When it comes to learning different languages, we prefer to send our children to the best possible language learning institutes, spending heavy amounts of money and making sure that the child attends the classes regularly. But consider the time duration ... maybe a month or so, the resources … limited, the child’s adherence … never asked!

Have we ever given it a thought that may be the tutored learning system is not a successful experience for the child even if the tutor is providing the easiest snippets of language, giving guidance and setting a structured programme. What if the learner is finding this way of language learning stressful?

Language learning can be satisfying and very rewarding. The only things we need to work on are the preferable ways and activities to make language-learning fun.

Learners must: l Realise the awareness of a language as a system. l Realise that the language is a means of communication and not a tool to show off.

l Be efficient to fulfill affective demands made upon them in the process of learning a language. l Be self-motivating of the performance during the period of learning.

l Be determined and involve yourselves in language learning tasks.

Allow yourselves to set your own targets for motivation towards language learning. It is mandatory to build such fundamentals of the language that are comfortable to tackle. For instance, focus on your interests and hobbies and prepare the resources accordingly.

These can be: l Reading some very useful books that are complete guides to learning a language with the most amount of fun, those which are easily available in good book stores. Or they can be books of your favourite subjects because we understand the words and expressions in a text better when they are interesting.

l Watching movies where the target language (language to be learned) is spoken a lot. Hearing people speaking naturally can help in gaining good ground in the language. Reading subtitles, too, can be helpful in grasping unclear words.

l Make foreign friends to keep in touch with their language and discuss things in a friendly, less anxious environment. Ask your friends to guide you in fluency, grammar, expressions and vocabulary skills.

l Start your own conversation club. Encourage other friends and classmates who want to practice to sit together and agree to speak to each other for a few hours to improve their language skills. This is also a great activity for building confidence.

l Imitating your favourite celebrities in the target language may sound childish but it is real fun and a great practice for intonation and fluency. If you have an ear for music then you have musical ability to gain foreign accent in the language you may want to learn. Performing in front of your people or audience will give you a sense of triumph as well.

l Enjoy cooking? Allow yourself to participate in a variety of cooking activities. Invite a helper (a better speaker) in giving and following directions. Excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, vocabulary and small-structured sentences in a proper frame of mind can work wonders in learning.

l Revise at regular intervals whatever the contents of the language whether vocabulary, sentence structures or grammar you are going through the entire day. The brain needs to memorise too but make sure that the gaps between periods of studying are not long. It is seen that mornings and evenings are the best revision time.

Learning a language is difficult but it does not have to be boring. Do it in a way that is fun and relevant to your life and you will see your language skills improving faster.

It is important to remember that at times we make rapid progress in learning a language and feel satisfied with it while at other times it appears to be a really slow process. Don’t be frustrated by this. Never feel discouraged as the best way to stay enthusiastic is by comparing your current stage with the earlier times when you didn’t even understand a single word in the language that you can understand quite a bit now. What matters is conveying your message across; using all the right words, tenses, vocabulary will take time.

Both guidance and a teacher are really important for any kind of learning. Occasional mistakes in utterances can be worked out easily with less hesitation and proper guidance in the language pattern. Ask your teacher to point out the mistakes for correction but constant pointing out of the mistakes can be demoralising as well so initially more serious mistakes should be highlighted only. More confidence and fluency will be acquired with the passing of time. You will meet the challenges without failure once you have decided to learn a language.

Language learners are motivated when they are challanged but it is seen generally that when the learning challenges are lower than the learners’s ability, the outcome is boredom. It is very likely that the language learner fails to receive a supportive environment. Individuals somewhat have to see their personal concern as learning is a long-term plan, where patience and motivation play their crucial part. One needs to foster one’s habit as a learner to help succeed.