How long does it usually take to learn how to have conversations in a new language? As you probably know, I am someone who tends to dislike “Learn _____ in 7 Days” methods, because most of the time these approaches just let you barely scratch the surface—in other words, they fail to provide any substantial value to you. This time, however, I want to present to you an approach to quick language learning because I have first-hand evidence of the successful results.
And, by the way, I’m not trying to sell anything here. I just hope this would introduce you to the simple method by which you can learn a new language in the shortest time possible. But if you want to succeed at it, you have to make sure that you follow the core idea given in this post, because without the effort you’ll just be keeping the results on hold. First, though, I’m going to tell you how my girlfriend (I’ll call her T) went from speaking no English to becoming fluent in just one month.
I just recently redesigned Self-Learner from scratch (I hope you like it), and I learned many practical things about web design–particularly about CSS—that I probably wouldn’t have learned as quickly had I not done the redesign. Doing things without spending too much time on learning the techniques first is a practice I highly recommend to everyone.
There’s an uncountable number of resources out there that we can learn from, but if we don’t put the skills into use, why are we even learning the skills in the first place? We can read twenty articles on how to create logos with Adobe Illustrator, but if we don’t try do it by ourselves, we’re never going to get anywhere. Sure, we learn from the articles and tutorials but we don’t apply the skills in practice. We only accumulate skills in theory and we never make use of them.
You don’t have to become an expert to start employing your skills. Perfectionism can be a good thing, but having too much of it only impedes your progress. Sometimes it’s good to just get the basic idea of something and start doing it.
Our networks teacher told us three years ago, “If you want to learn how to use Linux, spend two months playing with it.” And I think what he wanted to say was, a university course on Linux can’t be sufficient enough to teach us how to use it. Students need to immerse themselves in the new world of Linux, and learn through trial and error. Full immersion will force us to figure things out.
Of course we can’t say that this approach can be applied to every skill in the world. For example, if I want my 6-year-old cousin to learn how to play the violin, I’m not going to buy her a violin and let her figure things out. That would be totally wrong. She would stare at the lesson book for five seconds, and six minutes later she would bring the violin to me in one hand, and a snapped bow in the other.
Some skills require man-to-man tutoring, because the damage caused by wrong habits is too harmful. There simply is no room for individual trial and error. So if you learn to play the violin without proper instruction, it is likely that you will greatly lower your potential. But luckily, there are many skills that allow us to figure things out through trial and error.
Self-Learner is a blog about self-education and self-improvement based lifestyle design. Goal? To become the best "version" of yourself, and feel excited to jump out of your bed every morning.