What You Actually NEED to Learn a Language

You may be surprised to learn that you already have what you need to learn a new language. It’s not the next fancy course, expert tutor, degree or certificate. It’s you. It’s you knowing that you are capable, finding available ways to educate yourself, and effort & determination to follow through.

Believe You Are Capable

You are already capable of learning another language.

Before you can learn another language you need to believe that you can because you can. You may not know how long it’ll take or even how you’ll manage to do it, but you need to know that you can because you’ll find a way. When you believe this, you keep going when you struggle. You overcome the obstacles you are faced with and become even more capable because of them.

Your belief that you can trains your mind to work in problem-solving mode to find a solution to obstacles you encounter. You remain optimistic that you can work through your struggle because you’ve successfully solved problems before, are confident in your abilities to apply what you know even to unfamiliar situations, research or ask for help when you feel stuck to un-stuck yourself. When you believe that you can’t, you’re less likely to be successful because self-doubt, uncertainty, lack of confidence prevent you from persevering.

Educate Yourself

No one is going to teach you anything if you don’t educate yourself.

Read. Anything. Everything. Just read. Learn how to read really well in any language. Learn how to follow your interests and be inspired to learn more. Learn how to interpret what you read for what it is: a piece of writing by another person based on largely agreed upon information (non-fiction) or a story that potentially critics a societal topic (fiction).

What you really need to learn a language is to be good learner regardless of who your teacher is. A good learner takes initiative in their own learning and finds their own style & process that works for them. They see any information offered to them by someone else like a teacher or book (author) as one perspective to consider. When they disagree with or find themselves intrigued by a topic, they research it so that they can form their own educated opinion about it.

Educating yourself means that you do the work to learn & you become invested in the learning process. It’s still obtaining information from others through classes, videos, books, blogs, etc., but the intention is not to memorized & regurgitate “facts”. Instead, the intention is learn from what others know and create your own understanding and interpretation of that information.

Effort, Determination & Persistence

You only fail if you quit. Failure is a choice.

You will most certainly fail many times when you try to learn another language, but it’s not really failing as long as you keep going and find a different way that works. Remind yourself that you are capable even if you made embarrassing mistakes trying to speak your new language or had to spend 2 hours researching a grammar concept you didn’t understand. You are capable, and you’re on your own timeline.

Your perseverance will make or break whether you achieve fluency. It’s a combination of believing that you are capable & educating yourself that moves you along your language learning journey. As long as you keep going, you will inevitably make progress even when it’s slow. Remember, you are on your own timeline, no one else’s. It’s not about how quickly you reach fluency. It’s about how much you make the process your own so that you enjoy it as you reach your personal goals & achieve your own form of success.