The Secret to Learning a Foreign Language

As the owner of a language school, I am always looking into new and different methods on how to teach a new language.

While surfing the Internet, I came across a Ted Talk hosted by Lýdia Machová who considers herself a language mentor (she should be, she knows 8 languages and has decided to learn a new language every two years). I found her talk to be inspiring and decided to share her Talk with you:

Lýdia Machová

Some methods are more common than others. But what stood out in her Talk was that all these polyglots seemed to personally enjoy the learning process.

Try this out: choose a book you have read and loved and read it in a foreign language. By doing this, you will learn this language. You know the plot of the book, but now you can see the grammatical structure and vocabulary used to write the book. Granted, it may seem like gibberish in the beginning, but just stick to it! You will see, you will start to understand the meaning of the words.

By choosing something you know and love, you will want to stick to learning your chosen language.

Mrs. Machová also gives advice about speaking the language. She states you can practice by yourself. Invent an imaginary friend and tell them you plans for the weekend, etc. Thus, there is no need for someone to be in the room with you.

Enjoyment is not enough to learn a language. To become fluent, there are three more principles that you need to apply:

1. Effective methods
2. Create a system for learning
3. Patience

This is how polyglots learn languages in months and not years. Try different methods and find the one that works for you.

Give it a shot, what do you have to lose?