How to Start Learning a New Language

No matter who you are, the ability to know many languages benefits you on many levels. It boosts your health, gives you a leg up in careers, and allows you to communicate with people from around the world. There are many more benefits to learning a second language. Check out this article if you want to learn more benefits of learning a new language.

So now that you’re set on the language learning  journey, where do you start?

From Scratch

If you’re just starting out learning a new language and have no prior experience, you have a ton of options to get you started. One of the easiest ways to train your ear to hear new sounds is to watch one of your favorite movies or tv-shows in the new language. That way you already know what is going to happen and will understand the general idea of what the characters are saying. Also, by adding captions in either a language you already speak or your target language, you can visually see the words spoken on the screen, and that helps with memorization. 

You can also begin with an online app such as Duolingo, to start learning a new language in a free and colorful way. It jumps you right into listening, writing, and speaking a new language and gives you points along the way for what you complete. There are also new options for the user to participate in simulated conversations and podcasts. This is a great real world way to practice language skills!

You Know a Bit of the Target Language

If you’re already familiar with some words of a language and want to expand your knowledge, or if you learned it in school but have forgotten most of what you’d learned, then there are a few options you can try to unlock that language in your brain. 

Reading a book in this language will help you visualize the words and can help you remember what you missed and piece together words you’re not familiar with. Starting with children’s books and working your way up works best for language learning. Plus, it can be a fun way to learn more about the countries whose languages you are studying. 

Go somewhere local that has speakers of your target language if you can. Practice your language by ordering food or going into a shop and buying something. This will get you outside your comfort zone and allow you to practice speaking in real time. Also, it may introduce you to new slang you’d never heard of!

You’re a more Advanced Learner

If you know a large amount of your target language, good for you! Try and conquer those harder topics to really master this language.

Try reading  novels in the target language. Longer books will more likely have words you’ve never seen. Keep a dictionary or your phone nearby to look up ones you are unfamiliar with. 

Watch movies with no subtitles. Try watching something you’ve never seen before or a movie/tv-show produced in a country who speaks the language. You can watch the content how it was originally written to be seen and heard. 

Travel! If you have the time and resources to go out and travel the world, do it! Go to these countries and see what they have to offer. This is by far the quickest and easiest way to pick up another language. It forces you to learn a new language to get by and throws you into the deep end of the pool of language learning. This can be very daunting, but is very much worth it when you realize all you can accomplish. 

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