French

The first language I learned was French, starting from my first year in middle school and up until my first year of university, when I changed my major from French translation to East Asian Studies due to, uh... unforeseen circumstances. My studies in French were pretty exclusively classroom-based, and since I was working on it every day at school for seven years, plus a lot of review time outside of school of my own volition, I was able to learn it fairly well. In my last few years of high school I started using a language exchange website to talk to some native speakers, but my study was still almost entirely classroom-centered. The structure of the classroom setting worked well for me; I don't really have much more to say about that!

Korean

Korean also started with structured classroom study, but I quickly started incorporating extra practice outside of class. After getting away from the structure of the classroom, I found multiple ways to keep my learning going and going.

One of the most important things is finding ways to enjoy and engage with the language outside of study time. That can be movies, music, TV programs, whatever. Most recently, I am engaging with Korean through books. I read every day which is beneficial for maintaining my current level and helping me pick up new words, and it doesn't feel like studying to me.

In general, my philosophy is to study a little and practice a lot. This really went into effect when I came to Korea, but it's doable even if you don't have direct in-person access to native speakers of the language you want to learn, which I'll touch on in just a moment! Of course I still did some grammar and vocabulary study, but memorizing rules and words out of context will only get you so far. I pushed myself to write journals in Korean and go to language exchange meetups where I would work on my speaking and listening skills and pick up more native-like pronunciation, intonation, and wording. I even started my blog, which became a website, as a way to help myself study — writing my grammar posts really helps me to review things that I have learned and make sure I know them!

Mandarin and Japanese

Mandarin and Japanese are the only two of my languages that I have never received formal instruction in, and with these, I really follow the study-less-practice-more philosophy. With both languages, I started out with a mish-mash of various apps and textbooks and websites. I used those to get a basic—and I mean very basic—foundation going, and then I jumped right in to language exchange websites and applications. I would practice the little Mandarin and Japanese that I know with native speakers, who would tell me if I said something that didn't make sense. Then, it was on me to try to rephrase and make a sentence that conveyed what I wanted. Also, just by reading what the other person wrote back to me in response, I could pick up new words and learn new grammar. This worked and still does work especially well with Mandarin, as I have a popup dictionary on both my phone and my computer so I can look up any new word in an instant. It's actually a bit more of a struggle with Japanese, but it's certainly doable!

For speaking and listening practice, I sometimes do voice chats with language exchange partners I find via these various apps and sites. Of course, one must be careful when doing things like these, but I have never had a bad voice chatting experience yet! I find these opportunities to practice, grab on to them, and work them as hard as I can.

Now that I am getting a bit better with Mandarin and Japanese, I am getting into reading in both of those languages. Using graded readers (the virtues of which you can read about here) and reader apps, even with my limited command of those languages I can read and understand short texts.

Overall

Language is meant to be used with other people! Just memorizing a lot of rules and vocabulary will only get you so far. You really need to use your language with others to practice and find out what is and isn't working for you.

There are so many resources out there for learning languages, and I encourage you to find as many as you can, test them out, and find what works best for your learning needs and style. It might be a long and frustrating journey, but once you find a material or method that really clicks for you, it will be like a new door forward has suddenly burst open.