ITALIANS IN LONDON

Liz Merchant

Suggestions

• Make time on a regular basis for your language learning. Little and often is best - ten minutes every day tends to be more effective than a marathon session once a week. But don’t limit yourself to 10 minutes!
• Create a routine for yourself. Surf the net, play your cassettes/cds on the way to and from work or when you’re jogging or cooking.
• Be realistic and don’t expect miracles. Language learning takes time and commitment- don’t expect to be fluent overnight and don’t be hard on yourself when you can’t remember everything you’ve learnt.
• Set yourself some short-term goals- the thought of a visit in a few months’ time to a place where the language you’re learning is spoken is a real incentive to learn.
• Don’t feel you must always forge ahead with new material. Repeating activities is an excellent way of building familiarity with the language. So if you’re tired and your mind is wandering, instead of giving your language learning a miss do some activities you’ve done before and which won’t require as much concentration.
• Don’t worry too much about mistakes. It’s a normal part of the learning process, and you’ll learn much more quickly by having a go at speaking than by saying nothing until you’re word perfect. Generally, people are only too pleased to hear you trying to speak their language and make allowances if you don’t get it exactly right.