KISWAHILI NOTES FOR FORM FOUR – ALL TOPICS

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You can learn new language from free websites

DOING IT

This might sound obvious, but if you don’t have a good reason to learn a language, you are less likely to stay motivated over the long-run. Wanting to impress English-speakers with your French is not a very good reason; wanting to get to know a French person in his or her own language is another matter entirely. No matter your reason, once you’ve decided on a language, it’s crucial to commit:
“OK, I want to learn this and I’m therefore going to do as much as I can in this language, with this language and for this language.”2. DIVE IN

So you’ve made the pledge. How to proceed? Is there a proper way to go about learning? Matthew recommends the 360° maximalist approach: no matter which learning tools you use, it’s crucial to practice your new language every single day:
“I tend to want to absorb as much as possible right from the start. So if I learn something I really, really go for it and try to use it throughout the day. As the week progresses I try to think in it, try to write in it, try to speak to myself even in that language. For me it’s about actually putting what you’re learning into practice – be that writing an email, speaking to yourself, listening to music, listening to the radio. Surrounding yourself, submerging yourself in the new language culture is extremely important.”
Remember, the best possible outcome of speaking a language is for people to speak back to you. Being able to have a simple conversation is a huge reward in itself. Reaching milestones like that early on will make it easier to stay motivated and keep practicing:
“I always have at the back of my mind that it’s adapting your way of thinking to the way of thinking in that language. Obviously there’s not only one way a Spanish-speaker or a Hebrew-speaker or a Dutch-speaker thinks, but it’s about using the language as your tool to build your own language world.”3. FIND A PARTNER

Matthew learned several languages together with his twin brother Michael (they tackled their first foreign language, Greek, when they were only eight years old!). Matthew and Michael, or the Super Polyglot Bros. as I’d like to now refer to them, gained their superpowers from good-ol’, healthy sibling rivalry:
“We were very motivated, and we still are. We push each other to really go for it. So if he realizes that I’m doing more than he is he’ll get a bit jealous and then try and outdo me (maybe because he’s my twin) – and the other way round.”
Even if you can’t get a sibling to join you on your language adventure, having any kind of partner will push both of you to always try just a little bit harder and stay with it:
“I think it’s a really great way of actually going about it. You have someone with whom you can speak, and that’s the idea behind learning a language.”4. KEEP IT RELEVANT

If you make conversation a goal from the beginning, you are less likely to get lost in textbooks. Talking to people will keep the learning process relevant to you:
“You’re learning a language to be able to use it. You’re not going to speak it to yourself. The creative side is really being able to put the language that you’re learning into a more useful, general, everyday setting – be that through writing songs, generally wanting to speak to people, or using it when you go abroad. You don’t necessarily have to go abroad; you can go to the Greek restaurant down the road and order in Greek.”5. HAVE FUN WITH IT

Using your new language in any way is a creative act. The Super Polyglot Bros. practiced their Greek by writing and recording songs. Think of some fun ways to practice your new language: make a radio play with a friend, draw a comic strip, write a poem, or simply talk to whomever you can. If you can’t find a way to have fun with the new language, chances are you aren’t following step four.6. ACT LIKE A CHILD

This is not to say you should throw a tantrum or get food in your hair when you go out to a restaurant, but try learning the way kids do. The idea that children are inherently better learners than adults is proving to be a myth. New research cannot find a direct link between age and the ability to learn. The key to learning as quickly as a child may be to simply take on certain childlike attitudes: for instance, lack of self-consciousness, a desire to play in the language and willingness to make mistakes.
We learn by making mistakes. As kids, we are expected to make mistakes, but as adults mistakes become taboo. Think how an adult is more likely to say, “I can’t”, rather than, “I haven’t learned that yet” (I can’t swim, I can’t drive, I can’t speak Spanish). To be seen failing (or merely struggling) is a social taboo that doesn’t burden children. When it comes to learning a language, admitting that you don’t know everything (and being okay with that) is the key to growth and freedom. Let go of your grown-up inhibitions!7. LEAVE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Willingness to make mistakes means being ready to put yourself in potentially embarrassing situations. This can be scary, but it’s the only way to develop and improve. No matter how much you learn, you won’t ever speak a language without putting yourself out there: talk to strangers in the language, ask for directions, order food, try to tell a joke. The more often you do this, the bigger your comfort zone becomes and the more at ease you can be in new situations:
“At the beginning you’re going to encounter difficulties: maybe the pronunciation, maybe the grammar, the syntax, or you don’t really get the sayings. But I think the most important thing is to always develop this feel. Every native speaker has a feel for his or her own language, and that’s basically what makes a native-speaker – whether you can make the language your own.”8. LISTEN

You must learn to look before you can draw. In the same way, you must learn to listen before you can speak. Every language sounds strange the first time you hear it, but the more you expose yourself to it the more familiar it becomes, and the easier it is to speak it properly:
“We’re able to pronounce anything, it’s just we’re not used to doing it. For example the rolled r doesn’t exist in my form of English. When I was learning Spanishthere were words with the hard r in them like perro and reunión. For me, the best way to go about mastering that is actually to hear it constantly, to listen to it and to kind of visualize or imagine how that is supposed to be pronounced, because for every sound there is a specific part of the mouth or throat that we use in order to achieve that sound.”9. WATCH PEOPLE TALK

Different languages make different demands on your tongue, lips and throat. Pronunciation is just as much physical as it is mental:
“One way – it might sound a bit strange – is to really look at someone while they’re saying words that use that sound, and then to try to imitate that sound as much as possible. Believe me, it might be difficult at the beginning, but you will. It’s something that is actually quite easily done; you just need to practice it.”
If you can’t watch and imitate a native-speaker in person, watching foreign-language films and TV is a good substitute.10. TALK TO YOURSELF

When you have no one else to speak to, there’s nothing wrong with talking to yourself:
“It might sound really weird, but actually speaking to yourself in a language is a great way to practice if you’re not able to use it all the time.”
This can keep new words and phrases fresh in your mind and build up your confidence for the next time you speak with someone.(Bonus tip) RELAX!

You are not going to annoy people by speaking their language poorly. If you preface any interaction with, “I’m learning and I’d like to practice…” most people will be patient, encouraging and happy to oblige. Even though there are approximately a billion non-native English-speakers around the world, most of them would rather speak their own language if given a choice. Taking the initiative to step into someone else’s language world can also put them at ease and promote good feelings all around:
“Sure, you can travel abroad speaking your own language, but you’ll get so much more out of it being able to actually feel at ease in the place you are – being able to communicate, to understand, to interact in every situation you could possibly imagine.”BUT WHAT’S THE POINT?

We’ve gone into HOW to start learning a language, but are you still on the fence about WHY to learn? Matthew has one last point to make:
“I think each language has a certain way of seeing the world. If you speak one language then you have a different way of analyzing and interpreting the world than the speaker of another language does. Even if they’re really closely-related languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, which are to a certain extent mutually intelligible, they are at the same time two different worlds – two different mindsets.
“Therefore, having learned other languages and been surrounded by other languages, I couldn’t possibly choose only one language because it would mean really renouncing the possibility to be able to see the world in a different way. Not in one way, but in many different ways. So the monolingual lifestyle, for me, is the saddest, the loneliest, the most boring way of seeing the world. There are so many advantages of learning a language; I really can’t think of any reason not to.”

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I will share a method in which your English fluency is going to improve drastically within months. Yes, I tried this as I was not having access to buy a lot of books. So this was the best way for me without spending any money.

After more than 20 rejections in interviews for the same reason, I would clear the technical rounds, but when it came to the group discussion, I was just watching others speak fluently while I struggled to articulate what I thought.

I used to call different customer care for different products (Tata Sky, Airtel, Hutch). The English fluency of the tele callers are good. Most of the numbers are toll free numbers.

I call them, ask random doubts and try to extend the conversation as much as possible. I would carefully listen all the words they use, how sentences are formed. I will write down those words and practice in front of mirror. I had a lot of customer care toll free numbers at that time, I would select English over my regional language to select a language. You cannot do that for hours with the same caller. So spend 10 minutes with a caller, analyze it, learn it, and call to a different customer care later.

Following this for one quarter will drastically improve your English fluency. You don’t need to spend a rupee.

When you speak broken/poor English in front of friends who went to CBSE schools, you cannot avoid the embarrassment which will break your confidence. This method, there is no embarrassment as only you will know how much you messed up. 😛

Even today, when someone corrects my pronunciation, I feel happy. because I know that word came into me through a book not from someone.

If you had the chance to study in a good school and started speaking good English without any struggle, take a moment and thank your parents. Not everyone gets that privilege and the struggle is real.

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To a degree, yes. But you really ought to get some live conversation practice with a human, as well.

My background: I’m a native speaker of English. I learned Spanish many decades before Duolingo was invented, and achieved a level of Spanish fluency sufficient to fall in love with and marry a native speaker of Spanish who, at the time we met, spoke no English. Our wedding was in Spanish.

When we decided to travel to Italy, I studied the Duolingo Italian course for a few months. Now, Italian and Spanish have a lot in common, but they also have enough differences that they aren’t really mutually intelligible. They both descended from Latin, but in both languages, the most common words and expressions changed the most. That was very fortunate for me, because it means that, by studying the most common vocabulary, I’m learning many of the things that are different. When I get lost in Italian, it’s usually with a less common word, and I can reach into my Spanish vocabulary to find a suitable word, try and pronounce it in an Italian way, and that often (but not always) works well enough. Or if I’m reading or listening to Italian, most of the Italian words that I don’t recognize from Italian are very similar to the equivalent Spanish word, so I recognize them even though I’ve never seen them in the context of Italian.

My Duolingo Italian is not nearly as good as my Spanish, but it was sufficient to converse with patient people, and more than adequate for reading signs. menus, etc.

That said, there are some problems with Duolingo:

• It emphasizes translation. But speaking a language fluently requires that you forget about translating, but speak the other language just as you speak your native language: Go directly between ideas and words in the foreign language, never thinking about your native language.
• It never has you practice speaking original thoughts in the foreign language. This is perhaps the most important skill to language learning, but Duolingo omits it entirely.
• It has you practice reading out loud in the foreign language, and it uses the computer to try and recognize your pronunciation, but the computer algorithm is very forgiving of mispronunciation. The computer will never correct your accent in the foreign language. You can get by with really terrible pronunciation.
• It gives some grammar exercises by example, but it never explains the grammar rules. Okay, that’s how an infant learns, but sometimes it would be a great shortcut to learn some basic rules about how to form plurals, how to deal with gendered nouns and adjectives, how to conjugate verbs, etc.

Duolingo is a very patient teacher. It never is too tired to help you drill more. Any practice you get with the language is good. But I believe that, if you’re serious about investing the time it takes to learn a foreign language, you really need to find a native speaker and spend at least some of your time having live conversation practice with a human. I don’t think Duolingo is an adequate substitute for live conversation practice, but it can certainly be very helpful.

Also, regardless of how you learn, you need to invest significant time in consistent daily practice. Duolingo will let you maintain a streak if you just do ten minutes a day or so (complete one lesson), but you really ought to work for at least a half hour every day. An hour is better. The more time you can invest, the faster and better your results will be.

In my experience with Italian, using only Duolingo, I wasn’t that serious and dedicated, and I didn’t learn Italian that well, but I did learn enough that it made my visit to Italy much more enjoyable.

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Four years ago my father offered me the opportunity to pursue a Masters in a distinguished university in London. But I had a serious problem: My English was mediocre. I could barely put sentences together. And to make things worse, I had a deadline of 3 months for the application.

I won’t tell you that I became totally fluent in just 3 months. But I managed to speak, write and read in a very good level. Good enough to join the Masters.

That pressing situation taught me a lot about how you can efficiently learn a new language. So, let me share with you the main takeaways from this experience.

Change your mindset to start thinking in the target language

When I was learning English, I was already fluent in Portuguese and Italian. The way these 2 languages treat communication is very different from English. While in English the language is simple and direct to the point, Portuguese and Italian go a long way before getting to the point.

The problem I had in the beginning was that I would think what I wanted to say in one of these languages and then try to translate it into English. The result was terrible. People would frequently struggle to understand what I was talking about.

I know it’s hard for someone who’s just getting started with a new language to avoid this. But you should force yourself to change your mindset as soon as possible.

Ask yourself questions like: What are the main differences between this language and my language? What are the underlying structural rules of this language [1]?

Fit the language into your current routine

This is a big one.

When I started my journey to learn English and apply for the Masters, one of the first things that I did was to enroll myself in a IELTS course. If you don’t know, IETLS is an International English Language Testing System [2], in which most universities in UK require students who are not native in English to take.

The problem with these courses is that the majority of them are not created with the objective to help you learn the language. They are made with the aim of getting you the grade that you need to be accepted for the university you’re applying. It’s very technical and specific.

After the second week of this course, I realized that I needed to do something else if I wanted to really improve my English skills.

The best thing that I did was to fit the language into my routine. Here are the few things that I did:

• Read a local newspaper in the morning
• Watch one episode of a TV series in English
• Read 30 pages of a book in English
• Change the language of my smartphone to English
• Change the language of my laptop to English
• Skype call with my girlfriend in English

You got the idea, right? You basically take what you’re already doing and do it in the language that you want to learn.

Use spaced repetition

This is one of my favorite techniques for learning new things. Spaced repetition means that you consistently practice what you are learning over a period of time, spacing out the repetitions to improve retention.

If you know Duolingo, you probably know what I am talking about. Duolingo is a free language-learning platform that uses spaced repetition brilliantly. It understands what are your weaknesses accordingly to your performance, and from time to time requires you to recall them to help you improve it.

There’s also another app that you can use to help you to apply this technique to anything you want. It’s called Anki [4].

Practice with a native

When learning a new language, we usually find ourselves speaking to other people who are not natives as well. There are two main problems with that:

1. The other person can make mistakes that you still can’t notice, and you may find yourself repeating it in the future.

2. It can harm your pronunciation for certain words.

One good way to avoid these issues is to make sure that you also practice the language with a native. In my case, I was in London so it was quite easy for me to find one. If that’s not your case, then have a look at a few websites where you can speak with natives. User-9761220151103136234 suggested in the comments that Verbling [5] is a great option for that.

Be open to make mistakes

I did my bachelor in communication, so I really care about the way I communicate with people. In the beginning of a new language it’s quite frustrating to know that you are not able to convey the message exactly how you had it in your head. That’s fine. Don’t punish yourself because of that.

I knew quite a lot of people who would prefer to stay quiet, because they thought that they would look stupid if they didn’t say something 100% correct. The problem with this mindset is that it prevents you from practicing.

You know that person that you look at today and say: “Well, this guy doesn’t realize that he’s making many mistakes when speaking?”. It is the same person who in a month’s time will be speaking much better than you. Just because he/she is not afraid of making mistakes in front of others.

So, your focus should first be on communicating. If you manage to communicate, that’s great. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

These are the key lessons that I’ve learned from this experience. I hope some of these tips also help you when learning a new language.

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Congratulations on your MBBS and on successfully crossing the “NEET” preparations and exams.

Before I suggest which books to use for Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, I will share how my 1st year MBBS went. This will help you get some ideas and then see what will work for you.

I know by now you would have received multiple suggestions for books, online sources, and foundation classes. They sure confused me a lot.

1- Have a routine (Try to)

At the beginning, things will be chaotic. I took some time to get adjusted with my college, city, and hostel life, etc. Thankfully, I got a good bunch of friends and my faculty (also seniors!) were very helpful here.

2- Don’t be overwhelmed by large books (and no fomo to get all the books)

The volume of books and materials was shocking.

Every book looked to be bought and read. And all came with the saying that read all these but for exams, use Chaurasia, Satyanarayana & Sembulingam.

3. Learn the Language –

This was such good advice from seniors and faculty.

When you read the books, it’s difficult to understand, and if you memorise things, there is no end to it. I tried blindly memorising things, but couldn’t do well in the initial exams and vivas.

That’s when I started to just hear professors explain things using YouTube videos, Marrow lectures, and so on (i will come to my sources for 1st year MBBS next)

I would keep the books open and see any lecture videos first to understand things visually.

Then I would read the same from the books. This was very powerful and helped me get the hang of this quickly.

4. Study habits and hacks –

Use pen and paper to quickly write and draw things out.

Just scribble and doodle as you learn things for the 1st time.

Don’t think that these are your notes, and have to be very clear and concise, etc. Just write things and read them aloud. Use your friends to study along and explain things to each other. You will see a quick positive sign when you do this, compared to just mechanically studying and reading things.

5. My sources used for 1st year MBBS –
Books –
Anatomy – BD Chaurasia, Vishram Singh, and Netter Atlas + Cunningham’s for additional reference.

Physiology – Sembulingam + Gutton (just for reference)

Biochemistry – Satyanarayana

Lecture sources – Marrow’s 1st year course.

Initially, I wasn’t sure if taking a subscription would be helpful. But this was a good decision to make as I approached my internals and proff exams. (I will explain my daily routine for better clarity)

Notes – Marrow notes + ppts from my college.

Exam specific – Previous year question papers set shared by seniors.

6. Daily study routine –

Broadly, this is how my study routine went.

I try to do a max of 40-50 mins a day. That’s it, not more or less. But tried to do this consistently every day(3-4 days a week atleast0

I used to pick the current topic, lets say anatomy lectures from Marrow.

I initially started with the Cadaveric videos of Dr Ashwani.

I did this as I was bad in Anatomy. Even getting the anatomical position was tough and I used to make a lot of mistakes. My dissections, vivas and tests were terrible.

So, used to see his lectures and as I mentioned earlier used to doodle/draw along.

And used the in-app notes to get the basic structure in place. I also had my Netter’s atlas open to figure things along.

Then I used the books and the ppt shared in the college to read the topic.

This helped me get the theory right so I can write properly during the tests and exams.

This used to be the same for biochemistry and physiology as well.

Marrows’s 1st year videos sorta guided things and I made sure to followup things with the books and notes. This helped me build my concepts and rely less on memorising things blindly.

7. Relax and enjoy the 1st year activities.

Everyone says this but no one shows how to.

I feel if you have a daily study routine in place, this will free you up for all other activities which happens around the year. Also, takes away a bit of panic as you approach your exams.

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I use to watch people I know who could seemingly pick up any new language with relative ease, but I personally always struggled, especially when I was trying to learn Spanish (my first foreign language).

I then spent a lot of time studying language acquisition and in my experience there’s a few key themes I learned:

• Time Investment: Learning to speak any new language takes a significant amount of time, hundreds and hundreds of study hours. So you need to find a method that is fun for you. I had to develop and keep to a daily routine, or I found myself routinely forgetting things
• Act like a child: I know this sounds a bit strange, but one of the reasons children acquire language quickly and efficiently is they are not afraid of sounding silly or making mistakes. Us adults have something to learn from children, as learning a new language, especially with very different sounds than our native language can make us sound a bit silly sometimes. Also, we need to adjust how we talk – starting with basic sentences and structures before we try speaking idioms
• The language foundation: For me what worked was guided immersion or Comprehensible Input, when I was learning Spanish I used the Palteca app. Now that I am learning French, I am following a curriculum based immersion program. I want to learn Thai next, and I’ll be doing the same. I supplement with the occasional grammar website/app to help reinforce things. I also spend a significant amount of time watching YouTube videos, and listening to podcasts
• Have a clear goal, and work toward that goal: I use to have a goal of “being fluent”, but how will you know you’ve reached that goal? I also learn languages to talk to people, so I generally spend less time on writing in foreign languages, just because it’s not super relevant to me. I use to think I had to learn every word, every concept, but that wasn’t needed for me. I started to prioritize the skills and word themes that were important to my goals. Had I not defined those, I would have wasted time learning things that I wasn’t really going to use

These are the things that worked for me personally. Just remember, learning any language is going to take a long time, so find a method and routine that you’ll stick with it.

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HelloTalk— This is a language exchange mobile app that allows you to learn the language you’re interested in and teach the language you already know at the same time. HelloTalk supports at least 150 languages worldwide as it’s claimed. The app is very interactive that allows you to record your speaking or post status or photos with feedback from native speakers.

Here’s what I did: Set up an account, played with it, post frequently, and helped out other fellow learners.

Step 3: Create A Study Plan

And set goals if that motivates you.

The reason why it took me so long to get certified is because I didn’t set a clear goal for myself, and I meant to. I had a vision of working in Japan or at least do something there, but I didn’t write it down or say to myself that I must accomplish those things after college. Learning the language was more of a personal interest, and I welcomed whatever opportunities that came along the way.

But a study plan is necessary. I created a study plan that forced me to set out time every day just to study Japanese. You don’t need to print it out or hang it on the wall like a glorious honor, but simply make a commitment to yourself.

Here’s what I did: I set apart 1 to 1 hour and a half every day to study (If you can’t find at least 1 hour of personal time in a day, you don’t have a life.) It doesn’t need to be an hour, everyone is different but that’s my attention span.

My schedule looked as simple as this: Day 1 — Study new material, Day 2 — Review, Day 3 — Study new material, Day 4 — Review… I found this routine effective that not only I remembered most of the previously learned stuffs, but also without burning out with overwhelming information.

I didn’t want to make my passion a burden.

Step 4: Practice

Here are some of my favorite ways to practice:

Meetup Groups — Look for local language meetup groups. You’ll be able to meet like-minded learners and maybe native speakers as well. You can share your experience and obstacles with other learners while practice speaking, which is the hardest part. And, this is the interesting part, you might meet someone important to your life unexpectedly, too (I met my mentor at a Japanese meetup, and I know someone who got a job referral just by showing up the meeting.)

HelloTalk — Again, I can’t recommend this mobile app more than enough. It’s also a good way to practice typing in the language that you’re learning.

Mindset — Talk to yourself (at home of course, but I wouldn’t stop you if you want to do it publicly.) After watching tons of Japanese videos online, I started to train myself to think in Japanese. Not at a graduation speech level, but little things like: “How am I going to make this dish,” “That’s really funny. Why would he do that?”

The more you practice on your own, the more you’ll get used to real life conversation.

Travel — If possible, please do. You want to put what you’ve learned in real use, right? And it feels like a champ once you’ve successfully navigated yourself in the country. You Live Only Once.

Certification — Certification is another good place to look into if you want to know what level of proficiency you’re currently at.