Learning a new language can sound daunting and staying motivated is difficult. The fear of not being able to pronounce certain words and making a fool of yourself may keep you stagnant. As a language learner, there are many instances where you will find yourself unmotivated or wanting to give up. I'm here to give some on language learning tips, that in my opinion have helped me progress in my personal journey.

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How to Stay Motivated

Most often motivation starts to deplete when you feel like you're not making any progress. When learning a new language, you need to think of yourself as an infant. No one enters the world speaking fluently; they learn from the environment around them. So don't be too hard on yourself, learning even a single word is progress.

Most of the time you are not in an environment where the language you’re learning is spoken. So it might take longer to learn especially when learning on your own. Make sure to give yourself credit for how hard you're working and stay consistent.

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Benefits of Learning a New Language

Learning a new language can often lead to discovering new interests from food and finance to art, politics, and dance. It can make traveling way easier and interesting as language study encourages you to become engaged in topics you otherwise wouldn't find yourself interested in. It can also help you gain cultural enrichment, the ability to communicate with someone in their language is powerful.

It demonstrates an understanding of others and a willingness to see the world from another’s perspective. Knowing a second language can also bring career opportunities abroad. Research suggests that bilingual employees can earn between 5% - 20% more money per hour. Knowing more than one language can also give you educational opportunities such as studying abroad.

Tips

Alphabet and Numbers

When learning any language, the very first thing to learn will always be the alphabet. This can be tricky when it's a language with a completely different alphabet from the English alphabet (Korean, Arabic, Mandarin, Thai, Ukrainian, etc). When learning new characters focus on the pronunciation without cross-referencing the new characters with English. This will help you sound more natural when you start speaking.

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After learning the alphabet, you can move on to learning the numbers. To remember how to count in the new language you'll need to practice and use the numbers regularly by counting to yourself and/ or counting things. The more you count the easier it will be to count fluently and at a good pace without thinking about it too much.

Reading and Vocabulary

Once you’ve gotten yourself comfortable with your alphabet and numbers you can start with reading, writing and vocabulary. Reading is always hard at first so start slow by reading children's stories and short comic strips. After a while you’ll be able to read longer paragraphs, stories and books. While reading make sure to write down any new word you come across, this will help you broaden your vocabulary. While reading try to read out loud because it can help you feel more familiar with speaking, pronunciation and fluency.

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You can even do spelling tests to test yourself and help you remember how words are spelled and what they mean. Languages are basically just muscle memory so the more you practice the easier it becomes. So, try to practice speaking and making your own sentences as often as possible. Just memorising words and common phrases will not make you fluent. You need to practice implementing the grammar rules and vocabulary you’ve learned.

Listening and Understanding Skills

Watch TV shows in the language you are learning but start with kids shows with no subtitles. In kids shows the characters tend to speak slower and clearer making it easier to understand and hear what is being said. Once you are comfortable with kids shows you can move on to shows you've watched before in that language.

You can watch English shows dubbed in the language you are learning (some TV show languages are hard to find) or a show that is already in that language like a k-drama or telanovela. Start with shows you've watched before because you already know the context, so it'll be easier to follow. Then move on to shows or movies in that language that you have not watched. This method can help you practice your listening and understanding skills.

Take advantage of AI

AI is capable of many things and there are also so many ways to use it. Use AI in your language learning by asking it to help you with things you struggle with and to give you sentences to translate. You can ask for a short story and comprehension questions and tell it to give you scores on your answers, feedback, and help find where you are making mistakes. You can also have full conversations with AI both in texting and voice chat (ChatGPT) in the language and ask for a review afterwards. AI can help you practice and improve at your own pace.

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My final tip is to switch your phone's system language to the language you are learning. This will not only force you to practice the language but also help you learn new vocabulary. Changing your systems language can help you practice your reading and comprehension skills.

Things like google and certain apps will not be affected so it won't be too overwhelming. However, if you do wish to have them all in the language simply change the app's language too. I wouldn't recommend doing this when you are still a beginner as you probably won't understand much. This will make it more of an inconvenience than language practice.

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None of the tips I listed are scientifically proven to work. They are simply what works for me and what I found through personal experience and research. Language learning is different for everyone so don't feel discouraged when certain methods don't work for you. Remember to stay consistent and find what works for you. You got this!