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And soon he would start typing himself, because he had so many of these conversations that he figured out how the Russian conversation usually starts. What an ingenious method, right?

And then I met polyglots who always start by imitating sounds of the language, and others who always learn the 500 most frequent words of the language, and yet others who always start by reading about the grammar.

If I asked a hundred different polyglots, I heard a hundred different approaches to learning languages.

Everybody seems to have a unique way they learn a language, and yet we all come to the same result of speaking several languages fluently.

And as I was listening to these polyglots telling me about their methods, it suddenly dawned on me: the one thing we all have in common is that we simply found ways to enjoy the language-learning process.

All of these polyglots were talking about language learning as if it was great fun.

You should have seen their faces when they were showing me their colorful grammar charts and their carefully handmade flash cards, and their statistics about learning vocabulary using apps, or even how they love to cook based on recipes in a foreign language.

All of them use different methods, but they always make sure it's something that they personally enjoy.

I realized that this is actually how I learn languages myself.

When I was learning Spanish, I was bored with the text in the textbook.

I mean, who wants to read about Jose asking about the directions to the train station.

Right? I wanted to read "Harry Potter" instead, because that was my favorite book as a child, and I have read it many times.

So I got the Spanish translation of "Harry Potter" and started reading, and sure enough, I didn't understand almost anything at the beginning, but I kept on reading because I loved the book, and by the end of the book, I was able to follow it almost without any problems.

And the same thing happened when I was learning German.

I decided to watch "Friends," my favorite sitcom, in German, and again, at the beginning it was all just gibberish.

I didn't know where one word finished and another one started, but I kept on watching every day because it's "Friends."

I can watch it in any language. I love it so much.

And after the second or third season, seriously, the dialogue started to make sense.

I only realized this after meeting other polyglots.

We are no geniuses and we have no shortcut to learning languages.

We simply found ways how to enjoy the process, how to turn language learning from a boring school subject into a pleasant activity which you don't mind doing every day.

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