Learning a language is easy, discover how.
Introduction
Have you ever been amazed by people who are able to speak more than one language? They know how to convey ideas and express themselves in different situations, regardless of the language. You may think that this is something you have to know how to do. You imagine how your life would be with one or two additional languages in your repertoire, and all of a sudden, it seems that there are no limits to the number of things you can do.
However, despite all the “benefits” that come with knowing different languages, you start to feel overwhelmed. The motivation does not last long enough, and you decide that learning a new language is not for you.
The truth is that learning a new language as an adult is complicated. In addition to having more responsibilities and less time to dedicate to “nonproductive” activities, aging also comes with the deterioration of some abilities that make languages easier. The most common scenarios are that, with more experiences to share, you also discover that your ear does not work as well as it used to when you were younger. And since your brain has been using a single language for most of your existence, it is really difficult to adapt it to new sounds and structures. Yes, that’s right: your brain now does not learn as quickly or easily as before.
Should adults learn like kids?
Although learning a new language may seem unattainable, it is entirely possible. Like most skills, learning a new language is doable, even when one has reached a stage in life where they are complaining about back pain. However, the first challenge many people face when starting an endeavor like this is how to start. With a job and responsibilities to take care of, what is the best way to learn a new language? Is there a “best approach” to adding a new language to your toolbox?
These questions have as many answers as there are people in the world: why? Because everyone learns in different ways. Some people may prefer to learn by listening to music or watching TV series, while others may choose something more traditional, like a grammar book. Some popular recommendations found on the internet suggest that we should imitate children because of their impressive ability to learn a language. However, from my point of view, this would be the wrong approach for adults.
Please do not misunderstand me, you can learn a new language like you did the first time. However, there are several aspects we have to consider before going for this approach. The first one is the most evident: we are not kids. Our brain is more or less developed, whereas kids’ brains are still developing. What does this mean? Well, there is something called plasticity. When applied to our brain, we get neuroplasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to adapt and learn from new experiences. It is the ability of the brain to reorganize the path of brain synapses in response to external stimuli. Although plasticity is ongoing throughout life, this process is faster in babies and kids, meaning that they have the ability to learn new things more quickly.
Learning a new language is a serious undertaking, but one of the most important differences between children and adults is that children have more time. Most of us cannot dedicate too much time to learning a new language, even though it could be a life-changing skill, as we still have rent and responsibilities to take care of. However, not everything is negative for adults; we already have one skill that we can harness to learn a new language, which is evident but not always recognized. We already know a language, and we can use this knowledge in several ways, for example:
- Depending on the language, we don’t have to rediscover or relearn new word structures.
- With a well-managed language, we can access and understand information much faster than without it, which is especially useful when we’re trying to learn words that are tied to abstract concepts.
- We can focus the language learning process on a topic we’re interested in. We don’t have to learn the entire language at once; we can learn it depending on our needs. For example, a business presentation requires a different vocabulary than what we would use at the beach.
That being said, there are some skills that children have and most adults do not, but they are important to learn faster, and we can learn them as adults. Children are usually not afraid of making mistakes, while most rational adults try to avoid making mistakes as much as possible.
The problem with avoiding mistakes is that we need them to learn and improve. Without this type of feedback, we will never know whether we’re doing it right or wrong. Furthermore, language is a skill that needs to be practiced as much as possible. The muscles in our mouth need to get used to the movement of speech, and our ears have to hear as much as possible to adapt to new rhythms, intonation, and sounds. Without this practical training, it will be difficult to take the new language to the desired level.
The best method to learn a new language is when you are alone.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely interested in learning a new language. From now on, you’ll learn about techniques and approaches that may be new to you or not. I will elaborate on strategies that you can implement by yourself, as not everyone has the opportunity to travel to a country where their desired language is spoken. In this post, I will share strategies that you can use with tools that you likely already have.
When it comes to measuring language skills, there are four areas to consider: reading, listening, speaking, and writing. These can be grouped into two categories: input and output. Reading and listening are skills in which you absorb information from external sources such as books or podcasts, and belong to the “input” group. Speaking and writing involve generating information in your target language and belong to the “output” group.
As these skills are very different, a question arises: is there an effective way to practice all four skills simultaneously?
Reading is the key.
The answer to the last question may differ from person to person; however, I believe the answer is affirmative. But how? How can we improve in different aspects that, at first glance, seem very different from each other? The answer is reading. Reading may not be the best possible approach to improve in all four skills at the same time, but you can read in such a way that you can concentrate your efforts on a single area.
Of course, I will not talk about how reading can improve reading skills. It is evident that performing the activity you want to be good at every day will lead to its improvement. Let’s focus on how we can use reading to improve other skills. To do this, we cannot rely solely on text. We need to be more flexible, so I will include other materials that we can use alongside a script to work on improving other areas.
Improving writing through reading.
The title of this section should not surprise anyone reading it. Writing and reading are basically two sides of the same coin. Let’s define what writing is. Writing is a process in which we translate our ideas and thoughts into a physical or visual representation. For this to happen, we need to have access to a code that serves as a translation tool, which is the role of language.
The definition of “language” is broad, but for the purposes of this post, we can agree on a narrowed definition: language is a set of rules and standards we follow to transmit an idea. Now, let’s get to my point about how reading can improve your writing skills.
When you read in your target language, you inevitably learn the code you need to know in order to write. You learn new vocabulary and the rules you have to follow to use that vocabulary. So, there is no doubt that you can improve your writing skills through reading. However, do not get me wrong. You can improve, but the only way to be good at something is by doing it. To completely master your writing skills in this desired language, you need to write.
At this point, if I am lucky, you are convinced of this. But now, you may be wondering what you should do.
Intensive reading
Many people assume that reading is a skill that is already mastered during their school years, but the truth is that only a few individuals are aware of all the nuances involved in reading. For instance, we can skim a text to look for main points, or scan it to find something specific. While these are valid approaches, in this post, I would like to discuss intensive reading.
In short, intensive reading involves reading a short text carefully and intentionally, with the aim of understanding all the details in the text. This requires investigating the meaning of each new unknown word, collocation, or grammatical structure, so that the reader gains a complete understanding of the text being read.
Through this process of analysis, the learner becomes familiar with complex structures and expands their range of vocabulary significantly. When you have a wider range of vocabulary and better comprehension of grammatical rules, your ability to write complex ideas in a clear and efficient manner will also improve considerably.
Towards the end of this post, I will provide some guidelines on using intensive reading as a means to improve your overall skills in your target language.
Improving speaking skills through reading.
After reading the title of this section, you may wonder if the writer has gone crazy or if the information is legitimate. As mentioned earlier, reading can help to increase our vocabulary range and provide a better understanding of complex grammar topics, especially if we read intensively. However, this alone may not suffice if we aim to improve our speaking skills in the target language.
It may seem counterintuitive, but we can improve our speaking skills by reading, with the caveat that additional steps need to be taken. Before delving into this, let us define the process of speaking. When we speak, we translate our ideas and thoughts into sounds that others can comprehend. To produce these sounds, we must move our mouths and tongue in specific ways.
Shadowing.
One of the main obstacles in speaking a new language is producing unfamiliar sounds, which can be a challenge for many people. This is compounded by the fact that there may be no correlation between the word and its pronunciation. To become fluent in speaking, one needs to use new grammar rules and incorporate them fluidly.
So, what can be done to improve in this aspect? In my personal experience, the best approach is to imitate native speakers, similar to how children learn to speak. However, since we are not children, we can expedite the learning process by using an advanced technique called “shadowing.” This technique involves reading a piece of text aloud while listening to an accompanying audio, such as an audiobook.
How to do shadowing.
To do shadowing, you should choose a piece of text that is slightly above your current proficiency level and that has an accompanying audio version. The idea is to listen to the native speaker and then repeat what they said, with a delay of about one second.
During this exercise, your main focus should be on pronouncing the words with the same intonation, pace, and pronunciation as the speaker, rather than worrying about the vocabulary or grammar structures in the text. Therefore, the vocabulary presented in the text should only be slightly more advanced than what you currently know in the language.
Choosing the right level.
When selecting a text to shadow, its level is crucial. If it’s too advanced, you may encounter two problems. Firstly, the words and grammar structures may be too unfamiliar to you, making it challenging to follow the speaker. Secondly, if you encounter too many unknown words and grammar structures, you will not comprehend most of what you are reading, which may affect the efficiency of the shadowing activity. It’s preferable that you comprehend what you are reading to make the activity more effective. Understanding what you read will help you retain the pronunciation of words for a more extended period since it’s meaningful to you.
However, if the text is too basic, you may find the activity monotonous, and you will miss the opportunity to learn words you struggle with when it comes to pronunciation. Therefore, selecting a text slightly above your current level will bring the most benefits from shadowing.
How to find the right text.
Finding the right text is paramount if you want to improve faster by shadowing. So in order to find the right text, you have to do the following, before deciding to shadow a particular text, take some pages of that book (for example), and count the number of unknown words on those pages. if you found out that 10 % or more of the words are unknown, you probably have found a book that is too advanced for your current level.
If there are still unknown words, but they do not surpass the 10 %, you probably have found a book that is above your current level, how far? it would depend on how close this rate is to 10 %, but in general, you should be working with this type of text, which is not basic but not too difficult either.
Improving listening, by reading?
Listening is a crucial skill that we must master to fully understand others when they speak. However, can reading help us improve our listening skills? The truth is that it can only do so to a limited extent compared to other language skills we mentioned earlier. To learn and master a skill, we need to practice that activity. So, can reading really help us improve our listening skills?
Intensive listening.
The answer to the last question is yes, but again, we are not limited to reading, we can different resources or activities that we can do alongside reading so we can work on a particular aspect. so how can we improve in this area? from all exercises I have mentioned so far, the only exercise that may help to improve our listening skills is shadowing, shadowing can be seen as a way of intensive listening, when we shadow we are basically paying all attention to all aspects of the sounds that exist in the target language, pronunciation, intonation, and pace.
So shadowing is an exercise that actually improves our listening skills, more to the point, when we read listening to the audio, we are learning the correct pronunciation, intonation, and pace of this text, meaning that the next time we hear that sound we probably will recognize the word that it represents.
How to do intensive listening.
To improve our ability to recognize and produce the sounds of a language, we can use a method similar to shadowing. We’ll need both a text and an audio version of it, but instead of repeating what the speaker is saying, our focus will be solely on the sounds of each word. We can do this while reading the text, making connections between the word and its pronunciation.
However, this exercise alone may not be sufficient, so after reading and listening to a piece of text, we can take it a step further by repeating the audio without reading, but instead writing down what we hear, just like a dictation. We can then compare what we wrote to the script and count the number of errors. Ideally, there should be no errors, so we can repeat the process as many times as necessary to reduce the number of errors.
Conclusions.
Up to now, we have discussed various methods for learning languages. Personally, I have tried these methods to learn English, and they have worked wonderfully. It is important to note that learning a language is a lifelong process. It is extremely challenging to guarantee proficiency in a target language within a specific timeframe by simply following a series of steps.
This is primarily because everyone learns differently, so the aforementioned methods may work for some, but not be sufficient for others. However, it is crucial to maintain consistency and strive to practice every day.
