Random Places to Learn Languages
If you are learning a language, no matter how popular it is or how weird and hard to find immersion content in that language is, there are still plenty of ways to immerse yourself and have fun while doing it. I am learning languages as long as I can remember myself, and today I am going to present to you a list of places I go when I don't know what to do with a language.
Wikipedia
Yes, you heard me right. If your language has more than 100 speakers, chances are, there is a Wikipedia subpage for that language. Wikipedia also appears to have a random wiki page button. This is really fun as I like to learn nerdy stuff and read articles in languages.
Some articles obviously might be a bit hard for you, just find a new one.
YouTube
A lot of people already may know the power sites like YouTube hold for language learners and immersion based language learning. But they only use it when they specifically want to learn a language. Little do they know, however, language learning does not work that way.
My highly opinionated opinion is, when you want to search for for example, search it in your target language. Make it a tool that you can always use, albeit passively or actively. In this way, your immersion time will go up.
Games
Games like Animal Crossing have a really special place in my heart. Not because I love them or whatever, it is quite the contrary (insert a feature blog post here). They, especially Animal Crossing, simulate you moving into a new town, for example. Or games like Valorant where you have to communicate with your teammates in order to win the game.
You are going to waste your time playing those games anyway. Now you have a way of wasting your time and youth -if you have any left- productively! How fun.
Music translations
In Turkish YouTube, there are these huge channels that translate songs in other languages to just Turkish. Many learners, such as me, like to translate songs originate from their target language, but what about the other way around?
This way of studying music is great for one important thing; active recall. And believe me, it is much more effective than any other way of interacting with music in a learning way.
Taking courses
There are so many online platforms, like Coursera for example, that offer free courses. You can even find undergraduate-high school level content on YouTube. So, if you are learning French for example, why don't you study “introduction to economics” course?
I admit that this requires a higher level comprehension of a language and thus requires more time. But at the end, you might even feel proud of yourself, even better, your dad can be proud of you, maybe.
Writing
I hate to see how many language learners, including me, just skip over writing thing on our target language. If you are intermediate, write a blog post about it, just talk about your day, or whatever. If you are a beginner, go on a random discord server and try to have a chat—what can go wrong?
Writing is an important and effective tool if used correctly throughout the journey of language learning, at least that's what my experience says to me. I can't compare my first blog post (which took around two days of fiddling around) to this blog post, or earlier ones. Try writing in your language.
A big note to take here is, be careful not to make wrong writing habits or grammar mistakes to habits. They can be a pain in the ass to get rid of and correct later.
Study a different dialect
Let's say you are studying Spanish for a long time, and after a while, it will get boring. You can spice things up a little by studying a new dialect then. A great example of this could be me in French. A lot of times, you can see me practicing or watching Québécois French when I simply get bored from France French (?).
This won't have a big difference in learning, but it will make your motivation go up. And motivation is the key to success in language learning. Remember that you are not going to gym every day. Discipline will not get you anywhere near fluency if it's the only thing supporting your journey. Think of language learning as a bridge. You need to have different beams to support the bridge, or it will collapse. One bridge can't get you that far.
Think in another language
I do this in my daily life in English quite subconsciously. Just say to yourself, “I need to get a new pair of shoes for this winter” or “I am thirsty” in your target language instead of your native language. Believe me, it can make a huge difference.