Learning a language is very difficult, however, this shouldn’t deter you from wanting to learn one. With practice and consistency, you will be able to master any language, even the ones most difficult for speakers of your native language.
Learning a language can have many benefits such as exposure to a new culture as well as gaining and edge on and opening many doors to job opportunities that were once closed without the language.
So how do you get started?
Here are some tips that I learned before starting a new language.
Ask yourself why you want to learn the language
You may be wondering why this is important. Knowing why you want to learn a language is an important step as it can set the base of your learning strategy. In other words, understanding why you want to learn a language will keep you motivated to learn it. Some examples include studying abroad, interest in the culture, work, traveling to a country, moving to a country, or even foreign TV shows. You may even just want to be a polyglot and that’s perfectly fine too.
So how is this useful? Let’s say you will be traveling to a country and you just want to know how to get by while there. To make learning a language easier, you don’t need to spend loads of money and time on extensive courses. You just need basic tourist phrases and vocabulary. If you were interested in the culture of the country and were probably thinking of moving there or working, you would need to have an advanced level of proficiency in the language. Learning a language for these purposes can be achieved with resources like language books, news, films, and talking to native speakers. The key here is to learn based on your reasons for learning and to use the right resources to make language learning easier and fun.
Learning one language is not the same as another
Languages are divided into different families. Throughout time, languages evolved and branched off into new languages. As an English speaker, you may find many similarities between English and other languages such as Spanish, French, and German whether in vocabulary or grammar. This is because English is closely related to these languages which makes learning them far easier. If you were to learn Japanese, it would take a significantly greater amount of time and effort as Japanese is far away from English on the language tree. According to the Foreign Services Institute, it takes around 600-750 class hours to reach “professional working proficiency” for group 1 languages such as Spanish, Swedish, and French. This is mainly due to the large similarities these languages have with English that make it easier for an English speaker to learn. Some languages such as Arabic, Japanese, and Korean can take 2200 hours to reach the same level of proficiency.
Don’t let the length of time or difficulty deter you from picking up a language. These times are based on average learning hours to reach a certain level of proficiency. Also, keep in mind these hours are for English speakers. If you already know another language from a different group, it may be easier for you to pick up a harder language.
It takes time – consistency is key
This is the most important point to know before starting to learn any new language. You may be eager to learn a new language for your upcoming trip by rushing through common travel phrases, or you might be tirelessly using a language learning app to understand your favorite celebrities from a foreign TV drama. While you may be able to learn some phrases and vocabulary, chances are, with these methods, you may not remember them in a few months – or even days. Even after countless hours in college classes or online courses, many language learners still struggle to reach fluency. As cliché as it sounds, they were focusing on studying hard rather than smart. To study smarter, you need to actively use the language. This can be anything from keeping a journal in that language, using online language exchange platforms, and being exposed to conversation. Now how is that for an excuse to watch your favorite foreign TV shows? Actively using the language in your daily life will allow you to effectively retain knowledge you learn. Another tip is to repeat what you learned with spaced repetition. To do this, review what you previously learned at increasing intervals of time. This is a great way to actively recall the material you learned which can help store it in the long term memory.
Language learning is hard, but you can make it easy with hard work and consistency. Make sure you’re learning a language for the right reasons and you may even pick it up faster than you expect.
What tips do you have for learning a language? Are you learning any languages currently? Comment down below!
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