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connection in your brain. This is why reading out loud when learning new words is good so that you not only connect a word to an image, but also to a sound.

In general this technique of combining to senses helps you establish more connections in the brain and helps your retain more, more quickly. You can for example listen to the television while reading the subtitles or even better listen and try to write down what you hear. Reading out loud is also good or repeating what you hear on a tape or on television. Copying text from a textbook also falls in this category. Lastly writing and speaking at the same time can be tried. It might seem silly and its difficult to combine these two activities but it actually does help your brain to retain and organize information.

The sooner you find someone to speak to the better. Conversation puts your language skills in a pressure cooker. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You are still a child learning this language. You learn through mistakes. Don't apologize for mistakes. You waste your own time and that of your partner in conversation when you do. Mistakes are not only expected they are necessary. (The only exception is my brother who refused to speak Danish for fourteen years, but heard it constantly. When he finally opened his mouth fluent Danish came out). When speaking mainly focus on what the other person is saying and try to copy them. This is how you learned as a child. Translating in your head is ineffective. Either know how to say something or do an approximation and ask for a better way to say it.

One big complication when learning languages is when you have to learn a new alphabet. When it comes to Cyrillic or Greek the problem is surmountable since the alphabets are fairly similar to those in the west. Arabic and Hebrew can be confusing not only missing syllables but also being written right to left. Chinese and Japanese have nothing in common with our alphabet (except for the fact that they sometimes use it). Again don't start out learning these signs. Start out getting familiar with the sounds of the language by watching it on television. Once you have internalized the sounds of the language it will be much easier to attach them to specific symbols and thus memorize them.

As you progress make sure you keep exposing yourself to the language daily. This is even possible when you are very busy. Print out something that interest you in your target language and tape it to the wall next to the stove, the ironing-board,

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