Language Courses

The average human utilizes less than 10% of the brain. What’s happening with the rest? Can it be harnessed while you sleep? The answer is a qualified ‘yes’.

Sleep learning has been employed with varying degrees of success for many years. It is not a completely passive process, however. You can’t plug in headphones, listen to a German CD, and expect to wake up in the morning, fluently speaking German.

About 50% of our daily speech is composed of approximately 100 common words. In fact, the majority of our daily conversation employs less than 1000 words. If you study the most frequently-used 1000 words in any language, you will have a solid foundation on which to build.

You can find frequently-used word lists on the internet for any language by performing searches like the following:

* 1000 most used words Spanish

* 1000 most used words German

* 1000 most used words French

* 1000 most used words Italian

* 1000 most used words Portuguese

You will find thousands of websites offering software, books, audio files, CDs, crossword generators, flashcard software, and other types of language-learning materials. You can use these materials to design and customize your own sleep-learning regimen.

Make sure that you locate appropriate audio files for your vocabulary lists. Produce print-outs and audio recordings for about 100 words per session.

You learn most efficiently when all of your senses are involved. Spend a few minutes just before you go to sleep reading a vocabulary list and repeating after the narrator. Then settle in for a good night’s sleep. Ensure that the volume of your CD- or MP3-player is just audible. A recording that is too loud may disturb your sleep and/or damage your hearing.

In the morning, quickly review the list once again. You should find that your learning progresses at a very brisk pace.

Some individuals may not experience a peaceful night’s sleep using this learning approach. If you are one of these unfortunates, try decreasing the volume. Listen without headphones or earphones – unless you are sharing the bedroom with someone who can’t sleep through the distraction. (Earplugs to the rescue!)

When all else fails, try cutting your sleep short by about an hour and napping for an hour sometime during the day. Use the same technique of reviewing, sleeping, and reviewing that you would for nocturnal sleep-learning.

It you are an intermediate to advanced language student, you might want to try the same approach with audio books. Tackle one chapter at a time, reading it aloud with the narrator, researching and writing down unfamiliar words, then listening to the audio while you sleep. In the morning, read through the chapter again and marvel at how much you have retained since last night’s review session.

Are you adventurous? A self-hypnosis CD played before sleep-learning will encourage brain receptivity. You can even find internet sites that allow you to customize a downloadable self-hypnosis recording in your choice of male or female voice; and there are complete CD sleep-learning packages for specific languages.

Why waste 1/3 of your life in slumber when you could be channeling it into learning your favorite foreign language!

©Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author’s note below (with active links) are included.



By: Kathy Steinemann

About the Author:

When I was a boy it was always fun to try to communicate in code with my friends. We never thought of learning a language to do this. We just wanted to be able to talk to each other and not have anybody else know what we were saying.

Now that I am older I can see advantages to learning to communicate in different languages. Think of some of the jobs you could have if you could speak a second language proficiently. Yes, it takes time, effort and discipline but think of the adventures. You could accomplish this goal is 3 to 6 months time.

Here are six different employment opportunities that could be yours if you took this idea seriously.

1. Travel Guide … Think of it … travel the world. See places you have never seen. It could be tropical isles with palm trees and beaches. You could be staying in beautiful hotels or traveling on big cruise ships. Pick the language you want to learn and purchase a good language course like Pimsleur or one of the other top rated courses on the market and in a short time it could all be yours.

2. Representative for Foreign Companies – The United States is one of the largest markets in the world and there are numerous companies that would like to be represented here but don’t have the language skills. So each of these companies need someone to represent their company here and help them do business. Learn Spanish and get on the internet and contact companies in Spain or any of the Latin American countries and find someone to represent.

3. If you like humanitarian work, there are many International Non-Profit Organizations that could use your help to tap into the resources here in the United States. Think of the good you could be doing. But you will need to learn a new language to communicate. Think of Swahili in Africa or Tagalog in the Philippines. These are places you could be going to very soon if you just take a small amount of time each day to learn a new language.

4. Be an interpreter for a foreign embassy in Paris, France. Learn French and see Paris, Canes or go to the French Riviera. It may take you a little time to learn French well enough but it also would take you quite a bit of time if you had to make the money and purchase your own fare there.

5. If you like business be an Import/Export sales representative and spend your time securing goods to export to foreign firms or importing goods for companies here. All you have to do is speak well enough to communicate with the firms wanting this service. They are out there just waiting for someone like you to come along.

6. Major Hotels/Resorts are always looking for bilingual people to help them in their Hotels/Resorts. You could be living in a world class resort if that is your choice.

These are only a few ideas for you to think about. If you are tired of your life or what you are doing think about learning a new language course and changing what you are doing. Do something exciting. Some of the top rated language courses are Pimsleur Method, Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone. Pick a language. Pick a course. And find a new job.



By: Jim Ada

About the Author: