Learning a new language is challenging and frustrating, but it is one of the most rewarding skills you can acquire over a lifetime. Despite the difficulties, bilingualism is rapidly growing in popularity and becoming the highly-desired resume addition.
Wonder how to easily learn a foreign language? There is NO better way than to live where it is spoken. That means that you constantly listen to and speak this language. You are completely immersed in it as you communicate with native speakers, hear the new words, get acquainted with pronunciation and grammar structures. The entire involvement allows to improve the skills all day everyday.
Don’t have the opportunity to live abroad? No problem! There are still plenty of ways to learn a language. You don’t need to be born with a language learning gene, you simply should know the easiest and the fastest ways to master your skills.
Act Like a Child
Try learning the way kids do. As babies, we learned our first language by simply listening and imitating every single day. In fact, everything we could do was to listen to what other people say 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We didn’t study grammar books, learn new vocabulary or memorize the rules. And that’s why we learned the first language so well.
Apply the same technique to learning a new language. Surely, you don’t have so much free time. But the good news is that you don’t need it. Now you are an adult and can learn much faster. Just admit that you don’t know everything and learn my making mistakes. That’s absolutely normal. The key to learning a language like a child is to simply take on the kid’s attitude: a desire to play with the words and never worry about mistakes.
Learn a Language Like a Video Game
When you start a new video game, you have to learn the controls. The first time you play, you spend a lot of time to get familiar with everything. But the next game is much easier because you can find many similarities. You have a goal – to play a video game – and the sooner you learn the basics, the sooner you’ll be able to have fun. And that’s the whole point of this exercise. With practice, you react without thinking and do the complex things with ease.
Learning a language is the same. You need to speak. Not to memorize or associate. The sooner you start to communicate, the sooner you’ll have fun. And if you’re satisfied with the result, you won’t quit. You’ll continue to learn much faster and more efficiently. That is how music is taught, and the same strategy can be successfully applied to learning a foreign language.
While learning, don’t pay much attention to grammar and vocabulary. No doubt, they are important, but you learn everything naturally by hearing it. You see the words in context and can understand their meanings intuitively. This is a natural way of studying the new material.
Listen and Watch People Talk
Learning styles vary between every person, and you need to realize what works best for you. However, there are a few universal approaches to learning a language faster.
You must learn to listen before you start to speak. A new language always sounds strange when you hear it for the first time. The more time you devote to listening to the foreign speech, the more familiar it becomes. Different languages have different pronunciation and it might be really difficult to imitate the sounds at the beginning. You just need to practice it.
Watch foreign language films, videos, TV shows, listen to the songs and make sure to do that every single day. You would be surprised with your progress for sure. You need to make the language your own, that’s basically what makes a native speaker. Don’t forget to have fun with a new language and chances are you’ll learn it much easily.
Inspired to get started? You can learn a language fast, just dive in!