Learning a foreign language is a challenge for many students. If you follow the advice given below, your studying of a foreign language will become more effective.

• Attend classes regularly, so that you do not fall behind.
• Do your assignments and be prepared for each day of class. Catching up in a foreign language is very difficult due to its cumulative nature.
• Read and speak out loud as you learn a language, in order to become more comfortable with it and increase your proficiency.
• Get used to thinking in another language. Associate words of that language directly with their meanings rather than with their English equivalents.
• Brush up on your English grammar before you start learning that of a foreign language. This will help you better understand similarities and differences between English grammar and that of the foreign language as you learn new grammatical terms and concepts.
• When translating something into either English or the foreign language, do not translate word for word. Instead, look at the whole sentence and understand its meaning. Then do the translation based on the meaning you want to convey.
• Use index cards. Put a word or phrase on one side and the meaning or translation on the other. Study these cards frequently.
• Find a partner with whom you can practice the foreign language (conversation partners are available through Hawley). In addition, meet with a foreign language undergraduate assistant at Hawley to go over your homework and get help studying for tests. Just call 961-1682 to make an appointment.
• Take advantage of the foreign language tapes at Hawley and in the foreign language listening lab.