LEARN TO LEARN

LEARN TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE

"This year I ́ m going to learn Spanish", "I ́m not good at learning languages", "I don't 

have time to study", "I don't have money to pay for a language course".

These and many other phrases, tend to be rather common, and surely, anyone that has started to learn a new language or a foreign language teacher can understand what I am talking about. In short, there are several components that determine the success of a person to acquire a new language; nevertheless, it is true that there are some common ingredients that can be found the majority of the time within the process that have followed those who have achieved it.

¿What is everyone looking for all the time? Unquestionably, a secret recipe, the magic wand, the one which all of a sudden will turn you into a bilingual person overnight. Desperate, they tend to mislead themselves by those tricky slogans just as: "Learn Spanish in just 3 months", "master the language with us", "from starter to advanced in just 6 months"...

Unfortunately, most of them end up withdrawing; some, upset, others dejected and many others, disappointed as it wasn't what they were expecting. But then... ¿What is the secret recipe, the magic method? That ́s the thing: "There isn't such a secret recipe", but certainly there are a couple of ingredients in common, integrating an efficient methodology for language learning. That and the ability to learn efficiently are the real key that will allow you to acquire one or more languages.

You may be asking now what are these common ingredients that integrate the most efficient language methods, and how do you learn to learn? First of all, it is important for me to highlight that these ingredients that I am about to share with you are based on 3 pillars that I personally have gathered for you.

• The opinions and experiences of a myriad of polyglots and experienced linguists knowledgeable in the field. 

• My knowledge and personal experiences as a language professor and a foreign language learner too.

• The various scientific research around psycholinguistics and the road in an attempt to crack the most efficient ways to acquire new languages.

Let ́s see then what these important components are so as to design an efficient method, thereby, finally completing the acquisition of a new language.

INGREDIENTS IN COMMON

" Language learning is a marathon, not a sprint"

Luca Lampariello

Initially, it is essential to be clear that learning a language is not a race nor a sprint. No matter the method you use, acquiring a language is a long road, and by long I do not mean spending years and years without being able to communicate yourself.

And yes, indeed, as the months go by, you must notice some improvements, however, this does not correspond to believing that in such a short time like 3 or 6 months, you will reach a proficiency level in a new language.

The majority of people often do not have an adequate understanding of what learning a new language entails, and therefore often have misconceptions about how the learning process should be. Same situation that eventually leads to a lack of learning of the target language, frustration, and annoyance with themselves and with those resources like books, professors, courses, apps, webs, among others that took part in their "Negative experience".

Learning a new language must consider, from my perspective, the following points

• Enjoying the learning process

• Learn to learn

• Efficient methods

• Routine and immersion

• Ingredients + recipe

• Patience, consistency and a little motivation

Enjoy the learning process

It may seem a bit obvious, but the reality is that a lot of people "force themselves" to learn a language reaching a point where they try to learn it almost by force, however, that ́s not how our brain works. It is necessary to enjoy what one is doing to make the information received during learning more meaningful; other way, much or little of the effectiveness of a method will be lost to a large extent.

Learn to learn

For me, this is one of the most important ingredients, so much so that is why I decided to start my course: Learn to Learn. There are many people really trying to put some effort into their learning, studying, and spending a lot of their time yet, the outcomes are usually not as expected since they are not giving the brain what it likes or in the right way so the processes within the language acquisition road are diminished. Learning to learn is such an important key to acquiring a language efficiently since all this has a scientific basis as the brain and the cognitive processes involved in language acquisition are complex areas.

Efficient methods

Here we are with the little brother of learning to learn. We can find several learning methods and honestly, the best one is the one we develop over time to suit ourselves. There is not a magic method yet, there are more efficient and functional methods than others. Why? Because some are based on the how? Of our brain's learning processes and seek to nurture those connections as effectively as possible, while others tend to be untested empirical methods that often have no scientific basis but which people continue to apply when they see that they are still being used. This is the problem why so many people fall by the wayside.

Routine and immersion

Have you ever wondered about the number of hours you have been exposed to your mother tongue? Assuming you are 20 years old, and you have lived in the same country your entire life, you have been exposed to the language for at least 150,000 hours in your native language. Then, how are you going to move forward rapidly while you are trying to acquire a new language? Exposing yourself to the language as much as you can. Think that if you study a new language for around a year, 2 hours a week, you will just have been exposed to your target language for 96 hours that if we take the equivalence with the 20 years you have been exposed to in your mother tongue, it is only 1920 hours. Almost 80 times less in comparison. That ́s why immersion plays such an important role, as well as including your target language in your daily routine. This is going to define to some extent how fast you progress.

Recipe + ingredients

It is a whole separate topic to talk about in this section, as it has a lot to go into. However, let ́s summarize it as follows: Studying all the grammar in the world is not going to be worth it if there is no vocabulary, no immersion, or practice, on the other hand, having an enormous amount of vocabulary or all the possible immersion is not going to get you to the maximum accuracy when communicating both orally and in writing if you don't learn the grammar of the language and yes! This also applies in your mother tongue.

Think that you couldn't bake a cake if you just had the recipe, but you are missing the ingredients, on the other side, if you had the ingredients but not the recipe, the only possible way would be baking the cake "blindly" and probably the result wouldn't be as precise as it would have been with the recipe and that ́s as best.

Patience, consistency, and a little motivation

If you didn't learn your native language in 3 or 6 months, why are you expecting to learn a foreign language in that amount of time? The acquisition of a language requires many processes to happen in our brains, and this takes some time. That's what makes it hard: The consistency you need more than the language itself.

This is another of the obstacles that often cause so much desertion when trying to learn a new language. It is believed that you will learn in very short periods and while it is true that in just a few months you should notice significant progress in acquiring the new language, reaching an advanced level takes longer. How long will it take? It cannot be determined, it will depend on several factors, some of which are in your hands. And remember, you won't always be motivated, so you must be disciplined to keep going. Patience!