5 most common language learning obstacles

In today’s article I want to talk about the 5 most common obstacles people face when learning a language. Maybe this will answer some questions for those of you who still are struggling to learn that new language you always wanted to speak

1 Finding the right materials

This is one of the most important things when you want to learn a new language. You have to find materials to start learning. Or  more specifically the right materials. There are thousands of different books, apps, video’s, that you can use but the trick is to choose the one’s that will help you the most. That can differ for everyone, everyone has a different method that suits best for them. Of course you can ask other people who also learnt the same language for advice but you always should be looking for the method that suits best for you.

In my opinion everyone is different and that’s the same in studying.

2 Not seeing results

At the beginning stage of learning a language, you will learn a lot of new things, everything is new so you are excited. But as soon as you have the B2 level, it will take a lot more time to reach a C1 level. It even will become a little boring, because you don’t feel like improving anymore.

Why is that?

When you are at stage B2, you can have fluent conversations with native speakers, you can express your ideas and opinions, you can give simple presentations… At this stage you are an independent speaker.

To go from stage B2 to C1 you will have to step out of your comfort zone, you will have to use new vocabulary and incorporate more difficult topics in your conversations.
At stage C1 and C2 you are a proficient speaker, you don’t have to think anymore before you say something, you can use more difficult terms, you can participate in a professional conversation etc.

The reason why you keep getting stuck at stage B2 is because you keep using the same vocabulary and expressions you already know. You actually have to ‘’upgrade’’ your vocabulary, that’s the only way you will achieve that C1 level.

A language is something that you can keep learning.
Even in your mother tongue you can keep learning new expressions and words.

3 Not having enough exposure to the language

Whether you are learning the language by yourself, at school, on a language camp, …
A frequently made mistake is, not having enough exposure to the language outside of the lessons or the time you study. Studying a language once or twice a week won’t do it for you! You should use the language as often as possible to get used to it. For Instance, you can listen to the radio, read the newspaper, watch tv, or set your phone in your target language instead of using your mother tongue. These little things will help you more than you think.
If you want to read more on this, you can read the article on how I learn languages.

4 Not finding (making) the time

Some people say that they don’t find the time to study the language because they have to work all day and do other stuff after work but I am sure that if you really want something, you’ll do everything to make time, even if it’s just 10 or 15 minutes. If you study 10 or 15 minutes a day, it will surely make a difference.

You can use a journal to make it easier to plan your daily ‘study’ time. And to make sure you won’t forget it!

5 Being afraid to speak

The most common difficulty people face is being afraid to speak. They are afraid that people will laugh or that they will make mistakes.
But making mistakes is part of the learning process. When you make mistakes and people correct them, you will learn from it.
Speaking is one of the most important stages in language learning.

I hope this article was useful for you.
Did you face other obstacles or did you recognize yourself in some of these barriers?
Let me know, I would love to hear your experiences.

My language learning method

Hello again!

In this article, I will talk about how I learn languages. First of all, I want to say you that this method may be working for you or not at all. Everyone is different so you have to find out for yourself what method works best for you.

In the beginning when I learn a language, I learn the most important words and sentences that are used in daily life so that I can use them as fast as possible. If you want to know what these words and sentences are let me know and I will publish a list for you guys.

With this base, I can already start to speak a little in that language. For me it is important to start speak the language as fast as possible. I know that some polyglots will say that you first should have a certain level before you start to speak, others say that you should speak it from day one and that’s also my opinion.

Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot of people in my neighbourhood who speak my target languages. But sometimes when I am outside, -in the market for instance- and I see people that are speaking a language that I learn, I go to them and start speaking. Most of the time the people are amazed and want to know more so they ask a lot of questions. This is a great practice for me because when I make a mistake they will correct me. Don’t be scared to make mistakes guys! I learned French almost my entire life but only when I was 17 or 18 I started to speak it good because before the age of 17 I was scared to use this language. I was scared of what people would think of my accent and I was scared because I would make a lot of mistakes but making mistakes while speaking is one of the most important things of your learning process, that’s the only way you’ll learn the language correctly.  It’s just impossible to not make one single mistake.

When I don’t have anyone to speak with, I just speak with myself. Maybe this sounds strange or ridiculous to you but it’s effective. When I speak to myself I just talk about my day, what I will do or what I did that day. When I’m doing something, I say to myself what I do in the languages I learn. When I don’t know a word I just look it up and by doing this daily I learn a lot of words that are useful in daily life.

When I travel to a foreign country I try to speak to the locals only in their language. This is the best way to learn a language. In that way I also learn a lot about their culture and mostly they appreciate it that I speak/learn their mother tongue.

Listen

I use the languages that I learn on a daily basis.  I listen a lot to my target languages. I listen to songs, I watch movies, series, the news, vlogs etc. … Everything that I can find in that language and that is useful for me and interesting. When listening, I am very attentive and when I don’t understand a word I write it down and look the meaning up. I also download podcasts on my phone to listen when I am outside or when I am in the gym.

Sometimes I watch videos a few times until I understand the whole thing. It’s important to know what they are talking about.
I also do this with Russian but I am not yet able to understand a whole video. In that case I try to figure out what they are talking about just by listening very attentive to the words I do understand. Often, you don’t need to understand every word to know what they are talking about. If you understand the most important words that’s already a good start. In this way, I also learn new vocabulary.

I do listen a lot to music and sometimes I translate the text of a song that I like. That’s a nice way to learn new vocabulary as well.

Reading

I try to read every day, it can happen that I skip a day sometimes but that does not happen very often. Things that I read in my target languages are: books, the journal, or just posts on social media. I just try to use all the languages that I speak and learn as much as possible.

Every now and then I search a text in the journal that is not too difficult for me. I write down the whole text or I print it out and I mark all the words that I don’t know. First I think for myself what the meaning could be and then I look the words up in a monolingual dictionary. I don’t use my mother tongue in that case. I search the meaning in the language itself. In that way, I learn to use that language.

 

 

I also read books on my kindle app.
This is great because when I don’t know a word I just have to select that word and the meaning appears right away. You also can mark the words. And another advantage is that I can read my kindle books wherever I am because it’s on my phone. So when I am in the train or when I am waiting for someone I read.

grammar

Yes, I do have some grammatical books and I do use them but for me this is not the most important. Yes, I agree, grammar is very important to know the structure of a language and to know how to use the language but by only learning grammatical books you will never be able to speak a language fluently. So, I learn grammar every now and then or when I don’t understand how to use a verb or how to form a sentence I’ll look it up in my books or I watch YouTube videos. You can find a lot of interesting and useful lessons on YouTube in almost every language.

Apps

In my free time, I make use of language apps like Duolingo, Memrise, AnkiDroid, Flash Academy, Chineseskill, Tandem… This is just a fun way to practice and review my languages. They are all available on android and apple if you are interested. These apps are a great way to practice wherever you want, because you can use them wherever you go.

 

 

 

And whenever I have the opportunity to speak one of my target languages I do it!

 You can never practice enough!

So, this is my method, I hope this was useful for you.

Don't forget to visit my youtube Channel where I share videos in the languages I learn to show my progression or just to give some tips . Multilinguismo