Listen to a language for weeks before it sounds like words. Then one day it does. Don’t quit in the noise phase.

Before meaning arrives, your ear has to learn where one word stops and the next starts, and that stretch sounds like plain noise. It feels like nothing is happening because the progress is invisible from inside. Most people quit right here, just before the part that finally feels like learning.

Put the language in your ears while you do something else, on the walk or while washing up. Fifteen minutes a day with no expectation of understanding. When the first word jumps out of the stream, you will know the phase has turned.