3 Tips To Help You Learn Any Foreign Language Faster
I've learned about 11 different foreign languages in my lifetime, because I decided early on that if I’ll ever only see the word “party” written down, and not heard it spoken as an invitation for me to attend one, I might as well see it written in a bunch of different ways. Now, to be clear, I do not speak 11 different languages — not even close. The only thing I remember from most of them is, “One beer, please,” and, “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough.” But some languages stuck and eventually became lifelong passions, and I thought I'd share a few tips that have helped me along the way.
Embrace The First Silly Word Association That Pops Into Your Head
I’m currently learning Finnish because a while back I saw a cartoon about an anthropomorphic representation of Finland gently threatening people with a knife to give it personal space, and my first thought was, “These are my people.” It also doesn't hurt that the country produces the best metal music in the world, but that's not why I'm learning the language — it was definitely because of the cartoon.
And speaking of initial, wacky thoughts, you should usually trust those when learning a new language.
Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language, and I’ve never studied one of those before. It was all new sounds that didn’t mean anything to me, which I couldn’t connect in my head to words from other languages. So I just relaxed and told my brain to do a little word association. For example, when I got to the Finnish word for “three,” which is “kolme,” I grabbed onto the first idea that my brain could produce. Which happened to be “Colm Meaney,” the actor who plays Chief O’Brien on Star Trek.
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Did I mention I wasn’t invited to parties?
From there, it was simply a matter of creating an image in my head of three Chief O’Briens standing together, which I found quite comical, so I knew I’d never forget it. And just like that, I’d learned the Finnish word for “three.”
When you’re just beginning to study a language that’s unlike anything you know, its vocabulary is just noise and random shapes, like some less dramatic version of Arrival. Everyone will think of something different when they hear or read these things, but if you go with your first instinctive association and manipulate it the right way, you’ll form a natural connection between the nonsense word and a clear image of what it represents. And over time there won’t be a need to do it as things start to sound more natural.
This reactionary mental matching really stays with you, too. I stopped learning Turkish a few years ago, but to this day I still remember the word for “apple,” which is “elma,” because hearing it for the first time instantly reminded me of Elmo from Sesame Street because he too is red, and also because I imagined Big Bird eating him. Now I can’t forget that word, no matter how hard I try.
Develop Stories And Scenarios To Help Learn Words
Personally, I believe that humans remember everything we see, hear, or learn — we just have trouble retrieving certain information later. But I honestly think that if you read anything once, it’s in your brain forever somewhere, and it's simply a matter of coaxing it out of there.
The easiest way to do that is using stories. Which isn't an opinion, by the way; it’s science. For example, fans of The Simpsons may remember this oddly-specific line from the show: “Quiet nerds burp only near school.” Bart uses it to remember the original provinces of Canada (Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario and Nova Scotia), and now so do I, and I haven’t even set foot in the Western hemisphere.
This isn’t just about creating mnemonics, acronyms, or acrostics. It’s more of an illustration of the power of narrative learning. “QNBONS” means nothing to me, but the image of a shy nerd burping next to a school? That lives in my brain rent-free. You need to create these sorts of stories in your mind to get through the initial, awkward stage of language learning where it’s still all just arbitrary noises and letter combinations.
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When all of it is, quite literally, foreign to you.
It’s how I first remembered the Japanese kanji for “shinobi,” (忍), a word you may recognize from Sega’s ninja-themed video game series of the same name, which is used to actually write "ninja" (忍者). The character is seemingly made up of two components, the lower “heart” (心) and the upper “blade” (刃), and you can probably already see where this is going. I created a little story in my head about a ninja attacking someone and plunging a blade into their heart, and I’ve remembered the character for “shinobi” ever since. Again, this stops being necessary the longer you study the language, but when you’re just starting out, it not only makes learning easier, it can add a fun, murderous subplot to your education.
Here's another example: the Japanese character for “depression” is kind of difficult (鬱), but by the time I got to it, I was comfortable enough with Japanese to just need the beginning of a complex kanji, and the rest of it would come flowing to me. The upper part of 鬱 looks to be made up of three components: 木缶木, which mean “tree,” “can,” “tree,” so I envisioned someone drinking beer (can) alone in a forest (between trees). I don’t actually think that’s what real depression looks like, but it was a convenient story to help me remember. You just need to create stories that work for you.
Make Learning A Language As Physical As Possible
For as long as I can remember, I always prepared study sheets and lists of vocabulary words to memorize by hand, despite my handwriting legitimately looking like chicken scratch … if that chicken was coming off a five day coke bender during an earthquake. There was a time when I briefly switched to taking notes on a laptop, but I eventually noticed that the stuff I wrote down using a pen and paper stayed with me way longer than what I typed on a computer.
If you've noticed this about yourself, that's probably because there's actually something to it. Basically, when you take notes by hand you retain the information better, and the reason behind it is hilarious: because you can't write fast enough. Your inability to keep up with spoken words at handwriting speed forces your brain to actually absorb and learn things while they're being taught, instead of being focused on transcribing. This tip is best paired with the Goldlist method, which involves writing down the words and phrases you want to remember by hand, then coming back to them two weeks later and seeing what got stuck in your head. Then you write down, again by hand, everything you forgot or got wrong, and then come back to those after another two weeks, and so on.
Too many people make learning a foreign language too clinical. Apps and other language programs are great and all, but for some, they will feel too impersonal. Humans have (more than) five senses, and you need to incorporate as many of them as possible into your learning. Which brings us to the Total Physical Response Approach.
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All you have to do is hold this pose while saying “yoga.”
The idea behind it is pretty straightforward: when you’re trying to memorize the word(s) for, say, “to stand up” in whatever language, you physically stand up. When you’re learning the word for “smile,” you smile. When you get to the word “party,” you cry a little. I know it seems super obvious and kind of goofy, but this approach does, in fact, get really good results.
But the most important thing to remember is that there is no perfect language learning method that works for everyone. You have to try a lot of different things and find out what works for you, because everybody is different. For example, some people find great success by making comical Sesame Street associations when learning Turkish words, while others have trouble sleeping at night because they fear their recurring nightmare of Big Bird biting fleshy chunks off of Elmo.
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