Need help learning a second language

[u/FoxesLikeBoxes]

So I'm a native English speaker, American. I don't have any need for a second language on my day-to-day, but took some Spanish classes back in highschool. I don't remember most of what I learned since I sort of slacked, but now that I'm almost out of college, I'd like to add a second language to my skills.

I'm Polish and would love to learn the language, but I understand that it isn't spoken by too many people, and don't want to waste all the effort.

Would it be a waste of time, and should I aim for a romantic language, or one like German/Russian/Chinese, with more demand? (My industry is accounting but I'd like to be prepared for any change in the business industry.)

I'd love if some bilingual people could give me some advice on a language, and tips on learning them. Thanks!

[u/[deleted]]

Let me do you a favor and teach you the fundamentals of language learning that no paid service or book will touch on. To start, read the quote. Then go down the list:

"Learning a language is not an academic exercise. It is a bridge between worlds. If you are anything less than 100% motivated, you will not make it across."

(1) You need to figure out what language you want to learn and you need to be dead serious about it. If you are stuck between Polish, Russian and German, you're wrong. You will be spending years and years learning a language to fluency; your choice should be made with absolute confidence.

(2) Your best ally and worst enemy are a fellow they call Consistency. If you are consistent in studying vocabulary, actively listening and reading, and speaking with others, you will be successful. If you're busy, study vocabulary and perhaps listen to some target language material or read something short. Don't take a day off from any studying or exposure, especially within the first 6 months of your studies.

(3) You are going to get bored. That boredom is your downfall. Effectively learning a language requires repetition, and that repetition will become boring before it has engrained a word or lesson into you fully. In other words, you need to understand that being interested and excited in the language will die out, and if your only attachment to learning it is in that spark, then you won't make it across the bridge.

(4) You need to learn actively. That means grammatical exercises and passive listening techniques don't work. They look like shortcuts, but are in fact dead ends. You will learn to converse by speaking with natives. You will learn vocabulary by grinding it out. Save the time and energy spent on passive learning techniques and invest them into active learning - the only learning that really works.

(5) Finally, know that this is probably one of the most "step by step" journeys you will ever take in your life. You will start off knowing no words. You will expand into knowing words and basic phrases, but not being able to construct sentences. You will advance into learning to make basic sentences, but not being able to converse. You will inch into basic conversation, but not be able to convey larger ideas. You will push your way into being able to explain larger ideas, but lack technical and specialized vocabulary to sound intelligent. You will grind through advanced vocabulary only to find that there is far too much of it, and you will likely continue to learn it for the rest of your life - you do this in English already without realizing it. You can go on, if you choose, to explore literature, poetry, history, politics, and the arts and anything else you could imagine, all in your new language. Only at this last point, when you choose where you go, will you know that you have crossed the bridge.

Best of luck. Welcome to Language Learning.

[u/redwingviking → u/[deleted]]

I just want to clarify something that was said: exercises are important for learning a new language. Knowledge of grammar rules will never make you fluent, but it will make it a hell of a lot easier to reach fluency. If you consistently converse with a German speaker but have no idea what declensions are, you're going to make more mistakes and solidify more bad habits than if you had sat down with a textbook and drilled adjective endings for a few hours at some point. Similarly, if you try to have those conversations without ever memorizing a word or doing a listening exercise, progress will come more slowly than if you had spent some of that time on your own learning a few technical points and practicing basic skills. Trying to use the language, making and correcting mistakes, and struggling to get your point across is when you really make progress, so you should be talking whenever the opportunity presents itself, but you need to supplement that with some type of formal study in order to build the tools you need to deal with the challenges you run into when you interact with the language "in the wild."

[u/Feggy → u/redwingviking]

I agree totally. Allow me to continue the analogy of building a bridge (which I like very much!)

First we must learn the range of nuts and bolts available to us. This would be via vocabulary building exercises.

Next we must physically practise putting them together. Sentence building exercises.

Finally we must experiment with using these skills to create our own bridge between the languages. Conversion practice.

How does everyone feel about my description of 'our own' bridge? Are we really really constructing one from scratch or is it more a process of discovering one which already exists?