Hello everybody!

Today's topic is...

Five...

Five steps to learning a new language.

Number one: If your language has a new writing system, you have to start with the alphabet.

Why? Well...

If you're learning a language like Japanese or Chinese, and you rely on the Romaji and the Pinyin, you are going to run into a lot of problems later down the line.

Obviously this depends on your goals for the language.

(If) You just want to be conversational and never be able to read?

Go ahead, don't learn the script.

But my suggestion is to first start learning the script of the language, because... you'll be able to pronounce things a lot easier because you're not relying on an English rendering of the language.

Tip number two: learn greetings and vocabulary

After I finish learning the alphabet, I move into basic greetings and vocabulary.

This sound obvious but... it's so easy to learn this in any language.

And as soon as you're over that little hurdle you'll feel really good about yourself, and you can start talking to people.

I also suggest you learn the 100 most used words in the language.

You're gonna hear these words a lot, they're gonna pop up in movies, on the radio, in music, in books.

So if you know the basic greetings and vocabulary and a bit of grammar, as well as a hundred most useful or must common words, you're already at a very good place.

Step number three: grammar

That brings me to grammar, my favorite.

I'm so in love with grammar, I think I learn more... grammar structures than I do vocabulary.

Learning grammar structure, write it down hundreds of times, and pop in new vocabulary words.

That way you'll learn how to use the structure... and you're learning new words at the same time.

Number four: practice.

You need to get a language partner, and you need to make sure you're using the language every day.

If you don't use this language, at least for a week... I mean if you learn for a while and you stop for a week, you're gonna forget so much.

So even if you have to force yourself just to do a five or ten minutes a day, do that, because it will stimulate your short and long-term memory, and you'll remember things a lot better.

So put in that effort to do a little bit each day, and you will not disappoint yourself.

And... I bet you guys can guess what number five is.

Keep track of your progress.

Not even gonna go into detail because I think I've spoken about this so many times.

Surround yourself with the culture, with books, with music.

Ah, uh...

Uhm

Right over here, these are some Japanese books that I got in Japan.

So, if you just started learning a language, and you don't know how to read this, get the book anyway.

It'll push you to learn.

And what I do while I read... the best example is probably this Korean book I use, 심플하게 산다 (I Live Simply).

While I read, I will mark the words I don't know, and I'll write the English translation above them.

Uh, If you don't like writing in your book, get a notebook and do that, but, don't be put off by the fact that you've only been learning a language for a short amount of time, and you're like... "Ooh, I can't buy a book and read this."

No!

Challenge yourself, buy the book, and work through it slowly.

It's, it's a nice challenge.

And, I mean, there's no right or wrong way to, you know, start learning languages.

These are just tips that have worked for me, and I hope you have some tips that you can share as well.

So let me know in the comments,

And, see you guys next time.

Bye!