Studying chess is the same as studying a foreign language. Chess is in fact a sort of language with it's own semantic, words and phrases, grammar, sentences and paragraphs. It's not me who invented this analogy, the first was, of whom I know - Viswanathan Anand. He mentioned it in one of his interviews and I liked this analogy so much that I now stick to the idea. Specifically a chess game can be viewed as a dialog between two persons whereby a game criterion is applied, so that one of them can lose and the other can win. (Linguistics know such games too.) Why is this comparison so fruitful? Because when you think of it you realize suddenly that nearly all hints and advices of how to study a foreign language can be amazingly applied to chess as well. There are lots of them, but let's pick the most common and see.
1) in order to be good at foreign language, speak it as often as you can, use every opportunity to practice it. Same works for chess; Anand aslo said that, and this is what Kramnik meant when he compared chess to "body building", saying you need to do it every day. 2) Learn from your mistakes - obviousely the same works perfectly for chess: check on your weaknesses and mistakes and set the priorities for those training activities at which you make more of them. 3) Speak your foreign language with native speakers. This one may be not as easy to interpret in chess terms because "native speaker" means a lot of things, but possible to do so. Basically this rule can be split in two: 3a) pick those opponents to play who are difficult and challenging for you; 3b) watch games of those who are clearly better than you and imitate - repeat how they do! That's it! Think of it, of more tips that can be given to someone who studies a foreign language and apply them to chess! This can be fun.
1) in order to be good at foreign language, speak it as often as you can, use every opportunity to practice it. Same works for chess; Anand aslo said that, and this is what Kramnik meant when he compared chess to "body building", saying you need to do it every day. 2) Learn from your mistakes - obviousely the same works perfectly for chess: check on your weaknesses and mistakes and set the priorities for those training activities at which you make more of them. 3) Speak your foreign language with native speakers. This one may be not as easy to interpret in chess terms because "native speaker" means a lot of things, but possible to do so. Basically this rule can be split in two: 3a) pick those opponents to play who are difficult and challenging for you; 3b) watch games of those who are clearly better than you and imitate - repeat how they do! That's it! Think of it, of more tips that can be given to someone who studies a foreign language and apply them to chess! This can be fun.