Ask HN: What one thing do you want to learn or achieve in 2016?

It's finally end of year. We all have high hopes for new year. So what is one thing do you want to really learn or achieve in 2016.

Learn Elixir. But then I accidentally did that over Christmas vacation for the stockfighter.io challenge.

I want to setup my life in order to make it stimulant and balanced. You know, to deal with healthy lifestyle, job, social, contribution on OSS projects and self-learning.

As someone who speaks 4 languages fluently including German. I can advise the following:

The first advice is not to use a dictionary and translate from one language to another. This might sound weird, but I never used any dictionary. You have to understand words in their sentences and try to memorize a sentence instead of just a word.

Movies, TV, Youtube were the one I used primarily to learn a new language. Why?, because you shouldn't be too much focused on "learning" a new language, but more living it and having fun with it. Getting pen/paper and a dictionary every time you want to learn a language sounds like a big hassle. Make learning the language you want a fun part of your life.

Writing in forums/websites very helpful.

If you want to understand a language, you need to understand how people laugh in that language. Watch comedy shows, buy trash magazines and understand the pop culture.

Go to meetups/get together where you can find native speakers.

Have you seen the movie "13th Warrior" with Antonio Banderas?. In the movie he keeps trying to understand what the other warriors are saying and concentrating until one Day he started talking just like them.

To be fair this method doesn't work for everyone. Just like learning a programming language, some people find it easier to follow a course while others just start coding for a small project.

You do need to have at least the basics of the language and grammar. But no more than that. I remember when I learned English 7 years ago, I started by watching the TV show "24". In the first season I couldn't understand anything Jack Bauer was saying. I remember saying to myself: "what the hell does he mean by saying "copy that". I only understood what the show was about. Then in the second season I started subconsciously memorizing sentences and understanding their meaning. Just like a baby would learn a language without using a dictionary. Similarly I started not only understanding English but also talking and writing in it.

I used this technique for French, German and English. Not sure how complicated Japanese is though.

Edit: Just to add, that with this method you need to watch a lot and I mean a lot of TV shows/Movies/Radio/Youtube to get the full benefit.