So what's your method for learning languages?
This question usually comes whenever I tell people about Lingo Franca and my language-learning achievements. It seems to me that these days reality is too often being narrowed to one truth, one perspective, one way, one sentence, and one hack that will teach you everything you need to know about that thing you have been failing for years.
Now let me break it down for you - This one method doesn't exist. It is always an accumulation of skills, concepts, techniques, practices, and meta-learning aspects that create a powerful and transformative process. Also, nothing is ever "complete". A real practice should always evolve and reinvent itself. With that in mind, I have no intention to create here a complete, fits-to-all doctrine. Thus, you should look at it as a temporary guide for you to follow to build a successful learning journey.
Meta Concepts
Almost all domains have meta-concepts that are necessary for rational deduction or conceptualization of the domain. Here are some of my most important meta-concepts for language learning:
Inductive learning process - Inductive reasoning involves starting from specific premises and forming a general conclusion, while deductive reasoning involves using general premises to form a specific conclusion. I believe that languages are best learned with inductive reasoning. Also, Focusing on comprehensible input and imitating natives will produce much better results than wasting time on learning general rules only to rarely apply them in real situations.
Language Immersion - There is a perfect correlation between the level of exposure to your target language and your chances to acquire that language. When working towards learning a new language, give a big emphasis on creating a language immersion environment that provides you with the right (relevancy and intensity) learning resources, exposure, inspiration, interactions, and practices.
Direct Learning - language learning is no rocket science. The theory is important, but the practice is above all. Think of your learning end goal. now try to create a micro end goal that you can achieve in week 1. continue with this process as a method to learn a skill by doing and directly practicing it.
Community - All learners are different, but a community is an important place for us to seek friends, inspiration, new ideas, and motivation. find a group of people with similar goals and practices, you'll discover that good communities keep you safe from decaying and giving up.
Pre-Program
Reflect, research, and plan. do these 3 steps and you already did 50% of the hard work.
Start by asking yourself questions such as:
What is your learning goal?
Where do you see your langauge skills in 3 months? or 6 months? 3 years?
Which topics or learning tasks do you find most engaging and interesting?
When (and why) have you experienced a period of success in learning a new skill?
How much time are you ready to invest in this?
A full and final answer is not a must but you do need to have an orientation to start researching methods, learning resources, best practices, etc. Your learning goal must lead the design of the learning plan. One does not learn to communicate with natives by learning grammar points all day. Also, one does not improve his academic English by watching youtube non-stop. As always, different tools can be fitted to different goals.
The research part is critical for you to understand what worked for other people, what might work for you, and how you can integrate it into your learning program. Try to create a learning roadmap that includes learning resources, milestones, main meta-concepts, top best practices, and more.
Like everything in life, this roadmap will reform when faced with reality, but this is a very important step that provides you with a foundational plan and a place to go back to when you feel stuck.
Case Study
Recently I met a person who needed to learn Hungary for a language proficiency test
as part of a Hungary passport application process. A possible and preliminary breakdown of his learning process will be:
Pre-program:
We have here a very clear goal and endpoint. passing a proficiency test to obtain a passport. The following questions should be:
What does the test consist of?
When will the test take place? how much time does he have for daily learning?
What is the student Hungary level? absolute beginner? intermediate?
What's the student budget?
Now let's assume that the test includes only a 30-min talk on general topics (B2 level) with a native speaker. Also, the test is in 6 months and the student has only 30 min a day to invest in learning. Lastly, the student has a beginner level of A2 in Hungary with basic reading and speaking skills, but zero money to invest in learning resources.
This is a classic case in which maximizing direct learning will be our primary goal (and challenge). if you want to have a fluent conversation with a native speaker in 6 months then you'd better start from week 1. A first draft program will be -
First 3 months:
Intensive consuming of rich, interesting, and relevant "native-like" content, alternating between active to passive listening, and off-on subtitles (5 days a week, 30 min sessions)
Speaking sessions either through language exchange, native friends, or scenarios work (2 days a week, 20 min sessions + 10 min of topics and vocabulary preparations).
Next 3-6 months:
Same as in the first 3 months while making sure progress is being made. (4 days a week, 30 min sessions). 3 months (and even before) is a good time for a learning plan update. try to search for new language content while reflecting on the pros/cons of the current resources.
Same as in the first 3 months while making sure you are constantly developing new topics, conversations, and sentence patterns.
Try to find recordings or transcripts of the test. Create a demo conversation for the test. Try to create a conversation format that fits best your future test and practice it once a week. The better your simulation will be, the more ready you'll be for the proficiency test.
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