You Too Can Learn a Second Language

Most of us have experienced the pain of trying to learn a new language. The way we learned in school left us completely incapable of communicating even the simplest of expressions. In most language schools the methods are largely similar and are similarly ineffective. Language programs for learning on your own are generally not very interesting or effective, and in all cases what you learn is NOT what you will hear when you speak with a native speaker of the language.

Take English as an example. What do you...? Usually sounds like Waddya...? (Waddya wanna do now?) And similarly: Where do you...? (Where'd'ya...?)

If you focus on the sound and the meaning/idea and not the individual words it will help you tremendously down the road. And expressions like 'down the road' are very hard to translate but if you focus on the idea then it's not that confusing and you gradually develop an intuitive feeling for how various colloquialisms work.

Using mp3 files make learning a new language easier than it's ever been in the past. Typical language learning files are extremely boring and unnatural whereas listening to a movie, audio book, songs, etc makes it a lot more interesting. Movies in particular are excellent for developing natural language abilities.

It's absolutely true that some people learn languages easier than others. Same as some people are musically inclined or are 'natural athletes', we all have talents that we were born with, but even if we aren't naturally good at learning languages, it's possible for anyone to learn a new language.

And it's fun. It's tremendously fun to be able to talk to people in a foreign country, or to talk to people from a foreign country when they come to your country. You don't have to be fluent; basic expressions can go a long way. But don't learn boring expressions like "Where's the post office?" Yes, knowing that can be useful, but start with the questions and answers that will always occur when you first meet someone on a train, at a bus stop, in a shop, etc.

The Lonely Planet phrasebooks are very good, but they don't help you begin learning the basic structures of a language. Study grammar is also very boring and ineffective. Most native English speakers cannot answer simple grammar questions about English.

For example, what is a subject-verb-object language versus a subject-object-verb language.

Who cares? It doesn't matter. If you're given the following simple dialogue introducing Japanese, then you don't need any grammar explanation.

What's this? Kore wa nani?
What? Nani?
This. Kore.
It's a book. (Kore wa) Hon desu.

Just listening and reading the dialogue you can see that the Japanese is "That is what?", but it's more important to simply listen and speak the new language so that you do it naturally and automatically.

Similarly learning to read Japanese (or Russian, etc) is not that difficult if done in a matter that focuses on intuitive learning rather than 'forced', 'left-brain' thinking.

I'll get into more details in another article, but for now remember: focus on the sounds and trying to 'sound the same'. Listen to things you enjoy listening to and listen to them many times and you will begin recognizing words and expressions naturally and easily. I'll also later provide a guide for where to get good basic material for various languages. Until then browse the internet and you can find lots of material.