As language learners, we’re often told that we need to memorize new words followed immediately by memorizing a phrase that uses the word. There’s no disagreeing with the important of seeing new vocabulary in context, but this method does not tell the full story of context and its power.

Some of what follows may seem a bit brainy and conceptual, but stick with me for a moment because understanding context more fully can change how you study your dream language. First off, it’s important to realize that learning words out of context is technically impossible. There is always context and you cannot learn even your first word of foreign language vocabulary without it.

Why? Because whenever you learn a new word, you’re learning it in the field of your mother tongue. Your mother tongue is a very important context because it’s like a comparative software database that sits in your brain pumping out computations every time you learn. “Maintenance” in French is like “maintenance” in English, only the sounds are different.

Or there may be limited or “false cognate” associations between two words. “Attendre” in French looks like “attend” in English, but the meaning of the words are quite different (the difference between waiting for something or someone and showing up at a concert). Either way, whether you are comparing or contrasting new vocabulary words, your mother tongue is the ultimate context in which the process of learning occurs.

Why does this matter?

Because the context of your mother tongue and understanding that this primary language is a kind of “software” installed into the foundation of your mind is where the power lies when it comes to quickly learning and memorizing new vocabulary.

Hacking Context

The language – or languages you already know – is a primary basis for association when learning foreign vocabulary. At some level your mind will always make associations, but you can hack this natural impulse by self-consciously guiding the natural capacities of your imagination using mnemonics or “memory tricks.”

A lot of people resist memory techniques for language learning because they think there’s too much work involved. Index cards and spaced-repetition software seem more concrete and direct and rote learning-based drills are deeply familiar to us from years of school.

However, what if I were to tell you that you could “download” new vocabulary words and phrases so that you can see them immediately in context quickly, reliably and even addictively?

That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

Here then is an example of how you can use the context of your mother tongue to quickly learn and memorize a new word.

“Der Zug” is the German masculine noun for “train” in English. “Zug” sounds like “zoo” with a “g” at the end, so to help you memorize this, you could see a gorilla installing a “g” at the end of the word “zoo” at your local wildlife park. You would make this image large, bright, colorful and filled with zany action.

In other words, the gorilla wouldn’t just be putting the “g” at the end of “zoo” in a calm and polite manner. He’d be doing it in a frenzied manner, perhaps because the zoo police are after him (and ideally they’re about to arrive using the zoo’s train to help compound the meaning that you’re trying to associate the sound zoog/Zug with the meaning of “train.”

All of the images in this example rely upon using English, not German, as a primary context. We are playing with the foreign language word in the sandbox of my mother tongue, and if you’re playing along, you’re integrating and absorbing “der Zug” into your mind using imaginative play.

Dealing with Gender in Context

I mentioned that “der Zug” is a masculine noun. How on earth are you going to memorize this important aspect of the word with so many other images already going on?

Simple.

Put a pair of boxing gloves on your gorilla. Or anything you associate with masculinity. Maybe he’s got a cigar in his mouth, a moustache or some other stereotype (I’m sorry, but memorizing foreign language vocabulary is not place to be politically correct …)

The best part is that once you’ve chosen an imaginative indicator of gender, you can stick with it and use it again and again for every masculine word you encounter and want to memorize using a mnemonic strategy.

For some people, this might seem like a lot of work and I’ll admit that what I’m suggesting certainly isn’t a magic bullet.

But with a small amount of practice, mnemonics work gangbusters for learning and memorizing foreign language vocabulary. And if you actually found yourself using your local zoo to generate the image I’ve suggested for memorizing “der Zug,” then you will experience an interesting side-effect that you can exploit whenever you are memorizing foreign language words.

Location, Location, Location

When you try to recall the meaning and sound of this word, your mind actually knows where to go to look for images you created. This is the mnemonic principle of using a familiar location. There are ways to get even more systematic with mnemonics so that it’s even easier and more effective to memorize massive amounts of vocabulary in a very short period of time based on the principle of location, so it’s well worth looking into these special methods.

Zoog/Zug in a Phrase

Now let’s look at “der Zug” in the context of a phrase. Although you’re now going to see and memorize the word in the context of German, you will still be consciously using the context of your mother tongue to “encode” the phrase into your mind.

And let’s stick with the local zoo so that we also have the “context” of a location that will allow us to visit the mnemonic imagery we’ve created, substantially increasing our chances of recalling the sound and meaning of the phrase with ease.

“Der Zug ist abgefahren” means that the train has left the station. You can use the phrase literally or your can use it to mean that someone has “missed the boat” or that an opportunity has been missed.

You’ve already memorized “der Zug,” so it’s now just a matter of memorizing “abgefahren” (to depart). I suggest that you practice the principle of “word division” here by splitting “abgefahren” into “ab” and “gefahren.” Just as you can use a figure like boxing gloves to always remember when a word is masculine, you can repeatedly use a certain figure to remember how certain words begin.

In this case, lets use Abraham Lincoln for “ab.” The first thing that comes to my mind for “gefahren” is an image of Forrest Gump running far with the letter n tucked under his arm like a football because he’s late for the train. And Abraham helps him out by throwing the train from the zoo(g) at him so that he won’t miss it (remember, zany and weird images work best because they stand out in your mind).

Abraham Lincoln + Gump + running far with an n = abgefahren.

Der Zug ist abgefahren.

Got it.

In conclusion, I’m suggesting that you combine contexts: the context of the language itself by following up your memorization of a new word with the memorization of a phrase, but also the primary context of your mother tongue. Instead of thinking of new language learning as a process of “addition,” we can think of it as “embedding” new words like seeds into a field of rich dirt that already understands how to connect, differentiate and absorb. All we need to do is consciously manipulate our natural powers of association to bring a massive boost to our language goals.

As a final note, I’ve suggested to you some images in this article that are meant as a guide to making your own mnemonics. Because you serve as the best possible context (the movies you like, the places you’ve been, the specific ways you use your mother tongue), it’s important to draw upon your own inner resources. Relying on yourself will not only make new vocabulary words and phrases stick out like a sore thumb in the context of your mind, but drawing upon your own life will also make you more creative. The more creative you are, the more readily you can make images for memorizing more vocabulary words and phrases. Used well, context is a truly perfect circle.

The Internet has blessed modern language learners with unprecedented access to foreign language tools, materials, and native speakers. Assuming they can get online, even a farmhand in rural Kansas can learn Japanese for free using Skype, YouTube, and Lang-8. But language learning luddites and technophobes scoff at these modern miracles. Like Charleton Heston clutching his proverbial rifle, they desperately cling to tradition for tradition’s sake, criticizing these modern tools—and the modern methods they enable—from their offline hideouts. Communicating via messenger pigeon and smoke signals no doubt…

“Technology is for for lazy learners!” they exclaim. “Real language learners”, they insist, use the classroom-based, textbook-driven, rote-memory-laden techniques of old.

I call bullshit.

Given how ineffective these traditional methods and materials tend to be for most learners, I can only assume supporters do so from a place of masochism, not efficacy. Perhaps they feel that the more difficult their task, the more bad-ass they become if they manage to succeed despite less-than-optimal methods, materials, and tools.

These voices seem to be loudest in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese language learning circles, which should come as no surprise since these two languages are often considered “extremely difficult” and teachers of these languages tend to be most stuck in tradition and unwilling to embrace change. Personally, I don’t consider any languages difficult per se. Just different. This may be mere semantics, but one’s attitude toward a language plays a major role in one’s ability to stick with it long enough to reach fluency. Think about it: even supposedly “difficult” languages like Japanese, for example, pose many advantages for native speakers of English, including:

• A massive head start in vocabulary acquisition. Japanese contains a mother load of English loan words. When in doubt, just pronounce an English word with Japanese pronunciation and changes are good you will be understood. If that fails, just write down the English word on a piece of paper and they are likely to recognize it. Why? Throughout middle school, high school, and university, Japanese students must memorize thousands of English words, but the focus is on reading and spelling, not spoken English. So most folks can recognize English words when written down but probably won’t register the same word spoken aloud. Yet another reason why traditional language education approaches fail…

• Few new sounds & one-to-one pronunciation. English speakers already know how to make nearly all the sounds in Japanese. You just have to learn the Japanese ‘r’ and ‘ts’ sounds. Also, each kana in Japanese can only be read one way, unlike English letters—for example, English’s notorious ‘e’—that can represent numerous sounds.

• No need to change verbs based on the subject. Unlike most European languages, Japanese does not inflect verbs to agree with the subject pronoun. “I go”, “You go”, “We go”, “They go”, “He goes”, and “She goes” are all ikimasu (行きます・いきます).

But the linguistic masochists of the world don’t want to talk about such advantages because it threatens their egos and their “I study hard therefore I am” ethos.

There’s nothing wrong with studying your butt off. But make sure your efforts are applied to methods that actually work like spaced repetition systems, imaginative memory, mnemonics, and pegging, and materials you truly enjoy like podcasts, YouTube, blogs, anime, and manga. Why cling to expensive, outdated methods when free, modern options exist?

I started the Language Mastery blog in April 2009 with three primary goals:

To dispel widespread, insidious myths about language acquisition.

Especially the motivation-crushing triumvirate:

1. “I’m too old to learn a foreign language”
2. “I don’t have time to learn”
3. “I’m just not good at languages, so why bother?”

To share time and sanity-saving tips I’ve learned as both a language learner and teacher.

I’ve been learning and teaching languages off and on for well over a decade, and in that time, I’ve observed a few key patterns that separate the many who fail from the few who succeed. The number one thing?

Attitude trumps all. If you’re fired up enough to learn the language and truly believe you can:

• You’ll find the time no matter how busy you are
• You’ll find target language input no matter where you live
• You’ll practice speaking with native speakers no matter how stupid you feel

To help adult learners select kick-ass materials relevant to their goals, interests, and learning styles.

While methods matter, choosing the right materials is far more important. You may follow the latest, greatest, research-based methodologies, but if your materials are so boring or unrelated to your life that you never crack the book or load the app, it’s all for not.

“What you study is more important than how you study. Students are subordinate to materials much like novice cooks are subordinate to recipes. If you select the wrong materials, the wrong textbook, the wrong group of words, it doesn’t matter how much (or how well) you study. It doesn’t matter how good your teacher is. One must find the highest-frequency material. Material beats method.” ~Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Chef

I’ve written many posts on these topics so far (see the Start Here category for my favorites), as well as pouring my soul into the ever-evolving Master Japanese guide (up to 539 pages as of writing), but I know there are still many questions I’ve yet to answer, holes I haven’t yet patched in, materials I haven’t yet reviewed, methods I haven’t yet discussed, and probably some emails from you that managed to slip through the cracks (I do my best to answer every email I get by the way, but Gmail’s over-zealous spam filtering means I occasionally never get emails from folks not in my contacts).

So here’s what I need from you. In the comments below, please share:

• Specific topics you’d like me to address or expand upon (language learning, specific languages, linguistics, travel, culture, etc.)
• Language learning methods you’d like me to cover in more detail or test out on myself (I’m always happy to be a Guinea pig in the name of science!)
• Language learning materials, tools, books, sites, apps, etc. you’d like me to review
• Polyglots, bloggers, authors, researchers, teachers, etc. you’d like me to interview
• Anything else you’d like to see more or less of on the blog

 If you’re not comfortable leaving a public comment, feel free to email me instead (hopefully the Google gods let your message through!)

Onwards and Upwards,

John

First of all, make sure that you’re using a good way to measure your actual—as opposed to perceived—progress. I suggest recording an unrehearsed audio or video diary at least once a week, and writing a daily journal. Both of these active output tasks are far better measures of your fluency than multiple choice tests, and best of all, encourage you to do the very tasks that lead to conversational fluency.

Assuming your progress tracking tools are not the issue, here are five likely reasons you’re not improving as quickly as you’d like:

1) You’re not putting in the requisite hours each week.

The most common reason we fail to progress in any skill based endeavor is that we simply don’t spend enough time on task. It’s all too easy to log in 40 hours a week marathon viewing Breaking Bad, but how many hours a week do you honestly spend hearing, speaking, reading, and writing your target language? As an experiment, jot down how many minutes or hours you spend studying or immersing in a language each day for a week and then tally up your results. Even the most diehard learners may be surprised how little they spend each week. This is but one of the highly under-appreciated components of child language acquisition. They have no choice but to immerse in their first language throughout the day, and end up spending an enormous amount of time in their first few years of life sucking up the language around them. Before you say “children are better learners than adults”, try spending the same number of hours they do actively acquiring the language. If you did, I bet you’d learn even faster than the little ones.

2) You’re spending too much time reading and not enough time listening and speaking.

Although reading skills are extremely important, many learners (especially highly educated adults) fall into the cozy trap of reading far more than listening or speaking. I get it. Reading is safe. There’s no messy two-way communication to deal with. No chance that people won’t understand you, laugh at your mistakes, or give you chicken feet when you wanted fried chicken. But realize that reading does very little to improve your listening and speaking skills. You’ve probably encountered non-native speakers of English who can read The New York Times without much difficulty but can barely order a coffee to go along with the paper.

3) You’re not engaging in “deliberate practice”.

Podcasts and YouTube are great, but passive input alone is not enough. To make quick, tangible progress in a language, you have to engage in deliberate practice every day:

• Stay on target. Deliberate practice requires a high level of motivation and intense, constant focus on your specific goals. If your goal, for example, is to be conversationally fluent in 3 months, ignore (or at least minimize) reading and writing tasks for now until you’ve reached your objective.

• Get immediate feedback on your performance. Deliberate practice requires immediate feedback on your performance in the language. Have your friends, tutors, or teachers jot down mistakes you make and go over them one by one once you finish your sentence.

• Repetition, Repetition, Repetition. Deliberate practice requires that you get repeated exposure to the same words, kanji, phrases, structures, topics, etc., especially those that prove most difficult for you. If you already know something frontwards and backwards, there’s no reason to waist valuable time reviewing it again. Spaced repetition systems (SRS) like Anki and Memrise are a great way to automatically schedule reviews based on difficulty and the time since your last exposure, but just like the reading trap I mentioned above, make sure that you are not spending more time doing Anki reps than you are actively listening and speaking your target language.

4) You’re not hungry enough for it.

Aside from using archaic methods and boring textbooks, there’s a major reason why most folks don’t learn much in their high school Spanish class: the class is mandatory. If you had been given the choice to learn more “exotic” sounding languages like Japanese or Chinese in school, I bet you would have been more motivated to learn and retained much more of what you studied. Choice is a powerful motivator. I’ve taught thousands of adult English learners over the past 10 years, and have observed two overarching trends:

• Even after years of study, students in mandatory English classes (whether at school or work) seldom make any real progress.
• Those who did excel had strong internal motivation. Even if they didn’t have to learn English or weren’t offered free classes by their company, they would have chosen to do so at their own expense.

5) You don’t have a clear purpose for learning the language.

While there’s nothing wrong with learning a language just for spits and giggles, you probably won’t progress very quickly if you’re just learning as a casual pastime. If you’re serious about making rapid progress, you must make the language your top priority, and create extremely “S.M.A.R.T.” (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. “I want to be fluent in Japanese”, for example, is not such a goal:

• It’s not specific. “Fluency” is a very broad concept. Do you mean oral fluency or literacy? Do you mean fluency in a wide range of topics or just for your specific professional needs and personal interests?

• It’s not measurable. Not only is “fluency” difficult to define, but it’s also extremely difficult to measure. Sure, you can use standardized tests like the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), but it is better at measuring your test taking ability and how much information about Japanese you’ve memorized, not your actual ability to use it day to day.

• It’s not attainable. If something can’t even be defined or measured, then how can you ever attain it?

• It’s not relevant. This goal is so large and vague that it has little impact on the day to day activities required to improve your fluency in Japanese.

• It’s not time-bound. There is no finish line in languages. Even native speakers continually expand their vocabularies and refine their communication skills, so by definition, this goal is not time bound is therefore not helpful for our purposes.

Though you can learn foreign languages quite well right in your home country using free online tools like Skype, YouTube, language exchange sites, podcasts, etc., none of these are a substitute for the transformational power of living, learning, and working abroad. Neither is short-term international travel. To get the life-changing effects (“Who the hell am I anyway and what do I really want to do with my life?!”), the minimum effective dose seems to be about 6 to 12 months neck deep in a new land.

But I realize that not everyone can just pick up and move to a new country, so I’ve put together some life lessons I’ve gleaned over the past 33 years living on the planet earth, especially the last decade living as a “stranger in a strange land” in Japan, Bangladesh, and Taiwan. I hope they offer you some vicarious expat wisdom, and more importantly, impetus to move abroad yourself.

I originally posted this as one über long post, but decided to break it up into bite-size chunks (thank you for the suggestion Content Club peeps):

1. Happiness is a Choice
2. True Happiness Only Exists in the Present Moment
3. Rule Your Mind or It Will Rule You
4. Wherever You Go, There You Are
5. Don’t Confuse Your Options With Your Choices
6. No Amount of Having or Doing Can Create a Lasting Sense of Being
7. Mindful, Love-Filled Action Changes the World, Not Prayer
8. Ignorance & Arrogance is the Most Dangerous Combination
9. Myths are Powerful Devices, But Devices Nonetheless
10. Religion and Science Can Both Be Twisted to Serve Any Purpose
11. “Consensus” is Not the Same Thing as “Truth”
12. Walk The Line Between Perseverance & Acceptance
13. Have Low Expectations
14. Most Things Make No Difference; Focus Only on What Does
15. There is Enough Time to Do What Really Matters
16. There’s No Replacement for Motivation & Discipline
17. Use Daily Routines, Rituals & Habits to Maximize Creative Output
18. Perfectionism is the Enemy of Productivity & True Happiness
19. Take Life “Bird by Bird” and “Brick by Brick”
20. Learning How to Learn is Life’s Most Important Skill
21. There is a Huge Difference Between “Studying” and “Learning”
22. Wisdom = Knowledge + Experience
23. Measure What Matters; Ignore the Rest
24. Respecting a Culture Does Not Mean Liking or Agreeing With Every Part of It
25. Foreign Languages Open Doors You Didn’t Even Know Were There
26. Non-Standard Language is Not the Same as Sub-Standard
27. Every Act of Communication is an Act of Translation
28. Proper Nutrition & Exercise Are Force Multipliers for Everything You Do
29. Money Can’t Buy Happiness, But It Can Help Make the Down Payment
30. It’s Never Worth Sacrificing Your Health or Happiness for Pay
31. Put On Your Oxygen Mask First
32. Question Everything
33. Don’t Save the Best for Last

Note: This post was inspired by inspirational articles from two different Benny’s: Benny the Irish Polyglot’s post 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight and Benny Hsu’s 34 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 34 years of Living. Both are great fellas making a living doing what they love and I highly recommend their blogs.

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Whatever it is you truly want to do in life—whether it’s starting a new language, quitting a high paying job to do something more fulfilling, or leaving a destructive relationship—do it today. Don’t wait for the right time and don’t wait for permission; both will never come. Yes, you might piss some people off. Some people will be let down. But those that really matter will respect you for having the guts to follow your bliss and do what you’re on this earth to do.

Set aside some time everyday to do the things that really matter to you and have the greatest impact on your health, happiness, family, friends, and community. If you truly don’t have time, create it through prioritizing what really matters (see 14) Most Things Make No Difference; Focus Only on What Does).

Next: 2) True Happiness Only Exists in the Present Moment Return to the List