This blog post was updated on October 1, 2018.
When you want to learn a language, difficulty quickly creeps into the scene, squashing confidence in the process. The words don’t seem to roll off of the tongue. You keep making mistakes, ones that cause those who know that language to laugh. Learning a language is never easy. It involves a completely new way of thinking. If you are struggling with learning a language or just thinking about picking up a new language, be sure you practice these five tips to make learning a little easier.
Be passionate about the language you are learning: When I started college, I instantly enrolled in Italian classes. It wasn’t a practical choice like Spanish might have been, but it was the language that I wanted to learn. You aren’t going to pick up a language as easily if you don’t really want to learn it in the first place. Forget about being practical and select a language you actually want to know how to speak. Being passionate about the language you are trying to learn will instill more of a want to learn and in the process make it easy to practice.
Feast in another language, figuratively and literally: Most people have positive connotations with good food. When you are trying to learn a language, it helps to enjoy recipes from countries that speak the language you are trying to learn. As you cook, it will also make learning a language easier if you print out the recipe in both English and the language you are trying to learn. You can pick up food and verb vocabulary pretty quickly.
Snag a friend to learn with you: Some people join book clubs in order to read more. They want to have a support system in place to motivate reading. The same can be said for learning a language. If you have a group of friends learning that language with you, it is much easier to keep up with your language education. Even if you can rope a friend into learning a little German with you, joining classes where you are surrounded by others also trying to learn will help you stay motivated and on task with your language education.
Diversify your language education: When you start out learning a language, you might just study a book or take an online language program. However, you never want to just use one form to learn a language. It won’t make the process any easier if you are only reading and studying a new language. You need to listen to it, speak it, write it and read it. Those learning a new language should be sure to diversify their language education so that you are listening, speaking, writing and reading the language all for equal amounts of time.
Listen, listen and listen: Learning a language will be difficult if you merely just try speaking. You need to listen to the language as much as you can to get your ear used to the sounds. Watch movies in that language. Listen to music in your selected language. Join language chats online where you can listen to others. Tune into the radio in that language. The more you listen to the language, the easier it will be for you to wrap your mind around new words, phrases and sentence structures.
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