How To Learn A New Language As A Beginner

Learning a new language as an adult can seem impossible. It just seems to be over whelming and complicated, especially if you studied a language at school and got nowhere with it.

The truth is that it is entirely possible to learn a new language; many people all over the world are learning new languages every day and you don’t have to stop at one, you can learn multiple.

It will take a lot of work and it may be a little overwhelming at the start but with a bit of patience and determination you can get there. 

I want this article to be a guide for what you need to do, to give you some direction and to set you on your journey, ready to become fluent.

Find Your Motivation To Learn A New Language

The first thing you need to ask yourself is “Why?” …Why do you want to learn this new language?

It doesn’t really matter why, just so long as you know why you are doing it.

Maybe you want to visit or work in the country where the language is spoken. Maybe you want to impress a new lover in their native language or maybe you just hate reading the subtitles of your favourite foreign film and want to be able to watch it without the subtitles.

Whatever the reason, just know why.

Learning a language can be hard at times and being able to remind yourself of what made you start will help you keep you going when you feel like quitting.  

(You can read more out Staying Motivated When Learning a Language)

Grasp The Basics Of The Language

Really the best thing to do at the start is trying to get to grasp with the very basics of the language. This probably won’t be the most fun, but you just need to do it.

You can use any tool you want, they are all fairly similar. You can watch YouTube videos, read a text book or take some sort of course. So long as it introduces you to the language that is perfect.

You are going to get some basic vocabulary and even a look at how some grammar works.    

Just get a simple understanding of the language, you don’t need to focus too hard on this, just get an overview and a general feel. Once you do the immersion I will talk about below, your grasp of these basics will be solidified.

The Most Common Words

Some people like to get to grips with the basics by learning the most common words of the langauge. This can be useful, but it is also a boring task.

You will come across these once you start your immersion, but it can be helpful to look through these words and pick out the ones you think are most relevant to you. I wouldn’t sit down and learn them all, unless you enjoy that sort of thing.

(You can read more about – Should You Learn The Most Common Words Of A Language?)

Increase Your Input

Once you have the basics down you need to start focusing on Input, which means listening and reading.

You need to really expose yourself to a lot of the language and this is really where you will learn the bulk of it. This is where you will discover the new words and how the grammar actually works.

You can still focus on output (which means speaking) if you want, but you can totally get away with avoiding this for a few months. Listening and reading and just trying to understand as much as you can is all you need to do for a while.

It’s not easy, but slowly you will start to understand more and more.   

(You can read more about – The Input vs Output Language Learning Methods)

Learning A Langauge Though Immersion

You will often hear input called “immersion” which really means surrounding yourself with the language.

You can of course do this by just moving to a country that speaks the language. However, this is a bit extreme and isn’t exactly possible for everyone.

Luckily with the power of the internet we can immerse ourselves in any language online.

You can consume all sorts of content in your new language, watch YouTube videos, listen to music and podcasts and read websites or kindle books. You can also get on social media and start following real people, who are speaking your language.

If done right, you can be exposed to a lot of the language. I know is not the same as living in a country, but it can come pretty close.

Really immersion means reading and listening as much as possible,

(You can read more about – Learning A Language By Immersion)

Comprehensible Input

The secret to actually being able to learn from your input is to make sure you can understand it.

You want the material you are immersing with to make sense. This doesn’t mean you need to understand 100%, but you do need to have a rough idea of what is going on. This is why it is a good idea to get a basic grasp of the language first, so you can understand some of what is going on.

The whole process of immersion is not easy in the beginning and you may need to look certain words up, but overall, you just need to listen or read to things you can roughly understand.

This may sound pointless, but this is how you acquire the language. Your brain is able to take what it knows and it will use this to work out the parts it does not.

This is not a fast process and you will need to read and listen to a lot, but it will work

(You can read more about – What Is Comprehensible Input In Language Learning?)

Increase Your Knowledge

You should try and increase your knowledge as you immerse. This will usually mean that you should start identifying the words that you do not know and then look them up and learn them.

It can also be helpful to put these words into a flashcard system, to help you remember them. Personally I like to do this as it forces me to see the word a few more times and this extra exposure will help me remember it.

You can also look up grammar points at this stage and you will probably find they make a lot of a sense. You will have seen a lot of the language in action, so you will have some reference for what the grammar rule is trying to explain.

We often try and learn grammar first, but this can be quite hard as we have no reference from the language at this early stage, so it is better to wait until we have been immersing or a while.   

Start Moving To Output

You will reach a point with your input when you will feel comfortable and you will be able to understand most of the language, the problem is that you can only understand it; you will need to start speaking it to really say you have mastered the language.

When you do this will be up to you, but usually this will be after a few months of solid immersion.

Speaking will be hard at first, but since you have a good understanding of the language, it won’t take you long. (You also shouldn’t give up immersion; it should be that you feel comfortable enough to add on creating output on top).

You will probably find you can recognise words, but it’s hard to recall them and use them yourself. This is normal and with some practice your memory will become stronger.

You can start your output by speaking to yourself using simple and short sentences and when you feel like you want to speak to another human you can find yourself a language partner who can write to and speak with.  

Practice Your New Language Often

When it comes to language learning, little and often is the best technique.

If you only do one huge session, once a month, it is not going to be as productive as doing lots of small bits every day.  

You can even break up your studies throughout the day. Spend 10 minutes in the morning, 15 after lunch and so on.

These repeated small amounts will all add up. Learning like this will also stop your brain form getting too tired, which happens when you work for too long, so it will allow you to learn more over all.

Language learning is all about the consistency, so you just have to keep chipping away at it.

(You can read more about – How To Make Time For Language Learning)

Review and Practice What You’ve Learn

When you start getting to the point where you are speaking, you need to speak a lot. It is a waste of time if you do not put your new language to use. Once you have learned something new you should be constantly going back to review it and practicing it.

Languages are maintained through constant use and practice so it is important to keep practicing.

One of the best ways to do this is to try and speak your new language as much as possible through the day, especially when you are doing other things.

For example, when you are cooking your dinner, talk yourself through what you are doing. Even if you cook the same meal every night, you will soon get very good at talking about this in your new language.

Push Yourself, But At Your Own Pace

Learning a language is not a race and no two people’s journey is the same. You should always aim to push yourself and do your best, but always remember to go at a pace that is comfortable for you.

I’ve seen articles where it suggests you should learn 30 new words a day. To some of you reading this, that might seem doable, to others that might seem effortless. However, for me, that’s totally unattainable. Maybe at a push I could learn 10, but I would probably really struggle with that and would need to put in some serious time and effort each day to do that.

So, if you are more comfortable learning 1, that’s cool. If you think you can do 55, that’s also cool. Push yourself, but remember you are only competing with yourself. 

Push yourself to your own limit. There is no point over whelming yourself as you will not progress as much if you where to just go at your own pace.

Keep Committed To Your New Language

Lastly and maybe most importantly, stay committed and consistent to your language learning.

Learning a language takes time and effort. It is not going to be a quick process. There will be times where you feel like you are getting nowhere and feel like you will never get there.

If this happens, just remember your reasons why you want to do this and remember that if you put in the work consistently and trust the system, you will get there. Just keep chipping away at your language and stay committed to it. Eventually things will start to click, grammar will make sense, you will remember words and you will see the progress.

Conclusion

Everything I have said here seems very simple, and that is because it is.

Learning a language is not hard, it just takes times. Start by getting some basics down, start listening and reading to a lot, then when you are comfortable with that start speaking.

That is all there is too it. If you can dedicate your time to do this, every day for months on end, you will see results. It will work, you just have to put the the time in. Once you do this with one language, there is nothing stopping you from doing it again and again.

(You can read more about – Is It Possible To Speak 10 Languages?)