Everyone knows that immersing yourself in interactions with people who speak a foreign language is a great way to absorb, discover and practice useful language elements of the target language. In fact, I know several people who developed sound working second language skills strictly from immersion, although it usually works best when combined with a primary lesson source, such as a book, a class or a language software.

The Problem

Spending some time interacting with speakers of the target language is a required activity for anyone who genuinely wants to learn a language. It’s not optional. Even if you work with the best language software in the world, you will need the experience and confidence that only spontaneous, unscripted interactions can bring.

This becomes a big problem for shy people who usually have a hard enough time socializing in their native tongue, much less a foreign language. What could be the most effective way for an introverted and shy individual to make progress when immersing themselves in social interaction?

Shyness

I know what some of you are thinking: “Just get over it already, you shrimp! Being shy is not an excuse.” While I can understand the sentiment, it’s really not a fair response. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes (as in, feel what they’re feeling) and see if you still react the same way.

Social anxiety is not something to be belittled, dismissed or brushed away. It’s a very real problem, especially for people who have been shy and introverted all their lives. In most cases, the whole “grow some b*lls and just do it” isn’t really the most feasible solution to the problem.

Comfort Zone

Not everyone who’s introverted and shy are the same. Chances are, one person who describes themselves that way will have different issues when practicing the language than another person who identifies with the same description.

As such, it’s important to find your own comfort zones. Go out and see first-hand what types of interactions you can get yourself into and which ones will require a little more self-encouragement. Doing this will help give you baseline with which to work with, allowing you to clearly spell out what activities are easily within your reach and which ones you’ll have to work up to.

Sometimes, It’s Different

If you never found yourself starting conversations before, don’t assume you’ll be the same way when you’re in a foreign country trying to learn the local dialect. Many times, people surprise themselves with how different they can be when in that kind of surrounding.

Since you’re no longer in your home turf, it’s possible you won’t be held back by the same things that hold you back socially at home. While it won’t always be the case, it’s often what happens when begin to settle into their new environments. There’s a good chance, in fact, that you’ll lose a lot of your usual baggage, so don’t assume you’ll be the same person in France as you were in the States (and vice versa).

Almost always, people will look at you differently than you’re familiar with. After all, you’re no longer just another “regular joe” like everybody else. Instead, you’re the foreign dude with the weird accent, unfamiliar body language and intriguing story. For many, living in a foreign country can almost feel like a fresh lease on your social life. Who know? It might turn out to be as positive for you, too.

Just Listen

If you’re not quite in the mood to chat with people, you can still go out and learn new things. How? Just go to a crowded place and listen to the natives talking. If you pay attention, you can learn a lot about proper pronunciation, pacing and word choice, among many other elements of the language.

Eavesdropping (yes, it’s technically eavesdropping) on conversations is a lot like watching videos of natives interacting. It’s better, though, since the exchanges aren’t scripted and can literally run the gamut of topics that people talk about regularly wherever in the world you are.

Talk To People Who Talk To People For A Living

Don’t quite have the confidence to chat up random people while in a café or a park? Not a problem. Just chat up people who chat people as part of their work. We’re talking about shop clerks, street vendors, hotel personnel and other people whose work involves talking to people. Ask for prices of things. Ask for directions to places. Ask for places to eat. Basically, ask simple questions that let you practice what you know of the language. If you find yourself getting more confident, chat more. If not, then ask one question, get an answer and politely say goodbye. This is both easy and natural (as in, it’s what people do all the time — especially foreigners), so you don’t have to feel self-conscious or embarrassed while doing it.

Where would you usually have fun hanging out? If you enjoy being a barfly, then go to a pub, order a drink and have small talk with the bartender. It’s what people always do. Like shopping? Then hit a mall, window shop and ask clerks questions about any items you like. Yep, it’s what some people do all day. Enjoy a game of chess in the park? Hang out at a local park and watch locals play, then volunteer when somebody asks who’s up for a game. Truth is, there are plenty of ways to practice your target language in social settings without having to do anything that’s out of the norm for you like chatting up a restaurant patron or initiating conversation in a train. You can practice even while doing just normal things.

Join A Group

One of the best ways to meet new people is to join a local group. We recommend choosing around an activity or a cause that you actually care about, instead of just joining whatever you can find. Doing so will allow you to engage in things you’re interested in, all while meeting new people with whom you can practice the target language with.

Let’s be honest — learning Chinese is hard. However, it’s not nearly the insane levels of hard some people seem to convince themselves it is. Sure, it’s probably not going to be as easy for an English speaker to learn as Spanish, but it still should be well within your abilities.

In many language forums and blogs, you’ll hear it repeated often: Chinese is too difficult and you should be very scared when learning it. Is there really truth behind those seemingly sensationalist sentiments, though, or is it mostly exaggeration from people who don’t know better? Should you really expect a much harder time when learning Chinese than something like French, Italian or Russian?

Language Learning Is Hard

Learning any language, much less mastering it, usually just isn’t easy. That is true, whether you’re studying French, Portuguese or Chinese. One may be higher than the other on the difficulty scale depending on what your current skills and abilities are (e.g. French usually learn Italian phrases faster than your average American), but they all present their own challenges all the same.

More importantly, people have been complaining about learning languages for the longest time. And we’ve heard people say it’s hard whether they’re studying French, Portuguese or Korean, not just Chinese. Most of the time, those who say so are just folks who gave up on the language without giving it their full effort, using the “it’s so hard” excuse to justify their lack of results.

The reality is, if you’re willing to put in the work, any language can be learned. While it might take a more concentrated effort to gain mastery and fluency, a working level of ability is easily within most people’s reach, provided they have several hours each week to commit to it.

But… But… My Chinese Friends Say It’s Hard

I know what you mean. I have a bunch of college friends who spoke English natively but went to Chinese high schools who say the same thing. However, their premise is usually flawed since they don’t have any other basis to compare the experience to — that is, they never learned any other second language other than Chinese. I also have a friend who had a harder time learning Vietnamese (her first foreign language), than she had learning Chinese, as well as a couple of friends who swear the second languages they studied (Russian and Korean, respectively) is harder than others. The point is, it’s a subjective thing.

Chinese Is Just Another Language

All the preconceptions about Chinese being difficult makes it important to get a level head before starting your lessons. Stop listening to all the talk of Chinese being hard and just work on it the same way you would any other new language you study: expect challenges and be prepared to work through them. Get yourself in this mindset and you’ll be more ready to take on the task of learning a new language, even if it is one that so many people swear is the hardest language to wrap your head around in.

Writing In Chinese

I’m inclined to think people immediately dismiss Chinese as “too hard” because of the apparent challenge it presents in reading and writing. While those strange scripts definitely make matters all that much harder, it doesn’t have to be that much of an obstacle — it really doesn’t.

For one, you’re likely to spend most of your time learning Chinese for speaking and listening, so you can interact with people face-to-face, making the whole obstacle presented by the writing system a non-issue. The same holds true for a lot of people studying a foreign language, who do so for functional rather than mastery purposes.

But what if you want to, at least, read the newspaper and send text messages to locals when you’re down there? Compared to the alphabet system in most languages, the Chinese writing system is, admittedly, a serious pain. That is, if you will actually spend time writing with a pen and paper, which, let’s be honest, people don’t really do these days. On both computers and smartphones, you can do all your typing in pinyin (the Romanized version of Chinese) and have it translated to Hanzi, which simplifies the process considerably for second-language users.

Reading Chinese

Its been said that competently reading a Chinese newspaper requires knowing between 2,000 to 3,000 words. While that may sound daunting, it’s something you can reasonably work towards in under a year. A year sounds too much? Well, unless you’ve got a magic potion somewhere, most languages will require the same amount of dedication to really learn, so it’s not that different.

Does it make for extra work? Of course, it does, especially when compared to languages that use a similar Roman alphabet system as English. All the added work, though, doesn’t make a case for Chinese’s reputation as being “too hard” a language to learn.

Learning Vocabulary

Building vocabulary in Chinese is no more difficult than other languages. You’ll be memorizing multiple words whether you’re studying Spanish, Filipino or Italian. Same when you’re learning Russian, Portuguese and Korean. It’s not a problem unique to the Chinese language — you’ll have to put up with the same challenges, regardless of what second language you’re learning.

Even better, Chinese is usually very consistent with vocabulary items made up of combined words. That means, once you build up a decent-sized basic stock of words, you can begin to understand a lot of the more complex word formations.

Tonal Language

Chinese is a tonal language — that is, the meaning of a word changes when it’s spoken with a different tone. Obviously, it’s going to be a sticking point for those of us who are used to words having the same meaning (despite the, sometimes, different implications) regardless of the tone we use.

Despite that added challenge, tone can be learned. You already know when someone is angry, sad or happy just based on their tone. It’s the same skill applied a little differently, using tone to distinguish meaning instead of mood. The trick is to include tone every time you learn a new word, pronouncing it the right way right from the onset, so you learn the correct vocabulary even early into the process.

Memorizing is one of the activities you’ll be doing plenty of when learning a new language. And that goes whether you like memorizing or not. It’s the first step to building a rich vocabulary — one word at a time.

Traditionally, memorizing is done by simple repetition. Read a word, say it aloud and repeat until it sticks. While effective, it’s highly inefficient, especially when you’re trying to acquire a working vocabulary in as short a time as possible.

Using tried and tested memory techniques could make your memorizing tasks go much smoother. We look at some of them.

Mnemonics

The concept of mnemonics is to, basically, link a word in your language to its equivalent word in a foreign language using an easy-to-remember image or phrase. For instance, using mnemonics on the Spanish word “zorro” (which means “fox” in English), you can imagine a fox in a zorro mask. With the Spanish word “camarera” (which means “waitress”), you can imagine a waitress with a DLSR hanging off her neck. The exact same technique can be used to memorize most any word in any language — just use your imagination to come up with a fitting image to create the relationship between the words.

It’s a process formalized by Dr. Michael Gruneberg as the “Linkword Technique” in his many language books that teach vocabulary through mnemonics. You can use his titles, among many others that utilize the same technique, if you want to use mnemonics but don’t want to bother coming up with your own pairs (which, let’s be honest, is going to be very time-consuming). Gruneberg once claimed that using this technique should allow you to learn the basic survival vocabulary for any language in just 10 hours.

Using Your Locale

Often called the “town mnemonic,” this technique involves relating foreign vocabulary items to things and places in any town or city that you know by heart. For instance, you can assign the Spanish word “el pan” (bread) to the neighborhood bakery; “la mesa” (table) to the furniture store a couple blocks away; and “dormir” (sleep) to the drunk neighbor always sleeping on the bench by the corner store.

If you’re having some trouble coming up with mnemonics to assign to words, try going by the prescribed guidelines. That is, assign nouns to places, modifiers to things in a recreational spot (local park, amusement park or museum), and verbs to a sports center (like the high school gym or a fitness center).

Nouns examples: dog (the house in the corner with the large dog that scares you); tree (the tall tree growing next to your house); and trousers (the large sign in front of the tailor)

Modifiers examples: hot (the park at noontime); colorful (the mural at the park wall); and sweet (the cotton candy vendor)

Verbs examples: run (a treadmill); drink (the drinking fountain); and punch (the punching bag)

Important: make sure you choose a town that you know like the back of your hand. That way, you can recall an image of the different places in your mind without much effort, so you can focus your energies on assigning and remembering relationships.

Making Your Mnemonics Memorable

The secret to good mnemonics is creating an image that’s easy to remember. And the more striking the image, the more it will stick out. As such, it’s important to make the images you associate meaningful and memorable to you — that makes it easy and natural for your mind to pick up

Here are some tips for just that:

• Use images that are pleasant and positive — your mind is least likely to resist them.
• Use familiar images. Don’t even try to imagine something that you’re not well-versed with, as bringing up that picture alone can lead to a struggle. The more familiar the images you use, the easier time you’ll have.
• Use colorful, vivid images. They’re a lot easier to remember than drab and lifeless scenes.
• Engage the senses in your images. Dress them up with sounds, smells, tastes, touch and movements if you can manage it. The more senses you can bring into a picture, the more vivid it’s going to be.
• Use symbols, like road signs, statues, and shop signage. They’re excellent for coding longer and complex phrases.
• Use humor. Funny things always stick out in our heads — they’re just plain difficult to forget.

Focusing On Important Words

When building up vocabulary, you can randomly choose which words (or group of words) to use. Like rote memorizing, though, going this route doesn’t really help make your study any more efficient. In fact, you’d likely have to go over each of the items multiple times to properly learn them.

If you want to memorize new vocabulary more efficiently, focus your study on core words and phrases. Most trainers recommend looking at the 100 most common words in the target language and restricting your early memorizing sessions on them. The challenge, of course, is finding those 100 words — information is available out there for some languages, but it isn’t for others.

Grouping Words

Another way to make mnemonics even more efficient is to group vocabulary items when you study them. Instead of just one word pair on a scene, use it for two or more related word pairs. Test out mixing words in scenes first, though — it works well for some people, but can end up confusing others.

If you prefer one word pair to one mnemonic, you might still want to group the sequence in which you learn words. As in, study a group of words that are related at the same time (e.g. different places, different names for food). Chances are, the relationships among the words will help add to the context, making them easier to recall later on.

Summary

To cap off, we’re going to summarize the techniques we prescribed here:

1. Use a mnemonic system for memorizing vocabulary. Doesn’t matter whether you use regular mnemonic assignment, the town technique or some other method — using word-pair association will make your learning more efficient.
2. Focus on core words first. That way, you can bring yourself up to speed on a lot of materials and conversations you will encounter.
3. Group words. That way, you add extra context to each item.
4. Work on your images. Make them as memorable and vivid as you can.

Many people go out of their way to learn a second language. Majority focus on developing speaking and listening skills, ignoring reading and writing entirely. It’s not surprising — most people learn a language to be able to interact with locals during trips, not read books or write letters in the target language.

Ignoring writing is something I’d recommend, too. Unless you’re planning to stay in a country permanently, you’re probably not going to be writing in the language anyway. Plus, it requires too much work to pursue, especially for those languages whose alphabet consists of strange-looking scripts.

Reading, however, is something you should seriously consider. Provided you’re not working with one those character-based (as opposed to alphabet-based) Asian languages that would make the job incredibly tough. If the entire language can be written using a clearly-defined alphabet system, learning shouldn’t offer that much of a challenge beyond what you’re already doing with trying to speak it.

Learning The Alphabet

I’ve never studied Arabic, but a friend who did said she was able to wrap her mind around the script in about a week. Two weeks in and she could sound out everything. Three weeks in and she was reading basic words pretty well. Of course, she was also learning to speak Arabic, so she had a good-enough vocabulary before she started reading, but this shows how much little effort needs to be invested for something that could pay off very, very well both in the short and long term.

Chances are, you could do the same thing with most any language you’re studying (again, minus the character-based ones), regardless of whether it’s French, Polish or Korean. It’s actually easier than it sounds. Just start with learning the alphabet by reciting (in song, if possible), sounding them out and reading short words — it’s such a small change in your learning activities and it’s worth the trouble every single time.

Advantages For Learners

When you can read in a language, you can expand your learning sources. No longer are you confined to your language software and audio samples. You can pick up a book, read newspapers, subscribe to blogs and, pretty much, consume every written material in the target language, allowing you to get a better feel for how natives formulate their communication. Simply put, it allows you to delve into authentic sources (materials intended for native speakers) for reading, which should prove more beneficial to your development, especially at the intermediate to advanced stages.

If you like listening to songs in the target language as part of your practice, you could go find their lyrics online, so you can sing along using the right lines. And if you’ve ever tried music as a learning tool, you have a good idea of just how effective it can be for introducing new items into your vocabulary.

Advantages For Professionals

When you do business with people in a foreign country, it pays to stay in touch with the news in their part of the globe — both the front page stories and the business section. These things can give you a clear idea of how people feel on that side of the planet about issues, some of which can affect the dealings between your companies. The best sources for these, of course, are the local newspapers in the country, many of which you’ll likely be able to access through Google News. Obviously, developing reading skills will allow you to participate in this.

Advantages For Foreign Visitors

When you visit a foreign country with some basic reading abilities, your life will be so much easier. The very fact that you can read signs means there’s a much lesser need to find people to ask for nearly everything. Oh, look that signs says that’s where you’re supposed to wait for taxis. Oh hey, this flyer says you can get two free nights at this hotel. Okay, the signage on this establishment says “Man Bar” — I think you should peek in first to see if it’s what you think it is.

Being able to perform simple tasks like the above may seem trivial. Considering how much anxiety foreigners tend to feel when everything around them might as well be written in Martian hieroglyphics, it will make your stay in the country considerably less stressful. Just imagine all the things you can read: restaurant menus (order food using their actual names for once), magazine ads (helpful if you’re looking for things to do locally), street signs (yep, you could actually take the bus and have a shot at not getting lost), shop signage (hey look, this shop sells cheap prepaid phones) and warnings (I mean, you could be entering a gate with “Trespassers Will Be Shot” hanging on it — let’s hope not).

Know how we’re increasingly dependent on internet sources when finding hotels to stay in, restaurants to eat at and shows to go to? If you can read in the local vernacular, you could visit forums and blogs that locals actually frequent, allowing you to get a more authentic picture that I doubt any of the tourist-populated English websites will be able to match.

When you can read in the target language, it’s easier to remember things. Like which cashing place you visited last time, what beer you had at the bar last night and which street you met that girl that made your heart leap. You can also keep easier track of acquaintances you make, especially if they hand you a business card that’s written in the local script. Plus, if you buy anything with an instruction manual, you might actually have a shot of reading it — especially for items that don’t come with an English-version booklet onboard.

Basically, you decrease your dependence in having to seek help every time you need something. While there’s nothing wrong with asking people to help out, there’s a lot of value in being more independent when you’re out and about a foreign land. Not only will it help build up your confidence getting around on your own, locals may also be more receptive since you aren’t pestering them every five minutes asking for something new.

One of the most difficult things for second-language speakers to do has always been to lose their native accents. Even after years of living in a country, you’ll find plenty of second-language users retaining thick accents, all while exhibiting an erstwhile impeccable grasp of the vernacular. You don’t even have to look far. Just find foreigners in your neighborhood who have been living around the area for a few years. Chances are, you’ll notice the accent immediately when you speak to them.

As a second-language speaker, there are things you can do to help lose that accent. Old dogs can still learn new tricks, after all. It’s not easy, though, likely requiring constant work and monitoring on your part for an extended length of time. If you’re willing to be more mindful of the way you speak and put in the work to fix things, it can be done — just don’t expect any overnight changes.

Accent is made up of so many elements that it’s not possible to lose it by just working on one specific aspect. Elements like word stress, rhythm, sentence intonation, pauses, native expressions and a whole lot more come together to form your accent when speaking, making it extremely difficult to fix.

Why Work On Your Accent

It’s not necessary to get a perfect accent that makes you sound like a native speaker. People speak with funny accents all the time and they seem to do just fine day to day. However, losing a thick accent can definitely improve the quality of your interactions, especially if you plan to work in the country where that target language is widely spoken.

When you lose the accent, people are able to understand you more quickly when you speak the target language. Imagine how much better your interactions will be, whether you’re chatting with someone you met on a train, discussing a deal with a business colleague or finding your way around a new city.

Working On Pronunciation

The biggest culprit for a thick accent is pronunciation. Too often, we tend to mispronounce words in the second language, with those listening using context and your gestures to actually figure out the word you mean to say. If you work on nothing else, then strive to improve on this aspect of your speaking.

Most world languages are phonetic (i.e. they are pronounced the way they are written), so pronunciation isn’t supposed to be hard, especially if the target language falls in that category. However, languages will often have different pronunciations for similar-looking structures, which complicates the matter when you’re learning a second language.

When you’re used to pronouncing “r” in English, for instance, you’ll quickly realize that its pronunciation in Portuguese (where it’s treated more like an “h”) is very different. Same with the “u” sound in French, which doesn’t resemble any sound in English. Suffice to say, the way you utter words in your native tongue often takes precedence when interacting on autopilot, which makes you mispronounce words in the target language when the sounds are different between the two languages.

These unique sounds will present a challenge when you’re building your language skills. They’re not impossible to master, though, provided you learn the right pronunciations and practice them regularly.

Make sure to pay special attention to these special pronunciations early in your language training, using them the right way as early as you can during your practice sessions. Chances are, you’ll need to learn a different way for moving your tongue and opening your mouth to get them right, but it’s a worthy task to tackle. Doing so will help you avoid ingraining bad habits that you might find hard to shed later on.

Five Things That Can Help

1. Watch native speakers on video. Make a habit of watching native speakers talk on video to get a good feel of the way they sound. Start out just getting a general understanding of how they utter specific syllables, make specific sounds and generally pronounce words. Then, start watching for other things like where they put the stress on words, how they vary sentence tone depending on intent, and the pace in which they string words together. When you’re starting out, you can speak along with the video (even if you don’t understand a word) or just soak it all in — either one will do, as long as you get a feel for what’s going on.
2. Mimic the natives. As you begin to build up vocabulary, start mimicking the way natives talk. Find one or two people that you can hear speak on a regular basis and imitate them. Try to mimic sentence by sentence, rather than per word, as sentences will carry accompanying qualities like pace, intonation and pauses, among other elements of speech. Focus on just one or two subjects as resources, though — imitate too many people and you can end up confusing
3. Understand the linguistic principles behind the different speech elements. Learn the rules behind the different elements of speech in the language individually. That way, you know exactly why a word is supposed to be pronounced the way it is, why you pause before a specific phrase, or why the stress on a sentence happens where it does. Being conscious of the rules can help you be more mindful of your accent.
4. Think in the correct accent. We all have internal dialogue (at least, I think we all do). And we’ve often talked about holding these mental conversations in the target language rather than your native vernacular. Don’t just stop there — try to do it while being mindful of your accent. That way, you can start hearing yourself speak in the correct way and maybe your actual tongue will follow.
5. Practice a lot. Try to put in as much practice time as you can, whether with people or by yourself. Don’t wait for your weekend sessions with language buddies to try things out. Instead, practice doing monologues at home and short interactions outside using learned correct accents whenever the opportunity is available. Every minute of practice you put in helps.

Do you daydream of being able to travel anywhere and being able to converse functionally with the locals? Then you’ll have to learn a lot of languages. Acquiring a lot, of course, isn’t the same as having to learn every language ever devised.

Learning the official language for every single country in the world is likely an impossible task. Unless, of course, that’s all you’ll do every second of your life. Fortunately, that’s not necessary if you want to be prepared to converse anywhere in the world, as there’s plenty of overlap among official languages and secondary language in almost every place you’re likely to visit.

If you’re really interested in jet-setting your way through the next couple years, a handful of languages — rather than dozens — should be all you need to make a fun time of it. Here are eight languages we think you should definitely start with.

English

Since you’re reading this, we have to assume you’ve got this down somewhat. Good for you, too, since English is arguably the most relevant international language around. It is, for all intents and purposes, the de facto language for world travelers. American capitalism (and, we guess, some imperialism) on the world stage made sure of that. Same with the British Empire’s reign from not so long ago (okay, very long ago).

Even in countries that don’t count English as an official language, you’re bound to find plenty of second-language speakers who know it. Even if all they know is what they’ve seen on cable and YouTube. There’s simply too much English in popular media for people not to know even the least bit of it. If English is not your first language, then make sure it’s the first second language you learn.

Spanish

Probably half of Europe, along with a huge chunk of the American continent (basically, everywhere south of the US, except Brazil) speak the language. Those Spanish colonizers really spread themselves wide. Even in the US, Spanish is growing ever so prevalent as a widely-used second language — one only needs to look at American media to figure that out. As a result, the language has become very prevalent in today’s world landscape.

Spanish is also a relatively easy language to learn, so it should be a worthwhile use of your time. It’s easy enough to work your way up to a few useful vocabulary items. Just make sure you put a lot of speaking practice — pronunciation and intonation can be very tricky in the vernacular.

French

Along with English and Spanish, French rounds out the three most widely-used languages in North America. Over in Europe, it’s not only an official language in France, Belgium and Switzerland, it’s also widely understood in many of the neighboring countries. Same with numerous regions of Western Africa, where the Romance language is extensively used.

French is such a popular choice for a second language that it used to be the default traveler’s language, although that stature has been usurped by English in recent times. Plus, girls think French is sexy (the same way they think Klingon is way nerdy). So if you’re a dude, anything to boost that appeal can only help (especially if you know Klingon, too).

Russian

Sure, the Soviet Union is no more. It hasn’t been gone for that long, though, so Russian continues to find wide use throughout the former Soviet states. Knowing the language allows you to get around most of Eastern Europe and the northern half of Asia, so better get around to building up some Russian skills if you plan to pass through any of the countries in the region. Do note that Russian isn’t one of the easiest languages to learn, so hold moderate expectations when you jump into it. If you only need conversational Russian, don’t even bother with the written form — their alphabet requires a little

Chinese

By Chinese, we’re talking collectively about the numerous languages spoken across China, including Mandarin, Fookien and Cantonese, among others. Mandarin is the most widely-used dialect both in and out of China, so we suggest focusing on that as your Chinese vernacular of choice.

There’s a good distribution of Chinese speakers in most any part of the world, even outside Asia. However, there’s no hefty concentration of speakers outside of China and Taiwan, so you’d only want to study Chinese if you plan on visiting those countries. Otherwise, English (or one of the other languages we include in the list) will be more beneficial.

Turkish

While not as popular among language learners as French, Italian or Spanish, Turkish actually has a large representation outside of Turkey. In particular, the language has a strong influence across southeast Europe and Germany, as well as a decent number of speakers in Russia, Central Asia, North America and Australia. If you’re coming by Turkey at any time, you need to learn some Turkish — locals hardly speak any other language, apart from their native tongue.

Arabic

There are numerous Arabic dialects used across the Middle East and Northern Africa. By numerous, we mean a lot, so don’t even begin thinking you’re going to learn every single one. For those who want to learn Arabic for a stint around the Middle East, we suggest studying the dialect that’s most accessible to you (e.g. you know people who speak it). Most educated Arabs can understand other dialects than their own local vernacular, especially since there are many similarities across the various languages.

As a whole, there are over 300 million speakers of the Arabic languages, including those individuals who have migrated into Europe and other countries. If you decide to study Arabic a bit more in-depth, it could actually serve you well, as there’s a high demand in and very low supply for bilingual Arabic and English speakers in both Europe and North America.

Portuguese

While there’s a heavy population of native Portuguese speakers in both Portugal and Brazil, representation outside those two is very small. If you’re traveling to either of those countries, then work on it. Otherwise, you can stick to the seven languages we discussed previously.

Learning a new language is no easy feat — even for polyglots who’ve gone through the process before. However, it can be easier or harder based on a multitude of factors. Good news is, you may be able to affect some of those conditions, so maximizing your chances at success is, somewhat, in your power.

Find Local Speakers

Before starting a language program, it pays to draw up a list of people you know who speak the target language. You need the regular practice if you’re going to progress quickly, so this step is crucial. While you can learn without a regular partner to practice with, it’s going to take you longer. Plus, you’re going to have to struggle with finding practice opportunities later, anyway, so best get it done from the onset.

If you don’t know anyone first-hand, ask your friends and family members if they know someone. You never know what simple asking can turn up: a few of them may be acquainted with a native speaker or a fellow learner like you. Finding potential speaking practice partners will eliminate one of the biggest obstacles you will face during your journey, so getting it out of the way early can only help.

Is The Language Well-Represented Where You Live?

The more speakers you can find locally for the target language, the more opportunities you will have to use it. Do your research. There are usually clubs and various organizations that bond speakers of a language together, like business clubs and sports teams. There may be businesses around that are frequented by people from a specific culture. Sometimes, a cluster of them will live in close proximity, as with your local “Chinatown.” Find out about them and see how you can put yourself in a position where you can interact with these individuals.

Are there tourist destinations and hotspots in your area? You could find plenty of opportunities to meet people who natively speak your target language there. Volunteering at the information office for a local tourist spot, for instance, can open up a whole world of opportunities for interaction using your target language. Same with taking a part-time job at a popular tourist hotel. Heck, you can even join a tour as a “tourist” for a group whose language is the same as your target vernacular.

Find Good Tools

Put in time to evaluate different language software, books, audio programs and training tools. What you want is to find a resource that can teach you the language at an appropriate level to where you are right now. That is, not too easy that you’ll breeze through it and take things for granted; but not too difficult that the input becomes incomprehensible, either. You also want to pick materials that serve your preferred learning modes well, so that the instruction and exercises play to your strengths, rather than weigh down because of your weaknesses.

Additionally, make sure you pick tools that actually serve what you need the language for. A training software that focuses on travelers to a foreign country might provide an entirely different lesson plan than one that’s focused on business professionals who want to use the language in industry. If, for instance, you want to learn French so you can interact with the bosses in your office, then all that “Where is the hotel?” and “Can I order a beer?” phrases that you’ll learn from the first software will not be the best use of your time. Same with all the business terms that you’ll pick up out of the second software not serving you at all when you’ll be spending time talking with hotel staff, shopping at local markets and getting directions.

Clear Up Time For Language Learning

This goes without saying, but too many language learners use time as an excuse when they decide to quit halfway (or, more commonly, after a month) through the process. If you’re going to start a language learning project, then clear up the time for it before hand. Whether you intend to do 15 minutes a day, an hour every morning or six hours per week, you need to pencil the language training into your schedule and keep it in mind when making other plans.

Consider language learning as one of your top priorities. That way, you don’t just put it aside when you get a call from a friend who wants to shoot some hoops right now, get the hankering to spend the afternoon cooking this dish you saw on the internet, or grow an itch to watch the college game on TV. Start thinking of it the way you do with your job. You won’t really put off work to do any of those things, right? So why would you put your lessons off to attend to any of those things.

The more time you can devote to learning on a daily basis, the faster your results are likely to come. Do note that we’re talking about “daily” — the sustained continuity of 15 minutes a day will likely work better in you favor than spending 8 hours every weekend.

Come Up With Reasons Why You Want To Learn

Draw up a list of reasons for learning the language. While you can use that list, on its own, as a source of motivation, don’t stop there. Instead, look to grow your skills, specifically, to serve those reasons, using the list as a tool for course-correction.

Say, you wrote down, “So I can discuss things with my mother in law — who speaks Russian natively and English very poorly — without confusion.” Then, try to use the small bits of the language you learn to communicate with her in Russian early on. That way, you get a good measure of how much you’re progressing towards that goal. It’s a lot more useful than coming up with a mental “guesstimate.” Same if you want to “read more German literature” (try reading books as soon as you can) and “get around when I visit Spain” (talk with Spanish-speakers you come across in your daily life).

Want to progress faster in your language learning efforts? Use it early on in the process. That is, find opportunities to apply the little you have of the target vernacular as early as possible in the process, instead of being content to sit in your room learning the language all by your lonesome for months on end.

Some people like to focus on activities like building vocabulary and learning grammar early on. As for practice, they veer away from it, choosing to remain in a silent period, instead of going out and applying what they’ve learned. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it can also prove a little slow if you’re looking to learn at a faster than normal pace.

Too Much, Too Soon

Afraid of trying to bit too much too soon? It’s understandable. Going out and using a target language incorrectly can create plenty of awkward situations. If you’re the type who embarrass easily, it can create serious anxiety. However, that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll eventually need to go out and use the language at some point. And at that point, you’ll always do it poorly.

You heard that right. Chances are, you’ll always do a poor job the first few times you go out to use the target language. That holds whether you’re doing it a month into your language software lessons or six months after. As such, it makes sense to just take the plunge early — you’ll be stumbling your way through it either way.

The more you use the language, the better you’ll develop the confidence to use it on a regular basis. Exposure breeds competence and competence leads to confidence. And that, at the end of the day, is what you’re eventually aiming for when learning a target language.

Don’t Stay Silent Too Long

The silent period is valuable in many ways. For some people, forcing themselves to speak before they’re ready just raises anxiety and makes them more nervous about the whole ordeal. Instead of encouraging them to use the language further, they shrink away from it.

If you’re the kind who gets a little too anxious for comfort in those situations, going out to use the language early becomes a little tricky. In many ways, you’ll need to find the right balance between wallowing in the silent period to build your resolve and taking the risks necessary to actually build your confidence. One thing’s for sure: you won’t develop confidence by just working with your language software and staying on your silent period.

Here are a few ways to slowly but surely get you out of the silent period, all while managing your anxiety levels:

1. Stick to simple situations you can handle. If all you can do is order food and perform other basic requests in a restaurant, then stick to that. Same if all you can do is ask about prices for products in a wet market. Don’t push past what you’ve studied. Learn new phrases and shadow practice it at home before jumping in to use it for real.
2. Gradually expand your interactions. Only expand to other types of interactions once you start feeling comfortable with the same routine. That way, you only have to deal with a minimum amount of anxiety, instead of compounding the things that can make your nervous. Small increases in your routine also allow you to do them more effectively, as you don’t end up having to do anything way out of your comfort zone.

Finding The Resolve

One of the hardest things to do is finding the resolve to begin using the language. It’s too easy to put off, with the most convenient of excuses easily available at your disposal. As such, it’s on you to build the resolve to actually go out and apply yourself. It’s going to be one of your biggest jobs as a language student.

My favorite technique to help in this area is to stay in contact with what motivates you. As in, why did you learn this language in the first place? If you wanted to learn French so you can volunteer with an organization that does missionary work in a French-speaking area of Africa, then make sure to establish ties with the organization, befriending a member or two and staying in touch. Similarly, you may want to keep pictures and magazine articles about that country with you, such as in a scrapbook that you can look at periodically to remind yourself why it is you’re making all this effort, despite the difficulties that face you.

Keep Refining Your Speaking Skills

Chances are, you’ll be using the language in a broken, difficult-to-understand way the first time you’re out speaking it. That’s hardly a surprise. I mean, I know second-language English speakers who still talk in semi-broken English even after living in the States for a year.

While putting up with such poor speaking is important if you want to use the language early, you need to look towards improving them as time goes by. Just because people are tolerating you when you speak that way, it doesn’t mean you can go on doing the same thing six months down the line. Always work on refining the various aspects of your speaking, from the pace to the pronunciation to the diction. Don’t be too comfortable speaking the way you do now. Otherwise, you’ll find it hard to get better.

Materials Only Get You So Far

Can you learn a target language without actually using it to interact with people? Some people think you can’t; others think it’s possible. Personally, I side with the latter. I know it’s perfectly possible, as I’ve met people who had a decent grasp of a foreign language without even using it to speak with anyone at any time.

For the most part, they can listen to native speakers and understand most of what’s being said. Some of them can even read and write in the target language. And, yes, they can speak, but in the same nervous, slightly unsure way new language learners do. Yep, they talk similar to guys who spent a month with a language software and are going out to use it for the first time. They may have better vocabularies, but they still stammer when they speak, with the words they need ending up inaccessible when put in the middle of an interaction.

Even the best materials won’t be able to get you fluency without real-world practice. That’s the reality of language learning. Which is why, if you want to truly progress faster, you want to go out and do it as early as possible. Especially when people to talk with are available to you.

Thinking of learning Portuguese? Here’s a brief introduction to the language, including information on what you should expect both before and after studying it.

Usefulness

Unless you’re going to Brazil or Portugal, learning Portuguese won’t help you a lot. In fact, if you speak English or French, it may not even be necessary if getting around in Portugal is all you’re concerned about. Both French and English are widely used there — French among older folks, English among younger people. Brazil is an emerging economy, though, so if you’re looking at opportunities from there, Portuguese could be very useful to you.

There are an estimated 160 million Portuguese speakers worldwide, most of them concentrated in Portugal and Brazil. Other countries where there is a notable concentration of speakers include Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and East Timor. Unless you’re in the MMA industry where many of the best fighters and trainers come out of Brazil, the language may not be of much use outside those places.

Portuguese and Spanish

It’s easy for non-speakers to mistake Portuguese for Spanish and vice versa. The two are closely related, after all. However, there are enough important differences between them that often prove a stumbling block for Spanish speakers trying to learn Portuguese or the other way around.

The biggest and most obvious difference is pronunciation. While shared words in the two languages often have the same meaning and are spelled the same way, many of them are pronounced in a considerably different manner. As such, a Spanish speaker will tend to use his native pronunciation which a Portuguese speaker can’t understand and so on. It can create lots of problems.

Difficulty

Portuguese is relatively easy to learn, so long as you have one of the Romance languages in your back pocket, either as a native speaker or as a learned second language. Beyond that, it still shouldn’t prove more difficult than your average language to pick up.

Grammar and spelling should be relatively easy for most learners, especially if you have some Spanish in your background. Portuguese makes clear distinctions between different word classes, so following grammar lessons shouldn’t be too hard.

For speaking and listening, you may need to concentrate on the nasal dipthongs and the hard “L,” as those are prominent elements of the Portuguese speech sounds. For writing, Portuguese uses the standard Latin alphabet with 26 letters — three of which are only used for words of non-Portuguese origins.

Teaching yourself a foreign language is never easy. Heck, it’s hard enough to learn it with help from a teacher. Going at things alone is a different beast altogether.

As we’ve discussed before, language learning skills can be divided into four general areas: speaking, listening, writing and reading. Of those, it’s easy to picture learning three on your own. Want to improve your listening skills? Listen to movies, speeches and other recordings of native speakers using the language. Your writing skills? Sit down in front of your computer, install the character set for the target language and begin typing in the target vernacular. Your reading skills? Pick up a book in the target language and read it line by line.

For speaking, on the other hand, the situation is a bit trickier. With no one to talk to, how do you know what comes out of your mouth even makes any sense? How do you know you’re mouthing the words correctly? How do you know your tone is on point for the message? Simply put, how do you practice in a way that actually improves your ability to use the language in a real interaction?

Is it even possible to really learn speaking without ever talking to someone in the target language?

Personally, I’ve found it possible, but in a limited way. A short while back, I thought my Portuguese was decent, having studied it for over six months on my own. Once I visited Brazil and tried to speak to locals, though, the words just wouldn’t come out. I can listen to people and understand what they say perfectly fine, but I can’t hold my own in a conversation. For some reason, I just struggled coming up with the words.

It’s not that I didn’t practice speaking. I did plenty of practice situations by myself, imagining myself in a conversation in a variety of settings and spouting off my Portuguese in a manner that should suffice. Heck, I even put on movies, have a character speak, put it on pause and respond back with my own answers. Once I found myself in a real-world setting, though, my mind just seemed to shut down.

Why did I struggle? From my own analysis, I think it’s because the real conversations were dynamic. As in, I didn’t make up the context on my own (like I did with practice situations) nor did I know what the other person was going to say beforehand (as with the movies). Because of that, every conversation was an exchange that forced me to think on my feet. And since my facility with the language wasn’t all that high-level yet, I struggled.

The moral here, I guess, is that you can get away learning by yourself with reading, writing and listening. If you want to be prepared to hold conversations, though, it’s better to find people to practice with.