I regularly speak 4 languages recently—Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and English—and language learners often ask me about my approach to learning languages. Here are a couple of tips I usually share:

Tip 1️⃣:

A blogger I used to follow explained how communities and towns in, for example, New York City are surrounded by a community’s language, but outside of that “town” it’s more or less all in English. Then, after thinking about this fact, I had an idea: “What if I could create a ‘town’ in my room at home? I can leave my home, go to school, go to work, etc., to do everything that an American does, and then I can come back home, surrounded by my target language for gaining fluency in an immersion environment of my making.” 🌃

Therefore, I recommend language learners, first and foremost, create a “town” like this in their home, on their computer, TV, phone, etc. That is to say, if you’re learning, for example, English, try and only consume content in English by changing your computer, phone, and other device settings to English, watching only English-language shows, movies, and videos, listening only to English-language podcasts and music, playing video/PC games in English, and/or only following native speakers of English on social media so your feed is only in English. Simply, try to go all English to the extent you can stand. 🏠
However, I don’t recommend you watch, read, play, listen to, etc. something in English you don’t like, as I think it’s best to be interested in what your consuming for the best learning effect, in my humble opinion. ⚠️

The above advice is for input (or practicing listening and reading), but you can also output (or practicing speaking and writing) with techniques such as shadowing, monologues, translating your personal blog, speaking with a native speaker every day (tutor recommended), etc. 🗣️

Tip 2️⃣ (Optional):

Memorize many sentences and common phrases, practicing saying each of them fluently. You can memorize them with SRS (spaced repetition software) like Anki. Practice saying each sentence or phrase out loud, paying attention to the pronunciation of each word, tone, sentence intonation, emphasis of a word or syllable, etc. You can get generative AI to read sentences out loud for you if you need. This tip will help you not only improve your speaking but help you think more fluently in your target language. 📝

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To put it concisely, all [enter your target language] all the time. Of course, this applies to any language.

In other words, language is not necessarily something we learn if we want to speak it fluently and naturally, but something that we have memorable experiences with that makes its sounds and symbols, which were once foreign, familiar to us that we can call our own. 💡

🌐 Wikipedia | Spaced repetition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

⭐️ Anki (Smart Flashcards):
https://apps.ankiweb.net/