How to learn languages easily? Is it possible to learn easily for only those who have the “language gene”?
There was a time when I thought that learning languages are very hard for me. I knew many people at school who seemed to learn languages so naturally and without almost any effort. They got the best grades without even reading for the exams. I studied hard but I achieved only average grades. I thought that learning languages are easy for some people but hard for the other people like me.
That thought was actually holding me back. It was actually one of the main reasons why I wasn’t learning so fast. Thoughts become actions and actions become habits and habits form our life. My thought was that I don’t learn language easily so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Nothing Is Hard, Nothing Is Easy, Everything Is Relative.”
Some people say that learning languages is hard. Some people say playing football if hard. Some people say playing the piano is hard.
If you go to ask a professional pianist, is playing a simple children’s song hard, I guess he says it’s not very hard. But ask the same question from a person who has never played piano before. I guess that song can be very hard for him.
Or go to ask a child who has spoken a local language for his whole life, is it hard. I guess it’s not very hard for him. But from somebody who has just started to the place and has started learning the language. I guess it’s much harder for him.
You see that it really depends on how we look at the things. Speaking mandarin is easy for people who have used it for their whole life. It’s not really hard. But English can be very hard for Chinese people if they haven’t studied it before. Nothing is hard, nothing is easy. Everything is relative.
It really depends on how you have spent your life. If you think it’s hard for you to learn languages, there are 2 possible reasons for that:
1.You have tried too little
2.You have studied with boring techniques
I guess that number two is more probable because many people try to learn foreign languages but they find it hard only because they are using wrong techniques.
Don’t be like this guy. Forget the boring techniques!
Learning With Right Techniques – Do Something Fun with the Language!
Can’t learn those hard grammatical forms after reading them from the textbook 10 times?
Can’t learn that long vocabulary list of 20 words about the boring subject of your textbook?
Can’t learn to speak about crime scene investigation even though your teacher requires it?
If you answered, yes to any of those questions, don’t worry. It only tells that you are a normal human being with normal capabilities. I remember how I had it was to try to speak about “Saimaa ringed seals” at our Swedish classes or about “Crime scene investigation” at our English classes many years ago. I wouldn’t speak about those things even in my own language so why should I learn something like that?? Good news is that in real life you can study only the subjects that interest you.
If you find studying grammar boring, forget grammar! You don’t need to study it. Children don’t study grammar and still they learn to speak a new language. You will catch grammar from natural context over the time course.
Instead of studying languages in a boring way, try something you find fun and interesting.
1.Listen to a song you like and learn the lyrics.
2.Find a language partner and do language exchange with him/her. (Italki is a wonderful resource)
3.What are your interests? Watch Youtube videos related to that subject in a new language
4.Make some crazy challenges. Try to speak 30 seconds in a new language with your friends or give a 1-minute speech to your best friend. Use your imagination.
5.Watch a movie in a language that you are studying.
6.Try natural methods like Pimsleur.
All of those five ways can be ultimately effective. All of them are free. You can use any of them and you can learn much faster than those who are paying thousands of euros for their expensive language courses.
The bottom line here is that everything you do with the language makes progress. It’s important that you enjoy what you are doing. I was once fallen in love with a Spanish girl. You can guess how easy and fun it was to practice with her! 😉 I didn’t read grammar from the textbook but many times I learned some grammar because I listened to the way she spoke her native language. I also learned many new useful and interesting words that would have been harder to learn from a textbook.
Be creative and language learning will be quite fun and easy.
Have fun while learning! 🙂
“If you do what is EASY, your life will be HARD. But if you do what is HARD, your life will be EASY”
Have you ever heard that life principle from Les Brown? It means that if you keep on doing easy things (for example being satisfied with an average job, complaining about your situation, seeking for instant gratification), your life will become hard. You will never achieve your full potential and find out the reason why God created you.
But if you keep on doing the things that are hard or a bit challenging (for example forcing yourself to speak a new language, writing messages in foreign languages or giving a little bit more at your job), eventually your life will be easier. That is the idea of delayed gratification.
Do something challenging now and later things feel very easy. But if you do only the easy things now, your life will be very challenging in the future. Over the time course, you will most probably start enjoying so-called “hard” or “challenging” things.
How to Learn Languages Easily? – Change Your Attitude
Let’s take two men. They are both 35 years old. They are in a similar situation because both of them speak only their native language fluently. The first guy says, “I am too old to learn languages. I don’t have time to learn languages. Languages have always been very hard to me.” The second man says, “Even though I am 35 years old, I have read that adults can learn languages even more easily than children. I haven’t been very good with languages before but probably I have used wrong techniques. I don’t have very much time but 10 minutes every day is not much.”
Guess which one of these two is going to learn a new language? The answer is so obvious. I know both kinds of people. Which one do you want to be? The guy who tries to make more excuses why he is not going to learn. Or would you like to be a guy who will make his way?
Forget the idea that languages would be hard. Speaking foreign languages doesn’t require anything more than any other skill. Practice, practice and practice and eventually you will master it. If you want to speed up the process, start thinking that learning languages is easy for you. The changing of the mindset really makes miracles. I know it from my own experience. Why not try? Forget excuses and start learning in a way that you enjoy.
What do you think? Is learning a foreign language easy? Why/Why not? Leave a comment below!
Hello here. You are right that people at any age can learn different languages. Previously I heard it listening Earl Nightingale’s “Lead the Field” CD. He told that the age does not matter. Our thoughts matter. If we decide to learn something, we will. Maybe speed of learning can be various.
I guess that before learning something new we must to clear our minds. Meditation or contemplation can be a big help.
I wanted to learn French. I bought many CD, watched movies. Unfortunately, I know few phrases and it is all. I think that I need to look for companion. I can teach him or her the different language too.
Your mentioned advice are worth to try because languages open gates to a new fascinating world.
All the best, Nemira.
Hi Nemira,
thank you for your thoughts. It’s so interesting how we can decide something and then it happens. And sometimes we decide not to decide and nothing happens ;).
Having a language partner will definitely help you learning French. I recommend to check http://languagesareeasy.com/italki. Italki is a community of people who want to learn new languages. It’s totally free. They also provide paid lessons but you don’t take them if you don’t want. I have got to know many interesting people through Italki and it has really helped me in language learning. I will write a full review on my website about it.
-Roope
Hi,
I remembered learning French when I was doing my University. It was tough for me! During the first lesson, my teacher already told me to start pronouncing words. I remembered after learning for a few weeks, I gave up as it was pretty boring. I think learning a new language should be done in an interesting way so that we can have fun. Once we start having fun, learning it should be easier!
What languages have you learnt so far other than your native ones?
Jacob
Hi Jacob,
I agree that French pronunciation is more challenging than for example German pronunciation. However, with constant practice it gets easier day by day. In the future I will publish articles “Why French is Easy.” “Why German is Easy.” and “Why Spanish is Easy.”
I learned French mainly by studying it from Duolingo, watching Youtube videos, listening to podcasts and by talking to French-speaking friends.
I have studied English, Spanish, French, German and Swedish myself. My strongest of them is English, then Spanish and so on.
If you are still interested in learning French I would recommend you to check Francais Authentique podcast/Youtube channel. It’s a nice way to learn French.
Wish you all the best!
-Roope
I used to think only really smart people can learn new languages well. Then I think of all the children who come to America and know their own language then have to learn English on top of it and they do it so well! I think that alone shows people that if you have an open mindset, learning anything can be easy but you can’t look for it to be easy.
Hi Britanica,
you are right that many times children learn a new language quite quickly when they move to a new country. Meanwhile their parents can struggle with a language. Some parents learn it and some don’t. Then people take a conclusion: Adults are not so good language learners as kids. But the truth is that adults can learn a new language even faster than kids if they know what they are doing.
There was, for example, very famous study made in Haifa University which showed that adults can learn a new language faster thank kids. My own and many others’ people experience shows the same.
The reason that children learn languages faster is usually because they have an open mind they are not afraid of making mistakes. When I ask my 4-year-old niece to speak some French, she starts speaking even though she would know only 1 or 0 words. When I ask an adult to do the same, he just replies, “I can’t.” Erase that t and say, “I CAN!” 😉
Wish you all the best!
It’s interesting to note that young children can easily learn a language cause they live in a world of fun. Therefore, that’s been noted as the best time for people to learn. However, though, adults have a much more difficult time with “fun”, so their language learning attempts are often a struggle. Anyway, immersion software, of course, can help out with the situation and maybe reverse it.
Hi Jyy,
yeah, many times kids learn a new language faster than adults because they don’t fear the failure so much. But if adults learn how to manage their fear of failure and practice diligently, they’ll learn much faster than children.
I must confess that you talked to me directly in this article about the easy ways of learning a new language. I have always had that fear that learning a new language can such a daunting task.
This is the sole reason I could not put much interest during my secondary school days when French was taught in our classes than with the mind that learning how to speak a foreign language could be really hard for me.
Thank you for lifting my spirit with this post on the ways I can use to learn a foreign language in an exciting manner.
Hi Henry,
I’m very glad to hear that my post inspired you and lifted you up!
I guess you already checked out my tips for learning French.
I did and I found the sites exciting, but the issue I’m having is that of funds which I’m looking how to raise as I set out to learning a new language. It’s not easy, but I’m trying to save up for the goal.
You can use, for example, Francais Authentique, Duolingo and Italki for completely free. In other words, you need $0 to become a fluent in French online.
@Roope
I’m quite honored to be part of this great family of language are easy blog. I’ve learnt so much as the various ways that I can get better at speaking other languages. I should check out the sites you just mentioned and see how I’m going to get better with speaking French.
I’m glad to hear that 🙂
Here in our place, Philippines, English is the most used foreign language. One of the major Factor is the influenced of the Americans in our culture. In every plastic of crackers there is a English notes, “chocolates, taxi etc…. even the kids living in rural part of our country they know a little English language but not grammatically correct.
Our term here in the Philippines for not grammatically correct is “English carabao”. Truly that learning English or any language around the world is not that easy. It is true like what sir says that if we are persistent to learn you can learn, nothing is hard if you have a heart to learn.
Always remember always make a room for improvement in our life.
I like Filipino people. You have a great reputation in the whole world. People always say that Filipinos are friendly and they recommend visiting in the Philippines. I haven’t yet been there but most likely I’ll visit there in 2018.
Hello sir,
Nice to hear that compliment from you sir, I appreciate it so much. If you visit us here in the Philippines, try to visit “cabongaoan beach” it is awesome white sand beach sir. I’m sure you will like that place.
I checked cabongaoan beach on Google and it looks amazing. It feels that there are so many “paradise beaches” on Asia. Definitely need to come there in the near future.