How to learn a new language from scratch: Step-by-Step Guide

this video is brought to you by Squarespace  if you're about to give up after a second or  

third attempt of trying to learn in language  you absolutely have to watch this today I'm  

going to share all the steps you need to take  on day one and how to continue studying beyond  

the first week creating a system to learn a new  language is what helped me commit to my journey  

and kept me going when I felt like quitting no oh  my God no Step Zero day one before you even start  

learning a foreign language you need three things  written down your goal plus motivation that will  

keep you going when you face some difficulties  deadline and time period to keep you responsible  

and track your progress a schedule of your daily  stady routines and habits to make your goal  

visible and achievable with a goal in mind give  yourself a deadline like I give myself 3 months  

before my first conversation in this language then  schedule time time during the day when you will be  

practicing you can combine studying activity with  another activity something that many people call  

habit stacking this is something that I practice  pretty often because I have a busy schedule but  

I need to study Spanish so when I wash the dishes  when I go to the gym I always listen to a podcast  

in Spanish this is habit stacking step one week  one learning the alphabet and pronunciation  

unfortunately the systems were taught by in  school schools and universities often neglect  

this part but this part is so freaking important  by learning pronunciation you start to make first  

sounds you start speaking and for some people  their main goal is to speak the language so for  

them this is going to be the most important part  so start with the alphabet and all the sounds that  

each letter corresponds to it will be better for  you to watch a video by native speaker and not  

just read everything on a website it because when  you watch a video down by native speaker you can  

observe their mouth like how are they actually  making this sound or that sound and it's going  

to be especially important for the sounds that do  not exist in your native language you want to get  

a sense of how each letter is pronounced I'm going  to give you an example with English for the letter  

A there's usually a word like apple but the letter  A can make five types of sounds a as a Apple a as  

in snake a as in Father a as in ball a as in  many so my tip here is to explore all of these  

different sounds and watch videos on YouTube where  people explain how to make every single sound and  

of course don't forget to repeat after them mimic  their pronunciation mimic their intonation repeat  

everything only by learning the right placement  of each sound and doing as many repetition itions  

as you can can you actually build muscle memory  don't underestimate this first step and please  

don't skip it because often times in schools we  just skip this first step and we're like okay this  

is the alphabet I learned it I'm all good you're  not all good you need to make sure you spend some  

time exploring the sounds of this language first  getting accustomed to all the different sounds  

again especially the sounds that do not exist in  your native language because often times we tend  

to substitute them with the sounds that we're  familiar with and we shouldn't be doing that it  

will help you speak and sound confident and start  building your vocabulary when you actually start  

learning new words if a new language is totally  different from your native language this step  

might take longer than a week maybe two maybe  three or maybe you might actually want to book a  

class with a teacher with a native speaker to help  you understand everything it is something that I  

did when I just started learning Spanish because  I could not not understand how I was supposed to  

pronounce certain sounds certain letters in  Spanish for example the word cow is it laaka  

or laaka and only through learning repetition  asking for help and advice taking classes with  

a teacher I understood how to pronounce this  word correctly it's such a simple word but I  

had so many questions about it if you watched my  video where I challenged myself to study Greek in  

24hours hours you know that I took a class with  a teacher to ask her many questions about the  

pronunciation if you haven't watched this video  yet you can click right here and check it out so  

your task for this week is to map out all letters  and sounds in this language this visual picture  

will help your brain differentiate between them  make a few notes for Each challenging moment now I  

want to take a moment to share a website I created  with a checklist layout with every single step  

I'll be mentioning in this video to be honest it  was extremely easy for me to create this website  

because I use Squarespace on Squarespace you can  choose from a variety of professional templates  

tailored to different purposes you can customize  the look update the content and add features to  

suit your needs as you can see I completely  transformed my website with just a few clicks  

squarespace's fluid engine makes it easy for  everyone to unleash their creativity just start  

with a top-notch template and easily customize  every single design detail using intuitive drag  

and drop technology for both desktop and mobile  let's add pictures and information about each step  

of language learning Squarespace also offers  powerful blogging tools to share your updates  

stories photos and videos I love using this tool  to blog in foreign languages and make my content  

stand out online if you want to create your own  website too head to squarespace.com Veronica to  

save 10% off your first purchase of a website  or domain by using my code Veron Veronica step  

two learning the most common words if you didn't  learn this language before it would be great to  

start learning with question words and linking  words those are the words you'll be using over  

and over then use Google and find a list of  1,000 most common words in this language and  

start going through them one by one this will  Aid your comprehension a lot later especially  

if you're memorizing all the words with Ani and if  you're creating good quality monkey cards here is  

another thing to keep in mind please don't start  learning all the colors in the world or all the  

different types of furniture in the world from the  very beginning because most likely you won't be  

using all of these words and conversations you'll  be talking about where you live what you like  

what you have where you go every single day what  you eat and what you want so make sure you feel  

comfortable responding to all of these questions  and yes if your favorite color is turquoise okay  

learn this name it's absolutely okay but get ready  that some people are not going to understand you  

because not everyone knows what turquoise is so  make sure you're prepared to explain that this  

color is somewhere between blue and green in one  of my previous videos I talked about how important  

it is not to learn words in isolation learn them  in context or even better learn phrases you might  

try writing what your normal day looks like in  your native language and then see all the words  

or word combinations you usually use I recently  transitioned to almost exclusively using cloth  

cards on Ani and in one of my upcoming videos I'll  tell you why and I'll tell you what I think about  

Ani and how to make this app work for you because  it's a tool and you want to make sure you know how  

to use it well then what I usually do is I start  creating my my own list of most common words of  

the vocabulary that I use all the time so for  me I want to know how to say protein fat carbs  

in Spanish in English and all the languages that  I'm learning and while you're doing this remember  

to continue listening to How words are pronounced  there are so many people who just learn new words  

and they don't even know how they're pronounced  this is not very effective first you should always  

focus on the sound how is this word pronounced  this is the first step of memorization before  

moving on before adding this word to anky make  sure you know how to say this word well a great  

website I can recommend here is forvo because it  has recordings done by native speakers there are  

so many words you can check a lot of words a lot  of Expressions so I highly recommend this website  

so your task for this week is to go through the  top 1,000 words and make a mind map of words  

that you frequently use in your life step three  learning basic grammar structures now that you  

started learning the most basic words you started  creating your own frequency dictionary continue  

by learning basic grammar structures to be able to  read and construct your own sentences I recommend  

getting one grammar book or using just one grammar  resource so that you don't feel like you know  

maybe today I should check out this grammar book  and tomorrow I have to check out that grammar book  

no just choose one and stick to it and go through  every single rule slowly while adding everything  

to Anki and yes I think that when you memorize  grammar you should use Ani too don't try to like  

jam all of this information into your brain and  magically know how to use I don't know present  

perfect continuous in English no use Ani for  that create sentences that are connected to  

this grammar Rule and this way you will memorize  everything much faster but there's also an another  

extremely effective way for example you work as  a programmer and you're really into hiking so you  

might ask chpt to give you a list of most frequent  words related to these two topics continue your  

chat and ask for the most common combinations and  phrases that these words can build then you ask  

to build sentences with them and teach you to  ask questions and ultimately build a dialogue  

or a story that you can read aloud you will  only be working with that limited vocabulary  

and it's perfect because this ensures that you  will memorize it a lot faster when words are not  

a problem it's easier to understand the language  structure the grammar imagine that you start from  

the dot and then you draw One Circle and then  the other Circle and then the other Circle your  

knowledge base expands from one place instead  of taking things from different directions your  

task for this week is to write 15 sentences or  a short story about yourself step four apply all  

right guys even though it is step four it doesn't  mean that you start reading and listening only  

now for the sake of learning I would recommend  starting listening right away to get accustomed  

to The Melody of the language to the accent and  to all the different sounds think of it as online  

dating when someone is texting you they might  sound funny and insightful but when you meet in  

person their manner of speaking is different not  necessarily better or worse when you were reading  

their messages you heard your own voice and now  you're hearing theirs it's just a new sound but it  

feels so foreign to you and you need to get used  to it so start listening right away you might ask  

how do I actually practice that read or listen to  stories or short summaries of books that you have  

already read in your native language or watch TV  shows that you previously watched in your native  

language this will make your brain double happy  you know and love the topic and recognize some  

words that you've studied I'm a huge geek when  it comes to R dolls books I read Charlie and the  

Chocolate Factory probably a million times now I'm  going to show you something right now so now I'm  

reading it in Spanish too and as you can see I'm  making a lot of progress I really hope my camera  

is focusing on the book right now my obsession  with the story with this book in English makes  

me fall in love with Spanish because I know that  I already love this story I already love this book  

so now reading it in Spanish makes me feel amazing  I'm enjoying reading and I'm enjoying learning the  

language at this point you can actually start  looking for a speaking partner too if you know  

that for you it is absolutely important to speak  this language you want to learn to speak this  

language as fast as possible apps like Tandem  and hello talk will allow you to connect to  

native speakers and other people learning the  same language so what you did in the previous  

step creating a story about yourself is what you  will use once you start talking to people this  

first conversation might make you feel nervous  but it's totally okay don't feel embarrassed  

don't feel ashamed you're absolutely fine the  sooner you begin to apply everything you learn  

by this point the easier it will feel to start a  new conversation next time your task for this week  

is to read or listen to a short summary of a book  Plus have your first conversation step five same  

stuff remember we were're talking about combining  your steady routines with your daily chores when  

I'm cleaning my apartment I listen to a show or  podcast I like I walk around the house mimicking  

things that people say it's the shattering  technique you've probably heard lots of good  

things about another thing I would recommend  is to watch speech analysis on YouTube you'll  

be able to study many things in just one video  grammar phrases intonation and connected speech  

but make sure you choose a speech analysis of an  animated movie let's say where the vocabulary is a  

lot easier to understand there's a YouTube channel  called learn English with TV series the creators  

do their best to make it fun and engaging and most  importantly helpful your task for this week is to  

watch one speech analysis on YouTube take notes  with useful Parts write only two to three new  

words or sentence structures to use in your next  conversation step six organize at this point in  

your language Journey you will slowly but surely  expand your knowledge base with so many things to  

learn pieces of information might be scattered all  over your mind to keep your focus start organizing  

everything you learned figure out which way of  organization works best for you I personally  

use notion if you're interested in how to create  your own study plan on notion you can click right  

here and check it out if you want to keep all the  things on paper I recommend having a study Journal  

using colorful bookmarks and dividing information  into section will help you see what's important  

and of course course don't forget about different  apps in terms of successful memorization I always  

talk about an and how their space repetition  algorithm helps me memorize all the new vocabulary  

I would also say that it's important to have  this honest conversation with yourself and ask  

yourself how you feel are you looking forward  to your next conversation with someone do you  

keep up with your schedule do you enjoy your  study hour do you feel genuinely curious or do  

you feel anxious and find yourself avoiding the  next step if there's no strong motivation or goal  

to learn the language you might feel like you're  forcing yourself to study be sure to have those  

checkings with yourself every week or so there's  no issue with finding steady resources right now  

but there is an issue with trying to figure out  what works for you and what doesn't your task for  

this week is to create an organization system  add a page to your journal or a planner where  

week by week you will write how you feel about  your journey so far step seven repeat and go  

deeper now with having clear goals setting an  organization system building study habits and  

having enough vocabulary and grammar to study  more complex stuff I'd recommend to challenge  

yourself with a personal project meaning you will  learn a skill and teach it to somebody for example  

making sarough bread learning some breathing  techniques learning how to type faster or or  

making a website on Squarespace pick anything  you're interested in and watch video tutorials  

in your target language it will be tough for  sure you will hear really messy speech with  

reductions read a blog or article with 50% unknown  vocabulary test yourself see where your limit is  

by challenging yourself this way you will see  how you can learn this language as a tool this  

is a great opportunity to detach yourself from  this language as a subject and use it to fulfill  

your goals and plus it's a great opportunity for  you to dig deeper and explore the topic you're  

passionate about like a few months ago I set a  challenge for myself to learn to type without  

looking at my keyboard and by using all of my  fingers because unfortunately I didn't learn to  

do that as a kid so I watched a bunch of YouTube  videos actually learned how to type this way and  

shared my journey with you on Instagram and I  think I actually inspired a few of you to learn  

how to type this way too your task for this week  is to learn one practical life skill like making  

your own website on Squarespace and teach it to  someone you know all right guys I really hope this  

video was helpful let me know in the comments  down below what language you want to learn and  

what tips from this video you would consider using  I'm really sorry if my lightning looks all over  

the place today it's kind of cloudy outside but  sometimes the sun is out sometimes it's cloudy  

and you know I just cannot change settings of my  camera every 3 minutes so I'm sorry don't forget  

that a great tool that can help you build your  own website from scratch is Squarespace the link  

to check them out is in my description if you  want to learn how I use notion to create a stud  

plan you can check out this video right here  just click right here and I'll see you there