How Not to Learn a Language

The first thing I see when I get up. An E-mail from Duolingo, telling me to keep my streak going. The haunting owl has a will-power I’ve never seen before. 1000＋ days and no end in sight.

For almost three years I’ve used Duolingo to learn Spanish, but am I fluent? Hell no.

The US Department of State says it takes an English learner 575–600 class hours to achieve fluency in Spanish. Even though I am only halfway at about 300 hours, I highly doubt I will reach fluency with another 300 hours of Duolingo.

Duolingo, or any other learning platform for that matter, shouldn’t be your only resource for learning a language.

Learning Platforms can certainly contribute a lot to your learning, but it is way too monotonous to achieve a useful level of language skills.

I have used 4 different platforms and tried out a bunch more and they are all good at what they do. They are easy and convenient to use and will get you into learning and understanding the basics of any given language.

Sooner or later you will reach a plateau close to a conversational level but never get beyond that point without changing your learning habits.

There is almost no real-life context in online lessons, they chiefly rely on word for word translations and lack the ability to ask you to construct your own thoughts.

My main problem with Duolingo and others is how little focus and attention they often require.

Countless times I’ve opened the app and did my 15 minutes of courses on autopilot. I didn’t take a single thing from the courses because of how little active thinking I did. At that point, I was more focused to keep my streak up rather than learning.

My biggest pitfall was exactly that, learning without actually learning. It felt like back in French class at school, passively sitting there for the sake of being there without absorbing anything going on in front of me.

I have since changed my learning habits to a more useful routine which will ultimately result in fluency.

Here are some essential steps to efficiently learn a language.

0. the mission

This should go without saying, but you need to have a goal in mind to find motivation for daily learning.

Leaning a language is committing to a long term skill which takes months or years. It doesn’t matter if its for moving abroad, speaking with your foreign friend’s parents or ordering your next burrito in Spanish. There is no wrong answer and it’s even better if you have multiple.

1. The building blocks

Any language is made up of hundreds of thousands of words. The good news is only a few thousand words make up the majority of daily conversations. This is known as the Pareto principle or often referred to as the 80/20 rule.

Focusing as much of your energy and time on the most common words will have the biggest impact.

This is where Duolingo and co. excel. Basic online lessons are great for memorizing vocabulary and pronunciation.

There are also many top 1000 word lists online if you don’t want to use or spend money on an app.

2. The glue

What you now have are long lists of useful vocabulary, but still lack the ability to build full sentences.

Now focus on all the connector words. The most important conjugations, verbs, and tenses. For most Romance languages, learning conjugations is a nightmare, but again, there is no need to learn all of it to start speaking.

Grammar always intimidates me, but I remind myself that children learn how to speak languages without going to grammar school. Grammar is certainly important and useful if you want to master the language, but you don’t need it to get to the point to start interacting with people.

3. Start consuming

This is my favorite part of it. Start consuming the art and culture made in that language. So much is out there. Movies, podcasts, music, YouTube videos, they are all highly useful.

In the beginning, you will understand very little, maybe even less than 5%, but don’t worry about that. Just focus on training your ear and identifying as many words you already know as possible.

Over time, all of this will become easier. Language is about input, slowly you will enter into the gigantic bubble which is, at least in my case, the Spanish speaking world.

4. Real-life context

Obviously, the most essential step to mastering a language is to use it.

It is now easier than ever to travel and dip into a different culture. Start conversations with native speakers and don’t hesitate to make mistakes, embrace them. No one is ever going to be upset about someone trying to learn.

If you are not able to travel, try constructing your thoughts in that language. Speak to yourself or use an app to chat with natives over the phone. Get out of your comfort zone and use every opportunity to practice.

Use the power of Habit

A popular idea in academic psychology and supported by many studies is that willpower is a limited resource. It works like a muscle. Even though it can be trained and strengthened, it will still get exhausted if overworked.

Humans are creatures of habit. We seek patterns, even in our own lives. The reason for the thousands of stories on Medium alone about morning routines is that they do actually work.

Once we make a habit of something, it is easier to stick to it. Building a habit takes two months on average. Just two months for potentially a lifetime of spending less mental energy and willpower to achieve a goal.

Use that human characteristic to ease your life and language learning. Try to implement the time for learning a language into your routine and it will become second nature.

Language isn’t just a tremendous form of communication, it’s also intertwined and influenced by culture and history.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. -Nelson Mandela

Different languages construct thoughts and sentences in different ways. In a sense learning a language is learning a new way of thinking, a new way of life.