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Often when you learn a language you can be impatient for it to sink in. With a desire for quick progress, you might be wondering what are the most effective ways to learn a language.
According to experts, with the right strategies, you can get to grips with basic language communication skills in a matter of weeks. Itâs even possible to master the language basics in less than a year.
Of course, we donât mean youâll achieve fluency in this time, but when you focus on the right areas, you can certainly develop enough knowledge to get by in the areas specific to your needs.
Getting started with the best method for learning a new language
If your work requires travel abroad, you have the perfect opportunity to master conversation in a new language. Whatever field youâre working in, youâll need a mixture of basic conversational vocabulary as well as specific work-related terms.
Online tutorials and phrasebooks are useful in these early stages because they can improve your confidence in simple conversations. Theyâre a crucial step in language learning for traveling workers.
One of the biggest barriers to language learning at the beginning is actually confidence and being brave enough not to resort to English in the hope theyâll understand and help you out. Having the courage to have that conversation despite making pronunciation errors or grammatical mistakes, is the key to making quick progress.
In this article, weâll discuss lots of effective ways to learn a new language but remember, without being willing to have a go, youâll never make as much progress!
1. Immersion
If you travel to a country where the language is spoken, youâve already got this sorted. The fastest way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in it.
Being in the country is, of course, the most ideal way of achieving immersion, but itâs not the only way. The more you can immerse yourself in the language in your daily life, the quicker your progress will be.
This can be as simple as reading in the language, listening to songs, plays, and audiobooks in the language, watching shows on Lingopie, tuning in to foreign radio channels (especially talk radio), and speaking to native speakers in your city are all effective ways to learn a new language.
If youâre fortunate to live in a large city, youâll often find language-immersion meet-up groups where people get together with the sole purpose of practising their language skills. Apps like Tandem and HelloTalk also have a social network element that connects people together. Even better, hire a language tutor on italki.com.
Through regular conversation with native speakers or language experts, youâll make rapid progress.
Read more: Learning a Language by Immersion: 10 Useful Tips
2. Asking for feedback
Though immersion can and does help people to make quick progress, you can make even better progress if you ask for feedback.
Practice does indeed make perfect but only if you know where you could improve. Otherwise, you risk making the same mistakes over and over again until one day you realise that all this time, youâve been using a structure wrong or pronouncing something inaccurately.
Let people know youâre happy to be corrected and receive feedback on grammar and punctuation.
3. Language first, grammar second
As long as you have a basic understanding of sentence structure in the foreign language (which is easy if itâs a similar language to your own), then you can get by with knowing basic vocabulary. Once youâve got enough grounding, you can really start to practice being more accurate.
Most people find little errors made by language learners endearing, so as long as youâre getting your message across, donât worry about being accurate 100% of the time.
As an example, I learnt Spanish at university and even had a distinction in spoken Spanish. After graduating, I went to visit a friend whoâd decided to teach English in Spain for a year. Sheâd been there six months by the time I visited, and I remember being thoroughly impressed by her ability to converse with locals.
Her general day-to-day spoken Spanish was oozing with confidence and her confidence was way above mine. She couldnât, however, tell you how to form the past tense or use a subjunctive â but this didnât matter at all.
Once youâve got a hold on the language and are ready to delve further into its grammar, youâll find youâll have lots of âah-ha!â moments where things suddenly click â because youâll actually have absorbed lots of the sounds already. Then, once youâve grasped a grammar point, youâll hear people using it everywhere and be surprised that youâd never picked it up organically in the first place!
4. Consume foreign-language media
It doesnât matter if youâre reaching for illustrated childrenâs books, mangas, or watching films youâve already seen in English. Consuming media in the language is one of the most effective ways to learn a language. Here are some things you can try:
- Watch Netflix series and films (with subtitles in English/the foreign language).
- Read books youâve already read and are familiar with (I read Harry Potter in French after I read them in English and was already familiar with the plot).
- Listen to podcasts on topics that interest you in the language.
- Listen to the radio.
- Find interesting video clips online on sites like YouTube.
5. Concentrate on learning and remembering the sounds
A friend of mine speaks very little French. Yet when we went camping in France, everyone presumed he was the best French speaker of the lot. Why? Because he had perfected the accent. He could only ask for a few things and couldnât understand a lot of the replies, but he sounded almost native.
Learning sounds is an important aspect of learning a language and being understood. Not only that but if you speak with good pronunciation, natives will be more likely to respond back to you in their language rather than recognising your English accent and resorting to speaking in your language.
Learning new sounds is much more difficult for adults, but itâs not impossible. Be sure to concentrate on practising and repeating the most difficult sounds. Spend some time breaking down words and working on producing the correct pronunciation. Youâll be surprised how this intense level of working is really beneficial to the development of your spoken language.
Another way of developing your pronunciation is to listen to the language spoken in different accents. For Spanish learners, this might involve listening to Mexicans, Columbians, Venezuelans, etc. to really get to grips with different ways of saying the sounds.
I recommend using audio-based apps like Pimsleur and Rocket Languages to really zoom in on your listening and speaking skills.
6. The most effective way to learn a new language â spaced repetition
This technique is a long-standing technique that has been used by countless people over the years as a way of improving the speed at which they learn a new language. Spaced repetition helps you memorize new vocabulary.
To practise this technique, you need to review the words and phrases you have learned in specific intervals.
In the beginning, these intervals should be on the short side. You might need to review new words or phrases a couple of times or more per session at first, then look at them the next day too. Once a phrase is stuck, you can start leaving days or weeks between revising it.
This was always an argument I used as a teacher when discussing the timetabling of language lessons in high school. One year, the exam classes had all three of their weekâs language lessons in one day as a triple lesson. It made spaced repetition impossible unless you relied on the students to do it in their own time!
7. Organise a learning session for before you go to bed
Scientists believe that sleep helps cement the dayâs learning into our long-term memories. This means that if we spend some time revising or studying before we go to bed, we help to move our learning into our long-term memory.
If you donât fancy learning right before bed, you could always try a short nap after a revision session if your day allows! Once you have the information in your head, sleep helps store it there for a longer time.
8. Study topics not the language itself
This might seem a little confusing to grasp so let me explain.
According to a study published in the Cambridge Journal, students who studied a subject in French rather than learning French in a language class were better at listening tests and had more motivation. That said, students in the general class were better and reading and writing in French.
This means that you can enhance your language learning by studying content in another language. Choose any subject, art, science, parenting, football⌠and study it in the foreign language by watching videos, listening to podcasts, and reading content online.
By choosing a topic that youâre really interested in, youâll be motivated to learn.
9. Mix new words with old words
The human brain likes novelty. Attempting to absorb lots of different words at the same time is overwhelming. So, in order to cement new words and phrases into your head, you should try and mix them with âoldâ information.
For example, if you read something in the language that you already know in your native language, youâll help your brain to absorb new information. Knowing the plot of a childrenâs story, for example, will help you piece together whatâs going on and help you to learn new words.
10. Sprint study patterns
Many people believe you need to pore over books for hours on end to learn a language. And while it certainly does take hours to master a new language, one of the most effective ways to learn a language is by studying in short bursts each day rather than cramming three hours in one session.
The human brain has limited space to cope with new information so by studying in short bursts, you can maximise its potential to absorb new things.
Final thoughts
To summarise, there are many effective ways to learn a new language and the key to progression is trying out what works for you. In general, though, language immersion, being confident and not worrying about mistakes, learning in short bursts, and using spaced repetition are the most important techniques to focus on.
Getting into a routine with your language learning is an ideal way of ensuring you make progress. If youâre learning on your own, this requires a huge amount of self-discipline so create yourself a schedule and really try to stick to it. If you plan âsprintâ sessions of ten minutes, youâll always be able to find time and will be more likely to stick to your schedule.
Above all, keep learning varied and fun. When youâre enjoying yourself, youâll learn much faster.