Making it fun and interesting.  Period, hands-down, no contest, that’s it.

Seriously. Nothing else even comes close.

I honestly believe that this is the most important post I’ve ever written, if I could give you only one single piece of advice about learning a language and nothing else whatsoever, it would be this, this is the key, this is how you succeed, this is how you get fluent, this is what really makes the difference between people who succeed at learning a language and those who fail.

You make it fun, you make it interesting, you make it entertaining, you make it enjoyable, and you will succeed, I promise you.  Why? Because you’ll keep doing it, you’ll continuously work on your language skills every

single day over a long period of time, you will be persistently consistent, the inevitable result of which is you becoming fluent in the language in question, that’s why.  Simple.

Want to make fluency in the language you want to learn ‘inevitable’?  And I do mean ‘inevitable’ in the literal sense of the word, as in it will happen no matter what whether you like or not if you’ll simply do this.  Then do this.

It’s that simple.  I didn’t say it was easy–there are many things in life which are very simple to accomplish but which are also very difficult (deadlifting 1000 pounds is an extraordinarily simple task and there are only a very few people in the world who can do it)–I said it was simple, learning any complex skill such as how to speak a new language is never easy, but it can be simple and it can be fun such that we will want to work towards accomplishing it every single day (which is precisely what’s required to accomplish it: persistent consistency), so let’s do it that way!

Why people fail

The most common reason by far that people who try to learn a language don’t, the reason that probably 90% of people who try to learn a language fail, is that they get bored and because they get bored, they quit.  Their motivation simply cannot overcome their pain.  What do I mean by pain? I mean anything you don’t like, that causes you to feel negative emotions (oh yeah, boredom is definitely a negative emotion, find me someone who says they love feeling bored), I mean the amount of effort they have to put forward (people hate putting forth any more effort than they absolutely have to), I mean the time they have to take to do it, the trouble they have to go to, the feeling they get of not seeing much in terms of results after putting forward what felt like a good deal of effort, I mean the feeling they have after several months of study when they realize they still can’t have a simple conversation with a native speaker.  And the problem, the real problem that causes them to quit, that causes them to fail ultimately, is that the pile of pain is larger than the pile of motivation they have (imagine the two side-by-side in your head, like two mounds of dirt), and the very second that they realize that they don’t have enough of a reason to overcome that particular amount of pain, they quit.

Now, as you can imagine and have probably been told, you can always just grit your teeth and push through it: yes, you can, anyone can, but why would you?  And that’s why you don’t, because you just don’t have enough of a reason to do it.  If your job depends on you learning this language, then yeah you’ll learn it, you’ll grit your teeth and force yourself to pay attention in the class to do the boring, confusing, difficult homework–you have enough of a reason to (even then, why make it any harder for yourself than it has to be?), but that’s not most people who want to learn a language!  Most people want to do it because they’d like to have access to a little bit bigger slice of the world, essentially, they just want to be able to communicate with people who don’t speak their language, primarily for fun (they don’t need to be able to talk to these people, they’d just like to), or they just think that learning a language would be a fun thing to do (it can be! if you do it right). If someone were holding your kids hostage and threatening to throw them off a cliff if you didn’t learn this language in 3 weeks or something, oh you damn right you could do it, and you could do it no matter how boring or dry the learning material you had to work with was.  Sure.  But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

You don’t have that kind of motivation, and trying to concoct it out of thin air, regardless of what people have told you, isn’t possible.  So…what’s the nonsense about “making it fun”?  It does two extraordinary and amazing things simultaneously: it gives you a lot of additional motivation and it eliminates a lot, almost all, of the pain.  Blammo, problem solved, now you can learn the language.  Done.  How does it do this?

Because it makes it so that you don’t need any additional motivation related to learning the language whatsoever: if you will follow this principle, you can have a just little bit of motivation to learn the language in question and you’ll still do it.  Why? Because we follow one simple criteria here, now listen up: if you would not read/watch/listen to the item in question for fun or enjoyment, were it in your native language, then don’t do it with an item in your target language.  If the item in question is not something you would otherwise like to spend your time bothering with, if it were in your native language, then you don’t bother with it now when it’s in your target language (the language you want to learn).  This way, you need very little additional reason, justification, or motive for taking the time and effort to bother with it now–do you need at least a little bit due to the fact that it’s going to be more difficult to decipher since it’s in a foreign language and not your native one? Yes, sure, I’m not Morpheus and this isn’t The Matrix, I can’t download this stuff into your head for you, but what we can do is increase that pile of motivation as much as possible and decrease the pile of pain as much as possible, which this does with great effect.  That covers motivation, what about pain?

Solving the puzzle

It reduces pain primarily by getting rid of every single ounce of boredom you would’ve otherwise encountered had you gone with something not particularly fun or interesting (such as a textbook or formal organized lessons, whether online or from a book or class or whatever) and also by greatly reducing the effort required by making the learning process much easier: it’s a lot easier to understand what the language means and why it’s being used that way when you’ve got a real live person using it in an actual situation (e.g. a movie) where there’s context and a reason for them saying what they’re saying, than if it’s just part of some example sentence or workbook exercise with a crappy explanation you can’t understand and have to spend 20 minutes deciphering.  Plus, does watching a movie or listening to a song that you enjoy really seem like work to you? I mean, at all?  It doesn’t to me, even when it’s in a foreign language I can’t quite understand…you know what it seems like to me? It seems like something that I would normally enjoy with the added bonus of a puzzle, the puzzle of figuring out what they’re saying and the immense joy I get from solving the puzzle and, additionally, from learning how to solve similar puzzles in the future.  The puzzle is what they said, solving it is looking up the necessary words and grammar to figure it out, and the learning is what I learned in terms of new words and how they work and are used (aka “grammar”) which will allow me to understand similar speech that uses those same words and grammar in the future.  Awesome, so much fun 😀

Bonus: Not sounding like a doofus when you actually try to speak the language

You know how else this adds to your motivation pile? Because when you’re using popular contemporary media like movies and books you’re learning popular contemporary language, you’re learning the language the way that people actually use it, not the outdated or overly formal manner that you find in most textbooks and even a shocking amount of lessons in various ‘Spanish learning systems’ (Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, etc.).  Most of you are learning a language in order to be able to actually converse with native speakers and therefore this is precisely the sort of learning that you want to do and making 100% of the language you learn the sort of language that you want to learn makes for fantastic motivation for actually doing that learning.

Ok, so where should I go from here?

The first thing I’d tell you to do is read my post on The Telenovela Method (also the name of the book I’m writing–gasp! first time I’ve mentioned this on my blog) where I’ll teach you the precise method that I use to learn Spanish (can easily be applied to any other language) using movies, music videos, TV shows, books, etc.  Next, a really useful resource for you would be my List of the Best Free Sites to Watch Spanish-Language TV Online, then I would probably tell you to check out some of my posts where I take a music video and dissect it and use it to teach you Spanish: the primary purpose of this is not to teach you Spanish (though the Spanish you’ll learn is a nice bonus), it’s to teach you how I do this so that you can go and do it to any song you like!  I’ve done 6 such posts:

Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘La Tortura’ Dissected

Learning Spanish From Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘Suerte’

Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s “Ojos Así”

Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘Te Aviso, Te Anuncio’

Learning Spanish from Music Videos: Juanes’ ‘Yerbatero’ Dissected

Learn Spanish from Music Videos: Shakira’s ‘Lo Hecho Está Hecho’ aka ‘Objection (Tango)’

Yes, I like Shakira.

Additionally my post on motivation is a really interesting corollary to this in that it was written like two years ago but still absolutely applies (I like the stuff I wrote about getting a girlfriend/boyfriend that speaks the language, I still say that’s the best motivator I’ve ever seen, hands down, haha).  Also, let me ask you something…what could possibly be more fun than doing kids’ stuff, I mean like playing games and stupid comics and TV shows for kids and what-not? Exactly.  Children’s resources and entertainment in your target language are a fantastic language-learning resource and there’s a metric shit-ton of them online for free.  First, read this: Why you should use kids’ stuff: because you’re a simpleton who needs to be entertained lest you lose interest and wander off, that’s why.  Next, go look at the following and find stuff that you like, pick comics (I love Garfield! and yes it’s available in Spanish!) and books that you would personally find amusing:

Learn Spanish with comics! Do you like Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Cathy, Foxtrot, Marmaduke, etc.? I’ve got something for you!

The Awesome Language-Learning Resource that is Children’s Books

How do I determine if something is too difficult for me or not?

This is an excellent question because if you get stuff that’s too hard for you then the effort required to deal with it could easily overpower your motivation to do so thereby resulting in you not doing it.  It’s a big “demotivator”, as David calls it.  David? Eh? Yeah, I was actually inspired to write this blog post by a friggin’ awesome one that David Snopek over at LinguaTrek just published today that I cannot possibly encourage you strongly enough to go and read right now: Is this book/movie/song too hard for me?

Not only am I going to let him answer this question because I’m lazy, plus I’ve already just broken 2000 words so this is plenty long enough as it is, but because, honestly, he just plain did a better job explaining it than I can, seriously.  He was far more clear and concise than I could’ve been (yeah, I need to work on that, I know).

On being persistently consistent

I mentioned this in the beginning, and now I’m going to explain it as the very last thing I do, because these two words are really the key to learning a language.  There is something I call “persistent consistency”, I like to say that you have to be “persistently consistent”.  What I mean is that you must be consistent in your study of the language, that is studying every single day and accomplishing a minimum pre-specified (by you) amount of work (if you can call it that!), and you must be persistent about it: that means not giving up, continuing on through all the various difficulties and complications that life will inevitably throw at you.  If you do this, success is inevitable.  What I’m talking about is making it as easy as possible to accomplish this.

Make it fun!

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It's available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

• Amazon
• iBooks (the iTunes store)
• Kobo
• Barnes & Noble
• Google Play Store
• Goodreads
• Scribd
• Ciando

Cheers,
Andrew

Motivation is the most important factor in determining whether or not you will learn a language, how well you will learn it, and how long it will take you. Also, if you don’t have it for the language in question, you’ll never learn it, you just won’t, almost no matter how much self-discipline you have and how much you’re willing to torture yourself, if you can’t give yourself a damned good reason to learn that language beyond “Well…I’ve always want to learn a language of some kind, and…umm…why not this one?” then you’re never going to get fluent in that language because at some point you will run out of steam and give up, it’s inevitable.

Love

Now, that particular motivation for you could be a lot of things, if you’re required to learn a new language for your job lest you get fired, hey that’s motivation and it’s probably sufficient to get you to the minimum level of proficiency that’s required by your job…and that’s it. That’s all it’ll do, but it’ll do it.

If you’ve just gotten a new boyfriend or girlfriend, who you think is just the most fantastic, sweetest little pookie-wookie-shnookums-cutie-pie in the whole world, but who isn’t a native English speaker and especially if their English isn’t so great and you’ve realized just how much better you can communicate with them, empathize with them, write love letters to them, explain movies to them, and tell them how much you love them if you could speak their language, guess what: that’s a powerful motivator, one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen.

Guys who have repeatedly told me how much they’re not interested in learning a new language “because the whole world speaks English, so hey, why bother man?” get a cute new little French or Brazilian hottie for a girlfriend and all of a sudden they’ve bought half a dozen language learning programs, books, CDs, and such, they’re watching French or Brazilian football games with subtitles on and trying to read the newspapers from Paris/Rio, etc. etc. It’s hilarious to watch and massively educational at the same time in that it shows just what the proper motivation can do 😀

One particular tip for learning a foreign language that you will see over and over again if you look at enough blogs and read enough books on the matter is to get a girlfriend/boyfriend who’s a native speaker of the language you want to learn, and they’re right, and there’s a reason that works so damned well.

Travel and People

My personal motivation, and one that I know I share with a LOT of other language learners, is travel and, most especially, meeting and learning about people of different countries and cultures. I have always wanted to travel extensively and not just travel, but actually live (as in, for years at a time) in other countries–you see, I really don’t believe that you can learn very much about another culture, country, and people simply by visiting them as a tourist for a couple of weeks, and it’s even worse if you can’t speak their language.

That’s ultimately what really fascinates me, it’s my passion: learning about other cultures and people who are different from me. I could literally spend the rest of my life moving from country to country every 3-5 years and picking up, ooohhh, say a dozen or so languages along the way.

You can’t truly understand a people and their culture in a foreign country without being fluent in their language, I don’t care HOW long you live there–I’ve met expats who are living in Thailand who have been there for the past 20 years, still don’t speak Thai, and still, unsurprisingly, don’t really understand Thais and Thai culture–they live in their own little expat bubble where they’ve resided ever since they got off the plane 20 years ago, they have their little circle of English-only-speaking expat friends, their expat bars where they congregate with those same expat friends, the stores they go to where the employees speak English to them (and they avoid places where they don’t), etc. etc. It’s sad, it’s really friggin’ sad and the perfect example to prove my point. NO, just living there isn’t going to do it if you’re going to stubbornly insist upon operating entirely in English the whole time you’re there! You can live there for the rest of your life and if you don’t learn the language you’ll never really understand the country you’ve been living in, its people, or their culture.

More than anything I want to be able to understand and communicate with the people of the countries I visit and live in, that’s more important to me than anything in the world, I care about the people, not the buildings or the pretty mountains or the fantastic architecture or the historical sites or the trinket-peddling tourist traps. I care about what they think, what they feel, and…most importantly: WHY they think and feel that way.

Not only will learning the language allow you to communicate with them so that they can tell you this, but the very act of learning that language will tell you SO many things about the people who speak it. Look at Japanese and all the honorifics used in it, how many different ways there are to say ‘no’ without saying ‘no’ directly and how important it is to do that, how important it is to avoid confrontation and how you see that reflected in the language and the roundabout, indirect way it goes about doing EVERYTHING: what does that tell you about the Japanese people??? And you haven’t even talked to any of them yet, have you?

The Easiest Language in the World

The one that fascinates you the most, or who’s people/culture fascinates you. That will be the easiest one for you to learn because learning it will be a labor of love, it won’t be ‘work’ because it’ll be fun, it’ll be interesting. It won’t be an exercise in seeing how much you can torture yourself like when you were trying to force Calculus down your throat back in high school just so you could pass that stupid test and get out of there (presuming you had absolutely no interest in calculus like most us of didn’t at the time), it won’t be something you dread doing every day and are eager to “just get it over with” so you can get onto something…interesting, perhaps? See what I mean?

Are you fascinated by the history of a certain country? If you’re a WWII buff then German or Russian may very well be for you! If you’re a Japanophile who knows more about Japanese history than most Japanese do, then I think the choice is pretty obvious. If you’ve got a serious, acute, and completely untreatable latina fetish like I do, then Spanish it is! If you’re a foodie with an undying love for everything edible and French, well…what do you think? Parlez Français!!

Which language should you learn? What are you most passionate about that has a language strongly connected to it? There you go, problem solved. Now go forth and SPEAK! And it is vitally, absolutely, monumentally important to SPEAK to native speakers, but that’s a whole ‘nother post altogether.

Please, tell me in the comments, why are you doing this?  You don’t need to be able to speak a language other than your native one, not really: you can get around your home country, buy food, get a job, pay rent, raise a family, etc. without ever having learned another language besides your native one.  Also, this takes a lot of time, self-discipline, motivation, energy, work, and usually some amount of money (which could range anywhere from a grand total of 50 bucks for books to thousands of dollars spent on travel), this shit’s hard, you could be building model trains or getting really good at playing Call of Duty or whacking a little ball around a field with a stick instead: so why are you doing this?

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

• Amazon
• iBooks (the iTunes store)
• Kobo
• Barnes & Noble
• Google Play Store
• Goodreads
• Scribd
• Ciando

Cheers,
Andrew