What is the best way to learn a foreign language?

To celebrate the launch of my language project Eureka Languages, I am going to be writing a series of posts dealing with the learning of foreign languages. Being a cunning linguist and one of the founders of Eureka Languages, people have always come to me for advice when it comes to learning foreign languages as I have been there and done that with so many languages over and over again. I've often been asked, "what is the best way to learn a foreign language?" Well, what I am going to talk about here is going to be mostly common sense I'm afraid, I don't have any secret formulas that will suddenly turn you into a linguist overnight, but here are my thoughts on this issue and you may be surprised just how many basic principles many people just take for granted when it comes to learning.

Undoubtedly, the best way to learn a language is one-on-one private lessons with a good teacher - that is the best student-teacher ratio and of course, this is entirely dependent on the teacher being a good teacher. That way, the teacher can adjust the lesson to go at your pace, rather than a pace dictated by the curriculum, a textbook or worse, by the weakest student in the class. You have the full attention of the teacher and the teacher will be able to focus on the areas where you are weak and tailor-make the lessons to specifically your needs. This is also by far the most expensive way to learn a language but it is definitely worth paying for if you want results fast. In the UK, one-to-one private tuition with a language teacher usually costs between £30 to £50 an hour and it could cost even more if you're after a more specific type of language lesson (eg. business Japanese, rather than general conversational Japanese).

What is the best way to learn a foreign language?

Thus taking even just one lesson a week like that can cost you quite a lot of money over time - but you will get what you pay for. Those who do invest in one-to-one lessons often see the fastest progress as there is simply no where to hide, it's just you and the teacher. I remember when I was back in school, I would sit at the back of the class so I could fall asleep and get away with it as the teacher would be most preoccupied with the students who sat at the front of the class closest to the blackboard. Don't forget, it works both ways too - the teacher also has nowhere to hide and has no excuses if the student is not making significant progress. There is far greater pressure on the teacher to deliver when engaged in a one-to-one lesson arrangement so this is often a win-win situation.

The downside of this method is the cost - you have to invest a lot of money before you can see some results and you really need to make sure that you are engaging the services of a teacher who has a good track record. If possible, speak to the teacher's other students to see what their experiences have been like, get references. This method is only as good as the teacher - get the wrong teacher and it could turn out to be a big waste of time and money. In using this method, the teacher must be prepared to be as flexible as necessary and create tailor-made lessons to suit the student's needs, rather than be lazy and just default to a standard textbook - it should create a lot more work for the teacher as that is what the student is paying for and it will only work if you get a teacher who understands that deal. 

The cost of private lessons can add up really quickly. 

Another method of learning a language is self-study - this is the route I took with most of my languages. Now self-study doesn't mean that you are completely reliant on a textbook with some CDs or MP3s, often there are online courses you can use to study a language. Some of these courses are excellent whilst others are terrible and the good ones are rarely free. I recommend the "Say Something In" school of learning as it is a super effective online course for mastering basic conversational skills in a foreign language - they currently offer lessons in five languages. I am also learning Korean via Talk To Me In Korean - which is free (yay!) but the lessons are very poorly taught, badly structured, the artificially cheesy banter between the teachers is downright annoying and I end up having to organize my own notes in a far more accessible format for my revision.

The beauty of studying on your own (with the help of a website) means that you don't have to commit to a full course of lessons - often, these websites offer trial lessons or a trial period for you to try the lessons before asking you to commit by paying for more lessons. You may decide after a few lessons that it is not the right language for you and you can drop out or change to another course with very little fuss. This is an increasingly popular way to learn a foreign language and there are many online communities of language learners who use social media to support each other, practice with each other and learn from each other. You can also fit your learning around your schedule and study when it suits you! Furthermore, you can progress as fast or as slow as you want - you get to set the pace which you're comfortable with. You will never have to worry about being held back by classmates who are slower than you when you're learning entirely on your own. Likewise if you're slow, you'll never be left behind by the rest of the class.

Are you capable of studying independently?

With the internet, you can access so much material free of charge to learn your new language - Youtube is a great place to begin: there are plenty of people who do put their own language lessons online and you can also access everything from TV programmes to movies to music videos to gain exposure to the language. All this material is available for free on the internet, so it has never been easier to try to learn a foreign language on your own even if you cannot find a good language teacher or course near where you live.

The challenge of this method is that it requires a huge amount of self-discipline and motivation. It is all too tempting to do something else more relaxing than studying after a hard day at work - without a teacher giving you homework and expecting you to revise for tests and exams, can you still push yourself to study hard? Thus it is important to pick a language you truly love and enjoy, rather than one which you think may be useful for work. I have picked Korean because I totally love K-pop and K-culture, so I am hoping that interest will sustain me through the difficult Korean lessons. Self-studying a foreign language can be rather difficult as you don't have a teacher to correct your mistakes when you do make them. For example, my British friends who can speak Mandarin often get the tones wrong and they can't hear their own mistakes, they have to rely on a native speaker to point out the subtle differences to them.

You'll be amazed how learners of Mandarin can't hear the four tones.

Of course, there is always the option of joining a language class but I am not that fond of this method. It is still by far the most popular method of learning a foreign language and often it can be reasonably cheap depending on where you take your course. I have had mixed experiences with these language classes - it all boils down to how good your teacher is. I have had some really dreadful Chinese teachers back in Singapore who have almost put me off the Chinese language for life  - the way Chinese is taught in Singapore is just horrible, relying mostly on rote learning. I will never forget my first French teacher Madame Janet Martin from L'Alliance Française in Singapore who was extremely encouraging and just a brilliant language teacher. Now even if you were to get a good teacher, there are still other factors that will determine how well you learn in a classroom environment.

Imagine if a PE teacher takes a class of 30 students out for a jog, the class of 30 students are of mixed ability - some students are able to run very fast whilst others have no stamina and jog very slowly. The PE teacher cannot possibly run as fast as the fastest students in the class - no, because if he did so, he would leave behind most of the students. Instead, the PE teacher has to make sure that the slowest students are not left behind, thus it is the slowest students who set the pace. Thus the progress of the students with the most ability will be sacrificed to make sure that the weaker students are still able to keep up with the rest of the class. There are winners and losers in this situation and depending on what your ability is, you could either be very grateful to the teacher or very annoyed with him.

Is the classroom always the best setting for learning?

The fact is even if you do get a good teacher, how fast the class progresses is always determined by the slowest and weakest students as much as the teacher can try his best to try to accommodate the needs of the better students. Strong students are effectively penalized for the weaknesses of others. Too often we simply put up with it because we take it for granted that this should be the way we should learn. Have you heard the saying, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"? If you're an good student, you're mostly likely to be ignored by the teacher whilst the student who is struggling the most will get the bulk of the teacher's attention. Is that fair? Another problem with a mixed ability language class is that you may pick up each other's mistakes - particularly when it comes to pronunciation. I experienced this first hand in Singapore where I picked up an extremely strong Singaporean accent because all my peers spoke the same way. In fact, it was only when I moved to the UK that I figured out that I had been mispronouncing the words with the TH digraph (along with so many other mistakes). But that wasn't a problem in Singapore as the vast majority of Singaporeans made the same mistakes in English - but the moment I moved to the UK, it was a problem that I had to deal with as I didn't want to sound like a foreigner with a rather thick Asian accent.

Furthermore, another major problem with participating in a class is the temptation to be passive - many people who learn foreign languages through such classes lack the confidence to speak the language because they spend most of their lessons with their nose in a book or scribbling notes instead of actually speaking the language. If there are 15 people in your language class, how many times an hour do you actually get to speak? I mean like really speak, rather than just read words off a page in a textbook. Once or twice on average if you're lucky I would have thought, this is why some people can go to such language classes for years still learn very little and lack the confidence to speak up.

Do you lack the confidence to speak up in your foreign language?

Despite the many disadvantages I have pointed out with classes, this is still the most common way to learn a foreign language. The main reason is that it is the cheapest way - a teacher can cram 20, even 30 or more students into each class and all you need is that one teacher to teach all of these students. We are also very accustomed to learning this way as this classroom set up is exactly how we were taught at school, so most of us don't even question if it is really the most effective way to learn a foreign language. I'm not saying that all classes are bad - I am just pointing out what the potential problems are so you can be prepared to deal with them should you decide to join a language class. So for example, class sizes do make a difference: if you can pay more to be in a class of just 4 or 5 students rather than a big class of 25 students, then do fork out the money as you will learn so much more in a smaller class.

Chances are, if you are going to learn a foreign language, you will probably end up taking a class but I would like you to consider the possibility of combining it with either private lessons or self-study. Do your research, keep an open mind, explore the various options available to you and discover the right balance that will work best for you. That way, you could ensure that you make very quick progress because that is so vital in the learning of any foreign language: you need to feel like you're getting somewhere and improving all the time in order to stay motivated and interested. If you feel like you're stagnating or getting nowhere, that will leave you frustrated and tempted to quit. So there you go, that's it from me on this topic. Please do let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Lastly, do check out my website and play the Eureka Languages Challenge. Thank you very much for reading!