“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” —Frank Smith

Dive into language learning like you’re binge-watching your favorite TV series—one episode after another. Forget grammar rules; they’re like pesky commercials. Speak like a toddler; no one’s judging your adult gibberish. Talk to yourself in the mirror; you’re the best audience you’ll ever have. And remember, language apps are your sidekick, not your superhero cape. Happy blabbering!

Learning a new language isn’t just about chatting with more people; it’s a major brain booster. Studies have found that being bilingual or multilingual actually sharpens cognitive skills that aren’t tied to language at all. For example, it makes you better at switching between tasks. When you flip between languages, your brain gets really good at handling multiple tasks at once. My multilingual friends are some of the best multitaskers I know.

On top of that, speaking more than one language is linked to better memory, enhanced problem-solving skills, and greater mental flexibility. It even helps delay age-related cognitive decline and dementia. Being multilingual keeps your brain in top shape, giving it a serious mental workout that benefits many areas of life.

Additionally, being a polyglot can give your brain some serious superpowers. Picture this: your brain is like a bouncer at an exclusive club, expertly managing the VIP list of tasks and shooing away any unwanted distractions. Studies show that multilingual folks often excel at ignoring the unimportant stuff and laser-focusing on what really matters. This supercharged focus can be your secret weapon in both the boardroom and the living room.

But wait, there’s more! Knowing multiple languages isn’t just a mental workout; it’s like having a golden ticket to the Willy Wonka factory of culture. Suddenly, you’re diving into literary masterpieces, binge-watching foreign films, and chatting up strangers in their native tongue. This cross-cultural adventure breeds empathy and makes you the most culturally sensitive person at the dinner party. In an interconnected world, that’s a skill set worth flaunting!

Knowing more than one language can seriously level up your career game. These days, companies love hiring people who can juggle multiple languages. It’s a great way to get noticed and can land you some cool international gigs.

Learning a new language is super rewarding. It takes some discipline, perseverance, and patience—all skills that are useful in every part of life. Plus, mastering new words and grammar rules can give you a real sense of achievement and boost your confidence.

Being multilingual isn’t just about chatting with more people. It can also sharpen your mind, help you understand different cultures, boost your career, and contribute to your personal growth. So, picking up new languages is definitely worth it!

Techniques for Effective Language Learning

Learning a new language can be super fun, especially when you mix up different methods to cover all bases. Taking formal classes, like the ones on Preply, gives you a solid structure to follow, which is great for nailing down grammar.

Diving into immersive learning is amazing too—think watching movies, jamming to music, or reading books in the language you’re learning. It really helps you get the hang of the language’s rhythm and flow. Plus, doing a little bit every day beats cramming big sessions once in a while. Consistency is key!

Interactive apps like Duolingo are awesome for picking up vocabulary and basic grammar. And swapping conversations with native speakers on platforms like Tandem is a blast for practicing in real-life scenarios. You teach them, they teach you—everyone wins!

Also, try using memory hacks like spaced repetition to help things stick better. Mixing all these different methods gives you a well-rounded approach to language learning. You might not become fluent overnight, but you’ll definitely get better at understanding and interacting with different cultures.

Shortcut Your Way to Vocabulary Awesome-sauce

Let’s dive deeper into the fascinating world of memorizing languages and vocabulary. A shortcut to learning languages, or anything else, faster is to link what you are learning with something you already know.

Technique 1: Identify the shared patterns of similar words

Some languages share roots, and when you understand those patterns, you can shortcut learning a significant amount of vocabulary. For example, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian are descendants of Latin, or we call these Romance languages. Even though English descended from Germanic languages, it borrowed a significant portion of its vocabulary from Romance languages.^[ii] So, if you are learning a Romance language like Spanish, from English or vice versa, you can learn to identify these vocabulary similarities.

Using this principle, we are going to learn thirty Spanish words quickly. Here are some example patterns to shortcut learning Spanish vocabulary:

English → Spanish for nouns ending in -tion

• Information → Información
• Education → Educación
• Population → Población
• Communication → Comunicación
• Organization → Organización
• Operation → Operación
• Situation → Situación
• Transformation → Transformación
• Generation → Generación
• Celebration → Celebración

We can even convert these words to their verb equivalents. To convert these nouns ending in “-tion” to their verb equivalents, we make the following changes:

• Information: Inform (from “información” to “informar”) → Información: Informar
• Education: Educate (from “educación” to “educar”) → Educación: Educar
• Population: Populate (from “población” to “poblar”) → Población: Poblar
• Communication: Communicate (from “comunicación” to “comunicar”) → Comunicación: Comunicar
• Organization: Organize (from “organización” to “organizar”) → Organización: Organizar
• Operation: Operate (from “operación” to “operar”) → Operación: Operar
• Situation: Situate (from “situación” to “situar,”) → Situación: Situar (though “situate” is less commonly used in English)
• Transportation → Transport (from “transportación” to “transportar”)
• Transformation: Transform → Transformación: Transformar
• Generation: Generate (from “generación” to “generar”) → Generación: Generar
• Celebration: Celebrate (from “celebración” to “celebrar”) → Celebración: Celebrar

That’s a total of thirty Spanish words, all based on English words we already know. Pretty quick, right? Using this same trick, we could quickly expand our vocab to thousands of Spanish words. We’d just need to learn how to pronounce them in Spanish, practice listening and speaking, and figure out any major differences in spelling or meaning.

Watch out for false cognates though—these are words that look like they mean the same thing in both languages but actually don’t. They can lead to some funny misunderstandings. For example, I once asked a Guatemalan colleague how they were doing and they replied, “Actualmente, estoy constipado.” At first, it sounded like, “Actually, I’m constipated.” But nope, this sentence has two false cognates. “Actualmente” means “currently” or “nowadays,” not “actually,” and “constipado” in this case means “having a cold” or “stuffy” (as in a blocked nose), not “constipated.” It was a pretty hilarious mix-up.

Technique 2: If there’s no obvious link to something you already know, make one up using your imagination

The idea here is to connect new, unfamiliar stuff you’re trying to learn with things you already know. For instance, take the Spanish “Cómo estás?” (Pronounced “CO mow es TAHS”), which means: How are you? (informal). You might picture the beautiful mountain range in Colorado called Estes. Imagine someone falling into a Coma at Estes, and you might ask that person, “Como estas?” Of course, they wouldn’t answer.

This trick works best when you come up with your own connections because they need to relate to something you’re familiar with. These mnemonic links act like memory aids. Once you start actually using the foreign words in sentences, you won’t need the memory aids anymore, and the words will just stick.

Imagination is super powerful for learning and memory if you use it right. A fun way to remember new vocab is to make funny, memorable connections between new words and familiar things. The crazier, the better.

So there you go: a bunch of different tools and techniques to make language learning more fun and memorable.

[i] Viorica Marian and Anthony Shook, “The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual,” Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science vol. 2012(2012): 13, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23447799/; Anat Prior and Brian MacWhinney, “A Bilingual Advantage in Task Switching,” Bilingualism 13, no. 2 (December 17, 2009): 253–62, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728909990526.

^[ii]“Latin and English,” Cogitatorium, n.d., https://rharriso.sites.truman.edu/latin-language/latin-and-english.