How to Learn Languages

Abandon ego.

So simple. So effective.
Seriously, this alone will alleviate your anxiety and accelerate your progress.

Language is a skill that must be developed in public.

1-1 instruction does offer a way to circumvent this a bit (and is highly recommended), but it can’t quite replicate the experience (and benefits) of real-life interaction.

Fluency comes through repeated interaction with real-life people.

This can be a bit scary, so here’s what people do instead:

1. Don’t speak.
2. Rely on a couple phrases.
3. Sneak through interaction; nod their head and say okay without a clue what’s being said.

Now if you’re not trying to learn the language, this is fine, but I’m talking about people that actually spend time and money studying the language that do this. They study the language but are too afraid to appear to not know it so they don’t speak outside of class and never gain fluency.

The goal - the only goal - is fluency.  So to better achieve this, I want to first acknowledge the core issue here (fear of exposing ignorance/ incompetence) and offer an obvious solution – abandoning ego.

You simply can’t progress if simultaneously striving to maintain this outward appearance.

Fortunately, ignorance is a very forgivable sin -- especially in the context of not knowing a foreign language. Have you ever looked at Westerner abroad and said can you believe this idiot doesn’t even know Thai / Chinese/ Hindu/ Indonesian/ etc? Let’s make him feel shitty. No. No one else has either.

There is no real threat to any real object thus nothing real to fear.  With ego in play, however there is a threat. A false threat to an imagined idea –  your preferred, constructed identity of self which is ego.

Abandon it.

From there, every interaction becomes a learning opportunity, every person becomes a teacher.