Hey y'all. A lot of people asked me how I got bilingual. This happened few times the past years. So I decided to write about it. Learning a new language. It's exciting but scary at the same time, am I right? I, personally, am bilingual and I'm currently learning two new languages. Insane. Born and raised in Belgium, I'm a French native speaker and I grew up learning English at school. I started at 8 I think. 20 years later, I speak both with an extreme confidence. And through my work, I started learning Spanish and Italian. So far, I don't say much but I'm working my way through it. So, here are my tips to learn and speak a language with a certain level of confident. And this won't cost you a dime.
LEARN THE BASICS
That's obviously the main thing here when you want to learn a new language. Learn how to say hello, goodbye or even thank you (that one is really useful). Discover the main verbs like have or be. Check out basic sentences, learn them and see how a phrase is made. Language 101. Easy peasy. I remember googling "basic spanish sentences" or even "italian surviving phrases", this helped me a lot during my previous travels.
LISTEN AND REPEAT
Most of my English, Spanish or even Italian comes from movies or music. I spot sentences and I wrote them somewhere. Most of the time, when I'm alone only, I repeat it. Several times to see if I can say it out loud or not. And to try to hide my ugly french accent. Or too see if I'm going to butcher it. You should see me watching Fuller House and repeating every single sentence. Yes, that's how it works. Even after 20 years.
PRACTICE AND TRAVEL
Find people who speaks other language than your mother tongue. It's not always easy, it's also the reason why you should travel more. Travelling is always a solution and a good thing. Check in your city if there's event like Mundo Lingo (this even helped me having a social when I moved to Canada in 2017), where you can meet people from everywhere and socialize through languages. It's all good.
Of course, all the tips I've given are useful when you want to learn a new language by yourself. You always have the solution of going to school for it of course. I have no inherent knowledge but this helped me a lot alongside with leaving my birth country to move to England or even Canada. You can try that as well, I mean it's always a fabulous experience. You can get the best of both world by going in another country to take languages class, for a short period. I mean, there's a lot of people doing it but we don't always have the money for it, right?
DO NOT TRUST GOOGLE
If there's one thing I have learned is that Google Translate isn't your friend. It translates word by word and not the phrase itself. Which is confusing. But, for some words it can definitely help. I'd rather suggest using translator like DeepL, this one is definitely more accurate. Always double check when you are using a translator. As I said, it's not always reliable.APPS
Last thing is to use apps. Yes, that's my last tip. Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu etc. can be very helpful. It doesn't help you to become bilingual overnight of course, this takes time but this can help and motivate. I think some has "rewards" when you are at a certain level of advancement.Of course, all the tips I've given are useful when you want to learn a new language by yourself. You always have the solution of going to school for it of course. I have no inherent knowledge but this helped me a lot alongside with leaving my birth country to move to England or even Canada. You can try that as well, I mean it's always a fabulous experience. You can get the best of both world by going in another country to take languages class, for a short period. I mean, there's a lot of people doing it but we don't always have the money for it, right?
And you will find me on social networks as well, such as instagram and pinterest
