Learning a language is something we all know how to do, since we have done it once before with our mother tongues. What are some things that all people go through in the process of learning a language?

Repetition
Children are exposed to constant repetition of key words from a young age. Listening to basic children’s songs, rhymes, stories is something we all did as 2 to 5 year olds.

Mimicry
Learners of a language usually mimic the model who constantly speaks to them, whether a parent, relative, teacher, and media.

TV/Radio
We are all surrounded by these sounds when growing up, and whether we understand it or not, these forms of media should be used heavily to create a strong sense of the target language environment. TV shows are good repetitive models with regularly appearing characters. This is a good way to practice listening and mimicry of the spoken language.

Reading Books
Even children’s books (in some ways, especially) allows the language learner to have the same experience as native speakers at a very young age. Mother Goose and Dr Seuss and all of the rest of the texts that your typical 3 to 5 year old native English speaker might encounter. Don’t be afraid to act like a kid, after all, we all learned to speak our native languages when very young by reading and listening to some very simple and childish rhymes and songs. Learning a language is easy … even little kids can do it!

Familiarity with Culture
Find out as much about the target language’s culture as possible, from history to geography to politics and beyond. This is a good way to learn to talk with people from those cultures. Baseball for Americans, Hockey for Canadians, Football (Soccer) for the rest of the world… sports is always a good topic. Arts and entertainment is interesting as well. Learning to talk about things interesting to people using the target language allows the learners to have more conversations and more practice with native speakers.

Get involved with learning language and culture in Qingdao, China. Contact Zebra Stripe for more information.