Invest Your Time Properly to Learn a Foreign Language

Learn to do it the right way and achieve your learning goals

There are so many apps, websites, videos, podcasts, and classes available for you to use to learn a language.

How do you know what to choose from? How do you know your way to learn will help you achieve your goal? How do you know you will achieve fluency? This is the best way to invest your time to learn a language.

Recognizing why you want to learn a language comes first

Before you can learn any language, you need to identify why you want to learn it. Some people learn a language for enjoyment. Others learn it because they want to travel or to expand their business opportunities.

Regardless of your reason, it is best to establish that before you go on this journey.

If you don’t have a reason, it will be difficult to maintain your motivation in learning a language. Discovering your reason to learn helps you identify how much of the language you want to acquire.

For example, if you want to travel to a foreign country for a week or two, you have no need to invest time in achieving fluency. You should only aim to learn the basics, like where the restroom is or when the restaurant closes.

If you want to live in the country, then fluency should be your goal, so invest twenty minutes a day engaging with the language. You also need to know how many weeks you must study the language in order to achieve fluency, as shown in the image below.

Knowing your reason to acquire the language makes it easier to set your goals and set the time frame for learning it.

Repetition is key: Active learning is the way to go

There are two kinds of learning. The first one is passive learning. Listening to lectures or watching a movie are forms of passive learning. Passive learning is a poor way to learn a language.

People who watch Japanese anime with English subtitles will never learn an adequate level of Japanese because watching TV is not interactive.

The person watching anime might learn the translation of Kon’nichiwa or Arigato (which means hello and thanks in Japanese, respectively), but they won’t learn its proper usage.

The second form of learning is active learning. Interaction through handwriting or holding a conversation is considered active learning. The best way to learn a language would be to engage and interact with the language through repetition.

Interacting and repeating it lets you hear yourself speaking the language. Repetition helps promote the words from your short-term to long-term memory.

That’s why people usually recognize the words hola, bonjour, or ciao. Those are words that are heard and said often. When a non-speaker hears these words over and over, they eventually learn its meaning and the words get stored in their long-term memory.

Actively listening to podcasts and videos are best used during your daily commute

One active way to learn a language is during your daily commute or morning routine. Even five minutes of listening to a podcast or listening to a video will help you learn a language in the long term. Podcasts can quickly be found on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube.

However, there is a proper way to actively learn the language. Simply listening to the language will revert you to passive learning. To actively learn the language, you need to interact with it, which goes back to repetition.

Whenever the speaker from the podcast or video introduces a new word, repeat it out loud. The more you repeat the word, the faster it will transfer to your long-term memory.

Learn a maximum of ten words during your daily commute or morning routine, then review those words the next day before moving on to another ten words. Review those words a week later, and it’ll help you keep those words in your long-term memory.

Apps and websites are best used when you’re free of distractions

If you want to reinforce what you’ve learned, it’s best to supplement your podcasts or videos using a website or an app. There are plenty of free resources available online that are easily found using a Google search.

Some free apps that encourage active learning can be Duolingo or Busuu. Duolingo is handy to learn vocabulary. Busuu is best used to build and improve your vocabulary and grammar usage.

Hellotalk, iTalki, and other similar apps allow you to talk to people from foreign countries and exchange conversations with them. You can find someone in your target language to practice with by using text messages, audio messages, or even video chats. That’ll help you continue your active learning.

Thousands of free websites offer courses online that will teach you your target language. One example to learn Italian is iltavoloitaliano.com.

From the thousands of resources and websites available, search for the one that best engages you. Once you discover a resource that best suits you, utilize it when you’re free of distractions.

Consistency is key, whether it’s when you wake up or before you go to bed. Use it daily for fifteen to twenty minutes a day to strengthen your long-term vocabulary.

It’ll become fortified so much quicker so long as it’s paired with grammar lessons that teach you how to properly use the vocabulary.

Traditional classroom settings are not a good investment

Sitting in a classroom with twenty-nine other students and expecting to learn a foreign language is not a suitable investment of your time and money. The learning conditions are negative.

The first issue is most students are not there because they want to learn the language. They are there because it’s a graduation requirement. Many students fear criticism and public speaking, which will keep them from actively learning the language through spoken repetition.

The other issue is with college professors in that they lack teaching pedagogy. High school teachers tend to do a better job since they are frequently trained in teaching pedagogy. College professors spend most of the class lecturing instead of having students actively engage with the language.

These conditions mentally shut down students who were originally open to learning the language. You are better off learning the language by hiring a private tutor and working with them, instead of expecting to learn a language in a class of thirty people.

However, with plenty of free options available, spending thousands of dollars should be saved as a last resort.

Conclusion:

Once you figure out why you want to learn a language, it will be a lot easier to pursue it. There are thousands of free resources available online, whether it’s an app, a website, YouTube, or podcasts.

So long as you create a consistent schedule and dedicate an allotted amount of time to actively learn, you will notice growth in your target language.

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