Faster Foreign Language Learning » learn a language fast

Three Things You Need to Learn a Language Fast

Amelia — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:23:12 +0000

Let’s face it, most us interested in learning another language want to learn a language fast. As much fun as the learning process can be, for most folks the final goal is to actually know and be able to use the language.

Despite what the results of slow-moving high school and college language classes might imply, it is absolutely possible to get comfortably conversant in a language within three to six months. But in order to do that, there are things you need that most language classes can’t give you.

#1: Above Average Desire

To learn a language fast, you need as much exposure to the language as possible every day. Unless you’re constantly hungry for that language, though, you may not make the effort to get that exposure.

In the book Think and Grow Rich, the author Napolean Hill talks about what he calls a “burning desire” that he believes is essential for reaching big goals. It’s the kind of desire that keeps you thinking about your goal morning to night. If you’re not so hungry to learn that you try to squeeze a little study into every free moment, you’re not going to learn as fast as you could.

Think about a sociable immigrant kid thrown into a class with native-speaking kids. She’s probably going to grab every single opportunity she has to learn just so she can feel normal. That’s motivation.

No one’s suggesting skipping meals and staying up all night to fit in study time, but if you find yourself watching some random TV show instead of doing something, anything, with your target language, it’s a sign your motivation to learn isn’t where it could be.

So how to do get that much motivation? Stay in constant contact with what motivates you! Learning French because you want to volunteer in Burundi? Put up pictures of the country, keep up on the local news, and browse the Web for volunteer opportunities daily. Studying Japanese so you can read manga? Then keep those manga magazines out where you can see them.

Constantly remind yourself of what you’re missing out on because you don’t know the language yet and you probably won’t be so inclined to waste time. Otherwise, it’s “out of sight, out of mind.”

#2: Quality Study Material

While you might be able to learn just from conversation, it’s likely to take you longer and be a lot more frustrating. A dictionary of 40,000 entries or so helps you build vocabulary faster. A phrasebook will get you started forming full sentences to can use for communication instead of collecting individual “vocabulary words” you can’t do anything with. Those phrases also provide comprehensible, memorable examples of grammar in use, so you’re not left to memorize abstract grammar rules.

A course book or grammar reference book that lays everything out in a clear, organized way helps you grasp complex concepts without spending weeks trying to work them out for yourself. Beyond this, any authentic material (anything meant for native speakers) you can get your hands on also counts as study material.

#3: Interaction

If you’re studying a dead language you’ll only need to read, naturally this isn’t so important. The rest of us, however, need to get out and communicate in a language in order for all that vocabulary and those grammar rules to consolidates into actual language skills. Writing practice is fine, particularly if you’ll be needing to write a lot in your target language (business letters, etc.)

For gaining real fluency, though, nothing beats real-time, face-to-face communication. This is particularly true if your an auditory learner. Stuck for ways to get more interaction? Here are some ideas on how to get more foreign language speaking practice when you don’t have many native speakers around.

Learn a Language Fast with Audio Courses

Amelia — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:46:37 +0000

One of the biggest problems that hold many people back from being able to learn a language fast is lack of organization.

Sure, some people may say it’s because they don’t have time to study, but what that usually means is that they haven’t organized their learning plan well enough to take advantage of the time they do have.

That’s where audio courses come in.

Use Every Free Minute

Audio courses help you make use of the little scraps of free time you have through out the day. Put the course on your MP3 player or Walkman and it’s ready to go

It also lets you keep your hands free, so can go for a walk, make coffee, clean the house, or just about anything else while you’re studying. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend getting too deeply involved in something else because it will distract you from what you’re trying to learn and reduce your retention of the material.

The up side, though, is hands-free study will take away the feeling that there’s “something more important” you should be doing instead of sitting on the sofa with a textbook in your lap.

The Best Audio Courses

If you’ve read a few articles at FasterForeignLanguageLearning.com, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a huge fan of Pimsleur. The reason I like them so much is the course is very well organized to help you actually remember what you hear. It’s not just someone reading a list of words followed by a few dialogues.

The only downside, however, is that Pimsleur is rather expensive. If you’re not ready to splash out $200 or more, give Living Languages from Random House a try. These courses do come with books that include vocab lists, example phrases, and quizzes, but the audio alone is still useful.

Make you Own “Course”

Not having a professionally designed audio course available doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage audio to improve your language skills. The internet gives you access to a huge variety of audio in the more common languages, but you’ll probably be able to find something in all but the rarest languages. This includes talk radio, interviews, music clips, movies, and even ads.

While it’s true this audio material won’t be neatly organized for language study purposes, you’ll find that just listening—daily—will help your listening comprehension enormously. Keep adding your seven (or however many) words a day and you’ll find yourself able to understand more and more of what you hear. The repetition will also help get the words into your long-term memory.

One caveat, though: if you’re the type of learner who needs to see new words in writing or write them out yourself before you can remember them, an audio-only course may actually be slower for you than a traditional textbook-based course.

A Real Answer to “How Fast Can I Learn a Language?”

Amelia — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:55:19 +0000

As you probably already realize, the question “How fast can I learn a language?” has no single answer. It depends on what you mean by “learn,” how motivated you are, the amount of time you have for practice, the study material and practice partners available to you, your target language, and of course, you’re language learning skills.

To give you a general answer, though, if you’re strongly motivated, can time for daily study, and have basic study material available, you can probably reach a basic “survival fluency” in three to six months.

What Level do You Want to Reach?

If you’re self-taught or taking an average-speed (not intensive) language course, you’ll probably be able to reach Intermediate Mid or Elementary Proficiency in three months.

At this level you’ll be able to hold simple discussions on basic, everyday topics and get the gist of printed material meant for a wide audience. Buying something in a shop, ordering a meal in restaurant, checking into a hotel room will pose minimal problems.

The reality is, though, that if you have plenty of opportunity for interactive practice (ideally daily, face-to-face conversations), you can get a lot farther in that time.

There’s something about the way the human mind learns language that requires live interaction to really absorb a language quickly. We hear words repeated in context and hear examples of how to use various grammar features all while paying close attention to the person we’re talking to because we need to exchange information.

How You Can Get There in Three Months

Language teachers will tell you the average person can learn seven words a day without getting overwhelmed. You may be able to learn 20 words in one day, but try 20 words a day for a week and you probably won’t remember much of what you studied.

So, learn seven words a day for three months (minus one day a week for review) and you’ll have a vocabulary of around 550 words. In most situations, that will be around 90% of what you need to communicate comfortably.

Of course, it’s not all about vocabulary. You’ll also need a good grasp on the most common verb tenses, cases, prepositions, possessives and other grammar essentials. In three months, you probably won’t be able to get in enough practice to be able to use them flawlessly, but you can get comfortable enough with them that native speakers can understand with little trouble.

The trick to getting a good foundation in grammar relatively quickly is knowing when you move on to something new. For the most part, when you feel like you can use a particular grammar feature well enough to communicate (you make mistakes, but few that interfere with communication).

So, the answer to “How fast can I learn a language?” is that it depends a lot on your foreign language learning skills. If you have your tricks for getting vocab words to stick and learning to use grammar without having to stop and think about it, then you’ll learn significantly faster than average. The book Faster Foreign Language Learning provides just that. In contains all the “tricks” and “shortcuts” I’ve learned in the past 15 years of language learning and teaching.

The Whole Answer

No matter what your learning style, these tools can not only halve the time it takes you to reach conversation level (or fluency, if that’s your goal), but also make getting there more fun and less stressful.

How to Learn a Foreign Language Faster

Amelia — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:30:50 +0000

If you’re interested in foreign language learning, at some point you’ve probably wondered how to learn a foreign language faster. We all know high school classes and even some professional language courses can drag on for several years and still leave just barely able to communicate in your chosen language.

And yet, with the right techniques, it is possible to get the strikingly fast results of intensive and immersion-style language courses even if you never set foot in a classroom. Here’s a little more about how you can do that.

Focus on the Essentials

Lack of focus is one of the main reasons many people aren’t able to learn a foreign language faster than average. When you’re deeply interested in a language, every word and every aspect of grammar seems interesting and useful. It’s easy to overwhelm yourself with long vocab lists and copious grammar notes. In attempt to get the basics of everything in general, you end up learning very little thoroughly enough to actually use it in a conversation.

In a Hubpages Hub on learning a foreign language in eight weeks I laid out a plan for getting conversant in any language in just a month and a half.

It will help you with two things: 1) choosing exactly the vocabulary you need and 2) choosing exactly what grammar features you need. By tightly restricting your focus to the absolute essentials and mastering those, you’ll get conversant (or reach the next level in your studies) much faster than if you browse around for “interesting” words and grammar features.

Choose Learning Material That’s Right for You

There is no one best language learning method. No matter how many people out there love Pimsleur or the Teach Yourself series or any other given language learning method or program, that doesn’t mean that method or program is the best one for you.

If you’re an auditory learner and need to hear the foreign language in order to learn it, you’ll do great with Pimsleur. If you the kind who wants everything laid out in need tables and charts, the Living Languages, is probably a good bet for you.

It’s equally important not to limit the amount of study material you collect, especially when it comes to workbooks and authentic material (newspapers, songs, etc.). While you want to choose a good course for you main learning resource, any extra practice and input you can get will both build your knowledge and skills and prevent boredom.

Use Memory Techniques

Memory “tricks” are the ultimate in what sets fast language learners apart from average learners. To some extent, this is also a matter of knowing your own learning style. Another thing holding a lot of people back from learning a foreign language faster is that. Unfortunately, language classes rarely teach you how to learn a language. They just give you the material and expect you to learn it somehow.

That means beginning language learners are left to discover what works and what doesn’t through trial and error, wasting years trying out ineffective techniques before they (with luck) stumble across the effective ones. For instance, beginning language learners often try to learn vocabulary by listing the foreign words alongside their translations and “reviewing” this list several times a day. It’s hard to think of a less effective way to learn vocab.

One better way to get vocab words to stick is the link-word technique. If you want to remember the Spanish tijeras (scissors), you might link it to the English words “tea” and “hair.” Make up a story like, “My sister was using scissors to cut her hair at the the kitchen table while I was making tea, and now there’s a hair in my tea.” Now that is far from a perfect example, but check with yourself tomorrow and see if you don’t remember how to say “scissors” in Spanish.

Often all you need is just a slight push to jog your short term memory enough times to get the words in your long term so you no longer need a trick to remember it.

Another good practice technique is the diglot weave—mixing two languages in one sentence. This helps you practice words you know even before you know much grammar. If you’re learning Arabic, you might look at a crowd and think, “There are a lot of nas [people] on the shari [street] today.”

“Tricks” list this exist for grammar, too. And there are literally dozens of these so you won’t have any problem finding ones that are effective for you.

All three of these elements—focus, study material, and memory techniques—are vital to being able to learn a foreign language fast. In the Faster Foreign Language Learning book, I’ve covered each in depth so you can skip the years of trial and error and become one of the “fast learners” now.