Whether you’re on a time crunch for class, or just on your way to a foreign country for a trip or study abroad, sometimes it’s necessary to learn a new language fast. It sounds difficult, but don’t worry-there are lots of things you can do to speed up the process. Read on, and you’ll learn about 100 hacks for learning a new language in a snap.

Tips

Here you’ll find general tips for picking up a new language fast.

1. Be willing to spend time: Give yourself time to listen, read, write, and more.
2. Use more senses: Speak the word out loud and write it down for better retention.
3. Learn how to ask for help: Start out by learning "how do you say ____ in your language?"
4. Carry a phrasebook: Save time by learning useful phrases.
5. Speak and listen more: Speaking and listening are more important than reading and writing, as most of your communication will be oral.
6. Say something funny: Make fast friends with people who will want to help you by offering phrases that will make them laugh.
7. Avoid learning multiple languages at once: Do yourself a favor and master one language before you move on to the next.
8. Be nice: Stay on your best behavior to get the most help when learning in the native speaking country.
9. Translate key sentences: Translate a few important sentences to find out how verbs and other important elements are constructed.
10. Raise polyglot children: Expose your children to many languages while they are young.
11. Make your own phrasebook: Create phrases and words that are useful to you with your own phrasebook.
12. Keep up with your language: Remember to practice your language regularly even after you’ve mastered it to retain your skills.
13. Give yourself targets: Motivate yourself with goals within time limits.
14. Do it every day: Listen and read each day so you don’t fall out of practice.
15. Don’t get discouraged: When you feel like you’re not making progress, go back to old lessons to see if they are easier than before.
16. Act it out: Practice postures and emotions to communicate words in context.
17. Ask about your errors: Once you’ve reached advanced language learning, ask for your mistakes to be pointed out to you.
18. Learn your interests: Learn to discuss the things that most interest you-you’ll be more likely to remember them.
19. Accept mistakes: Focus on getting your message across, not speaking with 100% accuracy.
20. Stay away from tourist hangouts: Avoid tourist haunts when traveling, and you’ll better be able to practice your foreign language.
21. Don’t take time off: You’ll forget language quickly, so be sure to stick with it.
22. Watch yourself in the mirror: See yourself speak the language to better understand it.

Language Choice

Take these tips into consideration if you have a choice in which language you’ll be learning.

23. Pick a similar language: Choose a language that has similar sounds and word construction to your native language.
24. Choose a language with available resources: Consider whether there are resources and classes in your area for learning your desired language.
25. What’s in demand?: Think about languages that are sought after by employers.
26. Consider usefulness: Think about how much you’ll use the language you want to learn.
27. Take a look at difficulty: Be sure to think about how difficult a language will be for you to learn.

Immersion

These hacks will help you get immersed in your chosen language.

28. Listen to radio stations: Find a radio station in your language online and listen to it, even if you just have it on in the background.
29. Use a cookbook: Get a cookbook in your language to experience the food of the country, and improve your skills.
30. Keep a foreign language diary: Write about your days in your language for better comprehension and practice.
31. Find programs that interest you: When listening to the radio or watching TV, be sure to pick out something that will hold your attention.
32. Use subtitles: Watch movies and TV shows in your language with subtitles.
33. Learn songs: Learn how to sing songs in your language to improve pronunciation and vocabulary.
34. Read as much as possible: Pick up books, magazines, newspapers, and other reading material in your language.
35. Tackle grammar later: Once you’ve learned a good deal of vocabulary and phrases, move on to learning vocabulary.
36. Brush up first: Before watching or listening to a program, brush up on relevant vocabulary first.
37. Surround yourself: Put foreign language everywhere-even your shower curtain.
38. Watch two news programs: View news in your native language, then in your new one so you’ll know what’s going on.
39. Read dual language books: See the original language on one page, and the translation on the opposite.
40. Use Post-Its: Write foreign words on Post-Its and stick them on their corresponding objects around your home.
41. Follow a series: Get committed to your language by staying on top of a series you’re interested in.
42. Watch body language: Pay attention to posture, gestures, and the shapes native speakers make with their lips.
43. Don’t accept answers in your native language: Ask conversational partners to speak in the language you’re learning.

Approaches

Check out these approaches that offer smart ways to get into a language.

44. Join a language club: Speak to others at various skill levels to make the language more interesting.
45. Do lots of listening: Practice ear training to get used to hearing words in a native speaker’s speech.
46. Consider situations: Think about particular situations when coming up with phrases.
47. Master essential phrases: Master the minimum phrases you should know first.
48. Learn subliminally: It doesn’t work for everyone, but some swear that you can learn faster by listening to subliminal programs when you’re falling asleep.
49. Buddy up: Find a friend to study and have conversations with.
50. Visit the country: Spending time immersed with native speakers will make it easy for you to pick up the language you’re interested in learning.
51. Go to a language immersion camp: Go on a trip that offers language learning as the main focus.
52. Use audio: Listening to language is something you can do while you’re walking, driving, working, and more.
53. Switch your favorite website to a new language: By turning a website you’re very familiar with into a new language, you’ll intuitively pick up vocabulary.
54. Chat with a friend: Find a friend that knows the language you want to learn, and needs to learn your native language, and chat together.
55. Learn the culture: Bring the language to life by learning the cultures and customs of the countries that speak the language.
56. Find media: Watch TV, listen to music, read books, and watch movies in your target language.
57. Master the fundamentals: Before getting to advanced learning, be sure you’ve gotten the hang of the language’s fundamentals.
58. Find a pen pal: With a pen pal in your language, you can exchange language learning.
59. Consider languages like a sport: Approach new languages like they are a sport, and it will be fun for you to learn.

Studying

These are great ways to hack your language learning studies.

60. Study frequently: Languages are best learned through practice and frequent review.
61. Make flash cards: One of the oldest tricks in the book is to create flash cards to jump start your memory.
62. Spread your studying out: Don’t try to cram all of your studying into one chunk of time-it’s more effective (and convenient) to spread it out in small increments all day.
63. Carry flash cards everywhere: Keep your flash cards with you always, and you can bring them out in any spare moment.
64. Talk to yourself: Have a conversation with yourself, saying back and forth phrases.
65. Link words: Link words in pairs to learn vocabulary.
66. Practice repetition: High numbers of repetition will help you to better "own" a word.
67. Review frequently: Go over lessons several times and fully understand it before moving on.
68. Multitask: Find time to study by fitting it in while doing other things-commuting, jogging, doing housework.
69. Focus on words and phrases: See how words come together as phrases to start picking up the language and use your knowledge in conversation.
70. Study town language: Familiarize yourself with the basic vocabulary that you can usually find in a city, town, or village.

Vocabulary

Follow these hacks to improve your foreign language vocabulary.

71. Don’t mix up languages: If you’re learning two languages, remember words on a map of the country they are most spoken in.
72. Learn the 100 most common words: In many languages, the most popular words make up the majority of conversation.
73. Associate with the familiar: Find ways to build mental images that will help you associate new words with something you know.
74. Get a monolingual dictionary: Understand words through their meaning rather than just translations.
75. Guess: If you don’t know the meaning of a word, have a guess, and then check yourself.
76. Test yourself often: Always check back to make sure you can still remember a word.
77. Carry blank flash cards: Any time you run into a word you’re not familiar with, put it on a flash card.
78. Divide genders: When you think of nouns with genders, imagine them on two different sides of a region.
79. Learn in context: Think about when you’d most likely use the words you’re learning.

Tools & Resources

Make use of these tools and resources to hack your language learning.

80. Learn10: Learn 10 new words each day using Learn10.
81. correctmytext: Get your foreign language text verified by foreign speakers on this site.
82. Mango Languages: You’ll learn conversation skills in this online language learning system.
83. Learnit: With Learnit’s widgets, you’ll find a compact way to learn a new language, with words you will learn through repetition.
84. BBC Languages: This site offers basic knowledge for travelers wanting to learn a language.
85. LiveMocha: You can get structured lessons and get connected with other language learners with LiveMocha.
86. Anki: Anki offers a spaced repetition system that can help you memorize vocabulary.
87. Babbel: Find vocabulary, grammar, and writing from Babbel.
88. Language Hack: Visit the Language Hack blog to find useful language hacking information on a regular basis.
89. Omniglot: Omniglot shares a variety of useful tips for learning any language.
90. Foreign Services Institute: You can find scanned textbooks, audio lessons, and more from this learning resource.
91. Reading in a Foreign Language: Using this resource, you can learn how to understand literature in another language.
92. 5 Ways to learn a new language (and 5 reasons why you should): Find out why language learning is so important, and how you can do it with this resource.
93. How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour: Tim Ferriss explains how he deconstructs languages in order to learn them quickly.
94. How to Learn a Second Language: You’ll discover a variety of useful approaches for beginning foreign language study here.
95. How to Learn a Language: Follow the University of Michigan’s advice for effective language learning.
96. 18 Great Sites to Learn a New Language: Check out this list, and you’ll find some top notch resources for language learning.
97. How to Learn Any Language: This website is all about teaching yourself languages.
98. 7 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language on the Road: With the tips in this resource, you can learn a foreign language from right where you are.
99. How to Learn a Foreign Language: Check out this resource to find different methods for learning a foreign language.
100. How to Learn a Foreign Language: You can find useful guidelines for foreign language learning from this guide.