How Many Months To Learn A Language
I was recently asked about how many months it takes to learn a foreign language. This is an important question especially if you’re just beginning your language studies and want to know how long the process is going to take. The answer to this question depends on primarily two factors: your experience with language and your study methods.
Your experience with foreign language is important because if you studied a foreign language before that is very similar to the language you are studying now, you will find that you progress very quickly. For example, I know people who have learned Spanish in 3-6 months after they learned Italian to an advanced level. Since much of the grammar is the same and there is a lot of shared vocabulary, the overlap was great enough to speed up the learning process.
This also counts for English, too. If you attempt to learn a language very dissimilar from English like Japanese or Arabic, you will find that it takes longer to learn because you have to learn new sentence structure and a lot of the vocabulary is not the same. However, if you learn a language similar to English like Spanish, you will find that the process goes by much quicker.
Additionally, your overall experience with learning foreign languages matters. If you have studied three foreign languages before to an advanced level, you will have an easier time with the fourth language no matter what it is. The reason for this is because your brain is already used to learning new sentence structures and new vocabulary.
Now for the second factor, your study methods are very important. How long you spend studying each day and what you do when you study could make the difference between learning the language within months or within years! I can’t go over everything to do in this article but I will give a few tips. You should be studying a little bit each day instead of one chunk once a week. The little bit of studying each day will cut down on the time you spend reviewing and also keep the language fresh in your mind. Also, make sure you also do fun things in the language like watch movies or read interesting novels. Don’t just do grammar exercises or read textbooks, otherwise your motivation will soon run out. Additionally, you should have a way of recording or keeping track of all the new vocabulary you come across that you want to learn for the long term. If you don’t keep track of it, you will soon find yourself looking the word up again the next time you come across it because you will have forgotten it.
So, as you can see, the language learning process depends on these factors, however, I feel confident in saying that you can learn any language to an advanced level within a year, as long as you have the appropriate study method and are learning well. I gave you some introductory concepts in this article, but if you are really interested in achieving fluency in the shortest amount of time, I highly suggest taking a look at the book I’ve written on language learning.
If you want the fastest method to learn a language so that you will become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of months, learn thousands of words without worrying about forgetting them, master grammar and do all of this in an enjoyable, painless manner then you need to read Learn That Language Now!
How To Learn A Language By Watching Movies
Learning a foreign language by watching movies can be a great way to get ahead in a second language and in some cases can be better than “traditional” language learning methods like classes and grammar books! Let’s go over why…
Watching foreign movies immerses you in real, fluid language. This exposes you to the way that the language is really spoken. It’s not slowed down for learners and it’s not made clearer for foreigners. For this reason, you can begin to adjust right away to the actual language as it is spoken today. This is an important skill since you will be using the language at a fast rate as the movie exposes to you, not the slowed down rate that teachers and audio programs use.
Probably most important about watching foreign movies is the fact that it is an enjoyable activity. For this reason, you are not as likely to tire of it as you are to tire of doing grammar exercises or reading dry language textbooks. With movies, you can keep watching and therefore spend more time in the foreign language than you would have if you had just been reading grammar books. More time in the language means more exposure and more learning.
With movies, you also get the added benefit of a visual reference. The visual images will help you understand what is being said so that you can understand better. Additionally, watching a story unfold will also help you begin to understand various vocabulary. Words are often likely to be repeated throughout the movie allowing you to pick them up.
For these reasons, watching movies can be a great way to increase your language knowledge and get more exposure in. If nothing else, you should watch a movie or two just for fun because it’s a fun thing to do. You should never force yourself to do only boring things in the foreign language you are trying to learn. With movies, you get to do something fun and learn at the same time which is the best combination for language learning. In this way, you will find that you pick up new words, sentence structure and more through your watching.
I should also note that to help your learning along, you should have some way of keeping track of the words you come across. This way, you can review them later and not forget them. There are various methods for speedy vocabulary learning but they are out of the scope of this article. If you are interested in fast language learning, I would suggest taking a look at my book which covers that topic in depth.
If you want the fastest method to learn a language so that you will become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of months, learn thousands of words without worrying about forgetting them, master grammar and do all of this in an enjoyable, painless manner then you need to read Learn That Language Now!