10 secrets of learning a foreign language from a polyglot

1. Go through the same stages as a small child

Each language has basic algorithms that can be quickly mastered and brought to automatism. To do this, you have to go through the path that the child goes through. Children usually start talking between the ages of two and three. At this time, no one really teaches their language, they just get used to the sound of their parents’ voices, listen to the speech addressed to them, and at some point a linguistic revolution takes place, the logic of their native language “turns on”.

When fairy tales are read to a child, he understands little, most of the words are unfamiliar to him (that is “Lukomorye”, that is “gilded belly”). The first thing that arises is a feeling of pleasant vibrations and a comfortable rhythm. Emotions are born in a child, behind them are images, and not necessarily related to what is written in the book.

When we start learning a new language as adults, we are just like small children in it. We seem to be “born” and must go the same way: from recognition to habit, assimilation and reproduction. We must begin to experience pleasure by combining the elements of language we already know, creating phrases, sentences.

2. Get used to the sound of someone else’s speech

In order for the new language environment to cease to be alien to us, audio perception must adapt to a comfortable level: the language should not frighten, it should become familiar. Watching movies and series helps a lot. For adaptation, you can turn on subtitles, but only in a foreign language. It is important to watch what we have seen before, so as not to tense up and panic that we will not understand anything.

A good option is to watch talk shows. This is the only format on television where people speak in normal language. In the news, the announcer reads a pre-recorded text, trying to keep within the timing, so watching the news will do little.

3. Determine what type you are

We are all different: some of us hardly perceive information by ear, but we speak easily and willingly. Others, on the contrary, understand everything, know all the rules, but are afraid to open their mouths once again.

Before you start learning a language, it is important to understand what type you are. Solutions will be different. The problem with perception — listen to audio books in parallel with printed ones, listen to music with lyrics in front of your eyes, watch movies, put talk shows in the background. Want to start speaking the language… just start! A good exercise to get rid of the blockage is to talk about anything for a minute without a break.

4. Watch your breath

Learning a language: listening to audio files, trying to learn a rule or build a phrase, we strain not only mentally, but also physically. Do not forget about the body, track the sensations of discomfort and remove them with the help of breathing.

As a rule, tension is concentrated in one of three points: in the forehead, throat or abdomen. It is useful to “raise” the breath to the top of the head while inhaling, and as you exhale, slowly pass through each of the points, relaxing them.

5. Watch foreigners

Pay attention to how native speakers of the language you are interested in speak Russian, how their accent sounds. Literally in a few words, you can understand how they articulate, how their speech apparatus works, and see the phonetic picture. This will help you readjust.

6. Don’t strive for perfection

One of the most popular wishes of those who come to language courses is: “I want to learn how to speak without an accent.” But this task is not just difficult, but impossible: all native speakers speak it differently. There are more than three dozen phonetic norms in little England alone, and the classical rules are becoming more and more vague.

And if earlier students-translators were required to achieve perfect pronunciation, an Oxford accent, now it is more important to teach them to expand their range of perception — to teach them to understand the English speech of Arabs, Chinese, Indians by ear.

7. Use an emotionally imaginative approach

In our native language, the word is associated with images, not with the letters that make it up. Letters only distract from emotions, pictures. It is important that a foreign language also gives rise to positive emotions and vivid images that are felt at the physical level.

Languages ​​can be compared to friends: each has its own traits, character, temperament. One friend can hardly be confused with another. It is important to build such associations with languages ​​as well. The key element can be, for example, music or cuisine. They will become a password that will allow you to activate the «file» with the desired language. A picture, emotion, taste allows you to immediately «penetrate» the language, bypassing the «internal translator».

8. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

The most harmful thing in learning a language and in general everything new is to be afraid of mistakes. Without them, nothing can be learned. The child is praised for any mispronounced or even invented word. He feels supported and motivated to speak again. It should be the same with learning a new language as an adult.

9. Get into the right environment

Many complain that, having gone abroad, having plunged into the language environment, for some reason they do not begin to speak the language. But to be abroad does not yet mean to be among the milieu. The environment means the opportunity to communicate intensively and continuously with native speakers.

Did you understand that you are ready for such communication? Go to any foreign training or seminar on a topic not related to the language: a gathering of aquarium fish lovers or a forum of amateur gardeners. At such events, usually only residents of the country come to chat with each other.

10. Love a new language

What usually motivates us to start learning a language? Competitive advantages in the labor market (when we cannot get promoted without a language), access to information or cultural resources (the desire to read your favorite author in the original), personal relationships, the need to feel comfortable when traveling.

But the best motivation is, of course, love. And the goal of learning any foreign language is pleasure and freedom.