Today I came across another interesting language learning method on Language learning tips, which was used by the 19th-century German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), who excavated Troy. In order to learn Greek he read a Greek translation of one of his favourite books, and compared the translation word by word and line by line with the original text. This enabled him to learn a lot of vocabulary and grammar in context without having to refer to dictionaries or grammar books all the time. Here’s some more information about Schliemann’s language learning methods, which enabled him to acquire eighteen languages quite quickly and successfully.
The reading method would be even better if you had an audiobook version of the translation and/or a native speaker to help you with pronunciation. Moreover, if you choose a book that includes a lot of colloquial dialogues, you can learn everyday conversational words and phrases as well.
Grammar books and vocabulary lists are useful, but I find that if I discover a grammatical pattern or the meaning of a word on my own, I’m more likely to remember it.
