How-To: Learn Languages Faster
Note: This article is an edited version of the one I’ve written for my blog about my stay in Japan.
I found this really cool article about how to learn a foreign language. I think the steps that guy writes about not only helps you learn, but help you learn it faster than just going by the books in school. Here is the article broken down, followed by my own suggestions that apply the tips to my studying the Japanese language.
1) Spend the time!
By far the most important factor is how much time you are immersed in the language. The more time you spend with the language, the faster you will learn. This means listening, reading, writing, speaking, and studying words and phrases. This does not mean sitting in class looking out the window, nor listening to other students who do not speak well, nor getting explanations in your own language about how the language works. This means spending time enjoyably connected to the language you are learning.
My two cents: Immersion definitely is key to learning a language faster than going by your textbook. Being here, where I have a spoken Japanese class everyday and a reading/writing Japanese class three times a week, it makes me realize that two classes a week back home is not nearly enough to learn the language in a timely way. You can learn at your own pace if you study everyday, and that pace will inevitably be faster than the teachings in class, which I now think should be used to reinforce things you’ve already taught yourself.
2) Listen and read every day!
Listen wherever you are on your MP3 player. Read what you are listening to. Listen to and read things that you like, things that you can mostly understand, or even partly understand. If you keep listening and reading you will get used to the language. One hour of listening or reading is more effective than many hours of class time.
My two cents: I really like the previous point about not listening to other students who do not speak well. I think this hampers a lot of people in the process. Instead, you should listen by any means to native speakers, whether through downloaded media or podcasts (I haven’t tried listening to podcasts but it’s becoming more and more appealing to me.) Watch movies without the subtitles. One language teacher isn’t going to be enough: try finding as many as you can. For Japanese, this is great because there are several levels of formalities and dialects that learning the standard polite/impolite form alone just won’t cut it.
For Japanese, children’s shows or anime will be good for beginners because they enunciate words more clearly than in live action media. Try watching them without subtitles first, and then again with subtitles.
If you listen to Japanese music, it will be a little more difficult to know what is going on because it’s similar to poetry. But it still might be useful in picking up phrases, unless you’re listening to girl bands, in which all you’re going to learn are onomatopoeias.
3) Focus on words and phrases!
Build up your vocabulary, you’ll need lots. Start to notice words and how they come together as phrases. Learn these words and phrases through your listening and reading. Read online, using online dictionaries, and make your own vocabulary lists for review. Soon you will run into your new words and phrases elsewhere. Gradually you will be able to use them. Do not worry about how accurately you speak until you have accumulated a plenty of words through listening and reading.
My two cents: I’ve been bringing flash cards everywhere I go to review them if I have even a little extra time while waiting for class, the bus, etc. Also if I hear a reoccurring word I don’t know or is new to me, I add it to the flash card so I can learn it. I’ve been learning new words almost everyday, and even though I might forget them at least I know that at some point, I have heard them. Without a good vocabulary, what you want to express verbally will surely be limited to hand gestures and grunts. Even if you don’t understand how to do some grammatically, if you know the vocab you will inevitably get your point across.
4) Take responsibility for your own learning!
If you do not want to learn the language, you won’t. If you do want to learn the language, take control. Choose content of interest, that you want to listen to and read. Seek out the words and phrases that you need to understand your listening and reading. Do not wait for someone else to show you the language, nor to tell you what to do. Discover the language by yourself, like a child growing up. Talk when you feel like it. Write when you feel like it. A teacher cannot teach you to become fluent, but you can learn to become fluent if you want to.
My two cents: I think this is pretty self-explanatory. You can control how fast you learn by taking things into your own hands. Also you must not care about looking foolish. I see so many people who are improving pretty quickly just because they talk a lot without inhibitions.
5) Relax and enjoy yourself!
Do not worry about what you cannot remember, or cannot yet understand, or cannot yet say. It does not matter. You are learning and improving. The language will gradually become clearer in your brain, but this will happen on a schedule that you cannot control. So sit back and enjoy. Just make sure you spend enough time with the language. That is the greatest guarantee of success.
My two cents: This is my favorite part of the article. Don’t do anything! And yet do something.
In conclusion, you can do anything if you put your feeble mind to it. The hardest part is applying yourself, but it will be easy if you’re really interested in it. I guess you just have to disassociate learning a language from school, which makes learning everything annoying. I hope this helps people who are struggling to learn languages and are getting frustrated from not learning them fast enough (ie., me).
More resources:
- How to Learn a Foreign Language
- How to Teach Yourself a Foreign Language
- How to Learn More and Study Less
- Guide to Japanese Grammar
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