The Secret To Learning Any Foreign Language: Spanish, Chinese, you name it

Learning Spanish is a lot of work. But that’s ok because achieving any goal is a lot of work. The real challenge is in making the work fun and enjoyable so you feel like continuing.

Your textbooks will give you all the Spanish verb conjugations. You’ll get reading practice from short stories. You’ll get listening practice from CDs and audio tapes.

And, if you follow the book from page 1 to page 400, you will learn Spanish. However, there is only one problem. You many die of boredom first. And once boredom sets it, then you have the perfect excuse to stop studying. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 100% [?]

Being able to speak Spanish is a definite plus for anyone who wants to advance in their career. However, many people don’t realize that you don’t need a ton of Spanish to make a difference. It’s the 80-20 rule. You only need to know 20% of the Spanish you think you need in 80% of the situations.

Let me explain. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 95% [?]

Learning Spanish means a lot more than growing culturally. It can mean growing economically as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 45% [?]

Learning Spanish can be quick and easy if you know where to go and what to do. Once you learn these simple tricks, then learning Spanish will only be a question of time. Of course, you need to apply them in order to make rapid progress. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 25% [?]

When learning a foreign language, “Don’t worry about mistakes!” You are learning your second language so you are not going to be as proficient as you are with your first. Get used to it. Enjoy your mistakes, learn from them and make them.

In fact, make a lot of them because the more you make the faster you learn. Learning Spanish or Chinese takes a while. But, it will take even longer if you wait to get everything perfect before you move on.

The more mistakes you make the more you learn. It sounds insane but it’s true. However, it presupposes one thing: that you learn from your mistakes.

In other words, make the mistake, make note of it, and learn from it. As long as you do that you will eventually eliminate that mistake and move on to conquer other ones.

Maybe I’ll tell about my mistakes in another post one day. For now, believe me when I say, it’s all about the mistakes.

Popularity: 18% [?]