Kerstin Hammes war born in a small village in Germany, this gave her a desire to learn languages to discover the world. In her book, Fluency Made Achievable, she shares tips to learn languages and improve the four core language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking.
A guide to the four core language skills
You may feel that you are better at speaking than writing or that listening is easier for you. This is common, because we tend to focus our learning efforts on one skill before developing the others.
For example, you may be able to understand everything when you watch French TV, but have a hard time speaking French. Or you may be able to read books in French without being able to write.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could improve all of your language skills together instead of simply being good at one of them? The good news is, you can, and that’s what you will discover in Fluency Made Achievable.
Exercises to improve the four core language skills
Kerstin Hammes doesn’t simply advocates an approach in which you improve the four core language skills, she shows you how to do it.
You will discover how to use music to learn a language (that’s what Kerstin did to learn English) or how recording yourself can help you boost your language skills.
These are simple exercises that have the power to make learning a language easier and more fun. But Kerstin is also here to remind you that learning a language requires hard work, and that you can’t become fluent in one week.
Interviews of language experts
Fluency Made Achievable ends with interviews of several language learners such as Gabriel Wyner or David Mansaray.
I liked these interviews because they show you different approaches to language-learning and give you the motivation you need to learn.
They also show you that there are several ways to learn languages, and that the best way is the one you prefer.
Over to you
Did you read Fluency Made Achievable? What did you think of it?