Well, I didn’t, of course. Not entirely. But I did manage, in 21 days, to put together a fairly good basic knowledge of Latvian which enabled me to travel to Latvia and order meals, get from A to B, and chat to locals (even at a wedding reception!) in the beautiful native language of the country.

What’s the secret? Well, if you are hoping for me to give you some magical incantation or the name of a new learning wonder-drug, then prepare to be disappointed.

My bywords for language learning are: preparation, structure, discipline and hard work. Doesn’t sound fun, I admit – but as language learners know, the result is more than worth it!

Firstly, decide how much you want to learn and for when. Be realistic, but also optimistic. You have a fantastic brain – don’t make the task too easy!

Secondly, buy, borrow or otherwise obtain the various books (yes, books!), online courses, vocabulary, etc. that you want to work through over your study period. Look at how they are structured and broken down (chapters, units, etc.)

Then, put together your study timetable. Block off mornings/afternoons/evenings when you know in advance that you will not be able to work and give yourself the odd free day (not too many!). Now divide all the work you want to get done by the time you have remaining and start assigning yourself tasks for each day – mini-goals, if you like.

For instance, in my 21-day time period, I wanted to complete a ‘teach yourself’ book of sixteen chapters and commit to memory a vocabulary list of around 1,000 words. As it happened, I had sixteen time ‘slots’ available – most weekday evenings after work and a couple of 2-3 blocks on weekends.

So according to my study timetable, during each study session, I needed to complete one chapter of my book and learn around 65 words.

When your studying begins, unforeseen circumstances will of course mean that sometimes you won’t be able to complete your assignment of work for a given day. You can prepare for this to some extent be getting ahead of schedule towards the beginning.

The initial chapters of ‘teach yourself’ books, for instance, tend to be shorter and easier – dealing with alphabets and simple greetings – that later chapters on advance grammar. Don’t hesitate to move ahead and make a start on the next day’s work (or even more) if you feel up to it and get ahead of the game.

Make you are have all the stationery or computer access you needed before you start. Make careful notes of every new thing you learn (grammatical structures, language use points, vocabulary, cultural aspects). It’s old school, but writing things down carefully and thoughtfully is the best way of learning – and not forgetting!

When it comes to vocabulary, online flashcard programmes are a good way of learning quickly and well – but each learner will find their own preferred way of studying new words. I put 65 new words a day into my favourite flashcard interface and studied until they were mostly mastered.

Don’t forget, though, to make allowance in your timetable for going back and revising older chunks of vocab. If you just do them a block at a time, one after the other, by the time you get to end of your learning, you’ll have forgotten the words you learnt at the beginning.

As soon as you feel you have a feel for the basics of a language, root around the Internet to find simple examples of the language you are learning (e.g. children’s stories, or on ‘x language for foreigners’ websites).

I usually attempt this when I have learnt the basic of nouns, adjective and verbs and have about 300-400 words under my belt. I find the excitement of being able to understand my first sentences (however slowly and basically) pushes me on to keep to my tough study programme!

As soon as you can, try and get hold of a native speaker of the language you are learning and bounce a few words and sentences off them (and get them to correct any pronunciation issues). Again, they will likely be so bowled over by your quick progress that their praise will motivate you even more!

Keep your stamina and discipline, don’t fall behind, and cross off each ‘mini-goal’ as you complete it. And, yes, sometimes you might need to say no when you get a message from your friends wanting to join them at the pub!

After 21 of studying Latvian, I arrived in Riga and tried my best to use the language whenever I could. My Latvian my slow, clunky, full of errors, and there were lots of words I have to ask for.

I received quite a few confused looks and the odd raised eyebrow. One person laughed in my face. But the vast majority of everybody I spoke to were kind, helpful, grateful and impressed. One person hugged me and called me a ‘lovely genius’!

But mostly people asked: “How did you learn Latvian in just three weeks?” Well, if I’d known the Latvian for all the relevant words, I would have said with no hesitation: preparation, structure, discipline and hard work – and a huge amount of fun!

Charles Gittins is half-British and half-Maltese and now lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford University and worked for ten years as a translator at the European Commission in Brussels. He now works as an English-language journalist in Iceland. Throughout his working life, he has taught English, French, Icelandic, Maltese and Spanish to learners of varying ages and backgrounds.