Language Letters

Do you live in Germany, too? I recently stumbled upon an immersion tip from language coach Elena Kocheva, and I would like to share it with you!

It’s called “The Matrix of Options” and helps you “translate” your life into the language that you are learning.

Step 1: Write a list of everything you are interested in, everything you like to currently do in your native language.

Step 2: Brainstorm media and opportunities that you have to learn and use the language.

Step 3: Create your own personal Matrix of Options. This is Elena’s own example:

So, you put all your interestest on the left, and all the learning opportunities at the top. Then, you think about how to link them. So, what learning opportunity could you imagine using for which one of your interests.

Elena, for example, could imagine herself having a free conversation about tennis, 60s music and Formula 1. She can imagine herself reading about tennis, self-development, psychology and girls stuff in magazines. She’d like to use Instagram to learn vocabulary regarding mountains, Formula 1, psychology, coaching and girls stuff.

I really like this matrix because it gives you an overview of everything you can do to immerse yourself in the language. And what is important is that those are just options! You try them out, and if they don’t work well for you, you just move on to another option. So, we need to take this lightly, and really optional, especially because we are still kind of at the beginning of our journey. But it definitely is a great way to direct our learning more towards our interests and to our needs, which, I am certain, will help immensely for being able to use the language in real life.

For example, I like gardening, and I just went out to buy a magazine about gardening. It does work! I already spent an hour, just looking through my magazine and enjoying myself. Even if I don’t understand it all yet, I did find articles that sparked my interest. I understood some titles! Already knowing something about the topic makes understanding easier.

And, you know what else I did? I downloaded the Google Translate app on my phone. It has a camera function, which is absolutely amazing! If I hold the phone over the text I’d like to understand, it just shows me the article in my language!! Amazing!! You should try it!!

Let’s share our matrixes with the other learners?? 😊

You can do this by filling in the form below.