Make Your Own Personal Dictionary
If you can get your hands on a dictionary, a bilingual one or a target language only dictionary, you’ll be in the clover when learning English or another foreign language. Be sure to highlight new words you need from reading through a short target language magazine or newspaper article. Or you can make handy little flashcards with today’s group of words on one side and their meanings in English (or your Mother tongue) on the other side. Tuck a few of these in your pocket or purse to quickly refer to as you go through the day’s activities. You’ll pick up essential vocabulary on a daily basis. In scant weeks you’ll be using your flashcards less and less as you internalize the new vocabulary. When the first batch is “learned”, start another batch.
Remember, they say that you can never be too rich, too thin or have enough foreign language vocabulary.
Foreign language learner and British ex-pat Kate Peckitt now living and teaching in New Zealand relates, “When I was trying to learn Finnish it was just so different. I started making up one of those little spiral-bound note pads with new words and phrases from everywhere – from street signs to supermarket and store aisle labels, names and just anything I ran across in the course of my day.”
Be sure to include frequently-used phrases and useful sentences on your vocabulary flashcards too. Write grocery lists, appointments, diary entries, to-do lists and reminder notes in your new language. Keep at it. “Slow and steady always wins the race”, as Self-Improvement Guru Anthony Robbins quotes adding, “Most people over estimate what they can do in a year and they under-estimate what they can achieve in a decade or even a lifetime.”
He adds, “Most New Year’s resolutions fail because people tend to want to do it all overnight.”
Remember the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare? The key to success is taking small, but frequent and consistent steps.
For some of my greatest tips, tricks and techniques for quickly and easily learning virtually any of the world's 6912 living languages just go to:
http://www.escapeartist.com/e_Books/Learn_a_Foreign_Language/Learn_a_Foreign_Language.html
Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on the lucrative, fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign Language, get your copy of his no-cost, full multi-media, hypertext-linked pdf ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know” by sending an e-mail to lynchlarrym@gmail.com with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line. Need professional, original content and photos or images for your blog, newsletter, e-zine or website? Want more information, have a comment or special request? Contact the author by e-mail for a prompt response.
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3 comments:
It's a good idea to take advantage of a dynamical use of the dicctionary by creating the oneself one; this way allows peolpe to learn exactly what they want or need.
I use to say that dictionary marriage and unions are somethig similar because are useful but you can't depend on them; but with this idea of a dynamical personal dictionry it should be not like marriage or union but a friend or source of learning.
Thanks a lot.
I think having a dictionary is an essential part of language learning and it should be a requirement for any language course that you start.
Of course, beginning your own pocket dictionary is a great tool and it gives you an opportunity to
increase your vocabulary and become more independent on your learning and develop your learning styles.
Besides, for any person who wants to learn a foreign language having suffiecient vocabulary is mandatory and therefore everything that helps you achieve this goal must be encouraged.
To create our own dictionary is a very useful tool for learning English, especially at school. As teachers, if we train the students in the habit of outfighting and writing the new words from readings or any place they find them, they surely will get the opportunity to increase their vocabulary by their own way and will probably have more advantage to exercise their brain in the acquisition of knowledge. When the vocabulary is fixed in handy flash cards with pictures and meaning in the student’s mother tongue, you can use this pedagogic material in fun activities as games or puzzles that let students to learn English in joyful way
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