We learn all kinds of languages. Many people learn languages like Chinese, which has over one billion speakers. Others learn something like Swedish with over 10 million speakers. Both are valid. There is no optimal number of speakers to learn a language, and there is nothing shameful about learning a very niche and rare language. Usually, if you learn Swedish, Nahuatl, or Amharic, you need to learn how to deal with a language with few resources.
Languages don’t have an even distribution of resources
This is a result of totally legitimate reasons. We live in a world ruled by money. When there is a lot of people who are willing to spend money to learn something, more people will fight for their cash and their attention. There are a million factors that contribute to why some languages have more L2 speakers that may spend money improving their skills. Regardless of those reasons, we must accept that reality and plan our language learning strategies accordingly.
A language like English has so many resources, including on this website. Any language learning application exists for English. It’s also available in almost any language. Whether you are in Kazakhstan, Argentina, or South Korea, there exists teachers, tutors, books, websites, apps, and blogs, among others, that can help you learn English. For a language like Chinese, French, or Spanish, the case is likely to be similar. However, I am confident that most people cannot go to the bookstore and get a book about learning the Bulgarian language. Naturally, it’s impossible that every language has equal resources. If we accept this fact, we can start trying to discuss how to overcome this issue.
Every language is worthy of learning, so we cannot ignore a whole country’s culture just because they speak a language with few resources.
Tip: Use native level content
You might have a difficult time finding content created for learners. You won’t find the slowed down, simplified language that is created for those learning. It will be difficult to find a YouTuber with a good budget that explains some deep grammatical differences. However, this is a blessing in disguise. Instead of being held down by the expectations of a learner’s mind, you can be thrown into the lion’s den.
By using native level content, you can actually accelerate your language learning process. You can see the language exactly how natives use it. There is no need to focus on the trite expressions that some phrase books are obsessed with. Also, you can focus on the words that natives use instead of the words that books say that natives use, which already focus on providing words that are helpful for specific basic grammar points. The native level content is much better at providing the words natives would actually use. In English, we would describe a cake as soft, dense, moist, or dry. That language might not use the equivalents of those particular words. You can see that yourself by observing how natives talk about certain things.
Tip: Talk to a native
Interactions with natives are one of the most important things you can do in any language. However, if this is a language that has few resources, this might be the most useful tool if used correctly. They’re going to help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge. If the gaps in your knowledge are so much, you’ll need to talk to natives a lot.
Language exchange is extremely important to any language learner, and it will be helpful if you have a native who speaks your language to a decent level. They have the experience you want, but it’s in reverse. They already have a mind for language. Ask them why they used this word. Don’t hesitate to ask them if the sentences you wrote sounded natural. People are kind to those who want to learn their language. Use that kindness to your advantage to reach your goal of improving your language skills.
Tip: Go undercover as a native on social media
Sometimes you don’t have native speakers around you. You could live far away from the country, or the immigrant community in your city may be very small and overly assimilated. You still need to see how natives speak. What’s the solution? It’s the answer to all life’s problems these days: go online.
Look at how people are speaking online and copy them. Make an account where you pretend to be a native. Why can’t you just openly admit you are a learner? Well, for research! Natives always lower their complexity when around learners, and this is especially true for natives of languages with very few learners. They have extremely low expectations for learners. You need to get around this by pretending you are a native.
As a native of English, I always assume mistakes in comments are the result of typos, not the result of a deficiency of the person’s English. (This is also why you should never apologize for your English, especially proactively. It primes the listener to look for mistakes.) Natives of all languages think the same. They will think your mistakes are the result of typos or carelessness. As such, they will give you a true view into the real language, which is what you desperately need when you are stuck with a language with few resources.
Tip: Wring out every source for all the content it has
When you deal with something with few resources, whether it’s Hausa or Basque, you cannot squander the few resources you are lucky enough to have. If you have a textbook, you better be memorizing every vocab word in that thing! There should not be a second thought of hesitation in your mind if there is a show from 40 years ago meant to teach English teachers the language. Beggars can’t be choosers. It does not matter how dated it is or how much second-hand embarrassment you get. You need to use every inch of the resources you have.
Tip: Look for resources at universities
If you are a university student, check your library’s collections for resources on this topic. I remember mine had every single language I could imagine. Every native American language and every African language I knew about existed in the library as a physical book or a digital copy on the library website. My university might have had a lot of resources, but I know our school was definitely not famous for its nonexistent linguistics department.
If you are too old for university, ask someone who is in university if they could check their university library for you. More often than not, university libraries can help. Universities order so many books that they don’t know what to do with them. I have really good memories of grabbing random language books on my library’s fourth floor and just reading. Usually, those books had never been checked out, or it had been at least 30 years since the last time. University students do not care why you need help; they will just help you.
What needs to change
We live in a world ruled by money. No one can change this. What can be changed is what the people are attracted to selling. If there is a market for a product, it will begin to exist. In a perfect world, there are many resources for every language. We don’t live in that world. We live in a world where we need to use our dollars to influence the creation of language content. If demand exists, the product will exist.
I remember when I started learning Korean around 2013 and 2014, the Korean learning market was relatively small. Other than Talk to Me in Korean, there were not so many resources dedicated to Korean in the first half of the last decade. There were the defaults like Rosetta Stone, which I used. However, there has been an explosion of content created for Korean learners, especially for those who speak English, in the last four to five years. This is definitely connected to the growth of interest in Korea and Korean culture. Thanks to that interest, there is a huge number of textbooks or apps that a learner can rely on to improve their Korean skills.
Just like Korean, the same can occur to any minority language. If you, the person reading this, make the effort to learn a language, you leave a footprint that can be used to justify the expansion of this market. Your efforts to learn a language can be used to create a market for those who come after you. In effect, your efforts now can be the impetus that helps thousands or millions of learners after you get easier and cheaper language learning resources.
Despite the challenge, learning a language with few resources is a good for society
You can meet new people thanks to languages and connect with people from around the world. It’s not just a matter of studying. There is a human and emotional element with language learning. Just like art, music, or fashion are artifacts of culture, so too is language. It is an expression of the collective group’s way of communication and conceptualization of the world. As such, we should be treating it the same. There are UNESCO heritage sites, which protect some piece of human heritage. Some governments might want to teach their nations of the famous authors and artists in the nation’s history. Language ought to be treated the same. It is a loss for humanity if languages cannot be spread in the same way that the destruction of a cultural site is a great tragedy.
All people should put in effort to spread and preserve languages. Whether that is a regional variety or your language or that is your heritage language that your grandma speaks, language is a valuable piece of culture. Ideally, governments invest some money into the propagation of their nation’s language, but that is not always the case. We language learners need to push for the creation of more language-learning materials so that people that come after us may also get the opportunity to learn the language of our time. Hundreds of years or millennia of knowledge could be lost of languages go extinct. By learning a language, you are helping that language survive. You are reinforcing or strengthening the financial incentive to create language materials, which ensures this artifact of culture can persist.
Language learning is the act of connecting the world
Language learning is powerful, and hopefully you have more tools that can help you conquer this very necessary challenge. My YouTube channel has more tips for language learning, which hopefully leads you to spread language and develop our shared human culture.
You can watch a video on my YouTube channel that I made on this topic here:
