5 Tips for Learning a New Language

Language learning is incredibly easy to start with the right mindset, but it's not easy to keep that learning going, because motivations change—people evolve. I think we have a bit of an all-or-nothing mentality too, and that gets in our way—or it gets in mine—because languages take years to learn skillfully, especially if it's only your second language.

Committing to that study—and realizing that, every day, you're only chipping away at the vast array of new knowledge before you—well, that can wear you down. You look at people who have been learning your new language for years, and it can make you feel small when you only know how to ask where the bathroom is or translate the names of common animals.

But with the right attitude, anybody can learn a new language.

1. You don't have time—you make time.

Everybody has spare time. If we didn't, we would probably go insane.

But we like to tell ourselves we don't have time, especially in America. People brag about their 60-hour work weeks. They work two or three part-time jobs to get by.

Often, mentioning this is a way to garner sympathy and to validate yourself as a responsible human.

So when you start learning a new language in your "free" time, well, understand that your situation in life is probably going to fluctuate. You'll take on more work, get married, become a parent, or change jobs. A lot can happen in weeks—let alone the extensive length of time a new language can take to learn.

You don't need four hours free every day to learn a language, though. A lot of sources tell you to spend fifteen minutes or so a day learning. That's good advice. You can even learn something new in five minutes.

Some of your courses in school were probably only forty minutes to an hour-and-a-half long, and a lot of that was just dedicated to reviewing information.

Language learning not only works but thrives in small units of time, because the more time you spend pouring over new information, the less likely you are to retain any of it.

2. You don't have to become fluent.

Fluency in any language is an admirable goal, but I think people hold it up as this gold standard that it just isn't. In a foreign country, people will appreciate that you're making the effort. If your goal is the knowledge itself, even a little bit of study can open your eyes up to how a language works—and depending on what you want, that might be enough.

But, if you do want to become fluent, fluency should not be your goal. If that seems paradoxical, let me explain.

If you're running a treadmill just trying to get your daily jogging out of the way, about the worst thing you can do is think about how much longer you have to jog. It just makes the distance seem longer because rather than thinking about where you are, you're focusing on where you'd like to be.

Live in the moment. Appreciate everything you learn. Keep the future in mind, and base your actions on that future but never dwell on it.

3. Other people know more than you.

No matter how far you come, there will always be somebody better than you. It's the same as in any discipline.

You could take that as a reason to start a rivalry or set somebody up as a role model. Competition can be a healthy motivator.

But when you let that halt your progress or impede you, you need to find a better motivator.

Somebody who has a better hold on a language will probably always have an advantage over you. If you base your journey on their skills rather than your own, you're setting yourself up for failure.

What really puts it in perspective is that children are sometimes raised knowing three or four languages. Unlike playing the violin or understanding chemistry or learning across any number of skills or disciplines, you aren't necessarily smarter for knowing multiple languages. For a lot of people, it really is all a matter of timing.

So try to always use yourself and your own skills as the strongest gauge of your success.

4. If it's your second language, don't get too ambitious.

A lot of people say not to learn more than two similar languages at once, which is also good advice. There are a lot of similar words across multiple languages, for example "mourrir" in French, "morir" in Spanish, and "morire" in Italian. They all mean "to die" because they're in the same language family, the Romance languages.

But then there are a lot of similar words across different languages that carry completely different meanings, called false cognates. In Spanish, "burro" means "donkey", but the Italian word "burro" means butter, which is "beurre" in French. The Japanese script system, "kanji" borrowed a lot from "hanzi," the Mandarin script system, but almost none of it carries any similar meaning.

The point is to know your limitations and never try to cram too much at the same time, especially if you're new to learning a new language. Most of your time will be focused on retaining what you learn, not on learning it to begin with, so while it's easy to think that you can learn superhuman amounts, remember that you aren't superhuman, unless you are. In which case, please tell me which chemical vat you fell into, so I can join you.

5. Try a lot—fail a lot (learn how you learn).

A lot of people give the impression that their studies in languages have been straightforward—"I've been studying Spanish for x years" or "I've been programming since I was in grade school."

But people aren't machines. We take breaks. We fail. We fall off the wagon and let life get in the way.

Somewhat contradictory to the first tip, but not completely, a lot of learning is just understanding how you operate and working within that framework. Although it's important to keep a rhythm, what's far worse is feeling like you can't continue learning because you've fallen too far behind.

I dabble in art sometimes. I'd like to become a professional in that, but we'll see how that goes. I had a teacher once, actually through an online course, whose style I couldn't relate to in the slightest. He'd go back over material, take far too long to cover a topic, go on irrelevant tangents, and set up uncreative lessons that I could have set up myself. His teaching style didn't mesh with my learning style, but rather than accepting that, I forced myself to continue and eventually I got burnt out.

You will try a lot of things that won't work. You will find a lot of teachers who will teach you very little. During those points, it's important to be self-reflective, and understand when something isn't working.

And never let anybody tell you there's only one way to learn something. People are completely different. Studying Andrew Loomis isn't the only way to become a good artist. You don't have to pour over documentation to learn a programming language. You don't have to read Moby Dick to be a good writer.