How I’m Learning A New Language

Over the last month I have realized that I’ve selling myself and you my reader short. You might be wondering how? Well simply put I haven’t been learning out loud. (The idea behind learning out loud is when you learn something you share it. So as I start my journey into learning a new language I want to bring you along for the ride.

The Game Plan: Spend the summer learning primarily Spanish and the basics of Japanese.

The Reason I’ve Chosen These Two Languages: Spanish because it’s the one I really need to learn and the one that would be genuinely useful in my life. (Also because my brother started learning it and after a little while I didn’t understand everything he was saying and I didn’t like that…) Japanese because that’s the one I really like and it would be nice to watch anime without subtitles lets be honest here.

So Here Are The Actual Steps I’m Taking:

• Duolingo (The Language App Everyday)
• Copying Down The Top 1000 Most Common Words (Mostly for Spanish. Everyday doing 50 a week and moving to the next set of 50 each week. For 20 weeks or all summer hopefully)
• Listening to music in the new language (Worship music and the duolingo podcast for Spanish and general J-Pop for Japanese)
• Watching Netflix in the new language. (I am not really a tv fan I have never been really. But this is a little different because it’s for the purpose of learning and it’s still stimulating your brain in a new way. For Spanish I’ve switched the language on a tv series I’ve watched before and I have the subtitles turned of. For Japanese I’m watching and anime series in Japanese with the subtitles on because I have much less background in Japanese than I do in Spanish.)

So let me explain where I’m starting out with each language so you understand.

With Spanish I have gone through level 1 Spanish about 5 times in the past from school. I started Spanish lessons when I was like 7 and I have a random assortment of words saved to my memory. You know the really important words like cat, bathroom, milk, grandpa… *Rolls Eyes* When I was in 6th grade I took a trip to Panama with my Grandmother who is from there to visit/meet family. I could mostly understand what everyone was saying but I didn’t have the vocabulary to reply in Spanish. I like to say I have the Spanish of a 2 year old. I can understand it, but I have trouble speaking it (for now.) I know the basics and how most of the letters differ from English.

For Japanese this is an entirely different animal. My only exposure to it is the few hours a week my best friends and I had our “animu night” as we called it because I wouldn’t take the time to watch it on my own and they stage an “Intervention.” I want to learn Japanese because it is so different and the culture is very interesting to me. With Japanese I thought it would come as naturally as Spanish does but I soon realized that in order to really learn it I would have to go back and learn what each symbol in the alphabet looked like and sounded like. So it took a little bit of back peddling to start from the beginning.

Other ideas I will be adding to the mix when I hit that level are finding children’s books to help me learn to read. (Like how as a kid you learned to read) As well as finding you-tubers how make videos in the new language too.

What are some other things you’re doing to learn a new language? Leave them in the comments bellow I would love any new suggestions and helpful tips!