During these locked-down times, I've been given the opportunity to work on studying foreign languages again, which is good fun. Here I share some additional tips, tricks, and insights which have been helpful to me. Eventually, I plan to integrate this content into my language learning page which has additional information on this topic.

While I specifically discuss learning foreign languages here, I think the topics dicussed here are sufficiently general that they could be applied to all sorts of learned skills (e.g. computer programing, playing piano, making bookshelves).

Introduction

Practice is refining movements. Study is becoming familiar with models that are useful for practice (theory). When we are able to do something or understand something we were not able to before, we say we are learning something. Through study and practice, we learn. ¹

Once you recognize a pattern (e.g. word, grammatical construction) you can refine your movements. Learning the spelling and morphological breakdown of a word, or a sentence structure can be called "studying" in that you are learning the "theory" of how a language is put together.

Once you understand what you are looking at, you can become familiar with the specifics of how/when that form is used and refine your movements reproducing that thing (whether through speaking, typing on a keyboard, etc.).

Amorphous blobs are impenetrable; they must be broken up ("analyzed"). When approaching something new, there may be overwhelming complexity. Learning how to break down a very complex thing into smaller, learnable pieces is how we acquire proficiency in using larger more complex systems.

Language learning, early stages

When approaching a new foreign language for the first time, you are approaching the aforementioned amorphous blob. You don't know where word boundaries are, when you do recognize words you cannot tell how they are related to surrounding words, etc.

Don't forget your theory

To start, you need some theory.

Learning by immersion often involves a patient native speaker (or a computer program) giving you small, digestible pieces of information. For example, you may learn how to name many of the things around you: tree, bench, COVID-19 (just kidding, but maybe not really).

Likewise, you can take a much more Western, direct approach and grab a bound dead tree (book) and get an idea of what you're looking for. You could watch YouTube or something like that as well, but you might have to sift through a lot more noise before getting what you're looking for.

Once you have something to look for (e.g. recognizing some top 100 words), you are already to start practicing. Typically in classrooms, you will be drilled on producing/understanding basic sentences for a while. This can be a decent approach if you get to use these sentences in some memorable situations.

Media dumpster dive

In the age of the Internet, you may get faster results using other techniques. No matter what you do, focus on one thing at a time during these early stages: e.g. grab a long video (2 hours) and just listen for all the cognates that you can recognize. When you recognize a word, repeat it to yourself so you can become familiar with the sound of your target language.

Focus is key. This is why you shouldn't watch anime with subtitles (you can find plenty of weebs who do this and know almost no Japanese). What happens is that instead of focusing on the form of Japanese, people lose focus and just read the subs. This is no bueno. If you MUST be a devout weeb, first watch with subtitles for the meanings, then rewatch the video you're looking at—understanding what you're watching having already read the subs—and listen to the language.

Memorize just enough, not too much

When learning a new word make sure to learn at least some of the relevant information for using it correctly in context. For instance in learning a European language like Spanish or German, you will have to deal with grammatical gender. Do memorize the grammatical gender of a word when you learn a new word. ²

It is a good idea to integrate your knowledge of lots of separate things. For the East Asian languages, you may want to pay attention to other words you know that share Chinese characters the word you are learning. For instance, there is 내일 nay-il 'tomorrow' and 일요일 il-yo-il 'Sunday' which share 일 il meaning 'Sun'. One could* learn an East Asian language on sound only, but knowing the associated Chinese characters makes acquiring more vocabulary much easier.

You can likewise integrate your knowledge across languages for related languages. For example, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean share a lot of vocabulary—much of which is the product of Japan first modernizing during the Meiji era and making up all sorts of new words for Western imports. ³ Likewise, learning French or German would probably be a pretty easy choice for a new foreign language for a native English speaker. There are many similaries in grammar and sound between English and German and French vocabulary is almost given to the English speaker.

What you don't want to do, however, is get too caught up on details such that you fail to do more important practice. The scarce resources you are working with are time and attention. One mistake I made when starting to learn Chinese/Japanese/Korean was to get too focused on the writing system and lagging behind in my listening and speaking skills. I didn't have this problem with Spanish because I would listen to Spanish language radio while driving in my car.

Beyond beginner level

At a certain point, you will get pretty comfortable with most of the grammar of a target foreign language. From this point on, the new challenge is to expand your knowledge of vocabulary, learn idioms, and other language-specific things.

With the basics in place, you can begin using your target language(s) to further learn your target language—learn in the same way that native speakers deepen their command of their own tongues.