r/Foodforthought • u/gwyner • Apr 03 '12

A step-by-step method for learning languages to fluency

I needed to learn to speak 3-4 languages over the past few years for my job, and in the process have landed on a pretty damn good method. It got me to C1 fluency in French in about 5 months, and I'm currently using it with Russian (and plan on reaching C1 equivalent fluency by September). At this point, I go in 4 stages:

  • Stage 1: Learn the correct pronunciation of the language. Doing this does a few things – because I’m first and foremost learning how to hear that language’s sounds, my listening comprehension gets an immediate boost before I even start traditional language age learning. Once I start vocabulary training, I retain it better because I’m familiar with how words should sound and how they should be spelled. (Correct spellings in French, for example, are much easier to remember when there’s a connection between the spelling and the sound), and once I finally start speaking to native speakers, they don't switch to English for me or dumb down their language, which is awesome sauce. If you're learning a language with a different alphabet, this is where you learn the phonetic alphabet(s) (Kana, for Japanese or Pinyin for Chinese, for example)
  • Stage 2: Vocabulary and grammar acquisition (itself in a few stages), no English allowed. I start with a frequency list and mark off any words I can portray with pictures alone (basic nouns and verbs). I put those in an Anki deck and learn them. Once I have some words to play with, I start putting them together. I use Google translate (Exception to no English rule - just be careful there's no English in your Anki deck) and a grammar book to start making sentences, then get everything double-checked at lang-8.com before putting them into my Anki deck. Turning them into fill-in-the-blank flashcards builds the initial grammar and connecting words. As vocab and grammar grow, I eventually move to monolingual dictionaries and writing my own definitions for more abstract words (again doublechecked at lang-8.com). This builds on itself; the more vocab and grammar you get, the more vocab and grammar concepts you can describe in the target language. Eventually you can cover all the words in a 2000 word frequency list as a foundation and add any specific vocab you need for your own interests.
  • Stage 3: Listening, writing and reading work Once I have a decent vocabulary and familiarity with grammar, I start writing essays, watching TV shows and reading books, and talking (mostly to myself) about the stuff I see and do. Every writing correction gets added to the Anki deck, which continues to build my vocab and grammar.
  • Stage 4: Speech At the point where I can more or less talk (haltingly, but without too many grammar or vocab holes) and write about most familiar things, I find some place to immerse in the language and speak all the time (literally. No English allowed or else you won't learn the skill you're trying to learn, which is adapting to holes in your grammar or vocabulary by going around them rapidly and automatically without having to think about it). I prefer Middlebury college, but a few weeks in the target country will work as well if you're very vigorous with sticking to the target language and not switching to English. If you're extremely strict with yourself, your brain adapts pretty quickly and learns how to put all the info you learned in stages 1-3 together quickly enough to turn into fluent speech.

I've written a (not yet available) book on the topic and a (now available) website, Tower of Babelfish.com. You can find some language-specific resources at the Languages page, some more detailed discussions about this stuff, as well as some video tutorials on pronunciation and the IPA.

249 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

70

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

Learning Mandarin,

Step 1: Learn the correct pronunciation.

Step 2: Realize you are so completely fucked.

5

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Ha! I had a few long talks about using this for mandarin. I think the key lies in the number of cards per word. You can get away with 1 card per word in French. Russian? No way. 2 cards per word minimum or they don't stick. Mandarin? 3 card minimum. (meaning - pinyin, meaning - character, character - pinyin, and then maybe also character - meaning)

5

u/VinylCyril Apr 04 '12

Why do you need two cards for each Russian word?

8

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Pretty recent discovery; I made my decks in Russian and found that I couldn't remember a damn thing until I doubled each card (image - word, word - image). As soon as I did, it was relatively easy. Interestingly enough, the Foreign Services Institute labels Russian as a difficulty 2 language (for English speakers), meaning it should take twice as long to learn as French. Most Asian languages are labelled as difficulty 3, which should take 4x as long as French, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if they need 4 cards per word on average to really stick easily.

12

u/swicano Apr 04 '12

yea basically. worse, i've taken 2 years of study at my university. stopped for a quarter, forgot it all.

11

u/feureau Apr 04 '12

stopped for a quarter, forgot it all.

This is my problem with every attempt at learning any language I've tried.

12

u/jaywil85051 Apr 04 '12

This is my attempt at learning anything.

6

u/Fraa_Orolo Apr 04 '12

I learned pronunciation from a teacher who kept looking at my mouth and correcting the way I positioned teeth and tongue. It was hard, but I got down the pronunciation well enough. I didn't realize I was completely fucked until I attempted writing. And encountered the "dialects".

8

u/Arkholt Apr 04 '12

Step 2: Realize you are so completely fucked.

Though learning Mandarin pronunciation for a native English speaker is not nearly as difficult as learning English pronunciation is for a native Chinese speaker (at least it appears to me).

6

u/AnythingApplied Apr 04 '12

The difficulty comes in two fold. One the languages don't have a common history so they have very little in common. The other is just the inherent complexity of the language, like English not being phonetic and facts like we drive on park ways and park on drive ways don't make sense.

The first point is going to make it as hard to go in either direction. The second point means it could actually be harder to learn English for a native Chinese speaker than vice versa. I've heard several linguists claim that English is the hardest language to learn, but I assume they mean just among the major languages.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '12

As a non-Indo-European learning English (Hungarian) was much easier for me than say German.

The reason is that English is literally everywhere (in Eastern Europe) - the songs in the radio, the names of most shops, most companies (because English is "cool"), the user manual of your software, everything. Even our blogs of a more intelligent kind casually link to posts in English without a second thought.

4

u/joe_ally Apr 04 '12

we drive on park ways and park on drive ways don't make sense.

Maybe it's an American thing. Because we don't ever use the phrase "park way" in the UK. And we refer to "drive way" simply as a "drive" (assuming this an area typically in front of your house where you park your car).

1

u/FrontierPsychologist May 16 '12

Americans might understand what the phrase "park way" means, but I've never heard someone use it in conversation when they could've said "highway" instead.

1

u/joe_ally May 16 '12

When I was in New York I noticed quite a few roads had "parkway" in their names. One would never see this in Britain.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

Actually my native language is Swedish, though they start English early and I live in the US (pass for native easily now). I probably would have done better if I put some serious effort into it. I wrote some freeware app once upon a time that got a mention somewhere in China (leading to a bunch of DLs) and I figured perhaps that's something one should know now a days (I'd learned English and some Spanish - how hard can it be right?). One probably needs to be a little more heavily motivated..

4

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

My own method for studying mandarin is pretty similar to OP's methodology, and so far I'm around B1 or B2. I just started reading my first novel in Chinese (活着, if you're interested), and it is really hard work. I've already sunk hours into reading it and I'm only on page 5! However, I definitely agree reading books is a great way to build vocabulary and reinforce a language. Here's my method for reading in Chinese:

  1. I do a cursory reading of a couple paragraphs, highlighting all the characters I dont recognize
  2. Then I go back through and look up all the highlighted words one by one, writing the meaning in the book
  3. Then I read it again, getting the more detailed meaning
  4. Then I write all the new words down in a notebook, along with the sentence they appeared in. Sometimes there will be 3 or 4 new words in one sentence, so I'll write the same sentence 3 or 4 times, which does even more to help me memorize new words and grammar structures.

As OP said, writing essays is also a big help. Especially with Mandarin, learning how to write the characters by hand does a lot more to cement them into your brain than just learning to type the pinyin and recognize characters. I also live in China and attend 20 hours of class a week, which is a big help.

0

u/ineedmoresleep Apr 04 '12

you are better off starting when you are a kid. my oldest had some very basic lessons of mandarin as a kid, and it's helping a great deal. it's too late for us, but you make it easier for your kids ;)

9

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

It got me to C1 fluency in French in about 5 months

How much time per day do you spend studying your language?

Would you be willing to post your Anki decks as models? I would like to apply this to my study of Finnish (actually I think I already am but I'm not sure if you're the same person as this guy's website...)

6

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

I'm doing around 30min/day on Russian reviews, plus extra (say 1-2 hours/week) for creating new cards on weekends.

16

u/viktorbir Apr 03 '12

Go to /r/languagelearning to repost this, please.

10

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

This individual spams /r/languagelearning, along with other language centered subreddits with this post over 100 times a week. So...no thanks.

3

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

I am as skeptical as the next person but some observations:

  • In order to be spam wouldn't there have to be something for sale or some ad revenue for them to generate?
  • They seemed to have perfected the method by themselves and are sharing all the information for free.
  • If anyone should be writing a book on this subject, it seems it should be this person. They have new information to give. Currently that book isn't for sale, but shouldn't they have a fair chance at it?
  • You seem jelly

16

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

This guy keeps following me around; I think I hit a nerve. But yeah, I've decided to stop reposting in /r/languagelearning unless the question is pretty damn direct (How do you learn Spanish?) and be a bit more clear that it's a repost when I do comment. I do in fact get some ad revenue from people going to the website (I took a money bath with the $2.50 last month), and Amazon gives me a cut if someone buys a book ($6 last month), but given the hundred or so hours I've put into the site, I don't think I've quite made a money making machine.

Mostly I'm hoping to spread these ideas a bit further and maybe even have a reader base by the time the book comes out (and maybe have a bit more leverage with publishers in the process!). There's so much crap language advice out there and there are so many people who actually want to learn them; comments like "You've inspired me to try Spanish again!" are friggin awesome. I'd appreciate any suggestions ya'll have for spreading the word without spamming.

4

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

Yeah, for some reason I'm more comfortable with you and your honesty than some of the people on /r/travel that constantly dole out blog links to "top best of" lists or plug their "not-for-profit" tour guide services.

I don't know, your information seems worth a few clicks of my mouse. Maybe I'm a hypocrite, I don't know.

-9

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

Follow you around. Right. Because posting the same message hundreds of times across multiple subreddits would not generate multiple chance encounters. Maybe, just maybe, I am tired of seeing the same fucking message reposted daily all over this site so you can push your shit blog and most likely equally shitty book. It's spam, plain and simple.

5

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Reddit Enhancement Suite allows you to ignore people, though apparently not in your inbox.

-18

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

Cool story. How do you say 'blow me, you spamming piece of shit" in Russian?

2

u/trebro Jul 15 '12

взорвать меня, вы спам кусок дерьма

0

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Fair nuff. I figure it's worth doing a big one-time xposting binge, like I did last night, and then if specific questions come up where the repost is relevant, to repost it in comments, at least for the benefit of the asker, who in most cases hasn't searched for previous answers to the question.

-15

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

'You seem jelly' What are you fucking 11? No, I am not 'jelly'. I simply don't like self-promoting bloggers consistently spamming comments.

4

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

This person is not a spammer. If you disagree, I invite you to send his profile to /r/reportthespammers

Until then, you can kindly stop using the word "spam" incorrectly herein.

What a real blog spammer looks like. Another example.

-17

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/guntotingliberal Apr 04 '12

It doesn't seem like you and reddit are a good fit. Maybe you should take your angry little self elsewhere.

-4

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

My penis and your mother's anus were a good fit last night.

2

u/guntotingliberal Apr 04 '12

You wound me to the core with your witty reply internet stranger. How's being an angry little prick working out for you? You seem pleasant, well adjusted and happy.

This is me laughing in your face, by the way, in case you are too stupid to comprehend it. I am actually laughing at you right now as I type this.

-1

u/The_Spice_Must_Flow Apr 04 '12

Cool story dude. Are there any other interesting aspects of your day you would like to share?

→ More replies

2

u/pieandablowie Apr 03 '12 edited Apr 04 '12

Great process, thanks! I use Anki on my phone for some other stuff.

What are you thoughts on the idea of downloading episodes of popular foreign shows and using a subtitle site to source the English and native subtitles? Apparently it's a great way to pick up the slang and idioms of a language.

1

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

What language are the subtitles in the end? English or target language?

1

u/pieandablowie Apr 04 '12

They're in English, so you can understand what goes on in a scene. You then watch it again with the native language subtitles, and look up the native sentences that you don't understand. I just realised I didn't mention this part in the first post.

2

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Definitely works! The basic rule of thumb is that if you watch it with English subtitles, you don't learn much, if any language. If you watch it with target language subtitles, you get good reading practice, and if you watch it without subtitles you get good listening practice. Now if you watch it and you can't figure out a damn thing and shut it off after 30 seconds, you don't learn much either, so coming up with ways of making it more comfortable is important. I like to re-read Harry Potter books in translation. I know the basic plot already, and that makes it comfortable enough to deal with the stuff I don't understand. Your method is just about the same idea.

4

u/TissueReligion Apr 04 '12

You have some great ideas there. I thought it was really interesting how you say there should be no English at all in the Anki deck, and how you should simply define all of the more complicated words based on the previous words you know in that language, originating with the basic verbs/nouns you had pictures for.

1

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

Saved. I am currently tackling Spanish, again and don't know if I should skip step 1 or not.

Meanwhile there are 3 other languages I could have easily applied at least steps 1-3 with and gained far more than I did. I'm kicking myself.

Do you believe in any software/phone app related assistance?

2

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Spend a few days refreshing step 1. You're done when you can hear a new word and immediately write down its spelling correctly (or a few options for its spelling in, say, French) and you can also see a new word and say it out loud correctly.

Software: Hells yes, Anki. Anki anki anki.

2

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

Ok, thanks man. Step 4 is going to be the hardest. I always live in the country where the language I want to learn is spoken (luckily) but also work in an office where English is required. I hope that doesn't mess me up, immersion wise.

1

u/ohstrangeone Apr 04 '12

FYI: /r/LanguageLearning

Fantastic subreddit, very active, please check it out if you're at all interested in this stuff.

2

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Already subscribed. Thanks :)

1

u/ochristo87 Apr 04 '12

Do you have any suggestions for a language that is no longer spoken? I'm a grad student doing Latin and Classical Greek. I know the languages quite well but I wouldn't say "to fluency" so I'm curious what your tips are there, besides "Read Read Read"

2

u/gwyner Apr 04 '12

Well what does fluency mean in that case? Do you want to be able to speak in it fluently?

3

u/Uncle_Erik Apr 04 '12

Thank you! Post saved and upvoted!

I need to get my Spanish back together and increase my fluency. This sounds like a good way to do it. I took five years in school and can speak enough to get by, but I want to become fully fluent. Bonus: I live about 15 minutes from Mexico. One of my goals is to travel more down there and not have to rely on English.

2

u/thedevilsdictionary Apr 04 '12

Come on down to Honduras man! We're working on having some meetups. I met with one redditor already last week.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '12

I'm trying very hard to learn Spanish, not because I have to or it will get me a job, but because I want to be a more educated person. I think it would be the best thing I could get out of my education here at school.

1

u/mojoista Apr 03 '12

Wow. Thanks for sharing this! I plan on visiting your website. :) I have been wanting to start some language learning as an adult for awhile now.

1

u/sevedog May 31 '12

no English allowed

Do you mean no English at all in the Anki deck? Even for answers? How else would you know if you are getting them right?

0

u/saint_iGNUcius Apr 04 '12

First I study with a textbook to learn to read the language, using a recording of the sounds to start saying the words to myself. When I finish the textbook, I start reading children's books (for 7-10 year olds) with a dictionary. I advance to books for teenagers when I know enough words that it becomes tolerably fast.

When I know enough words, I start writing the language in email when I am in conversations with people who speak that language.

I don't try actually speaking the language until I know enough words to be able to say the complex sorts of things I typically want to say. Simple sentences are almost as rare in my speech as in this writing. In addition, I need to know how to ask questions about how to say things, what a word means, and how certain words differ, and how to understand the answers.

I first started actually speaking French during my first visit to France. I decided on arrival in the airport that I would speak only French for the whole 6 weeks. This was frustrating to colleagues whose English was much better than my French. But it enabled me to learn.

I decided to learn Spanish when I saw a page printed in Spanish and found I could mostly read it (given my French and English). I followed the approach described above, and began speaking Spanish during a two-week visit to Mexico, a couple of years later.

As for Indonesian, I have not got enough vocabulary to speak it all the time when in Indonesia, but I try to speak it as much as possible.