How the top student fluent in three languages ​​learned foreign languages.

Khanh Linh, 23 years old, from Hanoi, became the valedictorian of the Oriental Studies major after four years of study at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and one year at the University of Tokyo (a student exchange program between Vietnam National University, Hanoi and the University of Tokyo) with a GPA of 3.83. Besides being fluent in English, Japanese, and French, Linh also knows Chinese, having won third prize in the national Chinese language competition for gifted students.

Linh shared that to avoid getting bored while learning a foreign language, the first thing you need is to find motivation and a reason to learn, then experiment with different methods to see what works best for you. Instead of fixing a study time each day, Linh combines learning with leisure, often reading newspapers, books, stories, and watching movies in the language she's learning. While doing housework like washing dishes, Linh turns on the radio or listens to Japanese or French music, killing two birds with one stone, so she rarely feels like she's studying.

During the period of focusing on a particular language, Linh would try to immerse herself in that language all day long by watching movies, listening to music, turning on the radio, reading books and stories... and switching all applications and electronic devices to the language she was learning. Recognizing that to speak well one must listen well, and to write well one must read extensively, Linh usually prioritized listening and reading skills before moving on to practicing speaking and writing.

Pham Khanh Linh is fluent in English, French, and Japanese. Photo: Provided by the subject.

The top-scoring female student believes that learning a foreign language should be linked to the culture of the country where it originates. Knowing all the grammatical structures or vocabulary listed in a dictionary will not guarantee that learners can communicate naturally with native speakers if they do not understand their culture.

For example, Japanese learners must understand the hierarchical structure of Japanese culture to accurately determine whether to use informal, polite, honorific, or humble forms when speaking to others. Similarly, in Chinese, people don't always say "Hello" as they learn in textbooks; instead, they might ask, "Have you eaten yet?" as a greeting.

Linh learns vocabulary by reading materials on topics she's interested in and that match her level, meaning she understands about 70-80% without using a dictionary. This could be books, stories, newspapers, or personal blogs. Linh divides it into two steps. The first step focuses on "quantity," meaning reading as much and as continuously as possible, without interruption to look up information, with the goal of understanding the main content of the text.

Step two: Linh focuses on "quality," meaning reading to understand the meaning, so she uses a dictionary for lookups. For example, when reading a chapter, Linh will skim through it once to get the main idea, mark any new words she encounters, and then guess the meaning based on the context; then she will go back and read it a second time, check the dictionary to confirm the meaning of the word she guessed, and write down the new word in her notebook along with an example sentence, pronunciation, and notes (if any)...

Every 3-5 days, Linh reviews her vocabulary notebook and marks the words she's forgotten to review for 1-2 days (depending on the number of words), continuing this "rolling" learning method.

Linh believes that if you have a solid foundation, preparing for the certification exam won't be too tiring. The key point now is to practice with many sample questions to familiarize yourself with the question types, exam structure, and time pressure. Creating a daily study schedule and sticking to it is essential.

In addition, when doing the speaking and writing sections, candidates need to create outlines, use many connecting words between ideas, include specific examples, and ensure they meet the exam requirements regarding time and length. For the listening and reading comprehension sections, Linh also used several strategies such as: carefully reading the questions and guessing the answers before looking at the provided options; eliminating clearly incorrect answers; answering easy questions first, and if stuck on a question for too long, skipping it and coming back to it later to save time.

For the reading comprehension section, Linh first skims through the title and topic sentence of each paragraph (usually located at the beginning or end of each paragraph), marking keywords and important connecting words such as "however," "although... but...", "besides," "in addition," etc., before starting to read the questions and carefully reviewing each part of the text corresponding to the question. Candidates should spend about 5-7 minutes at the end of the exam reviewing their answers.

Fluent in four languages ​​and holding three language certificates, Linh shared that she only starts learning a new language after mastering her previous one (intermediate level or higher). "This is especially important. For example, Chinese and Japanese both use Chinese characters. If you don't have a solid foundation in them, or if you start both from scratch, you can easily get confused about how to read and write them," Linh explained.

Linh typically invests an average of 2.5 to 3 years in each language before learning a new one.

Currently, Linh works as a document translator for the Nguyen Van Huong Library, Institute for Oriental Development Studies. This Hanoi girl plans to apply to study abroad in a field related to culture and arts.

According to VNExpress