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How To Become Fluent in Any Language

A How-to Guide to Surpass the Struggle of Learning a Foreign Language

By TwinklePublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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You have a hard time learning a language? It could be for work, a trip abroad, or even for self interest. Learning a foreign language to the fluent level is known to be extremely hard and to some impossible even with help from school or immersion. Fear not, the majority of people who fail to learn a foreign language simply do not have a good learning plan. If you follow the guidelines below, you will definitely be on your way to become fluent very quickly.

So you have been learning a foreign language for years without results or you are a new learner, here is what you should do.

Get a good grammar book.

First off, you need a grammar book to learn the basics. Without it you will not be able to form sentences correctly. The grammar book is there to help you understand how the language is built from the core. Do not neglect this step as it will be the foundation of your studying journey. There are a lot of books out there so beware of some. You want your grammar book to have a lot of explanations on grammar but also to have good examples and advice. You might want to look for grammar books who have ''Integrated Course'' mentioned on it. Even if you are not learning on your own, an integrated course will show you very good basics and be used as a good self-teaching book.

Get a good work book.

A grammar book will certainly teach you a lot but you need to practice with a good workbook that can offer you sustainable exercises. In order to do so, you should look first if there is a workbook offered with the grammar book you are thinking of purchasing. This will help you to learn faster. Most of the time you should be able to find the two together. Although, depending on the language you choose to learn, you might not find a workbook very easily. You should research on Amazon or even write to some schools who sell their language workbooks. Make sure to find a workbook of the same level as your grammar book as the exercises have to be relevant to the content you are studying. Then you should be set to have a good foundation for learning.

Memorise, memorise, and memorise.

Yes, there is no escape to this one. The time consuming task of memorising verbs, vocabulary, and expressions. This step will increase your reflexive memory. As you practice with your exercises, you will already be seeing some new words that you have not seen before. Take the time to write them down in a notebook and memorise them. This step is often neglected which leads to students having a lack of vocabulary when they try to write or speak. To memorise verbs you should be able to print or even buy conjugation books as it will make it easier to get an idea of all the verbs that exist in your target language.

Play games!

You read this right. Play games! Playing games to practice a language is very effective as it takes you out of your studying routine to actually put in good use what you have learned and also help you to learn new words or expressions. It could be a board game, online game, or even an app on your phone. You could even order a traditional game from the country of which you are learning the language. Some apps that are very fun and effective are Duolingo, Memrise, and Anki. Each of them are different and effective. Beware, they can be very addictive.

Watch TV and listen to music.

Now this one has been around for a long time now, with good reason. This step helps you practice your listening skills. It's good to know how to write but what will happen when you want to speak and understand what others say? You will simply not understand a thing. That's why listening is very important in your learning process. Watching a movie for example will put you in a foreign context. Don't be discouraged though as people in movies can talk very quickly and have different accents. Keep that in mind. It is still a very good exercise to do. When you watch a movie, at first you will want to put the subtitles in your native tongue. After, you should put them in the same language that you are learning. This will help you associate the sound to the written words.

The same thing goes for the songs. Try to look for the lyrics online and research the words that you don't know in the dictionary. Again, just like with movies, you might have expressions or accents that might be hard to understand, but don't let yourself be discouraged by that fact.

Practice writing and speaking!

This step is actually one of the most important ones. The goal is to get fluent so you need to be able to speak properly to achieve this goal. Speaking is very hard to practice when the language that you are learning is not spoken in your country. That's why most people would recommend to have in immersion in another country for example. It is a very good thing to do but most of the time, if you are not having your immersion living with natives, it will be very hard to practice speaking. Sure, you will be able to practice at the grocery store or on certain occasions but not as often as needed. While doing an immersion abroad you should to everything to speak a lot with natives every day.

If immersion is not your thing or it is simply not possible for you to leave for months, you should most importantly get a private teacher who is a native speaker. The private teacher will be able to correct your mistakes when you speak and write. You might wonder ''Yeah, but why private? They are way too expensive.'' First, no not all of them are expensive but I will get to that in a moment. A private teacher will give you all of their attention compared to a classroom teacher who has more than one student to take care of. In a classroom full of students, it's not possible to practice speaking enough for them to reach fluency.

When you choose a private teacher, make sure they are native speakers of the language you are learning as some non-natives will most of the time have a foreign accent. Also, you want a teacher that will be able to talk to you about their culture, it makes the conversations you will have very interesting and relevant. Most private teachers in local schools are very expensive and are most often not native. If that is simply not in your budget, find a private teacher online which has lower fees. You can find good online private teachers by asking your friends and family if they know someone or on websites such as Italki.com, Verbling.com, Abctutor.com, and many more. Simply do some research online and you will find one.

Stay constant and don't give up!

Last but not least, stay constant. You want to be able to progress with your learning. If you do not have a proper learning schedule, you will forget what you have learned and learning your language will take way more time than you planned initially. On average, you should study a little bit every day and speak with a private teacher once a week. You are the one who decides your learning speed so take in consideration that the amount of time you put into studying will have an impact on how long it will take you to learn your foreign language.

Here were the steps to follow to become fluent in any language. Keep in mind that every body is different. Some people learn quicker than others. If you follow these steps success will come knocking at your door!

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Twinkle

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