1. Practice before going abroad

For future Au Pairs looking to prepare well for their stay, here's a helpful tip: kickstart your language journey even before moving abroad. Don’t worry, you don't need to study many hours each day; a simple and enjoyable solution is to find an online friend to practise your communication skills with. This way, you'll become accustomed to speaking a foreign language even before meeting your Host Family, reducing stress and anxiety before your journey abroad. If you're unsure where to find a language practice partner, consider checking out our Language Exchange program.

 

Remember, practice makes perfect, so start speaking right from the beginning of your language journey. Even if your language skills aren't advanced yet, don't let that hold you back. Don’t be afraid of using simple structures and making mistakes – as long as you successfully convey what you want, that's all you need!

2. Double subtitles 

Learning can be enjoyable when you integrate it with something you love, and what's more enjoyable than watching series and movies? Whether it's comedy, drama, thriller, or horror, pick your favourite genre, select a good title originally filmed in the language you're learning, and use it as a practice tool! If you're not advanced enough yet to understand solely from listening, we recommend downloading a plug-in that displays double subtitles.

 

Here's how it works: Let's say you're an English speaker learning French. Choose a French movie, set the first subtitles to French and the second to English. Try to follow only the French subtitles, and if you encounter a word or phrase you don't understand, glance at the English subtitles. Many popular plug-ins also allow you to customise features like setting the second subtitles in a smaller size or marking difficult words, making it easy to create flashcards for later review.

3. Read online in a foreign language

Improving your language skills through reading in a foreign language is a well-known fact. Have you attempted it in the past and faced challenges? We understand the struggle. Grasping a complex plot in a foreign language can be demanding and time-consuming, especially if you find yourself frequently checking unknown words in a dictionary. However, there's a way to make reading in a foreign language more manageable — start with short online texts!

 

The options are countless: read brief news articles on a foreign news portal, explore the social media account of your favourite foreign actress in her original language, or find foreign blog posts and forums related to your hobbies. Breaking down the amount of text you read at a time can significantly ease the process of starting to read in a foreign language and make it less overwhelming. Now, here's the best part: if you encounter something you don't understand, you can check the meaning in less than 5 seconds using tools that translate entire websites. But don't cheat — use this function only to clarify what you genuinely don't know!

4. Learn in a context

During your Au Pair stay abroad, you'll attend a language course. While learning from books in a course might not be the most exciting activity, we suggest making the most out of it. A valuable tip is to always learn new vocabulary and phrases in context. Take the word "slice," for example. If you learn it in the context of a pizza night, you not only grasp its meaning as cutting a piece of pizza but also understand when to use it — like suggesting how to divide a cake or explaining your cooking techniques.

 

Learning words in context offers numerous benefits. It helps you understand how words are used in real-life situations, not just in isolation. When you learn words in a specific context, it becomes easier to remember them because you connect them to actual experiences. This type of learning is more engaging and practical, making it stick in your memory. Additionally, it enhances your communication skills by demonstrating how to use words in various situations.

5. Analyse favourite songs

Here comes the best advice of all — learn a language by analysing your favourite songs. Choose a song in a language that you are studying and find lyrics to it. Read while listening, mark all the words that you don’t understand and check their meaning afterwards. Then read and listen again and again, trying to remember the meaning of whole phrases with new words.

 

This advice is not only cool because it allows you to understand the meaning behind your favourite songs; it is also fantastic because it really makes you remember new vocabulary extremely fast! The new words will be firmly fixed in your memory through frequent listening and when you come across the word in another context, you will immediately recall its meaning through association with your favourite song. It is one of the most effective and at the same time very entertaining methods of learning new vocabulary.

 

 

To sum it up, going abroad and becoming an Au Pair is a great way to learn a new language! To enhance your progress, simply apply our five strategies designed to make you fluent faster — whether you're about to go abroad or already there. Best of luck on your language journey!