5 Fun Ways to Learn a New Language
Learning new languages is easily one of my favorite hobbies and one that anyone can pickup. I love languages and learning about a culture through the way people speak. So far I’ve been teaching myself a bit of Spanish, French, Korean, German, and Arabic.
I’m by no means fluent in any of those (yet) but I have found my favorite unconventional ways of learning these languages because there are many ways to teach yourself outside of a classroom or language app.
1.Watch New Shows
I love watching shows in a different language! I’ve been learning a lot of Spanish by watching Netflix shows produced in Spain like Cable Girls, Money Heist, and Locked Up with subtitles.
I’ve found that watching shows this way helps you familiarize yourself with colloquial terms and phrases instead of the more formalized way schools teach. It’s easier to pickup slang, metaphors, and jokes more easily when seen in context of the story and the characters.
2. Listening to Music
Similar to watching shows, listening to music in different languages helps with learning colloquialisms while adapting to the pace of a native speaker.
I used to translate song lyrics by hand to learn different words/phrases. I would recommend this if you don’t mind putting in a lil elbow grease!
Writing lyrics out definitely helps you memorize more words and phrases alongside the repetition of hearing them in the song. To make it more fulfilling, get to the point of being able to sing along.
3. Follow Foreign Social Media Pages
So we’re all on social media already, right (I assume given it’s 2020)? Reading captions and posts in a different language is an easy way to get exposed to new languages.
Since we’re going to be scrolling on there anyway, we might as well get cultured/learn something while we’re at it, right?
To find accounts to follow I usually just look up my favorite foreign artist and follow them and profiles related to them. They will usually post in their native language.
I’m sure there are social media accounts dedicated to language learning so there might be some out there that attract their followers/built their brand around teaching a language. I’m going to go look some up now that I mention it.
4. Thinking in a Different Language
So this one is a level up, but switching the language you think in can help in fluency and ease of translation. Asking yourself “how would I say this in ____?” regularly can strengthen your vocabulary and provide more practice for conversations.
Labeling items in the house in your mind in the language your learning can be tedious but fun once it’s a habit. Walking around the house calling things by their name in a different language can be a fun new game if you want to invite the people you live with to play!
5. Watch Youtube Videos
Not just the Youtube videos meant to teach you a language, but any Youtube video in that language! It would help quite a bit to watch a video on something you actually have interest in.
I personally watch makeup tutorials in Spanish and some adult animations in Spanish and French if the show I’m watching has dub options.
This will expose and introduce you to vocabulary surrounding the subject you actually care about and would probably use in conversation since it’s an interest of yours!
So there you have it, 5 fun ways to learn a new language!
It can be intimidating at first but if we make a game out of it, it won’t be as bad.
I think learning new languages enables us to make more meaningful connections with people. It brings down some walls to be able to speak to someone in their first language or at least make a reference to something in their culture.
I always like to make an effort to have conversations or place orders in a different language when I have the opportunity to. It can be scary at first and insecurity can hinder that attempt, but the language we use really can bring us more together.
Lola Menthol is a singer/songwriter/rapper from New York currently living in California. She has been making music and videos for over a decade and is utilizing her skills from experience to create music videos for other artists with her multimedia production company LUCKY 1s MEDIA . You can find all her music on your favorite streaming platform.
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