Today I am able to speak and write without much trouble in Korean, English, Spanish, and French. However, the journey to learning these 4 languages has been incredibly tough.

 

One of my worst memory is when I was still a university student and I blindly poured in almost USD $3,000 of my personal hard-earned money in private French tutoring to pass the French DALF C1 exam. I gave it my everything but failed. What really hurt is that all I needed to pass was an additional measly 0.7 points. That nearly destroyed me. It took me another full year to recover and find the courage to take the test again. Fortunately, I passed the second time around.

 

That experience, however, pales in comparison to the upward battle I faced trying to learn Korean. Many find this ironic because I am Korean, I went to university in Korea and even had to serve in the Korean Army. Korean was difficult because I rarely used it until I began living in Korea at the age of 19. For those who do not know, I was born in the United Arab Emirates, then moved to Morocco, then Spain before moving to Korea. Fixing my Korean pronunciation, grammar, and spelling was torturous. In the end, however, I was able to miraculously write my university graduation thesis paper in Korean and somehow manage to pass.

 

Currently, I am residing in Tokyo and trying to master my 5th language, Japanese. I am facing similar challenges to those that I faced trying to learn the previous 4 languages; however, I realized that there were a few habits I picked up along the way that is making my current language learning journey not only more effective but also quite pleasurable.

 

In this article, I have distilled the learning hacks I acquired after hundreds of trials and errors so that you can keep your motivation up for an extended period of time, and make your overall learning experience more enjoyable and effective.

 

So let’s get right into it.

 

1. Speak To Yourself Out Loud

 

This is a strange habit I picked up as a child. When I was a kid growing up in Spain, I remember not having many friends to speak to but wanting to get better at Spanish fast. What I ended up doing was to take long walks by myself and talk out loud in Spanish.

 

I probably looked a bit silly and most likely the words that came out of my mouth made no sense, but speaking to myself in Spanish allowed me to feel comfortable with the language and I also realized that it was quite fun to talk to myself!

 

Later in university, I used the same technique to study French. I was able to refine the ‘speaking to myself out loud’ technique by baking into my schedule dedicated time to practice. During my sophomore year, after finishing all my courses at university, I would always walk back home while speaking to myself in French. Again, I must have looked silly, but I am sure this is how I aced the speaking section in French DALF C2.

 

To make this exercise more effective, I would stop in my track whenever I did not know how to say something, pull out my smartphone and search the word in an online dictionary. I would repeat that word to myself a couple of times, and once I felt comfortable, continued my walk.

 

I would never take notes because that would make this process feel like a task. I found that keeping mental notes was enough for remembering a particular word or expression. The word naturally sticks to your brain after the 2nd or 3rd time you search it up.

 

It is funny to think back to those days. I remember often starting my walk at 8 PM and getting home after 10 PM because I was so deeply immersed in a conversation with myself—the walk back home normally only takes 30 minutes.

 

To accelerate your learning journey, I recommend that you speak to yourself out loud in the language you are trying to learn. Preferably, while taking a walk or doing some light exercise. Build this time into your schedule and make it into a habit. While you practice, only use your phone if you need to search a word you do not know. Lastly, if you are afraid of looking like somebody who lost his marbles, put on some earphones and pretend like you are speaking to somebody.

 

2. Grammar First

 

I highly recommend that you focus on mastering grammar—the building block of any language—before turning to memorize vocabulary.

 

A lot of people find grammar boring, but what they fail to realize is that a firm grasp of grammar is the quickest way to learn any language.

 

Roughly speaking, grammar is like a new apartment. You have many floors and several rooms on each floor that are vacant.

 

Vocabulary, on the other hand, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs is like the furniture and paint you add to your empty apartment for decoration.

 

Therefore, knowing a lot of vocabulary without having grammar to pull the words together is similar to having a sofa out on the street. The sofa (vocabulary word) can be beautiful but would wear down because there is no roof (grammar) to protect it.

 

Therefore, when you start learning a new language, make sure that you focus on mastering the grammar. Vocabulary can follow later.

 

3. Take Notes Directly In The Textbook

 

Everybody has their own best way to take notes, but I found taking notes directly in the workbook to be most effective for memorizing.

 

As you can see below, the obvious disadvantage of keeping all your notes in one place is that it looks messy and unorganized.

 

 

However, from my experience, the advantage of keeping notes in the workbook outweighs the inconvenience of having things less organized.

 

There are 3 advantages of taking notes directly in your textbook:

1. You can remember the context of your notes more quickly because it is written literally on top or across the segment you are studying.
2. You get to keep everything in one place, so you do not need several notebooks to sift through.
3. It is convenient to go back to the area that is relevant for you because all your notes are in the same place.

 

In summary, try writing notes directly in your workbook to easily remember the context of your notes, keep all relevant information in one place and easily locate the area you want to focus on.

 

4. Use A Textbook Written In The Language You Want To Learn

 

This might sound counter-intuitive. How do you expect me to go through a textbook in, let’s say, Japanese, if I do not know how to read or speak Japanese very well?

 

I agree that it is challenging, but I promise you that you will benefit greatly as you will have more exposure to the language.

 

If your workbook is written in the language you are trying to study, you will have no option but to go through that textbook to learn. Though it is challenging to understand what you are reading at first, you will soon become accustomed to the language’s structure, composition, and keywords. This will accelerate your language learning journey.

 

You may have a separate book explaining complicated grammar in a language you are comfortable with (i.e., English) but the main workbook should be in the language you are trying to study.

 

For example, if you are an English-speaker who needs to learn Japanese, I highly recommend you to use these books:

 

 

I use the yellow grammar book written in English so that I can easily understand the grammar and use the red book which is completely in Japanese to put into practice what I learned.

 

When learning a new language, it is best to have as much contact with the language as possible. By having your textbook written in the language you are trying to learn, you will push yourself to have more exposure to the language. This will help you get used to the language you are trying to learn faster which will speed up learning.

 

5. Hold Yourself Accountable

 

Lastly, you must hold yourself accountable for making progress in your learning journey to keep your motivation up.

 

I’ve found the following 3 things helpful to make sure I stick to studying:

1. Sign up for a test. For English that may be TOEIC or TOEFL, for Spanish that may be DELE for Spanish, for French that may be DELF and for Japanese that may be JLPT. It is ok if you are not ready for the test. Nobody is. But having a test somewhere looming in the distance will be a helpful reminder to focus on studying.
2. Make your goal public. Announcing to the world, whether in person or through social media, that you will commit to learning a language will help you hold yourself accountable. You will be reminded to study every time somebody mentions that post you wrote.
3. Live in the country where the language you are trying to learn is the default language. I know this option is not available for everybody, but I would highly recommend it for those who have the opportunity. You will have no choice but to face the language; therefore, increasing your exposure. Make sure to only hang out with local friends who speak the language you want to learn rather than surrounding yourself with people who communicate in your mother tongue.

 

To guarantee that you pull through the long and tiring journey of mastering a language, it is highly recommended that you hold yourself accountable for making progress. You can do so by signing up for a language test in advance, making your goal public, or living in a country where the default language is the one you are trying to learn.

 

TLDR

 

There you have it! 5 Learning hacks to accelerate your journey to accelerate language mastery. These are:

1. Speak To Yourself Out Loud. Though it might make you look a bit silly, getting into the habit of speaking to yourself out loud in the language you are trying to pick up is one of the most pleasurable and helpful ways to boost your language skill. The best part is that you only need your smartphone to occasionally look up words you do not know and some time. Keep the tone conversational and have fun!
2. Grammar First. Grammar is the building block of any language; therefore, if you get the grammar right early on it will pay dividends moving forward. With grammar under your belt, you can easily build new sentences that fit your purpose. So make sure you have a firm grasp of the language’s grammatical structure before you focus on memorizing words.
3. Take Notes Directly In The Textbook. Taking notes in the textbook allows the reader to understand the context of your notes much faster which accelerates the learning process. Also, you can keep all the information in one place and easily and quickly find the piece of information that is relevant for you.
4. Use A Textbook Written In The Language You Want To Learn. A subtle yet important way to accelerate your learning journey is to maximize exposure to that language by using a textbook written in the language you are trying to learn. It might be burdensome at first, but you will soon get used to it and learn more as a result.
5. Hold Yourself Accountable. To keep your motivation up, you must hold yourself accountable for the progress you are making. By signing up for an official language test, saying publicly that you will be studying a certain language, and living in the country where the language is spoken, you will signal and nudge yourself to continue with your studies.

 

These are my 5 learning hacks to accelerate learning any new language based on my experience learning 4 languages. I am using all these techniques to learn my 5th language—Japanese.

 

Are there any learning hacks or tips that you know that I missed? Please let me know!