Tip #6 - Talk to yourself on the bus

No time is dead time

Just because you don't happen to have your course book or language exchange partner there with you, doesn't mean that you can't practise the language.

Do you see what you are reading now? Well, what's the word for "sentence" in your target language? Look around you. Can you name everything around you in that language? If not, then start thinking.


If you can't extract what things are called just now, then instead start to practise conversations. Go through them in your head from greeting a person to saying goodbye or making plans for dinner. Imagine what the words feel like on your tongue.

Or apply grammar rules you have just learned to some sentences in your mind and see if they seem to work. Decide in what situation later you can try that out and then do it.

Yes, even sitting on a bus there's a lot of room for language learning :)

Enjoy yourself,

Tip #5 - Learn 5 words each day

It multiplies so easily

5 words a day is not a lot, is it? And if you add that up over a month you then end up with around 140-150 new bits of vocabulary to go out there and wow people with in your new language! Spread that over a year and you've just learned 1700 new words....you get the picture.

Start now
If you want to try doing this now then you can try reading a magazine, newspaper or book in the language you want to learn and underline only 5 words you don't understand or would like to use much better. Then whip out your dictionary and look them up. Spend a minute on each word so you can read as much about its definitions, translations, synonyms or origin that you can and then write it up.

Or do it online
You can also set up an account on Ephisto if you want and set a goal of learning 35 words a week. Then the Ephisto language learning engine will set tasks for you and when you read articles set by the engine you can get definitions, pronunciation directly from the language coach and can revise the words in games.

A taster
Here's a word to get you started: "lagom", means just right, just enough in Swedish and apparently is an abbreviation of when Vikings used to share food and would eat "as a team" meaning in Swedish "laget om", which was then shortened to "lagom". Have fun!

www.ephisto.com