In a recent story in the New York Times (link below), the benefits of bilingualism were spelled out in a very comprehensive way. The benefits are now scientifically traceable from infancy to old age. The article is not written in an overly scientific register but here are some Plain English translations of what you will find there (a link to the...
Learning a language is a task that is basically predicated on the learning of the four basic skills. Whenever possible, try and develop each of them simultaneously. (In fact, whatever 'exercise' you are doing will involve multiple abilities, whether you realize it or not!) Speaking: Develop proper pronunciation skills and the ability to produce spontaneous speech. Writing: Think in terms of phrases...
If you are a beginning or intermediate student with a new language, pick up a newspaper or magazine in the target language, and choose one article that looks interesting. Slowly work on reading that article and learning the words that you didn’t know. Similar to my points in other posts about movies or music, choose a style of magazine or newspaper...
Language Learning Tips: Watch movies, and try to watch them at least twice each. It is very important to suspend your total comprehension. You won’t understand everything, but you will absorb valuable expressions from every movie you watch. Once you are somewhat familiar with the cinema industry in your target language/target country, you will have favorite actors/directors to look for. And...