Know Your Goal

When reading about learning languages, I've heard a lot of people argue about the best way to learn a language. I think the best way to learn depends entirely on what you want to learn. The reasons for learning another language are many and each uniquely nuanced, although I see a few major themes:

I want to talk to people in another country.
I want to read a book written in another language.
I want to write a letter to a friend in another country.
I want to listen what people are saying in movies.
I want to live in another country and interact with the people there.

Each desire has its own approach and our motivations are often a combination of all of these. It might be useful to prioritize your desired outcomes to focus your efforts on attaining that goal.

For me, it started out wanting to listen and understand what people were saying in anime and in Japanese movies. Then, to prepare for studying in Japan, I needed to know how to talk to people in Japanese. Now that I'm back in the States, I'm focusing on learning how to read Japanese, so I can learn more about Japanese design.

Some people are in for the long hall, learning various written scripts and characters. Other people just want to know a couple things, like how to say hello to a friend. Either way, they're each unique desires, deserving their own unique strategy.

Conversational Language

While I'm beginning to learn a new language, I've been considering what basic words and phrases one needs to know, to have a rudimentary conversation with a person in another language. Even thinking about English, what basic questions or topics do people talk about when meeting a person for the first time?

Regardless of the language you're speaking, I think this list outlines the most useful vocabulary for having a basic conversation:

Hello
Good bye
Please
Thank you
Excuse me
Sorry
Yes
No

What's your name?
What do you do?
What are your hobbies?
What do you like to ___?
What's your favorite ___?
Where are you from?
Do you speak ___?
How old are you?
Where do you live?
What are you doing today?
Do you want to ___?

What other things do you think are helpful to know when having a basic conversation in another language?

Wired Language

I started out learning Japanese with Wired in Japan. I am also interested in learning other languages, like Korean on my site, Wired in Korea. Hopefully in the future I'll know many different languages. Wired Language will be the place where all the different languages that I'm trying to learn will come together.