The Fastest Way to Learn a Language (clozemaster.com)
Hi! I study second language acquisition (working on my PhD). Right now I’m working on French and trying a lot of strategies. Here are some things that have been helpful for me and most of which have some support from research:
(1) (from experience) Download podcasts in the language you want to learn and listen to them frequently as background music or while you’re walking around. At first you’ll understand nothing, and that’s okay. Gradually you will start to notice some things and get more used to the sounds of the language. A lot of language learning is unconscious, and your brain will go to work on it if you give it some input.
(2) (Based on research) It’s important to develop positive associations with the sounds of the language. If people have negative stereotypes with the cultures they associate with the language they are learning, it can really slow them down. So learn more about the culture and try to find things you like. It will help you learn and remember faster.
(3) (Experience and research) Find a language partner you can talk to. Use an app like whatsapp or voice recording on Messager so that you can play back recordings multiple times. Personally I had some success using Italki - I made some good friends there and got a lot of practice talking about casual things I wouldn’t have learned in class.
(4) Try to do something with a grammar focus (like duolingo) and something with a real communication focus (chatting online) every day.
(5) Find a show you enjoy in Spanish and watch it with English subtitles on. You can pick up a lot this way, especially if you are doing grammar practice (on Duolingo or whatever) at the same time. If you learn something in a book or in an exercise, you probably won’t be able to use it right away, but you will start to notice it more often when you’re watching TV or listening to podcasts- it can almost be spooky!
Like some of the posters above, I have gotten a lot out of articles and videos by Luca. The polyglot world is really interesting and supportive, and in addition to learning a lot from uber-talented people like him you can also get ideas to feel excited and motivated, which is often the hardest part in that long slog through the “intermediate stage.”
Hope some of these things are helpful! I just discovered this subreddit and y’all are awesome!
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I needed to learn to speak 3-4 languages over the past few years for my job, and in the process have landed on a pretty damn good method. It got me to C1 fluency in French in about 5 months, and I'm currently using it with Russian (and plan on reaching C1 equivalent fluency by September). At this point, I go in 4 stages:
Stage 1: Learn the correct pronunciation of the language. Doing this does a few things – because I’m first and foremost learning how to hear that language’s sounds, my listening comprehension gets an immediate boost before I even start traditional language age learning. Once I start vocabulary training, I retain it better because I’m familiar with how words should sound and how they should be spelled. (Correct spellings in French, for example, are much easier to remember when there’s a connection between the spelling and the sound), and once I finally start speaking to native speakers, they don't switch to English for me or dumb down their language, which is awesome sauce. If you're learning a language with a different alphabet, this is where you learn the phonetic alphabet(s) (Kana, for Japanese or Pinyin for Chinese, for example)
Stage 2: Vocabulary and grammar acquisition (itself in a few stages), no English allowed. I start with a frequency list and mark off any words I can portray with pictures alone (basic nouns and verbs). I put those in an Anki deck and learn them. Once I have some words to play with, I start putting them together. I use Google translate (Exception to no English rule - just be careful there's no English in your Anki deck) and a grammar book to start making sentences, then get everything double-checked at lang-8.com before putting them into my Anki deck. Turning them into fill-in-the-blank flashcards builds the initial grammar and connecting words. As vocab and grammar grow, I eventually move to monolingual dictionaries and writing my own definitions for more abstract words (again doublechecked at lang-8.com). This builds on itself; the more vocab and grammar you get, the more vocab and grammar concepts you can describe in the target language. Eventually you can cover all the words in a 2000 word frequency list as a foundation and add any specific vocab you need for your own interests.
Stage 3: Listening, writing and reading work. Once I have a decent vocabulary and familiarity with grammar, I start writing essays, watching TV shows and reading books, and talking (mostly to myself) about the stuff I see and do. Every writing correction gets added to the Anki deck, which continues to build my vocab and grammar. Watch children's shows in that language. They speak slower and often more simply.
Stage 4: Speech. At the point where I can more or less talk (haltingly, but without too many grammar or vocab holes) and write about most familiar things, I find some place to immerse in the language and speak all the time (literally. No English allowed or else you won't learn the skill you're trying to learn, which is adapting to holes in your grammar or vocabulary by going around them rapidly and automatically without having to think about it). I prefer Middlebury college, but a few weeks in the target country will work as well if you're very vigorous with sticking to the target language and not switching to English. If you're extremely strict with yourself, your brain adapts pretty quickly and learns how to put all the info you learned in stages 1-3 together quickly enough to turn into fluent speech.
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don't try to translate the words in your head. just let the foreign language flow in and let you brain connect the rest
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First, get a solid textbook to get the basic grammar and vocabulary down. Then make sure to incorporate the language as much as possible into your daily life. Listen to music, look up the lyrics, use your favorite apps everyday etc. Daily exposure and constant reviewing is important if you want to make the most of it in that timeframe
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Total immersion. That’s what normally comes up as the best.
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