Don’t Learn a Language, Learn to Use It Instead

I guess not, right?

I’m often amazed at the pointless vocabulary lists we can find in textbooks and online. It’s almost impossible for me not to find a few words I wouldn’t want to learn at all.

Learning a language takes time and, with enough of it, you’re bound to learn words you don’t use regularly. That’s fine. But if you don’t live in the country of the foreign language you’re learning, and if you’re not in the healthcare industry, why would you need to know the words for “doctor” or “emergency” right away?

There are enough words to learn in a foreign language to avoid wasting time on the ones you don’t need. Spend time on words you do need and learn to use them.

Speaking a language well is a personal thing. What I consider “well” is probably different from your definition. What I need to learn to be able to talk about topics I care about probably differs a lot from what you need.

Use the language for what you want. That’s what Scott H. Young calls “Directness” in his book Ultralearning.

Basically, if you want to use a language for a certain reason, then you should try to get as close to this situation as possible, as quickly as possible. When you can get in the exact hoped situation, that’s even better, but you can even prepare yourself before then.

Let’s take a few examples.

If you want to speak and are uncomfortable speaking with someone because you just started learning the language, practice talking to yourself in the language. Practice writing imaginary conversations and get some feedback on platforms like Journaly. If you’re comfortable with talking to strangers over messages, try HelloTalk or Tandem.

If you want to read books, then grab a book today and start reading slowly, even if it’s hard. While you do that, you could use a graded reader to expand your vocabulary or even a bilingual book to support you when you get lost. If you already know the author you want to read, you could even watch or read interviews of him to get used to his way of expressing himself.

If you want to use the language for work, watch videos about your industry on YouTube and read articles about your work. Even as a beginner, you can start learning a few words here and there by looking them up when you find a word or expression you use a lot at work. If you have colleagues who speak the language, ask them to teach you a few work-related words as well. Then, use these as often as possible.

If you want to watch movies or TV series, then do so right away. If they’re on Netflix, watch with double subtitles at first and then only with subtitles in your target language. If you can get the script, then print a part of it and use it as learning material.

If you want to exchange in your partner’s native language, then ask them to sprinkle a few words in their native language in sentences and try to use them quickly after. Ask questions and you could get very quickly all the vocabulary and ease you need.

If you want to read poems, try reading poems with their translations and analyzing them. Then try to make your own poems with the words you know and the ones you learned. Learn the art form and use the right vocabulary. For example, you’re supposed to use “seasonal words” in Haiku in Japanese so you’d need to learn some for each season — here’s a good website for that.

If you want to travel to the country, then learn sentences and vocabulary related to traveling. If you won’t go alone, practice with the people who’ll come along. If you will go alone, then create imaginary conversations and rehearse them, or practice with a language-exchange partner.

If you want to live in the country, then you’ll need to learn a wide variety of vocabulary but you should start with what you’ll need at the very beginning and expand from there. Write about it in the language. Make plans in the language. Even if it seems overwhelming, you can divide each step into manageable chunks.

You get the picture. If you’re learning a language, direct your method towards using the language in a situation as close as possible to your goal.

Final Thoughts

Don’t feel bad for using a dictionary, for struggling along the way, or for sometimes spending time on other tasks that aren’t directly related to your language-learning goal.

What matters is for you to have enough fun to come back to it. Again and again. Everybody feels low sometimes. Everybody slacks off sometimes. It’s whether you come back to learning that matters most. And knowing you often have fun is one of the best ways I know to motivate me to come back to it!

But if you spend all your time learning vocabulary about marketing when you’re only want to read poems, then you’re wasting your time.

Don’t wait to be perfect before you do what you wanted to do in the language. Start it today. Make tons of mistakes. And soon enough you won’t anymore.

Enjoy!

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