"You speak Spanish!" Just trying to make a common mistake not so common anymore. Everything is very cool. Spaced repetition is also popular learning system in med school where I live. Bargaining and chats with taxi drivers are great practice for beginners though. German goes a step further and has many words from Englishs past that it shares. He convinced me to saying saying I spoke Spanish "a little bit." I found the work of Dr Krashen and then Dr Brown. Timwould you consider doing a blog post elaborating on your system for tandem practice, including your complete list of useful questions and phrases? Remember that not so long ago the consensus among linguists was that we were hard-wired with a complex set of rules known as transformational grammar; now nobody believes there is such a thing (not even Chomsky). Masters in Linguistics and SLA? Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog. I managed to sneak the pdf on the net for free et jai dvor le livre en 2jours. Just go for it, it makes life more fun! But there is great stuff out there. And when I did, I started to learn. 40 hours is just the tip of an iceberg and you will sink fast when you hit a read conversation. WebThe idea is that translating a few key sentences, like I give him the apple, can help you 'deconstruct' a new language. Another thing that helped me when actually being in a country to learn a language: P&P. (1979). You will be forgiven for this directness, because its always obvious that you are a learner. Thank you for speaking up about this. Your techniques sound like the best approach for rebooting my skills, so I can get my schnitzel and not the verdammtes geschnitzeltes. For me, spaced repetition has often been a tool that I use to learn and remember stuff for an exam, but not more long term than that. I had the exact same problem at school being taught German. The written language was hanzi, the spoken language was hany or putonghua and the Chinese language as an object of study was zhongwen. Looks like I have my work cut out for me if Im to keep up and try to reply to as many as I can . An excellent post. It has made teaching and understanding why we say the things we say so much easier . With a language like German Id recommend focusing on speaking and only polishing your grammar when you are already at a conversational stage. At the B2 stage you can really have fun in the language! It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. Glad you enjoyed it! Learners do have a pretty pragmatic approach when it comes to learning a language and walk pretty much in the same shoes like you. Thanks for the additions! For example, a child at age 5 will, more or less, have acquired all of the syntactic and phonetic structures in their L1. Learning a language isnt just about need. While the same scale is not used, you can also get tested in a similar way in Chinese and Japanese. I learned what I know almost 100 percent from listening to others and asking questions. It was born out of the need to create work in France. . The apple is red. You sir are amazing, i am visiting my friends in Monaco and Spain next year, my goal is to learn Portuguese before my flight, is it true that if you learn Portuguese, its easy to learn Spanish and French? Also, keep in mind that while the tips in this article are an excellent place to start, there is a huge community of polyglots online willing to offer you their own encouragement as well. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. And youll only need to recall this hook a couple of times, and then you can ditch it when the word becomes a natural part of your ability to use the language quickly. But the good news is once you reach fluency in a language, it tends to stick with you pretty well. Ich werde es morgen wissen. Your post has inspired me and given me confidence. In learning the languages, I find it more difficult to understand the native speakers. WebAfter completed a sentence, it is read out loud by a native speaker of your target language (some sentences will allow you to hear it spoken by multiple speakers). Tims sentence table for deconstructing the language (This is an apple. I went from zero to teaching high school physics in Spanish in two months, while living in Bolivia and Peru. This. Obviously everyone has to spend some time listening, talking, and reading, but one way is how you will learn; the other two will just be practicing what you have learned. You cant study in isolation until you are vaguely ready for interaction. I agree that a smartphone app will have a very very hard time replacing the human connection, if you cant hear someones tone of voice and only hear a computer synthesized voice it will be hard to make an emotional connection. We tend to have New Years Resolutions along the lines of Learn Spanish, but how do you know when youve succeeded? All the best to you and thank you Tim for posting this resource. (I did that in 2012 and it has made all the difference). Also, you can make the time. 1. priority, but working full time, trying to explore some of the places I travel through, trying to keep fit and so on it hasnt been easy. I too like to first learn the flow of the language before learning any grammatical rules. I am simply pointing out a comment mistake. Great article, one of the most in depth how to guides to get started I have seen. Jai regard votre vido sur la diffrence entre le franais de France et le franais du Canada. But the work is totally worth it when you have your first successful conversation with a native speaker. On typical learning days I can be filled with frustration or feel like my brain is melting whenin factIm truly making a lot of progress. Thanks so much for buying my book! The second factor that influences whether or not you could be confused for a native speaker, involves working on your social and cultural integration. Children are better at language learning. Now its time for the big one: speaking it live with a native. Then we might text back and forth developing my kanji reading and basic writing skills. To be fair, Tims original sentences were The apple is red (La pomme est rouge) and It is Johns apple (Cest la pomme de Jean), but if youre a teacher receiving Thanks for this, Benny. Im just saying it didnt work for me. You can access all of my training modules at https://www.jcademy.com - create an account and get access to swathes of content. So while great tips (and I should spend more time doing those things), it doesnt always work that easily. You feel like you belong. Id love to hear your thought. Your French experience shows you that its never too late! . Just put in the facts and keep the encouragement bit . Although you make a good point that you can use this in a separate watching session to help you understand better. I was in an interesting situation my American friends phone was not working well in Europe, so we did not really have a set place to meet. I became fluent at understanding German at about 6months of immersed daily conversations living in Germany. Thanks Matt! Time was running out, the truck had to stop. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. I have a love to help others needing to learn a language whether it is because they are displaced, in school or just needing the skills for work. Second Language Research 14. Now to the problem. What these experiments prove is that adults are more intelligent, not better language learners. Ich mchte es ihr geben. Will do! DuoLingo is great as it gives you a sense of the language, so that after a time you find yourself hitting the right answer without much consideration. Its essential that you keep your priorities clear to avoid frustration. The fact that the brain has a special faculty for learning language that decays over time has been long established. I did briefly look over Olleys program but just did not want to spend the money for his program at this time. This is the first program that has all of the major pieces needed for success. Then others (like me) learn best visually, so reading is king. Enjoy the book! Hopefully they will have the same desire to learn like I do! Austin K Wood wrote this helpful post on his blog about how to get started on the italki system, increase his prices, and make more money faster: http://austinkwood.com/make-money-on-skype, Even better, italki supports this! This clip is an excerpt of one of the 'recap' videos from Mindkraft Session 1 'The First Words in Any Language', where we look objectively at Tim's 12 Sentences and see how effective they really are - what could go wrong? Youll be thrilled beyond belief. The idea is simple sentences like 'I give him the apple' can give clues about how a language fits together. I first ran into your 4HWW concept while I was working offshore bored to death browsing on internet the content of a conference in a french engineering school. Huge tip You will be forgiven for this directness, because its always obvious that you are a learner. In med school we rely on Anki a lot to retain lots of information that has to be regurgitated in 2-3 month period and then on the boards in a few years, so spaced repetition is a key to success. Grab a copy, or check out my site for inspiration to start your adventure in becoming fluent in a new languageor several. Correct information is always valuable in my opinion. Truly listen to and and mimic audio from natives, have them correct your biggest mistakes and drill the mistakes out of you. I could speak for 15+ minutes, but I couldn't understand anything that I heard. People would have said the same thing about playing chess, but clearly that is not the case. You guys are amazing. Congratulations on your book launch as well! As I say in this blog posts; I like to make at least 200 mistakes a day, and thats not just in foreign languages . It gets you comfortable with hearing the words spoken in a normal, conversational way. And its not that Im claiming that what Benny does isnt impressive. Paretos Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. Tim Ferriss 15. The transformation was incredible! This is ignoring all the non-verbal queues that are an essential part of communication, so this theoretical bablefish device would need to read the context, and visually analyse the person its translating to get the whole picture. Trust me, as a polyglot, focus on one, then focus on the other, waiting until you are at a confident conversational or fluent stage before moving on . It is not something that we retain throughout our entire lives. (Just wondering how easily Id learn to be good in Lithuanian if just by sitting in class for two months, 6 hours per week, got me able to converse with people about likes, dislikes, what weve done, where weve been and lived, what foods we like etc). Starting a new language means learning new words. BUT my experience as a teacher showed and proved clearly to me that there are basically two conditions to learn or master a second language. Adults need to be more pro-active, but can process things like grammar rules way better, and kids can absorb naturally quicker, since they dont have any other language to fall back on. Keep it as amazing as it and enjoy your life. But that is that point! Ones mindset has to switch to speak it right. Aiming higher for a smaller number is always better. One of my more controversial pieces of advice, but one that I absolutely insist on when I advise beginners, is that you must speak the language right away if your goals in the target language involve speaking it. Ive been trying to learn Spanish, because my husband is Colombian, and after almost 2 years living there my Spanish still sucks. I was picked up by a truck, the driver spoke only Polish. When you repeat sentences in your L2, you have to mimic the musicality of them. TESOL Quarterly. Polish is considered one of the harder modern languages to learn. Im really looking forward to putting this all to the test for learning Italian. 5. Most I think are in Chinese, as Taiwan is such a great country to live in. 1) The apple is red. I was very interested in reading this article at first, however, after the first sentence I was completely put off. Ive been traveling South America since last October and my Spanish is not better than someones whos made an intensive effort for two weeks. Been learning Spanish on Duolingo for a few months now and it feels so good to be making progress with it. I agree. Even if you put in the hours and live in the country of the target language, you might be an excellent speaker but as I said, you wont achieve native-like ability. I was actually quite shy when I was younger language learning has made me more outgoing. As always, a great read. Io do la mela a John. I had many more hours than that before I got a tutor and I spent 30 minutes not understanding her, even when she repeated my own sentences back to me (with the grammar corrected). So Ive been watching my baby girl study how people use their mouths when they talk and Ive started doing the same when people speak Hungarian. Since you may be starting from a similar position to where I was (monolingual adult, checkered history with language learning, no idea where to start), Im going to outline the tips that worked best for me as I went from zero to polyglot. Thanks for the inspiration. Tim Ferriss wasn't always Tim Ferriss. I should know; I knew him before he became widely known as an author, entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and podcaster extraordinaire. Years ago, Elance asked me to interview Ferriss for its blog a month or two prior to the release of The 4-Hour Workweek. You only have to learn a little for your first conversation, but if you use it immediately, youll see whats missing and can add on from there. Benny is one of the many language learners that consistently wow me as well. Benny, awesome post! But waitwhere do you find a native speaker if you arent in the country that speaks that language? While you can do a lot in a few months, if you want to speak a language for the rest of your life it requires constant practice, improvement, and living your life through it as often as you can. Learning this alphabet and knowing it well helped me so much while in Japan. The short version is, I reached out to people like Benny for advice and everyone kept saying that I needed to do more. Ive retained all my French, but I used it daily, and I force myself to use it too. This 1 minute video sums it all up: http://bit.ly/1c45FYr. 1. very heavy on intonation, a very sing-song-type language. At last my two people who inspired my language learning meet in one blog ^^. Any comments about how to make it easier to learn to read these. Definitely agree there! They do not need to compare the new grammar vs the old grammar. ], Also, no study has ever shown any direct correlation between reduced language acquisition skill and increased age. Im recommending your book to everyone here in Tokyo who feels stuck. This is a excellent post. I havent used ChineseClass101 too much, but it seems good from the little bit Ive used it. By visiting the site, you agree to our But Ive never heard of some of the other resources like Anki. I am all for people of any age, older or younger, getting encouragement in a language but falsifying facts really irks me, especially when its done just to sell something. I have gained access to people and places that I never otherwise could have reached. And some people are very methodical and they love drills, so they make great strides with flashcards or the Gold List method. He grew up in Long Island. However, a normal conversation will only be replaced when artificial intelligence is at the stage where it is absolutely indistinguishable from a human in all ways. To get this high-level practice, Ive subscribed to newspapers on my Kindle that I try to read every day from various major news outlets around the world. Tools of Titans is a short-form podcast series from Tim Ferriss, one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Business People and an early-stage investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Cognates are true friends of words you recognize from your native language that mean the same thing in another language. For example, Ive found that the fluency (B2) level can be achieved in a matter of months, as long as you are focused on the spoken aspect. Plain and simple. 1.9K views 1 year ago #polyglot #neuroplasticity I will pass this on to my students and parents! I agree that adults can be strong at language learning, but not stronger than children. In this vein Im actually running a muse in Shanghai to help foreigners focus on the important characters used in Chinese. - Could they be made better?In the Mindkraft session, we did several experiments on these sentences and worked with (or as) native speakers of other languages to see exactly where the holes might be in using these as tools to peer into a new language. But to get over that plateau of just good enough, this is the point where I tend to return to academic material and grammar books, to tidy up what I have. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. Hope to see you again sometime (doesnt have to be an Indian place in Berlin though ;)). I tried to unsubscribe but was unsuccessful. But Ive seen kids learn remarkably quickly, even at the age of 6 starting a second language. WebSentences are from the user-curated database Tatoeba and not all of them are written and checked by native speakers. I also failed Gaeilge miserably, but in my mid-20s went to the Gaeltacht for the first time to learn it properly and it wasnt bad at all. He gives it to John. It most certainly does. Action, nation, precipitation, solution, frustration, tradition, communication, extinction, and thousands of other-tion words are spelled exactly the same in French, and you can quickly get used to the different pronunciation. In other words, they do not have a language whose grammar and vocabulary interferes with the new one. & Garca Lecumberri, M. L. Realize that adults are actually better language learners than kids. 7. This makes adults more intelligent, but not better language learners. For instance, if you really listen to it, the word France sounds different in I want to go to France (downward intonation) and France is a beautiful country (intonation raising upwards). Therell be free updates for life online. If adults were better language learners than children there would be many more polyglots around and less people pondering on the subject. (this book references tons of research on the critical period, especially in phonology and syntax), Lenneberg, E. (1967 ). I say, there are seven days in a week and some day is not one of them. And while its true that repeated exposure sometimes burns a word into your memory, it can be frustrating to forget a word that youve already heard a dozen times. Pushing myself up 1K at a time until then . Learn to be difficult when it counts. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. Love the post Benny. Tip #1: Identifying patterns is a big one. This was an insightful post. Idem pour les phrases/vocabulaire je me souviens surtout des phrases types! After a certain age, supposed to be around the beginning of puberty, children begin to lose the innate faculty to acquire syntax and phonology like a native. YES! Although whether that is inherent to being a kid, or a consequence of having no escape route could be up for debate. Im really into language learning and there were a lot of resources pointed out that I didnt know about. Really appreciated . One way that many people here in Romania learned the English language was from TV. After reading a lot of books and blogs and watching people's vlogs and lectures, I have come to the conclusion that everyone has to try all the techniques until they find what works for them. I mean, it's hard to argue against the benefits of going to a country and immersing yourself and practicing for 3 months -- even if you won't get fluent. Glad to see your story has a happy ending! If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid. (Epictetus) Another way to phrase However, the real value of the "Fluent in 3 Months" challenges is probably more on the psychological side and less on the language side. Had a quick look through, but it definitely warrants a careful second read. If anything, you write in the traditional or simplified script. Since I have been using it all my life I have all the rights to correct him if any information he wrote was not accurate. 66.1K subscribers. (I have 19 tabs open!). In those first few hours, Id recommend learning some pleasantries such as Hello, Thank you, Could you repeat that? or I dont understand, many of which you will find listed out here for most languages. Tip #3: hang out in the cultural centres in your city and make friends with native speakers. There are some apps that attempt this now, but in using them in the real world (outside of fancy marketing videos the app came up with) they fail miserably. BIG THANK YOU TIM AND BENNY . Thanks a million Matt! 12 Sentences to Learn Languages the Tim Ferriss Way. So nice of you to mention the latin languages and forget the most latin of them all. These things are not wanted here. All you need are a few sentences translated from English into your target language. This way I know I am truly using and practicing the language. Can speak it decently, but listening .. sometimes, cant understand a word thats being said to me (usually in person), other times, catching it perfectly (usually watching on TV). You can observe people directly, or watch videos of natives youd like to emulate from a target country. I am going to Oktoberfest in Munch this year so that should give me a good goal to aim for in being able to hold a conversation in German using this guide! You are either born with the language-learning gene, or you arent. To achieve conversational fluency at a B1-B2 / B2 level, learners have to invest more hours (for languages that aren't too distant from their L1 / the L2s they know: about 400-600 hours - only for listening and speaking). There is considerable disagreement about language acquisition in both children and adults, and so long as Benny presents it as his POV, I dont see any dishonesty here. Ever since he was little, he had a keen interest in gadgets and technical innovations. [3] If you are living in a country where bargaining is the norm, the ability to haggle proficiently and not be taken advantage of, is a powerful incentive to become fluent. .I read Benny's book right after that and sought to recreate his immersion/language missions, even making my iPhone Spanish. Your goals should depend on what you want out of languages. LingQ Languages Ltd. please check out my website for learning German with the news and would be cool to know what you think about it. You need this level of intelligence in whatever translation system is being used to process natural language to the stage where you can replace a professional simultaneous interpreter. la mela di John. See More You can get private lessons for peanuts by taking advantage of currency differences. Luck of the draw, right? Sentences like 'I give John the apple' - to help learn grammar I put together a resource for deconstructing foreign language grammar using Tim Ferriss golden sentences method, that some of you might be familiar with.