It’s a great big world out there for language learners on the internet. If you’ve landed here to begin with, you probably already know what a powerful tool the internet is for gathering information. But how to you get it to give you the information you need when studying a language?
Figuring out the meaning of a word, its conjugation, or its declension can be a snap with some simple tips.
1. Don’t trust the machine (most of the time)
You can easily plug in “foreign word + translate” into any search engine and get something returned back to you. Whether or not it’s the translation you want, however, is a different story. Think of the word “tear” in English. If you wanted it translated into French, you’d have to first clarify whether you were talking about the drop of moisture that falls from your eyes when you’re sad or laughing too hard or cutting onions, or the split in the fabric that appeared in the seat of your pants when you attempted a high kick. Remember that the machine can’t distinguish these differences as easily as we can and go forth accordingly. Internet translation can only get you so far!
2. Trust the machine (some of the time)
If you’re learning a language, you are probably already equipped with some knowledge of verb conjugations, declensions, and other grammatical rules. But there are always exceptions to the rule. Sometimes it’s best to rely on a machine such as a verb conjugator to do the conjugation for you if you’re uncertain. There are a variety of machine conjugators you can find online and most of them are fairly accurate. There are also audio tools out there to help you discern tricky pronunciations; you can find audio examples across the internet of a variety of words in a variety of different regional accents should you need something specific.
3. Use context
Seeing a word used in a sentence will not only help you gather its meaning, but will also help you learn its proper use. For example, certain prepositions in Russian take certain case endings. By doing an internet search for the preposition and the word you want to use with it, you can often see examples of the proper combination. There are also great language tools on the internet, such as Linguee, that comb a great variety of translated texts to show possible translations of words. This is especially useful for more technical or professional language, where the word might not appear in standard dictionaries. It’s also a useful tool for seeing the subtleties in translation, how a word in one language can require a bit more nuance in its translation.
4. A picture is worth a thousand words
Sometimes if you can’t find a word in your dictionary, you can its visual representation online using a simple internet image search. You’ll come up with some interesting images that have nothing to do with the word’s meaning (the internet is the internet, after all), but you can generally glean the meaning from what the vast majority of the images are showing.
5. Ask someone
The internet is not just full of words; it’s full of people too! Sometimes it’s as simple as asking the right people the right questions. You can visit forums (such as our language forums) to ask people who are experts in the language what the best translation is, or for tips on a tricky conjugation or idiomatic expression.