How to pick up a foreign language efficiently
Author: Jason Huang
Why should I pick up a new language?
In such a global village, to effectively communicate with others without obstacles, or maybe just to make foreigners feel close to you, it’s advisable to equip yourself with at least two languages.
What kind of language should I choose to learn?
If you are a native speaker of mainstream languages, like English, Chinese, or Spanish, etc. Congratulation, you have a great advantage in such a global village. If not, it’s also great, for you can communicate with a certain group of people without any single problem.
But when it comes to choosing a new language to pick up, here are two pieces of advice for reference:
- Mainstream language
- Language from a country whose culture you are really into
By choosing a mainstream language, after mastering the language you’ve chosen, you will be capable of making connections with a huge group of people in the world.
Take English for instance, when you travel abroad, it is all acceptable to speak English with the local people for them if you cannot speak their local language. And most international meetings and negotiations are held in English.
As for the second piece of advice, it’s because you can easily get access to the resources to learn that language, and your interests in it can keep you enthusiastic about it even when facing some difficulties during learning.
Take myself for instance, I choose Japanese to be my second foreign language, and since I am heavily addicted to Japanese music and Anime, I find that I will try to make every effort to understand the lines and lyrics without any translations simply because I believe the ordinary words from the author can express the feelings and meanings most specifically.
What am I supposed to do to start learning it?
- Memorize all the alphabets of that language. (within 2 weeks, please)
- Find out a book for baby learners that is recommended online or commonly used.
- Try to read aloud the words on the book and mimic the pronunciations made by native speakers in CD, or if fortune enough, by your friends who have already mastered this stuff.
- Schedule your time and make learning this language a routine. (at least 3 hours a week)
- Find something that intrigues you about that language, maybe even some dirty words, and share them with your open-minded friends. For example, a local dialect in Japan.
- Set up goals for your language learning. Both short-term and long-term goals.
What kind of stages may I experience?
First stage: Happiness comes out everywhere
You will find it very interesting from discovering something you’ve never known, such as cool pronunciations, how the grammar of that language designed, etc. Basically, you face no big problems here unless you don’t arrange your schedule to learn it, so that you may forget things about the language very soon.
Second stage: The biggest obstacle to overcome
You may see a huge barrier here since the things in the language itself may be unable to please you anymore, and you start to see some very complicated structures and grammar behind.
Here, I have a task for you. You have to find a solid, strong motivation to keep on learning it. If you are interested in the culture or anything in that language, it’s quite lucky for you. If not, try to find one, or try to find out WHY YOU MUST pick up this language. Maybe it matters to your salary or others.
As for the difficult structures and grammar, after knowing the formula of them, try to repeat the words that you listen from a native speaker hundreds of times. You will eventually get used to it and naturally use them.
It might take about 2 to 5 years to overcome this hardest part, and almost everyone stops here. However, in other words, once you get yourself over it, there will be few problems afterward. So, cheer up! And try to survive it.
Third stage: Time to get a certification for your proficiency in it
Congratulation! You just crossed the biggest barrier, and it’s time to take your first language proficiency test that fits your ability to make your confidence much greater. Of course, you must prepare for it.
You know, if you can get a certification that proves all the efforts you made all the way, you will start to believe that you must be capable to make it. Also, you can take it as a milestone and share your accomplishments with your friends and family, and then your ability can be recognized by the people close to you.
If you fail to make it, it’s okay. Try again and keep on learning the language rather than focusing on testing skills. Learning a language depends almost on the methods and efforts, but IQ. So, please believe that you can make it in the end.
Fourth stage: Almost installed in your brain
In this stage, you are supposed to be equipped with basic reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills that satisfy your daily life.
Nevertheless, there are still some difficulties when facing complicated logical problems or in an abstract scenario. For example, in a meeting to deal with financial crises in a company, or when trying to describe how you feel after listening to a great piece of music.
Some people stop here. I think it’s okay because it may be just enough for them. But if you’d like to move on, you ought to start to learn some words that you need to satisfy the scenarios that I just mentioned and emerge yourself into those. Once you get used to thinking in this language and fix the problems with the foreign language as a tool, I can say you have no difficulties when using it in foreign countries.
Fifth(last) stage: Trying to speak like a native speaker
You are almost okay with all the things to do with this foreign language. But there is the last part of the path without a visible end. What we know is that the direction is to make efforts and try to be like a native speaker. Try to create a foreign-language-friendly environment by yourself, and use it very frequently. Then, when you’re doing such things above-mentioned, you can say proudly that you have already mastered this foreign language.
To end up
After learning English and Japanese to some levels, I have to say that all the things to do with picking up an unfamiliar language are the methods and perseverance. If you have realized it requires lots of time and energy to make it, and it’s worthy for you doing so, then just do it! I bet you must get plenty of benefits from the process of learning, including some new interesting knowledge and how the folk using this language thinks.
