HOW TO ACQUIRE A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. LUTHER WILLIAMS

2 Learning a new language CAN be intimidating. But what it SHOULD be is fun! Anything is achievable while giving an effort that's realistic to your lifestyle. You don't need EXTRA time. Just use wisely what you already have. Don't waste years going it alone, trying to fumble your way to fluency. This E-book holds practical exercises and efficient habits to get you started on your new language journey! Enjoy.

CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 5

CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 5

1 CHOOSING A LANGUAGE

READY? Chances are that if you’ve got your hands on this book, you’ve already chosen a language or narrowed down your options. Whether you know or still need help deciding, finding a “Why” or a few motivators would be your next step. Every action begins with motivation. The reason you start is often the same reason you continue and eventually finish. Set the tone of your new journey by finding a some purposeful motivation. Later we’ll talk about setting language goals.

FIND YOUR WHY. My motivations are connected to my interests and hobbies. I love soccer, beaches, tasty food, and enjoying a laugh with good company. So, naturally, my favorite language to speak is Brazilian Portuguese! I have an aunt from the Philippines, so one day I want to learn Tagalog too. Greek has also gained my interest because the New Testament portion of the Bible was originally written in Greek. Fascinating, right?! The point is that your “Why’s” should hold a special place in your life. Remember: not all “Why’s” are created equal. I've found that motivations that are intrinsic to who I am or who I want to become, give me the most inspiration. Hey, whatever you choose, make sure they can keep you going when you feel like quitting!

BULLETPROOF MOTIVATION. Allow me to share a couple of personal examples! One is a well-motivated language journey versus a poorly-inspired one. My journey with Brazilian Portuguese has been nothing short of "beleza" or beauty! I have a REAL problem with demonstrative pronouns—all of the this’s and that’s. In spite of them, I find it easy to continue learning in view of the pride I feel as I watch Brazil's national soccer team win important matches. I’ve accepted that I’ll keep getting stuck on pronouns until one day I’m not anymore after consistent practice. It seeems that my love for Brazil far exceeds my personal plight of pronouns. This is the result of a strong “Why”.

BULLETPROOF MOTIVATION. My poorly-inspired journey is, ironically, with the language I am most proficient in: Spanish. Now before you throw tomatoes at me like it's La Tomatina, let me explain... Spanish gives me plenty of advantages, but I have to be honest. I only began to learn it as a reflex to my abrupt introduction to the world of language learning. As I encountered other languages, my motivation migrated to more interesting, less familiar cultures. Living in the United States, a neighbor of Central and South America, Spanish wasn't that new to me. The magic wore off and it began to feel like work to engage with it. This may happen to you as you venture on your personal journey! My advice is to embrace it and choose whichever language excites you. If you don’t love it, you won’t learn it. Alright, enough of story time. I promised I would tell you about goal setting!

GOOOOLLLL! If you’ve ever scored an important goal or won a sports game, you are familiar with the coveted dopamine rush that overtakes you. That's what I feel during moments of effortless communication between me and native speakers of a language I hope to be fluent in. Language learners live for those "clicking" moments. As a beginner, these moments will be few and far in between. They occur more as you progress, but remember that “fluency” is a long-term goal. So, reach for more practical, attainable short-term goals. Small, sweet victories add up after a while! Create goals that are motivating and beginner-friendly. Here's a few examples but get creative! Learn the alphabet (if different from your native one). Learn how to introduce yourself. Learn your favorite songs covered/translated into your target language. Have a conversation with a native speaker only in your target language. Watch a movie in your TL with subtitles activated.

2 ENGAGING YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE

COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT. Time to get down to business. What can you do to begin your language acquisition journey? Two words: comprehensible input. A term coined by Stephen Krashen, a famous American linguist, comprehensible input is where the content that you engage in is easy to understand, contains familiar ideas and concepts, and genuinely interests you. Compelling media like this allows you to be immersed in your target language without being lost whilst stimulating your curiosity to continue learning. A good example for a beginner would be Duolingo. It's a language learning app that eases you into a new language through games, fun quizzes, rewards and visible progress. Another fun way to get CI, would be reading! Interesting short stories would help you quickly grasp some essential vocabulary.

COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT. Besides being comprehensible and compelling, there's one more quality any good CI should have. It should be just above your current proficiency. The key is to not be overly difficult and yet sufficiently challenging enough to pull you forward into real progress. Not too easy. Not too hard. Just right. As you can see, the type of content you want to engage in is fairly nuanced. Don't worry, I'm breaking it down even further on the next page. Go ahead and swipe, flip, scroll or whatever you need to do to read on!

CONTENT FORMS. Successful language learners everywhere do this... The most common ways to get comprehensible input. These habits help you effortlessly engage with your target language. They require reading and listening—the two functions of receiving input. Quick tip: Select content originally intended for native speakers of your target language.

Journal in your target language often to practice your grammar and spelling! It is easier to detect your weak spots if they are written in front of you. OUTPUT. I just showed you ways to consume content. Now, I want to highlight some exercises that do not increase your comprehension, rather help you perfect what you've acquired after being immersed in your target language. As reading and listening is to "input", speaking and writing is to "output" .

3 CREATE A ROUTINE

Okay, let’s put it all together and create a routine! Let me show you how to find the perfect mix of habits and fit them in throughout your day! Remember what I said? "Anything is achievable while giving an effort that's realistic to your lifestyle. You don't need EXTRA time. Just use wisely what you already have."

DAILY HABITS. If you listen to music during your commute or watch Netflix in the evenings after work, do so in your target language. You could read a beginnerlevel book or a blog post from a native speaker’s site. Possibly even listen to a podcast that interests you, hosted by native speakers. Get involved in a community of native speakers based on their cultural interests. I play soccer with lots of Spanish speakers, and I used to be a waiter at a local Brazilian Steakhouse in my town! There is a plethora of ways to never skip a beat in your regular schedule while acquiring a new language. Just use the habits and content forms I showed you earlier. Never forget, though, it must be comprehensible input and level-appropriate! Utilizing my commute and leisure time, I've reached an intermediate level in Brazilian Portuguese. The next page shows you a typical day for me before I reached this level.

ANKI FLASHCARDS DURING BREAKFAST. LISTEN TO MUSIC OR A PODCAST. READ A GRADED READER DURING BREAK. WRITE A JOURNAL ENTRY BEFORE BED.

DAILY HABITS. When you’re creating a series of habits or a routine, be sure to pick activities that you find joy in doing. Taking delight in the content you engage is just as important reaching goals. If you genuinely look forward to the things you do, the rest takes care of itself. Now, go listen to that Spanish podcast on the way home or watch that K-Drama during dinner! By the way, that routine was for an intermediate learner of Portuguese. Being a beginner, you'll need to use level-appropriate content and methods. For instance, reading may be hard if you don't even know the alphabet of the language you're learning. Duolingo would be the best place to start in that case. On the next page is a sample beginner routine. This is actually what I plan to use to get started with Greek! I don't know that alphabet so, I will definitley taking my own advice!

ANKI FLASHCARDS DURING BREAKFAST. LISTEN TO POP SONGS COVERED BY GREEK ARTISTS DUOLINGO ALPHABET AND BEGINNER LESSONS READ A CHILDREN'S BOOK 2-3 EPISODES FROM LANGUAGE TRANSFER APP Being a beginner in a language with a different script and alphabet, I will be engaging super simple content for a sizeable amount of time.

Try restaurants from the culture. Change your phone to your target language. Go grocery shopping where native speakers frequent. QUICK TIP: There are also a few small yet invaluable things you could do to enhance your language journey. Here are several of my favorites:

4 FORWARD MOMENTUM

1. Is the content that I currently engage too easy? Is it too hard? 2. Do I need to find more challenging content? If so, how can I do that? (ex: no more subtitles, go from children’s books to teen level books) 3. Do I still feel motivated? If not, why am I demotivated? 4. Did I meet any of my personal goals? (ex: learning the alphabet, knowing how to introduce myself, or having short conversations with a native speaker) 5. Would I say I am able to understand __% of the content I engage? (percentage varies based on proficiency, be realistic) SELF EVALUTIONS. 21 days is the sweet spot for short-term goals, including habit formation. So, about a month is the perfect amount of time to make quick progress in your language. Setting goals and tracking your progress affords you feedback, motivation, and alerts you when it's time to update your learning strategies. Here are a few questions to ask yourself every month or so when evaluating your language progress. Don’t feel pressured to do all of these. Just get the idea for two or three you could ask yourself.

HOW LONG TO SEE PROGRESS? Finally, be wary that the period of progress varies depending on one's level of proficiency and personal goals. As a beginner, a monthly selfevaluation will yield clear progress. When someone starts from zero, it is easy to see what they have learned compared to the lack of prior exposure. However, in the intermediate stages, this becomes harder to decipher. It isn’t that progress isn't being made. Rather, it takes a more careful examination to detect weak points. That means anyone at the intermediate stage or beyond should realistically expect to see distinguishable results every 3 to 6 months. There is always a place for tracking progress, but don’t get caught up in it. Language learning is a marathon, not a sprint. Never forget to have fun on your way!

PROGRESS EXERCISES. As an intermediate to advanced learner, I regularly engage in output exercises like writing in my journal or chatting with one of my language partners. However, in addition to the questions above, producing output is a viable means of checking progress as well as it is for regular practice. What better way to check the quality of input received than to produce output as a result? Here’s how to use speaking and writing as a measure for tracking your growth. After a journal entry, review for mistakes: misspellings, grammar errors, and unknown words. You can make Anki or Quizlet flashcards using your errors and practice them! If you want feedback from native speakers, use apps like HelloTalk or sites like Journaly to make public posts for anyone to comment on and correct what you've written. Find a language partner or two through apps like tandem, HelloTalk, or even Facebook language groups. If you're at a level to have conversations, talk about mutually interesting topics. Try different methods to see what works for everyone, i.e., little to no corrections or only speaking to each other in your respective native languages (cross-talking).

5 THINGS TO REMEMBER

Choose a language that holds personal meaning (your “Why’s”). This keeps you motivated when the journey gets tough, or you go through boring, demotivated spells. It also makes it more gratifying once you reach your goals. And of course, don’t forget to set those realistic and levelappropriate goals. Get level-appropriate comprehensible input by consuming native content in ways that you truly enjoy. This will target the essential skills of listening and reading, thus increasing your comprehension by way of immersion. Create a routine, or better said, a collection of habits that you can implement in your current lifestyle. Let them be a part of the things you naturally engage in and even try new things. Check progress by asking yourself a few critical questions and see if you’ve hit your goals. Attempt to produce output with speaking and writing exercises. Do these monthly, quarterly, or bi-annually. Then, adjust your goals and strategies accordingly. SOME ADVICE. 1 2 3 4 I couldn't possibly fit all that I wanted into this short E-Book. But boy if I could've... All right, let's have a quick recap.

DON'T FORGET. I'm sorry, really. I couldn't help myself but to squeeze in a bit more advice! I promise it's the last thing... Listen! Don’t let anyone tell you the language you’ve chosen is useless. They probably will never even try what you're daring to do. And when it gets hard, just go with the flow and let it be. Rough times are apart of anything worth it. Treat it like your new favorite hobby. Don't overcomplicate things and get burned out. There is no one-size-fits-all, perfect formula. Focus on the journey, and not the destination. What you discover and the people you meet along the way are truly just as rewarding as the language itself. Thanks for reading and check out my blog, Sidelanguage.com. Okay, I'm done here. Go watch some Netflix or something!