ADSactly Learning - Pineapple Language Hacks #2: What does it take to learn a second language quickly?
Before we get into the actual process of learning a language, I want to make sure we establish what factors will determine how efficiently someone will learn. There are certain soft "requirements" for learning a language. They may not be entirely necessary for learning the language but they are necessary if you want it to be a smooth process where you improve relatively quickly. If you have what is needed learning a language can almost feel effortless. These apply to those who are self-studying as well as those who are enrolled in a class.
It doesn't take genius or certain aptitude of capabilities to learn a second language. There are those who have fantastic short-term memories which makes it a whole lot easier, but most of us do not have such photographic memories. Some people will insist that it takes 3 or 5 or 10 years to learn certain languages. This is simply not true. It shouldn't take you years to learn if you have a few hours a day to study and come in with the right attitude.
So how does one speed up the process? What is holding most people back? Here is a list of things that will turn a grueling struggle into an exploration that is fun and natural. At first glance some of these things are self explanitory but I will share WHY they are so important and talk a little bit about how to achieve them.
First of all what you DON'T need:
...to be "GOOD" at learning languages
...to spend lots of money for special programs or classes
...to spend years of hard work
...to wait until you can speak well to start speaking
...to be in a country where the language is spoken
...to have the perfect book or teacher
So what does it take to really learn a second language?
Confidence
If you think that you can't learn another language, you WILL NOT learn another language. It is almost a prerequisite to believe that it is possible, and it IS possible. If you don't believe that you can do it, you aren't going to feel the same motivation to study, you aren't going to be able to open your mouth to practice and you are going to be fighting against yourself every single step of the way.
If it helps, remember my story, school didn't help me but once I changed how I thought about languages and became interested and condifent I managed to learn quite well. Don't be shy about making mistakes! It's natural and NO ONE will hold it against you, and in the rare situation that someone makes fun of you, just remember this: they are an idiot. People will actually think your mistakes are cute and want to talk to you more because you are trying which will give you more opportunities to practice!
Motivation
This is another prerequisite for learning a language, perhaps the most important. It's a very easy predictor as to whether or not a student will actually because fluent at the language or just dabble for a few months or years before giving up. The more motivated you are, the more you will be able to concentrate on the language, the more fun you'll have studying and the more fun studying is the faster you learn.
You are going to have to stay motivated over the course of months in order to learn all those words. You are going to want to spend a few hours a day studying, or AT LEAST a few hours aweek. How does one motivate themselves? We'll talk about that in a second.
Concentration
Concentration is a natural byproduct of motivation and will. It was hard for me to concentrate because I always have so many things I want to focus on in my life. I found that finding certain things that you like about the culture and making friends helps with both motivation and concentration.
Look for films, music, books, comics, and social media in the lanuguage. You can change your settings on programs to that language in order to force yourself to learn vocabulary. Make studying part of your routine, put it above everything else if you'd like. Go online and search for friends from that country. I went online to find 3 different language exchange partners and 2 study groups in order to keep myself focused on studying Japanese while I was still in America.
Time
Don't just assume that if you are busy you won't be able to make the time for learning. You can learn a language with only 10 minutes a day. It'll just take longer. Ideally you will have 1-3 hours a day on average although studying 2-3 days a week is sufficient to learning a language in a relatively short period of time.
Find a way to manage your time. When I started working I would write vocabulary lists or phrase lists on index cards during my free time at work and then check those index cards throughout the day, testing myself everywhere I went. I would use half of my lunch break to study. I got a pdf version of my textbook and read and re-read dialogues during my commute.
Study Methods
I will go into this in future posts, but study methods are where many people slip up. There are so many ways to study but very few ways to study efficiently. Sometimes the simplest methods work the best. You can tell that someone used insuffiecnt study methods when they tell you it ook them 10 years to learn. The school systems don't usually help with this in most cases, at least not in America or Asia.
What I can say for now is that you need to practice everything that you study and if you don't you will have to relearn it all again at a later date.
Environment
This is not what you may think. It is not entirely neccesary to be in the country of the language you want to speak. It helps, for sure, but it is not required. Even if you manage to go to that country, it doesn't mean you will be in the right environment to learn.
The environment is essentially about how you live your life. Immersion is something you can create. Do you live your life in a way to maximize your use of the language? There will be a future post that goes into depth about how to create immersion for yourself.
One more thing...
Aside from all these attributes that will help you learn a language more efficiently, it is also incredibly useful to change the way you think about learning and the way you think about languages. That is one of the things I aim to help you do with this series. Framing can change everything. By changing the way you think about language and learning you can get out of your own way and maximize your potential for becoming fluent at your language of choice.
Feel free to share your progress or to contact me on discord @whatamidoing if you are interested in English, Mandarin (beginner) or Japnese (beginner) lessons.
Authored by @whatamidoing
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Thank you!
Now I'm beginning to agree with you with this lessons of how to learn a different language. Like you stated, if you're trying to learn a language in a place where it's hardly spoken, it'll definitely be a hard process. A hard such encounter, when I was in highschool here in Nigeria, Hausa is a very good and simple language to learn and speak, I tried learning how to speak it because almost everyone knew how to speak and when they do, I'll be left with no choice than to be looking like a fool then I approached a Friend and told him and I wanted to learn, that he should put me through. To cut it short, I was actually developing and then he had to graduate because it was our final year and after the graduation I went back home and forgot everything about the language and even the zeal to learn it was lost too because there was no one around anymore to learn or speak with.
Relating to the aspect of confidence, it matters alot in learning a language, Most people find it difficult to speak due to they ain't perfect and so they won't be mocked but does it actually matters, why is there a word called "correction" as far as I want to learn something, I wouldn't hesitate to make mistakes so I'll be corrected.
Please continue with your lessons, I'm really encouraged and thanks anyway.
Anyone who mocks you is a loser :-) You are the cool one for learning a language.
And as for learning a language outside of the country in which it is spoken...well one of the next few posts will be about just that!
Check for the comment by @bosscharlze, he can speak Huasa!
@whatamidoing you couldn't have listed and explained it better than you just did. A lot of people find it difficult to learn a second language because they lack the confidence to do it, you know a lot of people will laugh at you while you make efforts to speak a second language but confidence is extremely needed. Methods one chooses to learn a second language is of high importance, reasons being that everyone is different on how they learn, some learn with group, some learn as individuals some learn at slow pace while there are people who learn at fast pace, so you see that you cannot learn this language if these things are not considered.
The determination and zeal to learn the second language has to be at least up to 80% to 90% for me, today i speak the Hausa language in my country due to my determination to speak the language, i started by doing it myself before looking up to other people for correction and encouragement, most times its hard because some will laugh at you, some will make jest of you but the end goal is to be determined.
Finally i want to agree with you that one has to be where the language is spoken for easy learning and practice, you need to hear them speak and while you try to emulate them you learn.
Wonderful post, this should a lot of steemians who wants to learn a second language or languages.
It really is a simple process that goes smoothly under the right conditions and with the right mindset. I find that the wrong mindset is a much bigger hurdle for my students than the language itself and so I wanted to make this series!
And it seems another steemian is interested in Huasa, @lilkeszi also commented to this post about Huasa :-)
I think I understand why it's hard for me to learn other languages! Since the beginning I've been failing. I have never set it as a goal, I have almost always seen it as a hobby and of course, there is not much dedication or interest in learning. I agree with you that whatever we want to do, there must be a commitment and a willingness to achieve our goals, because if there is no commitment, we will simply fail. I like to know that even if I don't spend much time on it, I can advance in language acquisition. In the same way, that using materials such as texts or films, I can exercise. Human beings are in a world where work and a thousand things consume our time and most of them exist because there is a benefit in between; so what better than devoting a few minutes to reading or listening to something that will be gain in your life. I will be very attentive to your advice, @whatamidoing. Thanks to you and @adsactamente for this excellent material.
Hobby is fine, as long as there is motivation. You have to really want it and believe that it's possible, that's all. Sometimes we set our goals higher than our beliefs about achieving them and this is setting us up for failure. Why not lower the bar a bit, just at first and set the goal at "understanding lots of words and phrases". From there you can change the goal to conversation.
I find your strategies to learn a new language extraordinary, @whatamidoing. I think the same as you that is important, first of all, motivation. This will give the push to begin, then the discipline and concentration to achieve the purpose. I had already read that listening to music or watching movies in the language you want to learn makes learning easier and faster. you have to make the decision and direct the efforts, it's never too late to learn one or more languages after the maternal one. Excellent article, thanks for sharing it, @adsactly.
Music and movies don't help me to learn much but they always motivate me to study and if i can study them instead of just watching them or listening to them it can be a fun way to increase my vocabulary.
Learning a new language requires self-confidence, in our ability to retain new notions. It is not only about the technique but also about your level of personal development which is a tool that will work on the subconscious.
I read a very funny article that considers that hypnosis, and more specifically self hypnosis, can bring you if you want to learn English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, in short ... n ' any language.
The use of self-hypnosis to solve the difficulty of learning or expression is broken down into 6 steps:
Step 1: Determine the blocking point precisely.
Step 2: Draw the problematic process (metaphorical).
Step 3: Draw the ideal situation
Step 4: Make the self-hypnosis session by moving from the drawing from step 2 to the drawing of step 3
Step 5: Plan for the future to verify that the change is working well
Step 6: Watch out for changes
I read a book called "Clean Language" before about using metaphors to achieve anything, I've always been vaguely interested in self-hypnosis but I haven't yet dug into it. Is there any resemblance to meditation?
I'm intrigued! Could you please link the original article, if you can find it?
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Great. You are quite right. Learning a language sometimes may at first look difficult but if truly you want to learn language. It is not that hard. I guess you have said it all. First of all. You must have confidence like you have said. Generally if you want to do something, apart from learning language because it also talks about all areas of ones life. You must first believe in yourself that you can do. Have the confidence you need. Believe in yourself that you can do it, that you can learn it even if others are busy complaining that the language is hard to learn. All you need to do is to believe in yourself that you can learn it no matter what people might think about the language. Also concentration also. You must have full concentration when learning the language like you have said. Be committed to it and at times, starting to learn a language in the beginning might look a little but frustrating but just be concentrated and be focus to what you are learning and you will really be surprised the rate at which you will learn the language faster than you might have imagine
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Its best not to set goals so high that we can't believe that we could ever achieve them. Setting mini goals helps a lot in building our confidence!
One important thing missing out of the list is "INTEREST" unless the person is not interested to learn any second language , he never make way for themselves.....rest all the points are perfectly lines up to grasp the basic of sexond language.
Another thing that is more important is "environment" eve people learn a different language but lack of use of such language may effect . It happened to me...I went to a German launguage class in my city itbwas one hour class for seven day in a week...it went pretty well with alphabets and phonetic but soon i realzed , i was not getting enough room outside my coaching class to practice in the hindi speaking world. Any way i dumped the course midway.
Welcome to Adsactly @whatamidoing. I think this is your first blog...or i am wrong ?
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I was including interest in motivation :-) But you are so right.
And the second point you make is going to be the topic of the next or next next post.
It's my second post with adsactly :-) Scroll back 6 days for my first
I totally agree with you, the first step in learning anything is a positive attitude and the confidence that you can do it. I'm looking forward to your next post on this topic! :)
Thanks, so much to say but it's all quite simple really, just not what we are used to hearing.
Hi, @adsactly!
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Yes,I agree.
Its a very good system for us.
It is easy that we can shortly Learning English, Mandarin and Japanese language.
Thank you very much dear for this opportunities.