How to learn languages?

Have you noticed, too, that everybody’s been talking about foreign languages lately? Why is that? Because with the development of all types of communication, we have already become tightly bounded within one country and one language. The information translated into Russian is no longer enough. All companies are becoming international. The business is expanding, the Internet is expanding, and for $10 you can already fly very far away by plane. Nowadays, knowledge of languages is not an intellectual advantage, but a necessity. There are a number of rules and recommendations. Let’s tell you in confidence that you can save years by spending 4 minutes reading them.

First of all, starting to study a foreign language, set yourself a real goal. From zero to C1 in a month? This is unlikely. In a year and a half? This is a real deadline. Does Telegram use a mobile offer or channel to promote “spend 36 seconds a day on English”? And what result can you count on? B1 in 13 years?

You need to spend time in languages and adjust your life on this. Bummer? Sad? Tired? As with any other work, no one cares about excuses, you work for yourself.

Find any good motivation without it. Someone teaches a foreigner to watch Lynch in the original, someone plays computer games online, a more global goal – to get out of the country that you are tired of. In addition, people who know foreign languages will never be left without work. Making translations or working as an outsourcer and getting European or North American payloads in Eastern Europe is not a bad prospect. Although there are rumors that we will all be replaced by cars… The boundaries of language are the boundaries of culture, career, studies and everything else in the world. If you lack motivation, then maybe you don’t need it? Doing it for the sake of your parents or someone else is not a good idea.

But here’s what you can argue well – these are the reasons not to learn the language. Do you think you don’t have abilities, bad genes, bad memory and the wrong zodiac sign? Maybe you’re just too old for this shit. So everyone who succeeds is a genius. Most people don’t have any innate preconditions. They just put 20% more effort into it. Our natural inclinations aren’t a verdict if you have a mouth. The question of age is more of a question of how much of a new occupation you can be interested in. It’s not about the fact that you can’t afford to study.

Don’t think of the learning process as sleepless nights in the library. Find a way to get carried away: serials, books, parties, new friends, travels, etc. Everything will do. An alternative to learning a language by grammar and formal methods is learning. No matter how banal it may sound, it is necessary to use the language. It can never be learned “in theory” (though without it, too). If new knowledge does not find application in practice, it is absolutely not important what result the online test or language certificate shows. Take the language as a training session. It’s like learning to write with your left hand or preparing for a competition – physiological training. Imagine that you have read the literature “how to ride a bicycle”. If you sit on it, you will fall right down. And people who know how to ride, do not know the theory, many do not even understand how the bike works. They just sat down and drove, fell, got up and drove on. This is one of the reasons why children learn languages well, although they don’t understand grammar well. They just learn well.

As we did in school, the teacher says the word and we translate and repeat it 15 times. This is how words are memorized. Approximately 2 days. The only way to really learn a word is to tie it to an emotion, association or memory. “I remember I was in France, I came to buy soap, and I didn’t remember the word “le savon”. So I went on the whole vacation dirty. After this story, you won’t forget the word. Or come up with an association: “It’s like the word “scoop”, and both are used to cleanse. Found a new concept in a foreign book – link the word with your impression of the author. Learned the French word “soap” – go to a friend and talk to him about soap. Only with such an attachment will the word be remembered forever.

Start by changing the language on your smartphone. In 2 days you will perfectly master at least 30 words.

The best way to practice your language is to find a partner. You should not be afraid to make mistakes when communicating with partners or native speakers. Talk as much as you can. You have learned their language, but they are not. This is cool, even if you are still confusing pretexts or talking with a terrible accent. Natural shyness is the main enemy. Many people are afraid that in the initial stages you can only talk about banality. You need to start with the tarts about the weather, otherwise you will never find yourself at a level that allows you to discuss the works of Kant. And if you are afraid of Holopian speech, think about the fact that in English only 1000 words serve 85% of everything you say in everyday life, and 3000 words is 98% of speech.

Master this crust first, it will be enough, and that’s almost the entire language. The remaining 100,000 words are unnecessary.

No less effective will be to talk to yourself. Play the dialogues in your head. This is what athletes do, for example, by scrolling through their performances in the brain.

Language is not a grammar rule, but hundreds of thousands of memorized phrases that you have already said and heard. That’s how you speak Russian. When you were a child, you were taught ready-made expressions, not the rules of deeprivate circulation. That’s why children talk without mistakes at an age when they haven’t learned to walk yet. So to break a brain over textbooks is only 10% of the case. Really, the language learns in its natural environment and with pleasure. After all, if you do not enjoy it, you will not concentrate, will not be tolerant to ambiguities, and the information will not remain in your head.

Expanding the boundaries of language, we learn more about ourselves first of all. Investments in self-education will never fail. This is something that can change your life in a healthy way.