Can You Learn A Language From Social Media?

When you start learning a language people will tell you to use social media, so that you can learn more of the language.

The reality is that you can pick up a lot from social media and you can interact with natives. However, as a beginner it is not the best place to go.

If you need to learn the basics, then you should do this elsewhere, but once you start to feel comfortable with the language then social media can be a great place to hone your skills and find a community of other language learners who can help you along the way.  

If You Want Language Lessons, You Should Look Else Where

Social media can offer you a lot, but if you are looking traditional language lessons, then it is not the place to be.

If you want formatted lessons, you should look to other resources. There are plenty of courses or websites you can use instead.

This doesn’t mean social media is useless for learning a language, it just means it is not the most optimal place to really get all the knowledge you need. This is especially true if you are a total beginner. I would start elsewhere, such as a dedicated language site, and then come to social media later on once you have the basics down.

You Can Join Dedicated Language Learning Groups

It doesn’t matter what social media you use, there will be some sort of dedicated group or forum you can join that will revolve around the language you are learning.

These are normally filled with other learners, rather than native speakers, but that isn’t a problem. You are going to find a lot of likeminded people here, who will all know exactly what you are experiencing.

These groups are a great place to build a support network and are great for asking questions. There will usually be some concept that you are stuck on and asking other learners who are slightly ahead of you can be really helpful.

They will be able to explain things in a way that make sense to you, as a learner, rather than it coming from a native who hasn’t really had to learn it, they just kind of understand the concept since they where children.    

These groups are great, but again, there are not really any structured lessons here, so if you are a total beginner you would be better off getting some basics elsewhere then coming back to these groups when you get stuck with something and need some support.

You Can Follow Language Teachers And People Who Make Content Around Language Learning

You will find teachers, and just people who are really into talking about a certain language on social media.

These are not really lessons, although some of these people may have slightly longer lessons available on their own websites or youtube.

Most of what you will find on social media is like little mini lessons. A classic example of this is things like instagram reels. Usually they talk about something for 30 seconds, such as “Here is 5 ways to say yes in Japanese” and then they quickly show you the 5 ways.

These are always quick and simple and I am a fan. They can be a nice little bitsize lesson that you see every time you log into your social media, but I probably wouldn’t base my entire learning plan around this. You would need to really get a lot of your knowledge from elsewhere, then add these little nuggets of information on top. 

You Can Use Social Media For Immersion

One of the best parts about social media is that you can use it as a form of immersion. You can just go on there and act like you are a native speaker. All you need to do is follow or interact with things in the language you are learning and it will be a form of immersion.

It can actually be better to start a separate social media that you use just for your new language. This way any algorithms will quickly think you are a native speaker and you will get recommended similar things …that are all in your target language.

My only problem with all this is that social media is pretty …I guess thin? If we look at instagram for example, you would just be looking at some pictures and then your immersion would be reading the caption underneath.

That is just a couple of lines of text, it’s not exactly going to take long to read. I guess it depends what social media you are using, but really you are most likely to only get a quick hit of language and be done.

I guess if you are bored it is better to spend 5 minutes reading captions in your target language, rather than your native one, so it’s not the worst thing. It is just not really going to match the intensity of sitting down and reading a chapter of a book, which for me would be proper form of immersion.

You Can Connect With Native Speakers On Social Media

Social media is for connecting with people, and there is nothing stopping you from connecting with native speakers.

Personally I would suggest you use a language exchange, as these are designed to put you in contact with a native speaker. On a language exchange they know you are learning and they are more likely to help you and tolerate mistakes as well as talk in a simpler way so you can understand.

When you are talking to someone on social media they may not speak your language at all, so really you want to be a decent level in their language before you really try and talk to someone.

I’ve not really tired this myself, but I am sure there are people who have had great success doing this. 

You Can Create Your Own Content To Practice Your Output

One of the great things about social media is that you can contribute too. You can create your own content, or comment on others.

The only issue is that you may not get corrected. In fact I would suspect that you wouldn’t at all.

Again if you really want to be corrected by a native speaker, I think you are better off using a language exchange. If you use an app like Hellotalk, it is almost like a form of social media. You can create posts, so you can talk about whatever you want …but the natives will come and they will correct your mistakes.

I would do this for a while before jumping straight into normal social media. However, using either of these is good practice and it can also document your progress which is pretty cool to look back on and see how much you have improved.

(You can read more about – How To Practice Writing In A Language)

Social Media Can Be Too Informal

One of the main issues with social media is that it can be extremely informal. Just look at anything in English, it’s all slang and memes …and usually awful spelling too.

This can be useful as a language learner as this shows you how the natives actually speak to each other, but it can also be confusing and make everything seem so much harder.

I am sure there are non-English speakers who must read some social media posts and just have no idea what is happening. What you read is nothing like the textbooks and it can take a while to adjust to this style of language.

This is one of the main reasons I always tell people to stay away from social media until they at least have the basics down, if not more. Basically the stronger your skills are, the less likely you will struggle with all the slang and bad spelling. 

(You can read more about – Why Do Natives Speakers Seem Different To The Text Books?)

Is Youtube Social Media?

I am never sure if youtube counts as social media.

I don’t think it does. It’s sort of its own thing. However, if you do want to class it as social media, then it is somewhere that will give you everything you need.

I honestly believe you could start a language from zero and get to a pretty high level, solely from using youtube. It really has everything you need. There will be videos by teachers who will give you the basics and some vocabulary and then there is plenty of native content that you can immerse with and just absorb the language.

I would always recommend just using youtube over any other form of social media for learning a language; the difference in content quality is really noticeable.

(You can read more about – How To Use YouTube To Learn A Language)

Conclusion   

Hopefully now you see how social media can be used to help with your language learning. It is more of additional tool you can use for support and extra tips, rather than a dedicated tool for learning.

I think once you get the basics down you can get a lot of benefits from using social media so it can be worth your while to use it every now and again.   

(You can read more about – Can You Learn A Language From A Native Speaker?)