The Best Way for Learning a Foreign Language

Scientific research shows that being bilingual or multilingual has mental benefits besides economic and social advantages. So learning a foreign language is highly important. However, successfully learning a foreign language isn't so easy. Unfortunately, most of us can't speak the foreign language fluently that we've been trying to learn in schools for years. But in a TEDx talk, two friends show that we can achieve to speak a foreign language, such as Chinese and Korean, fluently in just three months (click here to watch the video).

How could they do that? In short, the answer is that they went to the country where the language they wanted to learn is spoken, and they only used their target language instead of their mother tongue, English. They know that everyone can't go abroad to learn a language. So they suggest a three-step simple method. Here's their method:

1. Find one person
2. Commit to the no English (mother tongue) rule with this person
3. Start speaking

I think their method is good but too simple. There are some missing points in their method, such as what to speak, how to prepare for speaking, and how to retain the knowledge for a long time. So I decided to change that method a little and develop it further. Here is my method what I call the "neo lexical method."

• Find a foreign person.
• S/he could be a native speaker of the target language or learner of the target language, but s/he shouldn't know your native language, so you have to use the target language
• Choose a topic from topics word lists for your next conversation
• To prepare for the conversation, learn the words in the topic word list by writing them in sentences or phrases and repeat them by using a flashcard app.
• This step is the reason why I called this method "lexical".
• Start speaking

Just a general outline of the method I shared above. There are more details dependent on the levels and needs of the learners. 

I hope my article will be beneficial for you. Thank you for reading and goodbye.