Sonntag

I’ll put on my language cassettes while I work around the house and learn the language as easily as I learn the lyrics to popular songs.

Great image. It just doesn’t work. You can’t just push a button and let the language you want to learn roll over you. Expecting to learn a language by laid back listening is like expecting to build a magnificent body by going to the gym, sitting in the steam room, chugging a glass of carrot juice, and then bragging about your “workout!”

You’re going to have to study the material on that cassette, capture every word, learn it, review it, master it, and then check challenge yourself after every piece of English. (We’ll consider a “piece” to be whatever the speaker on the cassette says in English before you hear the target language. It may be a word, a phrase, a whole sentence.)

Abandon all images of language learning that resemble lying on a tropical beach and letting the warm surf splash over you. Pretend, instead, as you listen to your cassette,that you’re a contestant on a TV game show. After each piece of English, ask yourself, “For one thousand dollars now, quick, how do I say that in the language I’m trying to learn?”

by

Barry Farber