How to Learn Any Language Faster and Smarter: My Favourite Methods

1. Introduction: There, my name is Ola, and I'm polyglot. I speak five languages. First of all, my native ones, Ukrainian and Russian, and also the other three that I've learned by myself to various degrees, English, French, and Turkish. I have a C two in English, and I've been learning at school, but mostly by myself for the last 15 to 20 years, and I also speak Turkish. Turkish is the second foreign language in my repertoire. I did my bachelor's degree in Istanbul Turkey, and I took a Turkish language course at some point, but mostly was studying by myself, finding the techniques that work best for me and having a lot of Turkish language exposure. Last but not least, I'm also fluent in French, my level is B two. I did two semesters abroad in France, but I can say that I learned this language mostly by myself and through various interactions with Native speakers. In this course, I want to share with you my favorite tried and tested techniques for learning a foreign language. Before we jump into the course, I wanted to touch upon a few rules or rather a mindset that is beneficial for you to develop when learning or approaching a foreign language to begin with. The first thing is understand why you're learning the language. Is it because you have to or because you want to? Is it something that you need for your studies or for work, or maybe you fell in love with someone and you want to learn this language for them? Or is it just something that you do for fun? Understanding your why will help you stick to your language learning routine even through the trickiest or most difficult moments of it. Make sure you clarify why you're learning a certain language before you get started. Rule number two is that grammar is truly the backbone of the language, and vocabulary is something that you later adorn it with. As much as some people hate it, grammar is truly a most essential thing when learning a language, whether it's master in different tenses, types of conditional sentences or just basically a sentence structure, it is something that truly defines the speed with which you can progress in a language and whether you can express yourself coherently to begin with. Number three is that in order to truly master language, you have to incorporate not only passive but also active learning in your routine. Passive learning is listening and reading, the skills that you need to comprehend the language. However, active learning, reading and writing is focused on being able to produce stuff in a language, whether you're able to write a text or text message or speak in a language with a native speaker or in class. Passive learning is fairly easy. You only need to understand the language. However, active learning actually requires some effort. You need to write, you need to be able to speak, but trust me, this is what makes the biggest difference in the long run. Number four is use the techniques that make your language learning seamless and enjoyable. Now, in this course, I will offer you a range of different language learning techniques. However, we all learn not only languages, but in general in different ways. Some people are visual and they need to see text. Some people are more auditory and they learn best when listening to something. I want you to approach the techniques that I will offer you in this course with a mindset of taking what works for you and leading the rest. And last but not least, take full responsibility for your language learning journey. You do not need fancy language courses or private teachers to become truly proficient in a language. You can do it yourself. Now let's jump into it. 2. Make a dictionary your best friend: Word formation: Lesson one, make a dictionary your best friend. And here I'm talking about a dictionary specifically, not something like Google Translate or Depo. If you have a dictionary on hand, great, consider yourself a lucky one. But if you don't, not to worry, there are plenty of online dictionaries out there, such as Oxford, Longman, Marian Webster for English, Tina K for Turkish, and plenty of other ones for other languages. I wanted to start by talking about a dictionary because it leads us to one of the most underrated new word learning techniques out there, which is word formation. Now, why dictionaries are great for that? When you Google an unknown word in, let's say, Google Translate or Deple, it just gives you the definition of the word that you wrote down and that's it. It does not give you any words related to that. On the other hand, when you look up, let's say, a word like to respect in Oxford dictionary, it gives you a bunch of words that are related. For example, I said to respect, respectable, respectful, respectably, et cetera. Even disrespect. So instead of learning every single one of these words at different times, encountering them in different texts and putting effort into learning each one of them on their own, you're learning a bunch of new words at once in a way that is natural and cohesive. Not only that, it helps you to really understand and internalize the rules of word formation. For example, using the suffix foul for adjective, respectful, plentifuul, et cetera. Word formation can be reversed here as well. For example, a few months ago, I've learned the French word Adcir which means to soften. I understood that it's probably formed from the word do or rather douse the feminine form of the adjective soft. What I did then was ask hG PT to give me a bunch of other verbs that are formed by adding the prefix A to the adjective. For example, week long Aang to Lengthen. It allowed me to build a lot of new words on top of the simple adjectives that I've already known all with a very little effort. So the next time you're learning new words, please take extra 5 minutes and instead of looking up unknown words in Google Translate, look them up in a proper dictionary. 3. Master support verbs: When learning new language, mastering a handful of support verbs and the most frequent expressions they are used in speeds up your fluency dramatically. These support verbs differ slightly across languages, but on average, they are verbs like do, make, put, give, behalf, take, et cetera. Let's take the English verb do, for instance. Now, you've probably heard of expressions to do somebody a favor, to do harm, to do good, to do one's best. These expressions are used by native speakers all the time, and mastering them will make you sound so much more natural. They also allow you to be fluent while operating on a limited amount of vocabulary. For example, instead of saying the advanced word to postpone, you can just say to put off. Or let's take a French verb Ponre to take, for instance. There are tons of expressions with the verb Pondre. They are Pen ****** to take a shower, Pondre deton to take time, Penn Ct to take into account and many others. Looking up these expressions in the dictionary and taking your time to learn them will allow you to speak more fluently with less effort. 4. Double-check complex words: When learning new words, especially advanced ones, simply translating them into a native language is not enough. In order to avoid using the word in the wrong context and either embarrassing yourself or getting a bad mark on an exam, it is important to make sure that you understand the word as it is understood by the native speakers and that you truly grasp the context in which it is used. Now, let's look at a few examples. The first one that comes to mind is how some people confuse words famous and infamous. A lot of people assume that the prefix in in the beginning of the word is going to augment its meaning. However, in this particular case, while it's true for words valuable and invaluable, for famous and infamous, it's a completely different story. Famous is somebody who is well known for good things. And infamous is somebody notorious, meaning that they're well known for something bad. For example, an actress can be famous, but somebody can be infamous for getting into different scandals, or a thief can be infamous for having robbed a few banks. The crux of the matter is famous and infamous can be different meanings, and you really have to double check them in the dictionary to make sure that you don't make the sack. Another example is the word insidious. When I translate insidious directly into Ukrainian, the dictionary tells me that it's something evil or cunning. However, when I take a look in a monolingual dictionary, say Longman, for instance, it tells me that the word insidious is used to talk about something that spreads slowly and secretly over time. In this case, you might want to use the word insidious to talk about a disease that spread over time and did not show any symptoms until it was too late or the insidious effects of propaganda. However, you will not under any condition, use the word insidious to talk about the impact of an earthquake, for example, because earthquake is very sudden and obvious. It does not spread and causes gradual damage over time. Again, please do check new words in a monolingual dictionary. And if you're still not entirely convinced about their meaning, ask ChIPT to give you a few example sentences. That will clear any doubts you have about the context in which you should use this or that word. 5. Look for synonyms: Look for synonyms and words that better convey the meaning of what you are trying to say and make your language richer and more precise. Let's look at a few examples. Do you feel the difference between words to look, to stare, and to ogle? Or to overthink versus to dwell on something. This kind of vocabulary will make you sound more sophisticated and add additional depth to what you're trying to say. You can look for words and synonyms in thesaurus, but be careful to always double check them in a monolingual dictionary, or you can just pick them up naturally as you study and progress in the language. The key thing here is to always know these words down whenever they pop up and group them somewhere in your notebook with their synonyms. And then use them to impress the others. 6. Read novels: If you are an intermediate learner, I would say now is the high time to start reading novels in your target language. Now, don't be scared. It doesn't have to be classics. It doesn't have to be anything difficult. It's just to get you started. Now, novels in native language have this wonderful quality of letting you in into the flow of the language. They don't have this dryness of language textbooks. They allow you to experience the language and the flow of thought of the author in the native language, of the native speaker himself. Here are a few tips for you to pay attention to when reading your first novel. First of all, you're reading novels for general comprehension. So please do not translate every single unknown word. That's not the point. When it comes to foreign words that you should write down, there are only really two criteria. The first one is write down the unknown words that are used frequently in the text. You see them time and over again. You can or you cannot guess their meaning from the context. It doesn't matter. This is the word that you should write down. The thing is that you already have a much easier time remembering it because you've encountered it already so many times. The second criterion is writing down unknown words that spark a curiosity. For example, when I was there in English, I came across this word lackadaisical, which, funnily enough, had nothing to do with lack of daisies, but rather meant somebody lacking enthusiasm. Anyway, this was enough to spark my curiosity. This was a weird word. This was a funny word. So I wrote it down and I remembered it. Another advice I can give you a regard in books in target language is not to select words with very specific vocabulary that you will not use on a day to day basis. For example, a lot of learners tend to go for books like Harry Potter because we've all read them in childhood probably. We know the plot, we know the characters. We already have the general gist of the book. However, books like Harry Potter have a ton of very specific magic vocabulary, words like magic wands, et cetera. You don't need it at this point in your language learning journey. Just skip ahead. Instead, I would recommend you to go for books of contemporary writers. For example, when I was during French, I write a few novels by this author, Just Levi, which is a contemporary author. Now, I could have gone for authors like Bi Zack or Dumas. But I don't need this vocabulary right now. I'm reading books at this point for general comprehension and for picking up vocabulary that either really interests me or just comes up frequently in the text. Reading novels in your target language is truly one of the few techniques that allows you to constantly improve your vocabulary and your level of language in a very smooth and organic way. 7. Read aloud: You are struggling with pronunciation in whichever language you're learning, reading novels aloud may truly be a solution for you. When I was learning French and living in France, I had a lot of faux pas where I would mispronounce the word and the native speaker would not understand me. What helped me correct my pronunciation was not only paying attention to the words to the rules, but also reading novels aloud. I remember one time I spent the whole weekend reading aloud the book Ren de Grave by Justin. Now, think of it this way. Unless you live in a foreign country, you may not have that many opportunities in your daily life to practice language, to practice speaking it loud, saying a loud, different words, et cetera. The novel, in this case, serves as a tongue twister which allows you to continuously improve your pronunciation, wriggle out, catch the rhythm of the phrase, and if you find yourself stumbling over some words, repeat them again and again until you master their pronunciation. Trust me, reading a novel aloud is much less embarrassing than talking to yourself and amarran a foreign language, right? 8. Get pronunciation right from the beginning: Now, as far as pronunciation goes, my best tip for you is to pay attention to it from the very beginning. Don't get fooled by promises on the Internet where people say that, Oh, you should just for now master grammar, learn basic vocabular et cetera, and then correct your pronunciation. No, this really doesn't work this way. When you learn the words, you learn their pronunciation at the same time, and it will be so much more difficult to correct your pronunciation down the road than to get it right from the very beginning. Your pronunciation does not need to be perfect. Nobody expects you to talk like a native speaker. However, the most important thing here is to just pronounce the words right. Now, let me give you an example. A lot of French learners mispronounced the phrase a lot of, which is Bocudu in French. They say instead Bokude Now Bocudu and Bkude are not only written in different ways, but Bcude is also a grammatical mistake. At the same time, this is the phrase that you will use hundreds of times in the beginning of your language learning journey, so it's crucial to get it right. It can be through either learning the pronunciation rules in the language or from noticing how native speakers pronounce certain words and then copying them. There are multiple ways, really. But what you really need to do is be confident that if the native speaker doesn't understand you, it's not because you completely butcher the pronunciation of the word because that's the worst thing, right? 9. Create your own example sentences: When it comes to learning new words, both the ones that you may have picked up while reading a novel or the ones that you have picked up while journaling, I recommend you to think about how they apply to your daily life. For example, a lot of dictionaries give example sentences after the word in definition. What I recommend you to do is to write your own example sentences. But first, think exactly in which situation you may find yourself using a specific word or a phrase. For example, I've recently learned a Turkish word Hbtmec which means to waste, to squander, which is the synonym of the word har ja Mach, which I've already known as an example sentence, I came up with the following. Socia Media Wat Hebei M Semre, which means It want to waste my time on social media. This is very relevant to me because as a lot of people nowadays, I do have a slight social media addiction. But again, this word applies to my situation in particular. You may find yourself using the new words that you're learning in a multitude of different scenarios. Just think of them. I also encourage you to write all of these sentences down, preferably below the new words. I like to do it in the vocabulary notebook that I have for new vocabulary. I just write the word definition and one or two example sentences below. This helps me to remember when I would be prone to use a specific new word and which scenario, and it just helps me retain it better. Do give it and go and let me know what you think. 10. Writing Practice: You may know already, there are two types of language learning, active, speaking, writing, and passive listening and reading. Unfortunately, merely being able to understand the language, written or spoken does not mean that you actually know it. In order to say that you've truly mastered the language, you must be able to produce words in this language, namely through writing or speaking. I want to talk more about writing because I feel like it is something very challenging for a lot of people, myself included. But over the years of learning languages, I figured out much easier ways to incorporate writing in my language learning routine. In my opinion, the best way to develop your writing muscle is by writing about things that you care about, not only about some random things like global warming, environmental pollution, et cetera, the kind of typical things that your language learning teacher might assign you. My favorite way of developing a writing muscle in a target language is by keeping a diary in it. The thing is that a lot of us actually lack a lot of vocabulary we would normally want to use when talking about things that happened, things we care about, our hobbies, the people in our surroundings, et cetera. And unfortunately, essays that may be assigned to us in a language class such as, for example, an essay about global warming or environmental pollution or some other general topics that we have no interest in can do nothing for our language learning because let's face it, we did not talk about global warming every single day. However, when you write about something that you truly care about, for example, getting an A on one of your exams at university or getting a promotion or getting a new PAT or just cooking a dish that you've always wanted to try and you now just find time to do it. That's the things that are going to add the most to your language skills. First of all, because you're going to need vocabulary to express the things that you genuinely care about and are interested in. Secondly, seeing how some things do repeat themselves, you will amass vocabulary that you will keep using and reusing in your daily life on multiple occasions. Let me walk you through how I do it. First of all, I write the entire thing in a foreign language, a page or a few passages or a few sentences if you're just getting started. If there is a certain word that I either don't remember or don't know, I do not look it up in the dictionary straightaway. I write it down in English or whatever your native language is, and then I keep writing the rest of my thoughts in a foreign language. The most important thing here is not to ruin the flow. After you are done writing, feel free to look up in the dictionary all the unknown words and bonus points if you have any native speakers in your surroundings, you can even go and ask them to check for any grammar or orthographic mistakes in your writing. However, if you don't don't be discouraged. The goal of this exercise is not to produce grammatically and orthographically perfect sentences right off the bat. It is just to get you started and get you used to writing, thinking, and expressing yourself in a foreign language. And if you're still worried about any grammar mistakes, those will fix themselves naturally as you study and progress in language. 11. Write as much as you can: Write as much as you can. Write down unknown words, their meanings, example sentences, write down the entire grammar exercises. Don't just fill in the blank space, write the entire sentence. Copy your favorite passages in your tare language, write down your favorite quotes, write down entire articles and chapters from books. Whatever it is that sparks your attention, write as much as you can. There's a lot of scientific evidence that suggests that learning the language through writing activates more parts of your brain than if you are simply typing away. Personally, writing as much as I could was how I learned English. I would copy entire grammar exercises from my book, the entire sentences, not just fill in the blank space. I would also copy entire texts from language textbooks and then write down the words and their definitions alongside five or ten example sentences. Writing is good, whether you're composing something of your own or whether you're just copying a text, because it helps you to get used to writing in this particular language. It helps you get used to the lengths of sentences, the turn of phrases, the use of different tenses, the use of different grammatical structures, et cetera. One more coincidental benefit of writing is that it will help you with your spelling. Writing as much as you can will help you massively, especially in tricky languages such as French, where the orthographic rules are fairly complicated because the more you repeat in writing the new words, the tricky words, the complicated words, the better you will remember them eventually. If you're a visual learner like I am, this will definitely come in handy. 12. Listening Practice: Movies vs. Podcasts: Note on listening. Personally, I'm not a big listener. I would not call myself an auditor or learner at all. However, listening is still an important part in language learning. If you're like me, if you're very visual, if you need the picture, if you need the words, how do you incorporate listening into your language learning in an efficient way? Personally and most importantly, I steer clear from podcasts. I do not expect myself to concentrate on what the speakers are saying, especially if this is something boring. However, I absolutely love watching movies and videos because in this case, you still hear people speak, right? You still get the listening, but your attention is also captured. There's a visual element of it also, an unexpected benefit of TV shows and movies is that you will most likely hear actors use a lot of daily vocabulary, stuff you will not hear if you're listening to some specific or professional podcast. You will also see their body language and facial expressions with which they're using these words. Now, this is a great way to tune in into the cultural wave of the language we are trying to learn and really feel what it would be like to use a specific word or a specific phrase in a certain situation. As ridiculous as it sounds, I owe a lot of my Turkish to Turkish TV series because they're great specifically for this purpose. Try it out. If you're a visual learner like me, you'll find it a lot more interesting and engaging than just listening to a podcast. 13. Outro: This is it. We've now come to the end of this course, and I hope you've enjoyed it and that you found some useful techniques and advice. I wish you a fun and productive language learning journey, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.