Learning a New Language After 40

Many of us over the age of forty remember the boring, endless repetition of our first foreign language classes.  The “Amo, Amas, Amat” chant from my grade 7 (form 1) Latin class still ring in memory, more than 35 years later. Some of us excelled at learning, while others dreaded the Spanish/French class.  If you are one of those who hated foreign languages, it wasn’t you, it WAS the class.

Front Street, Bergen, Norway

Your high school French class did not teach you to SPEAK French it taught you ABOUT French.  Consider this, by the time you went to school and learned what a prepositional phrase was you were already speaking your native language. So, why when learning a foreign language, did you have to learn grammar before you could be taught what to say?  The language classes of yesteryear had the learning process backward.  Luckily, times have changed.

But . . . . But I’m too old

It’s probably a myth that babies learn languages better than adults. The advantage for children is that they HAVE to learn a language if they want to eat, play or borrow the car. The inducement is strong for them.  If you’ve struggled to learn a foreign language like I have, what you probably lack is motivation and time.

Behold. . . . The Power of the Internet

Thanks to the internet I was able to learn basic Norwegian (Norsk) in about three months.  Of course, so many of the Norwegians spoke fluent English and they immediately started speaking it once I open my mouth . . . robbing me of the chance to butcher their language practice.   Norwegian is one of the easiest languages to learn, (You have my sympathy if you need to learn, Finnish or Icelandic)which was a plus for me.

Udredal campgrounds

 Using several free resources, it was a pleasure to actually learn another language, and the process has now been turned into a game which is why it doesn’t remind me of my failed attempts at high school Spanish.  

Key Tip: This is a case where more is NOT better. Studying for a long period will only lead to confusion. Short periods (less than 1 hour) regularly is the way to go.

Here are the sites I used, videos I watched and apps downloaded. 

Resources

Watch this first: How to Learn a Language Fast

Use this:  https://www.duolingo.com/

Download this app: https://www.memrise.com/