TIPS FOR CHOOSING A LANGUAGE

Hello! 안녕하세요! 👋

How have you been? I've been having a great time meeting and interacting with other language learners over at the online 2021 Polyglot Conference. 😃

Today, I'll be sharing some tips that I personally follow when I choose a language to learn. But do note that every individual is unique and we all have different learning styles, so the some of the tips below may not be applicable to you. 😉

Do basic research about the language. 🔍

Before deciding on a language, it is good to do some research on the basics of the language you are interested in. This can include looking up on the broad grammar features of the language. Some questions you can ask are: Does the language have gender for nouns? Do nouns have cases? Does the language have verb conjugations? As you have not started learning the language, you don't have to go into the specific details of each grammar feature during this basic research. Some websites that you can use for this process include Wikipedia and Omniglot. Doing this research can be really helpful further down the road, because it can help to boost your understanding of how the language works.

Listen to sample and short clips of the language. 🎧

It would be good to listen to samples of the language you are interested in, as this can help you decide whether you are comfortable with the sounds of the language. You can do so using songs, podcasts and/or videos. A YouTube channel I would recommend is the ILoveLanguages! channel. Listening, either actively or passively, can also be helpful if you are undecided between two or more languages. Although you will probably not understand most of what you are listening, don't fret too much. The objective here is not to understand, but to get familiar with the sounds of the language from the very beginning. Some of us are audio learners, and some of us may find it easier to get used to the sounds of one language over another. Try to imagine yourself reproducing the sounds in speech.

Compare the language to any other languages you have been or are learning. 📊

If you have been learning other languages, it would be good to compare the language you are interested in starting with the languages you currently have on your plate. Ask yourself: Do the languages originate from the same parent language? What are the common features between the languages? Some of us prefer, or are more comfortable, learning two languages that are more similar (e.g. Finnish and Estonian). But some of us may prefer otherwise (e.g. Finnish and Spanish), because we might want to segment our memory capacity and language learning journey into clear divisions. Doing the comparison can also open the door to the possibility of language laddering, especially if you are already comfortable in one language and would like to take your language learning journey a step further. Of course, some people find it easier to ladder languages that are more similar (e.g. Japanese and Korean), while others prefer laddering languages that are more different (e.g. Japanese and Spanish). No matter which group you belong to, remember, all of us are unique, and there is no right answer or method to language learning.

That's all the tips I have now for choosing a language. I hope they have been of some help! 안녕! 😄

20 October 2021