Step #1 – Starting to Learn a New Language
Your first task is to learn basic primitive words and phrases. In practice, it looks like this: buy the book “German for 3-months,” which contains all the basics you need to start, and read it for a couple of weeks. Do not be afraid that you will forget something, just keep reading and understanding.
At the same time, make a couple of tables with popular nouns, verbs and adjectives.
Read simple textbooks with popular themes such as family/school/work/house. It’s a good practice and new words will be a plus.
Step #2 – Time
It will be enough to know past, present and future time to be able to simply speak a foreign language. At this stage, you know many new words, so it’s time to explore time. Take some paper and try to structure time into a table; don’t forget to add simple examples. Then study it carefully and hang it on the wall in front of your desk at home.
Step #3 – Vocabulary
If you learned much, the first two steps can be finished in a couple of weeks. However, unfortunately, this is not enough to feel comfortable in the new language environment, so you need to learn as many words as possible. Learning thousands of words per month may be challenging if you have no super memory. But you can take a book or magazine with the vocabulary you need the most, read it and write down all unfamiliar words, phrases, and sentences in a table on your laptop. Then translate them, cut them into pieces and hang them around the apartment.
Step #4 – Language Barrier
Now you are on the most interesting step! You know many words and can use time in your speech and you can talk about your family. But you face the problem of understanding other people talking on the bus or on TV. Our advice will not be original, just start downloading audio dialogs and watch films in the foreign language with subtitles. Additionally, try to read newspapers and books aloud, so you will get used to how the language sounds without communication with other people. Always force yourself to get into the atmosphere of language. Want to watch a football game tonight? Turn on the broadcast in the foreign language. Reading news? Open the sites in the language you are learning.