Youtube Taught Me a New Language
We are living in a digital age and there are endless ways to learn something new.
There are tons of ways to learn a new language now without going to a course for it. One of the most resourceful and useful things is YouTube. Yes. You didn’t read it wrong. With YouTube, you can learn whatever you want, either a language, a historical part of the world, anything you like. But I think one of the most complicated parts of it is learning a language. Because it takes a lot of courage, consistency, curiosity, etc.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
– Ludwig Wittgenstein
YouTube offers an easy way out for this. However, it is still essential that one must take this seriously and play it according to rules, be consistent, and don’t give up. YouTube is not a magical website that puts the language into your brain, it just makes the process easier than it is and that is why you can and have to use it to your advantage to make a difference.
FIND YOUR WAY
Do not go around looking at different tactics on how to learn languages because most probably they won’t work with you. Everyone is unique in their way and you must learn and discover your way of learning it. The first thing to do about this is to learn every type of learning, listening, reading, writing, speaking and try every one of them, see which one fits you the best, where you feel that you are learning, and create a schedule for that.
“You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.”
– Geoffrey Willans
The schedule is important because if you miss one day, you miss the rest of the days as well. Keep it a habit, make it more detailed, and try focusing on it every day with a calendar you’ll make the day before the next day. It is important to keep track of your studies in that matter because without it, you’d lose it and it won’t be a habit which is our next topic.
HABITS ARE THE KEY
Probably, you’ve heard the 21/90 rule about habits. Do something for 21 days, and the pursuit of that passion will become a habit, and if you can maintain that for another 90 days, it will become a permanent lifestyle change/habit. It works, it doesn’t matter how cliche it is. Because most of the time, cliches are the true form of knowledge. After you have found your way of learning, apply the 21/90 rule.
No matter what happens, it is important to maintain this lifestyle. But you might think that you don’t want this to be a permanent lifestyle, you just want to learn the language. Well, that’s correct but your path doesn’t stop with just one language. You can direct that to another language OR another hobby, however you wish. You will have that timeline in your day for whatever it is that you chose. But, it is important to note that, you will implement a timeline for this, whenever it is, there will be a period that you should attribute a part of your day to and this is the most important thing when it comes to this. So, you have to have a plan in your hand to maintain this because you can’t spend 20 minutes of an hour session to find a source to work on. This is another topic we’ll talk about. How to find resources and how to make a plan to make use of them.
FINDING SOURCES TO LEARN
Now, it doesn’t matter which language you are trying to learn, or through which way, there is always someone on YouTube that is trying to teach it to you. So you have to do your research, find a couple of channels, research them if they are good enough, if they upload frequently or if they are qualified enough for you to learn whatever it is that you want to study.
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.”
— Flora Lewis
It is totally up to you if you want to use YouTube as the only or main source of learning, but, you can put at least %60 maybe %70 of it into your schedule because the contents are vibrant, and it is not only people trying to teach you something, but you can also use short sit-coms, movies, TV shows (according to your level) and watch them. With the help of an extension called “Language Learning with YouTube”, you can also watch it with two different languages at the same time which is a huge plus considering how much you can learn while doing this.
How to find resources is totally up to you, if you Google it or use YouTube search, it gives a lot of channels and videos for you to use, but the trick is to choose between them to find a good fit for you and your learning skills. Be precise, don’t go for the first thing you see, search intensely because you are going to spend your time on it do not waste it.
DON’T STOP
Well, now you’ve got everything you need. The last thing is to not giving up, not stopping, running down until you reach the finish line. Everyday, mornings, nights, go out of your schedule if needed but make it happen. These are crazy times we are going through and make the best out of it by coming out of it more powerful than ever. Don’t stop, always run.
