7 Top Tips for Language Learning to Study Abroad

Listening, check. Reading, check. Next you need to focus on writing, one the most crucial elements for taking a course in a foreign language. At the end of the day, you have to be able to take good notes. How else can you study for your classes? Taking lecture notes requires fast writing, easy readability and completeness. Your notes must be clear and concise.

My tip: To practice for this task, which can be difficult abroad, your best bet is to start by taking notes from the TV and radio. Not only is the rate of speech about the same as in a lecture, but you can easily verify how correct you were at writing down the information you gathered.

To take it a step further, you can sign up for a MOOC. I already hear it: “Sign up for a what?!"

A MOOC (massive open online course) is a free online class. Whatever your field is, you can sign up for an interactive course which can train you to take notes as if you were there in person.

Note-taking is one thing. To turn in a homework assignment is something totally different. During your experience, you will have to give presentations and turn in projects in a foreign language. Writing, even fiction, is just as important as taking notes.

My tip: Begin by keeping a journal or writing a blog, about your study abroad experiences for example. The advantage of a foreign language blog? It can be followed by native speakers or other readers who can easily correct you. And even more helpfully, on the website Lang-8, you can have your writings corrected by native speakers.

When I talk about training, I’m not asking you to become fully bilingual. No, the goal here is to learn the specific vocabulary in your field of study. Start off by focusing on the words and phrases that you are going to hear and use very often (of course, more than just vocabulary about the area around your apartment or placing an order in a restaurant).

Finally, we're left with speaking skills. In the context of a project or presentation, it’s pretty useful to be able to express yourself in your target language, in an academic manner. Why not find a native correspondent for this? A native speaker can listen to you and correct you.

My tip: There are many sites you can use to meet native speakers who study, just like you, and who want to take part in a language exchange. Explain your project to your new "professor" and discuss the exact topics you are studying, to practice for class discussions.

This post was written by Luca Sadurny, Managing Partner at MosaLingua, polyglot and language enthusiast, who has been learning languages on his own for more than 12 years. On the MosaLingua blog, he regularly writes about useful tips and efficient strategies to learn and improve foreign languages.