Learning a language is not an easy process, especially in the beginning. Many people give up because their brains can’t digest so much new information. Grammar, thousands and thousands of new words, rules, structure, writing, thinking, hearing are devouring their energy like hungry beasts and eventually they say: “I’m not good at learning new languages”. No, don’t lie to yourself. You are good at learning new languages, you just need a little push to move you further. So, here’s the story about how I learned English and some tips for you to learn a new language.
The beginning
Almost two years ago, I saw a video on YouTube. The author told his subscribers to start learning English. I, who had 3–4 unsuccessful attempts in learning the language, told myself immediately: “Pfff, another bastard with his stupid idea.”. I was about to click on another video but something stopped me from doing it. My curiosity got the better of me and I watched the video fully. His idea was freaking interesting and I had never seen it before. The idea was to start learning a language by listening to videos for KIDS! He told his subscribers to open YouTube and search for “English for kids”, find a video and watch it fully and thoroughly three times. On the first day, you watch it with subtitles and dictionary at hand to search for the translation of unknown words. On the second day, you watch it without subtitles, trying to understand what is said in the video. If you forgot a word, you are allowed to look it up on Google Translate. If you do not understand a part of the video, you can look at the subtitles. On the third day, you do the same thing as on the second day, just to be sure that you improved. If you find it hard to understand a video, you can watch it and the fourth time on the fourth day and the fifth. You have to watch a video until you can understand it without any effort. Only after that, you can seek another video. Repeat the process and seek another video again. Try to find videos that are harder than the previous ones to improve your listening skills and vocabulary. Try to spend one hour a day doing that.
Boring? Then get used to it. After some time, you will be able to watch your favorite TV-shows or YouTubers in whatever language you’re trying to learn.
When you find that listening to those videos is easy, you can start watching motivational videos(they are quite easy too) and doing the same thing as you did with kids’ videos. Try to spend one hour a day doing that too.
After 2–3 months of this practice, I didn’t give a damn about new words and I just watched videos on YouTube. If I heard a new word, I just tried to understand it from its context, if I didn’t, I just skipped it. Sometimes, my curiosity got better of me and I tried to find a meaning of the unknown word. I didn’t make watching YouTube a chore, I just enjoyed it. At that moment, I started reading adapted books, or stories.
The main insights: Let your curiosity get control over you. Get out of your comfort zone.
The strategy to read books and become better.
Take a dictionary, a list(Google Docs will do just fine), a book, or a little story and start reading. When you encounter an unknown word, just underline it and try to understand it from its context, if you can’t, continue reading.
After 20–30 minutes, you can stop. And the thing I want you to do is to come back to those “underlined” words and find their translation. After that, you write them(with their translation) down on Google Docs and use them in real life. You can talk to yourself, find a language partner, or start journaling. This is an effective practice for those who hate flashcards. You will learn words faster and more efficiently than ever before.
But what to do if the word doesn’t have one translation? Then write down the translation that is the most suitable for the context in which it was used. I don’t want you to see that a word has five translations, for instance. I want you to see that a word has five different usages and it consists of five blocks that make this word unique. It is really easy to get messed up learning all the five meanings of one word. Do not rush it.
The main insights: Be patient. Make it more enjoyable.
The Wall
Almost everyone in the language learning community met that thing. It is horrible, strange, eerie, and interesting. After learning a language for 5–6 months, you meet the “so-called wall”. It is the moment when you think that you are moving nowhere. You have a feeling as if you learned everything you could and you see no room for improvement. Your knowledge of the language prevents you from expanding your knowledge more. Many people give up on this stage.
Here is the tactic I’ve used to overcome this Wall.
Instead of learning a language two hours a day, you have to do it more. You have to forget about your mother tongue. You have to learn a language for at least 3 hours a day. You have to immerse yourself as much as you can in learning a language.
I stopped watching Russian videos at all. I stopped reading in Russian at all. I stopped thinking in Russian too. English was my main language now.
It took me around 2 months to get out of this rut. It was hard but it was enjoyable. Learning English became my life. It wasn’t a chore anymore. It was a lifestyle.
The main insight: Sometimes, you gotta push it.
How to learn grammar
I’m not going to lie to you. I hated grammar. Almost everyone does. Nonetheless, I must admit that grammar is not the hardest skill to learn. Quite on the contrary when you know how the ways to learn it
After four months of learning and immersing myself in English many grammar concepts came to me naturally. Every time I read a book, I sought connections and patterns. Those patterns got into my head and I learned to use them without even realizing that. At the same time, I wanted to speed up my language learning process and I started learning grammar. After two months, I gave up. It was too much for me and for the basics I grabbed.
So, I told myself that I’m going to learn grammar just out of curiosity. I didn’t make myself do it. I just let the curiosity take control.
The main insights: Curiosity is the best teacher. Seeking connections yourself is far better than learning them from others.
The End
After learning the language for 1.5 years, I’m still far away from perfection. I have lots of mistakes in this article, I’m sure. My knowledge is tiny but it would take me ages to tell you everything. So, I think I will end my article on this note.
Here is some advice for you to learn a language faster and stress-free:
Don’t be scared of embarrassment
Get out of your comfort zone
Be innovative. There’s no right way to learn a language.
Be freaking patient. Do not expect to be a master in a month or even a year.
Think as much as you can in the language you are trying to learn.
Do not expect it to be easy.
There’s always room for improvement.
Do it for the hell of it.
Thanks for reading, I really appreciate that.
