🔤  Learning a new language - Step 1 to becoming a polyglot | Polyglot ABC

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* Blog post with a polyglot's list for learning a new language

Want to know the first step to learning a new language and become a polyglot?

Start now!


THAT'S IT! Just start now! No 'thinking about it', no thinking about strategies, planning schedules etc.


To help you along, I'll give you the start to some of the languages I'm learning/speaking at the moment:




There! You've made your first step into learning a new language and becoming a polyglot!



Don't worry about the formality of the greeting. These are mostly (semi-)informal, yet no one will take offence when they realize you're just starting out in their language.


Don't worry about pronunciation ("🔤  Pronunciation - Tips for a hard part in learning a new language (get the Glot in Polyglot)") either. Just look at the word and say it out loud the way you 'think' it sounds like. At the first encounter with a word, the priority is to make an individual, natural association. That means internalizing it with your own thoughts and associations. Fine tuning comes later (as with everything new you're learning).


Just look at the words, say them out loud, read them individually (all the "Hello"'s), from left to right (Language name - "Hello"), right to left ("Hello" - Language name).

Say both the "Hello" and the Language name out loud, go through the list from top to bottom and from bottom to top (both left to right and vice versa).

Write down/type the list, first straight up copying it, then looking away and repeating it off the top of your head, peeking back at the list when you're not sure about one, then write down the list while saying the Language name and the word out loud, with all the 'copying', 'off the top of your head' and 'peeking' tactics.

And finally, say the list out loud, off the top of your head (but allowing yourself to 'peek' when you aren't sure or forgot one).


Again, don't worry if you don't follow all these mentioned steps in order… they are just general memory tactics to make associations and internalizations… use and utilize your own if you have any (I will expand on these and other ones in later blog posts).


Repeat this in the morning before going out of the house, sometime during the day, and at night before going to bed. Then repeat again the next day, and 4, 5 or 6 days later (when to repeat after that, is a topic for a different blog post :) ).


And there you go! You've just made your first step into learning a new language (and becoming a polyglot) 🎉🎉


Share with us in the comments section below:
- How do you say "Hello" in your language?
- If your language is already mentioned here… do you know "Hello" in another (new) language?

Feel free to become a new language learning/polyglot friend on Facebook: Genaro van der Werff


Wikipedia entries on languages mentioned here:
American Sign Language | Bulgarian | Danish | Dutch | English | French | German | Hebrew | Italian | Mandarin Chinese | Norwegian | Portuguese | Romanian | Russian | Spanish | Swedish


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