Learning A New Language Tips on how to Get Started

Learning a new Language can be hard, but it can be accomplished no matter what your age. It is obviously easier when you are 8, but even when you are 80 you can still do it. There is no magical pill that you can take to learn a language in a day or even a week however it is possible to be at a conversational level in lets say 2-3 months. I can now fluently speak 3 languages and attempting to learn 2 more. Now you must be wondering how to learn a language the most effective way, well you have all probably heard of people learning language from Rosetta Stone, an app on their phone,  or even just learning it all online. Now these are all good methods, but they aren't for everybody and they take extremely long amounts of time to get the desired results, not to mention they are usually crazy expensive. Here are the programs, tips, and tricks I use to efficiently learn a new language in my experience. I hope this helps.

• Free Programs: Well there is one free program that I love to use, it only ha a few language options (French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Can you guess, DUOLINGO. It ha been one of my favorite programs ever since I discovered it a few years ago. It is absolutely free, and while it may not provide as many languages, or have the conversational speaking program that perhaps Pimsluer has it is still by far one of the best free programs out there.

• Other Programs: Another program that is great is Babbel, it is not free however it is only about $15 a month which is not that bad. It has a wide selection of languages, however does not offer Arabic or Mandarin, which are main languages. 
• However, my all time favorite has to be Pimluer, it has over 50 languages, and right now you can get 30% off the original price by using the code SPRING14. I am almost done learning Arabic on Pimsleur and let me tell you why this works. First off, it is fast paced and it claims you can learn the basics of a language in 10 days. You truly can, it only takes 20-30 minutes a day, and at the beginning of every lesson you hear a real conversation and you can learn to understand and even take part in it. It make you repeat everything you hear and you learn the genders of words, and how to link them to other phrases, so when you are speaking the language it does not sound choppy. I have heard that a new language program called fluenz has this same method as well, and I will be trying that out soon. But as you can see Pimsleur is a great program and I would highly recommend it.

Tips and Tricks

1. Conversation Conversation Conversation, if any one in you family or friend speak the language you are trying to learn have them talk to you, and try to have a real conversation in that language. It doesn't matter how well you know it any real conversation helps.
2. It doesn't matter how many hours you do it, what matters is the quality of how you study.Many people will study 3-4 a week and will never remember anything, this is because you need repetition. Now you dont want to do it everyday necessarily but it depends on how long you study for. If you study for 30 minutes every day you may want to study 5 out of 7 days every week, also another great tip is to say what you learned out loud right before you go to sleep. However if you study for 1-2 hours a day, then you may want to take breaks and study only 3 days a week, really focusing on retaining all of that material you learned; and when you now you have it down then continue because otherwise it will be a waste of time. 
3. I would not recommend taking classes or courses at a college, just because you can do it at home and at home you can choose the length you study, you are not as pressured, you end up learning more jut because in classes you usually don't learn grammar or how to speak in a real conversation, also no one really has the time.
4.  Vocabulary, along with conversation and grammar I would focus on linking words together so you can make basic phrases, learning would like (this, that would, could, need, where, why, please, hello, excuse me, from, different countries, titles, and names of venues, and food are very very helpful) along with this it is very useful to learn 100 of the most common words
5. Carry a Pocket Dictionary and when you have free time, instead of playing Flappy Bird look at the phrases for a couple minutes and refresh your memory.
6. Keep Practicing in your Head
7. Use audio courses as much as you can, because they are the most effective 
8. Try reading basic books, newspapers, or even watching a Disney movie in that language. 

If you have any questions please comment down below and I would be more than happy to help you.

PS:All Opinions are my own.