Squad Goals! 8 Tips and Tricks for Learning a Language with Friends

Squad Goals! 8 Tips and Tricks for Learning a Language with Friends Squad Goals! 8 Tips and Tricks for Learning a Language with Friends Being around friends is the best.They support you when youre down.They laugh at your jokes even if they arent funny.Theyll even tell you youre totally justified in being angry that unicorn-themed food just isnt magical enough.But theres one other thing friends can do.They can help you learn a language!Whether any of your current friends are already interested in learning a language, or you want to find new language friends online through conversation exchange, having support (and having fun together!) while learning isnt only helpful, its important.In this post, well talk about how you can benefit from making and having friends who are learning the same language as you or befriending and interacting with native speakers.Here are some tips and tricks to make fluency your number one squad goal! Why Learn a Language with Friends?First of all, learning a language with friends adds motivation. When youre learning a language, it can be easy to quit as soon as things get difficult. Howeve r, if youre learning with friends, theres someone else there to hold you accountable. Whether its in real life or online, and whether your friends are native speakers youre doing a language exchange with or fellow learners of your target language, you dont want to tell them that youll no longer be joining them on the journey to fluency. Its much harder to quit if doing so will let your friends down!Plus, youll have someone to discuss tricky language rules with. Regardless of what language youre learning, chances are youll encounter some rules that are difficult to grasp. When youre learning with a friend, you can talk through these problems. If youre learning with friends who are learning the same language, you two can discuss how you interpret the rule. If youre learning online with a native conversation partner, theyll likely be able to provide additional clarity on the rule.Finally, learning a language with friends gives you someone to practice with. Online language exchange prov ides you with practice in your target language in exchange for giving your partner practice in your native language. In person, on the phone or online, with any type of language friend, you can simply interact in your target language (or switch between languages). Whatever the case may be, having language friends is a helpful way to get valuable practice.Squad Goals! 8 Tips and Tricks for Learning a Language with Friends1. Find new language friends online.First things first, if you dont already have real-life friends who are learning the same target language as you (or immediate access to native speakers of your target language in real life), the internet has your back.There are plenty of language exchange sites where you can partner with a native speaker as you both try to learn the others language. Sites like Languing, LanguageFriends.net  and  Conversation Exchange  will help you find friends who speak the language youre looking to learn.These language learning communities can he lp you find other people who are learning your target language.Find people who share your interests and start getting all the benefits of learning a language with friends!2. Use social media.Social media is an invaluable tool for language learners. When youre looking to learn a language with friends, its nearly perfect.Thats because you can exercise all the main skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.For a more immersive experience, you can change your language settings. Language settings are remarkably easy to change. On Twitter, just click your profile icon, then Settings and privacy. From there, you can change your language. On Facebook, its even easier: language settings are at the bottom right-hand corner of any page.Both sites are also handy because you can use them to find and connect with other groups of language learners, and its always possible that youll even make more friends with native speakers just by hanging around in the right places!If your real-life frie nds agree to it, you can team up to post updates, message each other or even exchange video messages in your target language.You can also connect with a language exchange partner on social media for easy access to all their posts. This is one way you might end up making a wider network of friends who speak your target languageâ€"by connecting with your language exchange partners friends through social media.If you dont want to annoy your current friends/followers by occasionally switching to a language they dont speak, you can still use social media to connect with your language friends. Simply start new social media accounts that you dedicate solely to your target language. This way, you can post freely in your target language without anyone unfollowing you for it.3. Play games.Playing games  is a great way to improve your language skills while having fun.You can play language games with your friends in real life, or find online games to play with your language exchange partner. Ma ny online gaming websites offer chat rooms where you can engage in written conversation while playing. Even if youre not a gamer whos into learning with all the latest video games, you can still take advantage of this technique playing simple, well-known games online. For instance, PlayDrift offers multiplayer dominoes and backgammon with chat rooms.When youre playing games, conversation tends to flow pretty freely, so you might find yourself discussing topics youd never have thought of if your sole focus had been on language practice.4. Use your target language to talk with each other.It may seem obvious, but engaging in general conversation in your target language is one of the easiest ways to upgrade your skills.In person, this can be particularly fun. You can use your target language to communicate with your friends when you dont want other people to know what youre saying. Be careful, though, because you never know who else speaks your target language.With friends online, this could mean instant  messaging each other, connecting with video chat or interacting through voice messaging.Texting is another underused way of interacting in a foreign language. Once youve installed the right keyboard, it should be much easier.For iPhones, you can install quite a few different keyboards, including most major languages. To do so, go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then Add New Keyboard. From there, youll see an alphabetical list with a wide variety of different keyboards. Select the one you want. Once youre in messaging, you can simply tap the globe symbol to the left of the space bar to switch keyboards.For Android phones, you can install specific keyboards and enable them by going to Language and input under Settings.Either way, talking in your target language will provide valuable speaking and listening (and maybe even writing and reading) practice.5. Watch movies/TV in your target language together.Whether youre watching in-person with friends or long distance with online friends, watching movies or TV together has a lot to offer.Learning languages through movies  and TV is useful in and of itself. After all, it gives you valuable practice understanding authentic media.However, if you watch with friends, there are even greater benefits. You get all the benefits of watching authentic media, but you also have a helpful topic for conversation practice. Who are your favorite characters? What lines were the best? How did you feel about the movie?If your friend happens to be a native speaker, they can also clarify any subtleties you may have missed or help you understand the cultural nuances.And with Netflix  out there, theres never a shortage of viewing options. Netflix offers a wide variety of foreign language TV and movies that you can find simply by browsing titles.6. Start a book club in your target language.If theres one thing Oprah has taught us, its the value of book clubs.Book clubs are a great way to get more out of your read ing experience by having someone to discuss each book with.However, for language learners, they offer so much more than that. Reading a book provides you with valuable reading practice. Discussing that book piles on conversation practice, too.You can start a book club with your real-life or online friends. Simply agree on a book you want to read and plan a date to discuss it. If you dont have a group formed yet, you can also try online book club platforms like Goodreads Bookclub Groups.If your partner is a native speaker of your target language and wants to learn your language, they might even try reading the book in your native language, while you read it in your target language. Then, you can discuss the book in both languages to ensure you both benefit from the experience.7. Create challenges against each other.Nothing will fuel your fire quite like a little competition.Setting challenges works great with in-person or online friends. Just agree on a goal and see who can complete it first.For instance, you might challenge each other to learn 100 new vocabulary words. Or you might see who can write a short story in their target language the fastest.Whatever your goal, it will push you and your friend forward towards fluency (and make you desperately want to win).8. Use Skype to connect.Skype  is a fabulous thing. You can place online voice or video calls for free. This is a great way to connect with real-life friends when you cant get together or to connect with online language friends.Video calls are particularly helpful for language learners. After all, you can use video calls to detect nuance in language, see what shape someones mouth must make to produce certain unfamiliar sounds, or even watch your partners facial expression to get a clearer idea of the emotion behind a phrase. Plus, sometimes wildly gesticulating is the best way to get a point across regardless of language.Learning a language with friends is some of the most fun youll ever have on the r oad to fluency.So set your squad goals high! And One More ThingYou and your friends will love learning with FluentU. FluentU makes it possible to learn languages  from music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks.FluentU is great for learning with friends because you can use the social media share buttons to share your favorite videos, and you can go over the same material separately or together.With FluentU, you learn real languagesâ€"the same way that real people speak them. FluentU has a wide variety of videos, like movie trailers, funny commercials and web series, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse ScreenFluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover over or tap on the subtitles to instantly view definitions.FluentU Interactive TranscriptsYou can learn all t he vocabulary in any video with FluentUs quiz mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% personalized experience by recommending videos and examples.