learning languages in a self-taught way; tips

Hej hej!! ✨

Now that I've finished the EvAU (I think I did pretty well tbh) and I have again time to do things that I like, I want to write here more and develop as well the blog, but little by little because this summer I'm planning to do so many things that I don't know if in the end I'll have time hehehe.

With the arrival of holidays and the end of classes, the amount of free time we have now increases a lot. I think it's a wonderful moment to take up a new hobby or resume an old one that we stopped doing. Among all the things we can occupy our time with, I'm going to focus on one in specific: learning a new language.

My friends already know that I'm passionate about languages (especially the Nordic ones hehe) and I've been self-taught for 5 years or so. I started studying Korean on my own at the age of 14, and little by little the number of languages that I have been learning by myself has increased. Later I started with Swedish and I currently have a quite decent (pretty good I would say) level of these languages. Moreover, I'm learning Norwegian, Icelandic and planning to start Italian and German as well (I'm super excited AHHH I'm really looking forward to it!). Every language is completely different, has its own rules, structures, irregularities, words that don't have a literal translation and one must understand the concept... anyway, a bit of a pain in the neck (though I love that hehe). I think that this long experience with languages """"qualifies""" me to give some tips to people who are going to start learning on their own.

Before anything, I want to clarify that this is a super personal process and these are things that have been useful to me. However, this is like everything: maybe it doesn't work with everyone. It is hard to find the first time a method that is useful to you, so you have to try until you finally get it. This being said, I'll start! :)

1. finding a language that fills you

It seems like something really obvious, but it isn't. Until I found Swedish, and eventually my love towards Nordic languages, I tried with Chinese, Japanese, Polish and even Russian, but none of them filled me in the same way that Swedish did (and does). Studying a language is a really long process that sometimes can be hard and frustrate, so if it's even one that doesn't make you feel in any any way, it won't only make you dislike the process, but also your motivation won't last long and you most probably will give up.

2. chunking and context for vocabulary

I still remember the lists of vocabulary I used to learn when I started with Korean. At first, they were random words without any type of context nor associative field I could relate them with, so it was a bit hard and difficult to remember. If you want to learn lists as such, it's better if they are by topics so that you have a context to relate them with. Nevertheless, what has been useful to me lately is chunking: learning sentences. Not only you have to write phrases in your target language, but also you can include several words in the same sentence, thus giving the context that will help you to memorise them.

For instance, we remember better sentences like "¿dónde esa el aseo?" when we go on holiday. Instead of having to learn separately each one of the words and then having to build the sentence by yourself, it's easier to make this type of constructions in order to learn vocabulary. Maybe not all the words like this, but it's a really useful habit! :).

3. adapt the language to your routine

Except for holidays, it's difficult to dedicate 1h a day at least to a language. We have to be realistic. Cognitively it's better to dedicate a little bit of time every day, but the reality is much more complex than that and we must be flexible. There are little time intervals, like when we are using public transport or waiting at the doctor for example, that we can use to revise with the phone or whatever we have at hand. Be it digital notes or flashcards, this review will make the contents stick to our minds little by little until we have memorized them definitively. You can save a little space in the day, like before going to bed, to revise or learn new contents, thus creating a habit.

4. set little objectives

As I said before, this can be a hard process. It is difficult, long and normally we do not notice how we're making any progress. Setting little objectives can serve as motivation to keep studying and keeping control of what new we are learning; as well as be a reference to see how we are improving as we compare it with what we used to know. This is more a tip for motivation and to organize a bit the learning process. We must be realistic and don't set impossible goals. I recommend that they are short-term objectives so that we can have that satisfaction that comes from progress more regularly.

5. include the language in your notes

This is something that I started doing this year and has been really useful. When taking notes, I didn't include just drawings, I also wrote words or phrases in Korean so as to differentiate them from the rest of the text in the Latin alphabet. Of course, that highlighted, so it was easier to remember and sometimes I had to look up specific words in the dictionary, which helped to learn new vocabulary. It's another way of incorporating the language into your daily life. :)

6. read! read! read!

Do you remember what I said before that we remember better words in a context? Reading is the best example of this. Be it articles in the newspaper, books for kids, magazines, novels, whatever. These texts have an ambit we can relate the words we learn to. Not only that, but we also face the language in a "native context" as they are targeting an audience that already speaks it. This can help us as a challenge in order to see how far we can get with what we have learned. Reading skills are really important and we have to work on them.

7. use different resources (books, webs, dictionaries...)

This can be either really easy or really hard. It isn't the same to learn German, studied by more people, than studying Slovak, studied by much fewer people. Sincerely, I always like to have at least 1 grammar book I can guide myself with and that I know it's a secure source of information. On the Internet, there are sooo many things and I don't know which of those are right or which ones are teaching me something wrong. Yet, use web pages and take advantage of free resources like Duolingo, even if it's just to do some exercises. Everything helps! :)

On the other hand, it's true that the more resources, the better. In every place, things are explained in a different way, adding more or less information, and having different explanations of the same topic can help us to build a wider and more solid concept of a grammar point, for instance.

Pay attention when buying a dictionary or using an online one, especially if the language has genders. I mention this because I was planning to buy a Swedish dictionary but then I realized that it didn't include any article nor an indication of the gender of nouns (wtf, how are they planning to sell that?). In Swedish, gender is really important as it determines a lot of structures and constructions, so that dictionary wasn't useful at all.

8. music, shows & podcasts

Learning a language isn't just memorizing endless lists of vocabulary and piles of grammar (even though I love doing that). It's also watching movies, tv shows, listening to podcasts, music, etc. While cleaning your room or at the bus, you can listen to podcasts in your targeted language, as well as creating music playlists that help you to get familiar with the phonetics of the language and the language itself. When watching movies or shows, I think that what helps the most is watching them with subtitles in their language, not English or your mother tongue. Maybe at first you don't get anything, but you see how natives pronounce sentences and you can learn from that: try to imitate aloud what they say focusing on how they put their mouth and the sounds they make. You can also write down new words that you read or listen to. I have a folder in Quizlet where I include all the flashcard decks that I create with the new vocabulary that I get while doing this.

9. native friends

Lucky, it's not difficult or practically impossible to study a language and have native friends. Maybe if our parents had started learning Ukrainian, unless they had visited Ukraine, it would have been hard for them to have an Ukrainian friend who could help them. We are lucky that the Internet connects us with people worldwide. Apps and pages like Hello Talk, Interpals or Italki bring us the opportunity to meet people online who live in the country whose language we are studying. I have met several Swedish friends like this, and it's always wonderful having someone native who can point out your mistakes and with whom you can talk and express yourself in your target language! :)

10. learn about the culture

I think that a language is another manifestation of the culture of a country or region. Actually, every language has words that can not be translated literally due to the cultural connotations that it has and other countries don't. For example, the Swedish term lagom can't be translated as it is part of the Swedish culture, so we have to get the concept.

Learning about other country's culture helps us as well to get more familiar with the traditions, their people and understand many of their customs. It gives us a different vision of many things and new ways of approaching situations or life philosophies. No longer so much for the language, but for being more open-minded.

11. keep a jurnal

Maybe you don't have to write every day, but you do have to do it once every three days at least. By doing this you learn how to build texts and put into practice what you have studied. It's a good way of realising the words you use daily and you are lacking, so you know which new vocabulary you must learn. Every so often it is also good to revise previous texts that you wrote and notice the mistakes you used to make. It's similar to being your own teacher.

12. speak a lot, say things aloud!

In my opinion, one of the most important things. If we learn a new language it's to communicate with other people, but we can't do it if we aren't used to talking. Start building phrases from the very beginning and talk with yourself even though you make mistakes. The more you do it, the more fluency you will have later.

But, above all: say things aloud. When you start studying a language, especially if it's super different from your mother tongue, speaking aloud is terrible. We struggle to make strange sounds to which we are not used to and we tend to be ashamed of our pronunciation as we think it isn't good enough. When I started learning Swedish, I used to speak whispering as I didn't want my family to listen to me since I sucked at it. Trust me, any Swede would have spitted at me for screwing up their language. However, luckily that habit changed and I started speaking aloud, recording myself, focusing on my mistakes and making an effort to change them. It's true that I still make some mistakes, but my pronunciation and fluency have improved A LOT since I do this. :)

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Another thing I want you to remember: forget about being really self-demanding. Let yourself be wrong, that is how we learn. Don't feel super bad if you see that you are making a lot of mistakes or feel that you are making no progress, it's completely normal and part of the language learning process. It's hard but worth it. <3

Be careful with some linguistics who say that there is no need to study grammar nor anything at all so as to speak a language. Tell that to Korean, German or all the impossible tenses to form from French. You must have the mentality that you have to study, like in everything, that is why it's so important that it's a language that fills you.

If you are interested, I can make a list of resources of different languages that I know or talk more about languag learning in different posts in the blog (or even YouTube videos!). I hope you found this useful or that it has encouraged you to start learning a language. If you have any question, don't hesitate to ask me! I'll gladly help you!! :)

Stay hydrated and stay safe <3

Hej då och vi ses!🪴🤍

- Kae