The Hidden Secret Nobody Tells behind Learning New Languages

So many people are interested in learning new languages.

Both for career changes or simply life choices, people want to get into other languages and find the secret ingredient to make the process easy, fast, joyful.
I thought for a long time about putting my two cents into this debate, since I am a little polyglot myself and often get asked about how I make it (I just speak Italian, English and French fluently and I enjoy having a conversation in Lithuanian and Spanish, even though  inexplicably Lithuanian seems to progress).
Now, the internet is a place full of resources that can help you to get to know a language and use it (recently Luca Lampariello, a language coach and polyglot, published a very detailed article specifically on this matter). But while everybody stresses the importance of the “How”, often nobody focuses on what matter the most: Why.

I learned French because I was living and studying in France and was so willing to understand and take part in everything around me, the same applicable for Spanish, which, as funny as it sounds, I learned in Vilnius, talking it everyday during lunch time with friends.

Surely enough we keep talking on how much time and difficulties one encounters in language learning and I do agree: the process of learning a language can truly become a nightmare, full of repetitive activities, mistakes, trials, changes. This is the bad part you start seeing when you lack of the Why part.

I always remember myself sitting in the middle of some discussion happening over my head in some other language, willing to participate. This has been always the best lesson ever: the constant motivation to exist and shape the world around me.

I was thinking about all of this and probably building up a post regarding the personality traits that I believe are fundamental in order to learn every language (or basically everything if you want), when I bumped into this fantastic post made by Mark Adam Harold, Vilnius City Councillor and really smart guy (you should definitely read his story, for example here and start following him on Facebook).

I have a little more to say since he made the point and I would definitely recommend everybody to give it a check  before starting any language course. The post is about Lithuanian but could be still valid for every language and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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