I take great pride in being bilingual. I’ve been learning English for over 10 years and have spoken Chinese my entire life. Now, I’m tackling Japanese and Swedish simultaneously as a hobby and a form of self-improvement. “Crazy!” you might think, but I honestly believe learning new languages can be fun—and easier than you’d expect.
Here are my two cents on language learning. Argue all you want, but here goes.
1. Milestones
Humans are natural procrastinators. Setting a milestone, like signing up for an exam (JLPT, HSK, TOEFL, etc.), creates a deadline that pushes you forward. However, you need to be realistic with the goals, or you’ll end up discouraged after failing. For beginners, I suggest setting a milestone as soon as you decide to learn a language; it creates a sense of urgency and provides a massive confidence boost later on.
2. LLMs
Yes, AI is bad, it’s taking jobs, polluting the environment, pirating copyrights—you name it. But looking on the bright side, talking to an LLM is a fantastic way for beginners to practice. An LLM won’t judge you, laugh at you, or get tired of you making the same mistakes over and over. It answers promptly and, for me at least, is less “problem-prone” than a human tutor. Don’t get me wrong: you still need human-to-human communication to truly master a language, but AI is a powerful tool to have in your kit as you set off.
3. Vocabulary
I am against learning vocabularies by themselves—at least not from a textbook. I might look at a word, take a moment to write it down, and then just move on. Later, when I encounter that word again, my memory is reinforced whether I recognized it immediately or not. What if I never see that word again? Well, that means it probably wasn’t that important anyway. Why spend brainpower internalizing a word only seen twice a year?
4. Accent vs. Clarity
“Oh, I feel bad about my accent!” Just don’t. Speaking a second language with zero accent is often just a dream. I’ve met and become friends with many ABCs (American-born Chinese) and long-term immigrants. Respectfully, they often have subtle accents when speaking Mandarin too. Guess what? No one minds it at all.
So, my suggestion? Forget about the accent. The only person who will shame you for it is yourself (and possibly toxic pricks who only speak one language and maybe still bad at it). However, that doesn’t mean you should slack on your pronunciation. Your top priority is always to be understandable and presentable.
5. Output
Namely: Speaking and Writing. Try self-talk, shadowing, online language exchanges, journaling or taking notes in your target language. At this very moment, I am practicing what I preach by writing this in English. It follows a simple rule: the more you do, the better you’ll get, the faster you’ll grow.
6. Leverage the Old Languages
The first glance on Japanese, I realized what an advantage I had - Being a native Chinese speaker makes reading Kanji nearly painless(pronunciation, however, is a different story); hiragana and katakana are easier for me too, compared to many Western learners. With this advantage, I could focus more on grammar and sentences rather than struggling with characters themselves.
Swedish, on the other hand, is not so similiar to my mother tongue, so I learned it with English. Many words are comically similar with its English counterparts and sometimes I found it amusing(schack=chess, kock=cook), and helped me remember them better.
7. Immersion
Immersing yourself in a foreign language sounds intimidating. I think a huge part of immersion is finding that strong urge to express emotions or defend an opinion in your target language. That raw, real, personal experience strikes ten times harder than any textbook nonsense. Personally, I’ve found that trash-talking in games, dating a foreigner, and taking classes in a foreign language boosted my progress like nothing else.
8. Courage
This is the most important factor.
You’ve already taken your first baby step by reading this paragraph—that in itself is a sign of courage. The courage to act despite the flaws, to explore and experiment, to step into the unknown, and to face challenges—these are the moments where humanity truly sparkles.
And as you could tell, this isn’t just about learning languages—it goes way beyond that.