Hey Steemers,
I am very happy to share with you stemmers some tricks how can learn different new languages and going out your comfort zone. I hope you like it and you could share your tricks too. But remember, everyone has his own tricks:
Quick background on me:
I grow up in the beautiful Lugano speaking italian and french thanks to my diverse family. (https://steemit.com/introduceyourhometown/@andreolf/introduce-your-hometown-lugano-switzerland) . then we moved to zurich before college so i had the opportunity to get in a new vibrant german community. Then the spanish came with the time on vacation/friends and colleagues. I was always fascinated by the brazilian culture and i live near Rio for a year and that s was greats, open me new horizons on culture, languages and work. Here is still my introducemyself (https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@andreolf/1-fellow-steemians-hello-everyone-my-name-is-francesco-1-aloha-gruetzi-hola-bonjour-ciao)
And now to the big tricks and tips:
Make mistakes
It's unavoidable, we all make mistakes, so why wouldn't you? Mistakes are what teaches you the best. So don't be afraid of making mistakes, just go ahead and talk, there are just two possibilities: you say what you intend to say in the right way or you make a mistake, and both are good (very good!) options :)
If you make a mistake, you're teacher, or a friend, or someone else, will correct you, if you don't, you got it right, keep going!
Find what motivates you
As you go on and on with the learning process, it might be sometimes hard to keep the motivation up. It happened to me too when I started learning Swedish (I never ended, wasn't motivated enough). A research showed this is the second highest difficulty for people who try to learn a new language[2]. So, how do you keep it up? Well, you need to have it clear since before you start.
When you're starting to learn a new language set the language you want to learn, why you want to learn it, for what, in what will it help you, what will be the benefits for you, what do you need to do to get it accomplished (how many classes per week, at what times, what you'll need to miss), and compromise.
Do you really want to learn Spanish? Then you'll have to take lessons twice a week with that professor you don't like so much but who's good at what he does, and the lessons might coincide with your pal's birthday or with a girls/boys night out. Only this way you will be able to go to Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Argentina and all South America and Central America and have lots of fun while traveling, meeting people and maybe even finding work there. Deal done?
Here is Peru
And here is Rio
Time is not a problem
In that same research I mentioned before, time was the most mentioned "difficulty" by the respondents. Why? Why should time be a problem? We all have 24 hours, like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. If they were able to build what they built... why can't you learn Spanish? You can't get a bus or a taxi and get to Instituto Cervantes twice a week because you're going after pokémons? Really?
Pick a good teacher
This is critical. If you decide you'll go to a school, you should probably be ok, but if you're going to take private lessons: pick someone you trust. You'll notice if he's good or not during the lessons, if he's not he should be honest with you (if he's your friend, even more) and tell you he's not able to do that, and just suggest you someone else.
In the picture is me speaking on the @Angelhack Hackathon about how everyone need to go out of their comfort zone and trying new things! I love doing this :)
Practice, practice, practice
Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.
Malcolm Gladwell
This is the most important part. Now you're motivated, you have already made some mistakes, you kept going and going, improved your level, your teacher is good and you trust him. You just need... practice. Practice, practice, practice with everybody you can at any moment you can. When you're going to any shop, prepare the list in the language you're learning (in our example, Spanish), and look for the stuff you need to buy, force your mind to think in that language, practice! Look for natives in that language, there are many communities online (I'll make another post about this, should publish it tomorrow). PRACTICE.
I found this video and i think you could really like it because is short and give you a lot of informations about exchanging languages:
And for you, What are your tricks about it?
keep stemmit and sharing great moment,
Francesco
p.s: What tools are you guys using for learning those languages?
I was in the desert here in Bolivia! great trip and i would like to return
Note: All images found on internet, credits to the owners (unknown)
[1]All these work better with a teacher. They do work for self-learners too, but I'm going to prepare a separate post for self-learners, mainly on what to focus first, what to keep last and that kind of tips (in general, but if you'd like any particular language, please just let me know).
[2]16% of the answers, the top difficulty reported was they "did not have enough time", 24% of the preferences.
Here is the source where i toke inspiration about it:
https://steemit.com/languages/@sharingtheworld/how-to-learn-a-new-language#comments