Choose a New Language to Learn

3 Parts:

Situations in Which Proficiency in a Foreign Language is Useful

How to Choose a New Language to Learn

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Have you ever had difficulty conversing with another person, mainly because there is a language barrier? Have you at some point wished you knew another language? Are you interested in learning a new language, yet get confused with so many options out there? It is important to learn to prioritize the languages that are more useful to you and begin step-by-step from there.

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   School

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   Foreign language is required in school when you study in an international university. Even if you are in a local university, a bit of knowledge of another language comes in handy when you need to do some research. There are valuable resources out there written in other languages and it would be useful if you can maximize on those because you understand the language.

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2. 2
   Business or Work

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   There is a huge potential in business or at work that you may need to know another language, especially if you are having international interactions. For example, if you are sourcing for materials, you would need to transact with various manufacturing companies, the majority of which are centralized in China, India, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Turkey, and the like.

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3. 3
   Travel

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   Whether it is a personal or business trip, some knowledge of the language of the country of destination would be useful to make things easier for you.

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4. 4
   Personal Interactions

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   You also cannot avoid forming friendships and having acquaintances with people from other countries. Communication becomes more efficient and effective if you both know how to speak each other's language.

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1. 1
   Identify your need and the source of motivation to learn a new language

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   While the desire to learn a new language may just be a hobby or out of curiosity, you also have to assess what other needs you might have. More often than not, what happens is that a person do recognize that he wants and needs to learn certain languages, yet he gets overwhelmed by so many options. In the end, he ends up actually starting with nothing. Start by just pinpointing one language that you'd like to begin learning now and move from there. Taking it one step at a time will more likely ensure that you can succeed, instead of thinking and desiring to learn several languages and giving up in frustration. In other words, be concrete in terms of your need so it is more actionable.

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2. 2
   Prioritize your needs according to importance and urgency

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   Listing your needs and then analyzing each according to importance and urgency not only will keep things more organized and concrete, but it will also help you set a time frame.

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3. 3
   Set a specific time frame as to when you would actually like to learn at least the basics of the language

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   Setting a target for yourself is an effective motivation because you have a way to somehow measure if you had been successful or not. At the same time, the feeling of actually fulfilling something over a period of time can be encouraging. It is important, however, that you set realistic targets. If you think it will take you three months to learn the basics, then don't force yourself to learn it in a month. A time frame also allows you to organize all the other languages you'd like to learn. You will not feel overwhelmed by the thought that there's still a lot to learn, as you know there is an organized schedule to accommodate everything else.

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4. 4
   Consider how you will be able to practice the language

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   This is another aspect that is equally important because practice helps you learn faster. Prioritize languages which you have more opportunity to actually practice, because that will make your learning stronger.

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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