The 1 Thing Successful Language Learners Do Differently

Summary: Efficient language learners focus on expressing what is relevant to them in the language they are learning, rather than relying solely on what they are taught. By asking themselves what they want to express today and finding ways to do so, such as through conversation, reading about their interests, and writing, they can retain words more effectively, save energy, and gain confidence in their language skills. Learn more about how to implement these effective language learning tools.

Living abroad or signing up for intense language courses can be a fantastic way to boost your language skills.

However, I know people who’ve been living abroad for years and, in spite of taking courses regularly and really making an effort, haven’t reached fluency yet. On the other hand, I also know people who’ve never been abroad and have some impressive language skills.

This made me realize that our efficiency in language learning is not all about our circumstances. Having the chance of living in an immersive environment is a huge advantage – but it doesn’t give us a free ticket to fluency.

There’s no need to say that each person learns differently and that there’s not only one way to do it right.  However, I spotted one major difference between successful and unsuccessful language learners.

The unsuccessful one relies on what they’re taught.

– which is not uncommon, because this is how we’ve been taught to study in our school system. The teachers are the ones who determine what we learn, and we follow them.

But the problem is this: If we rely solely on what we’re being taught in a language, we’re more likely to

  • loose interest because what we’re taught is not always what we need or want
  • forget new words: Studies have shown that our brain is more likely to retain words that are relevant to our lives
  • become frustrated: As we’re not focusing on what’s important, we don’t see our progress as clearly, which impacts our motivation and confidence

For instance: When I first took Serbian lessons, one of the verbs I had to learn was “to go fishing”. How often do I use the word “fishing” in our daily life? Probably never. This word had zero relevancy to my life, so I immediately forgot it.

So, what does the successful person do?

There’s one question that successful language learners ask themselves:

What do I want to express in this language today?

Rather than relying on what we’re being taught, we can ask ourselves: What would I tell a friend today? What’s been on my mind lately? What am I up to today?

By asking ourselves what we would like to express today and finding ways to do so, we focus on things that are really relevant to us. That way, we’re more likely to retain words we’ve learned, we’re saving energy, and we’re gaining confidence by seeing progress more clearly.

Let’s call it “learning from the inside out”. Here are my favourite methods to do so:

1. Take Conversation Classes

My level was not even A1 when I started taking conversation classes in Serbian.

I didn’t understand anything of what my teacher was saying and I could barely express what I’m working as or what I’m up to. But I tried anyway.

Casually chatting with my teacher in really bad Serbian about life, job and everything else was a fun challenge in which I could see my progress week by week.

I learned new words by explaining to my teacher how I raised 6 cats on a bottle, how I got lost on a hiking trip in a forest in Montenegro, how I felt about living with 13 people in Uruguay, and so on. And this gave me a wide range of very broad vocabulary, without ever having to memorize long lists of words.

Learn more about my conversation classes with my teacher Lellah here:

2. Read About What You're Interested In

Buy a book or read a blog about a topic you’re excited about.

Because the topics we naturally gravitate towards are also the ones we tend to talk about with others. And the expressions used in those books are also the ones we need for those conversations.

Let me give you an example:

I’m interested in psychology and meditation. When I first started learning Serbian, I bought a really short, easy book by Don Miguel Ruiz. I had previously read one of his books in Spanish, so I knew what it was about, which was a huge advantage.

Through that book, I came across words like “suočiti se sa nečim” (to face something), “predrasuda” (prejudice), or “posledica” (impact).

Those words might seem a bit more advanced, but, for my life and my personal interests, they’re much more useful than textbook vocabulary such as “to go fishing”.

Follow your curiosity.

This book was the first one I read in Serbian. After that, I read another really simple, short one by Oprah Winfrey and another one by Don Miguel Ruiz. No matter how easy or short those books were – they gave me the confidence that I could also read longer, more advanced books in Serbian. After that, I read Yuval Hararis “Homo Deus”, which contains a lot of technical words, Viktor Frankls “Yes to Life”, which is about philosophy, Rupi Kaurs poem collection “Home Body”, and right now, I’m reading “The Power of Geography” by Tim Marshall.

Asking myself: What am I interested in right now? naturally leads me to the resources that equip me with the knowledge I need in a certain language.

Picture of 4 different books in Spanish and Serbian in a row together with a plant

3. Write.

Write about your daily life, write about what’s going on in the news, write about what you read.

Writing is a slow process. In a spoken conversation, we often go for the first word that pops up in our minds. Or we might even ask the other person for the English term if we don’t know it in a language.

Writing, on the other hand, gives us more space to have a flick through the library of our heads. It gives us the time to take a look at a word, take a step back, look at it from another angle and see if there is another, more precise way to express something.

And that way, it activates passive knowledge.

It activates knowledge that is stored somewhere in the back of our head, but that we don’t use in spontaneous reactions. It elevates our expression by giving us the chance to considering other, more accurate ways of expressing something.

But writing is not only great way to elevate our expression.

It’s also a fantastic tool to get used to sentence structures or expand our repertoire of grammatical resources.

For instance: The biggest challenge when learning Turkish was to make sense of the word order and of how words are connected to each other. Writing a diary in Turkish was a game changer for me: It helped me understand how elements in a sentence interact with each other. And this definitely helped me become express myself more fluidly in my conversation lessons.

You can write at any level:

  • If you’re a beginner, write about your job, your family, how you would present yourself.
    Read here how get started and what to do in your first month of language learning.
  • At an intermediate level, write about what you did on vacation, where you would like to go, why you made a certain career choice, about an important life event.
  • At an advanced level, you can ask yourself deeper questions or write about current topics. Think about questions like: Which role does Social Media play in your life? How do your habits impact your life? What’s going on in your country right now? 
    By the way, did you know that translators overcome the intermediate plateau by writing?
    Find out how here!

But writing is not only an amazing tool to elevate your expression, solidify new words, activate passive knowledge and boost your fluency. It also helps us figure things out and stay level headed.

And that’s the thing: If we see an advantage in what we’re doing – be it staying level headed, expressing ourselves better or more accurately, reading about what sparks our interest – we’re creating a joyful, inspiring environment, which makes us more motivated, and therefore keeps us on track, lets us make more progress and gain greater confidence in ourselves.

Would you like to engage more in writing activities, but you’re lacking a safe space to do so? Sign up for my newsletter to get more information about what’s coming!

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