languages: 7 posts

How I Learn Languages 2 : What Languages To Study

I didn’t anticipate the interest that my first article on my language learning strategies would generate. Your comments and emails sharing your experience with studying were fascinating and full of great tips. Above all, many of you asked me questions such as the resources I use for reading, writing, and listening, how I maintain all of my languages, how many languages one could study at the same time, and so on. I’m glad to reply to them all.

I learn languages for a variety of reasons. Some I’ve learned because I moved to the countries where they were spoken. Some I’ve studied for my degree in Political Science and to facilitate research. I’ve also learned languages as I traveled or wanted to understand better the cultures that fascinated me.  In the this article on the languages topic, I’ll discuss how to decide what languages to study. It may sound like a straightforward decision, but how you take it will determine your success and your ability to persevere with studying a new language.

Do Not Study a Language Just Because It’s Popular

Let’s bracket the real issue of needing to study a language for work or to adjust to a new country. Today I want to talk about a situation where you’re simply picking a language to learn and are not sure whether you should study French or Italian.  First, think about what language you would like to speak? Hearing what language do you feel your heart skip a beat? What language do you find beautiful? What language belongs to a culture (cultures) you find fascinating?

Continue reading →

How I Learn Languages

The KGB blacklisted my stepfather, making it impossible for him to travel outside the Soviet Union. He satisfied his wanderlust by reading and learning languages. I remember our bookshelves filled with self-study books and dictionaries: English, French, Italian, German, Bulgarian, Serbian/Croatian, Czech. I opened them at random and the more unfamiliar they looked, the more I wanted to learn and enter the universe of new languages. It felt exciting and liberating.

That exhilarating feeling of discovery has remained with me, and it drives me to learn new languages. I speak, read and write 18 languages and am currently learning my 19th. Besides English, these languages include French, Italian, Persian, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Urdu, Bulgarian, German, Hindi, Uzbek, Portuguese, Albanian, Serbo-Croatian–and learning Mandarin. Most of these I’ve learned in the past few years when I figured out a method that worked for me. I’m often asked by many of my friends and readers to put together my strategy for studying languages, and so I’ve jotted down certain rules and important elements that make my learning efficient. Once I started writing, I realized that I could come up with a whole book on the topic, but since my goal today is to summarize my approach in an article, I’ll leave the comment field for any additional questions and clarifications. Please feel free to ask your specific recommendations and share your experience with learning languages.

Continue reading →

Latest Comments

Latest Tweets

Design by cre8d
© Copyright 2005-2025 Bois de Jasmin. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy