English learners often seem to be looking for a kind of holy grail that will allow them to master English in some kind of miraculous way. Well, the secret to learning another language well (or even many other languages) is not all that complicated, and there is evidence to support it!
István Dabi, Sr. is a famous Hungarian polyglot (some who speaks multiple languages) and translator. He became famous by mastering 18 languages before he turned 18 years of age, and now (he's 65 years old) he has the capacity to translate more than 103 languages!
How does he do it? Let's look at his language learning method:
- He chooses 1000–1500 basic words (from the topics of family, work, everyday life etc.) and learns them along with the most important grammar (declension, conjugation, pronouns and word order).
- He starts reading fairly easy texts with a dictionary in accordance with his interests. (The texts may be newspaper articles, specialized texts or whatever else.)
- Some people need to write out and repeat unknown words; for others, reading is sufficient. He has found that it is much easier to learn new words by means of conclusion (inference), i.e. through their context.
- If possible, he starts corresponding with people, possibly those with the same job and interests, whose native tongue is the one he is studying. (It is important for him to not pick up mistakes from those who learned it as a second language.)
- He starts listening to foreign language radio broadcasts, even if he initially doesn't understand it, in order to gradually get used to the pronunciation of the language.
- He considers it essential to use the language in some way, every day, for at least 15–20 minutes.
So there are the secrets of the famous polyglot. How many of the things above do you do in order to learn or improve your English?
Something to think about...
Best wishes,
~ Jason
