Easy Language Learning

What if you could make language learning easier? Imagine a process where you still do all the work & practice but that feels easy. This happens when you (1) find ways you enjoy practicing and (2) have the skills and resources available that you need. It looks different for each person because we each come from a different learning background with different learning styles & interests.

Find Ways You Enjoy Practicing

While this may be easier said than done, going through the trial and error process of finding ways to practice that you actually enjoy makes learning easier and more exciting. These still might not be your favorite activities, but it’ll be more interesting than forcing yourself to study & hating the process or worse: not being able to get the motivation to even start because you dread it so much.

How to find these ways you actually like practicing

Try any method that gets you started. It doesn’t matter how well it works in the beginning as long as you’re doing something with your target language. It will contribute to your overall learning even it’s minimal, and you’ll learn more about what you like & don’t like doing - what works & doesn’t work.
Experiment with creating routines that keep you practicing regularly. Try this with methods you like and even ones you kind of like, but are effective for you. Sometimes even if we don’t like a method of practicing (but also don’t hate it) it can be useful to still use it because we know it works. Then when you find something better, you can change it up.
Be open to learning in ways that make you a little uncomfortable. There’s a fine line between discomfort us grow & actually disliking an activity. The more you practice, the more you’ll learn to discern between the two and begin to develop your own unique style.

Once you find the way you like. . .

Be consistent with your practice, but also be willing to change as you progress. Just because you like this style of learning now, doesn’t mean you always will. In fact, needing to adjust your practice routine can be a sign you’re getting closer to fluency because you’re outgrowing the methods that worked at an earlier stage. It’s also important to recognize that YOU as person evolve and so do your interests, style, and everything about you. Allow yourself to get curious about ways that you can invite change into your routine.

Getting the Skills & Resources

Let’s assume that you’re like I was when I started learning Spanish, and you don’t have skills in your native language to facilitate learning a second language. These skills are being able to read, write, speak and listen well so that you can easily acquire new information and convey your thoughts in an organized and cohesive manner. Simply put: if you struggle with reading comprehension & writing in your native language, learning another language is going to be challenging - But you still do it.

Why your native language skills affect your second language

Skills transfer. If you’ve done the work to become highly skilled in one language, all that’s left to do is learn the next language. BUT if you struggle in your native language, you now have to learn another language AND improve your reading, writing, speaking & listening skills. It’s doable, but you’ll need to be patient with yourself and understand that you’re working twice as hard to make up for any deficiency you might have in your native language.

How to improve in both languages

As you learn a new language, you’ll naturally improve your native language. The struggle is learning the new language and improving your reading, writing, speaking & listening abilities. There’s two main paths you can take to do this: (1) dedicate time to also improving your native language, (2) learn the skills in your new language as you also learn that language. Both are challenging and will contribute to your goals of improving your linguistic abilities; it’s really a preference of how you would like to learn at this moment in time.

What resources you’ll need & where to find them

You’ll need personalized resources and strategies that you either discover yourself or get help with from a teacher. If you’re more a DIYer, you can start by choosing a path as mentioned above and creating a study plan. If this seems absolutely daunting to you, you can start by finding a course or teacher to work with to help you begin. Either path you choose, it’ll be beneficial for you to learn to find the resources you need, when you need them.

Find resources by focusing on an area you’d like to improve, like reading. If you’re working on your native language, simply reading more books at your reading level will help you become a better reader. You can also look up summaries and interpretations of the novel you read to check your comprehension and analysis abilities - then reread the book & see how your perspective has changed!

Writing in either language requires you to write and get feedback to improve. Sure, the act of writing itself will improve your abilities as well, but it’s the feedback that really moves you forward. You can get feedback from a teacher or from anyone you feel is proficient enough in the language to offer you corrections.

Speaking & listening will improve with your reading & writing, but it’s important to also dedicate time to conversation practice - even it means just reading aloud or recording yourself. It all contributes to your overall goal of fluency.

Making It Easy

Language learning becomes easier when you understand what is actually required of you to learn and that the more you learn, the easier it becomes to learn. It’s always work to learn, but that work becomes easier the more you do it because you become better at it. If you want to make it easy to speak in your new language, you have to practice, practice, practice until one day you’re speaking effortlessly and someone asks you how you got so good, you stop practicing just long enough to realize that you achieved your goal of fluency somewhere along the way.