A few years back I immersed myself in Portuguese language cds.  I bought the entire Pimsleur series second hand and spent day after day practicing Portuguese as I drove around in my car during my days as a realtor.  I managed to get a good grasp on the language.

My reasoning for wanting to learn Portugues was pretty cut and dry; to communicate with the local Brazilian girls during my frequent trips to Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza. 

During my visits to Brazil the CDs often served their purpose.  I would start off a little rusty but shortly after meeting a nice Carioca I would quickly get my groove back and have a blast struggling through my broken Portuguese. 

The problem with learning Portuguese was that I only traveled to Brazil once a year, usually during January or February.  This meant that a couple months before my trip, and a couple months after my trip I was studying hardcore… but all the time in between I would slack off.

And then I missed a year of heading down to Brazil.  This completely wiped out all the gains I had seen the previous two years.  I realized that what was happening was I lost my motivation to learn when I didn’t have people (and by people I mean girls) to practice with.  Sitting in my room repeating Portuguese phrases seemed redundant when I didn’t have an upcoming Brazil trip planned.

In order to learn a new language I’ve found that it is critically important that you force yourself to speak it on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  You must also find a passionate reason for wanting learn the language.  Simply wanting to impress your friends by speaking German, won’t cut it.

So how do you stay focuses on learning a new language when you’re not visiting the country often?  You need to find activities that immerse you in that culture.  If you wanted to learn German, it would be crucial that you find German people to talk to on a regular basis.  But it isn’t simply good enough to find German people… you must find German people that you have a strong desire to communicate with.

I recently faced the struggle of a language barrier on a recent trip to Colombia with my girlfriend.  I don’t speak a word of Spanish, so I couldn’t communicate with any of her friends or family the entire week down there.  It was a disheartening experience… but one that made me realize it is time to get back in the swing of learning a new language.  This time, for obvious reasons, I have chosen Spanish.  The benefits of learning Spanish are much more than simply having a girlfriend who’s native tongue is Spanish.  I also love traveling to Argentina, Dominincan Republic, and Spain semi-regularly.  Learning the language will make these experiences that much more memorable.

But on a day to day basis, how will I stay motivated to learn Spanish?  For one, I will force my girlfriend to speak the language with me on a daily basis.  I will also rent movies that are filmed in Spanish, and turn the subtitles off.  I will once again immerse myself in Pimsleur CDs, this time the Spanish series.  But to ad the needed leverage I talked about earlier… I will visit Spanish meetups.

You can do this with any language by visiting www.meetup.com.  There is an interest search bar at the top, put the language you want to learn, and your zip code, and you will find a variety of meetup events with native speakers.  For instance, I found this Spanish Young Professionals meeting close to my home.  Now, not only do I get to meet Spanish people to practice my language with, I also have an opportunity to mingle and network with a large group of people I would not have had the opportunity otherwise.

If you are thinking aout trying to learn a new language I suggest taking this approach.  Now I have to walk the walk… and actually learn Spanish.  Give me six months and I’ll be writing this blog posts in the language.

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