Learn your language with flashcards - tips

Ever heard of flashcards? They're little cards, with two sides. So how can you learn languages with them? Usually, there's a word on the one side, and the translation on the other side. Put them in a bag together, and you can take them out, one by one. Then, translate all the words. You can do it over and over again. Those you know, remove them from your bag.

Flashcards are a great way to learn those parts that are more challenging. If you have difficulties learning body parts, just make flashcards of the body parts. You can do them with drawings. Or with pictures. That's even better, so your mind stays in the language you're learning. And you might even remember the words you're learning by making the flashcards.

Make sure to put the articles and the plural if it's important in the language you're learning. Also use them for conjugations and expressions.

Many flashcards are available for sale. However, it's best to make them yourself. Only you know which words are important to you. And which conjugations and expressions you might use. Moreover, you can get inspired by other people's work. Check the 100 most used words to start with.

Use the websites that provide flashcards for free. Cram.com is one example. One of its advantages is that you can play the sound of the most spoken languages. So you can check the pronunciation as well.

More tips in my book and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Language learning hack: the 100 most used words

How do you start to learn a new language? There's many ways to start:

• Learn how to introduce yourself: that sounds very logic, since you start speaking by introducing yourself
• Pronunciation: important, especially for languages that are very different from your own
• My favourite: learn the in the language. By learning those words, you will already understand a good part of the language. Below are a few links to the most used words in the most spoken languages of the world. 
• Find other tips here.

1. English. Oxford Online did a research on what the 100 most written words were. Here's the list. If you prefer them in a video, here it is. For the spoken words, check the Reading Teachers Book of Lists, here are the 100 most spoken words.

2. Mandarin Chinese. Chinese is a little different. So you can learn the 100 most used characters. Or, you can learn the 100 most common phrases or words. And you might want to check out this website, which has a number of core words. There are pronunciations and explanations as well.

3. French. Here you'll find the 100 most common French words. Plus translations. Alternatively, you can follow this course on Memrise. And there's core words on the same website as for Chinese.

4. Spanish. The easiest list can be found here. Would you like to hear them all in one video? Click here. You can also look for 100 words you need to know here. They're not the most used, but handy anyway. For the 100 most used phrases and words, click here. For the verbs, here. And this blog claims you know half of the language with the 100 most used words.

5. Portuguese. It's a little more complicated to find a top 100, but you can start with the 1000 most common ones. Pronunciations are also available on this website. And here are the core 100 words.

6. Arabic. Arabic signs are different from Latin ones used in English, but here are the most common used words written out for you. Here are the top 100 verbs and you can listen to those on YouTube.

Beware though: languages change. So those lists are approximately the most used words in the respective languages.

Did I already tell you I wrote a book with over 100 language learning tips? Get your free copy here!

Free language learning website

In our quest to learn languages, we're always on the lookout for free materials. Now, I've found a great website that has a wealth of links, phrases and more than you can imagine. I'm very happy I found this little treasure to learn a language. Or two.

However, there's one thing: the homepage looks a bit scary. There's loads of Constructed Scripts, Astrolinguistics, and other Secani's. They are no animals, to my surprise, but subjects related to language.

The easiest way to find learning materials for the language you're studying, is like this: find your language on this list, and scroll down below to the learning materials, phrases and other websites where you'll find way more information, such as online language courses and learning websites.

Happy learning!