Hi everyone and welcome back to Natural English with Nick, a podcast for learning English.
If you're new to this podcast, welcome my friends.
Leave me a comment down below, from whatever platform you're listening to me on, and let me know what country you're from.
I checked on the app that I use to diffuse my podcast on the various platforms on which you'll find my podcast, and I was looking at some of the statistics and I realized that I have listeners from over 40 countries.
That's amazing, really, when you think about it.
It's incredible the variety of people that are wanting to learn English from me, and I'm very happy and very grateful for that.
So please let me know down in the comments, say on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, whatever it may be.
Actually, I don't know if you can leave comments on Spotify.
You should let me know if you can't.
In any case, you can send me a message at languageguyfromcanada on Instagram and I will do my best to respond to you as quickly as possible, and I'd be interested to know where you're from and a little bit about yourself and your story and everything like that.
But today we're going to talk a little bit about how to start learning a language, because it can be a little bit of a daunting decision really to start learning a language, because the majority of people that recognize the fact that a language can't be learned in three months, it can't be learned overnight, it can't be learned even in a year to a very proficient level, at least in most cases.
You know I can't speak for everyone, but at least for me.
I need a lot of time in order to really get used to a language and speak it at a near native-like level, a level at which I haven't really achieved in most of the languages that I speak.
But nevertheless, I'm still content with my level in the languages that I do know.
So, as many of you do know, I'm very, very much into languages.
I've been learning languages now on my own for over eight years and it's been a real passion of mine.
I actually started learning french when i was only 13, on my own.
But if you don't know how we do it here in canada and the majority of people that go to school here in canada either learn french or english, depending on where you grew up.
So if you're a francophone, you live in quebec, or you're just a francophone in canada you will learn english, likely in school, unless you go to an all french school or french immersion school, which wasn't the case for me.
I'm anglophone even though i do have french origins, so i did all my schooling in english, except for french class.
So anglophone canadians learn french in school.
But it's often the case with a lot of english speakers in america who learn spanish.
Many of them don't reach proficiency just by taking classes at school, Which is normal, right.
You need the practice.
You need to interact with people.
You need to make a lot of mistakes in order to get better in a foreign language.
And that is obvious, right?
I didn't really expect to be fluent, just from being in school and listening to the language here and there.
It has to be a daily commitment.
It's something you have to do every day, or as much as possible at least, to maintain a language, let alone to actively learn it.
So that's a little bit about what we're going to talk about today.
In terms of my language experience, I've learned all the languages that I know from scratch.
I don't speak them incredibly well, but I've been told by a lot of people that I have a good accent, which I find is interesting.
I've always been interested in phonetics, and while that can be a reason for learning a language, say you like the sound of French, for example, which is often revered as one of the most beautiful languages in the world.
That's fantastic.
But more often than not, that's not enough motivation.
That's not good enough of a reason to learn a language.
You really need to be in love with that language.
You have to establish a real connection with that language and have the desire to learn that language be greater than the voices in your head telling you not to do it.
Because after that initial motivation begins to drop, it becomes harder and harder to learn that language, and it's something that we all have to accept in language learning.
So we're going to cover some of the following things here in today's podcast.
I want to help you determine your motivation for learning a given language.
You should always ask yourself the following questions.
Within what time frame do I want to learn this language?
Why am I learning this language in particular?
Who am I going to speak this language with?
Where do I intend to use this language?
And how do I think I'm going to be able to learn this language?
Most people have a general idea of the kind of learners they are.
If you're not quite yet familiar with your own learning style when it comes to languages, I encourage you to test out some stuff, to try some techniques, to figure out what works best for you.
And all of the things we're going to talk about here today are things that I recommend that you do before you start learning the language.
The second thing is to define your goal.
And don't worry, we're going to break these down.
We're going to go into detail with each of these.
I'm just giving you a little bit of a rundown, so a brief explanation.
So this kind of goes back to asking yourself within what time frame you want to learn a given language, but it's also important to know what you actually want to achieve.
And it also ties into why you're learning that language.
Are you learning it for work purposes, to enjoy a trip, to do exchange abroad?
That's why it's so important to determine your motivation, because your motivation will reflect your goal.
And it has to be a reasonable goal that correlates to the reasons for which you're learning that language.
And the next thing is to put in place a series of routines that coincide with your goal.
And, in fact, all of these steps that aren't necessarily in order are incredibly intertwined and incredibly important to do synchronously.
Because in order to put in place effective routines, you have to have a reasonable goal.
And in order to define a reasonable goal, you have to understand the motivation is driving you to learn that language and some things that will help you out along the way, some things to keep in mind.
It's important to be adaptable, to make changes along the way, and don't make yourself feel guilty if you don't follow your plan exactly to the t, as we say.
It's okay, it's totally normal.
It's important to be flexible.
Just don't procrastinate.
While language learning may seem like a daunting task for most, especially those who have never done it before,
In fact, it's relatively simple.
It all comes down to consistency, another thing that I'll talk about in a future podcast.
But I note in this podcast the importance of being flexible, but also finding a balance between not procrastinating and being flexible, because it's easy to say, oh you know, I'll just put it off until later.
I'll do it tonight.
You don't want to be too hard with yourself, but you also don't want to be too easy on yourself.
Another thing that's important is to recognize the fact that you may fail, that you will likely fail.
And in fact, these little failures will eventually amount into a great success.
Because the more you fail, the less scared you will be of failing.
It's so important to make mistakes in language learning, my friends.
Because if you never speak, your progress will remain stagnant, which will elongate the learning process.
And I'm not saying that it's necessarily better to learn everything very quickly, to kind of speed through the process, because the important thing is to put in place the right routines that combined rigorous study or intensive exposure to the language, but that also combined pleasurable activities that you enjoy doing.
Because the more pleasure that you associate with the language that you're learning, the easier it will be to maintain your motivation over time.
Of course, a drop in motivation is inevitable.
It's completely normal and after a few weeks you'll begin to notice it, no matter how in love you claim to be with that language.
So let's go over the things we discussed here today.
Before you start a language, my friends, it's important to determine what is your motivation.
What is your reason for learning that language?
That's number one.
Number two to define your goal, use your answers of the questions that you ask yourself in step one being motivation.
For step two defining your goal.
The two should coincide.
Number three create a plan.
Put in place a series of routines that coincide with your goal, based on the time frame and the level that you want to achieve in that language.
Your routines should reflect your goal that is reasonable for the time frame in which you want to learn that language.
I recommend starting small if this is the first foreign language that you've learned.
Step four, another tip to keep in mind during your journey of language learning.
That is important to remind yourself before you even start learning the language and also throughout the language learning process, and that is being adaptable.
Make changes to your routine when necessary.
When you find that something isn't working, that it's making your language learning more difficult.
Maybe there's an unexpected change in your lifestyle and you're no longer able to spend say, the 20 or 30 minutes a day with that language.
Or, I don't know, maybe you got laser eye surgery and you can no longer read texts in Spanish.
Don't panic.
Don't give up yet.
Simply be adaptable.
And don't make yourself feel guilty for making changes.
Step 5.
As these all correlate to each other, this one is equally as important.
Being flexible and finding an equilibrium between flexibility and not procrastinating.
Don't be too hard on yourself.
Give yourself a break when you need it.
Be sure to eat healthy, get enough sleep.
I recommend meditation and reading every day.
It will help lower your levels of stress.
These are things that I've tested out for myself and they work really great for me.
But of course, it's important to find what works for you.
Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today.
I don't remember whose quote that was. but it's not mine.
Six is to remember and recognize the fact that you must fail and that you may fail altogether.
You may not reach your goal in the timeframe that you allotted yourself and that you will fail in the sense that you will make mistakes.
You will have to get out of your comfort zone and you will embarrass yourself.
Coming to these realizations are incredibly important for your language learning.
Keeping in mind as well that your motivation will inevitably drop over time, and that is just part of the process.
So don't make yourself feel guilty if you don't feel motivated.
Taking action, in my experience, is the best way to increase motivation and to make you feel enthusiastic about learning again.
And the bottom line from this podcast is simply that language learning is a journey.
It's going to take a long time to get good in whatever language you're learning, whether it be English Spanish Swahili, Arabic.
But the point is, is that this journey can be incredibly meaningful and rewarding as well.
Not only is it going to require an incredible amount of discipline and effort, but also time.
But at least in my case, it hasn't deterred me.
I intend to learn many different languages in my life, and there are many more that I'd like to explore.
Not for a second have I regretted any time that I've spent with a given language, because I know that some point in the near future it will all pay off.
When I have a nice interaction.
Maybe I meet a best friend at a bus stop, or maybe it's a waitress at a local cafe in Spain, or maybe it's a friend for life at the subway station.
The world is yours to conquer, my friends, and there's no better place to start than with languages.
Thank you for listening to today's podcast, and take care.
We'll see you next time.
Bye-bye.
