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Practice makes perfect!
By Unwritten — Written on Aug 28, 2018
By Grace Carter
Writing is a great way to learn a new language because it allows you to form sentences at a much slower pace than speaking. Sometimes people find it hard to think of things to write about. Just use topics that interest you and don’t worry about whether it’s interesting, no will will read it and it’s just practice.
Here are 5 creative writing prompts you can use to help you learn a new language.
1. Your friends
Writing about your friends is great because you are familiar with them and are able to talk about them in a basic and simple manner. Talking about friends is also a good opportunity to practice using basic adjectives and verbs. If you’re at a more advanced level you can write about problems your friends have had, or how they have influenced your life.
2. Goals
“One good way to practice writing in a new language is to write down three goals you would like to accomplish in a day. Just write down tasks you need to complete, such as going grocery shopping, getting a haircut, and paying your cell phone bill,” Greg Hanson, ESL educator at SimpleGrad and BoomEssays, says. This is an exercise that has the dual benefits of giving you language practice, as well as making you a more productive person.
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3. Write about what you did yesterday
You can practice by writing about the previous day’s events, but you could also write about what you accomplished over the past week, month, or year. You could even talk about what life was like for your great-grandparents, or people living three hundred years ago. You’ll get lots of opportunities to practice writing in the past tense; which is good for beginners, as well as higher levels.
4. Dreams
If you find yourself able to remember your dreams quite well when you wake up, write them down in a dream journal. Start by jotting down a few quick notes so you don’t forget. Don’t worry about analyzing your dream. “Once you have your notes, you can spend some time writing down what you remember about your dream. Dreams are an interesting subject, and you’ll have fun writing down all the strange things you dream about at night,” Sara Davenport, tutor at Academized and Essayroo, says.
5. The weekend
Writing about what you plan on doing on the weekend is a great way to practice the future tense. Beginners can talk about activities they enjoy taking part in on the weekend. An intermediate learner might talk about some fun things they did on a previous weekend; while an advanced learner could detail what their ideal weekend would be if they were a millionaire.
Conclusion
Writing prompts are a great way to improve your fluency in a language. Try doing these exercises without a dictionary or any other outside help, setting a timer, and doing some writing. Once you’ve given them your best shot, you can evaluate and see where you need to improve.
Thinking of topics off the top of your head can be challenging, so use these ones to start, and you’ll probably find yourself thinking up more as you go along.
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This article was originally published at Unwritten. Reprinted with permission from the author.