What the best ways to learn foreign languages?

What the best ways to learn foreign languages?

Originally Answered: What are the most effective ways to learn a new language?

I currently speak 6 languages: French(Native), English, German, Chinese, Japanese and Korean

Let me tell you briefly how I did that.

1. Put in your head that learning a language is easy, you just need time and patience, that’s all
2. You can absolutely become as fluent as a Native.
3. Don’t listen to anyone telling you you can’t, most people around you don’t speak more than one language and have some fixed mindset about language learning which prevent them from being open to learning and improving. You are different. You know you can become VERY good if you just trust and do what I will tell you right after.
4. Don’t rely on professors to teach you. A language is a tool of communication. It has to come from you and you have to be proactive to apply what you learn and improve fast.
5. Find the best book to learn the language you target. Just one book is enough. Don’t fall into the “Application” mania. An application or a dictionary is just a tool, a “helper”.
6. Every day, take 30 min to read that book until you finish the book. Go slowly, do all the exercices.
7. When you have some very basics and you know few phrases, find some friend speaking the language and go practice what you learn. Don’t be afraid to fail or to speak incorrectly, no one will laugh about you. Everyone speaks incorrectly before speaking correctly. Just think about babies: If a baby was waiting to have the perfect grammar to start speaking, he would never say a word. Instead, use the “ Fail Fast Forward” approach. Fail quickly, then listen to the correction. Ask others to correct you. Then improve.
8. When you understand few phrases and you feel you are okay to present yourself, start to watch dramas and series in the language you target. My advice is to watch dramas with subtitles in the language of the country language, NOT yours. The purpose is to listen. when you don’t understand, pause and search in the dictionary. make lists of words. If you don’t understand 100%, that’s okay. Try to understand the gestures and you will see that after some time, you will start to understand more and more.
9. Repeat all those steps: Find more books, dramas, friends.
10. Go to the country and study there. Speak with locals, be curious about the culture.

With this method, you will be fluent in less than 1 year.

Good luck.