Becoming bilingual opens up a whole new world of different people, different cultures, and different emotions. It also takes a huge time commitment—one that many of us can’t dedicate to. But what if fluency was only 90 days away?
The Benefits of Bilingualism
Learning a second language has many cognitive benefits. For example, it has been shown to delay Alzheimer’s, boost brainpower, reduce cognitive biases, and even increase concentration and the ability to tune out distractions. But, more so than cognitive effects, the ability to speak a second language has a ton of social benefits. There’s bliss in having the ability to order food in the waiter’s native language, to eavesdrop on people in an elevator, or to impress natives by speaking with and understanding them.
The coolest thing about learning your second language is that it makes learning a third, fourth, or fifth language much easier. The challenge isn’t in learning a new language, but rather learning how to learn a language. Once you know the techniques, you’ll be able to apply the same grammatical patterns and language techniques in every new language you learn.
Why Most People Are Wrong About Language Learning
I studied Spanish for several years in high school, and even got good grades on national exams. But one day, when I actually tried to speak the language, I suddenly realized: four years of studying Spanish in school, and I couldn’t even order a burrito. So what went wrong? According to official standardized tests, I was an expert in Spanish. But I couldn’t even do the most basic of tasks!
The fact is that we are not taught languages in the ideal way. Students study languages in huge groups and think that a few worksheets and grammar exercises will be enough to learn a language. Yet almost no one actually learns to speak. In actuality, by doing worksheets, we are practicing for just that—doing worksheets. But if you want to learn to speak, well, you actually have to practice by speaking.
So when people try to learn to speak a language out of a book, or with Rosetta Stone, I try to show them that they won’t achieve their goals that way. If you want to speak, you have to practice speaking. And if you want to speak a language rapidly, well, you have to start speaking. A lot.
The Basic Strategy Of Rapid Language Learning
Learning a language can seem daunting, so I’m going to provide an overview of the general strategy, before we get into the specifics.
Here is the breakdown:
- Get the right resources for learning: A grammar book, memorization software, and films/books.
- Get a private tutor. You want one for at least a month. I recommend four hours/day.
- Attempt to speak and think only in the new language. Every time you can’t remember a word, put that word into your memorization software. Practice your vocabulary daily.
- Find friends, language partners, and other speakers of the language. Once you can have basic conversations with your private tutor, you need to find other partners. If you haven’t already, think about moving to the country where the language is spoken. Consider a group class. Practice continuously. Stop speaking English.
That’s the basic strategy. Again, this strategy is intensive, because learning a language in three months is a difficult task. If you’d prefer to learn the language more slowly or you don’t have the ability to move to a new country and practice 4-8 hours a day, then you can modify the plan. It is extremely important that you practice every day, however—20 minutes a day is much better than once or twice a week.
The Resources You Need To Learn A Language
In order to learn a language, you’ll need some items that you can practice with. Here are the resources I always use.
A good grammar book. This is essential if you want to learn a language. I recommend Dover’s Essential Grammar series: the books are very cheap, concise, and thorough.
A phrase book. This is similar to a dictionary, but for phrases. You can start memorizing full sentences and phrases, and you’ll naturally learn the individual words. I’ll talk more about memorization tactics shortly.
An online dictionary. For most romance langauges, I recommend Word Reference. For German, try Dict.cc.Google Translate can be useful, but it easily becomes a crutch. Use it sparingly.
A memorization app. You have to memorize vocabulary. I always put new words in my app, and practice them every night. If you’re on a Mac, check out the app Genius. It uses time-spacing techniques to test our knowledge. You’ll randomly be quizzed on words or phrases you are trying to learn, and the more often you make a mistake, the more often you’ll be tested. I recommend you put English on the left column and your desired language on the right, so that you’ll learn to speak in a new language, not translate from it. If you’re on a PC, I’ve heard good things about Anki.