Hello language learners!
So everybody asks the same question: how do you learn a language?
Fortunately, there are tons of people who will give you their advice.
There are hundreds of YouTube videos, blog posts, books, all this different information
from different people who will teach you, or tell you, how to learn a language.
You'll have one guy on this side who learned Italian in three months and this person over
here who learned Spanish in six weeks.
These two people have two different methods, so which one do you pick?
But then you can't forget about person number three, person number four, and all these different,
very successful, language learners who have successfully learned the language they want
to learn in a tiny amount of time, all of whom use completely different ways to do it.
And, theoretically, you're supposed to borrow their techniques and see which one works for
you.
And that's super overwhelming, right?
Because you know that asking how to learn a language is so vague, but you don't really
know what you should be asking, and all these different people are telling you to do different
things, so which one's right?
I mean, technically, they can't be wrong, right, because they've all learned the languages
they want to learn and so it should work for you, right?
The issue with that is that everybody's different, right?
You're a completely different person than everybody else in the entire universe.
The guy who learned Italian in four months is a different person than the person who
learned Chinese in six months.
They're different people who use different strategies, different methods, have different
lifestyles, different personalities...if you can't already tell, the operative word here
is 'different'.
Every language learner is different, right?
But not only that!
How many language learning resources are there out there in the world?
And they are all different.
So what are you supposed to do, how are you supposed to figure out which one to use, which
ones to pay for, which ones to not pay for, how do you know?
Because everybody says "oh, I'm so excited about this language learning program, because
they taught me to learn a language."
It's all incredibly overwhelming and there's nobody holding your hand through this stuff,
right?
I want you to take that whole world of overwhelm and looking towards other people to dictate
how you're going to learn a language.
I want you to take all of that, and I want you to just put it away for a second.
I don't want you to think about it, I don't want you to worry about it.
Instead, I want you to think about one person: you.
You are the person that I want you to be thinking about.
Put away all the background noise of different people who have successfully learned a language.
They're not you, so you don't have to worry about it.
Instead of looking at what other people are doing, I want you to think about what you
should be doing.
What language learning resources should you be using to work on your language, whatever
language that is, whatever exactly you want to learn in those languages, what's the first
step to figuring out how to learn a language?
The first step, the first thing that I want you to think about is the language learning
resources that you're going to be using, the ones that are available to you.
And I know, there are probably hundreds of language learning resources out there, and
it's all really confusing and overwhelming, again.
I get it.
There are so many different language learning resources that do so many different things,
they help certain languages, some of them are free, some of them cost money, it's crazy.
But our very very first step when figuring out our language learning resources is the
money part, which I know sounds kind of weird, that's not what most people first think about
when approaching language learning.
But just hear me out.
I like to organize the price of different language learning resources in four categories:
there's free, there's about $5-15 a month, there's $20-50 a month, and there's $100+.
And you don't need to be totally specific about this, I just want you to have an understanding
of the different price points that these different language learning resources come at.
I'll give you a couple examples of what kind of language learning resources these price
points get you.
First of all: free.
Free will get you something like Duolingo or HelloTalk.
$5-15 a month will get you Babbel or Mondly.
$20-50 a month will get you Pimsleur Premium or italki.
And I know that italki isn't really a month-by-month basis, but if you're on italki regularly,
you can probably look at spending about $20-50 a month, so we're just gonna put that there.
Then, if you have $100 or more to spend, you're looking at Rosetta Stone or Rocket Languages.
Now keep in mind two things: one of them being, these are not the only language learning resources
out there.
These are just general examples of these price points so you can get an idea of what you're
looking at.
This also doesn't mean that you should be researching these specific language learning
resources because there's so many other different parts of your language learning strategy that
you need to be thinking about before you go diving into research.
However, if you are curious about any of them, I do have reviews in the description box below
of all of these language learning resources.
Another thing about price: so we've all heard immersion, right?
Immersion is theoretically the best thing that you can do for your language learning.
But something that I think that a lot of people forget to mention is faking immersion - that's
what I'm calling it, I don't know if there's an official term for it, but it is now.
Now fake immersion belongs in the free/cheap category, and it's basically taking media
that you're already consuming every day, like Netflix, YouTube, books, stuff like that,
and finding them available in the language that you're learning.
Because think about it: if you go to another country and you immerse yourself in another
country, if you turn on the TV and you watch a show or a movie that you would like to watch
back at home, it's probably going to be in the language that you're learning.
So you don't necessarily have to go abroad to do that!
There are definitely options for you to take the media that you're already consuming, take
the language that you're already consuming, and just switch it from English to the language
that you're learning.
This is what I call 'fake immersion'.
And then, on the other hand, there is 'real immersion', where you hop on a plane, go to
another country, live in another country, work, study, whatever it is you do, for the
purpose of learning a new language.
Now obviously this comes with a couple caveats.
First of all, it's the most expensive option, obviously.
It's gonna take you a couple thousand dollars just to get abroad, probably.
Second of all, not everybody can do it.
If you have a family, if you have a partner, if you have a career, it's a lot more difficult
for you to immerse yourself in another country, which is fine!
Immersion isn't perfect for everybody, so don't think you have to throw away your entire
life just to learn a language.
Immersion is just another option.
Not only is it another option that won't exactly work for everybody because of their lifestyles,
but imagine you started learning Chinese, you haven't even started learning, actually.
You have just decided to learn Chinese so you hop on a plane and you go to China.
You decide to spend 6-12 months in China to learn the language.
What's probably going to happen is you're gonna go to China, you're not gonna recognize
anything because you haven't studied it yet, you're gonna get overwhelmed, you're probably
gonna get home.
And that's gonna leave a bad taste in your mouth for Chinese or even language learning
as a whole.
So even though immersion is a really great strategy for a lot of language learners, it is not
for everybody.
Consider it one of the more expensive options, consider it in that $100+ category.
So that's the first thing that you need to think about regarding your language learning
strategy, is the price point that you're either able to or willing to spend on your language
learning.
Now this doesn't have to be strict, it can be very flexible.
If you don't really have an idea of how much you might want to spend don't worry, that's
fine, this is just something that you need to keep in mind.
Next week I'm going to talk about language skills, which is an equally important part
of your language learning method.
Remember to hit the subscribe button so you'll know when I post that video.
Otherwise I will see you every Monday at my blog at CrashedCulture.com, and every Wednesday
right here on YouTube.
Have a wonderful week and I will see you next week!