The Key to Language Learning

A lot of people want to learn a new language but quickly give up once they discover how challenging language-learning can be. I never really understood that. I’ve always been the type of person that was constantly thinking, “That can’t be THAT hard.” Because of this feeling, and for many other reasons, I decided to try to learn one of the hardest languages in the world: Chinese. Here is what I found to be helpful when learning a new language.

Don’t Overthink It

I know this can be tough, and I’m not going to lie to you, learning languages can be difficult, at first. If you see a rule in the language you don’t understand, or if you can't quite pronounce a word, or whatever difficulty you may face, DON’T OVERTHINK IT. If you do, you will just give up all together; we have to remember that anything and everything that we do is difficult at first, but always gets easier over time. If you start to get overwhelmed by it, you can always take a break from studying and resume the next day. Don’t make it hard on yourself.

Study, Study, Study

Nowadays, there is so much going on in our busy lives that we don’t have much time to do anything extra. That’s why it’s hard to fit in study time and, unfortunately, that’s another reason people will stop learning a language. One thing that we don’t always realize, though, is that we don’t have to make a big deal of it. We don’t need to have all these textbooks and slave over them for hours and hours; all we need is 15 minutes out of our day, and that is it. In these 15 minutes, learn five new words and practice them throughout your day, learn what they mean and how to use them in a sentence. Once you get those five down, move on to the next five. It’s as simple as that. You could even spend that 15 minutes on sentence structure or pronunciation. If you spend 15 minutes every day, by the end of the week that adds up to two hours; that’s a good amount of time!

Don’t Be Embarrassed to Practice

When I first started learning Chinese, every chance I got I would try to speak it with someone, and that’s something I continue to do to this day. Even if I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to understand them, I would still try. That alone was a big help in my language-learning journey. I know a lot of people who are afraid to try to speak the language they are learning because they are afraid they will pronounce everything wrong or not understand what is being said to them. I never understood that. As soon as you realize that you ARE going to mispronounce words and you WON’T understand everything right away is the exact moment that you will progress faster. That is because when you don’t know a word, the person you are conversing with will tell you, or they'll tell you how to properly pronounce something, and you won’t be too embarrassed to ask. Don’t be embarrassed to try; you will only be holding yourself back in the end.

Have Fun with It

When possible, make language learning into an interactive game. Grab a friend and play catch, and every time you toss the ball, say a word. Watch T.V. shows in that language; that way you are having a good time while hearing your language and tuning your ears to it. Subtitles are great for beginners, too, because it can help you to put together words and figure out what means what. Do whatever you can to make your journey fun and exciting.

In conclusion, remember to never give up or lose hope. After a year or two of hard work, you will be having fun and meaningful conversations with people from a whole different walk of life. These people can now share their stories with you and teach you about their culture, and you can do the same for them. Learning a new language can open so many doors for you and help you become a better person all around. I urge each and every one of you readers to try learning a new language. You might be surprised at how much fun it is.