How I learn languages

 There are many ways of learning a language, but in reality the process is quite simple. As long as you are using the language, you are having fun and you understand it, you are on a good path to mastering it. 

Podcasts

Once you learn enough to understand the podcasts aimed at learners you can learn the language while doing other chores e. g. walking in the park, commuting in a bus, taking out the trash, washing the dishes... the list goes on. All of these activities match perfectly listening to a podcast. 

Student books

Before you are able to listen to a podcast however you will need to pass through a phase of learning the basics. This can be done in several ways but as most of the times here too it is best to combine various methods. For the beginner level it is advised to read simple sentences ideally made of just three words (subject - object - verb in English for example - Cat drinks milk) Get down thousands of these sentences and you will suddenly be able to boast quite an extensive vocabulary. (You can change the nouns and have some fun with it: cat drinks cola, cat drinks beer, dog chases cat, cat chases dog and so on) 

Although a lot of student books are quite boring and tedious (hence being there so few polyglots that would actually rely solely on student books) they can provide you with the basics and make the language learning fun by pointing out some of its grammatical quirks. Although this won't help to get the language in your veins it still helps to go through some of its features while learning something new. 

It is also very interesting to buy student books made in the country of which language you are learning and observe the cultural differences, e.g. how the book is written what the authors deemed important, how its illustrated and so on. 

Another way to enjoy the beginners level is to watch simple "comprehensible input" videos for beginners and play language games such as duolingo.

Talking with people

Once you already know enough to form simple sentences and understand basic conversations you can start talking with people. I don't recommend chatting as it usually leads to one of the sides developing feelings and creates a lot of confusion. What I would recommend is to hop on a call with other non native speakers of the language. You might ask now? Why non natives? Aren't their accents and grammar worse than that of a native. I totally agree and I think that if you have enough money to buy classes online then you should definitely get a native to teach you, however if you talk to a nonnative they might easily feel bored when you stumble and they might not be willing to be your teacher all the time. 

Reading

Most of the people get their hands on books when they are quite advanced but some of the children books aimed at natives with lots of explanations of difficult words might come in handy earlier than that. Reading books can be a great source for expanding your vocabulary as some words that are used a lot in written text tend to not be used in the real life situations when we use the spoken form of the language. 

Writing

The last thing you can do is write. This is usually something that people do when they get really comfortable with the language. It might suit some people it might not suit everyone. For me it feels very boring to write when I know that nobody will read my text. Because I feel like somebody might read this I am writing it here and so I don't feel like Im wasting my time. In fact even if nobody reads what you had written its still a good way to activate your brain and make it feel more comfortable about thinking in the language that you are learning. 

Some resources for some of the languages Ive tried to learn

Hebrew:

Aleph with Beth: This channel offers great video lessons in Biblical Hebrew. It aims at comprehensible input so the videos are completely in Hebrew yet they are still easy to follow along if you watch them in order

Piece of Hebrew: This YouTube channel is created by a French Jewish and Israeli Jewish couple Doron and Elsa. They share about their everyday life and language in Hebrew. Whats even better is that Elsa also runs her own channel called Piece of French where she teaches French in a similar fashion

Hebrew by Ibnal : This YouTube channel shares a lot about jewish traditions and also offers a special transcription that helps learnes all over the world learn the pronunciation faster. 

Biblical Hebrew as blueprints of the mind: This is perhaps the most spiritual channel about Hebrew I've ever listened to. It looks on the sacred Jewish texts not only as a book about some stories but also about a code for life teaching us how to elevate ourselves spiritually. It teaches us about the hidden spiritual math in Hebrew words, the other meanings of stories and its symbols. Overall a great podcast to listen to while walking in the forest observing the trees 

Japanese

Akaneteki Nihongo 

Moshi Moshi Yusuke

Sayuri saying

Nihongo con Teppei

Japanese with Noriko

Sayuri saying

Nihongo no mori

all of these channels are in Japanese only which I think is essential for people to progress. You can start by Japanese podcasts for beginners by Teppei and move on to other channels. 

I hope you will have a lots of fun with language learning and make sure to share it with your friends because after all it is only when we turn to other people that we feel alive.