Learn a New Language: 7 Effective Ways to Pick It Up Quickly
The answer for many expats about whether you should push yourself to learn a new language can be found in these words, once said by Nelson Mandela himself:
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
These words still ring true today. Language is what gives us identity and binds all human beings together. Without it, many of us would be left isolated and lose connection with one another. Additionally, language is a brilliant tool to use when you’re an expat travelling and working around the globe. The problem is that grasping new languages isn’t easy and isn’t a fast process at all. As a result, many expats give up altogether and are left with only their native language, even while still living abroad.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to learn a new language efficiently, quickly, and very enjoyably.
Why Learning a New Language is Important
On the surface, this kind of question seems trivial to ask, as for some people, the answer can be quite obvious. On the other hand, there is a group of people who might not see any use in learning new languages.
As a result of this difference in opinions, let’s clearly establish 7 reasons why any language is important to learn.
Benefits for Brain Development
In the modern digital age, where social media and AI technologies constantly surround us, our brains become less and less developed. They become very weak and cannot think properly or critically in our daily interactions. Studying a new language can help fix this problem.
By fully putting all our mental strength into language studies, we’re turning on all the mechanical parts of our brain. It keeps the organism from getting lazy and constantly powers it up. So, even if you’re not able to learn a new language perfectly, your brain is ready to function in other important areas of your life.
Career Opportunities
This factor is too obvious to be explained in detail.
Still, how many vacancies are open for you all around the world? If you know one language—basically, your native one—there are some job positions, but knowing two or even more can open almost any path for you. These many job opportunities will either require you to speak many different languages for one work position, or offer employment where they don’t communicate in your native language.
Would you like to advance your career? Language is an excellent tool to get the work you desire.
Improves Communication Skills
Unfortunately, more and more people are losing their social skills/communication skills. It’s really hard to pick up all the conversational skills, even when talking in your own language. But studying new languages can help you rebuild those communication skills.
Try to find a native speaker who speaks the language you’re currently learning, and simply talk with them. Since you don’t know that language fluently at first, you’ll be able to focus on how you communicate each word to your partner. When they start to talk, you’ll train your concentration on the speaker. Having a conversation in non-native languages gives you both a space to learn the language itself while improving communicative abilities.
Deepens Interpersonal Connections
Do you recall the Mandela words mentioned at the beginning of this article?
As much as we see language as a tool used for communication, it’s also what gives many people their identity. Language is culture, and each culture provides people with full fulfilment. So, by speaking to people in their own language, you show respect not only to their culture, but to them as people. This creates a humanistic bridge between all of us and deepens our connection. This process binds us even more to live in a peaceful world.
Enriches & Expands Your Perspective
Speaking of a peaceful world, learning languages expands people’s perspective on world culture. Ignorance is what drives conflict between people because of a misunderstanding of cultural customs. It can especially cause problems for expats in non-native countries. By learning and speaking the language of a country you’re living in, you can understand its wide and nuanced history that books in your own native language might not provide. This creates mutual respect between different people of different cultures (as mentioned in the previous point), while also expanding your knowledge about our complex world.
Personal Interest
This point is very diverse due to its various uses by expats. These personal interests include: learning new languages can give you access to reading literature, watching films, or listening to music in the language originally intended to be presented; having the ability to communicate with various people without any obstacle; or just expanding your knowledge for intellectual reasons.
Languages don’t need to have some kind of serious purpose for learning. They can also be just a fun activity to entertain yourself when you feel bored.
How to Learn Languages Quickly
It’s important to provide an important disclaimer to this section: don’t rush too much with the learning process. Even though these tips are meant to make the process faster, it’s important to always take time when studying new languages.
See these tips as what will make the process more efficient, with an unorthodox approach to grasping a language, unlike at conservative educational institutions.
Establish a Firm Motivation
It’s very easy to throw yourself into studying a new language without setting up a firm purpose for doing so. This might seem like a legitimate and fun way to approach the learning process, without surrounding yourself with any borders.
The problems of this “chaotic” or “improvised” approach are that, without a firm goal, you’ll instantly get lost in complex grammar and will not understand why you put yourself in this mess in the first place. So, first of all, ask yourself why you need to learn a new language. It can be:
- For work purposes in a foreign country;
- Learning about new cultures;
- Or to read literature in the original language it was written in.
These are all legitimate reasons that will give you an idea of what you’re looking for in the language you’re studying. They also provide a solid plan of what you need to do every day to progress toward your goals.
Focus on One Language at a Time
In addition to the problematic “improvised” way of learning languages is the desire to learn as many as possible at once. It’s an understandable aspiration to become a polyglot in a short time. However, the reality is that you will never achieve it. You’ll simply over-exhaust yourself with radically different languages so that you won’t be able to properly speak at least one, or maybe none at all.
What’s much more efficient is to pick one language you want to or can learn, and solely focus on it. When you get to a high level of reading and speaking the language you study, you can slowly move to a new one. But try to move to a different language within one family group. For example, if you studied German, you can learn Swedish or Dutch (the Germanic family), or if you finally grasped Hindi and you’re ready to take on Bengali (Indic family).
Some examples of language family groups:
- Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc.)
- Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, etc.)
- Romance (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, etc.)
- Celtic (Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, etc.)
- Indic (Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, etc.)
- Iranian (Farsi, Kurdish, Tajiki, etc.)
Find One Established Resource for Studying
To have a coherent structure in your learning process, you need one resource to be used as your main guide. Sorry, Duolingo is not a good one for you, even though it’s a fun place to “play” with languages.
Instead, try to find a proper textbook that can provide you with a dictionary, grammatical lessons, and exercises for the language you want to learn. What these study guides do is help you not to get confused in your learning process. Lots of them are chronologically organized and will take you step-by-step from one unit to another. This progression is very organic, and you won’t feel stressed because you won’t miss an important step.
Read Literature Texts at Your Level
Apart from reading textbooks themselves, it’s important to read the fiction literature of countries or cultures whose native language you’re learning. Not only will you see how the sentence structures work, but it can also be a very engaging and enjoyable read, unlike a bland language guide.
But be very careful in picking a specific text. When you start learning a new language, choose works for beginner’s level. These can be basic children’s books or comics, where the language is very simple and uncomplicated. Just don’t pick adult books, because many of them involve sentence structures that, for non-native speakers, will be unbearable to read and not properly enjoy the work.
Besides books, another great choice is films, especially animated ones. Just put on a Disney film you’re familiar with, and play it in a language you’re currently studying with subtitles. Plus, the bright and fleshed-out images will help you visualize the language much better, so you can easily grasp it.
Always Talk (& Think)!
There’s this situation that always happens when we’re studying something.
We sit at the table with a textbook and a notepad, rigorously studying and memorizing all the words and grammar rules. And after all the hardship, we throw all the information out the window when we’re done with your lesson. Nothing is learned, and no improvement is made.
Try to always talk and think in the language you’re studying. Do it before, during, and after all your lessons. Talk either with your native speaker friends or with yourself when you’re alone. Or if you don’t speak, try to think in this language about your life, work, food, family, and other topics you have on your mind. This approach will help you internalize the language you’re learning, and one day it will organically become part of your organism.
Immerse Yourself in the Language’s World
Now take that approach, constantly talking and thinking in that language, and bring it to another level. Fully immerse yourself in the culture of that language.
Remove all the books in your native language, and replace them with another set. Maybe attend cultural events that you have never attended before. Make food from that culture while reading the recipes in the language you’re learning. Visit a family that only speaks their native language and try to connect with them.
This immersion will not let you escape from the language you’re studying, and you will feel like you’re part of that culture.
Be Tolerant of Your Struggles
Don’t feel anxious or terrified of your failures. It’s normal not to grasp any language in a few weeks or even months, depending on its complexity. All the obstacles you experience should be seen not as foes, but as moments to use your creativity to surpass them.
Never force yourself to combat these barriers if you cannot pass them. Leave them for the moment, and come back when you have all the strength to do so. People will always find the right time to achieve their goals, and all of them are different.
So, please, never beat yourself down. Always lift yourself up!
Make Language Learning Fun!
All these tips will work for you one way or another while you live the life of an expat. Some will be helpful, and some will not.
What’s important for your progress is how you can take all of these tips and make your learning fun!
The learning process is only enjoyable if you find genuine joy in it. It all depends on you and how you can build your life around the language you’re passionate about. It’s the passion that makes you forget all the pains and stresses of getting to know new languages, as it becomes part of your daily routine
The routines of expats can be quite unstable when they’re moving between countries to find a place where they want to settle. This can even distract you from learning a new language. Fortunately, there’s a solution to it…
The Babylon Radio website! Here you’ll find many articles that will help you move to a new location. We will provide all the information necessary for your travels.
Head to our website!!
