It surprises me that a lot of people have come to me and asked how to learn English, and then how to learn Spanish the “easiest” or “fastest” or “most efficient” way. They question me how I could learn languages in such a short time, like English in 1 year and Spanish in 3 months, both started from ABC. My answer is usually “You must REALLY REALLY want to learn it”. Learning a language is all about memorizing: memorizing words, grammar and prounciation. The most important things are that you must spend time on it and be tenacious. The first time you learn a word you might forget it. But if you keep on reading it for the 2 or more times, you’ll finally remember it. Read a lot!!
It angers me that people who ask me in the first place then give me excuses such as “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have money to buy books or register for a course or find a teacher or whatever”. Yet I still give them social answers. But today, as I was going through all my old stuffs, I found something that I want to share, something that reminds me of the hard old days studying.
This is the manual copy of the book “How to live without Fear & worry” that I hand-copied. Yes I copied a 60-page book, by hand, when I was 15. This wasn’t the only book I hand-copied, and surely it wasn’t the thickest one.
Why??
Because I needed books to read, to learn English and I was so fucking poor that I couldn’t afford buying a book or even photocopy!!!
During my grade 10, I went to school in the morning, went to work in the afternoon and spent the rest of day and weekends studying English. I slept only 4 or 5 hours a day. I borrowed books from my friends, then hand-copied them so that I could read them over and over again until I remembered all new words. The words that get red-highlights are words that I had to focus on.
So you fucking lazy bastards, there is no “easiest” or “fastest” or whatever -est way to do anything. All you can do is to work hard. And stop using excuses!!! The only reason for that you don’t do something is that you don’t want to do it badly enough.
P/S:
1. Both my English & Spanish aren’t very good. But given the time span I spent on them, I’m quite proud of myself.
2. Stop telling me that I’m lucky or smart. My memory is really bad that I can’t remember anything for more than 1 day.
Es de Costa Rica, pero la gente costarricense usa “ico” y “cico” mucho, así les llaman “ticos”. Suena lindo, ¿no? La cosa asombrosisima es su inglés es muy malo, y mi español no es mejor, pero nos chalamos casi cada día, y él me ha ensenado mucho 
Thanks Duy Linh.
