I’m open to the suggestion of textbooks but I find it really intense just focusing on it or my interest goes down eventually, maybe textbooks with a combo of something else too, any suggestions?
Move to a new country.
Source: That’s how I learned English.
(You asked for “best” way, not “the best practical way” 😉)
Technically the truth. I learned to talk with a proper Irish accent within a couple months. 15 years later there’s nothing left of that, but for a brief moment in history I was cool.
Watch TV in that language.
Children’s shows
soap operas, religious programming
Bon jour. Je suis un grand Muzzy!
Je suis une ananas!
especially if captions/subtitles are available
If there’s a local community / cultural center, they probably offer classes or even immersion. My local mutual aid society has Spanish-immersion craft night once a week.
Comprehensible input! Start with simple content in that language you’re trying to learn, without any use of languages you understand. And then try and actively understand what you’re hearing, and work out how it all fits together!
It might be best to start with some basic grammar, phonetics, and vocab, especially with some languages, but comprehensible input is really the only right answer here.
It does take some dedicated study to get to a point where you can start to comprehend even the most basic content. If you just start reading/listening from zero, none of it will be comprehensible.
The goal for comprehensible input should be i+1, meaning you understand almost all of a sentence but one word or grammar point, which then allows you to work out the missing piece from context.
Look up community-made resources for the language you want to learn. Depends on the language, but you should be able to find plenty of great materials. Without knowing which language you’re trying to learn, it’s hard to give any better of a generic answer than that.
That said, flashcard apps like Anki are probably the single most powerful tool available, and vocab card decks will be the first thing you see at the top of those community resources. Any reason in particular you’re averse to something like that?
You can find podcasts called “slow news” or something like that where they present the days news in the language your learning but take care to speak slowly and enunciate.
Good suggestion! Searching for “slow news (language)” worked for me.
Try Language Transfer. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is just a set of MP3 files that you listen to. The teacher explains something to the student, and the student tries it out.
It sounds silly, but it works really well, and it is the best language resource I’ve ever used.
You can use them through SoundCloud (downloadable MP3s), YouTube, or with the simple but very effective app.
It’s all free, although you are welcome to support the project with donations. I have been making a monthly donation for several years now.
I’ve been on the internet for a long time and met lots of people from around the world, and one thing I hear a lot is that many of them learned English by watching American TV. Some of those folks speak better English than I do as a native, so maybe there’s something to it? Though they mostly did it as kids and for years and years, so maybe that’s not practical.
This is the Comprehensible Input method
Tv, short form media, game shows or even ridiculous things like kids shows. Is there e.g. a similar show to Taskmaster (or some similar show in your more familiar language) in that language. You will not understand all the entendres but will see a different kind of language structure that isn’t as linear as news, series or movies might have.
Look up language exchange groups in your city
Basically you get together and you speak to each other
You will speak in the language you want to learn, and they will speak in English
And you will correct each other in real time and go from there
comics & graphic novels
