You may have thought of learning Indonesian, and you have begun your search on what resources you could get your hands on that would allow you to supplement AND possibly fast-track your progress learning Indonesian?
You are interested in learning Indonesian, yet you may not live in Indonesia or have Indonesian friends who could help you practice. Living in this digital age, fortunately there are many good resources out there available to help you attain the language fluency you desire. You just need to know where to look for them!
When learning a language, there are 4 important aspects you have to pay attention to:
(1) Reading (2) Writing (3) Listening (4) Speaking
For each of those 4 aspects mentioned, at Think Bahasa we believe learning a language can be made effortless and efficient. You just need to know how. In this article we are going to share some of our tips with you. Buckle up, take some notes as you read on.
Here are some recommended resources perfect for beginner Indonesian learners:
(1) Reading Resources:
Start with bilingual books. Bilingual reading is the practice of reading two versions of the text at once – one in your target language, in this case is Indonesian, and the other in either in your native language or another “base” language (i.e. English), which you know really well.
The process will go more or less like this:
You open the book, read a paragraph in your target language (Indonesian), and try to understand some of it, as much as you can. Next step is to read the same paragraph in your native language, then return to the Indonesian text and read it again. You should now be able to understand the majority of the Indonesian text. You repeat the same procedure with the next paragraph and gradually work your way through the book. This method works wonderfully if you aim to expand your vocabulary words fast and learn Indonesian grammar in a fun way.
Imagine, being a beginner Indonesian, and you immediately jump into reading Indonesian book. it can be difficult to understand what’s going on without constantly looking for words in the dictionary. This makes it difficult to stay motivated. Wouldn’t it be nice to keep on reading without an army of interruptions at your doorstep?
Reading is not just a practical and fun way to learn a language. With bilingual books, you can actively learn your target language and enjoy a good story at the same time.
We recommend you to visit www.indonesianstorybooks.com for a large collection of engaging, bilingual books at a variety of reading levels, or our other post where we recommend a number of Indonesian books for beginners.
(2) Writing Resources:
At Think Bahasa we always like to recommend our students to practice their writing as the next steps after they’ve learned vocabulary words through reading.
Focus on aspect practice. Language learners often neglect this concept, but it is the foundation of all grammar you’ll be learning. Refer back to the Indonesian books you have just read and pick out a few example sentences from there. Or you can also pick out 3 new words you’ve just learned, and for each of the three, formulate 3 new sentences in Indonesian. This will force you to understand the meaning of each word in context, and in turn, use it in its appropriate context.
One of our favorite ways to recommend is to keep a bullet journal to speed up your language learning! This will prompt you to create an organize system for your language learning activity, where you can also set your goals and keep track of your progress.
By writing or more like doing a writing practice, you can track your mistakes. As you keep learning, you will be able to review your previous writings more effectively. When you catch a mistake, it’s less likely that you’ll repeat it in the future.
Another reason why we love journaling as a way to learn Indonesian effectively is that it can serve you as a constant reminder that you’ve already made a lot of progress. The constant reminder will give you confidence and the will to carry on. And remember, that when it comes to attaining language fluency, consistency is the key!
(3) Listening Resources:
www.indonesianlisteningpractice.com is THE place to be to practice your Indonesian listening skill. On that website you can find various resources from songs to listening practice videos for Indonesian language learners at various levels. If you take the subscription program, you will also benefit from grammar notes that you can find on each module, and also quizzes that you can take every time you complete each of practice, to test your comprehension.
Each practice session consists of 2 parts and will take you less than 5 minutes to complete. The first part is just the audio, while the second part will have the audio, Indonesian subtitles, and also English translations. Make your listening practice effortless.
You can of course, try to find Indonesian songs that you like from the internet or youtube, and then try to figure out what it means in your native language by looking up dictionary. Though again, it’s so much easier to just go to www.indonesianlisteningpractice.com to get your listening practice going, as the website has selected different songs appropriate to different level of fluency. Save your time and energy, and learn Indonesian effectively.
(4) Speaking Resources:
Among the 4 important aspects of language learning, this particular one requires you to interact with others. If you don’t live in Indonesia, your chance to meet Indonesian(s) to practice your speaking skills can be far and few between, so this is the time to get creative and to get out from your comfort zone!
If you live in Singapore, consider yourself lucky because Think Bahasa hosts conversation practice events on a regular basis to give you, our dear Indonesian language learners, an opportunity to practice what you’ve learned passively. In our meetup we pair randomly a native speaker with a language learner, and basically for the whole 30 minutes, you can pretty much talk about any topic you’d like, may it be about the weather, travel, food, and then, the next 30 minutes, you will change a language conversation partner. This set up will give you, as an Indonesian language learner, chance to be exposed to different accents / lingos you may hear from different native speakers of Indonesian. To sign up, go to:
Not living in Indonesia or Singapore? Try to check out your local meetup group or Indonesian community in your area. Or else, join our Facebook group where you can find yourself an Indonesian language conversation partner online, via Skype, for free. To join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bahasaindonesialearningclub/
Do you have anything to add to our recommendations? or Do you know anyone who will be benefited from reading this post? Comment and share.
Thank you for reading!
Think Bahasa
