How to Learn a New Language?

The book titled "The Brain Fitness" written by Rita Carter suggested some helpful exercises to learn new languages including:

1. "Become a polyglot"

2. "Count on it"

3. "What's the time?"

4. Flashcards

5. Q&A

6. Body parts

7. "Hangman"

8. "The picnic game"

These are all good activities for a beginner to learn new vocabulary and get accustomed to the native speakers' fluency.

My mother tongue is Vietnamese. I started learning English from the age of six. When I studied in the USA, I also took one Spanish class. In addition, at the end of 2021, I began to learn German. This language has a reputation as 'a nightmare' for linguistic learners. Therefore, I just wanted to try it out in my spare time. Based on personal experiences, I can summarise my learning-new-language strategies for you as a reference:

1. Identify your purposes: Once you know why you want to start learning this new language, you will be willing to commit your time and put efforts into it. I am honest with you, learning a new language is a real challenge! No motivation, no passion, so no doubts that you will give up!

2. Learning resources: There are several ways to find resources:

• In-class or virtual courses: You can look them up on Google to find the local or international institutions that offer these types of classes. If you prefer more face-to-face interactions, you should sign up for classes at language centre; if you need something more flexible, and self-paced, online or hybrid options might be more suitable for you.

• Library: I believe that the librarians will show you different books, and CDs, DVDs, they have at their location. Additionally, they can also walk you through the process how to access to free online language resources as well as connect you to different clubs that host linguistic events at public library.

• Books and dictionaries: These traditional ways are never out of date. You can borrow from local libraries or anyone you know who has them, buy brand-new or used from bookstores, or order from Amazon and different online stores.

Suggestion for English speakers: IELTS practice exam, OALD (Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary)

• Apps: This method is pretty common for people to learn new languages nowadays. Mostly, I downloaded "Words" game to entertain and pick up some new vocabularies.

Suggestion: I personally do not use apps very frequently. However, these two apps are pretty good for language exchange: Tandem, and Busuu. Duolingo is pretty popular to learn vocabulary on a daily basis.

• Social media: Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. share a ton of different tips and tricks to learn new languages.

• Language groups/ clubs/ organisations: They can be on or off campus. You can search, for instance, "German speaking groups in Portland", Google will present several options that matches your expectation.

• Netflix movies, TV shows, series, music, traffic signs, advertisement boards, or anything, as long as you pay attention to words and learn them by heart.

3. Making mistakes and be embarrassed: Imperfection stresses people out. Unfortunately, that's how I learn. I threw myself out there, forgot about embarrassment, so that I would have more chances to interact with native speakers and let them correct my errors.

4. Don't stress out about grammars: It is hard to function another language's grammar correctly in a short period of time. Therefore, be patient with it. Keep speaking and listening to advanced learners or native speakers, or read books, magazines, articles, etc. then notice how they structure their sentences.

5. Do exercises: This is how I improve the quantity of the vocabularies and quality of grammatical comprehension.

Suggestion for German learners: Vhs-lernportal is a free platform that offers comprehensive, simple, and fun German lessons with multiple levels.

6. Write down new words then stick them next to bed or anywhere that you can see them everyday

7. Set goals for yourself: For instance, five new words per day; or one grammatical point each week, etc.

8. Do not be too harsh on yourself, keep it fun

Those are my tips I would like to share with you. Good luck with your learning journey! I hope you will enjoy and master a new language soon!

Reference:

Carter, Rita. The Brain Fitness Book. DK publishing. 2021. ISBN 978-0-7440-2837-9.