Why It’s So Hard to Learn a Language
And How to Actually Do It
Learning a language is one of the greatest challenges you can take on. I have studied both advanced mathematics and computer programming languages, and neither of those even came close to the difficulty of learning a new language. That being said, becoming bilingual is one of the most rewarding and incredible experiences you can have in your life.
Based on statistics from the popular language-learning app DuoLingo, around 90% of people who start learning a second language will never even complete the course, let alone become fluent in the language.
I don’t believe this is because people aren’t motivated to learn, or because they don’t have enough interest in it. Perhaps these factors can play a role in our ability to learn, but in the long run I believe we have a hard time with languages for an altogether different reason.
What reason is that, you ask?
Language is not math
Or science, or history. When we study a subject like algebra or organic chemistry, we can study them from a textbook. We memorize definitions, wrap our minds around concepts, and learn to apply those concepts in certain situations. And for these particular subjects, this way of learning is useful, if not perhaps necessary.
However, if you look at any major language-learning app or class or course, you will see that they treat languages in the same way. Memorize these verbs, drill these conjugations, structure this sentence. They want to present a step-by-step approach that guarantees fluency at the end.
It’s not that these things aren’t important. But you will never become fluent in a language only by drilling grammar and vocabulary. By the time children start elementary school and begin “studying” English, they are usually already quite close to speaking English. They merely learn the grammar and the higher-level vocabulary to enhance what they already know intuitively.
I started learning Brazilian Portuguese around a year ago, and during this time I never took a formal class or studied grammar, beyond five or ten minutes of DuoLingo a few times per week. I’m now functionally fluent, around a B2 level on the CEFR scale, in less than twelve months.
This is not an article to argue that you can somehow learn a language faster than advertised, or that there is some “hack” to becoming fluent.
Trust me, there isn’t. It’s taken me this long just to be able to be fully functional in Portuguese. I still cannot write a full short story in Portuguese, nor can I fully understand complex literature or scientific papers.
That being said, I can speak fluently and understand Portuguese speakers on almost any topic, as well as understand any books, TV shows, or movies using non-technical Portuguese.
I did this without hours of daily study. I never once did conjugation drills or rote memorization.
So if not via courses or formal education, then how?
Sensory Overload
When I arrived in Brazil, I could barely understand what the native speakers said. It was immensely frustrating. I could express simple needs and understand very basic conversations, but this was all.
Over a period of several months, I was forced to become like a child again.
I had to listen to every conversation with my utmost attention, attempting to understand any new words and quickly asking for an explanation when I got lost.
The first three months were, by far, the most difficult. I remember I felt a constant sense of mental exhaustion due to never fully understanding anything that people said. Anytime I wanted to express an opinion or ask for help, I had to formulate my thought in Portuguese and do my best not to butcher the delivery.
There were frequent moments of embarrassment. So many I can’t even count. Times when I’d say an offensive word accidentally, or completely misunderstand someones response to me.
Thankfully in my case, Brazilian people are quite friendly and receptive to foreigners. Anytime I would make a mistake, they would be quick to swoop in and help me correct my error, albeit whilst laughing profusely.
But what if you don’t live in the country?
I think the knee-jerk response most people will have to this, is that you must live in the country where the language is spoken in order to become fluent.
This is also dead wrong. I’ve worked with many non-native English speakers who are B2 or C1 in English, and have never set foot in an English-speaking country.
It’s true that outside the US, foreign language classes are often mandatory in university and high school. But let’s be honest: two years of Spanish in a 5-hours-per-week high school class is not enough, on it’s own, to speak Spanish fluently. And the same goes for English, or any other language.
Most language-learners I’ve met have become fluent because they have chosen to immerse themselves completely in the language. A standard high school or university class exposes you to about 180 hours of the language with 2 years of classes at 5 hours per week. I personally estimate I’ve been exposed to over 2,000 hours of Portuguese, hearing Portuguese daily for around ten months.
This is the difference. You have to have thousands of hours of exposure to the language. There is no cheat, no hack, and no amount of studying that will bypass this requirement.
Even without living in the country, the successful English learners I’ve met will set their phones to English, set all their TV shows and movies to English, exclusively listen to English music, and watch social media in English. By doing this, they overload themselves with sensory input, and thereby “force” their brains to absorb it.
By overloading yourself with as little as three or four hours of the language each day, you go well beyond 180 hours of study in a little over a months time.
This is far more difficult than you think
This may sound too good to be true. Just change everything you consume to the language you want to learn, and sooner or later you’ll understand it.
And it’s true. This absolutely will work.
But it’s almost impossible to stick to. If you are not extremely passionate about the language and disciplined to pay attention even when you’re tired, you will quickly switch everything back to your native language.
It will take a bare minimum of three or four months of daily listening before you will be able to understand any basic conversations or even cobble together a sentence to express your thoughts.
For those first few months, you’ll feel like you’re beating your head against a wall, expecting to eventually teleport to the other side.
Seems bleak, right? But here’s how you can actually make it work.
Pick a language you actually care about
For me, I didn’t even “choose” Portuguese, per say. I became passionate about the language because I’m in love with my wife. Even before coming to Brazil, I’d sit at work with my headphones on, listening to podcasts in Portuguese and trying to decipher the basic meaning of the conversation.
But it never felt like work, or even like studying. I wanted so badly to talk to my wife in her native language that it was just a daily challenge for me to attempt to master some new phrase so I could surprise her later with what I’d learned.
If you choose a language that you find really interesting, it should feel this way for you.
If a certain culture or history has always appealed to you, then pick a language relevant to that, and consume content in that language about the culture or the history, everyday.
Prepare to be humbled
You must be prepared to be humble. It was, and often still is, hard for me to hear harsh criticism of my Portuguese. There are still moments when native speakers will correct my pronunciation, or laugh at my sentence structure.
To really learn a language, you must buckle up for months — if not years with a language like Mandarin, Arabic, or Russian — of daily criticism and correction. Native speakers will laugh with you and at you. You will be forced to think slowly and tread carefully.
If you can consistently keep pushing forward despite all of this, you will learn. It goes from a matter of if to a matter of when.
Why do all this?
The truth is, despite all the difficulties, learning a new language will open your mind in a way you’ve never experienced before. But these benefits only really start to show up when you go beyond a B1 level (in other words, the benefits start to show up when you’re upper intermediate).
You will, quite literally, begin to think of the world in a new way. When you talk to yourself while washing the dishes, you’ll find yourself talking in the new language. You’ll even start dreaming in the new language.
Portuguese, like French, Spanish, and Italian, has a system of gendered nouns. When these gendered nouns become almost intuitive to you, suddenly you’ll find yourself thinking slightly differently about these objects when you speak.
Russian doesn’t use the same word order that we do in English, instead making use of a complex “case” system that is the equivalent of conjugating nouns like we conjugate verbs in English. By taking emphasis off of direct action in speech and instead focusing on nouns, Russian can convey a much different feeling than English, one perhaps more philosophical.
There are even some languages like the Guugu Yimithirr (an Australian Aboriginal language) that do not use words like “left” and “right”, instead always using “north”, “south”, “east”, and “west”. Therefore, these languages force the speaker to always know their geographical orientation in order to express a direction.
I could continue.
The point is, if you want to learn about a culture — whether it be in France or Russia or China or even the ancient Middle East — it is a necessity to speak the language.
I will never listen to someone speak as if they’re an expert about a nation or culture unless they are fluent in the language of that culture.
If you want to criticize a country or culture, first learn their language. Then watch how quickly your desire to criticize them will diminish.
Whatever your motivations, just remember to take the right approach, expect frequent failures, and keep trying.
You’ll be glad you did.
