On a blog related to my experience with language learning,
you’d think that a post about my way of learning a language would be the very
first post, right? Well, I posted the others before this (Duolingo, language
exchange, comprehensible input) because these are the main methods that I use
in order to learn a language, and I'll be explaining them all in more detail
here.
As Spanish was the first language I started learning, I
didn’t quite have this method clear-cut. It was a bumpy ride, and
I was making a lot of mistakes, which I'll talk about in a future post.
However, I managed to sort it out in time for the start of my journey learning
French. Having seen some good progress, I also now use it in my Italian
learning, and I'll do the same with any future language I learn. It isn’t
something unique to me or something that I’m selling; it is simply a process of
trial and error. Some methods have worked and some haven’t, and now I know what
I’m doing when I want to learn a language. I've also seen very similar ideas
from polyglots in the YouTube world, so if you don’t believe me, hopefully
you’ll believe it when you see them talking about the same things!
This will not necessarily work for everybody. People need to
experiment with their own styles and find out what works and what doesn’t. There
are other people who’ve had success who do what I do, and there are also those who’ve had
success who do things differently. This just shows that there is no single perfect method. Please just see this as a guide that can hopefully give you
some ideas for your language learning journey.
I've divided this into different ‘steps’, but this
doesn’t necessarily mean that once one step is over and you move on to the
next, you completely forget about the previous steps. There is a lot of
overlap and continuation of the steps, and I'll make this clear at each stage, whether I stopped completely or continued to apply my earlier steps.
Step 1 – Creating a base:
The very first thing that I do is try to create a base
knowledge of the language. For this, I use Duolingo. There are other apps that
you can use as well, but I only use Duolingo. As I mentioned in my post
about it, the advantage is that it's very good to build up knowledge of
grammar and vocabulary in the early stages of your learning. The amount of
repetition you go through eventually drills the words and structures into your
brain. If you want to be more active with it and note things down while doing it,
even better. I, personally, don’t really do this. I occasionally write some
things down a few times in order to get them stuck in my memory a bit quicker,
but not a lot. I'll also occasionally have a look at some general grammatical
rules online, but I won’t sit and study them for hours; I'll simply use them as
a reference point. For example, looking up some verb conjugations just to get
an idea of what is going on. Again, I might write these down a few times in
order to memorise them a bit better, but this is only a very small portion of
my time at this stage.
The large majority is using Duolingo, and the key here is consistency. I would try to use Duolingo every day for at least one hour, potentially two. This is obviously dependent on how much time you have available. The more time you commit to Duolingo (or another app), the quicker you’ll be able to move on to the next stage. Another factor here is the language you are learning and whether it's similar to the languages you already know.
When I used this method for French, I already had experience with Spanish (another romance language), so I already had a grasp of the general grammatical rules that the two languages share. When I used this method for Italian, I already had experience with both Spanish and French (two other romance languages), so I had an even stronger grasp of the general grammatical rules. As a result, the time I needed on Duolingo became shorter. However, I still tried to commit at least an hour a day to it for a few weeks or months.
If I were to start to learn a language that was very different from the ones I know (for example languages with different alphabets, i.e. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi etc), then this stage would have to be different. You would have to spend much longer in this stage because you can’t simply rely on Duolingo; you'll need to study the grammar a bit more in the early stages to get a grasp on the alphabet and how it works.
Step 2 – Using a language exchange app and beginning comprehensible
input:
After a few weeks or months, I'd stop using Duolingo and use a language exchange app. The one I use is HelloTalk. Here, you're able to meet and communicate with people in your target language. It allows you to start to produce a bit of the language very slowly. In this stage, I can start applying some of the vocabulary and grammar that I've picked up from my time using Duolingo. DON’T assume that you'll be able to have long and detailed conversations; you absolutely will not be able to do that.
I
wouldn’t speak in the early stages; I'd only write because it is a lot
easier. You have more time to think about what you want to say and how you can
say it. You'll also make a lot of errors, which is absolutely fine. The
important thing is that you're trying to produce the language. If it's wrong,
they'll likely correct you, or you can quickly check on Google Translate if it's correct. This constant repetition of the same things will make you remember them quicker.
My conversations generally followed the same pattern of introductory sentences (“Hi, my name is Matt, I am 27 years old, I am a teacher, I like to go to the gym, play tennis, learn languages” etc), over and over and over and over again. It may seem boring to only have conversations like these, but eventually these bits of language become second nature. It can be quite a frustrating stage, and I often find myself resorting back to speaking in English when I don’t know how to say something. However, it’s important to try to fight through it.
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Photo by Matias North on Unsplash
I also start to try to read in the language that I am learning.
You'll be able to find material online; however, the amount depends on how
popular your target language is. If you're learning English, you will find a
lot, and if you're learning Hungarian, for example, it'll be a lot less. I
obviously start with very, very simple material, and I take my time when I'm
reading it to try to understand it. An example in Italian:
Ciao, mi chiamo Chloe. Ho 26 anni e vivo a Londra con il mio
ragazzo Jack.
I'll read each sentence aloud in the target language and
then try to translate it into my native language (English).
“Ciao, mi chiamo Chloe. Hello, my name is Chloe”
I'll translate as much as I can, and if I don’t know a word,
I won't worry about it. I'll try to finish the sentence and see if I can
work it out.
“Ho 26 anni e vivo a Londra con il mio ragazzo Jack. I am 26
years old and I live in London with my…something…Jack”
In this example, I understood everything except the word
“ragazzo”, but I continued reading the sentence. Afterwards, I'd copy this
bit of text into a translator and find out what the unknown words were.
The more you read, the better you become. Over time, I'll be able to increase the difficulty of the content that I’m reading. But I'll follow the same method of reading aloud in the target language, then trying to translate it into English, and then translating it after to look at the words that I wasn’t sure of.
Step 3 - Continuing comprehensible input and starting
to speak:
After a few weeks of only reading, I'd then begin to
try to listen to the language. Again, there is plenty of material online to
find. And again, I'd start off incredibly basic and then increase the
difficulty over time.
Even though we're in step 3, I'd still continue with
step 2. I'll still continue to use the HelloTalk app and try to read. By this
point, I should be reading things that are slightly more difficult than what I was
doing at the very start. This isn't a race and is definitely not an overnight
process, so don’t be frustrated if it's taking time to work.
Comprehensible input is a fantastic way to absorb the
language; however, you do eventually have to start producing it. You need
output. This is related to the common problem of “I can understand the language,
but I can’t speak it very well”. I'll talk about this in more detail in a
future post. It's because your passive vocabulary is high but your active
vocabulary is low. Passive vocabulary is basically words in a language that you
know enough to understand; for example, if you saw it written down, you would
know what it meant. However, you don’t know it well enough to use it naturally
when you speak. Active vocabulary is the words that you know well enough to be
able to understand and also use yourself. The way to start turning this passive
vocabulary into active vocabulary is by producing it. I start this by talking
to myself (I thought I was crazy until I saw other people talking about doing
it too, which made me feel better!).
I try to do this during my ‘dead’ times of the day. These
are times when my body is busy but my mind isn’t, for example, washing the
dishes, driving the car, going for a run, or in the shower. These are all times
when your body is doing all the work and your brain is just waiting, not doing
much. I use these times to try to speak the language. At the very start, you're only really capable of saying basic things about yourself.
“My name is Matt. I am 27 years old. I am a teacher and I
like tennis.”
Over time, the more I receive comprehensible input, the more
I realise I'm now able to say.
“Now I am going to the gym. I am going to train my
shoulders, and after I will return home to eat. After my shower, I will watch a
film with my housemates.”
This is another process that doesn’t happen overnight. This
happens over weeks and weeks of slow improvement. The advantage here
is that there is no pressure because you're talking to yourself. There isn't anyone waiting in front of you to finish your sentence and to look really
confused, trying to work out what you mean. It's just you, so you can say
whatever you want, and if you make mistakes, who cares?
I'll continue these daily processes of using HelloTalk,
reading, listening, and talking to myself until I'm eventually confident enough
to try to speak to someone. If you live in a country where your target
language is spoken, then you have a lot more opportunity to do this. As I'm
living in England, my opportunities are rarer. However, this is where you can
speak to the people you've met on the language app. I only spoke to people
that I felt comfortable with. Some people want to have a phone conversation
within 10 minutes of meeting you. I personally don’t like doing this and only
try to arrange calls with people I trust and have spoken to by written
message for a long time. Your very first conversation with another person will
be terrifying, but it's a process you have to go through. You'll get
nervous, you'll forget things, you'll make noises like “erm” to fill
awkward silences, you'll use the wrong verb conjugations, you'll say things
that aren’t natural, you'll form broken sentences, and sometimes the other
person won't know what you're talking about. This is all part of the
process. And this is why I only like talking to people who I’ve become friends
with, because I know it'll be less awkward and they'll be more patient with
me.
In terms of my current three languages, this is roughly how my time is spread across the methods I use. Don't think you have to sit and calculate exactly how much time you need for each. I didn't do this; these numbers were just a rough guess:
As you improve in a language, you become a bit more
aware of what you need to focus on most. This is why my time spent using
HelloTalk and reading in Spanish and French is pretty low. It's because I've
used them enough in the past and have become much stronger in them, and I
should instead be practicing my speaking and listening more. With Italian,
however, I'm still in the very early stages and continue to use HelloTalk a
lot to try to practice the basics.
Summary:
These are the methods that I use in my current language learning. I've realised they work really well for me, and this is how I'll learn any future languages if I decide to try them.
Key vocabulary:
Clear-cut - very clear/refined/understood
Bumpy ride - a saying that represents something or sometime that was quite challenging/difficult
Experiment - to practice/try out something to see whether it works or not
Grasp - a good idea of how something works
Second nature - something that you can do without really thinking too much about it
Resorting - take a course of action that you don't generally want to have to do
Great post, Matt!
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