Hello comrades, I want to learn more languages, currently have my eyes on Tamil, which I assume would be not that difficult (the colloquial version at least) since I am a native Malayalam speaker. The issue is general approach of how to learn languages, there is so many information on it that it makes starting it very annoying. I did start Tamil by learning to read and write the script but that is entirely by the virtue of Tamil having a cool looking script. So how do I go about learning languages, and sticking to it?
Also on another note, I know very little Hindi (had to learn it throughout school since 5th grade), how do I pick up a partially learned language? Is there any different way of going about it? Also is there anyone here that picked up multiple languages, other than their native tongue in their 20s or 30s, would love to know your experiences with language learning. Also, thank you comrades for the help with my last post.
Immersion is the only consistently effective way. If you can find media in your target language, especially passive media like TV or music, get your hands on as much of that as possible, while trying to find subtitles for said media in a language you already know fairly well. Get a dictionary, not a phrasebook, for that language and always try to look up new words in that dictionary first, before other sources (but use other sources in this part.)
If you can’t find media and/or you get to the point where you need more interaction to learn (which you will get to), then either traveling, or much more cheaply, find a online forum/niche of the internet in your target language and try to just fit in. Don’t use a translator app or AI for your part of the conversation, but maybe use one on their replies (after trying to understand it yourself) in order to understand their corrections.
It’s best if you can find a language swap community for your chosen language, this is generally a group of people that willingly go on video calls where they speak a language you speak that they want to learn, and vice versa. This also really, really helps with real world conversations where multiple languages will likely be in use.
Make a whole separate area of your personal task list for managing language learning. In the main list the reminder just sends you to the language list for contextual stuff. That way you can set really detailed steps without clutter. Many ways to do this, separate sheets of paper, Orgzly searches you switch between, hyperlinks to a note that has checkboxes in something more basic.
This way you never stress over what you need to do next or where to begin that day. Even preliminary steps like “find Hindi learning resources for Malayalam speakers” can be in there
do you remember how you learned english? I guess it is the same way
