How to Learn a Language Quickly

I haven’t written much about language study which is something I know quite a lot about, but since I’ve decided to advertise pay-what-you-want language coaching on discord, I figured it was time to talk a little about how you can learn a language quickly. If you would like to practice Japanese or Chinese or if you would like more advice and perhaps a study partner in another language, click the link above or find me in discord.

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It took me 6 years of Spanish class to be able to speak a few words.

After 3 years of self study I could speak Japanese.

3 months of Mandarin and I could have a decent conversation.

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Does anyone think Mandarin is easier than Spanish?

Probably not, maybe a Cantonese speaker.

The speed at which you effectively learn a language depends mainly on a few factors

image link, yay pexels

Attitude

This may be the most important factor. Most people who fail to learn a language say the same thing. “I’m not good at languages”. Guess what? I’m not either. How do you think I felt after studying Spanish so long and not being able to say a thing? The same way you do now. With Japanese though, I felt that I could learn faster if I taught myself, and I was right. You will only succeed if you decide that you CAN succeed.

This was the main thing missing from my Spanish study. I didn’t believe that i could actually learn to speak another language and didn’t like the structure of class and tests.

Interest

Many students don’t REALLY care about learning a language. They feel they SHOULD. They have it in their head that they are uncultured if they don’t or they think it’ll be easier to get a job if they do. It’s not really about the language though. For these students, it’s always an uphill battle and I’d prefer not to teach them. They usually quit after a while or spend over a decade dolling out money, making little progress.

A student who is interested, on the other hand, is a blast to teach and with proper guidance will tear that language apart (in a good way!) and be speaking in s matter of weeks.

Environment

It’s said that it’s much easier to learn a language if you are surrounded by it. This is true but in the modern era, it’s nit necessary to go to that country to experience immersion. If you believe immersion will help, emulate it. The internet is a useful tool. (More on this next time)

Effort

I was able to become fluent by putting a whole lot of time and effort into each language. If you can’t motivate yourself to study, you won’t go far.

Study Method

This is really what it comes down to. With a good study method, a bilingually impaired individual like myself can overcome their condition, and with proper guidance, they can do it painlessly. I had to learn through trial and error. One of my goals as a teacher is to help others take a shortcut.

I will go more into particular study methods another time, but there are two things that are absolutely vital:

• Proper studying with a textbook of some kind or some kind of review of grammatically structures.
• Speaking practice, in particular, it’s important to practice what you are studying at the moment.

If you have any questions or would like to study with me, come find me in discord. I’m happy to answer your questions for free but I also accept gifts of steem and other crypto.

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Join the "Be Awesome" community

The Be Awesome discord chat, was created with the intention of making deeper connections with fellow steemians. Come talk about "deep shit" and make friends.

I’m also a language learning coach. Come find me if you need help learning a language.

Be Awesome discord channel

Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories

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by @skyleap