Heya,
As you may or may not know I studied 2 languages at A level, French and Chinese. I just about survived and ended up with quite good grades, and now I study Chinese at university, so I thought I'd share my tips about language learning, and how to survive what seems hell!
Firstly, flashcards will be your saviour, build up your collection throughout the year so that by the time revision comes around you can just get them out and practice. Without having to create hundreds in one go (although this is great procrastination). This is perfect for just lists of vocab, even if you think you know them it is worth making flash cards anyway as it is quite likely you'll forget by June! What I like to do is go through the flash cards and sort them into red, amber and green piles. The green are those which I already know off by heart, so I will not check them for a week or so. Amber, I kind of knew them, either I didn't quite get the right meaning or I knew half the word, in which case I will check them in one or two days. And the red pile are ones I do not know at all and I keep practicing these constantly until they reach the amber pile. However, if you're lazy like me and don't make flash cards throughout the year, there are many websites you can use which have preprepared flashcards. My favourite is a website called Memrise, which helps you learn words and keep them in your long term memory, so that you wont forget them in the exam. It is easy to use and free to sign up for, you can even get an app! But if memrise doesn't take your fancy there is always Quizlet, which is more game based and less structured. Or there is also an app called Skritter which is useful for Asian languages as you can practice the characters. Although it is quite expensive it is worth the money in my opinion!
Next, to practice grammar, I find that using text books are the best way to practice it. There are many textbooks all over amazon and ebay which just give you lots of exercises to do, like fill the blanks, and then you can check your answers after. My favourite one to use for french is a book called Action Grammaire. However, if you find this too tedious another thing to do is just to practice writing essays. Although this is time consuming, the results are insanely beneficial! And I'm sure your teachers will have enough time to mark one extra essay a week or something! They don't even have to be long, just as long as you're practicing writing, you'll pick up the language.
Finally, in order to practice speaking and listening the best thing to do is to watch films and listen to music. In my opinion it is most useful to watch a film you already know quite well in your native language in the language you study. However, you must pay full attention and try and make sense of it whilst trying not to look at the subtitles too much! Although it takes time, you pick up so many useful little phrases that look so good in your oral exam because they're up-to-date. Another useful thing is to talk to your friends in your study language outside the classroom. Although it sounds stupid it can actually be fun, even if you just jokingly offend each other in the language, it's still practice!
I know many of these tips are ones your teachers tell you to do anyway, but they're right, they are the most useful! Once you advance you can also try and read books in the language you're studying. I currently read young adult fiction books in french as they are about the same level as me. However, you can start from children's books and work your way up! Have you guys got any tips? I'm still learning myself, so any advice is welcome!
Speak soon,
Lois Mae
