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5 tips on how to learn another language

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Learning another language can open a lot of doors but how can we do it without losing ourselves in the process?

#1 Forget everything you have heard about that language before

"It is soooo hard to learn", "It is not useful", "Uhgg is so boring" or "It is not used by many people" are the most common ones I've heard. Of course, any language has its "degree of difficultness" but from my experience the more you let other people experiences dictate how you approach learning it the harder it gets. 

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#2 Keep in mind why you started

Whether it is for school, work, pleasure or any other reason try to focus on your goal and keep notes on how far you have made it. Sometimes we think we are stuck in the same place for ages and forget why we even began to learn it but, if we are able to see how much we have accomplished and how that is helping us achieve the goal we have set, we can recharge batteries and keep going.

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#3 Make it fun

We all have our own way to do things but, in my case I enjoy a lot learning new words and compare them with my mother tongue and just laugh if by some reason I think they are funny because they mean one thing in one language and something super random in the other. The important thing is to be relaxed and find a way to enjoy the process.

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#4 Have patience and be kind to yourself

Try to hear, read, write and talk in that new language. Even if it doesn't make any sense what you are saying or repeating or reading, it will get to you eventually, we have learned many things throughout our lives by trying many times and learning from our mistakes.

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#5 Get out of your comfort zone

It is really common to feel silly and not keep learning a new language because we feel we are not doing enough or we "feel strange" but the longer we resist uncertainty and new information the longer it will take us to feel that language as our own.

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Written by Mary P

14 Comments

  1. Very useful tips once again! Something that everyone recommends is to learn how to think in the language you are learning, instead of translating from your native language. It’s really helpful.

    • Yes, that is actually a really good tip! It is easy to fall in the trap of trying to translate everything to our mother tongue instead of processing it directly in that other language. Thanks for sharing 🙂

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    • Indeed! I think we are so used to think that if we are not stressed about something we are not doing it right but most of the cases that is farther from the truth. We can and should have fun while learning something new.

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