This is the wicked circle. Always starting with the first unit, chapter 1, you never make progress. It is always better to go to higher levels instead of staying in the lowest one. Your friends who started few years ago will now be several levels above you and you won’t be motivated to go further, thinking you can never make it to where they are.

Reasons

Basically, there are two categories of these beginners: those who never finish a course and those who never continue. Those who never finish a course have plenty of excuses, but never a real reason. What usually happens is that they skip one or two lectures. They know they will be behind others and are too scared they’ve missed to much and are not willing to come back. They may think they will be humiliated not knowing the right answers.

The other group is less common and more complicated. Their reasons may be: bad teacher, sparing partner doesn’t want to continue, feeling that the language is too difficult or no genuine motivation at the start.

What to do?

1. It’s good to have a frined who would attend the course with you and won’t let you skip the lessons.
2. Have a goal. If you set yourself a goal (fluently speaking with the locals on your holiday, passing an exam, getting vetter job).
3. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter that you miss some lectures and don’t always know the right answers. 
4. Enjoy the classes, make friends with the others in the class. It will motivate you to come back.

What do you do?

Image via Wikipedia

Instead of reading and memorizing rules, people shall watch movies, read books, talk to people, listen to music and write as much as they can.

Why are these activities so important and why are they more useful then learning vocabulary? Because if you learn vocabulary by heart without ever using it, and unless you have really exceptional memory, you will forget all the words sooner or later. However, if you go one step further and use every word in several sentences several times the word stay fixed in your head. It’s better to write the few sentences and read them once in a while (in public transport for example) but if you just repeat it in your head, it’s still very good.

• Watching movies - watching movies helps in several ways.
  
  • First – you get to understand some bits of the culture, you see the humour, the ambiance of the environment.
  • Second – you see the people speaking and you can read their lips to better understand.
  • Third – even if you don’t understand every word, you can figure out the whole meaning and don’t miss the whole point of the movie.
  • Four – if you watch a movie several times, you get to understand better and you can memorize some expressions or phrases.

• Reading books – replaces the grammar by showing good language style and structure.
  • At the start, you don’t have to read difficult books, there are usually simplified versions or multilingual books. (Warning: multilingual books entice to read the mother tongue version!)
  • You get wider vocabulary (Tip: write down only the words that appear more often, you find interesting or are essential for understanding the point of the article or book! Do not try to translate every single word because you will not concentrate on the book itself and will miss the whole point of it.)
  • Never read with a dictionary in your hand! It distracts you.

• Speaking – is the best way to practice what you have learned. 
  • Local people appreciate it if you make at least some effort. It does not matter you don’t say everything correctly. On the contrary, sometimes it sounds cute if you don’t pronounce perfectly. (But watch out, sometimes miss pronouncing changes the whole meaning of the phrase – you surely know the joke about Italian guy in Malta:-) ).
  • Sometimes, speaking common language sounds much better then formal “book” language. People don’t speak formal language in everyday lives.
  • Getting in touch with local people also allows you to understand the culture and make new friends.

• Listening to music – with simple texts, you can easily learn the vocabulary by humming the melody and you can explore new styles.

• Writing – helps practising what you have learned. 
  • The best way is to get a pen friend. There are some specialised web sites where you may meet people who wants to learn your language and whose language you want to learn as well. 
  • You can also start your blog and write your ideas in foreign language. It does not matter it’s not absolutely correct. The more you learn the better texts you will write and then you will be also able to correct what you have written before.

Good luck!

The world’s most spoken languages by number of native speakers(1) are Mandarin (about 873,000,000 speakers), English (508,350,000 speakers), Hindi (497,000,000 speakers),  Spanish (438,300,000 speaker) and Portuguese (335,500,000 speakers). There are also disputes that Arabic is one of the most widely spoken languages.

On the other hand, English is clearly spoken as a second language by majority of the Earth’s population. Given the economic situation, most practical languages to learn (tip no. 1) are English, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian and Spanish. French is well recommended for cultural and diplomatic reasons and France is very well known for it’s Days of Francophonie.

Now when we know what to learn, we shall talk about when to learn it (tip no. 2). The best age to learn a language is early childhood. As a child learns to speak his mother tongue, he can easily learn any other language. When we grow older, we need more logic and learning becomes more difficult. It is said that learning a language before 30 years is easy, then it becomes hurdle. But still, people can learn to ski at the age of 60, so why shall we not start to learn a Portuguese at 42?

Of course, the way different age groups are though a languages is not the same. But one thing is usually common for all of them. It’s called motivation (tip no. 3). Learning new things is not easy, however when you set yourself a goal you will learn more easily. How would you feel if your girlfriend has to order pancakes every time you are in Paris? Going step by step, chapter by chapter, allows you to see your progress and as you advance, you are able to use the language in more situations.

Always have a reliable sparing partner (tip no. 4). You know how you feel when you have to go to a gym on your own. It’s almost the same with language course. You can help each other, support each other and always have a drink afterwards. There are things you can be looking forward to. But select well, you don’t want your friend to demotivate you but to motivate and support you.

How to start (tip no. 5)? There are basically two ways. The easy way and the hard way. Let’s start with the hard way, which means you go on your own to foreign country and you try to survive. The easier, more practical and more expensive, option is to sign up to a language course abroad, to stay there and absorb the culture. The slower and easier way is to attend a language school at your home country. Still, you shall choose a good teacher (native speaker is always recommended, classes at least twice a week as well; tip no. 6). Another way, which helps to understand the language and the culture is to go once a year to the foreign country for a couple of days and speak as much as you can.

What is the most important thing then? SPEAKING!!! (tip no. 7 – 10). Do not worry about the grammar, about the pronunciation or the vocabulary. Just try to communicate as much as you can. Talk to local people (native speakers), talk to other students, think in the language, chat, write, ask directions, listen to music, watch movies, taste typical dishes. This way, the language will get in all your senses under your skin. You will live it, you will enjoy it and you will learn it.

Remember: you are not studying the language, you are learning it. So don’t worry, people will understand and just speak, speak and sing

Source of numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_spoken_languages_of_the_world