3 Ways to Learn Any Language By Taking it Easy

Learning a foreign language is arguably one of the most rewarding things that people can do in their lifetime. Language learners stay healthy for longer, they’re more attractive, they earn more money.

There are over 6900 languages spoken in the world today, and in fact the World Economic Forum recently cited research showing that languages can be picked up at any age, and that bilingual workers and managers earn more in the workplace.

Learning languages is a smart thing to do, but a lot of people worry about whether or not it’s effective to learn a language without teachers, classroom, or in-country immersion.

How can you become organised, consistent, motivated, and effective as a language learner?

Full Disclosure: I Started as a Bad Self-Teacher

When I became a self-teacher, I had already learnt 5 foreign languages at school and university, and taken a postgraduate degree. I thought I was totally set for life as a language learner.

Safely supported by the structures of school, exams, language classes, I never really wondered what happens when you’ve got to think up your own routine.

After I left university, I took a job in international marketing. In my new job, nobody needed me to speak any other language than English. I still loved languages, and maintained my level in French after begging my employer to let me attend classes…but I was entirely dependent on those classes.

One day, a local teacher I knew decided to offer a single Polish class. I attended, loved what I learnt. The class never picked up enough students to become a course, and it was cancelled. So I decided I was going to “learn Polish” by myself. Simple!

That Polish class was in 2007, 10 years ago today. I consider it my first attempt at learning a language by myself. And I totally failed. I can’t say much more than “czesz, nie mowie po polsku” (and that means “hi, I don’t speak Polish”).

I can’t say it any other way: I was a bad language learner. My Polish project ended the way so many other people’s attempts end: I ran out of motivation and ideas after a few months. I didn’t know where to look for good materials. The language just fell off my radar.

If You Gave Up Before, You Haven’t Failed

At this point in language learning, many people feel that they have failed, or have “no aptitude for language learning”. But sadly, I already knew lots of languages. Aptitude wasn’t the problem. There must be something else I don’t know.

I didn’t really try another new language for a few years after that. I was interested, but had no need to learn…until my job started sending me to Kazakhstan: a country where English wasn’t the norm.

In Kazakhstan, I was surrounded by Cyrillic script and unusual sounds, and I totally wanted to talk to people. The radio, the maps, the street signs: Everything was in Russian (and Kazakh!). I felt like I just had to talk to more people in Russian.

So I did what I had not done for years: I started from absolute zero and I finally figured out “how to learn a language”.

Russian From Zero

Starting small was what mattered the most at this point. I didn’t need to be perfect, and I had to shake off any ideas about where I “should” be with my new languages. I bought the simplest, most encouraging book I could find: Russian in 10 minutes a day. And with this book, I found my first techniques of self-learning.

There were lots resources to play with: visual, aural and even kinaesthetic learning. There were even stickers and flashcards and role play ideas, giving me the kickstart I needed to feel entitled to discover my own style.

And slowly, I continued on my path and started learning the language. I didn’t get lost, and I didn’t “give up”. Instead, I developed language learning routines that put me head and shoulders above most friends I knew who studied in evening classes.

Learn How to Learn Languages With Ease

If you want to reap all those benefits of language learning that I mentioned at the start of this article, it’s important to learn how to learn. At some point, any group class will end and leave you with a cliff edge. The following tips will help you take things easy while growing your self-teaching skills.

Tip 1: Make it Just 10 Minutes a Day

Let’s not kid ourselves here: 10 minutes every day is not enough for you to learn a language “fluently” in under 2 years.

But what matters here is not how little you plan to study. This one is all about overcoming your internal resistance. If you feel like you have to study for 2 hours “or it won’t count”, you’re on your way to giving up too early. Instead, aim for the smallest possible effort, and make it consistent.

You’ll soon find yourself starting a 10-minute session that turns into an hour-long one.

If you want to get ahead in your language and build a simple language learning routine, try the Language Habit Tracker included in the Language Habit Toolkit. Simple system, monthly reviews, and you no longer have to worry about what counts.

Tip 2: Play

The best thing that happened to me when I started self-teaching languages was the flexibility that came with the “10 Minutes a Day” book. I had so many options: flashcards, images, role plays, stickers.

You will learn better when you break through your own limitations and shake up the routine every now and then.

Play around, dabble, try a new language or a new book, discard what you don’t need. It’s good to try out what experts recommend, but never feel like someone else’s path is the only way to do this.

The line here is this: If it’s not working for YOU, then it doesn’t work.

When you’ve played for a few weeks, use something like the “Your Month in Review” worksheet from the Language Habit Toolkit to find exactly what works for you and what you can safely discard.

Tip 3: Continue.

Looking back, persistence was one of the most significant actions on my way to becoming the multilingual person I am today. Had I stopped after that cliff edge of classes and exams, I would be on my way to average, knowing very little and regretting how much I have forgotten.

But if you continue on your language learning journey and make persistence one of your core values, you’ll never go wrong. You can forget a lot of what you learnt, but you cannot really go backwards!

It took me a while to hone these self-study skills, and nothing helps more than a good tracking routine. If you want to find out how to plan, track, and optimise your routine, check out the Language Habit Toolkit.

Do you love self-learning a language? How long have you been at it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Writing: The Magic Skill for Better Memory and Focus in Any Language

Writing in another language is so deep, focused and beneficial - think Deep Work by Cal Newport. It can be a little difficult to build a writing habit at first, I know. But with a clear focus on fluency and a few simple steps to break down your practice, this is not something you'll want to miss out on.

Do You Like Videos?

Check out my Fluent Friday video on this topic, click here to find it in my Facebook community.

So how should you effectively build the writing skill into your language learning routine? Let's jump right in and examine the best ways to get going.

And remember: As long as you're doing it, there's no way you're doing it wrong. (Click here to tweet this)

1. Practice At The Right Level

In case you've been focused on speaking practice and audio courses, you might not be familiar with writing routines yet. There are several levels you can use for getting started.

>>> Word Level Practice

My husband is a sporadic German learner who loves using apps, and recently I got him to try out Memrise in addition to Duolingo. The difference was surprising. Both offer a course for complete beginners, yet he quickly noticed that Memrise felt "a lot tougher, more like a challenge". There are several differences, but a key observation is that Memrise makes its users write their vocabulary words a lot more.

We cannot solve the problem of spelling without knowing something about how the rest of language works. (David Crystal)

Writing words makes you pay attention to spelling, to how the sounds connect and how pronunciation influences how a word looks. The coolest thing about core language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) is that you never practice one in isolation.

>>> Chunk and Sentence Level Practice

Done with words? Start putting them together! If you want to become that language expert who can say anything they like...if you want to break free from templates and stock sentences...nothing will be nicer than writing your own!

Start with simple gap filling exercises that you can find in any textbook, and then get creative! If you can write "good" into this gap, how else could the sentence look? What if there was a feminine word here?

Write your first small pieces, core sentences like a journalist: What happens when, why, how? Who is involved?

>>> Transcription Level Practice

Next it's time to start writing what you hear. For this method, you need a small and comprehensible audio source. Try a song, a short video clip with subtitles, or perhaps Glossika audio packages. This is important: There must be a correct (official) transcript that you can use as an answer key.

Listen to the recording and write down what you hear. Pause it as many times. Be as accurate as you can possibly be. And when you're done, it's the moment of truth: Check the answer key, analyze your mistakes, and correct what you've written.

My colleague Ron Gullekson has written a guide to transcription on Languagesurfer.com, which is worth bookmarking!

2. Use Writing To Boost Accuracy

You probably know that "fluency" is a tough one to define. For me, the following definition from Keith Johnson's book "An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching" sums it up best: Fluency is a mix of rapidity and accuracy in another language. So your speaking practice is giving you rapidity, and you need to boost your accuracy too.

In conversation and especially in speaking practice, you can get away with a lot. The purpose of your speaking practice is to keep moving, to make yourself more flexible and recover swiftly from forgotten words and wrong grammar. Speaking practice is about developing that rapid sense of "fluency", of handling a real chat in another language.

In writing practice, there is no place to hide. This is where you train your accuracy, the linguistic skill that you need for true fluency, confidence, and ultimately for coming anywhere near the level that you dream of achieving.

3. Write By Hand, Boost Your Memory

Working with pen and paper offers you lots of extra advantages when it comes to organizing and tracking your language progress. There are the simple benefits, like tracking visible progress on paper and resting your eyes after many screen hours.

But even beyond those things, handwriting is also scientifically proven to aid memory many times over. Do you keep forgetting vocab? Get yourself a handwritten list. Need to nail down core phrases for your next conversation? Jot them on a card.

For more details on why this works, check out The Miraculous Benefits of Keeping a Language Notebook. And make sure you hop on the Fluent Newsletter today so you're the first to know when my brand new language tracker goes live and you can print & use it at home!

4. Get The Most Out of Every Error

Since writing is a practice that really brings out your hidden weaknesses, it's easy to abandon your practice after you get the first feedback. I feel it all the time when someone writes a friendly comment on my Instagram feed, correcting my Welsh. It's embarrassing!

If you're trying to learn another language, you'll already know one thing. Embarrassment is not just necessary. It is WELCOME. Start learning from your mistakes in this simple way: After you receive a correction, go back and rewrite what you have previously written. Make that text as pure and lovely as you intended. Heck, go ahead and post it online!

I find that correcting my mistakes in writing is one of the most satisfying things in language learning. It's rewarding because you can feel yourself learning.

5. Aim For Exams

Writing big, long, connected pieces of prose is a very advanced language skill. If you're able to put together a postcard, a simple letter or a short description of something, congratulations. You're a language learner who's mastered everything you need for core communication.

To grow your writing practice, my top advice is to work with the exam sets for levels B1 and upwards. These exams get more demanding for language writers, while the lower levels are too easy to master and wouldn't help you catch all your errors.

Related post: Achieve More With a Language Test (No Matter If You Need It or Not)

For corrections of advanced writing, try a good and specialised italki tutor, a translator from ProZ, or an academic proofreader.

The Bottom Line

You might not enjoy the slow pace of writing practice at first, but that's because writing in another language is a routine that delivers real focus. Focus takes effort, but in the end, you will start developing a huge sense of progress and achievement in your target language. Your core skills will appreciate the little lift you're giving them, and those new memory connections are invaluable.

For more about core skills check out my book Fluency Made Achievable> >

Do you already have a writing practice? What are some of your best tips? Share them below or hop over to our Facebook group to learn more!

Language Practice: Why You Don't Need A Native Speaker

The native speaker is often considered an absolute holy grail of language learning: They naturally know how language is used, they speak it perfectly and of course you will be immersed in your target language if you speak to one. But today, I'm writing to make you re-think your dependence!

Have you ever found one of the following problems when practicing with a native speaker:

• It's difficult to understand regional accents
• You ask them a question, and they respond with "it just is like this"
• They always want to practice your language with you
• You run out of topics after a few hours of discussing family, hobbies and weather

What if you have NO native speaker to talk to? Does that mean you will stop learning a language?

Why You Do Not Need A Native Speaker For Practice

In this blog, I'm not advocating that you avoid native level input and natural sources of your target language. They are what makes it come alive! By all means, make full use of Italki, social media and your own network to find a good language buddy, but please note the following:

You don't actually need a native speaker to practice with. This is so important to understand. You just need someone who's good enough or a little better than you. Sometimes it even helps not to have the native speaker, because a non-native speaker has learnt your target language too and can explain grammar and other problems more easily. Natives often don't even know which bits are hard for non-native speakers.

Why Practicing Online Isn't For Everyone

In addition to this point, some people just don't connect so well with the Skype or phone communication method. As an online language tutor, I work on Skype all the time, and it's a different to meeting in person - some of my students love it, some find it odd at the start. For some, I can just tell that it's not the right medium. So if you're In fact, the teenager who will practice his school French with you might actually be a better option than the French native speaker that you meet online.

Moral of the story: Make your own rules for what works for you.

What To Do About It

My advice would be to try a tutor, and that's just because:

1. They work hard to make sure you understand, by reducing their own dialects and breaking sentences down to where you need them
2. They will stick with you when you run out of the first 3 conversation topics with a language partner and research topics you need to talk about
3. They won't expect you to spend any time teaching them your own language

Personally I learnt English before the internet was everywhere and still got from "pretty good" to "pretty fluent", through being taught by German natives and spending a lot of spare time listening to Pulp all the time and talking to myself. But I cannot imagine having done it without teachers. When your target language is German,

I think it's even more important that you find native speakers who understand your needs. German is that much easier to learn when you can make sense of the rules - and our spoken language is different from the grammar books. Trust yourself most of all, but if you have no native speaker around you please remember: It's not going to stop you.

How To Bring In Native-Like Practice

Of course, working without a native person to learn a language does not mean it would be wise to cut out all native-language content. When learning a language, it's important to know how it's spoken and to get a sense of the place where it's spoken.

You want to hear the sounds, the idioms, you want to know that there is a point to what you're doing here. In all learning, it's boring when it's just theory.

To get native-level practice into your studies before you go hunting for speakers all over town, try bringing in audio resources or even TV. It's easy to watch television in other languages or use cool software like Yabla.

And if you have regular access to native speakers, don't avoid them. Go out of your way to say even small things like good morning, and ask them "How do I say this in your language?" You'll soon find that every one of them is a small ambassador for their own language, just like you are for your own. And what's better than sharing?

How Soon Do You Work With Native Speakers?

Has it ever held you back that you can't find the native speaker? Or has shyness stopped you from talking to natives?

Leave your comment below to tell me more!

Do You Need a Native Speaker To Practice a Language? (Podcast Episode 48)

Hello and welcome to Episode 48 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast!

We started off our episode with some insights into what's going on with our language learning - in a new format! It's called the good, the bad and the struggling. Listen in and tell us what you think!

What's your Good, Bad and Struggling?

We'd love to hear from you guys on this one. If you want to share what's good, bad and difficult in your languages right now, send your feedback to us. We read every one and your language news could make it to a show intro in the future.

Simply do one of the following:

• go on Skype and leave a voice message for fluentlanguage
• email us at podcast@fluentlanguage.co.uk - include a voice memo from your phone if you can, so we can feature your voice on the show

Topic: You Do Not Need a Native Speaker For Practice

This one had a controversial statement at the heart of it, and Lindsay and I debated the merits of hunting, finding, selecting, working with and learning with native speakers.

So, do you need a native speaker to learn a language?

Or can you learn a language just as well if you don't have a native speaker to practice with?

One of us argued that native speakers are almost "fetishized" in the world of language learning -- listen in to find out which one and see where our debate ended up.

Some Of The Arguments We Made

1. A Tutor Can Be Better

Tutors tend to know what learning is like, and they see people learn all the time. They know the grammar structures, the vocabulary you're looking for, and they're ready to help you out and set you up for success. So for a language beginner, working with the tutor could be way more successful than working with any native speaker.

The native language of your tutor doesn't matter - it's all about what they can teach you, and that their personality allows you to blossom.

2. Don't Procrastinate Through Searching

If you're always looking for a native tutor to practice with, could it be that you'd hold back when practicing with non-natives? Before you start setting irrelevant standards in your language learning, it may be time to consider what is most relevant.

Waiting to find the perfect native speaker to practice with can become its own form of procrastination.

3. Find The Native At The Perfect Time

When you're feeling shaky about your speaking speed, accuracy and fluency, the native conversation can become a struggle. There's no point in getting yourself frustrated. Instead, consider working towards that natural conversation and a feeling of it being "effortless" - the native speaker can become a goal you set yourself, not something you put in your way as a hurdle.

4. It's Too Vague To Have A Vague Goal

A "15 minute conversation with a native speaker" is a goal that you may find inspiring, but it's a tough one to put into reality. Try and go about this goal more specifically by putting in milestones, things that will happen on the way to that conversation, and will pull it into sharper focus.

I can't count the amount of times I've found an advanced speaker of my target language, and then we ran out of things to say within a few hours. You need to find someone who wants to help you on the path, but also someone you have a rapport with. And once you've got that covered, it's a milestone.

Links and Further Reading

• Episode 22 of the Podcast: Tutor Hunting Tips
• 9 Questions To Discuss With Your Language Tutor
• Language Practice: Why You Don't Need A Native Speaker
• The book Becoming Fluent

Five Tips For Beating Embarrassment When Speaking Another Language

We've all been there: You're up for half an hour of speaking practice in your target language, and right after you say hello, you notice the first mistake tumble out. Not good. Now they think you're an idiot, and you've forgotten the word for "bread" and while you're racking your brain that pause becomes longer and your cheeks are glowing red. Time for the ground to open up!

If all that sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. Millions of language learners experience embarrassment when it comes to speaking practice. Especially when you're trying out your language in another country, it's almost impossible to feel prepared.

My personal threshold for embarrassment seems to be pretty high in most social situations, I have also experienced that crippling sense of looking truly foolish.

I won't get into that one time on a Russian airplane where the air hostess shouted incomprehensible things at me, I smiled throughout with lots of "da, da"...and later found out that they had been debating whether I could safely fly considering they thought I was pregnant. The shame!

But fear not, I've got some good advice to share with you today.

If you're ready to start saying no to embarrassment when speaking another language, here are four tips to help you feel better:

1) Prepare Your Speaking Partner

Chances are you are already pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone by speaking in another language. There is no need to add further discomfort to your challenge by talking to someone who is unlikely to support you. Strangers at the ticket counter, crazy air hostesses and even strict teachers are not the right people to choose for conversation practice when you are suffering from social anxiety or embarrassment.

Instead, try and hold on to what makes you feel comfortable right now. It helps to share your worries with your speaking partner before you start having to speak your target language. If it's a tutor, this will prompt them to be more patient and hold back on the corrections. If it's a friend, it can remind them to slow down and let you build your sentences slowly.

This technique of preparing your partner will help both of you feel more at ease, and ready to tackle this challenge together.

2) Focus On Your Breath

When anxious sensations take hold, your body responds by tensing up, raising your heartbeat and even causing you to sweat and blush. That's the last thing you need when you are already worried about the many ways in which you're about to lose face.

Instead of freaking out about all the words you remember or forget, the best course of action is a simple calming exercise.

Focus on something that is real and constant, for example your own breath. Breathe in slowly for 4 seconds, retain your breath for 2 seconds if you can, and enjoy a long and restorative out breath for 8 seconds. Breathing exercises may not feel like the right tool for a foreign language panic, but you'll be surprised at how much language skill returns once that mental stormcloud is allowed to pass.

For more tips and techniques that help with overcoming stress and anxiety, try the SAM app on your smartphone. It's a little toolkit of instant self-help.

3) Build Up Your Filler Vocabulary

Filler sentences are a wonderful tool when you are getting ready for speaking practice. They're usually uncomplicated, short, easy to remember and very effective. Think of filler sentences as the extra cushioning that is built into conversations so each speaker gets some time to relax. In English, these are lines like "hold on", "let me think for a second" or "let me think".

As a little treat for the German learners among you, I've collected a bunch of fillers and stock sentences in the "Make Your German Sound Amazing" booklet, which you can download for free.

But what should you do if you haven't understood half of what your speaking partner just said?

You can buy yourself a little time by repeating the last words of their sentence, stretched out with some "Hm" sounds. This may tide you over until you can remember how to proceed, for example by asking them to repeat what they just said. It's perfectly acceptable for you to control some aspects of the conversation even if you don't know your target language very well yet.

4) Practice

Even if you follow every single one of the tips above, that feeling of embarrassment is unlikely to just dissolve into thin air. You may still feel discomfort in new situations, and it's still embarrassing to make mistakes. There's no way around this one: At some point, your only way is forward and right through the bad feelings.

Luckily, there is plenty of reward waiting for you on the other side, as you realize that your mistakes and awkward pauses did not cause the ground to open up and swallow you whole.

If you want to push your boundaries and go for speaking practice in a brand new situation, why not take advantage of your next trip abroad? We've got plenty of travel language tips on Episode 41 of the podcast.

Even better, put yourself into an immersion experience with other learners, for example in the Fluent German Retreat led by yours truly. These retreats aim to create a speaking environment that pushes your boundaries without embarrassment, helping you to realize how good you actually are.

It's Not Easy, But It's Worth It

These tips are just a few examples of the many small steps you can take to keep yourself from suffering crippling embarrassment in speaking practice. Keep yourself reminded that this is not easy, and the fact that you are even trying is a testament to your bravery.

And I promise you: The rewards of speaking a foreign language are just as great as you've imagined.

Have You Dealt With Embarrassment and Anxiety About Speaking?

If you've got a story you would like to share, go ahead and share it in the comments section for this post. I'd love to hear your own tips and experiences.