Next time you revise it is after a week (an interval of one week). Then, you only revise it after
three more weeks (an interval of three weeks).

You will find that you can use this pattern for some words and a slightly different pattern for other
words. Depending on the difficulty of each word or word group, you might want to make the
intervals longer or shorter.

Why spaced repetition?

Spaced repetition trains your brain in recalling vocabulary. At first it’s an easy task. If the interval is
only one day, it’s likely you will still remember the word next time you try recalling it. It might be
more difficult to remember it after another, longer interval, though. But that’s the point – you’re
training your brain to recall vocabulary after longer and longer intervals.

An example of spaced repetition

If you’d like an example of how spaced repetition works in practice, make sure you check out this
review of Duolingo that I wrote for Benny Lewis’ Fluent in 3 Months blog. It mentions spaced
repetition because that’s one of the techniques the app uses.

And here’s my video about Duolingo, for those of you who would like to try out the app but
haven’t made up their mind yet.

Spaced repetition in practice 

What I personally like to do is I like to use highlighters in my vocabulary notebook. I use different
colours for different interval lengths.

For example, if a word needs to be looked at in a day, I highlight it in yellow. I then highlight it in
green to indicate that it next needs to be looked at in a week. And then, I use pink to mark the
words that only need to be looked at again in three weeks.

Once I’m done with the one, seven and twenty-one-day intervals, I usually move the words to the
back of my vocabulary notebook, and I look at them again after a couple of months. If any of them
are still problematic, I bring them back to the main section of my vocabulary notebook. Otherwise,
I cross them out.

Remembering vocabulary: reading, listening and speaking

Like I said, spaced repetition is a study technique that will make the most impact on your
vocabulary retention. However, in addition to that, I definitely recommend that you do a lot of
reading, listening and speaking practice, to make sure you’re constantly using, reading or listening
to the words that make up the language you’re learning.

It sounds obvious but it does work, so it’s definitely worth mentioning here!

What are your favourite ways of making sure you don’t forget vocabulary? Share them in the
comments below!

https://youtu.be/YrM78IORcCk

https://youtu.be/SBjeXF_Osm4

How to learn languages from songs

17 Oct, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

 

How to learn a language from songs

I bet you’ve tried learning a foreign language from your favourite song. ‘Despacito’ anyone? I bet
you have tried translating it into English! No? Well, have a go and see what you think…

Why am I talking about this anyway? Because although the title of this post is ‘how to learn
languages from songs’, I’m also going to cover the topic of ‘is it a good idea to learn languages
from songs’.

If you’d rather watch my video on this topic, here it is! Otherwise, keep reading.

Learning a language from music

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that people want to learn languages from music. In fact, many
people start learning a new language precisely because they heard a song and they liked it.

Despacito? OK, let’s be serious for a second.

Take the K-pop trend. Everyone is suddenly learning Korean! Why? Because they’re into K-pop and
they want to be able to sing along and know what they’re actually singing along to.

So, yes – music can be a great motivator for learning a language, but…

Language in song lyrics is not always ‘real’ language

Think about a song you like in your native language. Think about its lyrics. Are they full sentences?
Are they always correct? Sometimes they are. But sometimes there’s not. Sometimes they
actually do not make sense at all.

The truth is, when you’re writing a song, you need to make the lyrics match your tune (doing it the
other way round is possible but much more challenging, I imagine).

So, what happens is often a song will contain a combination of random words or it will be
grammatically incorrect.

Take Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State of Mind’. ‘Concrete jungle where dreams are made of’ – ‘of’?! You
needed that extra word for the tune to make sense but grammatically, that line is a disaster. (I
love the song, by the way!)

Can you learn a language from music then?

You can definitely use music to support your language learning. As long as you bear in mind what I
said above. Here are some tips on how to make the most of songs for language learning:

Listen to songs to familiarise yourself with the sound of the language 

Check the lyrics and focus on individual words (rather than sentences or phrases). Read them and
look up the ones you don’t understand. Listen to the song and concentrate on understanding how
the words are pronounced by the artist.

Memorise the lyrics and learn to sing along

Memorising the words is a good exercise – not just for your memory but for your confidence as
well. Memorising will involve listening to, reading and saying the words out loud so you’ll be
practising three important skills at the same time.

Once you’ve memorised the lyrics and can sing along to the song confidently, you’ll have a sense
of freedom – you’ll be able to articulate language seamlessly without thinking about it. It’s
probably as liberating as being able to speak it fluently. So, your confidence will get a boost as a
result.

I hope you found these tips useful! Do you learn languages form songs? Share your experiences in
the comments below!

Is it possible to learn a language from songs? And is it a good idea?

https://youtu.be/TYPdp0LLMyM

How to Learn Two Languages at the Same Time 3

22 Sep, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

How to learn two languages at the same time

Some of you may remember my blog post about how to learn several languages at the same time.
It’s a topic that many, many people are interested in for some reason! The post I wrote about it a
couple of years ago is actually one of the most popular posts on the 5-Minute Language blog ever.

And that’s great! I’m happy to see that so many people want to learn more than one language.
But…

There are also people who don’t care about being polyglots. They don’t want to learn multiple
languages but one is not enough. So, I thought it’s time to share something with them. In this post,
I’m going to talk about my favourite tips for learning two languages at the same time.

Before I start, I just want to make you aware of a video I made on this topic. It’s published on my
YouTube channel and I want to invite you to subscribe to that to make sure you don’t miss any of
my language advice I post there!

How to learn two languages at the same time 

Take a look at the tips below if you want to know how to learn two foreign languages at once.

Associate a different study routine with each language

Having two separate routines will help you see learning each language as a separate task. For
example, if you’re learning Spanish and Russian, you can have the following routines:

 Only learn Spanish on the bus on your way to work

 Only learn Russian in your favourite coffee shop

That way, you’ve got two separate routines that you don’t mix up, and there’s a clear distinction
between your two languages.

Use personas to keep the two languages separate 

A persona is a character you embody when you learn a language. It’s almost like having two
separate personalities. For example, if you’re learning French, your persona can be that of a
French impressionist painter. Imagine what this person is like, how they speak and behave, and try
to ‘become’ them when learning French.

Use a completely different persona when learning your second language. If it’s English, for
example, you can pretend to be an American rapper. It’s very different to being a French
impressionist painter, isn’t it?!

A persona can also be a character from a film or a book. Be creative and choose two very
distinctive personas!

When using this method, you will again create two separate contexts for the languages you’re
learning and you’ll make it less confusing for yourself.

Choose languages with different levels of proficiency

It’s easier to learn two languages at the same time when you’re at a different level with each of
them. For example, if you’re at the intermediate level with one language and a beginner with the
second language.

The difference in your levels of proficiency will create two separate contexts and you’ll be less
likely to mix up the languages.

Learn two very different languages

There are some benefits in learning two languages which are similar to each other. I’m going to
cover this in the next paragraph and I’ve actually written a separate post about the benefits of
learning languages which are similar to each other.

But for now, let’s stick with learning two very different languages at once. For example, I’m
learning Japanese and Spanish. There is no way in the world I’m going to mix them up because the
writing system, the vocabulary and the grammar are completely different.

If I was learning French and Spanish at the same time, though, it might be more confusing because
of the similarities they share. In fact, this has happened to me. When I first started learning
Spanish, I would use French words unintentionally instead of Spanish ones!

Now, let’s move on to the next tip, which kind of contradicts this one!
Learn two similar languages

The reason I said this tip contradicts the previous one is that you shouldn’t do both at once. You
should choose one of them – the one that works better for you. We’re all different and some of us
will find it useful to learn languages which are similar while others will be extremely confused by
that.

So this tip is about choosing two languages that share a lot of similar vocabulary. This can
certainly speed up your learning.

Schedule your learning

My final tip is about scheduling and planning your language learning.

First of all, make sure you have a good balance between the two languages. If you’re learning two
languages at the same time, you want to make sure you don’t accidentally abandon one of them.

Here’s an example of a schedule based on language weeks:

 One week for one language

 One week for the other language

 Then one week for the first language again, and so on

And here’s an example based on language days:

 Learn one language on weekdays

 Learn the other language on weekends

Try not to learn both languages on the same day. Go to sleep, get up with a fresh brain and learn

your second language then 

Are you learning two languages at the same time? Share your experiences in the comments
below! 

https://youtu.be/5hl5zXJx6YU

How to Stop Translating in Your Head

12 Jul, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

How to stop translating in your head when speaking a foreign language

Stop translating in your head because that’s not what language learning is about. Sounds easy,
doesn’t it? Well, it’s not that easy at all!

Translating in your head – either from your native language or into your native language – when
speaking or listening to a foreign language, is something many language learners struggle with. In
fact, it’s a very natural thing to do when you first start learning a new language.

It’s a habit that somehow develops early on and stays with you for a long, long time. And it’s one
that’s pretty hard to get rid of!

But don’t you worry – I’ve got some advice for you. So, if you’re wondering how to stop translating
in your head, then read on!

Or maybe you prefer a video – if that’s the case, feel free to just watch it here. And wait – don’t
forget to like it and subscribe to the 5-Minute Language Youtube channel!

Alrighty! Time to talk about my tips. Get ready – here’s tips number one:
Use a monolingual dictionary to stop translating in your head

A monolingual dictionary is a dictionary where the entries and their definitions are written in the
same language. Because monolingual dictionaries don’t contain literal translations of words into
any other language, you won’t be tempted to learn – and subsequently use – those translations.

When you use one of those dictionaries, you train your brain to focus on the meaning, or the
concept that a word represents, rather than its literal translation into your native language. That
way, you’re less likely to translate it yourself when you use it.

In fact, as you get more advanced, you will find that there will be words that you know – you will
understand their meaning but you won’t necessarily know their exact equivalents in your native
language. And that’s fine!

Use images instead of translations when learning new vocabulary

When you learn new vocabulary, try using images or symbols when writing it down in your
vocabulary notebook. For simple ones, you can just do a little drawing next to the word. For more
complex ones, you can either use symbols or simple pictures with some basic words.

This, again, will train your brain to stop translating words when speaking a foreign language. That’s
because you will learn to associate words with images or symbols rather than their exact
translations.

Read a lot and memorise phrases

Reading will force you to be confronted with idiomatic expressions and phrases. Try to memorise
those phrases that you come across – this will help you when constructing your own sentences.
Instead of having to make them from scratch when you need them, you will be able to recall some
of the phrases that you learned when reading.

And again – because you will have the ready-made phrases in your head, you won’t have to look
for translations of individual words and your brain will be less likely to be preoccupied with that.

Tell yourself off!

My final tip is quite a funny one. Whenever you catch yourself translating words in your head, say
‘translation, translation, translation’. By doing that, you will draw your own attention to the
frequency with which you translate in your head. And, as a consequence, you will begin to do it
less frequently.

Because who wants to be told off, right?

So, this is it – my four tips on how to stop translating words in your head when speaking a foreign
language. I’d love to hear your tips and experiences with this so make sure you share them in the
comments below!

Have I already mentioned that you should totally subscribe to my Youtube channel?

https://youtu.be/0KtT60NOdPc

Are language courses worth your money? 1

29 Jul, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

When you’re starting to learn a language, you’re probably wondering whether to sign up for a
language course or classes. And these things cost money so it’s an important decision to make.

Are language courses worth your money? I hope that this article will help you decide for yourself.

If you’d rather watch my video on this topic, here it is. Otherwise, continue reading!

Are language courses worth your money?

Language learners often jump at the idea of joining a language course because it seems like the
ultimate solution to their language learning problems.

But often, they don’t ask themselves whether the language course is actually worth their money.
Or what it is exactly that they’re paying for. Or why they’re paying for that specific thing.

So, if you’re wondering whether a language course is worth it, I would encourage you to first ask
yourself what you actually need.

Identifying your language learning needs

Don’t start by browsing courses to see which one you like most. Start with your own needs. What
is it that you’d like help with? What is it that you’d be willing to pay for? What is it that you
wouldn’t be able to do on your own, or you’d find hard to do on your own.  

Exploring these questions will help you pin down your needs and then find the best tool to meet
those needs. And that tool might indeed be a language course or classes. But it might be
something completely different (see my post about how to choose language learning resources). 

Focusing on your needs will force you to think outside the box. And it might turn out that a course
is not actually the right way to go. Or, if it is, you might find it easier to select the type of course
that matches your specific needs.

So, start with your needs and then look for the right tool.

Your language needs: examples

Let me give you some examples of what I mean by language learning needs.

You may decide, for example, that all you need is some speaking practice. If you’re really good at
organising and planning your learning, you know exactly how to learn grammar and vocabulary by
yourself, then you might decide that speaking is the only thing you’re willing to pay for.

Well, in this case, a course would probably not be right for you. Instead, you may choose to pay a
conversation partner or find a free language exchange partner. 1-1 tuition with a teacher could
also be a good idea, as long as you focus specifically on speaking.

Compare it with this example:

You’re about to start learning a new language and you’ve never done it before. You have no idea
how to learn a language or what resources to use. You don’t know how to learn grammar, where
to start, and how to memorise things. You don’t know how to stay motivated or what type of
activities you will enjoy.

In this case, you will probably need some kind of direction and a course could be a good solution
for you.

Like I said, focus on your needs first and the rest will follow.

Now, browse your courses

So, once you’ve explored your needs and decided that a course is something you’d like to pursue,
it’s time to browse some courses.

When looking at examples of courses, you will need to find out exactly what they’re offering, what
you’ll be paying for and how that matches your needs.

If all you need is speaking, and a course you’re looking to sign up for contains speaking, grammar
and vocabulary, it might not be right for you. You’d probably be wasting your money if you can
already learn grammar and vocabulary by yourself and the only thing you’d be taking away from
the course is the speaking bit.

Don’t be tempted by courses run by native speakers

I know it can be tempting to join a language course at a language school because they’re often run
by native speakers. And that’s one of their main selling points. Believe me – I’ve been there
myself.

Here’s how these courses are often marketed – X number of hours per week with a native speaker.
But what does that actually mean?

It’s important for you to find out at this point what the native speaker is there to do. Are you
actually going to speak the whole time? And how many other people are in the class? How much
speaking will you actually get to do?

I know that often, the native speakers are not there just to speak. Often, they do standard
language teaching activities with you – they’re there to supervise and make sure you’re learning
grammar, practising your writing skills, and so on. They’re often not there to just help you with
your speaking.

So, don’t be tempted to sign up for a language course just because it’s offering X number of hours
per week with a native speaker.

You might be wasting your money if you sign up and all you actually need is speaking practice.

Language courses give you a chance to get feedback

One thing language classes can be really good for is getting real-time feedback. When you study by
yourself, it can be difficult to know when you’re making mistakes.

So, for example, if you’re trying to practise your writing, you might be making mistakes that you
don’t realise you’re making. When you’re in a class, though, you’ll be corrected there and then.

There are, of course, ways around it.

You can find an exchange partner and share your writing with them, and get feedback that way.

So, if feedback is important to you, I would encourage you to consider what types of things you’d
like to get feedback on and then try to decide whether you’d rather get it from a course teacher or
in another way.

Are language courses a waste of money?

CLICK TO TWEET

The real work happens outside the classroom

Whether or not you decide to go ahead and sign up for a language course, the most important
thing to remember is that the real work happens outside the classroom. 

Language courses and classes are there to guide you, and provide support and feedback. And the
real work – the vocabulary learning, the reading practice, the listening, all of these things have to
be done on top of attending your lessons.

The bottom line

So, the bottom line is language courses and classes can be beneficial as long as you know exactly
what you need and the course provides that specific thing. Some language learners will find that
they can learn independently most of the time while others will find it easier to get a bit more
direction.

If you’d like to get more advice on how to learn languages independently, make sure you join
my community by filling out the form below! 

https://youtu.be/rj5TRPLP-wg

The Truth About Language Learning Nobody Talks About 2

14 Aug, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

I don’t know about you but whenever I look for language learning advice online, it all seems so
easy. Just do this one thing, then do this other thing, and a little bit of that, and it’ll all be good.

It’s one big success story. It’s all positive, motivating and inspiring.

But is that a true picture of what it’s like to learn a language? No, it’s not. And nobody seems to be
talking about it. Nobody seems to be talking about the dark side of language learning.

You keep learning new words and the more you think you know, the more frustrated you get.
Because you can’t use them. You forget them when they’re needed. You think to yourself, but how
is that possible? I studied so much, I used all the right techniques and it’s still not working.

You start doubting yourself. You might even think that you will never get better. That that’s the
peak of your ability.
This thought makes you disappointed. And angry. And hungry for more. More learning and more
fluency. And you do move forward. Slowly, but you do. Until you hit another plateau phase. When
everything seems so pointless.

Time is your enemy too. There’s never enough of it.

You end up on Facebook and Twitter, you end up reading articles about how to find the time you
think you don’t have. Instead of spending that time on language study.

You blame your own lack of discipline.

Everyone else seems to have time. Especially the people who talk about it online. They manage to
find the time, so why can’t I?

You sometimes feel shy when you speak. It’s a strange feeling because you’re not a shy person in
your native language. You’re really extroverted. Or just comfortable with people.

But you do get shy and nervous whenever you need to speak the language you’re learning.

Your body is tense and you apologise in your head for every mistake you’ve just realised you’ve
made. You’re so, so sorry. I knew how to say it so why didn’t I?

You have a different personality when you speak a foreign language. You’re not as funny. You feel
like you’re younger than you really are. Less experienced and less educated. You feel inferior.

You feel bad when people keep talking really fast because they don’t realise how hard it is for you.
And when they intentionally speak more slowly to help you out. You feel patronised.

And the constant fear of having to ask people to repeat what they’ve just said. More than once.

It does get better, though. As you learn more idiomatic expressions, you begin to sound more
natural. You begin to understand a lot more too.

Years after people start telling you you’re perfectly fluent, you still have doubts, though.

In noisy environments, you blame your listening comprehension on mishearing conversations.

When it’s probably too loud for even native speakers to understand what’s being discussed.

You know people you’re very fluent with, and people you’re not fluent with, even if in absolute
terms you’re perfectly fluent. Situations can make you less fluent. Emotions can make you less
fluent. Lack of personal connection with someone can make you less fluent.

It feels unpredictable. Sometimes things go really well. And sometimes they go really badly. Good
days and bad days. It’s not a story of constant success.

And you know what? That’s ok. It’s ok to feel frustrated. It’s ok to feel lost and helpless.
Sometimes. Because we all feel that way sometimes.

However you may be feeling right now about your language skills, about your progress, you’re not
the only one.
It’s ok to feel that way. And do you know why? Because it’s a normal part of the learning process.
A process which involves ups and downs.

Good days and bad days. Successes and failures.

Learning a language is all ups and downs. Successes and failures. And that’s OK.

CLICK TO TWEET

And that’s why you should know there’s always hope. The good days will come but in the
meantime, it’s ok to feel the way you feel. It will get better.

I though it was important to say this truth that everybody knows but not many people are willing
to talk about. And I hope it will make you feel at least a little bit more confident and proud of
yourself.

Because you are doing good, language learner. You’re doing great! So keep it up 

How I became fluent in English (relevant to all languages!)

15 Apr, 2018  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 376 days ago)

How I became fluent in English

Since I moved to the UK many years ago, people have been telling me how good my English is.
Here are some things I’ve been hearing over and over again:

 Your English is so good!

 Your English is better than mine (and I’m a native speaker)!

 You don’t have a Polish accent!

 I can’t tell where you’re from!

This is flattering and it does make me feel good about the effort I’ve put into developing my
English language skills over the years.

However, whenever I hear people say these things, there’s a little voice screaming inside my head:
‘Thank you but I was already fluent in English before I moved to England!’ and ‘The reason I’m
fluent is not because I’ve lived in England for a long time!’.
I don’t want people to assume that I’m only fluent in English because I’ve lived in England for
many years. Because living abroad is not what makes you fluent. Or at least, it’s not a requirement
for becoming fluent.

I actually became fluent before ever travelling to an English-speaking country. OK – I wasn’t as
fluent as I am now. But I was fluent. I’d definitely describe my level as fluent. C2. Proficient. Do you
get my point?

I’m not saying this to sound big-headed or anything. I’m saying this because I want you to believe
that you too can learn a language without ever leaving your native country.

And I’m going to show you how. I’m going to share with you some of the things I did to get to
fluency in English. These things can be replicated in pretty much any language so I’m sure you’ll
find them useful regardless of what language you’re learning.

So, without further ado, here are the things I did to become fluent in English.

If you’d rather watch my video about this, here it is! Otherwise, read on!

Very focused vocabulary work

The one, absolutely crucial thing I did when learning English was very focused vocabulary work
using magazines.

There was a bookshop in my hometown where you could get international newspapers and
magazines. So I used to go there and get Time Magazine and the international edition of
Newsweek. Those two issues lasted me for a few months. And here’s why.

I would pick an article and underline all words I didn’t know. I was probably at the intermediate or
upper-intermediate level at the time, so there were a lot of words I didn’t understand. I then
checked each of them for meaning. First, in an English-Polish dictionary (Polish is my native
language), and then in a monolingual one (it’s a type of a dictionary where both the entries and
the definitions are in the same language). I then recorded the words (and their translations) in my
vocabulary notebook. I’m not saying recording translations is a good approach – I’m just saying
that’s something I did at the time (when I was about 15-16) and it worked for me then.

My vocabulary notebook was essentially a very long list of English words and their Polish
equivalents. It went on for pages.

I then used highlighters to highlight the words I thought I’d memorised at every revision session. I
highlighted them in one colour and then came back to them after a while and highlighted them in
another colour when I was certain I knew them well. That was my own kind of spaced repetition
system, long before I even knew what spaced repetition was.

I did the same with phrases and expressions, including phrasal verbs and idioms.

This process of going through articles may sound quite tedious and perhaps it was at times. It was
because I couldn’t really take any pleasure in reading the article content, as it would take me ages
to go through each article. But it was very effective.
Vocabulary is extremely important when learning a foreign language – the more you know, the
closer you are to fluency.

Idioms and collocations

This one is related to the vocabulary work I detailed above. Idioms are basically groups of words in
a fixed order that have a particular meaning that is different from the meaning of each word on its
own. Collocations are combinations of words that go together and sound natural.

When you start learning a foreign language – and even when you’re more advanced – you
sometimes combine words in an unnatural way. This is completely normal and it’s part of the
learning process. As time goes on, you begin to understand that some words always go in the
same groups. For example, in English, you’d say ‘a quick bath’ rather than ‘a speedy bath’. ‘A quick
bath’ just sounds more natural.

You can learn collocations by reading a lot in the language you’re learning. The more you see
certain groupings of words, the more familiar they become. You then begin to instinctively
recognise the ones that sound natural and the ones that don’t.

You can speed up this process, though. I definitely recommend that you proactively learn
collocations – make it part of your study routine (rather than just absorbing them through
reading).  

Going back to what I did back in the day when I was learning English, I basically got a dictionary of
English collocations and whenever I came across a new word grouping when going through my
Time Magazine and Newsweek articles, I would look it up in the dictionary and then record it in my
vocabulary notebook.

Collocations dictionaries exist in many different languages so I’m sure you won’t have a problem
finding one in the language you’re learning.

You can do the same with idioms. I got myself an English idioms dictionary and looked up various
idioms relating to the words I was learning regularly.

Learning collocations and idioms in this way helped me develop a more natural and colloquial way
of speaking, and it definitely helped me in my journey towards fluency.

Simplified novels

Apart from vocabulary work, reading is my favourite way of learning languages. You need to read a
lot to familiarise yourself with the structure of the language you’re leaning. And also to see the
words you’re learning in action.

When I was learning English, I started with simplified novels. A simplified novel is basically one
that’s written in simpler language. For example, you can have a simplified version of Wuthering
Heights, which is one of the novels I read in a simplified version when I was learning English.

I’m sure simplified novels exist in many different languages – just google it. If you don’t find
anything, you can try children’s books or short stories instead. They’re great because the language
they use is often simple enough to follow when you’re an intermediate learner.
I moved on to reading actual novels later on, when my language skills developed enough. If you
start reading proper novels too early, you might get frustrated so I definitely recommend starting
small.

Speaking to myself

At the time when I was learning English, internet wasn’t really a big thing – crazy, I know! There
was no Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, no blogs and no language exchange platforms like Italki.
There was no Skype! So, I’m sure you will know what I mean when I tell you it was extremely hard
to find an English speaker to talk to. I didn’t know any English speakers in my hometown.

I figured out that I could actually speak to myself. So, whenever I was home alone, that’s what I’d
do – speak to myself! One of my favourite things was pretending I was a celebrity being
interviewed on television. I’d talk about my life and my work, come up with stories to tell, and so
on.

Of course there is a drawback to speaking to yourself – you can’t get any feedback. Nobody can
correct your mistakes or give you advice on how to improve.

But don’t be put off by that. Speaking is speaking. Even if you speak to yourself, you’re practising
your skills and developing your confidence. Don’t ever feel like you can’t practise your speaking if
you don’t know any native speakers of the language you’re learning.

You can, of course, complement this type of practice with a proper language exchange – in person
or on Skype, depending on your situation – and get feedback during those sessions.

Another thing I did, apart from pretending to be a celebrity, was what I now call ‘echoing’. It’s a
technique whereby you repeat what you hear word for word. For example, when you play a video
and pause it to repeat. It’s a great way to process the language you’re hearing and to practise your
pronunciation. Echoing will also help you solidify the phrases you repeat in your memory.

Pen friends

If you’re younger than me, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. But let me explain.
When I was learning English, one thing that helped me a lot was having pen friends.

Like I said above, social media didn’t exist at the time. But there was a printed magazine for
English language learners that I used to read. There was a section in it where people would place
adverts saying they’re looking for people they could correspond with by letters. It’s kind of like the
equivalent of social media but on paper – I guess? So they would post their home addresses in the
magazine and you could write them a letter, and then they would get back to you. Putting your
postal address in an international magazine sounds a bit weird now, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I made a few friends this way. I knew people in Ghana and in Hong Kong, and it was really
great to be able to write them letters in English and get letters from them. We would also
exchange little gifts like stickers or photographs, which was super fun!  

If you’re trying to practise your written language skills, I definitely recommend this. You can, for
example, set up an email exchange with somebody. Or just use Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.
What’s your story?

So this is it – the story of how I became fluent in English! I hope you enjoyed it. It would be great if
you could share your story of getting to fluency (in any language) in the comments below.

And, if you’re not fluent yet, I want to invite you to join my community! I share my top tips and
advice on language learning by email with my community of thousands of language learners. It’s

fun and it’s free to join. See you on the inside! Sign up using the form below   

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying
purchases. All resources recommended in this article are ones I would use myself and
recommend to anyone learning Polish. I do not recommend resources that I don’t believe to be
valuable. 

https://youtu.be/sVXXWNGZFZc

How to sound like a native speaker in a foreign language 9

13 Dec, 2015  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

How to sound like a native speaker?

If you prefer to watch a video about this topic, then here it is! Don’t forget to subscribe to the 5-
Minute Language Youtube channel and give this video a thumbs up – thank you!
If you’d like to read my advice in detail, here it is!

When I moved to England for the first time, I really wanted to sound like a native. I felt very
strongly that my ability to speak without my native accent was the one and only goal to aim for. I
wanted to be part of the crowd. I thought people would judge me if I didn’t – that they would
comment on it or think I was less capable because I couldn’t speak ‘perfectly’, just like them. I was
doing my undergraduate degree and I wanted to sound like an ‘educated’ person.

I found it hard to speak at all because of that. I would prefer one-to-one situations where there
was only one ‘judge’ of my accent – if anything went wrong, at least there’s only one person
hearing it. In big groups, I tended to be a listener. Or I would make friends with other non-natives
– at least they wouldn’t always know I had my accent.

Then something changed when I moved to France for my year abroad. I stopped caring about my

accent. Thinking about it now, it’s probably because my stay in France was so temporary – just a
year, so if I made a fool out of myself, I’d be out of the country and nobody would judge me again.
So I really went for it and pretty much became fluent in my third month there.

The two years before that at a British university seemed more permanent and perhaps that’s why I
used to care about my accent so much. When I got back from France, though, I became much
more confident, I started to speak in class, speak in front of groups, I became more sociable. I even
performed in a student theatre play as one of the two main characters!

So let me tell you something before I go into my tips for how to sound more like a native
speaker. Having an accent is OK. It’s actually nice when you hear someone speak another
language with a hint of their own. It’s part of them – it’s part of their personality and their
uniqueness. It makes them interesting.

If your ambition, though, is to sound more like a native speaker of the language you’re learning,
that’s OK too. I’m going to give you some ideas for how you can move towards this goal but
remember – doing is better than perfect. Speaking a language at all is better than not speaking
because you feel self-conscious about your accent.

Analyse spoken language

Find a recording of a native speaker and listen to it paying attention to the sounds you hear. Listen
for the following:

 Which sounds/words blend into one?

 Which two words sound like one?

 Which letters are pronounced differently to how you thought they’d be pronounced? How
are they pronounced?

 Which letters are not pronounced at all?

You can write down what you hear and use a different colour pen to record the information above
next to the words/letters. You will easily identify patterns that come up again and again in spoken
language, and put them into practice next time you’re speaking your target language.

Focus on pronunciation

Pronunciation is the most basic element of sounding like a native speaker. What I mean by
pronunciation is the way you say the different sounds that make up words. I’m not talking about
sentences at this point.

Start by identifying your problem areas. Which words are the ones you’re struggling with? What
sounds are they made up of? In French, for example, the words I always used to find difficult to
pronounce were ones containing the ‘eux’ and ‘eau’ letter combinations. They’re not sounds that
you will find in English or in my native Polish so they’re quite tricky to master.

Google Translate is a great tool for practising your pronunciation of these problematic sounds
because you can get it to say the words and repeat them as many times as necessary. My tip
would be to listen to them and compare the sounds to very similar sounds to spot the difference
between them. For example, in English they could be words like ‘been’ and ‘bin’ – the sound in the
middle is long or short depending on which one of the two you’re saying.

Word stress: get it right

Word stress is the stress you put on a specific syllable within a word. It’s not the same as sentence
stress (which is the stress you put on a specific word within a sentence). Word stress is very
important in languages where it occurs. For example, in the Spanish word ‘mañana’, it’s the
second syllable which should be emphasised.

Again, you can use Google Translate and do a little word stress exercise. Take a newspaper article
and pronounce each word individually followed by listening to its correct stress in Google
Translate. Focus on the stress – can you hear the difference between the way you stress it and the
way Google Translate does it? Continue until you get it right.

Sentence stress: stress the right words

As I said above, sentence stress is about emphasising a particular word or (words) within a
sentence. This can be done, for example, for emphasis or to clarify what you mean. For example:

I  work  in London.

Yes, but where do you  live?

I  live  in Paris.

Or:

My  brother  lives in Madrid.

I know, but where do  you  live?

I  live in Warsaw.

When doing your next listening activity, pay attention to which words are stressed in each
sentence and repeat this pattern yourself. As you do it more and more, you will begin to notice
patterns of stress that native speakers use all the time. For example, when an English native
speaker says ‘Did you have a nice weekend?’, the first five words tend to be quite flat and blend
into one, with the final word emphasised.

Intonation: get the musicality right

Intonation is the rise and fall of your voice when you speak. In some languages, intonation goes up
at the end, which indicates it’s a question – this is the case in Polish, for example. If I use the exact
same intonation in English, I’m definitely going to reveal my non-nativeness.

Something I do sometimes when practising my intonation is to just focus on intonation. To do that,

you need to eliminate words and ‘speak’ using a made-up word (try ‘mi’ or ‘mimi’). Listen to a
recording, sentence by sentence, and ‘repeat’ using your word (‘mi’ or ‘mimi’, or anything else you
like!) – this will essentially sound like you’re just saying ‘mimimi mimi mimimimi’. That way, you
don’t get distracted by meaning and you focus your full attention on intonation. Language is like
music – it goes up and down, and once you get it right you’ll move closer and closer towards
sounding like a native speaker.

Use connectors to make conversation flow

What I’ve found to be one of the most useful things when trying to figure out how to sound like a
native speaker is what I’m going to call ‘connectors’. They are phrases that are not necessarily
integral to the message you or your conversation partner are trying to communicate. They’re
phrases that connect thoughts – either your own or your own and your conversation
partner’s. They can also be phrases that you use to react to something somebody else has said, or
phrases that you use to express your mood. Let me give you some examples.

In English, for example, they can be:

 If somebody tells you something surprising, e.g. ‘My friend has won the lottery!’, you can
react with ‘Has he?!’ or ‘Has he really?’

 You can say ‘so’, ‘right’ or ‘well’ to introduce your next thought

 You can say ‘right’ or ‘I see’ to show that you’re listening to what your conversation
partner is saying

Pay attention to what connectors your conversation partners use. Don’t have a conversation
partner?Why don’t you check out italki – it’s a great platform where you can connect with native
speakers.

Use fillers to sound more natural

Fillers are a kind of non-words that native speakers will use in the middle of sentences or when
they’re about to say something. They can be sounds such as ‘hmm’, ‘um’ or ‘like’. They’re what
makes speech natural and native-like.
Here’s a great article from Lingholic on the subject of fillers.

Imitate native speakers’ mistakes?

A lot of native speakers say things which you think may be incorrect. Things which go against the
rules that you learned when learning their language. To give you an example, a lot of English
people use the conditional ‘incorrectly’. For example, when you learn English, this would be the
‘correct’ way of saying the following sentence.

If I’d brought my umbrella, I wouldn’t have got soaked.

What you hear people in England say all the time, though, is:

If I’d have brought my umbrella, I wouldn’t have got soaked.

If you’re a native English speaker, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think this is a mistake. It’s just the
way spoken language has evolved. Textbooks just haven’t caught up yet!

I’m not necessarily going to encourage you to make mistakes intentionally. However, if there’s
something you notice native speakers say all the time, you can drop it into a conversation every
now and then, even if it goes against the rules in your textbooks! That may move you a little bit
closer to the native speaker crowd.

Get the register right

Register is simply the level of formality with which you speak. The key to sounding more like a
native speaker is to adjust your register to the situation you’re in – not sounding too informal
when you’re delivering a presentation at university or at work, and not sounding too formal when
you’re having a friendly chat down the pub.

If I said ‘Did you receive my email?’, I’d be most likely talking to a work colleague, and if I said
‘How is it going?’, I’d probably be talking to a friend of mine.

You can focus on identifying the words used in different contexts next time you’re doing a listening
exercise. Watch a TV show featuring friends and listen for words they use in informal
conversations between themselves. Watch the news to listen for more formal words and
expressions. Find a formal speech by a politician to listen for words connected to a very formal
register. Watch a YouTube tutorial if you’re looking for something more chatty and conversational.

Keep a list of informal vocabulary

This is related to the section above which is about register. If you’re wondering how to sound like
a native speaker, create a little dictionary of informal vocabulary that you will be able to use in a
conversation with your friends in social situations.

When learning languages, I often find that I can talk about big and serious subjects (such as
politics, current affairs, etc.) relatively soon after I start to learn the language. It’s the more
‘simple’ conversations that are problematic – I just sound too serious!

One way to solve this problem is to create a list of words that people use in informal situations.
For example, in English, you’re likely to hear words such as ‘brilliant’, ‘cool’, ‘amazing’, ‘mate’,
‘cheers’ during a conversation in a pub.

Focus on body language

Perhaps you haven’t considered this but body language is really an integral part of sounding more
like a native. The facial expressions you make, the amount of smiling you do when you speak, the
way you use your arms to support what you’re saying – these are all non-verbal elements that help
you express your message more clearly and sound more native-like.

A good way to get a grasp of the kind of body language native speakers of the language you’re
learning use – apart from obviously hanging out with them – is to watch some videos and focus
specifically on body language. What is it that they’re talking about? What are their faces doing and
when? What’s the tone of the conversation – are they being friendly, suspicious, hostile,
welcoming? Try to read their body language and if you’re struggling – ask your language exchange
partner about the more unfamiliar gestures and faces you can’t read very easily.

What does ‘native’ really mean, though?

One problem with learning how to sound like a native speaker is that the idea of ‘native’ is so
fluid, especially if you’re learning a language that has many regional variations.

For example, if I’m learning Spanish, do I want to sound like a person from Madrid, Valencia,
Colombia, Mexico, or a Puerto Rican living in the United States? They are all native speakers,
aren’t they?

How to Sound Like a Native Speaker When Speaking a Foreign Language

CLICK TO TWEET
A foreign accent is a good conversation starter

The bottom line of all this, as I already said in the introduction to the article, is that having a
foreign accent is perfectly OK when speaking another language. As long as you’re understood –
that’s what really matters!

Having a foreign accent can be part of your identity and it can be an invitation to a conversation
every time you speak. Your conversation partner will be interested to hear what your background
story is and where you’re from, and your relationship may be more authentic as a result.

So, good luck with whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve – whether it’s sounding more like a
native speaker or simply sounding more fluent!

Agnieszka

https://youtu.be/imJfVKAkQK4

Overcome the Fear of Speaking in 3 Easy Steps 1

10 Oct, 2016  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

Speaking – it’s tough! We’re all in the same boat, though. You’re not the only person who’s feeling
that way. It takes courage to get started. It can be overwhelming. But… I’ve got good news for you
– you can do it!

When I moved to France in 2007, I thought I had what I needed. I’d been learning French for about
four years at that point. I could easily read novels in French, including Victor Hugo and Marcel
Proust, and I was also getting into graphic novels. I had a lot of vocabulary – both formal and
informal – and I knew lots of synonyms and language structures for talking about the most
complex of topics.

I thought to myself – this is going to be easy!

And then, suddenly, I found myself in a student hall of residence in the town of Le Mans, having to
have casual conversations about everyday things. Conversations with real human beings. Not with
characters from Victor Hugo’s novels. No, no, no – those were real French people.

I’m not going to lie to you – I did feel scared. I felt scared then but since that moment, I have
developed ways to cope with it and that’s exactly what I’m going to share with you in this post.

I’m going to show you my 3-step process for overcoming the fear of speaking. Here we go!

If you’d rather watch my video about this topic, here it is! Don’t forget to subscribe to 5-Minute
Language on Youtube for more videos like this one!

Step 1: Adopt an abundance mindset

The fear of speaking is in your head. It’s not a physical thing – it’s to do with your thought patterns
and beliefs you hold about your own skills. That’s why if you want to get rid of the fear of
speaking, you need to start with your thoughts. And more specifically, with your mindset.

So, what is an abundance mindset? Well, it’s a way of thinking that allows you to spot
opportunities where you thought there were none. An abundance mindset is about making the
most of what you’ve got already – making the most of your existing skills and knowledge, instead
of focusing on what you don’t know.

One reason you may be hesitant to speak is that you don’t think you know enough grammar. For
example, you don’t know the future tense and you want to talk about the future. You can use the
present tense, though, and you’ve got quite a bit of vocabulary. There’s always a way around
talking about the future without actually using the future tense. Use the words and grammar
structures you doknow to explain what you mean. You can communicate even if it’s not perfect.

I’ve written a detailed explanation of what an abundance mindset looks like in practice on Benny
Lewis’ blog so head over there to take a look.

Step 2: Accept that the other person is there to help you

Another reason my students and readers have mentioned that makes them hesitant to speak is
that they feel judged or they worry that they will ridicule themselves. It’s a very common problem
and it doesn’t just affect language learners – it affects many people who are hesitant to speak in
public in their native language!
The most important thing to realise when having a conversation in a foreign language is that the
other person wants to communicate with you. They’re interested in what you’ve got to say rather
than in how you say it.

You may be interested yourself in how you say it because you’re doing your best to speak
correctly. However, most of the time, your conversation partner is there for the conversation
itself. If you’re talking about football, they’re there to hear your thoughts about football. If you’re
talking about your family, they’re there to hear about your family. They’re not there to test your
language skills or check how many mistakes you’re making.

And more often than not, they will help you out if you stumble – if you can’t think of the right
word or if you’re not sure how to pronounce something. Your conversation partner is your friend –
not your enemy.

Image: Everton Villa

Here’s my challenge for you:

Next time you’re having a conversation with your language partner, adopt the attitude I described
above and see what happens. Try to identify your feelings and see what you could do differently to
feel less anxious about talking to your partner.

Haven’t got a language partner? Check out italki, which is a great platform for finding language
partners to practise speaking with (and get $10 off your first lesson – yay!).
Step 3: Speak before you think

Have you ever had this feeling where you want to say something and you don’t because you say to
yourself:

‘I’ll just wait a few seconds and then speak.’

And then it gets worse because you start getting nervous and you give yourself another minute
before you go ahead and speak.

And then it gets even worse.

The longer you wait, the more time your brain has to register your feelings of nervousness and
anxiety. And then it continues to build on it so you get more and more anxious.

The key here is to not allow your brain to realise how nervous you feel. That’s why you need to
speak as soon as you get a chance – speak before you think.

Once you’re the flow, it will become much easier to speak than it seemed just a few moments
before.

So, are you ready for your next conversation? I know you are!

Overcome the Fear of Speaking a Foreign Language with These 3 Easy Steps

CLICK TO TWEET

I hope you enjoyed these little tips! What do you do to get rid of the fear of speaking? Or maybe
you’re never scared you speak! Share your experiences in the comments below!

https://youtu.be/4Fqj_vWPxBo

5 Books Every Language Learner Should Read 1

19 Apr, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 376 days ago)

The 23 April 2017 is World Book and Copyright Day. To mark this occasion, I’ve decided to share
with you my 5 favourite books that I think you should read if you want to become a more effective
language learner.

I’ve also made a video in which I share some extra details about the books. Make sure you watch it
as well and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel:

Are you ready to look at the 5 books every language learner should read? Let’s get started!

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

What is it? A classic in the world of productivity by Stephen Covey.

Why should language learners read it? This book teaches you how to be effective in any area of
your life. It applies to language learning as well. 

The book contains very practical strategies for how you can maximise your time and focus on what
matters now to make the most impact, and eliminate distraction and procrastination.
I’m certainly going to re-read this book periodically throughout my life.

2. Talk Like Ted

What is it? A write-up of what we know about the best TED talks and their speakers’ techniques by
Carmine Gallo.

Why should language learners read it? Language learners will find this book useful because of the
practical advice on what techniques will make you an exceptional public speaker.

Practising public speaking is a great way of developing your confidence, which will in turn affect
how good you are when interacting with people in your target language.

3. Daring Greatly

What is it? An exploration of vulnerability and courage by Brene Brown.

Why should language learners read it? Learning to have courage and to be vulnerable is a key
element of language learning success. Whenever you speak – regardless of your level – you take a
risk and so you make yourself vulnerable.

The natural reaction many of us have is to fight vulnerability by trying to appear perfect. But
vulnerability doesn’t have to be a weakness – it’s what allows you to build your confidence when
speaking foreign languages, and ultimately – make progress.

4. The Power of Now

What is it? An exploration of what it means to be living truly in the present by Eckhart Tolle.

Why should language learners read it? The book explores the idea of ‘the now’ being the only
thing that’s real. When learning a foreign language, it’s easy to focus on the future a lot – wanting
to be fluent or perfect – and not enough on what you know right now.

Learning to live in the present will help you enjoy and celebrate your existing knowledge of the
language you’re learning, and help you feel less anxious about your apparent lack of progress.

5. Thinking, Fast and Slow

What is it? An explanation of how our brains make judgements and decisions by Daniel
Kahneman.

Why should language learners read it? It’s a fantastic exploration of what influences our thought
process in different situations, such as meeting new people.

Language learners will find the theory behind it interesting because it can be applied to their own
interactions with people from different countries and cultures. It will help you understand how
impressions (both good and bad!) are made and what you can do to influence it…

What’s your favourite book? Share it in the comments below!

5 Books Every Language Learner Should Read

https://youtu.be/qxViuZiCFB0
How to be less shy when speaking a foreign language

2 Sep, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch

Feeling shy is something most of us have experienced before when trying to speak a foreign
language. Some of us feel anxious, not too confident and sometimes even scared. It’s all natural
and it’s all part of the journey.

But there are some things you can do to overcome the shyness and feel more confident when
speaking the language you’re learning.

I’ve made a video about this topic so make sure you watch it and don’t forget to subscribe to
my YouTube channel, which is where I post videos like this one regularly. If you’d rather read my
tips, then scroll down and continue reading!

Focus on your strengths 

The feeling of shyness or anxiety is sometimes caused by focusing on what you don’t know or can’t
say. It’s caused by the realisation that you don’t have the vocabulary to explain something. Or that
you can’t speak quickly enough. Or that you won’t be able to understand what the other person is
saying.

If you want to overcome this feeling, the first step you need to take is to focus on your
strengths and on the things that you do know and can say. You need to focus on the positives.

Realising all the things you already know and acknowledging them will give you more confidence
and self-belief. And it will help you feel less shy.
On a practical level, this means, for example, being able to express your message using vocabulary
that you know already to explain more complex ideas.

Accept the other person is there to help you

Your conversation partner is not there to judge you. They’re there because they’re interested in
you and want to learn more about you. They’re interested in your message rather than how you
communicate it.

They will also help you if you get stuck. They’re your partner and not your enemy.

Another thing to bear in mind is that your conversation partner will likely be impressed with your
language skills. They might not speak a foreign language themselves. After all, you’re making an
effort and trying to speak their language. So whatever level you’re at, you’re trying and that’s what
matters. They should be grateful for that.

Speak before you’re ready 

Anxiety and shyness can be made worse by waiting to say your first sentence. If you wait too long,
it will often get worse and worse. You will feel more nervous and shy. Negative thoughts and self-
criticism may start cropping up in your head. And at that point, it will be more difficult to fight
them.

So the best thing to do is to speak before you think – speak before you’re ready. Say something –
anything. It’s better than staying quiet and wondering whether or not to speak at all. That first
sentence will show you that you can do it, that it’s possible. And it will give your confidence a
boost. Only good things can follow from that.

Good luck with your confidence, language learner. Don’t forget to check out the 5-Minute
Language YouTube channel and subscribe to it for more video advice!

https://youtu.be/4Fqj_vWPxBo

5 Facts about Language Learning Backed by Science

23 Jun, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

What I tend to do on this blog is share with you some of the tips and techniques that have worked
for me and helped me learn foreign languages effectively.

They’re my tips and my opinions, though. And what works for me, won’t always work for everyone
else.

So, I thought it would be interesting to look into what science has to say about language learning.

Here are five fun facts about language learning backed by science!

1. Spaced repetition really works

Spaced repetition is a language learning technique that helps you keep the words you learn fresh
in your memory. You learn them once, then you take a break, then you study them again, take a
break again, and so on and so on. You increase the breaks as you go along to stretch your brain
when recalling the words.

There are a number of studies (like this one) into the benefits of spaced repetition and they seem
to agree that spacing out your learning can help you learn more effectively.
Check out my video on how to learn vocabulary effectively for more details.

2. Mnemonics really works as well

Mnemonics is a memorisation technique that doesn’t just help you remember new words but it
also helps you recall them when you need them during a conversation.

I’ve written about it on this blog, made a video about it, and I’ve used it extensively for learning
languages (especially Japanese because mnemonics is a great technique for memorising words
which are very unfamiliar).

Research suggests that mnemonics is indeed an effective technique for recalling what you’ve
memorised. Check out this study, for example.

3. Adults can learn languages successfully at any age

Research suggests that learning a language becomes more challenging as we age.

However, it seems that this change is not biological but rather perceptual. This means that with
the right kind of approach, adults can learn languages as effectively as children.

And it’s definitely not the case that learning a language later in life is impossible! Indeed, adults
can be better learners than children in some respects. They’re better at reflecting on their
learning, understanding their own strengths and weaknesses, and learning in a structured and
productive way.

4. Bilinguals have more grey matter than monolinguals

A 2015 study suggests that people who speak two languages have more grey matter in parts of the
brain than those who just speak one language.

The study also showed that there was no evidence of more grey matter in people who were
bilingual in one spoken language and a sign language. I thought that was interesting!

5. Learning a language improves cognition later in life

There has been various pieces of research (see this, this and this) that suggest that learning a
language can delay the onset of dementia and improve general cognition later in life.

Another interesting point that’s come up is that because learning a language later in life may be
more challenging than when you’re young, it’s actually good for your brain because it exercises it
more.

5 Facts about Language Learning Backed by Science

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The Biggest Mistake Language Learners Make

18 Jun, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

I’ve written about language learning mistakes before. There are many standard mistakes that we
all make at different points of our language learning journeys.

But there is one big mistake that I think trumps them all. It’s a mistake that is most likely to stall
your progress and prevent you from moving forward.

Do you want to find out what it is? Check out the video! Or, if you’d rather read about it, scroll
down and continue reading.

The biggest language learning mistake I can think of is being comfortable.

For many of us, being comfortable is what we strive for. We want to be able to speak and
understand, so that we can communicate comfortably. We want to know and understand. We
want to avoid the anxiety of not knowing or not understanding.

It’s a natural desire to have – don’t get me wrong!

Whenever you’re learning something new, comfort is one of the goals. When you learn to cycle,
you want to be able to do it flawlessly – not like this:

When you learn to play tennis, you want to be able to hit the ball without feeling pain in your arm
every time.

When you learn to play the piano, you want to hear pleasant sounds, and you want whoever is
listening to feel comfortable, without having to cover their ears every time!

So what’s my point? Why do I think that feeling comfortable when learning a language is a bad
thing?

Because it prevents you from growing.

Take a look at this quote from Neil Armstrong:

  “I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face
challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things   just as
salmon swim upstream.”

Armstrong wouldn’t have walked on the moon if the default attitude of astronauts had been to
feel comfortable.

We need to stretch ourselves, step out of our comfort zone and feel challenged if we want to
achieve bigger things.

The same thing goes for language learning.

So how can you challenge yourself when learning a foreign language?

When deciding what to do next, think about what would be useful for you to know – rather
than easy.

For example, if you want to be able to talk to a friend about your last holiday, it will be useful for
you to know how to use the past tense. Perhaps it’s not the most intuitive thing to learn the past
tense as a beginner but you will benefit from it in the long run if you do. You will challenge
yourself and grow as a result.

The same goes for reading. You might think that you should stick to simplified novels, rather than
their originals, for example. But nothing stops you from reading ‘proper’ novels or real newspapers
even as a beginner. You might not be able to understand everything but everything you learn
(even if it’s just a handful of words!) will be a bonus.

When it comes to speaking, don’t wait until you’re ready. Start before you feel confident. Saying
anything is better than saying nothing. Challenge yourself, step out of your comfort zone, and
notice the amazing things that will happen.

What are some other language learning mistakes?

So this was the biggest language learning mistake I could think of but it’s not the only one.

I’ve put together a list of 12 other mistakes that language learners make frequently plus advice on
how to fix them in another blog post. Check it out!

12 Mistakes Language Learners Make and How to Fix Them

Good luck with your learning!

https://youtu.be/1A2M_I19Ge8

How Many Words Do You Need to Speak a Foreign Language? 1

30 May, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

How many bricks do you need to build a house? How many steps do you need to take from your
living room to your kitchen? How many eggs do you need to make an omelette?

How easy is it to answer these questions? It’s quite straightforward. They are three tasks that
require a specific number of things (bricks, steps, eggs) to get them accomplished.

I’d probably use three eggs to make an omelette for myself – and maybe five if I was making one
for two people. Easy question – easy answer!
Yum!

So, how many words do you need to know to speak a foreign language?

This question is different. It’s not as easy as the other three.

If you want to find out what I think the answer is, read on or watch the video below!

The number of words you need to know to speak a foreign language is not fixed and it depends on
a number of things.

But if we want to answer the question of how many words you need to speak a language, we
should first tackle the question of what it means to speak a language.

What does it mean to ‘speak a language’?

If I can say a few things in Japanese, does it mean I can speak it? It certainly doesn’t mean I can
speak it fluently but it does mean I can communicate (at least a little bit).

For me, speaking a language means being able to communicate – being able to say
things and being able to understand what other people are saying.

You don’t need thousands of words to speak a foreign language 

Most everyday conversations will involve words that get repeated in the same conversation a
number of times. I call them general words. Words like ‘do’, ‘get’, ‘have’. Words that are so flexible
that they allow you express a number of different things. Words that you will need all the time.

General words help you express general concepts but they also help you describe more specific
concepts. Concepts that you don’t know how to translate directly into your target language.

For example, the word ‘jog’ in English. You may not know how to say it but you may know how to
say ‘run’ and ‘fun’. So, you can explain the concept of ‘jog’ by saying it’s like ‘running for fun’.

And there you go – you’ve just communicated a concept without knowing the specific words you
need to translate it.

So, what I’m trying to say is that you don’t need thousands of specific words to speak a foreign
language. What you need instead is a good number of general words that are flexible enough to
enable you to communicate.

Focus on the general vocabulary first

When learning a foreign language, try to focus on the general vocabulary first, before you move on
to more specific vocabulary.

Even a small number of general words will be enough to convey most messages.

Like I said, the number is not fixed. So, first determine what it means for you to ‘speak a language’.
Then, decide what general words you need to be able to communicate – understand and be
understood.

But how do you choose which words to learn?

For more detailed advice, check out my article about how to choose which words to learn in a
foreign language.

How many words do you need to speak a foreign language?

CLICK TO TWEET

I hope you found this article useful. Don’t forget to join my newsletter (below) to get access to
exclusive advice on language learning.

Take care and good luck!

Agnieszka

https://youtu.be/io0RQIosujY

30 Most Common Spelling Mistakes in English [infographic]

13 Apr, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 876 days ago)

Most common spelling mistakes in English

Here’s a list of the most common spelling mistakes in English. And it’s not only English learners
that struggle with them. Even native speakers often find it difficult to remember how to spell these
words!

Enjoy the infographic!

30 Most Common Spelling Mistakes in English – INFORGRAPHIC

CLICK TO TWEET

Are you learning English?

Head over to the 5-Minute Language Youtube channel for free videos for English learners!

 Your Complete Guide to Starting a Blog 1

2 Apr, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 583 days ago)

In February this year, my blog 5-Minute Language turned two! Time really does fly!

It’s been a great couple of years of sharing my passion with you guys and interacting with you.
Running the blog has also enabled me to meet a lot of interesting language learners, including
other language bloggers, collaborate on projects and start new friendships.

I’ve also learned a whole lot of stuff about blogging in the past two years. So, in this post I’d like to
share with you everything I know about how to start a blog.

Here’s your complete guide!

How to Start a Blog 

In this post, I’m going to cover the basic steps you need to take to start your own blog. They are
the essential steps you will need to take to get started.

I’m going to publish a separate post about the more advanced tools I use to run 5-Minute
Language – for those of you who already have a blog and would like to up your game (such as turn
your blog into a business).

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Step 1: Choose your blogging platform 

You need to decide what platform you want to use to blog. I personally use WordPress, which is by
far the most popular platform among bloggers.

WordPress includes a number of free themes and plugins you can use to customise your blog. It’s
very flexible and easy to set up. Plus there are countless online tutorials for how to do stuff in
WordPress just because the platform has so many users.

I definitely recommend that you go with WordPress when starting your first blog.

There are two options you can choose from on WordPress when setting up a new blog. You can
choose to start a hosted or a self-hosted blog. This is a very important step and it’s important to
understand the distinction between hosted and self-hosted.

Let’s take a look at step 2 for more details!

Step 2: Choose your web hosting 

Web hosting is basically the company that puts your blog on the internet and stores the data (your
blog posts and everything else that’s on your blog). Think about it as a kind of a hard drive that
your blog is saved on.

Now, choosing how you want to host your blog is very important. It will determine the future
trajectory of your blog so make sure you consider it carefully.

There are two options: hosted and self-hosted. Hosted is free, self-hosted is something you need
to pay for.

The main difference between hosted and self-hosted is that a hosted blog technically belongs to
the platform you use for blogging, e.g. WordPress. If you self-host it, you are the actual owner of
your blog.
This is an important consideration if you want to, for example, turn your blog into a business
further down the line.

Getting a free (hosted) blog is great but it has a number of downsides, including:

 You can’t fully monetise it (e.g. you can’t include member-only content or AdSense ads on
it)

 The space is limited (if you’re thinking of including lots of videos or high-resolution images
this might be a problem)

 You can’t install plug-ins (plugins are tools that help you customise your blog in a way that
matches your goals – for example add opt-in forms, custom social sharing buttons, etc.)

 If you decide to monetise your blog in the future, it can be a massive hassle to migrate it
onto a self-hosted platform (scary one!)

Because my blog is an important part of my business, I decided to go with the self-hosted option. I
was surprised that it’s not as expensive as I thought it would be.

I use to host my blog and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to start a blog.
Their pricing is competitive and when I first started they actually had an offer for new customers,
which worked our really well for me.

is really easy to use – it walks you through the process of setting up WordPress in detail and you
will manage it even if you know nothing about websites (I certainly didn’t when I first decided to
start a blog!).

Step 3: Get a domain 

Your blog domain is the URL people enter into the navigation bar in the browser to get to your
blog. Your domain should ideally be the same as the name of your blog (this is to make things
consistent but also help with your search engine optimisation – it helps your audience find your
blog).

Domains are generally pretty cheap – you can either get one directly through BlueHost or another
service. I got mine through GoDaddy because I got it before I joined BlueHost. If I had to do it
again, though, I’d probably go with BlueHost just to keep the hosting and the domain in one place
(and not have to remember lots of passwords!).

You want to have your own domain rather than use any of the free domains offered by your
blogging platform because the free domains include the name of the platform in the URL (e.g.
blogname.wordpress.com). It doesn’t look very professional so if you’re serious about your blog
make sure you get a custom domain!

Step 4: Choose your theme

Once you’ve got the hosting, you’ve installed your WordPress and got your domain, it’s time to
choose your theme.

Your blog’s theme is basically its design – the colours, the look and the feel of your blog.
Image credit: Edho Pratama

The theme I’m using on 5-Minute Language is called Customizr and it’s a free theme offered by
WordPress. I also use other tools to create a more customised look on my homepage and some
specific pages but I’ll go into the detail of that in a separate post.

Step 5: Create your first pages 

Before you start blogging, it’s good to create some basic pages on your blog to help your audience
understand what you’re all about.

The basics I would recommend are: an ‘About’ page, a ‘Contact me’ page and a homepage. You
can either customise your homepage directly in WordPress or choose an option that means your
homepage displays your recent posts.

Step 6: Publish your first post! 

This is the final step – publish your first ever blog post!

It’s actually good to have a couple of posts ready for when you go live, just to make your blog look
more active when you first publish it.

So, this is it! What else would you like to know? Comment below to let me know!

Your Complete Guide to Starting a Blog

CLICK TO TWEET

Disclaimer: Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means that I receive a small
commission on all purchases made through these links. I only recommend product and services
that I really trust and have used myself. 

What Is the Easiest Language to Learn?

9 Apr, 2017  by  Agnieszka Murdoch  (updated 742 days ago)

What is the easiest language to learn?

It’s a question many people ask me. Many people want to know what the easiest language to
learn is before they start learning their first foreign language. Other people may be wondering
what the easiest language to learn is when choosing their second or third foreign language.
It’s a very important question. But it’s also a very difficult one to answer. Let’s have a go at
answering it, though – shall we?

Before we do that, though, I just want to let you know that if you prefer, you can watch the
video below instead of reading the post if you’d like to find out what the easiest language to
learn is.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the 5-Minute Language Youtube channel as well, to make sure you
don’t miss similar videos in the future!

If you’d rather read the post than watch the video, here we go!

Learning foreign languages is not easy 

Let’s get some misconceptions cleared up first. Learning a foreign language is not easy. It
requires a lot of work and commitment. You need to keep yourself motivated during the process
and you need to try out different techniques before you find the one that works for you.

You may find, however, that learning some languages seems more straightforward, or ‘easy’.
Note that I put ‘easy’ in inverted commas…

What makes a language seem ‘easy’ to learn?

My main message for you in this post is that difficulty and ease are relative. So, if you ask me
what the easiest language or languages are, I’m going to refer to relative ease in my answer.

Whether or not you will find a language to be ‘easy’ will depend on a number of factors. It will
depend on:

– What your native language is

– What other languages you know
– What your learning style is and how you like to learn
– How much internal and external motivation you have to learn the language
– How similar the language is to your native language
– The complexity of the sound system in the language you’re learning, and
– The complexity of its grammar

I could tell you for example that Russian is an easy language. But then, I can speak Polish, which
is quite similar to Russian so it would be relatively easier for me.

For you, if you’re a native speaker of English or Japanese, it will potentially seem like a very
difficult language.

Similarly, I could say that Italian is a difficult language because it shares very little vocabulary
with Polish, but you could tell me it’s easy because your native language is Spanish, and Spanish
does share a lot of vocabulary with Italian.

See? There are quite a lot of factors at play when trying to answer the question of ‘what is the
easiest language to learn’!

So what is the easiest language to learn?

To make things a little bit more straightforward, let’s talk about what the ‘easiest’ language to
learn would be for somebody who already speaks English.

You’re reading this post in English, which means you’re either a native English speaker or you
can speak English quite well.

There have been a couple of studies into this recently where researchers scored languages for
difficulty based on how easy or difficult it would be for English speakers to learn them. Or, in
other words, how quickly on average English speakers would be able to learn them.

Based on the scores, the ‘easiest’ languages were Romance and Germanic languages, including:

– French

– German

– Spanish

– Italian

– Danish

– Afrikaans

– Romanian

– Swedish

– Norwegian

– Portuguese

– Dutch

These languages take English speakers the least time to learn. It’s because of their similarity to
English. They share a lot of vocabulary with English, their grammar is pretty similar, and their
sounds are fairly similar to the sounds that exist in English.

Other languages don’t have as much in common with English linguistically or culturally. For
example: Polish, Czech, Turkish or Vietnamese.

There are also languages that use a completely different script and structure such as Japanese or
Arabic. These languages are likely to take English speakers longer to learn.

What is the easiest language to learn?

CLICK TO TWEET

Familiar languages will be easier to learn

So, the bottom line is, the easiest language to learn will be the one that shares something with
either your native language or another language you already know – vocabulary, sentence
structure or grammar.
And, learning a language is not easy so don’t get me wrong! It’s definitely possible, though. And
you can do it, as long as you commit to it and find a way to motivate yourself.

Good luck!

https://youtu.be/jUVGtm3W08k