Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps

Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps Learning a new language can be an emotional roller coaster.Youll hit plenty of highsâ€"now were going to help you avoid the lows.At first, theres something magical about the newness of it all.The new sounds.  The new words.  The new culture youre becoming immersed in, whether youre at home or abroad.  Its pure ecstasy.But then you hit a wall.  You realize that after those first few days of fun that its beginning to be a slog. Youre barely moving forward, or at least thats how it feels.Youve got no real direction, little structure and youre just trying to conquer that burly, expansive language by pure force of will. What was once fun is now intimidating.This cycle of feelings is normal for any language learner or anyone whos studying anything. There are times when our knowledge seems to rise effortlessly upward, like a  Chinese lantern balloon in the night sky. And then there are times when our progress plateaus out, like a fatigued runner midway up a hill who is too exhausted  climb any higher.For someone trying to tackle a new language though this can be terrifying. Theres no sign that language learning will ever be as fun as when you started and you might not be aware of the steps to take to make sure you keep learning at a quick pace.Thats where this post comes in. Outlined below is a rough road map for planning your venture into language learning.  Because everyone is unique and inevitably wants to emphasize different parts of the language, its difficultâ€"if not impossibleâ€"to make a plan that works for everyone. But if you follow these general points you should be well on your way to earning bragging rights for your foreign language skills. Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps1. Plan, plan, planFirst things first. Youre going to want to lay out your goals on paper.These goals should incorporate all of the four language skills: Speaking, listening, reading and writing. The amount of time or effort you spend on each one will vary dep ending on your personal preferences, learning goals and learning style, but its a good idea to include them all since they help to reinforce each other.It doesnt have to be too much. If all you want to do is converse with people you meet, then writing an essay every day is probably overkill, but keeping a journal where you write a few sentences a day will go a long way.In addition to these four main language skills you should make sure to tackle supporting skills, which are the backbone of language. Im talking about things like grammar, vocab and pronunciation. You can do separate exercises with these or try to roll them into your work on the four language skills. For example, you might ask a Skype language partner to correct you whenever you make a pronunciation mistake while having a conversation with her.Learning the four language skills plus grammar, vocab and pronunciation can take up a lot of time, so its best to rotate them if you  dont have the luxury of being able to study the whole day long. For instance, on Monday you could study vocab for an hour and then read for an hour. By doing so, youve hit on one of the core language skills (reading) and a key supporting skill (vocabulary). Your vocab learning will be reinforced by your reading and vice versa. Then on Tuesday you could mix it up with pronunciation (supporting skills) and listening practice (core language skill).And dont give short shrift to those supporting skills. If you need to, streamline your study habits for them and make sure you get in some studying for at least one of them each day. By streamlining Im talking about good old flashcards combined with some newfangled spaced repetition.  Well talk about vocab below, but for grammar you can try sentence mining and for pronunciation try writing  a difficult word to pronounce on one side of a card and the IPA pronunciation on the other.To make sure that you accomplish your goals take some time to read over what it is that defines a SMART goa l.  If you set clear, measurable goals with deadlines, youll be a lot more likely to make headway than with a wishy-washy Ill do whatever I can.2. Build your foundationThe first thing youll probably want to focus on is memorizing some basic vocab and common phrases.For vocab, try to find a list of the hundred most commonly used words in the language you want to learn. In the English language the hundred most common words account for 50% of language use.  With a couple hours of work, youll be understanding half the words coming out of the mouth of anyone speaking your new language!As for phrases, you can either use one of those nifty travel books that includes a list of useful phrases, use a site like Memrise  where you can find courses that people have created to memorize phrases, or create your own deck of phrase flashcards with software like Anki.3. Language skills, activate!New language learners often have a tendency to study vocab and grammar and then not really use it for much. Its intimidating to speak to other people when youre just starting out, and foreign texts often just look like a jumble of characters.However, once youve got some studying hours under your belt its essential to activate those skills. By activate I mean put them into practice with a strong focus on writing and speaking. These two skills are the productive skills. You need to produce language with your knowledge. If you can get a grip on these, that means you really know something.If youre listening or reading you can half-know a word and still understand the sentence as a whole. But if you need to use that word in speech or write it down then youre forced to really understand how it should be used.In order to make sure you activate the things that youve been studying there are a couple of things you can do.When youre doing speaking practice you can use conversation topics that steer your dialogue towards what youve been learning.To get in some writing practice, you can try to write out a story, blog post, journal entry or anything else using the grammar and vocab youve learned. Preferably it should be profane, bizarre, erotic, eccentric, deranged, etc. Basically anything that will make new language stick in your mind.4. Let your passion burn with the fire of a thousand eruptionsMotivation is one of the key factors in being a good language learner, so be sure to have some good reasons why you think you really  need to learn the language. And to pile motivation on top of motivation, always stay on the lookout for new sources of inspiration.This could mean joining a volunteer group where your new language becomes essential, as it might be if you were teaching English to immigrants.Another option could be inventing a project that requires your new language. Maybe translating your favorite novel is a bit beyond your abilities at this point, but if you have younger relatives, why not try translating childrens books for them to read? Or you could simply sign up for a n officially recognized test like the JLPT for Japanese or the TOPIK for Korean. Any one of these options would help, and if you combine them then youll really be cooking with gas.5. Become a new youIm an INFJ. What are you?If you know what Im talking about you probably have your own four-letter characterization of your personality forever burnt into your mind. For those of you who dont know, these letters come from the Myers-Briggs personality test which has become quite popular despite a lack of scientific evidence to support it.In fact, personality is much more malleable than most of us think and is strongly shaped by what we believe about ourselves. This is good because learning a new language may require some personality changes for a least a few of us. Learning a language means allowing yourself to be open to constant criticism and willing to say whatever comes to your mind, even if its not perfect. Thats the key. Being sociable and willing to make mistakes.If this sounds diff icult, take it one step at a time. You can try to be less of a perfectionist in your native language first, which may seem less frightening. Or you could try meditation,  which has been shown to reduce neuroticism over time. Whatever suites your personalityfor the moment.6. Pulling out all the stopsIn order to really take your learning to the next level take some time to learn about new technology and techniques that will help immerse you in your language. For starters theres the classic change-the-language-of-all-your-electronic-devices trick as well as the spaced repetition memorization technique.Other favorites include language learning apps such as Duolingo and the aforementioned Memrise. Then theres also an extension for Google Chrome that will change just a few words on each page to the language youre trying to learn so its not too intimidating. And of course theres FluentU! Youll have the ability to select a video in the language of your choice from an extensive library, incl uding subtitles in the target language, explanations for unknown vocab, audio pronunciations and active learning tools.7. Improve your study habitsDespite spending years and years of our lives in the school system being forced to study, many of us have never seriously considered how to study effectively. Thankfully weve got science to direct our pursuits.What do these studies show? Mostly that taking some simple actions can have clear impacts on how well we learn. For instance, if you just switch the room where you study every now and then it will help you retain words you want to memorize. And again, if you just switch the skills youre working on every now and then, provided theyre at least somewhat related, it will help you improve more than just honing in on one skill for several hours at a time.While it may seem like were getting more work done when we sit in one place and focus on one task the whole day, the reality is quite different. This uses so much willpower that its harde r to get stuff done. So remember: Variety is key.8. Get some sleepI know, I know. Youre busy. Youve got things to do. Theres no way I can work all day, see my friends, study a language and get as much sleep as I need, you say.But its worth the extra effort to plan out your day down to the fine details to ensure you get enough sleep. The early part of our sleep cycle is the part that helps our brain with learning languages and lack of sleep has been shown to hurt students even when they are using that time to study.  If youre serious about learning, then sleep has got to be up there on the priorities.Youll finally be able to rest easy at night after laying down your road map to language learning success.Sure, languages can sometimes seem like big, scary monsters that resist all our attempts to get them under our control.But thats just an illusion.With the right frame of mind, some tools, your passion and a lot of persistence, that new language will be your tame little pet before you know it. And One More ThingIf you want the ultimate in language learning support from the newbie stage through fluency, youve got to check out FluentU.FluentU takes real-world videos like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks, and turns them into language learning experiences, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse Screen.FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.Interactive transcript for Carlos Baute song.You can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentUs learn mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% p ersonalized experience by recommending videos and examples.Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet  or, better yet,  download the FluentU app from  the iTunes store  or Google Play store.