It counts for Esperanto as for all other languages, that you must learn it to use it.
You probably know at least one language already – your native language, that you somehow managed to learn as a child. And, of course, you were busy growing up at the time, so you didn’t pay much attention to the actual process, what worked and what didn’t. In fact, you probably weren’t even aware that you were in a learning process. It just happened.
To a certain point in time. Then, things changed, and you went to school and started learning things about your language that were more structured. You learned a framework for your language, some ways of describing it, and some formulas for useing it correctly. Because, you probably brought with you some kind kind of your own shade of your language – whatever you had managed to pick up during your first years in life. And the school then polished it and taught you how it really should be instead, in details.
But that was then, long ago.
Now, when you are older, an adult, and want to learn another language, you might get in doubt about what to do.
You have probably learned other things, such as mathematics, cooking, tying your shoelaces, riding a bicycle, operating a machine at work, and a lot more. And you know, of course, how to learn things. We all know that, because we all learn things all the time.
But you may not realize that different things are learned in different ways.
Your first language was learned by “immersion” – you were simply put into an environment where is was spoken, and even though there would probably be some people around you asking from time to time something like “can you say mama?”, or similar, there would mostly not be such kind of structure around it. You would simply hear the language used by others, and gradually figure out how you could use it yourself.
At first, it would be simple use, and with many errors. And people would find it funny or “cute” when you said something the wrong way, or used a word in the wrong context – and they may still tell you at family parties or in other inconvenient situations how you couldn’t say “car” correctly but always said “par” instead, or whatever was special for you.
But, eventually, you got there. Now you know the language. It took many years, and if you count the hours spent, it will be an almost astronomical amount.
But you don’t necessarily need to learn your second language in that same way. Perhaps it can be done faster, and without building up such a repertoire of embarrassing mistakes you make in the beginning?
Luck found you! There has been so many people studying second languages, and third, fourth, and tenth languages, that many observations have been made on what seems to work, and what doesn’t. So, you can get instructions from people who know how to do it.
Only – sometimes, these instructions just do not fit you. Because you are different from those who made the observations and now try to tell you what worked for them.
In general, you must find your own way. But you can get inspired to try different ways by those who have advice to give. And here’s my master advice: don’t be afraid of going in the wrong direction. Don’t be afraid of trying to learn a language in a way that you later decide is not your way.
You’ll never find your way if you don’t try different things. Just like when you were a small child, you just have to move on, doing something, and learn whatever you can learn from that. And then you can change the direction, if it doesn’t seem to bring you where you want to go, or perhaps just not fast enough.
In other words: do take people’s advice, follow it, and then take another advice, follow that one, etc. – until you fell that it is just right now.
The funny thing about this approach is that you may revert to something you abandoned previously, only to find that now it works. You just had to take the long way to get there, to understand that this was good. Or it wasn’t good when you first tried it, but now, when you have got some other experiences, learned something else – now it fits.
I have some personal experiences with language learning that I could share, and maybe you would find that useful. But this was what I experienced, and your life is different from mine.
What I can distill from my experiences, having studied some 15 languages or more, to some extent, is that it helps me to read about the language. Its history, who speak it natively, and who learn it as a second language, and why, and how they use it.
This initial stuff is not targeted at learning how to actually speak the language, but more about understanding the universe in which the language exists.
It also helps me to be in a class with other students. This is sometimes spoken badly about by language learners, because they feel that the other students are taking up all the class time, leaving less time for you – but you need to reach some level of maturity in your language learning, I suppose, before you understand that you can actually learn from listening to your classmates. They make mistakes, that you will spot, and you will think about if you also make the same mistakes. They ask questions that you hadn’t even thought about, this way widening your perspectives. And they offer a much-needed possibility to get into a dialog with others in your new language.
A thing about classes with several students, is that they usually move forward at a fixed pace, more or less. The teacher will try to push for getting through a certain amount of topics, which can be problematic for you if there was something you didn’t fully understand, and yet, the class is moving to the next chapter of the study book.
It is in general good to be able to move forward at your own speed, spending extra time on whatever needs it. Of course, you shouldn’t allow yourself to get stuck in something that you simply don’t understand – spend time on it, but if you are tired just now, put it away and get back to it tomorrow, or whenever you are in the mood. And if it keeps being difficult, then move on with something else.
Should you happen to be such a person who likes to make lists, then make one of of those things you need to get back to. And I suggest that you write as much as needed on that list, not just a headline – write what you want to achieve, what stops you, and what you have tried already to fix it. That will help you when you later get back to it.
Such a list should, of course, be checked regularly, to see if there’s something on it that you are now ready to work with again. Sometimes, and that’s a peculiar thing, but it’s true, sometimes a problem has fixed itself! You’ll find that one or more topics are now known stuff, even if you haven’t been back on it again to do some dedicated studies of it. It just happens to have been part of something else, and through that, you’ve learned it.
Keep that list, also when you are done studying all of it, and now know it well. Because, in my experience, whatever trouble you had once, might return later – perhaps in a stressed moment. So, write on that list what you finally did to understand it, and whatever else happens to that topic during your learning journey.
You can, of course, also make lists of topics you found that you learned well immediately. Which might be a good idea, because when something is too easy to learn, you’ll tend to spend very little time on it, and that may mean that you do not internalize it well. So it seems easy at the moment when you learn it, but you might still need to get back to it several times to use it in different contexts and otherwise work with it.
Consistency is good – you earn a lot of points in your internal language score system, if you can study, perhaps just a bit, every day. Or, at least, a few times a week.
Even if you have just 5-10 minutes, this is worth it.1
Unless you are tired, stressed, or not at all in the mood to learn anything, that is. Then better not do it that day. Because, you need to gather positive experiences with your language study – every study moment should add plusses to your energy balance. Then you can keep up the motivation for as long as it takes, and you will not even feel the study as a burden – it will be a joyful time that you look forward to.
As the image for this article says: “Love to learn” – you can take that as a an advice, or even a command, in the sense, that you really should do what you love to do, and skip things from your study that you don’t enjoy. There may be some challenges, but for those I would say “learn to love” – getting through the challenges has its own charm, and that is part of every learning process; you just have to try finding a good way to solve them, perhaps be seeking other explanations than what your main book says about the topic.
Many people will ask, when starting to learn a new language, which course or which book they should use. And it definitely helps to find a good one, that fits your way of learning and will be a pleasure to walk through and learn from. But there really isn’t anything wrong in using more than one book. Some people don’t like it, but if you do like this way of studying – like I do – then just know that it will not spoil anything.
The idea of using just one book exists with many kinds of studies, and it’s mostly about the method used. If two different books use different methods, it can be complicated to follow both, because your mind will move back and forth between different ways of thinking. For instance, the immersive method, mention before – the one where you just listen and then gradually start understanding – and a grammar focused method, where you learn all the structures before starting to look at the actual language, as it is used in real life, may be difficult to combine. Personally, I don’t feel that, but I know that some people do – and if that’s you, then better follow one method at a time.
My final take-away from a long life of studying languages is that if you need the language for something specific, you’l learn it faster and better, but on one condition: your way of studying must allow you to reach that goal. You will be more prone to continue the study, if you have a specific goal. And think about planning the study path accordingly.
For Esperanto it may not be a typical scenario, but many other languages you may wish to learn it because you have met the love of your life who has a background with this language, and you want to be able to meet and talk to their family – or perhaps live in their country.
Because you and your loved one probably understand each other well already, it can be difficult to learn the language from the one – you need someone who doesn’t automatically understand you, to point out your mistakes, so that you can work on correcting them – and who will be observant also to what you do right, to help you stay motivated. As soon as you have reached a certain level, you can indeed learn from your partner through the everyday dialogues, but in order to get the basics right in a good way, I would suggest you to find an external teacher.
In some cases, it makes good sense to study by going out, away from home, and to a class. Simply because there can be too many disturbances and distractions at home.
And, most of all: as soon as you reach a level where you are able to communicate somewhat, with somebody, and that counts for Esperanto as well as all other languages – by all means, make sure to do that! Get into a habit, and into some life patterns where you’ll have to use that new language you have learned, in order to strengthen your skills and make them become natural for you.
So, find some social media where you can read and write in the language, find people with whom you can talk, and watch TV and movies, listen to the radio, etc., in that language – all that you can do to both hear and speak yourself, read and write, to make your brain construct all those needed connections that tie the language to your actual life, after having been just a theoretical thing during the beginning of your learning process.
I suggest that you write a “project diary” of some kind, to describe your way through the learning process. You can write long or short, as you please, but put information on the different books, courses, and other activities you have been through, and what worked well, what didn’t, and what you feel comfortable with, and what not.
Along the way, you can start writing some of it in the new language – if only a few, trying phrases at first – and you’ll soon get used to express yourself in that language.
You can expand that by also writing your shopping lists and many other things in the new language.
A bunch of thoughts – and all to just tell you a bit about what it is possible to think and do. But “you do you”, and you shouldn’t be afraid of trying something, and then try something else, as many times as you like.
Happy learning!
A hint about those 5-10 minutes a day: I am learning French, and there’s a teacher on the Internet, who offers to send out a daily email with a “word of the day”. This word is then used in 5-6 phrases, and there may be some more information about it, so you can read that, read the phrases aloud, and try making your own phrases as well. This exercise is not so much about that word itself, as it is about putting you into a habit of thinking in the new language during those 5-10 minutes a day, and working with it in a constructive way.
If you don’t have such a teacher for your language, don’t worry: you can just make a list of words yourself, or find a list somewhere, or pick a random word from a book. The main thing is to then spend some useful time with making real-life-like phrases, and studying a bit more around that word – if you have picked a weekday name, for instance, then you can look at the other weekdays as well, trying to work with that one word in its typical wider context.