12 of the Rules of language learning in record time

This is the only article on the study of foreign languages, which you need to do!



In this comprehensive article Benny teach you:

How to talk to your preferred language today.
How to achieve fluency and succeed in their studies for several months.
How to impersonate a native speaker.
And finally - how to learn several languages, to become a "polyglot" and all within a few years, perhaps 1-2 years.

This article contains a ton of amazing mineral resources, of which you were unaware, including the best free apps and websites that will teach you fluency in a short time. Want to find a native speaker and talk with him for only $ 5 per hour? Free sources and tricks for memory? Everything in this post.

You are all waiting for this article, so I hope you enjoy it!

Well, give Benny a word:

You are either born with the gene language skills or not. It all depends on luck, is not it? At least so says the majority of people.

I think you can wrap everything in their favor. Several years ago I was just a worthless in terms of language learning. I was the worst on the lessons of the German school, 20 I just could not speak English, and even after six months of living in Spain I could barely muster the courage to ask the Spanish, where is the toilet.

But here we come to the moment when I saw the light, changed his approach and then succeeded not only in the study of Spanish, but also received a diploma level C2 (Mastery) at the Institute Cervantes, he has been a professional translator and even gave an interview to the Spanish radio, which gave travel tips. Since then I learned other languages, I can now speak more than 10 languages ​​with varying degrees of skill - from the spoken to the high level of ownership.

It turns out that there is no gene language learning, but there are special tools and techniques to quickly learn how to ...

When I became a "polyglot", a man who speaks several languages, I have expanded my world. I was able to communicate with people, to go to places that would otherwise never have seen. I found friends on the train in China because the Chinese, discussing politics with a resident in the Egyptian desert Arabic, discover the wonders of deaf culture thanks to sign language, invited the President of Ireland (a woman) to dance in Gaelic and even talked about it on the Irish radio, interviewed manufacturers of fabric from Peru about the intricacies of their work in the Quechua language, translated at the event with the Hungarian and Portuguese ... in general, I was incredibly interesting decade full of traveling the world.

These wonderful experiences are available for many of you.

You probably start with the same level at which I was (you know only one language, an adult, trying to teach before, but now simply have no idea where to start). Below I am going to present its advice that worked for me best, thanks to them, I started with nothing and became polyglot.

This is a very detailed article, it contains everything you need to know.

So let's start!

1. Learn the right words in the right way
Start learning a new language is the need to learn new words. A lot of words.

Of course, many people refer to a bad memory when narabatyvanii new vocabulary, so throw even before seriously start.

But here's the key - you do not need to know all of the words in the language to speak it (in truth, you are in their own language all the words you do not know).

Tim wrote in his article about the study of language in three months, you can use the Pareto principle. Realize that 20% of your efforts you spend on the achievements of the new dictionary can help you understand the language 80%. For example, in English text often 65% consist of 300 repeating words. We often use it to, a collection exists in any other language.

You can find pre-made cards with these most common words (or words on the topics which will most likely be talking), so convenient to study through the application Anki (on your computer and smartphone) that is easy to download. The application offers the convenience of techniques with cards, combined with a system of repetition intervals. This means that instead of having to learn the same words in the dictionary by the same order, you will view them through a special period of time, the ideal that they are not forgotten.

Himself Tim likes to use real printed cards, he buys some Vis-Ed, others he does himself. He showed me a couple when I interviewed him about how he learns languages.

2. Teach related words: it's your friends in each language
Believe it or not, you have right now has a huge base to explore the language you want. You know a few words from each language before they became his teaching. Start learning the language "from scratch" is almost impossible, because you already know a huge number of related words.

Related words - "real friends" words that are similar to words in your native language, and they mean the same thing in another language.

For example, Romance languages ​​such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and others have a lot in common with the English. Initially, the British "borrowed word" Normans in the conquest of England, which lasted several hundred years. «Action», «nation», «precipitation», «solution», «frustration», «tradition», «communication», «extinction» and thousands of other words ending in -tion, are written the same way in French, and a little bit else you will easily get used to the pronunciation. Change -tion on -ción, and voila! - A Spanish word, it will be with the Italian and Portuguese with -zione -ção.

In many languages, there are also common (Greek / Latin or others) roots, they can, and write a little different, but you'll have to try hard not to recognize, for example, the French «exemple», «hélicoptère», the Italian «porto», «capitano», Spanish «astronomía», and «Saturno». German went a little further, it shares many words from Old English.

To find a language you studied in generalities, simply hammer in the search engine "related words (language name)" or "borrowing (language name)", so you know what words they were taken, and, of course, look for "(name language) words in your own language "to find out what your language borrowed from another.

It's very effective for European languages, but what about the more distant family?

Well, it turns out that even such distant languages ​​like Japanese, can you have a bunch of familiar vocabulary. To prove his words, just listen to this song - Animaniac's "Nations of the World", it is completely in Japanese, but you can still understand a lot of what I sing, and others, studying Japanese:



This is because many languages ​​simply borrowed English words and integrated them with a changed pronunciation or accent.

To make your life easier when I start learning the language, I begin with related or loan words in a new language, and a lot of them for almost any language.

3. Connect the required interface language on a daily basis, even without traveling

Another reason (or excuse, depending on how you look at it) that people call as an excuse for not learning languages, is that they can not travel to the country of the target language. They do not have the time, money, and so on.

Believe me, in the "air" of another country, there is nothing magical that miraculously make you speak a different language. I spent a lot of experiments to prove it (for example, learned Arabic while living in Brazil).

I have met countless expatriates living abroad for many years and do not try to learn the local language. Living abroad and immersion are not identical. If you need to hear and use language to absorb it, is virtual communication will not be as effective? Of course it will. Today, technology allows you to easily experience the dive, and you do not even have to buy a ticket.

To listen to the language you studied, you can use TuneIn.com, there is a huge range of live radio in the language of your choice. The app (Free) also offer you a list of radio stations in the selected language.

To get audio practice, see that right now in this country in a trend naYoutube. Go to the section of the country on Amazon or Ebay (amazon.es, amazon.fr, amazon.co.jp, etc.) and buy your favorite soap operas dubbed with the required interface language. Or a local popular series using charts. Many news stations also offer a lot of video clips on their sites online in many languages, including France24, Deutsche Welle, CNN Español and others.

To get some practice in reading, you can read not only news sites, blogs and cool and other famous sites, each country has its own top.

And if you want full immersion, the Chrome browser has plug-ins that help you translate a page from your language to any other.

4 - Start talking on Skype today for the daily practice
So you already listen to, watch and read, even on your preferred language, and all this in the comfort of your own home. Now it's time for a big step: to speak live in this language with the carrier.

One of my most conflicting advice, but I insist on it especially when giving advice to beginners - a start to speak the language from the very beginning, if your goal is, of course - to learn to speak, not only to understand.

Most of the traditional approaches or language systems not working, and this I think they miss the students. I like to say that in the week of seven days and include no such - "one day».

Here's what I suggest instead:

Use the tips that I described above, to earn basic vocabulary and to clarify which words you already know. Do this for a few hours, and then be prepared to speak with a support to those who speak the language of life. You have to learn the words just for the first interview. If you immediately start to use them, you immediately realize what is missing and start adding right. You can not learn in isolation, until you feel that the "ready" for dialogue.

In the first few hours, I recommend learn the words of politeness - "Hello", "Thank you", "Can you repeat that?" Or "I do not understand", many of which you will easily find the whole list.

But wait - where you find a native speaker if you're not in the country of the target language?

No problem! Thousands of native speakers are ready and waiting for talking to you right now. You can take private lessons literally "for peanuts", using the vestries in exchange rates. My favorite is to find the "natives" - a italki.com, this is where I got the Chinese and Japanese lessons through Skype for just $ 5 per hour.

If the first day you will still not ready, then Think about it: start studying for Skype will make it easier, as you can during the conversation next to keep open another window (or application), which will already be loaded most keywords, you can keep an eye on them until finally remember. You can even refer to the Google Translate or dictionary during a conversation, so you'll just fly learn new words at precisely the moment when they need.

Is not it "cheating"? No. The goal - is to learn to use the language, and do not imitate the old traditional method. I myself enjoyed the way I have described, and after studying the Polish one hour to travel to Warsaw to perform at TEDx speech about learning languages, I was able to keep the conversation (though incredibly simple) in Polish for a whole hour.

I think this is a victory!

5. Save your money. Most resources are free
In addition to the payment of personal contact with a native speaker, I do not see why you have to spend hundreds of dollars to learn the language. I myself tried Rosetta Stone and not very impressed.

But there are excellent resources. Wonderful and totally free, which only get better. It Duolingo - here a wonderful range of European languages, and will add more and more. There is a lot of things that will help you easily begin to learn the language, without spending a penny. Here are some very good alternatives:

List of courses The Foreign Service Institute
The Omniglot
Languages ​​BBC, then you know the basics of more than 40 languages ​​
Post on languages ​​at About, which explains some aspects of language

You really are lots of options when it comes to the free resources, so I suggest you try a few and see what are the best person to help you. The aforementioned Italki great for language exchange and lessons learned, but My Language Exchange and Interpals also a good alternative to it. Still it is possible to work in offline mode, find the language of the meeting in your town, for example, the Club polyglot, or find a meeting on Couchsurfing, meetup.com or Internations. These meetings - a great opportunity to get acquainted with the international practice for enthusiasts and native speakers.

Wait, that's not all. You can totally free to tighten their foreign using:

A huge database to Forvo, then you can hear every word and expression of a variety of languages, and read them those who native language.

Rhinospike - here you can even leave your inquiry as you take the name of the desired phrase, and again they will record carrier. If you do not find on these websites, then use the built-in utility sound Text Google Translate.

And Lang 8, you can get a free scan written text.
The possibilities are endless for free practice.

6. Understand that adults are actually much better able to learn languages ​​as children
Now you have to start learning a ton of resources, so let's get to the biggest problem. No grammar or vocabulary or lack of sources, but sad misconception about your own learning potential.

The most common misconception that leads you to wanting to give up, is considered: I'm too old to learn to speak the language.

I'm glad I became a herald of good news. I will tell you that a recent study has confirmed the fact that adults can much more productive to learn the language than children. This study conducted by scientists from the University of Haifa, it showed that under certain circumstances where adults have a better understanding intuitively rules of grammar than their younger counterparts to train.

Moreover, no study has ever been conducted limited relations between the acquisition of language skills and increasing age. There is only a general trend in terms of language learning by adults, who are more likely to depend on environmental factors, which can easily be changed (for example, long working hours are deprived of many opportunities to engage in a lot). One day my friend Kadzumoto (alljapaneseallthetime.com) said one thing that I really liked: "Children do not learn the language better than you, they simply have no other choice».
And as an adult, we can easily emulate the environment of immersion and without traveling, spending money or having to return to childhood.

7. Expand your mnemonic vocabulary
Cramming is not enough.

Although the endless repetition can sometimes just the word burn into your memory, remember that only repeated dozens of times a word is also disappointing.
But I suggest to use mnemonics to remember the words, it will help you "stick" the word to your memory much more efficiently. You tell yourself funny, silly, most importantly memorable story that you associate with a particular word. You can work with mnemonics for yourself, but for this there is still a great resource (and free), I highly recommend memrise.com.

For example, suppose that you learn Spanish and can not remember that «Caber» means "fit", no matter how many times you did not repeat that word. Why not take advantage of associations that offers Memrise:
It [Caber - & gt; cab, bear - & gt; Bear for cab]. Association to help remember the meaning.

It can promise you a long process of learning, but only tried a couple of times, you'll quickly realize how effective. And you will want to remember this hook a couple of times until the word itself does not become a natural part of your active vocabulary.

8. Accept their mistakes
More than half the world's population speaks several languages.
This means that monolingualism - a cultural rather than a biological effect. Therefore, when adults (at least in the English-speaking world) fail to learn the language, it's not because they do not have the right genes or such nonsense. This is because their language learning system is broken.



















































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