Where to start learning Luxembourgish on your own

Starting to learn a new language can feel overwhelming. There seems to be so little you know and so much you don’t know. Your head is filled with ideas to communicate and it seems like you can’t get any across. How do you improve when you feel like you have everything to learn?

The first step in language learning is finding out your learning style. Think back during times where you studied something before. How did you learn the material at hand? Did you find it beneficial to read it, listen to a lecture on the topic or did it help you most to drop the textbooks and try to learn by doing it yourself?

There are three main learning types: people who learn best with their eyes (visual types), people who learn best with their ears (acoustic types) and people who learn best by doing (kinesthetic types). If you learn by looking at graphs, images or text, you are more of a visual learner. If you like listening to the radio or learn by listening to stories, you probably belong in the category of acoustic learners. And if you’re the type of person who gets the most out of experimenting, you likely belong to the kinesthetic learners.

Of course, sometimes you’re not fully in one or the other category. There is no need to overthink this, the point is to figure out which method will give you the most benefit and then start there. You could even take a two-minute online test to determine your main learning style (http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz).

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore all learning strategies but the one you think you excel in. Language can and should be read, written, heard, and spoken. What I am getting at is simply to start with your strengths so you can get some quick wins.

For visual learners:

• read small Luxembourgish text or dialogue passages
• look up unknown words in a dictionary (for example here: lod.lu)
• discover patterns in sentences to learn grammar (e.g., often there is an “s” at the end of verbs with “du” -> du wunns, du heeschs,…)
• use different colours to mark nouns of different genders (e.g., red for feminine words, blue for masculine words and green for neutral words)

For acoustic learners:

• listen to Luxembourgish radio and try to distinguish and repeat individual words
• make a song out of verb conjugations (i.e., try singing “ech wunnen, du wunns, hie wunnt, etc.” to your favourite tune)
• ask people around you to tell you useful phrases in Luxembourgish that you can memorize and repeat

For kinesthetic learners:

• memorize small Luxembourgish sentences by connecting each word with a gesture
• make your own sentences and ask a friend to correct them
• walk around while you repeat words and sentences out loud

Add a comment to let me know how you like to tackle a new language and what worked for you in the past.