How to Actually Learn a New Language in 2025 (evidence-based)

hello everyone and welcome back to my YouTube channel today I want to help you learn a new language in 2025 and share a few strategies that have been working great for me I'm testing a new filmy format using a microphone kind of like recording a podcast so please let me know in the comments what you think about the setup a little bit more relaxed I feel like so please let me know your thoughts the first strategy I feel like is going to be extremely important in 2025 if you want to learn a new language is

focusing on comprehensible input I've been learning a lot of different languages ever since I was a little kid and right now I'm especially focused on learning Spanish and over the years of learning multiple foreign languages I realized that focusing on comprehensible input is probably the most important thing for me it's definitely something that has helped me improve my language skills a lot and also feel good in the process of learning a foreign language because I don't want you guys to feel stressed I don't want you guys to feel anxious and feel like you're not doing

enough when it comes to learning a language so basically the theory of comprehensible input comes from Steven crashion a linguist who developed it in 1980s as part of his input hypothesis all of these words are going to make sense in a minute just bear with me here basically crash and believe that the best way to learn a language is to be exposed to a language that you can mostly understand but with just a little bit of challenge to stretch your abilities and guys once you really understand this strategy and start implementing it you will see

results immediately because a lot of us language Learners tend to use resources that are a little bit more advanced than our current level is yes maybe right now in Spanish I want to watch a very famous movie or a very famous TV show but I have to be honest with myself and ask myself this question do I think I'm going to understand most of the information because I really want this movie or this show to be just above just a little bit above my current level of Spanish this is often written as i+ one where

I is your current level and + one is a small step above it again I + one not i+ 2 I + 10 I + 20 I know a lot of us want to choose I + 20 at the very beginning but please let's slow down and let's start with i + one the reason why this strategy really works is you don't really force yourself to memorize a lot of complicated grammar a lot of new vocabulary you know sometimes you open a book and when you start reading it in every single line you have a

word you don't know what does it tell us it tell us that this book is way too hard for you it is not I + 1 it is probably I + 10 and so if you're being exposed to a language that is just slightly above your current level with maybe a few new words phrases grammar rules mixed in in just a few this will actually motivate you to continue learning this language because one of the reasons language Learners lose motivation and stop practicing is because they realize that learning a language is too hard and why

do they realize that learning a language is too hard because they chose materials that were way hard for them okay so to really drive the message home at every single stage of your language learning Journey if you want to be improving and if you're also want to feel good while improving while advancing you should choose materials that are only slightly above your current level and yes that works when you become Advanced too if you want to continue improving don't stop at what you already know if you're watching a show and you're realizing that you literally

know everything all the words all the grammar rules maybe it's time to choose something else if your goal is to continuously improve your language skills these strategies I just mentioned can really make your language learning more efficient and because of that more fun and now I want to share with you guys something that has made my traveling experiences a lot more efficient a lot more fun and much easier and that is my level eight luggage and I want to say huge thank you to them for sponsoring a portion of this video I recently crossed the

Atlantic Ocean twice in one week to go see my family and guess what I took with me of course my level eight suitcase the set I have is the Luminous texture twopiece and I just love the way it looks so much I think it's Sleek stylish and perfect for any trip but my absolute favorite feature of level eight luggage is their wheels I'm really obsessed with them the way I can just Glide my suitcase through airports with zero effort is truly amazing their wheels spin 360° and that is exactly why it is so easy to

use them when you open your suitcase all of your clothes are going to be organized and I'm all for organization because I honestly hate this feeling when you come to the Hotel you open the zipper and then all of your clothes just fall out of your suitcase that is not going to happen with your level eight luggage there's a spot for everything which makes packing and finding my things so much simpler I can fit everything I need without having to stress about where it all goes and honestly I love how level a combines design and

practicality exactly what you need when you travel you want your suitcase to look cute but you also want it to work well and be practical and only for you guys I have a special 10% discount off your order if you use my code Veronica 10 a checkout I will also leave the link in the description so make sure to check out level eight the second strategy that is going to be indispensable extremely important in 2025 if you want to learn a new foreign language is focusing on active recall and space repetition maybe these two strategies

could be you know separated like strategy number one and strategy number two but I decided to combine them because I personally use them together and if you use certain applications or if you try to do it by yourself you will most likely combine these strategies into one as well so what is active recall it is basically when you're trying to actively remember what you have just learned instead of just rereading you know if you open your notebook you can read all of the words you have there like the word the definition the word the definition

you can just read all of that or you can close the definition for example and make yourself practice active recall and be like okay the first word is mesmerizing what does it mean I have to explain what it means using my own words this is active recall and it is a lot more effective than root memorization or than just rereading all of your notes and yeah guys if you decide to practice active recall you're going to realize that it is way harder than just reviewing all of your vocabulary recalling information using your own words to

describe something is always harder but it is way more effective as well okay now let's move on to the second sub strategy which is space repetition you practice space repetition when instead of camming all of the information all at once and then forgetting about it you try to review information at increasing intervals over time for example you have a list of words and you review them to today and then you review them tomorrow and then you review them 5 days later and then 10 days later and then 20 days later this is the strategy that

will actually help you use the words while speaking because I know a lot of you guys experience this situation you know that you know this word maybe when you read something or watch a movie but when it comes to actually speaking the language and then using this word or expression yourself you freeze you forget this word and you just feel so frustrated and so what can you do practice spaced repetition it will help you move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory thus preventing forgetting and yes technically before I mentioned that you can

create those intervals by yourself maybe have a calendar but honestly it is so hard it's so hard to stay consistent for me if I create my own time intervals it is so hard for me to be disciplined and so I always choose a method that is easier that is going to guarantee that I stay consistent and disciplined in my language learning journey and so because of that I use Ani I talk about Ani all the time on this YouTube channel because this is the app that I literally use for every single new language I learn

and it's not just me most polyglots use Ani as well and the reason why so many people love Ani is because their core philosophy was always about providing a tool for language Lear Learners and students to improve their skills without focusing on making money the app is open source and it remains free for your computer if you want to download an app you have to pay for it but you pay for it once and you forget about it and it's not very expensive and so these two strategies combined active recall and space repetition really make

sure that you're deeply actively learning and not just recognizing words when you see them the next super important strategy that is going to help you learn a new language in 2025 is learning all of the vocabulary in context and yes I know that you have probably heard of this super important rule but I actually want to take it a step further and show you how I learn all of the vocabulary and context so as I mentioned previously I use Ani and on Ani you can create cards in multiple formats and the formats that I absolutely

love and that I use very often right now to memorize vocabulary and context is creating close cards c o l z e close cards they let you learn vocabulary by removing a word from a sentence and then making you recall it we are practicing strategy number two and we're combining it with strategy number three which makes your language learning a lot more effective so let's say you're trying to learn a new word in English for example Serene and instead of just gramming this and being like okay Serene translation to my native language I don't think

that it's very effective and plus we're going to try to move away from your native language as soon as possible what you're going to do is open Ani and then create or find a sentence that uses this word serene and what is especially important is you're going to find a sentence that you can potentially use you look at it you read it and ask yourself this question can I use this sentence do I see myself using the sentence and conversations in the future if the answer is no you have to change the sentence until the

answer becomes yes otherwise it's not effective it's a waste of time okay then you basically added to Ani using the close card feature hiding the word that you want to recall so let's say right here I have the sentence the view from the mountain was so Serene that I didn't want to leave maybe I went hiking and when I read the sentence I'm like yes I can definitely use this sentence in my conversations because I love hunking so I'm going to keep it and so I have to highlight the word serene and then hide it

so that later Ani shows me the sentence without the word serene and maybe I can find a picture to represent the word serene something super calm maybe somebody doing yoga clear sky and basically add all of these pictures so that they can help me recall the word better again we're not using your native language here at all pictures and context are enough and yes guys I want to be honest with you and say that using these types of cards on Ani is also harder it is way harder than just reviewing vocabulary in your notebook you

will actually make your brain work and think because your brain is trying to recall that word from memory instead of relying on root memorization or on translating from your native language but I really hope you're watching my channel because you are serious about language learning and maybe you're tired of all the traditional strategies that don't seem to work you've tried writing down all the vocabulary you've tried cramming everything but all of this doesn't seem to work and that is absolutely understandable why all of this doesn't work and so now I'm giving you really effective strategies

but obviously you will have to make more effort to use them but I promise you the effort will pay off editing Veronica here so I realized that I really needed to add this little part where I was talking about you know you don't have to use translations just use pictures um I feel like it's important to add that what I would personally do if I'm trying to memorize the word serene for example I see it for the very first time first I go to Google and I look up the definition of the word serene in

English obviously right cuz we're trying to not use translation um so here the definition is calm peaceful untroubled tranquil and so I basically choose the words that I kind of already know and understand let's say calm and peaceful and I can include these words to anky as well to help me a little bit because yes sometimes you can include pictures but you see the pictures and um the word is hidden and you like okay what am I supposed to use here calm peaceful but now you have to use the word that is a little bit

more advanced and so sometimes I also add some uh definitions maybe in English an explanation or something that is going to guide me in the right path that is going to help me recall the information a little bit better because otherwise just looking at the pictures you might be like I don't know what's happening here I don't remember the word and one last thing if you feel like you really need to look up the translation of specific word like all of these words in English are not really doing it for you okay please do it

but still try not to create cards that are going to look like Serene your native language Majestic your native language you know because we're trying to switch your brain to English or whichever language you're learning the next strategy is going to be very useful for those of you guys who are learning multiple foreign languages or you can already speak one foreign language at a very good level for example this is my situation with English because my native language is Russian I can speak English really well so I'm using English to learn a new foreign language

I know it might be tempting to use your native language to start learning a new language for example I could be using Russian to learn Spanish but instead I'm using English to learn Spanish if I need a certain you know explanation for a grammar rule I'm always going to use English for that and the reason why this is a good strategy is you're just going to spend more time with your foreign languages instead of with your native language because it's your native language let's be honest you can already speak your native language really well and

so I think it's better to focus on your foreign languages and use them as a platform kind of to learn new languages if that is the goal and I feel like especially for me learning Spanish in English makes way more sense because a lot of native English speakers are trying to learn Spanish or can't speak Spanish whereas learning Spanish using Russian I understand that a lot of people who speak Russian are also probably learning Spanish but I think it's maybe not as common maybe there aren't a lot of resources in Russian that explain stuff about

Spanish but at the end of the day my goal is to spend more time time with my foreign languages with English and with Spanish and not more time practicing my native language the next Super useful strategy to learn a new language in 2025 is using anchoring to stay consistent anchoring is something that I really discovered for myself in 2024 and because of that I started being consistent in my sports yoga bouldering going to the gym in my languages especially Spanish the way it works is you have to think of something that is going to make

you come back to a language no matter what basically your anchor you know it's always going to be there and you're always going to come back to the language because your anchor is there for me it's my weekly Spanish classes with my teacher because I realized that when I don't practice Spanish with any teachers what happens is I become lazy my discipline starts lacking I skip a day 2 3 five a week two weeks I don't practice Spanish at all but those weekly classes really remind me to check in with myself and with my Spanish

learning progress and be honest with myself like Veronica have you actually practiced Spanish this week the answer is no that is not a very good answer the answer is yes good job continue when it comes to language learning I have noticed that what works for most people as an anchor is something they paid for because let's be real a lot of us do want to use free language learning resources but once we pay for something we value it a lot more and we immediately become more consistent more dedicated just because we spend our own hard-earned

money on it and so I am the same way I have a lot of things on my plat every single day if I don't really pay for my language learning I stop practicing just because I think ah it's fine you know I'll do it on the weekend and then the weekend comes and I don't do anything but once I pay for something maybe it's an na maybe it's my class maybe it's a language book I'm immediately more dedicated and more disciplined so maybe for you your anchor is also going to be something you will pay

for just think about it the next strategy for super busy people is practicing habit stacking and that is honestly exactly why a lot of people like dual lingo because they can practice habit stacking and use this fun app for example you're sitting in line there's nothing to do or you're waiting for your Uber you're bored and you can just do your dual lingo really quickly and so what I'm proposing is instead of using dual lingo let's use some other resources but also practice habit stacking and for that to be working effectively I really think you

should create a list of all the activities you could be doing while learning a foreign language you basically stack your your new habit on your existing one let's say you go to the gym that is a great habit that you already have and at the gym you can listen to a language learning podcast for example that is going to be habit stacking or maybe watch a YouTube video in Spanish and English depending on which language you're learning that is again habit stacking you're waiting in line you're waiting for something for your Uber you can do

your Anie cards maybe this is not really habit stacking because being in line is not really a habit more like activity stacking you know sometimes you can stack multiple activities on top of each other and that is going to work great as well okay and finally I want to finish this video by talking about the self-determination theory that is something that I learned only recently and when I learned about this Theory I was like it makes so much sense especially when it comes to language learning according to the self-determination Theory people are more likely to

stay consistent in activities that they find intrinsically motivating meaning activities that they enjoy and find personally meaningful how can we apply that to language learning if you tie learning a new language to your personal values you're way more likely to stay disciplined stay consistent stay engaged with the language for example a few months ago in 2024 I decided to learn Korean just because I watched a YouTube video and I was like oh my God this language looks so fun the writing system the the pronunciation everything I'm going to learn it and then you know what

happened 2 weeks later I stopped because there was nothing really when it came to my personal values that connected me to this language yes maybe I want to go to South Korea one day but is this desire to travel to South Korea enough for me to actually go into all of this trouble spend a lot of my time to learn a completely new language and also a pretty hard hard language it's not like learning Italian for example because I can already speak English I'm learning Spanish my Spanish is getting better and better and so technically

learning Italian right now would be easy or easier right than learning Korean and so obviously because there was nothing connecting me to Korean when it came to my personal values there was nothing that I found intrinsically motivating I stopped but I'm continuing with Spanish because I find a lot of things about this language intrinsically motivating for example my fiance and his family they're Mexican and so for me to be able to communicate with them effectively I need to learn this language and that is a huge motivational boost for me because I want to understand his

family I want to connect with them on a deeper level and that is exactly why I find Spanish learning intrinsically motivating so yeah what I propose here is pretty much doing a deep dive into why your you're learning your foreign language so guys I think it's going to be it for this video if you liked it please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel let me know in the comments if you like this new format with a podcasting mic a little bit more relaxed because I definitely had a

lot more fun chitchatting with you like that today so please let me know your thoughts if you want to upgrade your suitcases this year I highly recommend level eight I literally changed all of my suitcases to the their luggage so if you want to get a 10% discount you can use my code Veronica 10 and the link in the description if you need help creating your own monthly language learning plan I have a video about that on my YouTube channel so you can click right here and keep on watching