Ask HN: Learning a foreign language

Those of us who have gone along the foreign language route seem to find that it takes a short but definite time-lag within the brain when 'switching out' the foreign-language and 'switching-in' the native-language. And then the same thing happens with the reverse, you have to 'switch-out' the native-language, and 'switch-in' the foreign-language. Consequently, by continuing to use the native-language, you never get out of the habit of thinking in your native-language.

On the other hand, when never having to 'switch-in' the native-language during immersion, the brain gets much more acclimated to the foreign-language and after a few days to a week, some thinking in the foreign-language occurs. The down-side to this is that you feel a bit like you're living in a bubble, because you don't get to speak freely (easily) to anyone else while you're in immersion, and it just feels so relieving when you finally get to speak to someone else in your native-language.

Good Luck. And if you go travelling to places where that foreign-language is spoken, try not to go with a spouse or friend that only speaks your native-language. They will prevent you from learning the other one.

I also listen to music in whatever language I'm learning - I used to use it to switch my brain between languages on the way from one language class to another. For memorization, the best way really is to just write it and repeat it a dozen times, so putting a song on repeat is really useful for refreshing your memory on commonly used words, practicing pronunciation, and even occasionally picking up new words by looking up lyrics, etc. Nothing beats immersion, though, just because, on top of practice (inherently prioritized by common usage), it gives you all the extra context to infer or reinforce meaning - memorizing words or working from a textbook means you have no extra information to go off of but what's written there. If you want to get those benefits of immersion without actual immersion, find things that mimic those qualities (extra context, prioritized by common usage, repetition), like music, kids TV shows, comic books, conversation, etc.

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Before going there I learnt some basic stuff: conjugations of being, having, doing, most prepositions, basic counting (1-100), some emotions and words like walking, seeing, right/left etc. The first morning they had a basic test and I could skip the first course because of my preparation. The first week was quite boring, just like being in high school, with stupid stories etc.

The second week on wednesday night we had a Sangria-tour around town. After several beers and sangrias I started speaking Spanish. Up til then my Spanish was mostly impaired by fear of failure, afraid to make mistakes. My teacher was there and I spoke to her for a half hour, of course with lots of help, searching for the right words, making many mistakes, but suddenly the fear was gone.

Russia: do the vodka tour! ;-) Laugh a lot and don't care about what they think. Listen to their English and compare that to your Russian.

I stayed in an appartment with other foreign students. Among eachother we didn't speak Spanish. You could stay with a Spanish family, and they don't speak English in general, so then you have to find a way. That will help a lot.

After these two weeks I've done two courses in my home town, and left it at that. Now when I'm in Spain I can speak Spanish after several days. I can manage in hotels and shops, have very basic conversations. My French has improved incredibly since then as well.

Disclaimer: in High School we had English, German, French, and even Latin and classic Greek, so I had a good basic knowledge and knew how to learn a language. It takes a lot of effort. After finishing high school my languages were bad and clumsy. After going on holidays I suddenly got to enjoy it. Doing a study where all books were English it all started to change.

Long story short: it takes a lot of effort. Do it all - traditional and pragmatic. Going to Russia is probably most effective.