How to Practice a New Language Alone and Succeed
Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to practice a language by yourself?
Not sure how to make progress without guidance? Many language learners face the same challenges and lack the opportunity to converse with native speakers, access a tutor, or find an exchange partner.
To address this common challenge, we’ve compiled 8 effective ways to overcome the solo struggle and practice a new language alone.
1. Connect With Your Why
As you dive into the exciting journey of learning a new language by yourself, it’s essential to connect with your goal for picking up this exciting new language. What are your reasons for learning this language? What will you be able to do when you reach your goal?
Grab a pen and paper and list all the possible reasons that motivated you to start learning your targeted language. It might be challenging to pinpoint the exact reason at first, but as you jot down potential whys, you will uncover specific reasons why you really wanted to learn the language.
Keep these reasons in mind as you practice – it’s a great way to stay motivated!
2 . Make Language Learning a Habit
Language learning takes time, effort, and a lot of consistency. Creating a language learning routine and staying consistent will make language learning a habit you practice daily. And every day, you will learn a little bit more that will eventually lead you on the path to fluency.
If you don't have a specific time frame for learning your language, a consistent 30 minutes a day to learn a language will be perfect for you.
You might wonder: How can 30 minutes a day turn into a habit?
Introducing…the half hours theory!
As the article How a half hour a day can increase your intelligence argues,"The general idea is that you do one small thing every day for half an hour and then as time goes by you gradually improve. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? You’d be surprised how many people don’t do the obvious. They do a lot of ‘talking about the obvious' – but rarely do they take action."
It sounds obvious, but we don't do it, right? You can use the half-hour theory to create a language habit and succeed in learning your new language alone.
3. Track Your Progress
Once you’re past the exciting first few weeks and months of learning a language, you might start coming into something learners call the intermediate plateau, where it starts to feel like your hard work isn’t paying off as much anymore. This is where “invisible progress” can kill your motivation, so don’t let that happen!
Tracking your progress is easy, and it’s the key to success in language learning. The easiest way? Use a journal or a dedicated app to record your daily learning activities, new vocabulary, grammar points, and any other milestones.
When you see your progress in a sort of tangible way, it boosts your confidence and keeps you committed to your learning journey. It also holds you accountable, which helps you discover your learning styles, identify what works best for you and determine which areas need more focus.
4. Read Books and Articles Out Loud
Reading a language is easier than speaking it. What if you use reading to practice your speaking skills?
The trick: read books and articles out loud. It’s a lot easier than speaking, since you don't have to form new thoughts. You're only reading them aloud.!
Want to take this up a notch? After you finish reading a chapter or paragraph out loud, close your book. Try to recite what you read, put together your own thoughts based on what you read, or make a spoken summary of it.
In AI Language Club, we teach some super fun and effective ways to generate interesting articles and varied written pieces that match your skill level. Our methods are tailored to help you practice a new language by yourself creatively and enjoyably.
5. Shadow and Imitate Videos in Your Language
Shadowing is when you watch a video or listen to a podcast, listen to a portion of it, and then repeat what you just heard while trying to imitate their words – and ideally emotions. This helps remember the words in context.
Trying to imitate native speakers is fun and engaging, and works for learners of all levels.
Here’s how to practice shadowing:
Choose audio or video content (e.g., TED Talks, interviews, YouTube videos) that interests you.
Listen to a short segment (a few sentences or a paragraph).
Pause and repeat what you heard, trying to match the speaker’s pace and emotions.
Gradually increase the length of the segments as you improve.
By joining AI Language Club, you’ll gain in-depth step-by-step guidance on incorporating transcripts, finding the perfect videos, and even practicing different accents!
You can take a look at how AI Language Club can help you in your solo learning journey here.
Whenever you practice a new language by yourself, keep a language learning journal next to you! It will be handy to write down new words, sentences, and unfamiliar grammar points.
6. Talk to AI
Practicing a new language by yourself has become more accessible than ever, especially with the help of many AI tools.
Wondering why you should use AI for language learning?
There are plenty of benefits! Here are some to consider:
It adapts to your level to put you in the right zone.
It’s fun!
It’s not judgmental.
Finally, fun writing practice.
You can access it anywhere
Here’s how to use the ChatGPT voice assistant in your practice:
Start Conversations:
Ask questions or introduce topics that you would like to discuss your target language.
Engage in a conversation with the assistant to apply what you have learned before.
Get Instant Feedback:
Ask ChatGPT’s voice assistant to correct your mistakes and suggest natural phrasing.
Use this feedback to improve.
Ask for Tips:
You can ask ChatGPT to recommend resources and techniques to help with your learning.
We have tons of great tutorials to help you boost your speaking in AI Language Club.
Here are a few:
The transformer – Rephrase what I said 🔄
In The Transformer, we'll show you how you can use AI to find different expressions, synonyms and turns of phrase to convey ideas ... so you're not stuck saying the same things over and over again!
Speak to me – Spoken conversations with AI 🤖
Speak to Me is a fun little tutorial about getting artificial intelligence to speak out loud to you – and to speak right back to it! 🤖
20 questions – Your favorite guessing game ❓
Have you ever played "20 Questions"? Games are one of the best ways to practice your language. And 20 Questions is perfect with ChatGPT, because the point of the game is to get something wrong until eventually...you get it right. And that is what learning is all about!
7. Sing Along to Your Favorite Music
The best way to learn a language is when it doesn’t feel like work.
Music is great for learning a language. Start by searching online for artists that make your favourite style of music in their language (rap and hip hop are amazing for this), or investigate local music styles in the country you’re learning about.
Then just hit play, and enjoy!
In AI Language Club, we have plenty of tutorials to teach you how to use AI to write lyrics and even create songs in the language you’re learning!
8. Use Social Media For Language Learning
Most of the time, we think of social media as a distraction and a waste of time. But there’s another way of looking at it. Follow accounts that share content in your target language, and you’ll instantly have a useful library of interesting stuff to study.
As you get better and feel confident, start making comments in your target language. Participate in discussions and ask questions. Engaging with others improves your writing skills.
You can even take it a step further and start creating your own content sharing your experiences! (And if you’d like to use AI to help you engage with the content you find on social media, you guessed it…we’ve got a tutorial just for you inside AI Language Club!)
If you want the keys to AI language success, here’s where to find it:
Ready for fresh inspiration and a lot more fun?
Join AI Language Club for just $9 a month!
Explore AI Language Club and discover how AI can transform your language learning experience.
Let’s succeed together as solo learners!