Best Way to Learn a Second or Foreign Language?

Is there one best method to learn a language? If you are a child, I'd say it's the immersion method. Living the language, children learn a second language about the same way they learned their native language. If you are an adult (post-puberty, more or less) learning a second or foreign language, it's a different story. There are so many different variables involved, that it's hard to say what would be the best method. Here are some of the possible variables: the learner's motivation, personality type, aptitude for language learning, learning style, what language the learner is hearing and speaking outside class, how the learner views the language being learned, the teacher's personality and style, the teaching materials. These are only a few of many variables involved in language learning. So when asked what the best method is to learn a language, maybe the best answer is "it depends."

Popular Ideas about Languages

There are many popular beliefs about languages that can't be supported by the facts. Some people believe that certain languages, like Chinese, are more difficult to learn than others, like Spanish. But wait a minute. Every language is easy for babies to learn as their first language. Babies learn Chinese and Spanish with equal ease. As adults, it's harder for us to learn any second or foreign language. Also, some adults are better at learning foreign languages than others. It's probably easier to learn a language that is related to your own native language than a language that is not. For example, it's generally easier for a Spanish speaker to learn Italian than to learn Chinese, just because Spanish and Italian both come from the same language historically, so they have many similarities.

People have other funny ideas about languages. French is considered romantic, German logical, Italian beautiful. Indigenous languages are thought to be primitive. These simplistic notions about languages have more to do with the way others view the histories and cultures of speakers of the languages--often based on stereotypes and prejudices--than they do about the languages themselves. What would make a language romantic, logical, or beautiful, anyway? Most people would probably use those words to describe their own native languages.