How I Have Learned Languages

Everyone has a hobby, some people play an instrument, others play a sport, but if you ask me, learning languages is my hobby. In the UK, hardly anyone will try to learn a foreign languages unless they study it at uni or need it for work. I speak three languages fluently and many people tell me that they wish they could speak a foreign language like I could.

What I say to that is that Rome wasn't built in a day, back in my first year in high school, my start to French was not so great. On my first few vocabulary tests, I could not even get a single answer right, that was because learning languages was such a  new concept to me and I did not know the effective methods of doing so. After a few weeks of practicing, I started to get better at it thanks to having an excellent memory and I realised my aptitude for language learning.

When I was 13, I had to choose my subjects and I decided to take National 5 Spanish, this was because I had already excelled in French and I had no other subjects to choose from. I had also been watching Breaking Bad in which the Spanish language is used and it made me want to learn it. Fast forward a few years and I get As in both higher French and Spanish. But I didn't stop there, because I would be going to Brazil, I decided to take on Portuguese by learning it on the internet and by the time I was in Rio, I could have a full blown conversation with a Brazilian.

There are countless reasons to learn languages, it's good for your brain, it's something to do and is an excellent way to make new friends. Furthermore, learning a language doesn't have to be exactly as how it's taught in school, there are a few other effective ways of doing so.

The main ways in which I learn languages is through using the website Duolingo, this website is a great start to learning a language, 20 minutes a day is just enough to learn even just a bit. However, there are other ways in which I practice my language skills. Watching or reading the news in the language you want to learn is a great way of challenging yourself and learning new vocabulary. However a more effective way is to watch films and TV as it can show you how words are pronounced and how conversations are structured.

 Although having a decent memory plays a substantial part in being good at languages, there are small things which you can do in order to strengthen your knowledge of the language. Learning how to pronounce phrases once you are exposed to them can help you remember them by repeating them until you are confident that you know how to say certain phrases. Watching TV or films in the target language can be an extremely effective method to help you with learning. To provide some examples, for Spanish I watch La Casa de Papel and Narcos, for Portuguese, I have watched City of God and Irmandade. A simple Google search can help you find countless films and TV shows to watch, but those are among my favourites.

Furthermore, once you start learning, I recommend listening music until the lyrics get stuck in your head. For example, if you wanted to listen to music in Spanish I would not recommend Despacito as the lyrics are too fast, but music such as that of the Buena Vista Social Club and Luis Miguel. When it comes to music in Portuguese you can listen to a wealth in variety from the bossa nova classics of Jorge Ben Jor to the latest baile funk hits such as Kevinho.  

It can be incredibly difficult to learn a language if you're not exposed to the target language. For me, I live in an English speaking country in which I speak english to everyone I know. When I was learning Portuguese, I did not have a conversation until I went to Brazil which was 9 months after I took the decision to go on to Duolingo and start learning. I didn't have the opportunity to practice my speaking, but they could understand me perfectly and I felt powerful when I could communicate with others in Portuguese. I vastly underestimated whether or not I could speak it and it took confidence and using what I had learned to put into action.

Ultimately, the best way to learn a language is to throw yourself into the deep end and spend some time in the country which speaks the target language and your understanding of the language will improve dramatically. This is because you will be put into situations in which you will have to adapt to using the target language all of the time and you would be exposed to it 24/7. When I was learning Spanish, I went on a school trip to Madrid and a year later I went to Barcelona to do a Spanish course in order to perfect my Spanish. I was in situations in which I had to use Spanish I had learned to talk to people during these trips and during the classes in Barcelona, not a single word of English was spoken. However, it is very difficult to get the opportunity to go abroad to improve your language learning unless you study it at high school or university.

For new learners it can also be difficult and frustrating to try and speak a language they've only started learning, but trust me, once you have a conversation with a native speaker and they understand perfectly, it is a great feeling. Of course you may make many mistakes, I make mistakes all the time, the thing is, it's not important to be accurate all of the time, it's important to be understood all of the time.

It can be said that learning a language is something that takes time, after one lesson in Spanish, I did not become fluent all of a sudden, it's a gradual process. As the saying goes, learning a language is a marathon not a sprint, 20 minutes of learning a day is much more effective than 3 hours once a week. I have never met anyone who has learned a language and believed it to be a waste of time.