Language is the most powerful tool which bridges the gap between two unknowns; unknown in terms of diverse location, the field of education, career, etcetera. It acts as an ice breaker, helping people to open before someone else with their words, opinions, and feelings.

The role of language in one’s life is utmost and hence learning it, is very requisite!

Be it Mother tongue or any other language, you must possess a perfect WORD-TRANSLATOR of your views and feelings for opening your mouth to utter something. A newborn has to cry to show his needs but with time he gets familiar and begins learning from various people. Hence, in this way, every kid starts to spell words and begins the process of LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. In childhood, he acquired the language with the subconscious mind, having no concern for apt grammar.

Therefore, LANGUAGE LEARNING is a bit different from LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, as said by Linguists. LANGUAGE LEARNING involves grammatical knowledge and a person learns it under an instructor with no age bar and no need to know the basics of that language. Consider an Indian who is learning the French language, may not have a connection to French anyway, but he is willing to learn that.

So, below I will be highlighting 7 Golden Rules to learn a language, along with one bonus point-

#1 Willingness, Patience & Consistency.

Learning a novel thing is in no way an easy task but surely not an impossible one. All you need is to have a sheer will, patience during the entire learning journey, and consistency to give at least an hour daily to learn new words and sentences.

 

#2 Set Your Goals.

The next important point is to set language learning goals. Once you know what you want to accomplish from it, you could better channel your energy in that way and put effort accordingly. For instance, you are learning a language out of interest then putting in an hour daily and reaching an intermediate level in that specific language is enough, but on the other hand, learning for professional purposes needs at least 2 hours daily along with securing a proficiency in it.

 

#3 Begin with the common terms.

Words for Greetings or introductory words are the best you can begin with: Good Morning, Hello, etc. Find prior 50 to 100 commonly used words in relevance to that language and start jotting it in your diary. Revise them regularly to keep them in mind.

 

#4 Move from simple to complex sentences.

After having command over the daily used terms, the next step in a row is to connect word-to-word to speak a sentence. Start from Basics- “Introducing Yourself” and then move forward from assertive sentences to interrogative and ask others “Their Introduction” and this way goes on… Do translation works daily of a minimum of 10 sentences, if you want to learn at the earliest.

 

#5 Bring in conversation.

Merely learning the words and sentences will not let you utter them before a linguist. You need to bring the language into the conversation. Unless you speak what you are learning in that language, you can't build your confidence or dexterity in the language.  You can simply talk to google assistant or Siri after changing the phone setting under the language section and check if you can speak intelligibly.

 

#6 Use the Infotainment.

Watch audio or video clips in that particular language that you are learning to enhance vocabulary and for normalizing the language for yourself. Sources like Youtube, Netflix, can be used to explore your vocab-improving session to make it count and sound more native.

 

#7 Embrace Your Flaws.

Meanwhile, you are busy with all the aforementioned, something that you can’t afford to neglect is embracing all the flaws and errors you make during the learning process. There would be a time when you probably lost your mettle, but never lost the same for good. Uplift yourself and learn from flaws.

 

BONUS POINT- Learning a language would be more fun, engaging, and pragmatic if you watch some Vlogs and documentaries of a tour to the country whose language you are learning. If you are learning French, go through some interesting Tourist spots in France. You will surely enjoy and feel more comfortable and cheerful. Aahan! Can plan for a trip to France too.

 

Some of the best and free language learning platforms are Duolingo, Alison, Open Culture, and Bilingual.

Moreover, SkillingYou is itself offering a course in the universal language- English at a very reasonable rate. You can check for the same too.

At last but not least, it is high time to learn, explore, and achieve. Make your own NO-LOCKDOWN and inculcate as many new skills as you can.

Bon apprentissage!