You want to learn a new language and wondering what’s the best advice for new learners? you’re at the right spot. In this post, I would like to share with you my top 3 advice for acquiring any new language. I personally learned English and French and these tips were vital in my opinion. I’m planning on learning German and Turkish next so I’ll be applying the following tips as well.
Listening:
Listening is one of the best ways to acquire new vocabulary while learning a new language in my opinion. By listening for long periods of time constantly you’ll acquire new words without even knowing it. This happened to me, especially when learning English. I would understand new words without having the need to translate them or looking them up just because I heard them in their context many times.
However, in order for the listening part to work, you’ll need to at least understand the basic words like: Hi, they, are, and…etc. This way you’ll understand if the word is a verb or a noun and how to apply it properly.
Listening also gets your ears used to the language and the different accents in it. This will make the speaking part easier as well. As far as how you can practice listening I would suggest listening to youtube videos in the language you’re trying to learn, listening to music in that language, and watching movies as well.
Learning grammar:
The grammar can either be easy or extremely hard depending on the language you’re trying to learn. From my experience, English has a way easier grammar than French, Arabic, and German. Either way, you’re supposed to learn the grammar in order to speak and understand correctly.
This is the most boring part for me personally but this is the price you pay to acquire a new language. Without proper grammar, you’ll suffer a lot when you try speaking. This is exactly what I’m facing with the French language personally at this moment I didn’t get proper grammar back in school (or let’s say I didn’t care about it enough) so I ended up understand 99% of what people say in French but can’t reply correctly. This is why I emphasize learning grammar correctly from the beginning.
Talk to natives:
Speaking with natives used to be the tricky part in the past. It was hard to just find a native speaker of the language you’re trying to learn or to travel to that country. But now we’re living in the internet world with information being passed through electrons at unfathomable speeds. You’ll surely find someone online that is willing to help while learning any new language.
As far as where you can find these people, I would suggest having a quick google search and looking it up. For me personally I found Discord servers specifically for this purpose. The server has many native German speakers that are willing to have a chat with new learners and to correct them when they’re wrong. They’re doing this work completely free and expect nothing in return. Another way is the language learning apps, many apps have the feature of allowing native speakers to correct your quizzes. My personal favorite is Busuu ( Click here for my review on the app).
While leaning a new language has more to it than what I mentioned in this post, these three are probably my top 3 tips regarding acquiring any new language. The other one that I want to also mention is consistency. I didn’t mention it because it’s vital for almost every single skill you’ll want to get good at. Consistency is always key, and should always be your number one goal. Good luck on your journey and let me know if you found this helpful.
