Speaker 1: 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 a 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 study routines and habits to make your goal visible and achievable. With a goal in mind, give yourself a deadline. Like, I give myself three months before my first conversation in this language. Then, schedule 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 we're taught by in 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 a native speaker and not just read everything on the website. Because when you watch a video done by a 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 in 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 repetitions as you can, can you actually build muscle memory. Don't underestimate this first step and please don't skip it. Because oftentimes 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 oftentimes 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 understand how I was supposed to pronounce certain sounds, certain letters in Spanish. For example, the word cow. Is it la vaca or la vaca? 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 24 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 slash veronica to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain by using my code 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 1000 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 Anki and if you're creating good quality Anki cards. Here's 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 closed cards on Anki and in one of my upcoming videos, I'll tell you why and I'll tell you what I think about Anki 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 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 and 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 Anki, 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 Anki too. Don't try to like jam all this information into your brain and magically know how to use, I don't know, present perfect, continuous in English. No, use Anki for that. Create sentences that are connected to this grammar rule and this way you will memorize everything much faster. But there's also another extremely effective way. For example, you work as a programmer and you're really into hiking, so you might add ChatGPT 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 stop 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 Roald Dahl's books. I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory probably a million times now. I'm gonna 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 the 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 HelloTalk 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 learned 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 talking about combining your study 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 shadow technique you've probably heard lots of good things about. Another thing I would recommend is to watch speech analysis on YouTube. You will 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 is 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 sections will help you see what's important. And of course, don't forget about different apps. In terms of successful memorization, I always talk about Anki 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 check-ins with yourself every week or so. There's no issue with finding study 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 sourdough bread, learning some breathing techniques, learning how to type faster, 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. Alright 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 lurks 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 on my camera every three 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 study plan, you can check out this video right here. Just click right here and I'll see you there.