How to Learn a Foreign Language Without Actually Studying

Improve your skills by doing what you love

If you lose your motivation the moment you sit down with your textbooks, you’re not the only one.

Some people are just bad at learning rules. And it makes sense. Learning a language from textbooks does not seem natural. You might forget the words that you learned the next day or struggle to apply grammar rules on the go. It can be pretty discouraging and feel abnormal. And it is. That’s not how you learned your native language.

English is my second language. My level is upper-intermediate, which is not impressive. But it is more than enough for me at the moment. I’m able to communicate with clients in English every day and even try my best to write here on Medium.

And I’ve never actually studied the language. I was able to learn it by doing the things I love, and I believe that this can be applied to many other languages.

I’ve tried to experiment with a lot of different methods, but only one and the most obvious one worked for me. I changed my learning approach after not seeing any results from the hard work I’ve put into my textbook exercises. I realized that it is possible to learn more naturally and stop torturing yourself with boring memorization.

It took me almost three years to be able to communicate my thoughts freely in English, so this advice might not be for everyone. This isn’t the quickest path. But if you’re not in a rush, this could work for you as well as it did for me. It wasn’t the fastest journey, but it was a pretty fun one.

Surround Yourself With the Language You Want to Learn

If you want to learn a foreign language, this is the first and the most important thing you need to do.

Yes, you might not understand anything. It might seem pointless or even stupid at the beginning. But this will bring a ton of benefits in the long run.

The key is to incorporate as much of the language that you want to learn into your life as possible.

Why you should do this

If you surround yourself with the language you want to learn, slowly but surely, you will start picking up words.

You will not know their meaning, or how to spell them, but you will get familiar with them. You might remember the context of a situation that was connected to a particular word or the tone of the conversation.

The words that you’ve heard before are easier to memorize that the ones that you’re hearing or seeing for the first time. If you look up the translation, it won’t be hard to remember it. It’s like half of the work is already done. You know the word. You just have to figure out its meaning. It will be like putting a missing piece of a puzzle in place. And just like with puzzles, it will get easier with time.

You will also start picking up grammar. This won’t happen fast, but it will happen eventually. If you hate learning rules as much as I do, this will help you. The downside of this is that you will not be able to explain the rules to anyone else because the only reason you use them will be that it sounds right.

Learning in this way reminds me of how babies learn, and I think it is the most natural way to do it.

How you can do this

Here comes the fun part. I believe that the best way to do it is by doing what you love.

If you love watching movies or TV shows, you can start watching them in your desired language translation.

If you love music, try to find some new artists that you enjoy.

Look at the things that you enjoy doing every day, and ask yourself if you can incorporate learning into that activity.

I’d recommend starting with music. Repetition is a big part of learning, and our love for listening to songs that we enjoy on repeat can come in handy.

When you are watching something, it is essential to keep subtitles on. First, you’ll need subtitles in your native language, but in some time, it will be useful to switch them to the language you are learning to work on spelling. I believe that this tremendously helped me increase my vocabulary.

When you become comfortable with watching things, you can get to more complicated things like listening to podcasts or reading.

It is best not to begin with complicated literature. Pick what you’re comfortable with, and don’t focus too much on the things you don’t understand. If you see a word too often and you don’t know the meaning of it, look it up, but if there is a chance you might not remember it tomorrow and you get the context of what is going on in the book, you might skip it.

This will not be too easy first. You might feel lost at the beginning, but it will get easier quicker than you think. Soon you’ll get more comfortable with watching content in a different language. The best thing is that the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and the faster you are picking things up.

Final Thought

I know that this advice is not for everyone.

Some of you might not have as much time, might need results faster, or prefer studying using textbooks. It also can be pretty challenging if you are just starting.

I’m not saying you should abandon standard methods or use this as your main and only approach. I did because I was in no rush to learn the language.

I do believe that this should be a crucial part of your learning path.

For me, this was an activity that I enjoyed, and it did wonders for my English. And I hope this will work as well for you.