My language-learning process

Stage I. Beginning a language

Time: A few weeks

The first thing I do when learning a language is watch a YouTube video outlining its linguistic and cultural content — grammar complexity, dialects, resources, and the number of native speakers. It’s important to understand the efforts and rewards involved. A friend studied Sanskrit for six years before he realized how useless it was.

You can learn the fundamental from websites — greetings, pronunciation, common phrases and words. After that, I highly recommend looking for textbooks; they’re comprehensive and in-depth, so you won’t have to waste time looking for articles on this and that. (You’d be surprised by how scarce websites can be.) I suggest pirating them to sample their lessons, then buying the best one.

Other tips

  1. Never rely solely on Duolingo — there’s much it won’t teach you. For unpopular languages like Latin, some lessons are even incorrect.
  2. Try not to start a language that’s in the same language family as one you’re already learning (e.g. Polish and Serbian, French and Catalan.) It’s easy to confuse them.
  3. This stage is the most frustrating because you’re still learning about the language itself. Don’t be discouraged!

Stage II. Transitional

Color-coding flashcards
makes it more fun

Time: Many months, a year or two

Here, I work through textbooks on a regular schedule, memorizing tables of conjugations, declensions, and stress patterns. For writing practice, I often begin a journal in the language (see this page for writing prompts.) For reading and listening practice, I’d advise listening to music, or finding websites with stories for beginners. As I reach the end of this stage, I start looking into poems — they’re short, but have a substantial role in a language’s culture.

Some people also find it beneficial to make friends who speak the language natively. It not only provides experience beyond often-outdated textbooks, but cultural knowledge and commitment to studying enforced by friendship. It’s better if these friends start out online, as you have more time to think while texting.

Stage III. Reaching Fluency

Time: Infinite

Grammar is easy for you, but you have to memorize an indefinite amount of words, slang, and idioms. Settling in this stage is initially hard, because you go from reading simplified excerpts to reading dozens of pages of native rambling. The culture may also provide challenges — sometimes books will talk about religious holidays, or thirty-six obscure, regional foods you can’t find on Wikipedia. Reading my first books, I’d highlight dozens of unknown words per page.

But in this stage, you can do anything — you’re free. You can watch films, buy books, read articles about sports, cooking, travel, gaming — purely for fun. Even if you occasionally don’t know a word, you unlock the art and cultural treasure of a whole new country. The level of immersion can make you feel like you’re living a second life.

That time I ate pelmeni

Other tips

  1. Anki is very useful for memorizing large swathes of vocabulary.
  2. Change your devices’ languages to your target language. If you’re a student, take notes in the language
  3. Facebook Marketplace (at least, in the U.S.) has many cheap listings for foreign books.
  4. Go to a restaurant from the language’s culture. It’s fun.

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Page created March 2024.