If you want to learn a language, there are four key skills to practice – listening, speaking, reading and writing. Arguably, writing is the hardest one to do as it takes so much energy, planning and time.
Although it might be a challenge, it really is useful to practice writing. When you write, you will probably make some mistakes. This is not a problem at all but an opportunity. By reading what you have written you may be able to spot your mistakes and correct them and this will improve your language skills over time. You can use spell checks to help you do this as long as you remember to review the automated suggestions.
As you are writing you’ll probably realise there are things that you want to say but you can’t find the right words. Luckily, you have time when you write to do the research. If you really don’t know what word you need, write your sentence in a translation tool such as Deepl or use a good dictionary. When you find that you are repeating a word too often, right click on it and check the synonym suggestions (this works in Word). Doing these things will help to expand your vocabulary.
Even though it's a good idea to write, it can be hard to motivate ourselves to do it. Any idea why?
I've already mentioned that it takes time and effort but perhaps the biggest barrier is our own expectations. So much writing that we see is ‘perfect’ – it has been written and edited by professionals and we can’t compete with that. If we write something that contains mistakes, people might think we are stupid. Perhaps I’m talking about myself here. I feel really comfortable when speaking German and don’t worry about using the wrong article or not finding the right word. However, writing is different. I worry that my mistakes will be there for everyone to see and I will be judged. Unfortunately this acts as a barrier to learning and needs to be overcome.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to practice writing in German. I know that it won't be easy but it will help me to improve. I'm going to reply to emails in German and might even write some of my Instagram posts in two languages. Yikes, that’s a scary proposition.
What about you? How do you feel about writing in a second language? It might be difficult to do but it's surely a useful skill to practice.
