Best way to learn a language by yourself (according to me)
Learning a foreign language with a teacher might be very helpful for some of us, but it might also be expensive. If you can afford it, good for you! However, even if you can’t, you can still learn a language completely by yourself by following these tips.
Immerse yourself
Surround yourself with your target language. The ideal condition is, of course, if you are already in a country where that language is spoken. Maybe you get a new job abroad, or you start travelling and be a digital nomad abroad (I envy you ;) ). That is the best condition for you, because now you can completely surround yourself with your target language. In this new country, try to expose yourself with the language: listen to it, read it, speak it, and write it! That means, read a (children) book, go to a local bakery and buy a bread, meet new friends!
That also means, if you can and willing to, don’t live together with people from your own country! It is a terrible idea to live in a new country, but your daily life is still full of things from home! I have friends from Indonesia who lived in France and in Germany for more than 10 years, but they never really get fluent in any other language, because they stick to their own people. I know, you might be afraid to live by yourself, or to live with a local for the first time. But believe me, if you start living with people from your own country, you will get too comfortable, and in the end you will stick with them and never really learn anything. So, force yourself and get out of that shared apartment, and find a place for your own, or even better, find a local roommate!
If you are not in a position to move to a new country, you can still immerse yourself! Let’s work with what you have: listen to new music, watch TV shows! As a beginner, usually I listened to disney songs because they are usually available in multiple languages, so I can compare the lyrics. I also watched TV shows for kids: I watched Pokémon in French and learned a ton of new words, good for children, because… you are kinda like a child in your new language, right? So… find something that you like that is also available in multiple languages, ideally something that you can enjoy without thinking too much. Contents for children are good, because you don’t have to understand every word to get the idea of the show.
One other thing that helped me a lot: change all you gadgets to the target language! You might worry and say, what if I press the wrong thing because I don’t understand it anymore? But let’s be real. We use our phone every single day. Maybe even a little bit too much. Right? You have the muscle memory: you know what happens when you get a new message, you know which button is which when you get a phone call. So, even if you don’t understand the words, you know what to do. And honestly, there is nothing too dangerous if you misclick something on your phone. You can just give it a try and learn a lot of new words! Do you know how to say “unlock your phone” in your target language? You might know it if you change the language ;)
Learn vocabularies as a whole
What I mean by this is… If you are learning a European language (not all, but almost all), you might know that every noun has a gender. In French, the sun is le soleil (masculine) and the moon is la lune (feminine). In German, the sun is die Sonne (feminine) and the moon is der Mond (masculine). If your mother tongue does not have this concept of gender, it might be confusing and you might memorize only the word, without the gender. This is a wrong move! From the get go, learn new nouns with the gender! You might say: I will just ignore the gender for now, I will pick them up later. No! You will probably not do that, and you will use the wrong gender forever. It is true that native speakers might still understand you even though you use the wrong gender, but you will always be the stranger who never masters the language, and in a more professional setting, it might not look good for you.
This principle can also applies for another languages, for example for Chinese. In Chinese, every time you learn a new character, you need to learn the tone! This time, it is even crucial. Unlike missing gender in European languages, using the wrong tone in Chinese will make people misunderstand you! So, learn vocabularies as a whole: with the correct gender, with the correct tone, with the correct “accessory”!
Speak it out (mimic the natives)
Whenever you read something in your target language, try to speak it out, and not just saying it in your head. You might think that it would be enough to just read things in your head, and your mouth would be able to pronounce the same thing. It is actually not true at all. It is actually very important to train your muscle, because you might need to produce sounds that don’t exist in your native language. The sound that you produce in your head is different from the sound that your mouth produces!
To train your muscle, you can read everything that you see on the street, like shop names, street names, or any signs. Bonus point if you can understand what it means! If you don’t live in the target language country, you can also read news or your book in a loud voice.
Learn grammar first
This one might be controversial. Some people seem to hate grammar so much. Some people think, the most important thing is vocabulary, because they are words that build the language, and you can still be understood even with bad grammar. I kinda disagree.
My opinion is: there is a limited number of grammar points that you must learn, and there are a looot more words to memorize. It takes a very long time to learn vocabs, but you can study the structure pretty fast. I am not saying that you should focus completely on grammar points without learning any new word, but you can get vocabs little by little as you learn grammar.
As for me, ideally I learn with a grammar book. I don’t like just any language learning book that tries to teach you a little bit of everything at the same time. I’d rather use a book that really focuses on grammar, one point at a time. For this, I have some recommendations when you are learning French or German:
From these books, you still learn new words little by little, but they are not the focus. I love the tables how they explain the grammar in a compact way. It is kinda like a cheat sheet, if you want.
As for vocabularies, you can learn them from various resources, and honestly, it takes a lifetime to learn them. So first, focus on the skeleton of the language first, and then fill the body little by little.
Write a Journal
From my experience of learning foreign languages, writing tends to be the hardest skill to master. Many people say it is speaking, and I thought so too, but when I really think about it, writing is way harder. In speaking, sometimes grammar mistakes are acceptable. Native speakers also make mistakes and rules are loosely used. In writing however, people are tend to be stricter. Grammar errors, too many repetitions of the same word are usually not appreciated.
This is why you also need to practice writing. You can start small, by writing a journal. If you don’t feel like pouring your heart in a book or if you don’t know what to write, you can for example use a “journal” like this. Everyday you answer a short question with less than 50 words, so you’re not overwhelmed. It does not have to be perfect. The only person who will read it is only you anyway. The most important thing is to practice. You can also google stuff, check the correct conjugation, and everything. From there, you will start googling words that you will use daily and learn them.
Be consistent
Finally: whatever method you use, the most important is to be consistent! There is no secret way to learn a language, you only have to be consistent. Do small things, but do it every single day. You don’t have to spend hours a day to learn a language: 15 minutes a day is enough. Small steps, but often. Daily baby steps are all we need.
Those are my methods on learning a foreign language. Do you have any other tip that you want to share? Let me know in the comments below! Happy language learning!
