I've written about this before in my 'so you want to learn Chinese' article. But I want to dive deeper here.

Repeating from last time:

What you need to learn a language

There are three things crucial to learning a language:

1. Motivation. You actually have to want to learn. Can't throw enough money to get over this requirement.

2. Time. You need to give it time. 1h a week is great if you want to play act at learning a language.

3. Shamelessness. The acceptance of embarrassment/shame/risk. You will make mistakes. You will be embarrassed. You will sound less eloquent than a 3-year-old. That's ok. Every native speaker sounded like a 3-year-old at some point, they just all happened to be 3 years old at that time.

Yes, language learning may not be a walk in the park

Today, I'll go in a bit deeper into these three aspects, these three prerequisites of effective language learning. As always, my way is definitely not the only way, there are lots of friendly cuddly people willing to sell you a beautiful bridge named 'easy peasy language learning memorial bridge' and I'm sure if you listen to them long enough (or you respond better to encouragement (lies?), or you prefer a softer kinder approach) then you will also learn your target language almost without meaning to, quickly, and without the remotest chance of any embarrassment.

Good luck with that.

Seriously though.

Motivation

You gotta ask yourself. Do you really want this? What do you want to do this for? There's a whole host of very valid answers to this question. And the response to each will inform how you will learn and to what extent you will learn a language. For example:

• Why are you doing this?

  • Is this for your career? To what extent? Can you get by with just ordering food during business trips? Or doing initial intros in Chinese to help show you're not a clueless foreigner? Or do you need to conduct negotiations and write reports in Chinese?

  • Is this for your family? Will your grandma love you even more if you speak Arabic with her? You may want to focus on speaking and listening more so than reading and writing.

  • Is this for enjoyment? If so, just do what you enjoy. You can totally read Japanese light novels in Japanese without knowing how to pronounce (in an understandable manner, at least) or to speak Japanese with any fluency.

  • Is this to avoid Alzheimers? If so, you may want to just get enough to keep your gray cells engaged. No need to read the Shahnameh.

  • Is this for some other reason or objective? What is that reason? Is there a way to organize your language learning to meet that objective first?

If you don't have a legit reason to be learning a language, you can still go ahead and learn a language. Just know it'll take forever, since you actually have zero motivation to learn. And you don't have a target.

It's absolutely crucial to have a target in mind while learning a language. Else all your efforts will be wasted, or at least misdirected, and you'll spend a crazy amount of time getting somewhat good at aspects you care nothing for. For example, I don't see a point in learning how to hand write Chinese like a native. So I'm not going to spend an inordinate amount of time in writing things out by hand when I can just use keyboard input to write all the Chinese I could ever desire. Another example -- you could only be interested in reading manga, or light novels, or wuxia, or whatever, and so you focus way more on reading and passive vocabulary acquisition compared to someone who wants to speak with their in-laws in a non-vacuous manner. Or you just want enough vocabulary to impress that cute person you have a crush on you see every day at the deppaneur/metro/office/wherever. So forget everything else, and do that.

All this talk re targets or willingness is just code for a simple, yet dangerous word. Interest. Do you actually have any interest in learning a language? Very few people can force themselves to eat their vegetables. Fewer still can force themselves to spend the hours and days and months (without getting immediate results) you need to learn a language, if they don't at least want to. So if you are thinking about learning a language -- consider your level of interest in it. If it's not sufficient, perhaps you may be better served by an easier but in its own way equally rewarding hobby, e.g., eating ice cream or taking up an instrument. Whatever floats your boat.

Time

Time is key. I am convinced literally any skill can be learnt with the application of enough time. And yes, language learning does take time. Significant time, especially if you are otherwise busy and can't just dedicate 4 months straight to immersing yourself in your target language.

Practically every language student I have met is somewhat aware of the 'hours to learn' certain languages, e.g. 2200 for Arabic and Chinese vs 600 for French. Of course, those are classroom hours, assuming you are 4 students in a class, learning full time. Also assuming an additional 75% (or more) of the time for independent study. Researchers (quoted in the same link above) estimate children spend about 12,000-15,000 hours in learning their native language. So, adult/second-language learners actually are way more efficient at language learning! But they do have to put in the time.

You need exposure, comprehensible input, opportunities to practice and make mistakes and get real time feedback, time to just allow grammar to seep into your brain... All this requires time. This is not possible if you take a few limited hours of classes a week and then don't do your homework or fail to practice with your in-laws or friends or online acquaintances or otherwise use your nascent language skills. If you take 2h of classes a week, i.e. you spend 2 out of 168 (or out of 108 waking) hours a week learning a language -- sorry to let you know, your pace of progress will be glacial, you'll lose hope and interest as you continue to plateau in mediocrity, and you will never gain any real fluency or comfort in your target language. You'll be great at parties though, where you can wow randos with the ability to write in Nastaliq or in Hanzi. But practically speaking, your time will be of no use (unless all you want to learn from your language classes are party tricks and the ability to say accentless pick-up lines).

Another thing -- sustained shorter times are better than one long session over the same period of time. For example, 7x 30 minute sessions every day are better than 3.5h once every week. And 2h classes a week are better than one 8h class a month. Language abilities are also like building stamina -- you need to do the hard work initially to get the base in, and for that regular shorter practice sessions are better than just one long session. And once you're fluent/fit, you can reduce your practice sessions to just maintain.

Shamelessness (aka being ok with embarrassment)

This is a big one.

Most people are used to being able to convey their thoughts pretty well in their native languages. And language learners tend to be those people who enjoy the beautiful usage of language. They therefore tend to be extra embarrassed when they can't convey their thoughts with the grace, elegance, and brevity they are used to. And people don't appreciate feeling stupid, when they can't remember the right conjugation, or the right sentence order, or the right tense, or the right word.

But guess what? You gotta suck it up. And the good news is, if you do suck it up, you'll suck less, and you'll suck less, quicker and quicker! And you'll become graceful and elegant and witty and everything you are in your own language, in your new language. Ok, maybe not to the same extent, but I guarantee you, native speakers will be awed by your ability to not just learn new languages, but also to laugh at yourself.

Because you really really need the ability to laugh at yourself. You'll make mistakes, you'll embarrass yourself. You'll appear silly, or rude, or just incredibly dim-witted, or whatever. If you can laugh at yourself, everyone will laugh with you. If you can't, everyone will laugh at you. And then you'll get trapped in a vicious cycle where you don't want to practice for fear of failure or mocking, and then you'll get even worse, and then bye-bye to any language learning dreams.

And if you have the self-confidence to laugh at yourself and your errors, chances are your self-confidence is infectious and people enjoy being around you and talking to you in your target language. And you'll feel that and be energized even further.

My Experience

Motivation

In my experience, I have flirted with the idea of learning Arabic since at least 2015. I paid $600 for an online intensive course that I went to 2 weeks of (in my defense, my mom was seriously ill and I took time off to be with her. Not in my defense, I wasn't working and so could have studied but instead spent way too much time on reddit). I started duolingo and I took random classes on the internet and in mosques. But I never really gave it my all. Because honestly, I wasn't that interested. Learning Arabic was more to get my mom off my back (you've learnt these European languages, why can't you learn the language of the Quran???) and in fact when I started learning Chinese I hid it from her. I hope when I start Arabic next I'll have some intrinsic motivation because otherwise, I'll fail at it again, and then probably pick up Punjabi instead since I actually actively want to learn it and speak it and live it.

Compare this to Chinese where I spent 1000s of dollars (on books, classes, subscriptions, tools, and more) and dedicated multiple hours after work. Just wanted Chinese more, honestly.

Time

In my experience, it took me 2.5 years of part time French classes (3h a week, with varying levels of practice time e.g., talking to self, practicing at grocery stores, talking with friends, reading books, listening to audio books, watching tv etc.) and .5 years of focused French practice (all that above plus dedicated language exchanges, volunteering with francophone elderly, and working in a French environment -- around 10h a week when not working in French, which was more like 40h in French for 3 months across 2014 and 2015) to get to a B2/C1 level, which was honestly where I wanted to be (pass an immigration test and work in a professional francophone environment). This was all accomplished while a full-time student, with significant progress made during summer breaks where I had a full time job but more time to just chill and not worry about assignments.

In my case, I saw plenty of talented students with excellent grammar, accents, and learning habits, who had been learning French/Spanish longer than I had, but still, I blew them out of the water within a few months of our classes finishing. Because I did (well, almost) all of my homework AND practiced outside of class. Another example -- I first took a French course in 2008. It was the summer, it was officially for 30h, but the teacher said hey, come on down, come 2h ahead of time, and we'll practice. I didn't touch French for 2 years after that and my friends took the same course in 2010, but didn't have the same generous teacher. Despite 2 years having passed, my pronunciation and my understanding of (admittedly basic) grammar was still better than that of my friends who had just completed this course.

I have a friend who took French classes for 6 years. And his French is super basic. Which makes sense when you know he spent more time in commuting back and forth from his class (1.5h a week) than actually learning French (1h a week). He has spent 300h in learning French but speaks like someone who has spent 30h.

Acceptance of embarrassment

So, there's two aspects to this. One is, sure, you just gotta grin it and bear it and laugh at yourself. I've made some absolutely incredible mistakes. At a beach equipment rental in the Dominican Republic, instead of asking for a kayak, I proclaimed I was a dog kayak. I nearly got into a fight in Colombia when I used the wrong word to express agreement. And I got off on the wrong stop in Montreal multiple times. So those are just stories, you shouldn't stop yourself from making mistakes, because hey, you make mistakes, someone corrects you, and you learn.

The second aspect is that I'm not a glutton for punishment. I don't actively seek out situations where I'm actively contributing to bringing the level of a conversation way down. And I'd rather keep the embarrassment of making silly or serious mistakes as low as possible. So I avoided speaking target languages with close friends. And this is where language exchanges or paid tutors come in. With language exchanges, you do 20 minutes where you speak like a 3-year-old and then you do 20 minutes where your partner speaks like a 4 year old. You are in this together. It always made me feel better making mistakes and getting corrected knowing that just in a few minutes, the shoe would be on the other foot and I'd be the one dispensing wisdom. And paid tutors -- you're paying them. It's their job to correct your mistakes. No shame there.

Guarantees.

There are no guarantees in life except death. But I guarantee you this. If you have a solid reason for learning a new language, you give it enough time (3-5h a week are the absolute minimum I'd say), and you're comfortable with making mistakes, you will be fluent eventually. Definitely!