I can barely speak English, am muddling through Korean, and within the fog of a distance past, I recall conjugating French verbs pretty well in elementary school.

Becoming truly bilingual has been a lifelong goal of mine, but inevitably, it's one of those aspirational things that gets lost behind other priorities (or, honestly, distraction and laziness). Many of my casual TODO lists are riddled with questions like "learn Mandarin?", as if that wasn't setting my future list-reading self for a shock of guilt and inadequacy!

I've made some improvements since then, but I'm still early on my journey to learn Korean. Here are some ideas, strategies and techniques we've picked up through our own actual attempts at learning languages, and while digging through every other app in this space.

The List

Immersion

There is truly nothing like being immersed in a language. Ideally, you would live in a country that speaks it: forced to use it to do anything at all, casually overhearing native speakers all day. That isn't always possible. A classroom in a different country can help build that kind of environment, or, if you're really disciplined, you can try to surround yourself with the language through movies, shows, podcasts, and music.

Whatever you can do to hear the language more, speak it more, think about it more, is all good!

Curated, personalized content

Vocabulary lists are great, but they're so often stale. Language is a tool for thought: it helps express what we think and feel. Anchoring your learning to things you actually care about, or thoughts you actually think, is a far better way to build vocabulary than memorizing word lists.

I once asked an old colleague how to say "why do you keep being annoying?" and got 왜 자꾸 짜증 나게 해? back. It's hardly textbook material, but I asked because I actually wanted to say it, and I've never forgotten it since.

Making language you care about makes it feel alive, which is exactly how it should be.

Here are a few specific techniques:

• Movie, song and book quotes. I love the overly-dramatic and colorful language from these, even if it's not that practical.
• Pre-practice or post-practice for interactions. Going to the dentist? Look up some words or phrases and record what you hear during.
• Describe your hobbies and interests. Books, movies, shows, songs, games, sports, anything you're already spending time on.
• Describe your day. In the morning, narrate what's on the schedule. At night, narrate what you did.
• Describe your surroundings. Where do you live? What's nearby? What does it look and smell like? When you go on a walk, what do you see? What are people doing?
• Observe and copy. Listen to people! Repeat what they say in your daily life.
• Talk to yourself. If you're already doing it in your native tongue, just try and replace it with your target language here and there.

Spaced repetition

I was already big on this before learning Korean and it does just...work. The basic idea is that you don't need to review something every day to remember it. That's inefficient and scales linearly with the number of things you want to remember. If you space the reviews optimally, you'll review things less often (log scaling) and can remember more!

Some controversy tends to come from evangelists who take far, or from people who pass around 1,000-card decks and tell you all you have to do is study them. That might be effective, and even necessary, for med school or organic chemistry, but it's a bit extreme. Pacing yourself and building curated, personalized cards is a great way to avoid burnout and the pressure to cram.

Little things make a big difference here:

• Create your own cards whenever you can
• Read, speak, or process each card as you make it (bonus reps)
• Don't add too many cards or you'll end up stressing to keep up. 50-100 card sessions are challenging!
• Similarly, doing a little is better than nothing
• When studying, really try to connect with the idea behind the words, not just translate them
• Try to stick to a max time per card and answer the difficulty honestly. It's not a test! Finding something hard is natural and that just means the next time you see it, you'll be better

Massive input

There really is no shortcut.

You simply need a lot of time, a lot of effort, or both, if you actually want to learn a language (from someone actively struggling, I'm not a #polyglot). Games will help you casually pick up a few phrases, and that's great. But if you're genuinely invested, you need more.

Reading while listening

I almost never remember words or phrases unless I see them written down, or write and type them myself. Listening on its own does help: you pick up the overall cadence of the language, and remember a few iconic phrases.

It's very likely, though, that you're missing a lot of important subtlety, and that your learning won't compound. By reading words while you listen, you anchor them in your mind and start building the connection between each syllable. Better memory, and a better ability to stretch what you already know into situations you haven't seen yet.

Shadowing

Shadowing is the easy, slightly embarrassing habit of repeating what you hear, out loud, while trying to mimic the speaker as best you can. It can be a great way to build immersion and one of those small habits that makes a big impact. Shadow people, shadow shows, shadow your own vocabulary cards.

Grammar?!

As kids, we don't explicitly learn grammar, but that could come down to how much time we spend learning, not some innate language-learning genius. I've even heard the funny counterpoint that kids learn full-time, fully immersed, with heavily-invested personal tutors, and still aren't great by age ten.

Whatever the case, as adults, we have the disadvantage of being busier, more distracted, and a bit more set in our ways. We have the advantage of being able to understand higher-level concepts, and to use them to learn faster. Grammar helps bridge the gaps in your learning, and clarifies subtleties that would otherwise take a very long time to notice on your own.

I think even a small amount of grammar studying can be quite high-leverage.

Repetition

This one is hard for me, but there's really no reason you need a lot of different content at certain stages of learning a language. Listen to the same podcast, watch it with transcripts and break it down. Shadow it. Write & rewrite speeches or descriptions of your favorite books over and over. It might feel tedious, but simply repeating things truly does help.

Some Meta Stuff

Real-life vs. apps

Language is emotional. Apps can provide good touch points for learning, exposure to the language, and specific lessons, but they can't really replace the emotional context of a classroom or daily life. You fit a class into your routine. You're forced to do things while living/travelling somewhere. They're tangible experiences. You think about them. They aren't just sitting somewhere inside your universal computing machine, devoid of context and emotion.

You talk to real people and practice non-verbal communication. You surround yourself with people worse than you, people at your level, and people better than you. A real person shakes their head when you don't do your homework, too. A real person stares blankly at you when they have no idea what you're saying.

Combing whatever app-based work you're doing with a real classroom or virtual language exchange or a trip or go to XYZ-town wherever you live.

Translating words vs. thoughts

Words are just attempts to describe the thoughts in our heads. In programming terms, they're pointers to ideas. The first phase of learning a language is usually translating one word or phrase into another word or phrase. The second, and bigger, step is to build a mental image from a word or phrase, and then translate that.

I find this idea to be pretty profound. It's also the root of the issue whenever someone talks about translating something too literally, and it's why translators are so ridiculously talented.

The "learning zone"

Balancing novelty and ease is essential to any kind of learning. Finding where that balance sits for you is difficult, and it's exactly where guided, human learning really shines. It's easy to get demotivated if you're always grinding difficult material for hours at a time. It's just as easy to stagnate if you're only watching shows without really engaging with them or processing them.

Challenge yourself, but have fun.

Closing Thoughts

Really, everything is simple: "do it a lot, consistently, for a long period of time". This uselessly-abstract, but technically-correct method for accomplishing anything does apply to language learning, too.

That said, I hope the specifics do help!