Having spent most of the last couple years in countries where English is not the primary language, I’ve spent a solid amount of time learning languages. I’m definitely NOT an expert, and while I’m currently trying to become conversational in Spanish, I wouldn’t even consider myself to be bilingual. I’m like, maybe like A2/B1 CEFR in a Spanish/Chinese/Japanese, and then have spent time learning some basics in a bunch more. But having experienced a kind of “sampler plate” of languages and trying different methods, I think I have a system of how I enjoy learning languages. So maybe this would be helpful.
I ALWAYS try to get to at least some super super basic idea of a language before I get there. There have been a couple times where I went to a country mostly mute, and it's just stressful. Usually, I'll try to dedicate at least a few months to a language for the basics. In a lot of ways, I find that trying to cheat the language-learning process is counter-productive in the long-term. But sometimes I end up going somewhere that I just want useful day-to-day words ASAP.
For these situations I'm almost entirely focused on simple situations and word recognition (learning the alphabet and recognizing common words). The simple situations are obviously useful. Recognition is just really helpful for confidence; if I can read some simple words from signs, it helps avoid awkward situations. Hearing a word you know or being able to read a sign can be really nice, mentally. And when you're interacting in that language for the first time, confidence is EVERYTHING. The "simple situations" I metioned are basically just food things:
I usually try to always order food in the local language, then take pictures of restaurant menus, so I can practice food words and order something different later.
If I have around a month of time, I think that Pimsleur is an ok resource to learn basic phrases. However, if I'm actually trying to learn a language, I think it's counterproductive to use Pimsleur: I often find it not adequately explaining WHY the language is a certain way, so it can become more memorization than learning. When you encounter phrases that it didn't specifically practice, you can find yourself lost and confused.
I essentially divide early learning of a language into 3 important pieces:
In order to achieve this, I think that most learners will need no less than 2 resources: a course to learn the language, and a source of lots of content.
I think that in the beginning, you need to understand the basic structure and feel of a language. You need to be able to sound out and type the alphabet, and you need to have a course or instructor that can guide you through the language (and for a few languages, logographic characters).
First thing is to learn the alphabet. Physically writing characters is, I think, the fastest way to learn a new alphabet. Download a phone keyboard for typing in that language, and always use it if you’re typing in that language. The most important part is being able to sound-out things.
Even for cjk, there is phonetic alphabets that are important. For Japanese, learning Hiragana is important so that you can ditch Romaji asap. For Chinese, bopomofo/zhuyin is more natural to understand than pinyin in a lot of ways, since you don’t need to sandbox the sounds of Chinese into a Roman alphabet. However, for these languages, as soon as you learn the phonetic alphabet, you should IMMEDIATELY start using flashcards for basic characters. Being able to recognize a lot of characters is vital for reading these languages.
Once you learn the alphabet, really start diving into a course that can help you learn the basics of the language. If you have a friend that really recommends a course, that can help. But you want a course that focuses on the grammar and structure and patterns of a language.
Here are some courses I’ve found extremely helpful:
This course is AMAZING for Spanish. They also have courses for French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, and Arabic.
marumori.io has been awesome for learning the grammar and structure of Japanese. They also have a significant amount of flashcards to learning characters and words, although I used Wanikani for that).
I built Hiragana Practice Tool for learning hiragana by drawing. I find it to be more solidifying than Marumori’s method for learning hiragana
I haven’t really found a course for learning Chinese grammar, but I did built HanziOffline as a way of learning Chinese characters. My app supports Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations, so maybe it’s a decent place to start. I also found that Chineasy is pretty fun if you’re a complete beginner to learning characters in general.
I think it’s important to consume as much content as possible, but ONLY when you reach a level where the content doesn’t feel like work to consume. I find that when I start to consume mass content too early, and it feels like I need to concentrate really hard to understand anything, I just get burnt out super fast.
Different types of content are different for different things. Reading is nice, because you can go at your own pace, and look up words when you don’t understand things. However video content, when done well, is probably the easiest way to consume lots of content quickly. It’s just a bit harder to find that kind of high quality content, depending on the language. But there is some resources:
Things like LinQ and Beelingu have lots of basic content. Also, childrens books in bookstores or libraries can be quite helpful. Although I felt quite bashful pulling down Japanese children books in various Tokyo libraries 😂.
For Spanish, holy crap dreamingspanish is amazing. Thousands of videos, great quality, and teachers with all kinds of accents. I also have enjoyed using News in Slow Spanish, which is just what it sounds like.
I also built Emoji Flashcards for word flashcards in various languages. It’s kinda fun, and I did pick up a decent amount of words using it. Although I’m not quite sure how useful it actually is.
TBH I haven’t really gotten to this phase; but I imagine this to just be talking to a lot of people, and writing a lot. Just to try and be comfortable and to engage with content. I haven’t tried it yet, but langcorrect.com looks promising.