I teach and learn languages in Europe, although I am American. I am also horrible with languages, I performed horrible in school with languages barely passing the foreign language requirement at my University. However, today I have no problem picking up a language if I want to. Why? I have developed my own method for foreign language study.

My method for studying a foreign language

I have a simple method for studying a foreign language that has worked for me. That is flashcards. Not Rosetta Stone or nine hours of audio files, nor sitting in language classes, but simple flashcards.  For me real physical paper or note card foreign language flashcards work the best for me.

When I learned Polish I made my own. Below is the actual box of flashcards I created to learn Polish. I have some for French and Spanish also.

flashcards for foreign language learning

If make your own flashcards I would focus on learning verbs over nouns. Concrete nouns are the easiest words to learn. However, language by its nature is abstract. You need to learn abstract words and these are verbs and conjunctions and a few adjectives. Do not worry about learning words like window and cat. These are fun and easy words to learn but how often does a guy on the street talk about these. Is not a verb like ‘go’ or ‘take’ more important? Is not a word like ‘but’ or ‘although’ higher frequency? Really the verbs are were the action takes place in a sentence and if you understand the action you can understand a foreign language.

Why flashcards work

What is needed to learn anything from linguistics to your times tables, is testing and retesting your knowledge so your brain gets in the habit of recalling the information in a flash when needed. It needs to be drilled in over and over again. You need to create a good and bad pile for your cards. When you know a word well put it in with the good words you have learned. If you are only 50-50 put it at the bottom of the bad pile.

Keep doing this until you know the words. I do not care if you are good with languages or not, you will learn the foreign language vocabulary. Once your vocabulary is up to a few thousand words, you will be speaking your target language. Even if you do not feel you have a gift for languages.

Try it and you will see. Work smart and be patient. As a teacher of languages I think the biggest mental barrier to overcome is lack of patience. You have to set your expectations that it takes some work and practice and no one just speaks a language because they are gifted.  Believe me I teach students all day long and I have not seen language geniuses, only those who want to learn.

Once you are a the advanced level I recommend reading novels in a foreign language to increase fluency, but until you are at the advanced level try my method.

  • Learn about two-hundred verbs really well and that is about all you need to get yourself speaking and understanding a language. The focus on abstract words until you know about two0thousand words total. Nouns you will pick up anyway.
  • Use flashcards for self learn a language, as it forces you to recall words you have stored in your memory.
  • This is my biggest advice for learning a foreign language by yourself, have patience.

Let me know your method for learning a foreign language and your experiences if you have had any.

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