How To Learn Any Language Easily & Quickly
I’m sorry to break it to you, but…
You can’t learn a language in 30 days or 3 months. It’s not possible.
You can, however, master some simple, powerful techniques in those 30 days (or 3 months) which will help you learn languages in the easiest way possible.
Ideally, this post is intended for language learning beginners, but if you love learning languages, there just might be something in here for you too!
Identifying Your Motivation
Before you even commit to learning a language, you need to ask yourself, “Why THIS language? What’s special about it for me? Why do I want to learn it?”
If you’re not sure about which language to learn, there are a few strategies that you can use to help you select the best one for you and your lifestyle:
Goals & Opportunities:
Consider personal and professional goals and opportunities. Do you have any plan/need to learn more about a particular culture, country or ethnic group? Learning a language is a great way to explore each of these.
Perhaps you’d like to work in or work with people from a specific country or continent.
Family/Friends:
Do you have any family or friends who speak a particular language, and you’d like to be able to speak with them in that language?
Maybe your family is from a different country and you want to learn this language.
Travel/Relocation:
Do you plan on visiting, working or living in another country in the future?
Personal Interests:
Think about what really interests you in life, and find a language closely related to that thing.
For example:
If you love yoga, meditation, and delicious, spicy food, perhaps you should consider Indian languages.
If you love bossa nova, samba, and football, it sounds like Brazilian Portuguese may be a good choice for you!
However, if you enjoy listening to Spanish music and dancing like Shakira, Spanish is your choice!
Or maybe you can learn a language that you simply enjoy listening to because it sounds sweet, melodic or interesting to your ears.
Setting Goals and Creating A Plan
Learning your first foreign language could either be thrilling or intimidating.
Setting goals beforehand will undoubtedly give you clarity before starting which would alleviate any stress or nervousness that you may have.
First Things First
Many textbooks, programs and apps still promote a very outdated, traditional approach to acquiring a language. They start with letters, sounds, grammar, grammar, vocabulary, grammar, grammar, vocabulary, exercise, summary….. wasn’t that in itself boring to read?
I had to end my sentence early to escape the dreariness, but you get the point.
Here’s my approach:
When I learn languages, my goal is always to communicate with native speakers in a very natural way, as soon as possible. After starting my third language, Italian, I recognized a pattern when speaking with native speakers. Most of my conversations included questions like these when I spoke with someone new:
How are you?
Where are you from?
Why are you learning (language)?
Have you ever visited (their country // country where the language is spoken)?
Do you speak other languages?
What do you do (work)? // What are you studying?
How was your day? What did you do?
To reply to all of these questions, I didn’t need to know the list of 10 colours that I crammed or the items of clothing that I did the activity for.
So instead of learning these words and phrases, when I start a language, I learn how to answer these questions. In doing so, I also try to express myself as I would in my native language, English.
So, in reply to “How are you?”, I would learn how to say, “I’m doing well, thank you. And you?” (Instead of: “Good, and you?”)
In reply to “What do you do for work?”, I would learn how to reply with, “I teach English online and I write articles/blogs on my website.” (Instead of: “I teach English and I write.”)
I do admit that, personally, my style of communication leans more towards the formal side, but it’s my natural way of speaking, so I want to stay as close to that as possible. When I have a teacher who says, “No, don’t say that. You can just say, “Good, and you?” because it’s easier”, and they insist… I find a new teacher.
So I say all of this to advise you to decide on what will be most useful for you when you start using this language because once you can communicate and understand things that you need and want to, this will motivate you to keep going, and that’s key.
Resources and Recommendations
Here are some of the ideal resources that you can use when starting from zero (from my experience):
YouTube
It’s so easy and satisfying to find nearly everything you’re looking for on YouTube. For languages, YouTube is definitely a must-go-to. You can find everything there, even real-time practice conversations with native speakers (French example here).
Apps
If you’re more of a techie, give the language learning apps a try. I’ve used quite a bit of them for varying lengths of time, but for the languages that I’ve learned, here are those that I used/use regularly:
Busuu
HelloTalk
Duolingo
WordReference
Google Translate
Reverso Context
Modern textbooks
Assimil has some lovely textbooks that many language learners love! I got a French B2 book and this taught me so many useful, natural-sounding expressions, grammar rules and vocabulary. I know so many people who love Assimil books, and I agree.
Other than that, I do research and ask for recommendations when it comes to textbooks, if I want to use them. They’re not usually my first choice, but this is my personal preference.
1-on-1 tutor / A native speaker
This one is my absolute favourite!
I fell in love with languages after taking online lessons with my first teacher. We met (virtually) a couple of times a week and spoke like friends. The learning environment was stress-free, calm and fun!
My level of French drastically improved over our 150+ lessons.
So if you’ve been waiting to get started. Now’s the time.
Choose a method and start.
Happy learning!
-Maryse.
