! *Editor's Note:* This Is A Guest Post From Benny The Irish
Polyglot Of Fluent In 3 Months [1]. !
When I was 21 years old, the only language I spoke was English. I had
done quite poorly in languages in school and believed that I was too
untalented and even too 'old' to consider ever speaking a foreign
language, even basically.
Now seven years later I speak eight languages fluently and can get by
quite well in several others. In my day-to-day life I almost never
speak English and my travels and scope of friendships have been
greatly enriched because of this.
How I reached this stage was not by studying a lot or investing
thousands in software or courses. It was by applying the simple
principles outlined here.
!! Having The Right Learning Approach !!
What mostly surprises people is my confidence that anyone can reach a
high level of fluency in a language in just a few months. Many of us
will have studied a language for years in school and are barely able
to string a sentence together, so this idea might sound nothing short
of arrogant.
However, considering what you are actually doing in school; a couple
of hours of theory, using the language unnaturally for exam purposes,
and some half-interested homework – this barely adds up to a few
weeks of real work even over half a decade.
After just two months living in Budapest, with no previous exposure to
the language, I was ready to be interviewed entirely in Hungarian on
video. I am not smarter or more talented than anyone else who might
attempt this, but I am much more committed and serious about reaching
my goals.
You don't have to devote your life to the language, but you must
invest at least an hour a day, ideally more, which involves _focused_
use of the language.
Casual interest can only get you so far – if you just 'want' to
speak a language, that gives you no edge. Who wouldn't want that? To
make real progress, that want has to become a _need_.
With focus and your full attention you can learn much quicker
And there is only one way the language will become a true necessity:
you need to start speaking it with other people, _now_.
!! Stop Learning The Language, And Start Speaking It! !!
If I had to summarize what definitely separates those who fail in
attempts to reach conversational fluency and those who succeed, based
on my experience of meeting thousands of language learners, it is
simply the fact that the latter group actually use the language. Not
for exams, not for listening to podcasts or reading, but to
communicate with human beings.
If your goal is to be able to read perfectly or understand the radio
perfectly, then lots of reading and listening will be precisely what
you need.
However, to speak well, you need to speak often! You can't avoid this,
it's kind of the whole point!
Seriously, stop studying the target language so much! A language can't
be treated like a subject in school such as history or biology; in the
real world you cannot 'fail' when you make a certain number of
mistakes. Other people are very helpful when you are genuinely trying
to speak with them.
People told me that in Berlin I would find it hard to convince Germans
to not speak English to me all the time, but even when I was initially
struggling they would be very helpful and patient with me as I spoke.
They could see that I was serious about speaking their language and
rewarded me for my efforts.
I can assure you, if you start speaking now with the little you know,
you will indeed make mistakes but other speakers and natives will
forgive you for this and you will realize that you always had the
ability to communicate and get your point across.
Thanks to this practice, any studying you do will be focused on real
use of the language relevant to your life, rather than theoretical
applications recommended in generic courses.
!! Don't Wait To Finish The Course – Take Matters Into Your Own
Hands! !!
What so many courses miss is that no matter how much you study, unless
you start to use the language with others on a regular basis, it will
have no real context in your mind and it's very hard to make any real
progress.
I know people who are like walking dictionaries – they know the most
obscure words in the foreign language and can explain precisely how
the grammar works. And yet they are _still_ not confident enough to
speak.
One of these was another foreigner I lived with in Spain who could run
circles around me if you put the two of us in an examination. Despite
this, Spaniards I met when we were together would tell me that I spoke
much better than he did. I wasn't thinking too much about saying
things perfectly – I just let the conversations flow.
People focused on perfection still need to learn 'just a little more'
and they'll be ready 'some day'. There are seven days in a week and
'some day' isn't one of them!
Those with much less theory behind them, but more experience actually
speaking, will outdo the academics every time. This has _nothing to do
with natural talent_, it's about simply opening your mouth and really
using the language.
A language is a means of communication. If you think of it as a list
of vocabulary to learn off, or a table of grammar to memorize, you are
missing the point entirely.
When you start practicing, you will improve on your speaking skills
dramatically. It won't be easy, but once you accept that you simply
cannot skip the stage of making mistakes and try to enjoy it, then the
mistakes will disappear quicker.
!! You Don't Need To Travel To Speak The Language !!
Successful language learners don't aim to speak well _some day_ - they
use it _now_. Make all of your focus on immediate use of the language.
Study can help, but it is most effective when it has immediate
applications.
Find natives and other learners to practice with and arrange to meet
up with them immediately. It will be hard at first, but you need real
pressure if you want to make real progress.
Rather than downloading podcasts and buying too many courses, meet up
with actual people and use the language! A few resources I like to use
include:
* Meetup.com [2] for language meet-ups in major cities. You can also
read advertisements in newspapers and your local library to see if
people meet up interested in speaking the language you want to.
* Join Couchsurfing [3] and host foreign travelers in your home. The
same site also has international meetings and a feature to search
your city for people who speak a particular language.
* You can also find native speakers online and practice over Skype,
through many language learning social networks available for free
online.
You can do this in your home town.
The only reason I feel that travel really does make a difference for
some people is because of the pressure to perform being constantly
there.
But many expats still waste the opportunity. I met a man who had been
living in Prague for _ten_ years and still didn't speak any Czech,
even though his own children did. He had created a bubble of his
mother tongue that 'protected' him via his social circle and routines.
If he can do this in a foreign country, why can't we do it from home
with a foreign language? You don't have to avoid your mother tongue
(that is not a realistic solution for many due to work and family /
friends), but you can create a 'bubble' where everything you do is in
the target language, even if just for that hour a day.
!! A Positive Attitude Is The Key !!
No matter what language I learn, I always try to look at my cup as
'half full'. It's possible to answer this post with a list of reasons
why learning a given language would be too hard for you, but this
bogus focus on excuses is what actually makes it hard for many people.
You can also make it easy by deciding to have a positive attitude
accompany you in your language learning journey.
This positive attitude creates a feedback loop in your mind where you
will look for more evidence to support the idea that it isn't that bad
after all and this will further fuel your openness to learn more
without creating any invisible barriers. Progress will flow and you'll
be speaking confidently before you know it.
So stop reading about it, stop listening to others doing it, and stop
over-studying and dreaming about 'some day'. It's time to get out
there and speak it!
*Benny is a _language hacker_ who takes on a new intensive language
'mission' every few months. Subscribe to his blog Fluent in 3 months
[4] to follow these stories and get his best tips. Read his best
strategies for speaking any language in his Language Hacking Guide
[5].**---**ar twitter*
Links:
------
[1] http://www.fluentin3months.com
[2] http://www.meetup.com/
[3] http://www.couchsurfing.org/
[4] http://feeds.feedburner.com/fluentin3months
[5] http://www.languagehacking.com/
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