Golden rules to study a language without teachers

If you, like me, study a language or want to do it, without a teacher, there are some things you should considerate.

First, let me say, I am not against traditional studies with teachers. I studied some languages with teachers, but I love to study a lot of languages, some of them, hard to find good teachers, and even if I do, it would be very expensive. (Imagine afford classes in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Romanian, German, Russian, Japanese…)

Study about the language first!

It is like a battle. A warrior who study the field first is wise, but the one who just go straight to the battle is a fool. Spend some time researching ABOUT the language, the structures, the hard points, the easy points, listen to people. It will worth a lot.

My example in this case: I gave myself a short time to hold a 20 minutes conversation in Japanese. So, when I started, I researched the language. They have 2 alphabets, and a great number of Kanji. So, I knew that I should avoid the writing to reach my goal. Now, I already did it and I am free to study it with all my heart.

Remember that you have to study the language. Don’t spend ALL your time studying about languages. Once you feel that you have enough information about your battle, simply go for it!

Time to decide which material will you use. 

I like to use more than one at the same time, other way you can get stuck in memorized dialogues and make a “fake” progress. In other hand, don’t try to use at the same time all the materials you found, it can makes a mess inside your brain.

My example:

To study German, I used Assimil, Deutsche Welle, HelloTalk and news. While, with Russian another things, Hebrew, Another. There is no rule for that, you need to find what makes you comfortable.

The routine! 

Time to build your routine, you need to deal with your impulse. you can be very excited now, but with time, you get tired, or maybe you don’t have the time you would like to. So, think in goals that you can REALLY reach. Don’t do it like: I will spent 5 hours each day if you only have 30 minutes. It is important to avoid frustration.

Aim small, but never stop!

Think about small goals for your week, don’t think like… I will start today and in 2 weeks I will be fluent. Think about it: I will star today, and in the end of the week I will introduce myself, or order some food. But never stop, increase your goals each week.

Native speakers: 

You can study without a teacher, but you will need a help from experts, in this case, Native people, it is wonderful, it is the best part, to know new cultures, perspectives. How would you know if you are using the tones of Mandarin correctly without a native speaker? Count on them, it will be precious for your journey. Don’t use them as a tool, use the language as a tool to build friendship with them!

Don’t get lazy when you get better!

If you study a language for a long time, you will get better and better, so, with time you will study less because you know more. The point is, don’t stop to study! If you do it, with time you will lose that language and will have a blocked language in your brain, what is sad and you don’t want.

If you feel that you know a lot and feel boring when start to study, it is time to change your habits. Read the news in that language! Listen to the radio, watch series, add that language to your normal routine. Speak to your friends (Native speakers that helped you in the beginning) in that language. Don’t think that you know enough and don’t need to study anymore! We always have something to learn!

 

 

 

The best way to learn new alphabets

How many times did you struggle in the process of learning a new language because of the alphabet?

I did it, more than once. My first experience with new characters was 1,5 years ago, when I decided to study Russian. It is normal that we feel some hard point with the first different alphabet, but, I almost killed my brain to catch it.

To be honest, I spent almost an entire month just learning the characters, and then, after a long time, I could read! What did you think I could read? Nothing! I knew how to read but I didn’t know the meaning of nothing. It was very annoying and I was very upset.

I almost quit. The only reason why I didn’t, was because I really love this language and I couldn’t live without learning it, so, I keep fighting, now I can read, write, speak I am maintaining Russian, but I love different alphabets.

Then, I started with Hebrew. New characters! I know them, but I am still improving, At the same time, I am learning Greek (Other Alphabet) and I came back to Arabic (Jordanian Arabic)  aaand, I am still learning the Japanese writing system. I am not quitting and I am not struggling.

So, why I had trouble with one alphabet and now I learn 4?

I was doing it with a bad method. I was using massive repetitions for memorization. It is not the best way.

First, I have different feelings for each one of this languages, what makes me to not mix up them. I don’t have the same level in all of them. Which I think is a helpful thing.

What do I use?

Memrise. Yes, a lot. It is very cool and it is the best way of learn a new alphabet. If you try to learn entire words at once, you can fail, but Memrise teachs you character by character and them you start to learn the words.

I spent 20 – 30 minutes each day just practicing writing/reading skills for each language. It is not all.

I love Memrise, but there is a last trick.

Musics for children. I am not lying! It is not a joke. Go to youtube and search for (My target language) Alphabet song. Listen until you got the lyrics. I am sure you know a lot of lyrics of musics which you like. If you learn this one, the lyric will be the alphabet you want to learn!

 

Some examples:

 

 

 

What did I learn studying 24 hours without a break?

Hello people!

Recently, in case you don’t know, I was about to complete a challenge. I made a deal to interview my favorite singer, Haikaa Yamamoto,  in Japanese, language that I didn’t speak. We gave me 3 months.

The point is… I always fail when I need to keep studying only one language. So, during this time, I started to study Hebrew and Romanian, while I maintain my Russian and German. So, I didn’t keep my attention in Japanese as I needed.

What did I do during this 3 months?

I used Michel Thomas, almost all the collection for Japanese, which gives you a good knowledge of the structures, but it is not enough. When I realize that We were on the final week of the challenge, I had an idea.

I would do in one week what I didn’t do in 3 months. Sounds crazy, but I had no exit. So, I finished Michel Thomas in the same day, in the beginning of that week.

So, MT was over and I could not speak. What should I do?

In that moment, I came back to my favorite App (Which is HelloTalk) and I started to speak with all Japanese people that I found online!  Girls, boys, learning English or not, I started to talk and talk and talk!

I discovered than that I could speak, but I was struggling in listening. What did I do? I spent hours and hours, nights and days, watching Animes without subtitles. I was understanding nothing. With time, you force your brain and you start to get it.

Last 24 hours

So, I had 24 hours. Was I ready? Absolutely not! I decided then to spend 24 hours studying without stop (Ok, just to eat, take a shower and that kind of stuff).

I got 24 hours. What should I do? Well, I began to hear Michel Thomas again, reviewing, and Pimsleur. Jumping to one lesson to another. I went to Youtube and found good channels. (My favorites: Japan Society and Easy Languages).

After the first 6 hours my body started to cry for a break. I was not sleepy, I was… tired. Seriously. I decided to take a break and listen some music. (Japanese musics of course).

Then I came back. when I started to feel tired again, I changed the method. Music, to movies, movies to cartoons, cartoons to Michel Thomas, MT to Pimsleur, and then to HelloTalk.

The hard battle was against myself. Trying to convince my body that I was not tired and keep exposed to that language. So, I decided to workout. Yes, Physical activities, while hearing more dialogues.

The break:

After almost 14 hours, I broke up. My eyes closed. My wife insisted that I need to sleep. I agree, so I slept during 4 hours. Woke up and instantaneously came back!

When the time came, I was ready. I knew that I was not fluent, I didn’t have a perfect Japanese, but I knew it would be enough.

You can check the results in case you didn’t see it yet.

So, Do I recommend it?

No, it is not healthy, it is not the best way, it is not the funniest way and I wish never do it again. Next challenge I hope to get ready before this extreme point.

Anyway, it was a good experience, I did learn a lot and I discover that we could do a lot in a 24 hours period.

why people fail in the language learning process?

It is not uncommon to see people trying to learn a new language but giving up, or struggling and reaching no progress.

The golden point.

To explain what is the most important thing in language learning process, I will show you a text written by Susanna, my friend and language partner for Hebrew/Russian/Portuguese/Romanian.

Languages and relationship

What I thought lately about languages is that I have a relationship with them. As I” have different relationships with different people in the same way I have different relationships with the languages that I know and with the languages that I’m learning. What I have discovered is that it’s more complicated than learning rules and vocabulary ad not only about having a love for the language. My first attempt to learn a language by myself was when I was in the army and I had a lot of free time after my daily serves in the medical clinic. My aunt was learning German and she left a grammar book. I decided that this is what I would do with my time; I will learn this language because I already have a nice source, this book. In all my “studying” lasted a month and then I just gave up. When I’m thinking about this now, I gave up not because it was hard or not interesting, because as we see now I’m in love with languages, its my passion, I believe I gave up because I didn’t have any relationship with this language, its sounds strange, a relationship with a language what is that? Relationship with a language is what you learn and what you feel about that language, I will explain.

My native languages are Russian and Hebrew. At home I speak Russian with my parents and even with my pets. The strange thing is, now that I live abroad wand I see a dog or a cat, naturally I will speak with it in Russian, because for me Russian is home and it is family. I love Russian, I miss it. It is like a family member that I will listen to and that I ask for help. Even if sometime it is harsh and hard, I will not be upset because I love Russian and it is waiting for me always. Even if I will not understand everything in it I know it is not going anywhere. It is like a big brother or uncle for me.

Italian was the first language that I started to learn by myself and through it discovered a whole new world of languages. For me it was my first love. Before I started to learn Italian, I didn’t know the sounds very well. When I first heard it, it was like when you notice a person and you don’t know how you feel about him and slowly, slowly you are falling in love with him. It was not love from first sight but step by step I discovered so much depth to it. Now I love it with all my heart. For me, it is the language of love and if I listen to Italian music, it touches the deepest chords of my heart.

After that I had to study Romanian because I moved to Romania. I can’t say that I’m in love with it, not at all .I know it’s advantages and disadvantages. We understand each other and we know that we need each other. It’s kind of complicated friendship. I like it, but I’m really conscious about the things that I don’t like about it. I’m still learning and discovering it and every time there is something new, something that I may like or not like. It is like choosing a friend even though there is something that you don’t like about him, Romanian is this kind of friend to me.

Hebrew is my buddy, my friend and my life. No one will understand me like Hebrew. He is funny and clever and he knows more then he seems. Hebrew is the friend that always there. He is the language that I know the best. He is my best friend.

English is the language that just came and stayed. All my life it was there and I can say that we have like business relationship. We know each other enough but we are not so close. I don’t feel I love English but sometimes it is helping me, and we our good.

Now I’m learning Portuguese, our first meeting was terrible. It was very strange for me. Although it was familiar, it was so different and this confused me even more. The language was really negative, but then something happened. When I started to listen to Portuguese more and more, it sounded like I saw it in different light. Suddenly I didn’t think it was ugly or strange anymore. Instead I saw that it was actually it is very beautiful. I’m still learning Portuguese so who knows, maybe it will became my new love language. (No offence Italian!)

This is my relationship with the languages I’m learning. I’m convinced that if we don’t have any relationship with the language, we will not be motivated to learn it. The relationship can be of any kind: love, hate, friendship and these relationships are developed through the people that we meet, the culture we are learning to understand and the countries that we are visiting.

”  ? What is your relationship with your languages

 Did you see how she loves these languages? Now, how many times we see the “Polyglots”, in meaningless competitions to prove who speaks more languages? Who is the best? It is not helpful.

These days I saw a guy asking: Can someone tells me what is the fastest way to become a Polyglot?

It is so… meaningless. You need to love the language! To love the culture. Languages are tools, the point is communication!

In other hand… I saw something that made me sad. One guy asks: Who can teach me Spanish? And a lot of people answering… What do you offer in exchange? WHAT?

I teach Portuguese to Wouter because I like him, because he is my friend, I never asked for Dutch lessons.

Susanna teaches me Hebrew without  concerning about what I can offer!

I have been learning Russian thanks to my friend Olga, and she never look at me as a guy who must offer something in exchange!

Haya, my friend from Jordan, teaches me Arabic without asking me for nothing!

I am learning some Polish from Anna, the same thing, I teach her nothing. She helped me to write this one. 

I still have Emilia  teaching me Finnish. Loretta teaching me Mandarin, and a lot of another priceless friends.

Do you really want to learn a language? Change your point of view. People are not tools to learn a language. 

Languages are tools to connect you with people. Forget the exchange and simply make friends!