How To Learn Minority Languages Without Materials

Picture this: you've fallen in love with a minority language, but when you search for learning materials, you're met with… nothing.

No textbooks, no apps, no courses. Just a handful of academic papers and maybe a Wikipedia page if you're lucky.

This is the reality for thousands of language learners around the world who are passionate about minority languages.

But here's the thing – the lack of readily available materials doesn't mean your language learning journey has to end before it begins. In this post, I'll share 4 proven strategies to learn minority languages with few or no resources.

If you prefer watching videos to reading, hit play on the video version of this post at the top of this page. Otherwise, here's what you'll discover in this post:

The Universal Challenge: Even “Big” Languages Can Feel Small

Now, I'll start by saying that I'm probably not the best person to ask about this because I haven't studied any endangered languages or minority languages myself.

However, my thinking on this almost applies to any language you're learning.

I've learned Egyptian Arabic before, which by all accounts is a huge language, and yet I didn't have the materials that I wanted.

You know, it's one thing having no materials available at all, but not having the materials you want is almost the same thing, or not that different.

I'm really fussy about the materials that I like to use, and I didn't have them in Arabic. So I'm thinking along the same lines as if there was nothing available at all.

4 Proven Steps To Learn Minority Languages Without Materials

If you're learning minority languages and you don't find the materials that you need, or maybe there aren't any materials, here are the four steps that I would take if I was in your situation:

Step 1: Connect With Fellow Learners And Speakers

The most important thing – if you do one thing, then do this: find people who have learned it before.

There will be people, possibly a lot more than you think. I'd search Google, maybe Google Scholar, because often academics have a big interest in minority languages.

Here's what to do:

• Search for the language and try to track down people who have either written about it or have some kind of connection with it
• Ask in active Facebook groups like The Polyglots Group
• Search for local organisations and groups – it never ceases to amaze me what you can find with a bit of clever Google searching

If you're learning a minority language and you find someone else who's learned it before, they will almost certainly be really happy to talk to you about it because there aren't many people who are learning it.

Reach out to people – it's always the best way to do anything, actually.

Step 2: Make The Most Of What Already Exists

Use what you've got, however small it is.

There's almost certainly something out there, and you might not be able to find that on Google or somewhere else on the internet. You know, you don't need a lot to get quite far in a language.

Often I find that with any language I'm learning, even if there are hundreds of resources out there, I'll probably only centre on one or two and base my learning around them.

So don't think that just because you don't have hundreds of things available like French or German, that's necessarily a problem.

When there are too many materials available, you risk turning into a hoarding villain anyway!

You could very well find something that's been lovingly created by a real fan of that language. And that could get you really far. So don't let that be a reason to not get started – find what you can and start to use that.

Step 3: Plan Your Journey To Where The Language Lives

Go there.

Now obviously this isn't necessarily practical – it depends on your situation. But sooner or later, if you are serious about learning this language, there's nothing better you could do than plan a trip there.

Sometimes booking a plane ticket can be the biggest source of motivation of all. I know when I book a ticket, I get motivated to do all kinds of things.

You may not be able to go right away, but see if you can get to the country where the language is spoken somehow.

Magical things will happen when you get there, but even when you start to think about it and plan it, good things will happen.

Step 4: Create Your Own Learning Materials

This obviously takes work, but there are many reasons to do it.

You might not have to go to the country – indeed, if you live in a big city like London or New York, you may well be able to find local people who speak this language. If not, you can always try websites like Upwork for freelancers.

Depending on the country where the language is spoken, you may not be able to find people who speak that language directly. But there may be people who live there who are capable of doing something like:

• Going out and recording conversations
• Taking a video camera and sitting people down, asking them to speak
• Recording simple conversations and getting them transcribed

It's not a quick solution, but this is actually what I did when I learned Egyptian Arabic because I couldn't find material that I liked.

I found some people, sat them down, stuck a video camera on, and then got it recorded and transcribed and translated to make the kind of stuff that I wanted.

Why Creating Your Own Materials Benefits Everyone

If you can do this kind of thing and you're really passionate about the language, this is one of the greatest things you could do.

Not only is it going to be really motivating for your own language learning, but you'll be doing a fantastic service for the language learning community as a whole.

You could really be contributing to the maintenance and upkeep of awareness of that language in the international community.

Remember, the lack of materials isn't a roadblock – it's just a different path to fluency.

Minority Languages FAQ

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.