2 First things first
#super
2.1 Know your why
The first thing you need to ask yourself is why you want to learn German. Having a clear answer is important if you are to learn consistently and for long enough to reach a decent level.
If you’re reading this, I imagine you already have some level of motivation and interest in learning German, or improving your existing knowledge of German.
Some common reasons for learning German:
- You want to move to or have recently moved to Germany
- Your partner’s native language is German
- You have an interest in the German language and culture
- You want to improve your career prospects
- You think it might be fun
All of these could be valid reasons for learning German. It’s a very personal thing. The important thing is that you have enough motivation. Be honest with yourself. Is your reason enough to motivate you for several years?
2.2 Be realistic
Learning a language is hard, so it’s important to be realistic.. Regular classes provide structure and motivation, but it can still be a real challenge. Learning a language on your own increases this difficulty even further.
A lot of people have an experience which makes them want to learn a language. Maybe they spent a few weeks in a foreign country, or fell in love with someone who speaks another language. They get very excited about the new language, only to get frustrated and give up after a few weeks or months.
What you have to realise is that learning a language takes a long time. It’s possible to learn the basics in a few months, even a few weeks, but fluency takes many years. It’s not something which you can do quickly.
Learning a language is like growing a tree: Most of the growth is invisible and happens very slowly. If you come back next week, the tree will look the same, but if you come back in a hundred years, the tree will be massive.
There are a lot of books, courses and people online who tell you that you can “learn a language in 3 months,” and make other similarly bold claims. These people are just trying to get your money by offering you a magic product which doesn’t exist.
That’s one of the cool things about languages; you can’t buy them. They have to be (l)earned. You can pay for courses or really good tutors, but you still have to do the work yourself.
2.3 Understand the most common reasons people fail
Unfortunately, failure is very common in language learning. In fact, from experience, I can say that success is the exception and failure is almost expected. When someone says, “I’m going to learn German/Spanish/French/Russian,” there is a very high chance they won’t actually do it.
The most common reason a person fails to achieve their language goals is not stupidity or lack of talent – it’s giving up. Most people simply give up before they have given themselves the chance to succeed.
They might learn diligently for the first few months, only to get disheartened once they see how slow their progress is. They often conclude they don’t have a talent for languages, and that only young children can learn them. Subsequently, they give up.
This is quite tragic. They were in fact on the right path, but they self-sabotaged! The truth is, learning a new language is actually quite easy. It just takes a very very very long time. The difficult part is not the learning itself, it’s doing the learning. You just have to keep on learning, even if you feel like you aren’t making progress.
Your progress is not immediately visible, which causes you to doubt your methods. You study for 3 hours and nothing happens. How do you know you aren’t just wasting your time?
Learning a new language is like walking through a long, dark tunnel. You have no idea how long the tunnel is. You can either keep going, maybe walking into an endless tunnel, or you can turn back. Most people get a short distance into the tunnel, get scared, and then head back. Actually they were doing just fine. If they’d have continued, they would have made it out the other side into the garden of linguistic paradise.
In fact, giving up is not only the most common reason for failure, it’s the only reason! There is no such thing as failure, it’s just that you haven’t succeeded yet. You can try again whenever you want. You can learn more German right now if you want. Nobody can stop you!
Notice I said reasons for failing and not reasons for making slow progress. It’s possible to make very slow progress by using the wrong methods. You’re not exactly failing – you’re still moving through the tunnel, just very slowly, sometimes even going backwards.
2.4 Develop blind faith that you will succeed
I was really bad at languages at school. I “learned” Spanish and French for five years and could only say very basic stuff by the end. I figured I didn’t have a talent or that learning a language as an adult was simply impossible.
But just look at the evidence. There are millions of people that have learned another language to a high level as an adult. All kinds of people have managed it. You don’t have to be intelligent, but you do have to work intelligently.
You have a superpower which you might not be aware of. Your superpower is that you can transform thoughts into sounds and sounds into thoughts. Your brain is specially equipped to learn this amazing skill thanks to evolution.
Notice how not everyone can ride a bike, swim 500m, play the guitar, build a house, draw a cat, make a cake, even read a book… yet everybody, with very few exceptions, can understand and speak their native language?
2.5 Learning a language in childhood vs. adulthood
It’s true that children learn in a slightly different way to adults, and that they are better at picking up accents and grammar, but it’s not entirely true to say they are better or faster. Adults can actually learn much more efficiently than children.
Compare a two-year-old, who has been exposed to their language pretty much non-stop yet can barely speak at all, to me, who had a decent level of German after two years of learning for just an hour a day.
After four years I was practically fluent, whereas a four-year-old still makes a lot of mistakes and speaks at a basic level, despite the fact they were completely immersed in the language, while I was not. Children’s performance isn’t as impressive as it seems.
Don’t underestimate how hard it is for children to learn their native language. They are exposed to it all day, every day, for years and years, with no escape. Under similar conditions, you would do very well too.
Studies have even shown that native languages and languages learnt in adulthood are represented in the brain in a very similar way. If you’re interested in language acquisition, I’ve linked some interesting articles below. It’s a fascinating topic, but from a practical standpoint and for the purpose of this guide, the details aren’t important. The takeaway is that adults can learn languages to a very high level.
2.6 How long does it take?
Learning a language fluently takes hard work and dedication, but it can be a fun and enjoyable process. I wrote an article on my blog in which I estimate the number of hours needed to reach a decent level of fluency. I came to the figure of 1,000 hours, which also matches up with estimates by the United States Foreign Service Institute, who train government officials for placement overseas.
To put that into perspective, 1,000 hours is:
11 hours per day for 3 months
5 hours and 35 minutes per day for 6 months
2 hours and 45 minutes per day for 1 year
1 hour and 22 minutes per day for 2 years
55 minutes per day for 3 years
41 minutes per day for 4 years
10 minutes per day for 16 years
1 minute per day for 163 yearsLanguage is learned in small incremental moments of study and exposure. It’s the actual time exposed to the language that matters rather than the amount of time since you started studying. I’m sure you’ve met lots of people who have been learning German “for five years” yet don’t speak or even understand it. But how many hours, minutes or seconds of contact with the language did they have in those five years?