Three habits in Vietnamese lessons that helped get me to conversational level
I share the habits that helped me get the most out of my Vietnamese lessons.
It’s exciting starting Vietnamese lessons.
I’d found a tutor for a decent price and after my first trial session I was hooked. I was going through the basics and making progress. I felt like I was on my way to becoming someone my extended family could actually speak to.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, and just turning up to lessons wasn’t enough for me to see me improve my Vietnamese. I found that I would have this learn so much Vietnamese in one lesson only for it to be gone from my head the week after in the next.
I needed to change my approach! So after researching how the brain works and reading up all about language learning, I added these three things into my routine that made me get the most out of my lessons.
Writing new words and phrases down.
My brain is like a sieve. When I hear a word, it goes through one ear and out the other. I started writing new words down that I came across in lessons and reviewed them in my own time after.
In my lesson, I have my phone with the flashcard app Anki nearby and take a few moments to write down the word. I’ll write it down in quick noteform because doing this too much can distract and slow from the actual lesson. I can properly write it after. If I have the lesson on my computer, I’ll just copy it and paste the word from the lesson into the flashcard.
It meant that when I got to the next lesson, my brain would be primed to remember words that I had seen before.
Speak as much as you can, even when it was difficult.
Speaking the language as much as possible is the best way to get better at learning Vietnamese. I had a full-time job so it was difficult for me to get much speaking practice outside of my lessons. As a result I tried to speak Vietnamese as much as I could in the lessons.
A good tip I found was just trying to respond in Vietnamese how I would in English. If I didn’t know I would ask my teacher what the word was in Vietnamese. I’d then write this down and learn this for next time.
Over time, it meant that I built up a bank of common phrases and questions I would actually say, and use.
Asking “How likely am I to use this in the near future?”
There are so many words and vocab in Vietnamese that you come across even in lessons. I found it overwhelming trying to learn it all so I started asking ‘how likely was I to use this.’ If the answer wasn’t ‘quite likely’ then I would leave that word for the time being.
I did learn these words later, but only after I learnt all the useful phrases and words I might use in conversations first.
Thanks for reading! Keep learning and Hẹn gặp lại.