This article is Part 1 of the 5 part series on learning a language (click any of the following for “Part 1: Why it is never too late”, “Part 2: Myths of language learning” , “Part 3: Routine for the complete beginner”, “Part 4: The routine for the intermediate level”, “Part 5: Advanced routine and learning another”, and the companion piece and review of the LingQ language application here.)
So, you’re an adult. You think that you’re past the “developmental years” where you can learn language with ease… You have resigned yourself to the fact that you will forever be unilingual. It is too hard to learn; or worse, it is impossible.
Most of the world can speak more than one language, but in your head YOU cannot. The truth is, this isn’t a physical barrier, it’s a psychological one. The following succession of articles will outline my approach to language learning. I will discuss some of my successes, and the resources and tools I have discovered to assist me on my journey.
The journey
A few years ago I set out to learn French. This wasn’t a “New Year’s” resolution. I had a bit of a bone to pick. It was just after customs in Brussels, Belgium, (October, 2016) where my language learning journey began.
I walked up to the customs agent and handed him my passport. He very nonchalantly did what every monolingual anglophone Canadian despairs: he asked me a question in French. I stabbed at my pathetic cluster of words before he sneered and addressed me in English:
“So, you don’t speak French?…I thought all Canadians spoke French and English?”
The trilingual Belgian knew damn well not every Canadian can speak both, but he leveraged the shame all monolingual people feel when we are reminded of that “deficiency”.
I left that experience never wanting to feel that way again.
2 years, 3 months and 14 days later in January of 2019, I sat in my first French class. Not the type of class that teaches you French. Rather, an upper year faculty of law course that taught constitutional law in French. It was a bilingual course that iterated between the two official languages; I was buzzing with excitement.
That was a year and a half ago from the time of writing this article. Today, even more so than then, I am confident that I have a mastery of French. I pivoted to Spanish in February of 2020, and have since (at the time of writing these articles) reached a comfortable level of conversational fluency.
The journey (for French) was long, but not that long... I realized during that experience that I could learn many languages, and each one faster than the last. This was a dream of mine while I studied linguistics during my undergrad; a dream that was chalked up in my mind, at the time, as impossible.
My opinion has changed drastically today.
The process: an introduction.
Over the course of those three and a half years I did 8 weeks of formal classes, and I had the benefit of living with a bilingual person for 18 months. Despite that, most of my gains were done using a method that has been tested, tried, and approved by some of the world’s most impressive linguists. This method is drastically different from how you may have been taught a language in school, by a private tutor, or with popular language learning apps.
One of my intellectual heros, and renowned linguist, Steven Kaufman has managed to learn 20 languages applying this method (which largely utilizes Stephen Krashen’s language input hypothesis). The method was so successful that he created his own application; the app is called LingQ.
LingQ has changed my life.
The roadmap
The series of articles that I have written will first briefly canvass Krashen’s Language Input Hypothesis in order for you to fully appreciate the differences between this method and the classic approach taught in schools and on popular apps; then there will be a discussion on the routine I employed (using various apps—including LingQ) as a complete beginner; next, there will be a series of discussions on how that routine changes as one’s ability increases; and lastly, I will review the LingQ application and the different approaches to utilizing its interface effectively.
Learning a language has been one of the most—if not thee most—enjoyable experiences I have ever had in my life. I want you to feel the immense satisfaction I felt when I first was able to properly convey myself to someone in another language. It is entirely possible, and it is not as difficult as you think! In fact, with the right tools (which I will help provide), it is easy and enjoyable.
First, we must start with the theory and a few myths about language learning. Click here to go to Part 2.
Al holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Arts Double Major in Linguistics & Political Studies from the University of Manitoba. He is currently working in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Al has a passion for language, meditation, health, travelling, business and tech. Al is one of the co-founders of ThoughtNotion. You can connect with him on his personal site or on LinkedIn.
