#how to learn a language
Before I begin: sorry for my long break. I’m back and changed my profile picture (in case you have no idea who on earth you are following here) and my template… and also my header for my posts so… you know… everything.
But now let’s start. :)
This time I want to make it short, so here are 26 study tips for learning a foreign language.
- Study every day. Even if you just study 5 minutes, that’s important for your progress. 17 minutes every day is FAR BETTER than two hours on one day of the week.
- Learn the most important 100-300 words.
- Use good apps/websites for your target language. Take the time to find out which apps and websites work best for you.
- Watch movies, series and videos in your target language. If needed turn on subtitles.
- Write a little text every day. For example a diary entry.
- IMPORTANT: Practice speaking right from the BEGINNING!
- Try to live your language as much as you can. You should do everything you can in your target language. Think about what you do in your native language and then try to do it in the language you want to learn.
- Change the language on your social media websites.
- Change the language on your smartphone.
- Read books for children if normal books are too difficult for you.
- Study vocabs you just can’t keep in mind with apps extra for this problem.
- Find a chat group in your target language. More people, more fun.
- Try to think in your target language, even if you’re quite new to it. For example learn the numbers and use your target language for counting.
- Make a plan for learning. (Yeah that came a little bit late lol)
- Find out which learning type you are. Seriously don’t skip this. You really, really, really should know that! It will make things so much easier!
- Use new words as soon as you can. For example when chatting with your language exchange partner: replace every word you can with your new vocab.
- Write a list with big and (IMPORTANT) small goals (!!!)
- Listen to music while reading the lyrics, even if you don’t understand it.
- Read a book and listen to the audio version of it.
- Write a diary in your target language.
- Talk to yourself. Who could be more interesting? :p
- Write a list with rewards for reaching your goals.
- TRACK YOUR PROGRESS! You will need this when hitting a plateau.
- Search for apps/websites that are only available in your target language and use them.
- Use a calendar with your goals and progress on it.
- Use image search for hard vocabs. Try to get a connection to this word.
Done. I hope some of these tips help you. :)
PS: Sorry for mistakes but my new notebook marks every English word as wrong.
You decided to learn a new language? That’s great! But you don’t really know how to start? That’s totally normal, especially if you never learned another language before. But here are some tips how to get started. :)
1. Read about your language. Before you actually start studying your target language you should google it. At least the Wikipedia entry. That takes about 15 minutes but will help you a lot during your study process. It makes it easier to know how your language “works” before starting it. Is it similar or very different to the language you know? How’s the basic grammar? Do they use the same letters? Does it use genders? What’s special about your target language? Do you speak the language just how you read it? So you won’t be confused while studying Spanish when the word “hablo” suddenly changes to “hablas” because you read before that they conjugate verbs in Spanish. That way you will understand it faster.
2. Break sentences or even words down. Maybe there is a pattern. For example in German we call a sloth “Faultier”. If you break it down you have “faul” (lazy) and “Tier” (animal). So while you learned the word for sloth you also learned the word for “lazy” and “animal”. In this case you can learn that we Germans don’t really have endless long words, we just like to put words together that already exist to describe something new. And suddenly “Studentenkrankenversicherungsmeldeverordnung” doesn’t look like a word straight from hell anymore because it’s just “StudentsHealthInsuranceReportRegulation”. And you know it because you broke other words down and discovered that Germans just put words together.
3. Learn the most common words. The most common 100 English words make up about half of all written English.
4. If you don’t know a word in your native language, you don’t need it in your target language. For example “Grommet”. I heard the German words for it but never used it or will use it. So why would I need to know it in English? Unfortunately schools don’t care about that.
5. Try sticky notes.
6. Make a plan what you want to learn.
7. Search for good resources like textbooks/Apps/websites/videos/etc. That’s also a way to get started. I prefer getting a textbook for beginners and combine it with tip number 9.
8. Find a teacher. I’m not really a fan of learning a language sitting in a classroom because you won’t talk much. But if you want someone leading you while you do your first steps in your target language, you should definitely check out italki.
9. Find a language exchange partner. Think about what you normally would chat about, search for the vocabs and use them! You will instantly practice them, learn the words you need to know and have fun while learning your first words in your target language.
10. Get help from the Studyblr or Langblr community! :)
Use the polite form in German to be rude.
So a friend wanted to practice German with me and started to speak in the polite form.
I told him that it’s not necessary to use it with me because 1. we’re about the same age and 2. we’re talking over the internet.
He asked me what the second thing has to do with it. I told him that I would use the polite form to speak with a 50 years old in real-life but not if he is messaging me over the internet.
Then he asked what I’m talking about, because I once sent him a screenshot of a weird old men. And I used the polite form while talking to him.
The thing is, this 50 years old man tried to hit on me and I was using the polite form to make clear (for him), how much older he is. So he would stop with this bullshit. But he was like all the other old men who try to hit on me and said “oh you don’t need to use the polite form with me, we’re basically around the same age”. Sorry b*tch, we’re what? I’m 22. Even if you double my age I’m still younger!
I kept using the polite form, which makes them angry every single time because it basically means “You’re so much older, don’t even dream of sleeping with me. It’s disgusting.”
And I think it’s really funny how you can use a polite form to be rude af and make people angry by using it with them.
Languages. Weird little things.
If you know which type of learner you are, you are able to learn much faster! Everyone learns in another way. Just because something works good for person A, doesn’t mean it will work good for person B. Many years ago I found a blog written by a guy who learns languages really fast. So I tried to use the same methods but for some reason it didn’t work AT ALL. I just moved on trying to find “the best learning method ever”. Of course I didn’t find it, because there is non that works for all. If I think about it now, all his methods were for people who learn through listening. And I’m to 90% a visual learner. No way it could have worked for me. But there are still people trying to use the newest, best and most trending language hack. In the end most of them will be disappointed.
Let’s look at it like it’s a superpower. If you can remember stuff someone told you months ago, then your superpower is your listening skill, because many people couldn’t even remember it, if their life depends on it. And if you saw a photo as a child, and still know how it looked like, then congratulations, your superpower is your visual learning skill.
So to learn as fast as you can and especially to remember it later, it’s important for you to find out which superpower you have and USE IT!
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Time to find out which superpower you have! There are several tests on the internet but they will more or less all tell you the same.
Here’s a test I chose with 20 questions you have to answer. You will find out if you learn best through listening, seeing or doing. There are other tests that even divide it into 7 learning types or more, but in the end it’s still one of these 3.
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Here are learning methods you should try, depending on your result.
Visual (learning through seeing):
- Use colors.
- Take photos
- Look at pictures.
- Use well organized layouts.
- Make mindmaps.
- Use/Make diagrams.
- Make a visual journey in front of your inner eye.
- Use flashcards
- Draw pictures
- Visualize things you hear
- Try to make everything look pleasant to your eyes
- If you learn a new word picture the situation. When could you use it?
- Write with native speakers.
- Watch movies.
Auditory (learning through hearing and speaking):
- Listen to music while reading the lyrics.
- Podcasts
- Radio
- Try rhymes.
- Use the right sounds/music playing in the background while studying.
- Record yourself and listen to it.
- Change the lyrics of your favorite song and sing along of a karaoke version.
- Talk to yourself.
- Talk to native speakers.
- Read everything out loud.
- Speak out loud what you are writing.
Tactile (learning through doing):
- Use your touch sense.
- Walk around while studying.
- Imagine how it would feel like to do the things you learn. For example the word pizza, imagine how you make one.
- Describe things. For example if you learn the German word “Kaffee” (coffee), describe the warmth, how the cup feels, were you put it, etc.
- Use physical objects as much as you can (flashcards, etc.)
- Draw pictures.
- Build things with your hands.
- Write stuff down.
- Use role playing while you act like you’re in a specific situation.
- Pay attention to your breathing.
- Chew a gum.
- Trace words with your fingers.
There are many more things you can do, depending on your superpower. You just have to be a little bit creative (or google what learning methods work best for [insert your superpower here] lol). ^_^
Before I start I want to mention a few things about this post.
- The easiest language will always be the one you like learning, because if you have fun, it’s not really hard. Also, if you are motivated you will learn much faster.
- This post will show you how long it will take to learn a language based on their difficulty. That just means, how DIFFERENT it is to the English language. More different = “harder”. It does NOT take into account if you are interested in a language or not. The condition of these groups are that your interest in these languages are ALL THE SAME!
- The numbers I will give you are “just around this”numbers.
- Based on which other languages you already speak, some languages will be easier (means faster) for you.
- There are many factors that can change the pace of your language learning journey. (I will also make a post about this topic soon)
So first we will take a look at the groups. Which language are the easiest and hardest for English speakers?
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Group 1 (575-600 hours): the easiest languages because they are very similar to English. This are languages like Italian, Spanish, French, etc.
Group 2 (750 hours): still similar to English. In this group is just one language. German. (I guess because our articles are a pain in the ass. Seriously, I have friends that came here 10 years ago, don’t even have an accent anymore but still switch up some articles.)
Group 3 (900 hours): different to English. In this group are languages like Indonesian or Swahili.
Group 4 (1100 hours): significant differences to English. In this group are languages like Bulgarian, Croatian, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and many more.
Group 5 (2200 hours): very different to English. In this group are languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
I made a post about many more languages, so if your target languages is not mentioned here, you can look it up on my other post here.
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And why did I tell you about these groups? Because the thing we care about are the hours it takes to learn a language from one of these groups!
But that’s not all, we also care about the amount of words you have to learn to be fluent in a language. I also made a post about this, so if you want to know more about how many words you need to be conversational, fluent, etc. or if you are A1, A2, B1, etc. then you can check it out here.
So based on this post we want a vocabulary of 5.000 words. You also have to keep in mind to study listening, speaking, reading and writing to cover everything up. If you just learn a language from a textbook you probably won’t understand native speakers at all and you will also won’t find words when it comes to speaking it. The following numbers are for people who want to be fluent. Like REAL fluent like a (low educated) native speaker.
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How long will it take to learn a language from…
Group 1 (600 hours):
- studying 1 hour per day: one year and 235 days.
- studying 2 hours per day: 300 days.
- studying 3 hours per day: 200 days.
- studying 4 hours per day: 150 days.
- studying 5 hours per day: 120 days.
Group 2 (750 hours):
- studying 1 hour per day: 2 years and 20 days.
- studying 2 hours per day: 1 year and 10 days.
- studying 3 hours per day: 250 days.
- studying 4 hours per day: 188 days.
- studying 5 hours per day: 150 days.
Group 3 (900 hours):
- studying 1 hour per day: 2 years and 170 days.
- studying 2 hours per day: 1 year and 85 days.
- studying 3 hours per day: 300 days.
- studying 4 hours per day: 225 days.
- studying 5 hours per day: 180 days.
Group 4 (1100 hours):
- studying 1 hour per day: 3 years and 5 days.
- studying 2 hours per day: 1 year and 185 days.
- studying 3 hours per day: 1 year and 2 days.
- studying 4 hours per day: 275 days.
- studying 5 hours per day: 220 days.
Group 5 (2200 hours):
- studying 1 hour per day: 6 years and 10 days.
- studying 2 hours per day: 3 years and 5 days.
- studying 3 hours per day: 2 years and 4 days.
- studying 4 hours per day: 1 year and 185 days.
- studying 5 hours per day: 1 year and 75 days.
How To Learn A Language As An Introvert
Everyone learns differently. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another. However there are two classes of personality traits that have things in common when it comes to learning a new language and that is whether you are an extrovert or an introvert.
What Is An Introvert?
Generally speaking if you identify as an introvert you will be a deep thinker, be introspectiveand…
Note: Hello, language learners! Just want to first apologize for a very late post! A lot has been going on since my move from China and it has been a doozy. Excuses aside, here is a fresh of the press post for your language learning needs.
Grammar Is a Nightmare
Grammar is always a nightmare for language learners. It doesn’t matter what language you’re learning, grammar is simply not always a basket of roses. It’s actually never a bucket of roses and the sooner you accept that,the better whole language learning process will go. Why is grammar such a nightmare for those of you who are bright eyed bushy tailed and new to language learning? Here’s a list:
- Because there are ‘rules’ to grammar, but there are ALWAYS exceptions.
- Sometimes the grammar itself makes no sense at all when explained in your native language
- You often forget them right after
- They may have specific usages that you must know of in order to avoid sounding like a plebe
- There are a million and get more and more complex as you progress
What Is Grammar
Stop your scrolling! This is important!! I’m not going to explain the complex intricacies of the concept of grammar or even try to simplify it because if you speak a language, any language, you know what grammar is. HOWEVER, it is important to remember as you study grammar is that it is the written expression of how a group of people understand and synthesize the world around them. It is also how you learn more about the culture of the language you are learning. So take care to learn grammar thoroughly.
So how do you get through this total nightmare with your sanity intact? Fortunately for you, I’ve been studying languages for ten years and can tell you EXACTLY what to do. So before you resume or begin studying, here is my recommended step by step guide to studying grammar.
