The 6 steps to learn a new language
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ค. 2024
- A couple of weeks ago, I made a TikTok in which I talked in all the languages I know.
And the two questions everyone asked were: How do you learn languages? And why are your accents so good? So that’s what I’m going to show you today.
I’m going to go over the 6 steps to follow to learn a language my way:
--------------------
Follow me on Instagram and TikTok! - @buehlphilipp
/ buehlphilipp
/ buehlphilipp
--------------------
1. Ask yourself: Why do you want to learn the language?
First of all, you need motivation. If you don’t have a reason to learn the language, you will fail. It doesn’t have to be something big or important to something that makes sense to other people, but just know for yourself why you want to learn it so that you can remind yourself of that reason when you’re thinking about quitting, which you will.
I learn languages to talk to people. Maybe text with them through WhatsApp. But I don’t need to focus on learning formal speech. And to be honest, that comes with time anyway.
2. Learn the very basics
Since I just want to talk and not learn formal speech, for me the second step is to learn just the very basics.
I would suggest you to look online for the 1.000 most common words in that language and you learn them. Luckily there are many lists on Google, just pick the one that you like best.
Apps like Duolingo start the course by teaching you how to say the words “man” or “apple”. But how often do you actually use them?
Also, it’s far more important to know verbs than nouns. Because when you speak, it’s easy to point at an item or describe it somehow, maybe even with gestures.
3. Listen and repeat
If you think about it: How do children learn a language? They listen to their parents and the people around them and mimic what they hear. That’s what they do all day for years.
Now, obviously you don’t want to listen to people for years before being able to speak your first sentence, so you have to do some reading from the beginning.
BUT you can use the same technique when it comes to grammar.
Do you have any idea about all the grammar rules in your own language? Probably not.
You never learned them and still use the correct form each time. Because you’re just mimicking what other people have done before you. So what do we do?
We watch Netflix.
Basically, what you will be doing is watching TV shows in, let’s say, Spanish, with subtitles in Spanish, trying to understand as much as possible. Make sure it’s a show that was filmed in Spanish too so you can actually watch and hear the actors speak the language.
I recommend you to take out your phone and open a translator and translate every word or phrase you don’t understand. Yup, the first episodes of your new tv show will take a while because you have to pause every couple of seconds. But after 2-3 episodes of always translating what you don’t understand, you’re going to be able to understand most of what’s going on.
If you want to start with slow and simple words, the Netflix Kids section is pretty good for that. TV shows for kids are a super efficient way to learn a language.
4. Analyze
Music is good for analyzing the language more deeply. I still sit down and look at the lyrics of songs and try to find answers to the questions I have.
And to be honest, singing or rapping along those songs, trying to nail the pronunciation, makes a good practice too.
5. No subtitles
At some point you will have to turn off the subtitles on Netflix. The good thing is that as soon as you can more or less understand what’s going on without subtitles, you’re not limited anymore to platforms that have reliable subtitles.
I personally enjoy TH-cam a lot more than Netflix and I’ve had a lot of fun and a strong learning curve from watching Brazilian TH-cam channels!
6. Perfection
If you have time and money to travel, that’s perfect. I highly recommend you going to a country where your target language is spoken. Find locals, through Couchsurfing for example, maybe also Tinder and Bumble, and try to talk to them in their language. You can tell them that you’ve been studying for a while and are now there to practice and I’m sure that 99 % of the people you meet on Couchsurfing will gladly help you!
If you cannot travel, I can recommend you try out an app called Tandem. Tandem is an app that connects you with people that speak the language you want to learn and would like to learn your language. I used it a lot a couple of years ago, it used to be my favorite app by far and I’m still in contact with a few people I met on there. So it’s definitely worth to try out in my opinion!
And my last recommendation are language events. Until the beginning of 2020 I used to go to this event called “mundo lingo” every week which is organized in many different cities around the world. There you can meet people from all around the world that are just there to speak different languages. Highly recommend this too!
I'm learning Arabic next. Any advice? :P ❤
Your methods are great and I fully embrace all of them. I also believe that these work for learning any language. However, I have to say that your language selection is beautiful but those languages are all very similar languages. And most importantly, very similar to your native language. With that being said, do not expect the same progress when learning Arabic, because it is going to be another kind of challenge. But I assume that you are prepared for that. Arabic is quite hard. I can recommend to make sure to learn the alphabet properly first and do not rely a second longer than needed on romanization, as this really those not help to in terms of pronunciation and content you can consume. I also recommend to pick a dialect from the start and rather go back to modern later on. There is one fantastic girl here on TH-cam which share's her methods and resources. If you haven't checked her out, her channel is 'Zoe languages'. Good luck🍀!
Thank you for your kind words!!
I fully agree with what you said! With my travels until now, I've been very focused on Europe and America, that's why I chose the languages I speak.
But now that I want to discover a completely new region, it's time for something new. And that's one of the main reasons I'm so excited to learn Arabic.
Do you have any advice for which dialect I should choose? Until now, I have zero connections to any of the countries in the region, but I've heard the dialects can be quite different from one another.
And thank you for the recommendation of Zoe's channel. I don't know her, but I'll definitely check out her content!
Thank youu!!
@@philipptravels I mean, those are such nice languages and you can be proud and happy that you speak them. Well done! I actually plan to study Portuguese next. It is such a beautiful language. German I already speak by the way (I do not care what people say, I love that language, so detailed and philosophic)! In terms of dialect, this is such a hard question, as it highly depends what you do with it and which countries are you interested in. I personally like the Levantine (e.g. spoken in Syria and Lebanon, Jordan etc. but Note: even then it has differences from region to region) and Egypt dialect the most. I guess the reason why most people learn modern standard Arabic first is, that you can somewhat communicate with people from different countries but they would just use it with you and not amongst them. Also it leaves your door open to choose a dialect later. So maybe this would be the right approach for you. But like I said, I really recommend you to watch the videos of Zoe, she is a fellow Chinese native speaker and speaks 7 languages plus multiple Arabic dialects to a high level, she is much more educated in this language group. Ich bin mir sicher du bekommst es ohne Problem hin. Deine Methoden sind super und ich denke gerade ein Input basierter Ansatz und ein Menge Shadowing sind für Arabisch super geeignet. Aber wie schon gesagt, lesen ist wirklich auch sehr wichtig, egal für welchen arabischen Dialekt. Ich hoffe du teilst dann deine Erfahrungen mit uns :) Ich konnte es mir nicht verkneifen, mein Deutsch etwas zu üben, wollte aber nicht alles auf Deutsch schreiben, vielleicht interessiert es ja jemand anderen auch noch und du weisst ja, English ist nicht die schönste Sprache aber eine sehr nützliche.
Thank you!!
Yess, I love Portuguese! It's a really beautiful language. And I never understood the hate for German haha
I think since at the moment I have no idea which Arabic country I like most or where I will know most people, it makes the most sense to learn the standard dialect and then let it evolve into whatever dialect over time.
Und super cool dass du Deutsch sprichst! Wie kommts dazu?
Ich bin sehr gespannt, wie mein Arabisch weitergeht, ich werde natürlich Updates posten, wahrscheinlich aber mehr auf Instagram.
Aber danke nochmal für deine Kommentare, das hat mir schon gut weitergeholfen! :)
@@philipptravels Hört sich nach einem Plan an :) Ich habe meinen Master in Deutschland gemacht und dafür musste ich davor schon ein Jahr auf das Studienkolleg und danach habe ich das ganze Programm hauptsächlich auf Deutsch studiert, mit ein paar englischen Kursen. Ich habe übrigens auch nur mit Arabisch begonnen, weil auf dem Studienkolleg sehr viele Schüler aus Syrien waren. Das sind echt nette Leute und ich habe viel über die syrische Kultur gelernt und viel gutes Essen bekommen. Viel Erfolg nochmal :)
Also find friends in your area to speak the language with. This will be a very easy way to pick it up. Since you are from Germany there are large Arab populations throughout the country.
Absolutely, great advice!!
Learning Arabic is quite challenging , their are tons of dialects but if you want my peace of advice I recommend you learning { 🇸🇾 Syrian Dialect } , It’s known that most of the voice overs in any turkish , english shows are by syrians with their dialects.
syria is also the only country in the world till now which teaches medical and engineering in arabic.
since you are german you can tell that their are tons of syrians that live in your country i recommend chatting to some of them and learning that would be quite helpful for you.
I wish you well with learning Arabic and am eagerly anticipating your visit to Syria. The country is entirely safe; most of syria is under government control, and the capital is bomb-free and gun violence free for 3 years straight the government have defeated ISIS thankfully so you don’t have to be worried about any terrorist groups in syria they have been all defeated most of them fled to iraq .
Many people choose to fly to Syria via Lebanon and then by vehicle, which I find to be quite inefficient as there is an airport in the United Arab Emirates called Sharjah international airport, from where you can easily travel to Damascus International Airport in much less time and with much less hassle than by driving.
Thank you so much for your nice comment!
I am also tending towards learning the Syrian accent. I haven’t had a deeper look at the different accents yet but everyone i know speaks either Syrian or gulf Arabic.
I would love to visit Syria soon! It’s actually one of the countries I want to visit very soon. Thanks for letting me know about the flight from the UAE, I will definitely check that out :)
Pimsleur audio books through audible helped me.
I’ll have to try that out!
Cool I love Arabic ❤️ but i don't now how to speak it
I'm super excited about it!!
Hi I got a quick question. I am trying to learn Polish but when I will watch netflix do I need to watch the show in Polish or subtitles in Polish?
Definitely audio and subtitles in polish!
And also the show should be filmed in polish, so no dubbed versions
I’m trying to learn Tonga 🇹🇴 my friends are Tongan most times I don’t understand them and they won’t teach me
Interesting choice, good luck!!
Hey Philipp ich brauch mal pls deine hilfe und zwar zum Thema interrail. Ich hab eines bei der jährlichen EU Verlosung gewonnen und wollte eine Großbritannien Tour machen aber ich komme im interrail Pass einfach nicht nach Nordirland oder Irland. Ne Kollegin meinte mal man kann nach Irland fliegen mit interrail oder fahren gibt es auch. Bei mir werden nur Züge angezeigt. Danke schonmal ich würde mich über Hilfe sehr freuen
Hey! Also klar, Flüge gibt es bei Interrail nicht, die müsstest du unabhängig buchen. Fähren gibt es aber.
Die werden nicht in der Rail-Planner App angezeigt, du kannst aber auf dieser Karte hier auf der Interrail Webseite (www.interrail.eu/content/dam/pdfs/Interrail%20map%202022.pdf) sehen, auf welchen Verbindungen es Fähren gibt. Ein Beispiel wäre also Holyhead - Dublin.
Die Rail-Planner App zeigt dir, wie du nach Holyhead kommst.
Da die Reservierung bei jeder Reederei etwas anders ist, hast du auf dieser Seite (www.interrail.eu/de/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/ferries) einen Überblick über alle Partner von Interrail mit einer Beschreibung, wie du bei diesen Tickets bekommst. Bei manchen bekommst du mit einem Interrail Ticket kostenlos Tickets, bei anderen bekommst du Rabatte.
Wenn du dann in Irland bist, hilft dir die Rail-Planner App wieder weiter, um mit Zügen nach Nordirland zu kommen.
Hoffe, das hilft :)
Bro why not come to somaliland NOT somalia search it for more information btw drew binkys visit somaliland two year ago you are welcome if went
I thought about it but I’m not sure if it would feel right. I would prefer to also go to the regions where the main government is in control. But I definitely also want to visit somaliland!