In fact, there's not one trick but a whole suite of tricks to help you learn a language. I'll use French as an example, but this advice applies to any language.
1. Understand the Language Learning Journey
Language learning has an appalling abandonment rate. A mere 4% of students embarking on language courses in schools achieve a basic level of fluency after three years. 96% fail to achieve fluency and/or abandon courses completely!
People almost always wrongly conclude two things from this:
Myth 1) Learning languages is hard.
Myth 2) Other people (but not them) are naturally good at languages.
One of the biggest reasons cited for abandoning is that students don't feel any sense of progression. A GCSE student with an A* will visit France and find they can't even have a basic conversation. People largely give up because they had the wrong expectations set.
Myth Bust 1) Learning a language isn't hard. It's just LONG.
Myth Bust 2) Everyone is naturally good at languages. You already learned one, remember? You've just forgotten how long it took.
I'm going to use a metaphor that I hope will help you get the knack.
I think of learning a language a bit like climbing a mountain (a large but easy mountain, the sort that anyone can climb so long as they keep going).
Here's what most teachers won't tell you: It takes 600+ hours of study & practice to reach fluency in French (unless you already speak another latin-based language - a so-called romance language). Think about this. If (say) you learn 1 hour of French per week, then in forty weeks you'll do 40 hours. You'll need fifteen years at that rate to become fluent, not counting all the stuff you forget because of the gaps between study. (Harder languages like Russian or Mandarin can take 1,200 hours!)
At the other extreme, if you study really intensively, you can rack up 40 hours in one week! It's possible (but not guaranteed) to achieve fluency in ten to twelve weeks at that rate. Most people don't have the spare time to give that level of intensity, but understanding the journey helps you be realistic about what you can achieve so you won't get demotivated.
2. Intensity is vital to learning a language quickly.
This is a double-whammy. 1) Immersing yourself as deeply as possible in the subject allows you to rack up the hours as quickly as possible. 2) Memory fades unless it's used. Low-intensity studies (i.e. school French) are ineffective because their intensity is so low that you end up forgetting a large percentage of what you learn. So, try to learn as intensely as time will permit you to.
To use my mountain metaphor, the ground is icy and slippery and if you go slowly, you'll slip back as much as you progress. The faster you can climb, the less you will slip back.
3. Be kind to yourself
I've used sunlight in this mountain metaphor to give you an indication of how it feels to be at these levels. It's not until B1/B2 that the light comes out and it starts to feel really good speaking French. That happens around the 350-400 hours mark if you've never learned a second language before.
Expect a lot of fog and confusion for the first few hundred hours. It's completely normal and you're not stupid. EVERYONE feels this way, even the people who seem really gifted at languages. The difference is, anyone who's already been through that and reached the sunlight expects this stage, and it doesn't phase them because they know they'll get there eventually. So, if you catch yourself saying things like, "I'm rubbish at French" or "I'm stupid" just stop for a moment and remind yourself that you're neither and you will get it if you persevere.
4. Prepare for the journey
If you're a complete beginner I find it's really important to absorb the sounds of the language before beginning serious study. I listen to hours of audio (audio books are great for this) without trying to understand the content, but still actively listening to the sounds of the language to embed them. I usually find after a while I end up babbling them a little like a baby which can feel a bit silly . Which brings me my next piece of advice:
5. Practise looking stupid
Being self-conscious is your biggest enemy. You cannot speak a foreign language without feeling stupid at some point. You have to get over that. You have to twist your mouth into strange new shapes that make you feel like a caricature; you will speak and not be understood and you will listen and not understand. A LOT. It's really okay and in fact necessary to learning. If you think about it, what's the big deal? So you look stupid. Who cares?
If you instead give yourself credit every time you feel stupid you can turn this around. Give yourself a little mental gold star each time you feel stupid because those moments are learning moments. Feeling stupid is actually a sign of progress, or the moment just prior to progress.
6. Find out where you are (and therefore what the next stage is)
I strongly advise you measure your level using CEFR levels (https://www.french-test.com/blog...) as these are now standard across Europe.
If you want find out approximately what level you are, you can take the Kwiziq French test here:
https://www.french-test.com/
(*Kwiziq is an A.I. Language Coach that will assess your level and then help you improve.)
7. Set goals
Plan your language learning journey in stages. You've seen how long the journey is, so just like climbing a mountain, it's advisable to plan the journey in stages.
Goal setting (and measuring progress against those goals) is one of the most effective tools in your learning arsenal. I highly recommend setting short term and longer terms goals.
Short term goals can be as simple as how many hours of study you will do each week. If you (say) want to study one hour a day then write seven boxes on a sheet and every hour you study, check a box. It feels good and you're measuring progress which is visible to you even when you don't feel like you're progressing.
Set longer terms goals like passing a specific CEFR level.
It's really worth while registering to take DELF / DALF exams which are French exams that match the CEFR levels:
DILF, DELF and DALF - Everything you need to know about French Diplomas.
There are similar diplomas for most languages.
8. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
Repetition is absolutely vital to learning most things but especially important when learning a language. It sounds boring but it doesn't need to be. More on this in a moment. One more time, just in case you didn't get it: repetition is vital to learning.
9. Recall is more important than revision
Practising recall has proven to be 300% more effective than revising something. In other words, you must challenge yourself to "produce" French, not just comprehend it. The metaphor I use for memory is a field of long grass. You drop lots of things in it, but to make them easy to find again, you must practise retrieving them. Every time you do, you tread down the path to the thing you're recalling and it gets easier to follow.
Anything you do to practice recall is going to help your French.
If you can, the best way is of course to practise speaking with a real French person. (If you can, go to the country and spend time there, preferably with people who don't speak any English.)
Our site, Kwiziq French offers thousands of tests which will adapt automatically to you and measure your progress at each level, as well as telling you what to do next to improve. The reason testing works so well is because it forces you to practise recalling what you know.
All of this is building towards my ultimate language learning trick.
If we combine these point (especially 8 and 9) there is an obvious conclusion: the quickest way to learn a language that I have found is to...
10. Rote learn set texts in French
This is my number one trick and I've found this to be singularly the most effective method in acquiring a language rapidly.
Find a text that you can learn in a week (you must have audio - this is essential).
Pick a text on a subject you find interesting and at the right level for you (i.e. a bit challenging but not too hard). If you're a beginner keep it short, i.e. a few sentences at a time. Graphic comics are really good for beginners (things like Peanuts) which you can order online.
As you progress you can pick longer texts and learn a few paragraphs, or pages of dialogue at a time. I like using film or theatre texts, or books I liked as a kid which are also good because the language is usually simple.
Listen to the piece at least ten times (repetition) before starting to try to learn it. Start to commit it to memory (practise recall). You'll find this very hard at first and it will show you just how important it is to practise recall.
Give yourself a week to learn the piece. Why? Because after seven nights of sleep, something magical happens...
11. Sleep
Sleep is vital to memory. In fact, research shows the time of day that you sleep is not that important. Daytime napping is very effective. Don’t deprive yourself of sleep for too long after you've learned or practised something. When you sleep your brain starts to build structures to turn short-term memories into long-term memories. It may be different for you, but I've found that after about seven nights of sleep is about the amount needed (with daily practise) for a text to be effortless to recall.
12. Exercise & Nutrition
We tend to think of our brains as separate from our bodies, but of course the brain is part of body. If you exercise, you get huge mental benefits. It might sound bizarre, but keeping fit will help you learn a language. You can even combine the two efforts by listen to French audio during a workout or run.
And make sure the fuel you're putting into your body and brain is good for it. Eating healthily, just like exercise, has amazing cognitive benefits. If you ever get 'brain fog', you might want to pay more attention to what you're eating and drinking. Ask yourself what you consumed in the previous 24-48 hours. Yep, it can take as many as two days for something you ate or drank to affect your cognition.
13. Learn about learning
I've found that every hour I invested in learning about learning paid off many times over in my learning speed of actual content. There's general stuff that you can learn about learning that works for everyone, and then there are your own personal learning tricks that can develop; this is about just taking time to reflect on what work best for you and thinking about how to improve on what you're doing.
Hope that's helpful!
Yes it is. If it wasn't people wouldn't ask this question time and again. The confusion comes when we compare the organic way in which children acquire their L1 with the systematic way adults use to accomplish the same task.
This leads people to believe that there must be hacks, tricks and whatnot to make up for the difficulty in adult language learning.
Since "learn" is an ambiguous term, you will first need to determine your target level. Then you will need to find a method of structured learning that introduces new vocabulary and structures so that you learn progressively (e.g. Assimil, Teach Yourself, Duolingo). Sticking to one method will give you the learning continuity that you need.
You can reinforce it by reading (online newspapers, books, etc), listening (TuneIn), writing (lang8.com), or speaking (either with a tutor on italki or through an exchange at Conversation Exchange).
But don't think that "exposure" to the language is the "key". Mere exposition does not lead to acquisition. If it did, just by listening to the target language on the radio you would eventually reach fluency.
Adults do not learn when they listen, but when they understand what they listen to. This is usually achieved through a plan that presents comprehensible input progressively.
Simply being exposed to the L2 gives you a false learning sensation. Even if you engage in a language tandem or go to the country where the language is spoken you won't attain your objective unless you are exposed and practice new and more challenging input progressively.
Otherwise, you may find yourself using the same expressions over and over without learning anything new. You can spend years throwing balls over a net without learning how to play tennis.
Whatever method you choose or whoever you talk to should introduce new vocabulary and structures progressively so that you can make progress in your language journey.
Related answers:
Absolutely, but that doesn’t at all mean it’s too late.
When you learn your native language as a baby, your brain is the living equivalent of a sponge. You learn your first language by soaking up everything you see, everything you hear and everything you experience. Even then, it is still surprisingly quite tricky for babies to learn languages. There must have been a word or two that your parents never tire of telling you that you used to mispronounce (for me it was vanilla - I’d always say valinna). Kids are always getting things like irregular past participles wrong. That’s what school is for.
By the time you turn 5, your brain stops working like that. You begin having to learn by rote, by repetition. Hence the current formula for teaching languages in schools (i.e. a focus on grammar and sentence construction, and weekly vocabulary tests and so forth). Another thing that happens to your brain is it becomes less adept at holding information long-term. Put simply, it’s much easier for you to forget things.
That’s mainly why languages are seen as hard subjects. You need to always keep practising it. You can’t just go ‘right that’s it, I’ve learnt the present tense, so I’ll never need to revise it now. NO.
If you can dedicate a large chunk of your week to learning, practising, re-learning, revising and testing a new language, brilliant. Keep at it. But know one thing: if you want to get to native fluency, you need to spend an extended period of time in a country that speaks (only) that language. Learning it in a classroom or online platform is great, but you will never get that speed of thought, lose that need to translate mentally or get an instinctive ‘grip’ of the nuances and colloquialisms of the language unless you live it. I appreciate not everybody can do this. The next best thing, I would say, is getting a conversation buddy.
The good news is that your brain never fully loses that spongy capacity. A great way for improving your language is to absorb as much of it as you can. Read books in the language (translated fiction which you have read is always useful), watch tv series and films, listen to music and radio in the language. I don’t mean simply sit there and expect to take it all in. I mean have a pen and paper at the ready (or a notes app) and note down every word, phrase, turn of phrase or cultural reference which you don’t understand. Look it up using bilingual dictionaries at first. When you feel more comfortable, use monolingual dictionaries.
As others have said, you first need to decide what you mean when you say you want to learn French (in terms of fluency, level of comfort, etc.). But most importantly, don’t give up, and try not to let it lapse - always keep exercising the linguistic muscles until it becomes reflexive instinct.
Their are numerous websites which can help you to learn new language. Some of the them are
Learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and English for free
Learn Spanish, French or Other Languages Online
Learn Chinese online. With our podcast, learning Chinese is easy.
Learn Mandarin Chinese with ChinesePod
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Most important part in learning a new language is to listen and comprehend at the time of speaking, mostly language learners focus on speaking and writing and tends to ignore the another imperative aspect of language i.e listening. It has been advised by numerous language teachers to focus on listening as well. A person should listen at least 550-600 hours of language which is needed to be learned. Don't forget "practice makes a men perfect"
It depends what you mean by fluent.
Learning a language isn't that much different than learning other skills such as playing an instrument, computer programming, or driving a car. You have to learn the basics then continue on to more advanced topics.
In about 10 minutes you could start communicating with a native speaker using basic phrases such as “how are you?” and “my name is . . . “ just by memorization. I'll assume you can't hold a conversation with a theoretical physicist; does that mean you're not fluent in English? Language learning is a process that is never quite done. I still learn words in English all the time and I'm a native!
There will be ups and downs, as well as plateaus, but you need to keep going. Don't forget to speak to natives every step of the way, even if you don't know some (or most) of what their saying.
Benny Lewis gives a lot of advices on language learning, he himself started learning at 20 something and now speaks more than 12! His website is Front Page - Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips and I would for sure recommend his TED Talk as well. You can also see Tim Ferris' approach to learning - and language learning - where you start deconstructing the skill.
The best advices are: embrace the learning, talk to people, they are more willing to help than making fun of you. Look for resources, post videos, write a blog, skype with friends, friends of friends, make new ones. Talk from the first beggining. Something that also helped me was watching Disney/kid movies that I watched before in my native language at the languange I wanted to learn - German in that case - and keeping a book with the new vocabulary I would find.
From the neuroscience point, is also good to review the words and vocabulary that you learn constantly, up to 5 times a week, so your brain could chunk them into a long term memory.
I wish you a happy learning! :)
I'm 38 now. In February 2014, I began to study German. The key element of my study program is reading German newspapers, writing out unfamiliar words and memorizing them. Of course, I also study grammar and listen to German news programs. But the key is German words.
So far I have written out 16450 German words (with English translations). Here's how my self-compiled list looks:
If you approach learning French in a roughly the same manner as I did with regard to German, you'll also be able to accumulate a pretty substantial vocabulary in a relatively short time.
