Is it possible to teach yourself a foreign language

Choose one phrase a day and commit to it. Notice how all of these phrases are jam-packed with useful words, while also being incredibly practical. Have fun and be creative when trying to implement your daily phrase. By using the phrase repeatedly and focusing your mental energy on it, your brain will have no choice but to let it stick. The next day, choose a new phrase to focus on, and repeat the process. And if you do happen to have trouble remembering your daily phrases, stick with the same phrase for three days, or for an entire week!

Closed captioning is becoming an increasingly popular option for YouTube content creators. To make the site more appealing to various culture and demographics, YouTube is encouraging viewers to caption videos in other languages. While on this screen, you can also adjust the speed, allowing you to make the video slower so that you can follow along more easily.

Try this with a video in your target language: Listen to only the first sentence and hit pause. From here, see if you know what was said, and then check by re-watching with the English captions.

Continue listening and pausing the video, going sentence by sentence. You can also try to imitate a native speaker by memorizing part of the YouTube video. This allows you to match your native language with the language spoken throughout the video. Try to pick out commonly used words or expressions. And if you want to learn a language with videos, but are looking for more than just subtitles, head over to FluentU.

FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. With FluentU, you hear languages in real-world contexts —the way that native speakers actually use them. Just a quick look will give you an idea of the variety of FluentU videos on offer:.

FluentU really takes the grunt work out of learning languages, leaving you with nothing but engaging, effective and efficient learning. All you have to do is choose any video that strikes your fancy to get started! Each word in the interactive captions comes with a definition, audio, image, example sentences and more. The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape.

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The Dr. Watching the TV shows and the cinema of the target language is not only a way to practice the language, but you can also learn a lot about the culture even before you travel to the country. While having fun, you develop your vocabulary, pick up the colloquial words, gestures, and accents. As you hear more people speak the language, you also start thinking in the language, thus eventually speaking it and understanding it better.

Try some newly-learned phrases on your language-exchange friend and see how she reacts. When my Chilean friend said good morning to a school colleague, I learned the phrase and repeated it the next time I met my friend.

She laughed. You can learn the solution to one linear equation in Mathematics but to solve another, you need to know the concept. You can then modify the language and use it as per your convenience. Here comes the grammar books again. You might want to try some funny grammar workbooks , too.

Our conversation was hilarious. Watch a Bollywood movie with your target language subtitles. Find a recipe you want to cook in the language you want to learn. Change the language of your phone and computer to the target language. Search for popular podcasts. The more you have to see and understand the new language, the more you will think in the language. Once you start writing in the target language, you will never forget the words that you wrote down. Almost all the languages have online podcasts to which you can tune into and keep listening.

The podcasts are a combination of audio lessons, dialogues, tips, and tricks. I am thinking about purchasing this Spanish one just for fun. Listening to someone speak to us is sometimes more impactful than reading ourselves. Translation applications are handy while directing a taxi, shopping, or during a conversation. But if you have some free time, you can use the applications to learn new words by translating whatever comes to your mind.

It never came to daily conversations. The right order of learning is important. Start learning a language with greetings, then daily routine questions such as did you eat lunch or want a cup of tea — these everyday conversations would ease your way into the language slowly and naturally.

Then come numbers, time, pronouns, introductory phrases, routine verbs such as to be, need, want, say, come, go, have, eat, drink, party, read, learn, forget, watch, work, live, see, sit, sleep, shower, wash, clean. Start with less. When I started speaking Spanish, I used to thrust out a string of jumbled words without articles, pronouns, and right tenses.

Then I started adding these missing constructors one by one. Choose an online tutorial or application that respects the order of learning foreign languages. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of tasks or phrases on the first few days of your learning a new language, you might want to switch to a different application.

Here is a complete Spanish step by step book. By reading aloud you can practice the sounds, accents, and the pronunciations of the target language.

Just pick up a book or an article on the internet and read it loudly as if you are narrating it to someone. The more you practice speaking words of the new language, the more confident you will be to use the language in public or with your language partner. I used to write down the phonetics of the Spanish words in Hindi to remember the correct Spanish pronunciation.

Even today when I get confused on how to pronounce a Spanish word, I dig into my hilarious notes that only I can understand. Ask your language exchange partner to enunciate the word for you. You can also listen to the correct pronunciation by playing the Google Translate voice feature or even Memrise tutorials introduce new words in audio formats.

Then write down the phonetics in your native language and refer to them whenever you need. You can learn the correct sounds of the new language if you know the right phonetics. When you start speaking a foreign language, you have found another culture that you can become part of. As I said before, find the right motivation.

A helpful read: Tips on making an efficient daily routine. In Yoga , we correct ourselves little by little to get the perfect posture. Similarly, w hen you start learning another language, you would be far from perfect. But learn from your mistakes. Focus on details to slowly improve your language skills. Teaching yourself a new language is a process. Notice, listen, think, repeat, write, improve, repeat. Learning the colloquial nuances of a language is an art. You can only speak a language like its native speakers if you talk to them and let them correct you.

But if you get offended, people would not point out your mistakes, and that is the last thing you want. If you are attentive, you grasp the accent, appropriate words, modifications, speed, and idioms. These amalgamate you with the people. I have seen truck drivers, who let me hitchhike, light up as I referred to them as Caballero gentlemen. Or women gleaming with pride as I complimented their cheese empanadas with Spanish idioms.

Please keep your ego on the side while teaching yourself a language. Also Read: Why are human relationships important and how to create them. Cracking funny jokes in a foreign language shows that you understand the language and its philosophy. We all learn at our own pace. Be easy on yourself, and take a break sometimes.

Enjoy the language learning journey for the process is always more important than the result. Once at a pharmacy in Santiago, I realized that I had not practiced the Spanish words for sanitary napkins. I stood there staring at the pharmacist as if I was trying to recall a complex chemical equation.

Believe me; it gets worse. Instead, embrace that you are learning a new thing, voluntarily, and have fun with it. You would pull your hair — more than you imagined. Pour a glass of wine and Netflix. Or try these fun language learning books along with some short story collections.

I took a French course in college, but I cannot speak any French as I never practiced it.