Strategies for learning a new language

Some of them are even fun

Although I enjoy learning languages, I know that I’m in a very small minority. Nevertheless, if you’re really thinking about living in a non-English speaking country, you really do need to learn the language.

There are too many things that you can’t do without language competence. You won’t be able to read or listen to local media sources, meaning that you may not know about important things happening around you. You won’t be able to watch local television, which is a wonderful resource for getting to know the everyday culture. There will be stores and restaurants and entire neighborhoods or regions that are closed to you, simply because of the language. More pragmatically, it will be much more difficult to deal with the necessary administrative paperwork that you will have to face as an immigrant in another country. Plus, there are really practical things like getting your car fixed where it’s pretty important to be able to explain what the problem is and to understand how much it will cost.

Since learning the language will take time, you should start this process first, even before you do your first two or three month visit (see previous Moving Abroad post).

I’ve learned languages in my 30s and 40s and I’m continuing to learn new ones in my 50s, so don’t believe that you are too old to learn. Yes, it’s easier when you’re younger. In my teens, I could learn new vocabulary after encountering it one or two times; now it takes five or six times, but with practice and patience it’s still rewarding.

Here are the strategies that work well for me:

I always start with the Pimsleur language audio lessons if they are available. Paul Pimsleur was a linguist, and the program he designed (which is the same sequence of vocabulary no matter which language you choose) is designed to efficiently and effectively teach you the vocabulary you need for daily interactions. It’s an audio program, with half-hour lessons that you listen to, repeating phrases and answering questions aloud. You can often find the audio cds at your local public library, or you can subscribe online for a monthly fee.

The lessons emphasize greetings, asking for directions, ordering in restaurants, public transport and driving, numbers and time, and so on. Most importantly, the vocabulary is iterative: designed so that you come back to the same phrases repeatedly with longer time intervals between repetitions. This is the best learning strategy overall, not just for languages. The focus on repeated, produced (i.e. you have to come up with the phrase and say it) language is really great, and it provides both a base for communication and an excellent start with pronouncing things correctly. If Pimsleur is not available, I use another similar staring point, like Michel Thomas for Portuguese.

After I can manage basic phrases by finishing at least Pimsleur level 1 (which is 30 lessons), I get a basic textbook – used ones that are a year or two out of date are very cheap online. If you have never taken even an intro class in a second language you may want to do that first. Which language doesn’t matter: the point is that you need to learn to THINK about what you’re saying in grammatical terms, which none of us do in English. For example, we automatically conjugate verbs in English: we say “I go” but “she goes,” and we would never mix those forms up.

But you have to think about conjugation when you’re learning a new language, and at some point you will have to start memorizing them – and that’s where an introductory level textbook is really useful. It will explain which verbs are conjugated in which ways, which verbs are irregular (meaning you just have to memorize them), how the past tense is formed, and so on. People all over the world have to do this in English: my stepson spent months having us quiz him on the list of more than 100 irregular verbs that he had to memorize in 9^th grade: eat, ate, eaten; sing, sang, sung; fall, fell, fallen. (A regular verb in English is walk: I walk, I walked, I had walked. Be we don’t say “I eated” or “I had ate.”)

Textbooks are also useful because they introduce new vocabulary by category (and usually with accompanying pictures), which makes words easier to learn and to recall. One chapter will help you learn all the parts of the body, another words for clothing, a third food and drink, and so on. If the textbook has basic sample dialogues in each chapter, I read them aloud and memorize them. I also continue with the Pimsleur lessons if there are any – depending on the language, there may be one, two, or three levels.

Keep in mind that the best way to memorize new information is to write it down, repeatedly. Writing out vocabulary lists is very helpful. Another excellent tool for learning vocabulary and sentences is the Anki app that you can install on your phone. You can create your own vocabulary lists, or download “decks” from the extensive library that already exists. You can have flash cards that are single words or whole sentences – I prefer the latter. Anki is iterative (you come back to vocabulary at increasingly long intervals) and interactive: you decide how well you know each word or sentence, and how long before you want to see it again.

After these two steps (an extensive audio program and a first semester textbook) I try to go and immerse myself for two weeks to a month in a country that speaks the language. There’s nothing quite as motivating as having to actually use the language if you want to eat!

Next, I use the conversationexchange.com website. It’s free, and the idea is that you help someone learn English and they help you with their language. Ideally, you can find people to meet up with in person, but if not there are options for Skype and similar online tools. The principle is simple: for however much time you have (let’s say an hour), you will talk for the first half (30 minutes) in one language and the second half in the other. Your job when the conversation is in your language is to correct mistakes and offer suggestions for clearer expression.

As your comprehension grows, you can start watching movies or tv shows in your target language. Netflix allows you to search for titles by language – look for Browse by Languages. This doesn’t work for all languages (I just noticed that there is no Russian or Greek, for example), but there are 29 options.

When you are relatively new to the language, start by watching five minutes with English subtitles so you know what is happening and being said, then go back and watch the same five minutes two or three times in the original language with subtitles in the original language. This helps you build vocabulary for both speaking and reading. After doing this for weeks or months, when you get to the point where you find that you know most of the words, start pausing and writing down the words that are new vocabulary. And eventually, you can try skipping the English subtitle stage and see how that goes. Millions of people around the world are using Friends to learn English: see this article if you have access to the New York Times, with the subheader that reads “Language teachers stay the show is a near-perfect amalgam of easy-to-understand English and real-life scenarios that feel familiar even to people who live worlds away from the West Village.”

Books are next. These are more difficult because you don’t have images that provide context clues. One of the best options is to start with a book that you’ve already read in English and know well. Many people use Harry Potter, for example, despite the magical vocabulary that will never be useful in real life situations. I found this Harlequin Romance translated into Italian on a free bookshelf in Naples that was perfect: the language is very simple (not literary), and it is very obvious where the plot is going.

When you are starting out, try not to be hung up on words you don’t know – just keep reading. Set yourself a realistic goal of one or two pages a day, and do your best to make it consistent.

The final level is reading newspapers and listening to the radio. In both cases, there are few or no visual context cues, and the subject changes much more frequently than it does in a book. Don’t be frustrated if you can’t do this until you have already been living in your new country for a few years. It really does take time. I met someone a few years ago who thought that he was going to learn French just by constantly having French talk radio on in the background. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that starting at the most difficult level was never going to work…

Let’s start a conversation in the comments. What language do you want to learn and where are you in your progress? Have you used any strategies that I have not mentioned?