uu77

Afbeelding van de Tandem-app interface

Tips and tools for keeping your language skills up to date

Written by: A.A.M. van Paasen (Angela) 18 December 2023

If you take a language course, you will learn a lot of new words and grammar in a short time. Your speaking skills will also get a big boost. The information you learn sticks because you attend classes and do assignments regularly. But how do you maintain your language skills once the course is over? Only then does the real challenge begin: keeping your language skills up to date and making sure you do not lose what you have learned, but rather continue to make it your own. Angela, content specialist at In'to and language fanatic, shares her tips and tricks.

How do you truly remember the new language?

Angela took many Spanish courses. Sometimes there was quite some time in between two courses, and by no means did she always have the opportunity to practise her Spanish in real life situations. “It becomes quite difficult to maintain your level,” she observed. “You really have to use it, otherwise you forget what you learned. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to keep up to date with a language, even without a language course or travelling abroad.”

“You really have to use it”

Watching Netflix with (extra educational) subtitles

“One of my favourite ways to stay ‘in touch’ with Spanish is by watching Spanish series and films. With modern streaming services like Netflix, there is SO much content available in all kinds of languages. It’s ideal! I find it a very easy and accessible way of maintaining my language skills. After all, I’ll be watching series anyway, so I might as well combine work and play.

Since Spanish people speak very fast, it helps to turn on subtitles - Spanish subtitles, of course. There are also special browser extensions that focus on subtitles for language learners. For example, you can use them to turn on subtitles in two languages or click on words to instantly see their translations. Really useful! For example, I often watch series using , which you can download for free.”

Screenshot van Netflix met dubbele ondertiteling

Language Cafés

“I find speaking skills one of the hardest things to maintain. You need to have people around you who speak the language you’re learning. One good place to find people like this is Language Cafés. This concept is widely used to allow non-Dutch speakers to practise their Dutch, but there are also language cafés that focus on language exchange. They have different tables for different languages. With a bit of luck, you’ll be able to get in some good practice, but you’ll also get to know someone you can meet up with more often.”

Maintaining a language using Tandem

“If you can’t find a language café near you or they’re not organised often enough, the app  can be another way to maintain your speaking skills. It allows you to get in touch with native speakers of lots of different languages. The app is focused on language exchange, so you can have conversations in both languages and help each other improve based on your own (native) language knowledge. For instance, there are some useful features built in to give feedback or correct the other person.

You can decide whether you only want to write or practise your speech with voice messages or video or voice calls, for example. You can even see if there are any Tandem users near you so you can meet in real life. The latter option is also useful when travelling: I’ve personally met some nice locals who I could practise Spanish with and who showed me their city. How great is that?”

Afbeelding van de Tandem-app interface

Podcasts for language learners

“My final tip is to listen to podcasts made for language learners. For example, Duolingo has podcasts for people learning Spanish or French. Native speakers tell stories in these podcasts. They offer context and explanations in English so you can keep up with the stories. But my personal favourites are the podcasts from . You first listen to a short story, and then the hosts discuss the story in English, sentence by sentence. Paying attention to grammar, expressions and vocabulary. It might sound boring, but it really isn’t. It’s really informative if, like me, you like to understand everything as much as possible. Best of all, there are episodes for different language levels, available in around ten languages. In any case, I’ve already learned a huge amount from it!”

Keep learning

One thing is clear: the best way to keep up with a language is to keep training yourself. An ideal way is to completely immerse yourself in a country that speaks the language, of course. If you don’t have that opportunity, the tips here can definitely help you keep your language skills up too. If you don’t just want to maintain what you’ve learned, but to take your language skills to the next level, then courses are an excellent option.

Written by
A.A.M. van Paasen (Angela)
A.A.M. van Paasen (Angela)
Angela is a content specialist at Radboud in’to Languages. In addition to writing, she loves languages in general. She has mainly focused on Spanish in recent years.