Hack Your Gadgets and Home to Teach Yourself a New Language [Language]

All of these games support multiple languages, so they're worth looking into if you're giving this a try. Since these are all mobile games, it's generally easy to understand them (and we already know Tetris is good for our brain), although it's probably best to use apps you're familiar with at the start of this process. Some, like Dark Meadow, are nice because you get an English language track with subtitles for your language, just like you would with a movie, but with the added context of interacting with it as well.

In the App Store description, on the left hand side beneath the price in iTunes, you'll see the languages an app supports.

For Android, there doesn't appear to be a way to tell if an app supports another language at a glance. That said, almost all the official Google apps integrated the overall language settings in, while other smaller apps didn't. It's trial and error, but feel free to share any in the comments you're aware of that offer multi-language support. Unfortunately, it also changes how you search, so if you're a constant Googler it might make things more difficult.

You can apply this to a lot of console and PC games as well, and many consoles support different language settings for menu screens and games. Again, as a learning experience, this seems best for simple, instructional situations and not full-fledged narrative-based experiences, but your mileage may vary.

Hack Your Home for More Fluency

You can change all you want on your computer and phone, but if you don't enhance those with other tricks, you'll only get so far. One of the old tricks of language teachers everywhere is to place sticky notes on everything in your home with the objects name in the language you're learning. Yes, everything, the mirror, the TV, the door, and the contents of your pantry. Cover your house in sticky notes so you can't get away from it.

Kitchen
The kitchen is a great place to learn a new language, which is exactly why a school in France is doing just that by creating a talking kitchen. You can't really set your kitchen to talk to you and instruct you to do things like the school does, but there are a few ways to integrate it in. The easiest is cooking in your language of choice, and there's a few ways to do it.

Cooking with a foreign speaking teacher is a surprisingly easy way to pick up on language. Unfortunately, finding the right programs when you don't understand the language is difficult. The best way is to search for cooking shows, then pick a show that looks interesting and follow the directions. I found a nice collection in Spanish on El Gourmet, where you get the video instructions and the recipes. It takes a little while to start understanding it well enough to cook an entire meal, but if you combine it with the above mentioned sticky notes, you will be able to cook a delicious batch of cookies after just a few viewings.

Living Room
If you learn best by hearing things, there's no better way to do so with a new language than to watch the news in another language. Some languages are easier to find than others, but if you have cable you might be able to track down news programs. Comcast, for instance, has international programs that may already be available in your package, as does DirectTV. There are often also channels hidden away in the higher numbers in non-English languages. You can always watch films with subtitles to help you out as well, but since that's completely passive with no interaction on your part, it's not going to get you as far. Many new movies have standard Spanish dubs, which means they don't have difficult to understand accents and they speak slowly.

Bedroom
Sleep learning has long been discredited, but some believe studying before sleeping is a good way to retain knowledge because it gives the brain time to organize and compile the information overnight. Consider throwing on a language learning podcast while you do your nightly duties. Even having it in the background is helpful, but if you tie it in with what you're physically doing you'll get more out of it. So, if you're brushing your teeth and washing your clothes, pick an episode that concentrates on the words associated with the bathroom.

Music
As much of a butchering as it typically is, listening to covers of English pop songs in another language is a weird, but useful way to pick up on another language. You're not going to get a perfect translation here, this is more about context, but you'll get an idea of what words mean. For instance, there's a surprising amount of Beatles songs in Spanish.

Shopping
If you have a supermarket or small boutique shop based around the language you're studying, by all means, shop there. There's almost nothing better than reading flyers for food items and shopping to help you learn another language. This isn't going to work for every language of course, but for some, Spanish especially, it's a dead-simple way to pick up on small things, which eventually lead to bigger ones. If you get stuck at the store, the iOS app Word Lens can translate on the fly.

---

To be perfectly clear here, you will not suddenly be able to speak another language fluently and you probably won't magically read an entire article without swapping back and forth. In my experience, I was able to comprehend words and situations better and my vocabulary improved in a couple weeks of practice. Even if I can't repeat the words back, I can understand based on context. Vocabulary is almost always the first part of a language course, so consider this your starting point to bigger and better things.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/sI6VYUtEV5s/how-to-enhance-your-gadgets-and-home-to-learn-a-new-language

jack dempsey lake malawi hines ward warren jeffs james harrison james harrison phaedra parks