How to quickly and efficiently learn a language?

Learning a new language can be downright challenging, frustrating, and daunting! Over and above figuring out the best way to learn a new language or its resources or classes and instructors can throw you off tangent! Different logic, theories, and learning styles are all over the place, despite that it’s interesting to know that some languages are much easier to learn than others. Knowing French can help you grasp Spanish faster but its knowledge cannot enable you to write in Spanish! Despite as many challenges and difficulties, multi-language acquisition is rapidly growing in popularity around the world in the face of adversity. Bilingual is the way to be!

The best ever, proven and sworn method to learn a language is by immersion that helps you speak as close as a native. All you have to do is to take admission into a college or university of your choice to learn the language, pack your bags to stay at that place for a minimum of six months or a year. However, if you do not find this method convenient or appealing, you could try online and classroom courses that are available in partial and complete immersion, where you do not have to travel across the world to learn a language but you can do so from within your comfort zone. In the full immersion training method, all the classes are held strictly in the target learning language and students are provided with notes or CDs as a reference to follow and understand the lesson and context better. However, in the partial immersion method, the lesson is conducted in the target language but it is also explained in the commonly used/prevalent language.

Other than this learners intending to learn any new language, must first identify their need to learn a language! It should be compelling enough to bring them back to track should they be demotivated or discouraged from learning tougher aspects of the language. Learners trying to learn a new language must also identify their style of learning so as to be able to master the language in the shortest possible time. 

Learners must also decide the number of hours they can invest every day to learn the new language and how critical it is to learn the language for them. This should be able to give them a fair idea of how many hours it will take for them to complete learning.  

Apart from all the above, a learner must also identify the level of fluency they would be happy with! If a learner is only looking for fluency to the extent of travel or short conversations in business meetings then the road is fairly easy. Serious learners must work harder, to acquire an international language certification, mentioning their CEFR level. Learners are suggested to start by exploring the language through free online resources and websites, to figure out their level of interest and commitment and later take it to a stage where they can take online classes to further their learning. 

After finally deciding to go ahead with learning the language, learners can go ahead and employ the following tips to speed up the learning process

It is very important to keep speaking the language irrespective of the many mistakes that you could make as a beginner let that not deter you. Seek feedback however don’t get discouraged with critical feedback! Take feedback with a pinch of salt, and keep going, trying to correct your mistakes at every point you find them. 

Follow a disciplined regime. You would need to spend considerable time every day on the subject learning, reading, writing, speaking, doing something associated with the subject. To improve your spoken language you can find conversation partners in your neighbourhood. If not, you can find them on language exchange programs online such as Meet-up Italki etc. Learners could also use Flashcards to train themselves. Apps such as Anki, a spaced repetition system, are a great help to beginners, as they help you create your own decks or use premade decks and learn by way of repetition. Do not feel shy to start reading with kids books to grasp and identify the alphabets, the words and the phrases. To improve your listening skills, I recommend listening to radio stations, podcasts, audiobooks online, new stations, songs playlist on Spotify, and exploring many more audio resources available online. Additionally, I would also recommend you dedicate a small corner of your house to the country the language belongs to! Decorate it with pictures and label them with their names in the target language. I also recommend you to go ahead and label all the possible objects in your home in the target language. In this manner whenever you see an object you would be able to see its name in the target language and this will train your mind to connect the appropriate word directly with the object, rather than translating it from your local language. Recognise and identify the list of cognates, fake cognates, and commonly used conversational phrases, idioms, slangs, fillers and conversation connectors to build a vocabulary so as to be able to start building small conversations at the earliest. Trying to memorize words that are not in common conversation use would be a self-defeating exercise! 

Just remember, patience and perseverance is the key to language learning. In the face of adversities and challenges, only a dedicated, consistent and disciplined routine will work. You will have days of low and high motivation but keeping up the pace dragging through that lows will yield you results worth the pain!