Posted on by Peter & Ulrike Rettig

The GamesforLanguage Program - Part 1: Approach & Methods

Why have we thrown GamesforLanguage into the mix of self-teaching language programs? It's the games, silly.

If you want to learn a language, you can find plenty of self-teaching language programs. They are available as books, CDs, DVDs, direct downloads, and online. Some well-known names are Assimil, Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Fluenz, Michael Thomas, Busuu, Rocket Languages, Duolingo, and others.

While all programs help motivated learners improve their language skills, not all are equally effective for learning to understand, speak, read, and write a foreign language. An online program - including ours - won't make you fluent.

But it can help you acquire a good pronunciation and provide you with vocabulary and basic grammar, which you can then use and practice in real conversations. Just think about it: it's really hard to have a conversation if you have no vocabulary use and don't understand the words that you hear.

The GamesforLanguage learning Program has been designed to teach some essentials of all four (4) language skills. Games are a way for making language learning more fun.

But games - with their special ways to engage your brain - can also make learning more effective, as shown by researchers that study how people learn. For example, see Kathy Sierra’s Crash course in learning theory.

French 1 course - GamesforLanguageEntertaining digital games have auditory features (spoken language, sounds), visual components (text, colors, images, design), as well as kinesthetic elements (writing against the clock, clicking on moving images, etc).

By engaging multiple senses, digital games enhance a learner’s ability to recall and retain new words and expressions. Language learning is about message decoding and communication, and this is not a straightforward process.

Learning a language involves trial and error, a certain amount of confusion, but also plenty of insightful “aha!” moments.

Key Points

Three important points guide our development of the GamesforLanguage Learning Program:

1. Adults can learn a second language more rapidly online when they can relate words, phrases and grammatical structures to their native language. In this way their learning experience is quite different from that of children, who are able to acquire their first language without even knowing how to read and write. This notion is supported by observations of other learners and our own experience.

2. Learning with the help of a story allows you to identify with situations and circumstances you will encounter yourself. This makes the acquired vocabulary not only immediately relevant and useful, but also helps you to memorize it more easily.

3. Learning foreign languages as an adult requires an effort. Playing language games will make this effort fun. Memorizing vocabulary, phrases and sentences, identifying grammar rules and structures all occur "playfully," as you can test and improve your language skills during increasingly more challenging games.

The Program

The GamesforLanguage Learning Program may appeal primarily to teenagers and adults. However, we know that children who have just learned to read and write also enjoy the games.

Our Quick Games work for beginners with little prior knowledge of the foreign language and for anyone who wants some language practice. 

Our Courses, on the other hand, are best for learners with some language background. While mid-beginners will spend more time on each scene of a course, more advanced players may be able to move through the scenes quite rapidly.

Throughout each of the courses, you'll accumulate up to 12,000 points by playing various language games. At the same time you'll acquire a working vocabulary of close to 700 essential words and many idiomatic expressions. At the end of a course, you'll also be able to read and understand the entire travel story, which consists of over 2,000 words.

The Structure

Each course consists of 6 levels, with 6 lessons (we call them “scenes”) per level for a total of 36 scenes. So far, the most effective approach has been for learners to do one scene per day (which should take around 15 minutes) and to review an earlier scene for extra recall.

Each lesson builds on the previous one and adds between 16-20 new words to your vocabulary.

The Story

Each scene has a dialogue or narrative of 8-16 lines, which we call “The Story.” "The Story" screen - Gamesforlanguage.comIt appears right at the beginning of each scene and once again at the end. At the beginning of each scene, the story challenges you to guess the meaning, based on the (English) introduction and context.

When you get to the end of the scene, you'll have learned all the words and phrases in the various games, and understanding “The Story” will now be easy. This is quite similar to what you would experience when arriving in a foreign country with some language background. (For the impatient player, a roll-over option provides the full translation right away.)

The 36 scenes of a course tell the story of a young man who travels to France, Italy, Spain, Germany or the U.S. From talking with his neighbor in the airplane, greeting his aunt who picks him up at the airport, asking for directions to a friend's house, to ordering food and drink, and chatting with friends, our travel hero uses lots of useful vocabulary. It provides a great start on learning how to communicate.

The travel story engages the learner, provides relevant vocabulary in context, and creates a framework that ties everything together.

Part 2: Games Summary

A next blog post will describe the various games we are using in our program. Our games are not just individual learning clips, nor are they simply an enhancement of a conventional language program. The games ARE the language program. We'll add a summary table that shows the specific skills each game teaches.

Posted on by Ulrike & Peter Rettig

Language Learning with Pictures and/or Words?

Apple Do adults learn a second (or third) language differently from the way children learn their “mother tongue”? This is a question that continues to be debated.

We would argue “yes.” The difference arises from the fact that children begin to memorize the names, or “labels” of objects, actions, emotions, etc. at the same time they grasp the “concepts” behind such expressions.

An apple is a good example to illustrate the relationship between “concept” and “label.” Children learn at an early age that a real apple and a picture of it have the same "label" attached to it. 

Picture Books

First books for young children are mainly picture books that show people, animals, fruits, cars, trains, clothes, etc. 

By relating these pictures to items around them, and hearing their names (or "language labels") repeated again and again, children begin to understand the “concepts” that unite real objects and their pictures.

They begin to internalize the names/labels and eventually they will start to repeat them aloud.

New “Labels” for known “Concepts”

Now let's consider how adults learn a second language. They have already acquired the names (language labels) of the “concepts” in their mother tongue.

So, when they learn a second language, they have to learn NEW labels for the same concepts. Plus, they have to learn how to pronounce these new labels and how to connect them in a correct grammatical way so that they can communicate. 

In other words, a young child learns its first language by first understanding and speaking, and only later reading and writing.

For older children and adults learning their second language, the sequence often changes: Reading goes hand in hand with understanding, speaking, and writing.

The “Learn a Foreign Language Like a Child” Fallacy

You may or may not be familiar with those foreign language courses in books that contain lots of pictures. They were replaced by DVDs, and now, increasingly, by online courses and mobile applications.

But even these online courses often use pictures, so that you can "learn a foreign language like a child.” In our mind that claim is a fallacy.

We're not arguing AGAINST using pictures to memorize new foreign language “labels,” as there is certainly evidence that pictures can help memorization.  

We would argue that for adults - who want to express more abstract ideas - PICTURES of objects are less important than learning foreign words and expressions in the context of a useful conversation or a narrative.

In that way, you can establish a direct connection between the "concept" of what you want to say, and the new foreign language words/labels.

In our experience, one can best achieve such a connection by learning foreign words (i.e. linking labels with their abstract concepts) in the expressions of everyday language, or in the case of gamesforlanguage.com in the form of a story.

An Apple is not Enough

To illustrate again: You know the label for this concept in English: apple. In the four languages of our program we have learned: ein Apfel (German), une pomme (French), una manzana (Spanish), and una mela (Italian).

To express the concept of “I would like an apple” it will be more helpful to remember expressions and context than pictures.
- Ich möchte (gerne) einen Apfel. (German)
- J'aimerais (bien) une pomme. (French)
- Me gustaría una manzana (Spanish)
- Vorrei una mela. (Italian) 

You'll be more likely to remember the concept of “I would like” (which a picture may only express with difficulty) and use it to ask for different items, if you recall the context where you heard, read, wrote, or said it. Ideally, such a context would be part of a real-life experience, and next best, part of a story.

To learn a new language and communicate effectively, you'll have to remember and apply hundreds (even thousands) of expressions such as "I would like." And when you do, you may even not be conscious of just having used a conditional or a subjunctive form.

PS: German readers may know Peter Bichsel's short story “Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch.”  He humorously explores what happens when we start to “re-label” things - just because labels are just labels and you can change them in your own language, well ...

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

Micro-Learning Spanish Language Prepositions

Gaudi's Casa MilàLast year my husband and I spent seven weeks in Spain, both to try out our newly acquired Spanish and to retrace the trip of our Spanish 1 traveler "David."

We started out in Barcelona (as described in our blog post), and then visited Granada, Seville, and finally Madrid.

It was great fun to use our Spanish in daily life - shopping at the open market, navigating our way through the city, visiting many of Gaudi's masterworks (see his Casa Milà on the left), making small talk with people we met as we went about our daily activities.

We found that it's fairly easy to acquire new words, especially if they are items you can picture or point to. But it was more difficult to learn and use expressions that have an abstract meaning. And such expressions often include those little connecting words that are called prepositions (eg: to, in, for, by, off, over, about, etc.).

The Challenge of Prepositions

Prepositions sometimes provide a special challenge for language learners. That's because they often have several meanings and don't translate in a logical way into other languages.

For example, if you google the Spanish translation of the English preposition "to" in an online dictionary such as wordreference.com, you'll see that the ten "principal" meanings of "to" require 5 completely different prepositions in Spanish: a, hacia, de, contra, sobre.

Phrases with the English Preposition "to" translated into Spanish

• to fly to Madrid/to Spain - volar a Madrid/a España (a = to)
• to go to the airport - ir al aeropuerto (al = to the) 
• to walk to the house - caminar hacia la casa (hacia = until)
• along the way to there - por el camino hasta allí (hasta = until)
• a vote of three to one - tres votos contra uno (contra = against)
• to apply pigment to a canvas - aplicar pigmento sobre el lienzo (sobre = over)

Making Mistakes

Let me say at this point that it's perfectly okay to make mistakes, and even if you use a wrong preposition, people will usually understand what you're trying to say. In a conversation, folks can easily ask you what you meant and you can quickly correct misunderstandings. And this means you'll have the kind of feed-back that will help you to learn.

How to Micro-Learn

It's a great feeling to master an expression in a foreign language. Once you've got it, it's yours and you can build on it. So it's worth spending a little time learning common expressions that contain prepositions, and there's no mystery about how to do it:

1. Tackle each expressions individually.
2. Practice saying it until it stays in your ear.
3. Write it down, and/or read it, again and again, until you have it in your visual memory.
4. Start using it in conversations and in texting and emails.

Your new expression will soon begin to sound and look right. Once that happens, attach a rule to it. For example: in Spanish, going/traveling to a city or country always uses "a." Then, when you try to say, "I'm flying to England" - you'll know what preposition to use: "Vuelo a Inglaterra."

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

Learning a Language with Games and a Travel Story

Why we chose games and a travel story for our language program is a question we are often asked. We answered this question in a recent article on Omniglot.com and are republishing it with a few edits and the revisions which have occurred since:

Our Italian Adventure

Colosseum Rome Several years ago, my husband and I prepared for an extended stay in Italy by learning Italian with the three 30-lesson courses of Pimsleur's audio CD program.

Arriving in Italy, we could communicate well enough - although not speak fluently. However, we could read Italian only with difficulty and writing was a disaster. We kept spelling everything the French way, French being a language we both speak fluently.

Before our trip, we had also looked at other CD and DVD programs and had tried several, including Rosetta Stone. But as the vocabulary did not match our interests or needs, it was hard to stay motivated and we were quickly bored.

For example, in one of the early lessons of RS, we practiced (multiple times) all of the following sentences: the women are eating rice, the girls are reading, the horses are running, the boy is not driving.

Context Matters

Gamesforlanguage was born from of a simple idea: Learn language in a relevant context. If you can repeatedly hear, read, write, and speak the words, phrases, and sentences of a story, you'll remember them more easily, because you remember the context.

To learn a new language, you have to connect it to your own experiences. With travel being a common denominator for many language learners, we decided to create a travel story of a young man traveling to the European countries of the four languages we currently offer. (English for Spanish speakers was added later, see below.) The everyday, practical language he experiences on his trip is bound to be relevant to most travelers.

All GamesforLanguage courses are free. There are currently 36-lesson courses for French 1, German 1, Italian 1, and Spanish 1, a 72-lesson course for German 2, and a 12-lesson course for Inglés - English for Spanish speakers.

Learning with Games

But Gamesforlanguage.com is also offering something still different. Our games are not just individual learning clips, nor are they simply an addition to or an enhancement of a conventional language program. The games ARE the language program.

Each lesson of our 36 lesson course is made up of games that practice one or more of the four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking.
Here are some examples:
- Memory Game: Memorize new words and phrases by hearing, reading, and saying them.
- Snap Clouds: Practice by choosing the foreign word/phrase, hearing, and saying it.
- Balloon Words: Train your ear by identifying the sounds of key words.
- Say It: Repeat words and phrases aloud after hearing them (and before seeing them briefly).
- Deal No Deal: Discover the meaning of the story dialogue by simple elimination.
- Writing Clowns: Translate and spell against time.
- Word Invaders: Build a foreign sentence by clicking on the right words. (see image)

Word InvadersOther games focus on particular aspects of each language, such as pronouns, articles, adjective endings, basic conjugations, etc.

In addition to the courses, Quick Games and Podcastsof "The Story" can also be played for Free without registering or logging in.

A YouTube Snapshot

This brief YouTube clip, Play n' Learn with Games and a Travel Story, gives a snapshot of some of the games in the first Italian lesson.

Each lesson now begins with the story dialogue, forcing the learner to guess the meaning from the context of the story and before discovering and learning the new words and phrases.This is quite similar to what a traveler will experience when he or she tries to understand a foreign conversation.

By the time the learner hears the full story dialogue again - just before "Record It" - he or she will easily understand it, after having memorized, heard, read, spoken, and written the words and phrases of the story several times. 

Grammar in Context only

In contrast to some other programs, gamesforlanguage.com teaches grammar items only as they come up in the context of the ongoing story. Grammar is not taught in the form of abstract rules.

For example: In the second lesson of our French 1 course, the following sentence is part of the dialogue: "Je suis contente que vous parliez français." We explain the use of the subjunctive form "vous parliez" (instead of the indicative "vous parlez") briefly why it is used: after a phrase expressing emotion ("je suis contente que ..."). That's all. At this stage the learner would be overwhelmed by a more detailed explanation.

Audience & Technology

Gamesforlanguage.com courses is intended primarily for "grown-ups", i.e. teenagers and adults because reading and writing is involved. However, we know that children who have just learned to read and write also enjoy the games. The online courses and Quick Games work on all modern browsers and, since January 2013, also on iOS6 iPads and iPhones.

Since Android started to support multichannel audio for HTML5, GamesforLanguage courses and Quick Games can also be played on Android devices.

Posted on by Peter Rettig

Learn French with "bouillabaisse"...


Paris Traveling to France? Preparing for the trip may both heighten your anticipation as well as enhance your experiences there. Travel entrepreneur Rick Steves has called this "Prepare for Spontaneity."

A basic knowledge of the local language and culture are essential tools for navigating new places and meeting locals.

In our four language courses we are introducing the learner to various particularities of each language or culture. For example in our French 1 course our traveler Daniel learns about the "bouillabaisse". bouillabaisse

Listen HERE to a conversation between him and his aunt. Maybe your French lets you understand how this traditional French dish got its name. If not, you'd certainly understand it by the end of lesson 33!

The 36 lessons - we call them "Scenes" - take our "hero" Daniel (and, by extension you!) for a three week journey to France, where you'll learn the language of daily French life.

For example, in Paris, you'll visit with relatives, take a walk on a famous square, order "un express" and "une tarte aux fraises" at a café. You'll buy a train ticket to Aix-en-Provence.

There, you'll ask directions to a friend's house, and on a walk around the city, learn about Cézanne's occupation before he became a famous painter. In Avignon, you'll take a bus to your hotel, and check in.

Later, after dinner, a friend will show you the famous bridge. (Who doesn't know the song "Sur le pont d'Avignon"?) For your last week, you'll return to Paris.

Each of the 36 lessons is based on a dialog and on part of the story. In each lesson, you'll play your way through a series of games, with which you learn and practice vocabulary, train your listening comprehension, practice speaking by recording and playing back your own voice.

You'll also get essential grammar and culture tips.

Your goal will be to exceed a target score so that you can move on to the next lesson and hear “the rest of the story.”

You'll also be challenged and often able to understand the meaning of the next dialog through the context of the story alone – similar to what you might experience living in the foreign country, or following an original French movie.

So, maybe, next time you're sitting in a French bistro and see the "bouillabaisse" on the menu, you'll give it a try and even know what the name means...

Posted on by Peter Rettig

Learning French - Cézanne and Banking

Cézanne The large bathersA recent exhibition of Paul Cézanne "The Large Bathers" at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts reminded us that in Scene 4.5 of our French 1 course our traveler Daniel learns about Paul Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence.

Context matters

We recently put together a YouTube clip Which famous painter lived in Aix-en-Provence (and first worked as a banker)?

And as we did in our previous blog Heidelberg & Mark Twain, we believe that knowing more about the context of “The Story”, not only makes learning more interesting, but also more effective:

In Scene 4.5 we are practicing the French past imperfect tense with sentences such as

  • “Le peintre Paul Cézanne allait souvent au Café Clément.”,
  • “Oui, et voici la banque où il travaillait jusqu’en 1862.”, “
  • Paul Cézanne était banquier?”,
  • “Ah d’accord, je ne le savais pas!”,
  • “Paul Cézanne aimait vivre à Aix-en-Provence.”, etc.

By remembering the context of these sentences, you will be able to recall verbs and forms more easily, and can then apply them as well in different situations.

Paul Cézanne was Fortunate

There is not much mystery about Cézanne's life as a banker's son who became a famous painter and is seen by Paul Cézannemany 

“to form the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism.” And “His father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (28 July 1798 – 23 October 1886),[3] was the co-founder of a banking firm that prospered throughout the artist's life, affording him financial security that was unavailable to most of his contemporaries and eventually resulting in a large inheritance. [Wikipedia]

Perseverance

It is interesting, though, that his path was not a straight line either: According to this biography, Cézanne's father initially opposed his artistic career; he started to study law, while also enrolled in the School of Design in Aix. The above link continues further:

In 1861 Cézanne finally convinced his father to allow him to go to Paris. He planned to join Zola there and to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts.

But his application was rejected and, although he had gained inspiration from visits to the Louvre, particularly from the study of Diego Velázquez and Caravaggio, Cézanne experienced self-doubt and returned to Aix within the year.

He entered his father's banking house but continued to study at the School of Design.The remainder of the decade was a period of flux and uncertainty for Cézanne.

His attempt to work in his father's business was abortive, and he returned to Paris in 1862 and stayed for a year and a half. During this period he met Monet and Pissarro and became acquainted with the revolutionary work of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet.

Learning – Rarely a Straight Line

Cézanne was fortunate to be able to pursue his dream, but it's also clear that his life did not always follow a straight path.

Learning a language is also a path of many twists and turns. Relating Cézanne's story to learning French: You may have to try out various approaches before you are successful.

As banking or law were not for Cézanne, so the current language method or course you are struggling with may not be the right one for you.

Give it your best effort, but if it doesn't work, try out others – or learn with several simultaneously!

Posted on by Peter Rettig

Why did Mark Twain like Heidelberg?

Mark TwainRecently we put together a YouTube video “Why did Mark Twain like Heidelberg?”

This was based on Scene 4.5 of our German 1 course and our conjecture that Mark Twain liked the name "Heidelberg" because Heidelberg in English means Huckleberry mountain.

Actually, more correctly, Heidelberg is an abbreviation of "Heidelbeerenberg" (huckleberry mountain).

Huckleberry Adventures

We found it interesting that Twain had stayed in Heidelberg with his family for several months in 1878.

Twain had unsuccessfully tried to learn German in 1850 at age fifteen. He resumed his study 28 years later in preparation for a trip to Europe." [Wikipedia: "Mark Twain"]Heidelberg - Gamesforlanguage.com

Mark Twain had published his novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1876 and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in1884.

A little further digging found several German sites which also describe his love of Heidelbeeren. He found them in the forests around Heidelberg and enjoyed Heidelbeerkuchen (huckleberry pie).

By the way, a similar confusion between a huckleberry and a blueberry also exists in German between a "Heidelbeere" and a "Blaubeere". (For further enlightenment, try this link.)

Heidelberg, Mississippi

Huckleberry Finn - BookcoverSo the character of Huckleberry Finn had already been well-established by the time Mark Twain arrived in Heidelberg, Germany in 1878, as the travel writer Lucy Gordan explains:

"Supposedly looking for a quiet village, where people didn't know him, neither of which fit Heidelberg because it was already home to active American and British communities, he arrived with his family on May 6 for the day and stayed three months.His biographer Justin Kaplan asserts Twain was aware that Heidelberg derived from 'Heidelbeerenberg', meaning 'Huckleberry Mountain', which may explain his affinity."

"Nobody really knows," writes Werner Pieper in his updated Mark Twain's Guide to Heidelberg , "what made Mark Twain stay in Heidelberg for such a long time. Maybe he was prompted by old dreams from the times he was passing Heidelberg, Mississippi, while working on the steamships? Did he plan to stay here or did he and his family just fall in love with this city?"

While the above allusion to Mark Twain's passing by Heidelberg, Mississippi, during his days as a river pilot may be compelling, a little further digging causes some doubts:

Mark Twain worked on a steamboat, first as an apprentice, then as a pilot during 1857 to 1861.

However, Heidelberg, Mississippi was only founded in 1882 by Washington Irving Heidelberg [google History, Town of Heidelberg] - and even more importantly: Heidelberg is not situated ON the Mississippi, but located in the State of Mississippi, southeast of Jackson, MS, and about 130 miles from the Mississippi river.

Twain visited the river a number of times after his pilot days, most notably in 1882 as he prepared to write "Life on the Mississippi" and maybe on his travels TO the river he came through the little town. 

Maybe that's when he came across the name Heidelberg again. So whether he already knew the name Heidelberg or whether he related to it as a translation of "huckleberry" we'll never know.

But we do know that he liked his three months in Heidelberg, Germany, in spite of his continuing struggle with the German language.

And we'll explore in another blog post Mark Twain's love-hate relationship with "The Awful German Language" which he published as an Appendix to his  "A Tramp Abroad" in 1880.

Bio: Peter Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. He's a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. You can follow him on FacebookTwitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.

Posted on by Peter Rettig

"Dimmi quando..." - An Italian Song for Language Learning

Language learning with Tony Renis' "dimmi quando" (Updated 8-25-2017) A previous blog post featured a French song as a prime example for improving one's language skills in a fun way. Some readers asked us about Italian and Spanish language learning songs.

As the Italian song we have selected “Quando, quando, quando”, an Italian pop song with a bossa nova rhythm.

Alberto Testa wrote the lyrics and Tony Renis (see his picture above), who also wrote the music, performed it first in 1962. Click on Tony's YouTube clip, and the original Italian lyrics you'll find HERE.

Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Michael Bublé et al

What made this song so well known, was the fact that “Quando, Quando, Quando” was retained in many languages, although the lyrics were modified and adapted.

Over the years, many artists performed the song in English, including, among others, Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Michael Bublé, who included it in his album “It's Time” in 2005.

There are well-known versions in German, French, Spanish, and in many other languages, and you can find YouTube clips of quite a few. Click on Michael Bublé's English version here.

Typical Italian

What makes this song a good candidate for language learning - apart from the “ear-worm” refrain – are a few typical Italian constructions and the future forms of several verbs:
dimmi – (tell me!) a word combination of two words “di” (tell!, say!) and “mi” (me), which you may hear quite often in Italy, e.g. in “Dimmi tutto”...
dirmi – (to tell me) similar as above, but instead of the imperative the infinitive.
baciandomi – (while kissing me), again a word combination of “baciando” (a gerund of baciare, for those who care) and “mi”.
the future tense – e.g. “tu verrai” (you'll come), “tu mi bacerai” (you'll kiss me), “attenderò” (I'll wait), “vedrò” (I'll see), “dirai” (you'll say), “lasceremo” (we'll let go), etc.

And I'll bet, once you hear this song a few times and understand the Italian lyrics, certain expressions will stay with you.

And even if you don't care for “Dimmi quando...”, but are trying to learn Italian - find Italian songs you like and use the web to help you translate them. You'll enjoy them even more when you can sing and understand them!

Postscript: I recently came a across the post of a young Polyglot-in-the making. She suggests four simple steps for learning with songs to improve both your listening and speaking (maybe even singing!) skills.
1. Listen!  2. Sing!  3. Translate!  4. Retranslate!
It's fun AND effective and it works for all languages!

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

Language Building Blocks: Words, Phrases, Sentences in Context

Building blocksNo matter what stage you are in when learning a language, think of "building" your skills, step by step. Words and phrases that you learn in context provide you with "building blocks."

Most people learn a new language to communicate with others.

To really understand a conversation and take part in it, you need more than just words or a series of phrases.

You need to understand how words and phrases connect to create meaning. Nothing does this better than learning language in what the linguist Stephen Krashen calls "comprehensible context."

The Context Helps You Remember

There's another reason for learning language in context. You remember words and phrases much better if you can associate them with a real situation.

Yes, there are ways to create associations to boost your memory. But to do this for every word seems impractical if you want to speak in full sentences.

On the other hand, if you can create a situation in your mind and connect certain phrases with it, you'll have the language ready when you need it.

For example, when shopping in a Spanish speaking country, the following phrases would be very handy: "Estoy buscando ...." (I'm looking for ...); "¿Tiene usted un/una ...?" (Do you have ...?); ¿Cuánto cuesta eso?" (How much does this cost?).

Or a practical example from our FrenchTraditional French soup course where the origin of the “bouillabaisse” is explained: “Pour réussir cette soupe, quand l’eau bout, tu baisses le feu!” (To succeed [with] that soup, if the water boils, you lower the fire [heat])

Now, you may need to learn the verbs, nouns, etc. individually, but will certainly remember them better when you recall the context of this sentence.

Listening to and singing foreign songs is another excellent way to increase your vocabulary, especially if a song's refrain stays with you. (For a post on a German song for learning, click here.)

Build Your Language With All Four Skills

To really absorb a word or phrase, you need to read and write each one of them, in addition to hearing and repeating the sounds.

Small children obviously learn just with spoken language, but don't forget, they'll spend years learning to read and write their first language. The same would be true for fluency in a second or third language.

For adults, reading and writing are highly effective tools for learning and practicing a foreign language. According to a post on the Lifehack blog post: "... it seems that writing anything down makes us remember it better." 

Learning just with audio, leaves you clueless as how to spell many of the words. Should you travel to the country, you may experience quite a few funny or unwelcome surprises.

Grammar Holds Language Together

Learning words and phrases in context also provides another benefit: You'll absorb plenty of grammar without needing to memorize rules. The key is to pay attention. Your brain is wired to figure out and interpret the "grammar" of a sentence.

As a matter of fact, Human Braindifferent areas of the brain seem to respond to various types of sentences.

A study at the University of Rochester suggests that "...humans rely on several regions of the brain, each designed to accomplish different primitive tasks, in order to make sense of a sentence... Depending on the type of grammar used, the brain will activate a certain set of regions to process it."

Just by paying attention, you'll easily notice how the language you're learning is different from English.

For example, things to look out for: Does your foreign language normally drop pronouns?; Are articles used and do they have gender?; How is the word order different?; How do you make a question?; How do you make a negative sentence?

Once you've noticed details like that, you'll see them again and again as you continue to read and practice. Also, when you do look up some rules, they'll start to make a lot more sense.

Intensive and Extensive Learning

It's not a bad idea to alternate short texts that you work with intensively, with reading longer texts rapidly or "extensively," where you only occasionally look up a word.

For a short text you can practice each word individually, listen to it, pronounce it, write it, and pay closeAmelie attention to the grammar.

With a longer text, you would read freely and guess from the context what some of the unknown words mean.

Of course, you also have the option of watching short and long videos, or once you are up to it watch foreign movies.

The more clues the text or the video gives you, the better you'll be able to guess what it's about and the more you'll understand.

Use as many tools as you can for building your language with words, phrases, and sentences that fit together.

It's a great feeling to start taking part in foreign language conversations with friends and new acquaintances!

Posted on by Peter Rettig

"Guten Morgen Liebe Sorgen" - German song for Language Learning

Listening to foreign songs is an excellent way to memorize key phrases and expressions – and having fun with German language learning . Sometimes, you may even start humming and repeating the refrains without exactly knowing the meaning.

In an earlier blog post - 6 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language - we had suggested listening to songs as tip #4, as listening to music and songs can also fuel your enthusiasm for learning a new language.

Language Learning with "Guten Morgen, liebe Sorgen...."

This song was written and first performed by Jürgen von der Lippe in 1987.It's his greatest musical success German language learning with "Guten Morgen liebe Sorgen"...and he sang it for the next 20+ years, with a refrain that is hard to get out of one's mind.For those who don't speak German at all, this YouTube clip provides a (not always correct) translation.

You also may understand why the song is still popular in Germany today. And for those who know some German, similar points as above also apply:

• The refrain both with its perfect (Morgen-Sorgen) and partial (da-klar) rhymes is still an ear-worm.
• Expressions such as “na, dann ist ja alles klar” (well, then everything is ok) can easily be remembered.
• Vocabulary such as “behende” (nimbly), “Schwung” (momentum), “Bettvorleger” (rug beside a bed) you probably won't find in your typical language course.
• German has a lot of little words that add meaning to the message, words which often don't translate literally into English. In a song, these may be exaggerated and stressed, and thus be understood more clearly.
• For example, "schon" (already) in the line "seid ihr auch schon wieder da"; or "na" (well) and "ja" (indeed), in the line "na, dann ist ja alles klar."

Which brings me to this question: Which, in your mind, are the English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish songs that make great tools for someone learning the language? Songs that have a refrain and lyrics that are memorable? Drop us a line to contact@gamesforlanguage.com.

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