Language Types

European Languages

If you’re studying a European language, the hardest thing you will encounter is conjugations. They will probably introduce them in your audio lessons but make sure you study them on your own time so that you fully understand them. Use online flashcards if you need to. I recommend either Study Blue or Cram.

Asian Languages

If you’re studying an Asian language, you need to decide if learning to write is important to you at all. If you would prefer to just learn to read and speak, then it will make studying that much easier. In every Asian language, there is a kind of romaji or transliterated text to help you read words (Chinese uses pinyin since it has tones). You can use that to help you learn to speak and pronounce things, but you should remove your dependence on romaji/pinyin as soon as you can because it will cripple you in the long run.

If you do decide to learn to write, go SLOWLY. Try to learn 5 characters a day. If you’re learning Korean, you’ll learn the alphabet quickly but Chinese and Japanese are another story. If you’re learning Chinese and Japanese, start with radicals and go from there. The order should basically be radicals, numbers, basic words (dog, cat, big, small, man, woman, etc.), then harder stuff. Just focus on speaking in the beginning.

It is very important for a casual learner to remain consistent. You have to keep chugging along with your studies either until you make progress. The biggest downside to casual studying is that progress is much slower. So you’ll need to keep yourself motivated to do your lessons every day even though you may not be able to see your progress at that time. Give it some more time and some more practice and you’ll be speaking in no time!

I’m sorry this post was so long but I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions for posts you want to see and I’ll do my best to provide the best tips and advice that I can! Good luck!

Post credit: Lili Does Critical Languages