A Better Way to Learn a Language

The Best Way to Learn a Language?

Which is the best way to actually learn a new language? Search the web over and you’ll find thousands of theories and tips. Some sites even claim to have you fluent in as little as three months. I cannot guarantee that any one method is the “best”, but in my experience there are better ways and worse ways.

I believe that considering the process of how you learned your first language can provide clues to learning your second or third. Think about your early years? Do you recall taping a notecard to a chair with a label that says “chair” so you would remember how to say it? Did your mother or father give you grammar exercises and vocabulary tests when you were two years old? No, you learned your first language by listening and repeating what you heard. You did it naturally without thinking about it, but you did it and often. You didn’t even care when you made a mistake.

Here is a better process to acquire a new language than what you might have learned so far.

Humble Thyself

The mindset of the learner is very important to acquiring any real command of a language. If you believe you are not good at learning languages you will automatically start to limit yourself, avoid engagement in the language, and therefore prove yourself to be bad at languages. You have to try, and you must make mistakes. It requires a certain humility, but the rewards for your willingness to humiliate yourself far outweigh the pain of the embarrassment.

Actually, making mistakes in a language is one of the best ways to remember how to say something correctly. When someone corrects you in a situation, your brain associates a memory with the word or phrase and that helps you recall it later. So try to get over the fear of making embarrassing mistakes quickly and realize you’re going to continue to make them. They are a necessary and helpful part of the process.

Listen Up!

How do you effectively listen to a language when you can’t understand even a word? I would argue this is where you need the help of an app or program. I’m personally using Pimsleur to learn Korean. (I receive no money from them. In fact, I pay them for the subscription.) While the language they teach is more like “textbook Korean” and quite formal, I am learning to hear isolated phrases and then hearing the translation. Using a proven method, Pimsleur focuses on short phrases and spaced repetition to build your ability to comprehend and speak the language.

Don’t just listen though. Language is subtle and you need to listen very carefully in order to hear those subtleties. I recommend using headphones, and don’t be afraid to repeat the same word or phrase multiple times until you really hear the details. Pro tip: road noise can make listening in your car a challenge.

Of course, there are many apps and channels you can use for listening practice. I recommend you avoid the ones that focus on grammar and stick to the actual listening.

Hold the Grammar

We’ve seen that in the beginning you need a ton of careful listening to native speakers. What you don’t need is a load of grammar rules. Think of it this way. Grammar rules are not the language. So you’re expending energy on memorizing something that isn’t the language. The time you are spending learning grammar could be more helpfully spent on listening and memorizing actual phrases from the language.

Not only is it an inefficient use of brain power, but grammar tricks you. You study a point of grammar and think to yourself, “I’ve got it. I know how to use the past tense now.” But then the next day when you want to recall how to say “He went there yesterday,” you have to think through how to conjugate the third person singular past tense. It’s in these situations where you realize that comprehending grammar isn’t the same as the ability to use it in real conversations.

Phrases, Phrases, and More Phrases

Instead of focusing on grammar points, you should learn phrases that have the grammar imbedded in them. Don’t worry about what each word means for now. You’ll find out eventually. For now, you just need to know the phrase’s meaning and when to use it. Then use it as often as possible. Then learn more phrases and do the same thing with those. Eventually, you’ll be able to speak at a basic conversational level. 

I would suggest that you not just minimize your study of grammar, but that you jettison it altogether for the first few months. Do not waste a minute learning grammar until you are on your way to being a more advanced speaker. Take that minute you would have spent on grammar and memorize another useful phrase or watch a video of a native speaker talking for one minute. I would suggest that you not even pick up a grammar book until you have memorized about 300 phrases.

Advantages of Using Phrases

The “phrases to fluency” method has some amazing advantages to learning the traditional (grammar first) way. 

• By learning phrases you can immediately begin communicating in the foreign language.
• The phrases, if repeated correctly, are perfect in both grammar and syntax. 
• This makes them automatically more intelligible to a native speaker than trying to synthesize a sentence out of the limited vocabulary you have. 
• It also give you confidence in what you do know.

In other words, you can stop trying to remember if you should say die, der, or das and just say the sentence as you memorized it. The correct conjugations, agreements etc. are baked into the phrase. That’s what children do all the time, and it’s why they say some hilarious things because they are simply parroting what they have heard adults say. It’s a much faster and more efficient method for become conversational in a foreign language. 

The Right Way to Use Flashcards

Imagine if you just took a bunch of phrases and put them on flash cards. Let’s say you put 500 phrases on them. It might take you a few months to have them all memorized, but once you do, you will have the ability to express an amazing amount of your thoughts in perfect Swedish or Russian or Swahili.

Imagine now making 500 vocabulary flashcards. Each word is isolated from its context. Although you might be able to pick it out when someone uses it, you would have no context to help you use it in your own speaking. Vocabulary memorized out of context is virtually useless. What good is knowing how to say, “president” if you cannot use it properly in at least one sentence. Instead, learn to say, “The president is elected every four years,” or some other sentence that would be useful to say in connection with that word. 

Start Speaking on Your Own

Once you have gained some basic proficiency in the language, you will begin to reach the level of synthesis. You will be able to make new phrases and sentences that haven’t just been memorized. At this point, it’s important to find a language tutor. There are a few important qualities you need in a tutor. 

• They must be qualified—having a mastery of the language and the ability to teach it. 
• They must be willing to teach you. This includes being willing and able to correct your errors—this is an invaluable point that few teachers are careful enough to do consistently. 
• They must be able to meet you regularly in person or online. Language ability wanes quickly when practice is neglected or infrequent.  

Are You Fluent Yet?

The word fluency is almost meaningless. There are so many levels of speaking a language that I’m not sure it helps to use that word. I prefer descriptors like, beginner, conversational, advanced. Before I had made a serious effort to learn a foreign language, I thought of fluency as binary and imagined that one day after much practice you just became fluent. In fact, like most growth, there is an imperceptible change that gradually produces results. One day you do wake up and realize you can “speak” the language, but the process doesn’t happen overnight. 

Every language is different, but the way to master any foreign tongue is the same. You need some humility, a bit of courage, a ton of phrases, and loads of practice listening and speaking. There are many methods and a wide variety of resources to help you learn. What I’ve tried to do here is outline a philosophy of learning. It’s a philosophy that others before me have worked out, but one that I began to realize on my own to be better than the traditional methods.

No matter what method you decide on, if you take any of my advice don’t start with a grammar book. You run the risk of getting bored and that’s the opposite of how you should feel when learning a new language.