Learning a language is like learning any other skill.
There’s a steep learning curve, in the beginning, rough moments throughout the journey, and most importantly, proven rules that you can follow.
Others have already done it, whether you want to learn how to code, speak a foreign language or become a better public speaker. By learning from their biggest mistakes and lessons, you can reach your end goal significantly faster than you would be trying to learn everything yourself.
Today, we’ll share the seven proven rules to learn any language in record time.
1. Start With the End Goal in Mind
If you don’t know where you want to end up, you’re not going to know where to go, especially when things get tough.
This is why innovative entrepreneurs, inventors, and influencers require a massive vision they can rely on during the worst times.
Make sure you have a meaningful purpose for why you want to learn a language. Is it to develop a deeper connection with your family, life partner, or friends? Or maybe it’s because you want to advance your career by opening up new opportunities that would typically not be available today.
Another essential skill to learn is setting goals that clarify your end goal. Here’s an example:
Wrong goal: I want to learn a language so I can travel to Europe by next year.
Good goal: I want to learn how to speak Spanish so I can travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by next summer.
Great goal: I will have a 15-minute conversation in Spanish with a native Argentinian person over coffee in a cafe in Buenos Aires in July 2017.
Notice how specific, visual, and deadline oriented the great goal is compared to the lousy plan.
2. Pick the Right Language
In his blog post, Tim Ferriss mentioned that language learning is similar to picking up a sport. Most of us have learned how to play a sport from childhood, just like how we know how to speak at least one language.
Picking the correct language is not about the dream language you want to learn (although there is nothing wrong with that). In this case, we’re specifically talking about learning speed.
Let’s say you were a professional tennis player. Learning how to play golf would be a much more transferable and accessible skill than learning how to play football.
The same thing applies to languages. If you already know how to speak English, learning Spanish, French, Portuguese, or any language from the Latin family would be easier than trying to learn Mandarin.
By being aware of the language you already know, you can choose transferrable languages to help accelerate your learning.
3. Follow a Proven Strategy
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you’re learning something new. For nearly any skill, someone has already achieved expert status.
“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” -Tony Robbins
When it comes to languages, there is an abundance of resources you can find from the comforts of your home, including:
- Language Blogs
- Language Podcasts
- Language YouTubers
- Language Teachers
You can follow any of these influencers’ strategies and tactics to help you shorten your learning curve.
4. Allocate Time every day to Learn (15-30 minutes)
Nothing can be learned without time commitment. Most of us have dozens of things we are juggling throughout the day, from work, social life, health, etc.
But we all have 15 to 30 minutes to learn something if we make it a priority in our lives.
We’ve previously written how you can create more time to learn something new, but we’ll summarize it here for you:
- Track your schedule: Start by tracking everything you’re doing during the day on your calendar. Even include leisure activities like hanging out with friends, eating, and watching Netflix. You’ll be surprised how much free time you have to spend on learning something new.
- Prioritization: Now that you have a better idea of how you’re spending the day. It’s about prioritizing what’s truly important to you. Start by ranking which of these you should focus on, and even start delegating/eliminating the ones you don’t need.
- Optimization: Last is optimizing. There are three ways to maximize your schedule:
- Shorten your work tasks
- Cut out your least important free time
- Bundle your free time together
5. Take Advantage of Complimentary Tools and Resources
When it comes to language learning, there are hundreds of free to cheap tools and resources that you can use. These include:
- Mobile apps
- Books
- Vocabulary tools
- Language exchanges
- & much more
If you want to know all the resources available to you as a language learner, check out this complete guide to free language learning tools.
6. Have Someone Teach You and Keep You Accountable
If your goal is to learn faster, you will need help.
This could be a personal friend, colleague, or professional teacher that can keep you motivated and accountable throughout your journey.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
There are plenty of conversation exchanges you can check out to find a fellow language learning partner or language tutoring platforms where you can connect with professional language teachers from the comforts of your home.
While you may feel that going alone may be the best option when starting, it’s rarely the sustainable option in the long run. As every language learner will tell you, learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint.
7. Keep Going
Nearly every struggle or problem you have is temporary. You can overcome just about anything with a bit of sweat and persistence (without trying to preach the choir).
Whenever you feel like quitting or giving up, remember that thousands of others have come before you and have felt the same way. But they’ve gotten to the other side because they overcame the pain, doubt, and fear despite what their brain told them. You can do the same.