Is it ideal to learn Japanese in Japan and Mandarin in China or Taiwan? Yes. Is it a mandatory condition? Absolutely not. Let me be clear: living in Japan and Taiwan for a number of years was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I go back to visit as often as possible. But while living in a Japanese or Mandarin speaking country can certainly provide learners of these languages many advantages, it’s critical to understand that it’s not a requirement for success. In today’s world, “I can’t learn Japanese because I live in rural Kansas” is an excuse, not a reality. With Internet access, a little creativity, and a lot of hard work, you really can learn any language, anywhere. As Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months puts it:

“…where you are isn’t what decides whether or not you’ll be successful. Attitude beats latitude (and longitude) every time. It’s more about creating an immersion environment, exposing yourself to native speakers, and doing everything you can in that language.”

Acquisition Depends on Active Learning, Not Osmosis

On the flip side, living abroad is no guarantee that you will pick up the language. While immersion is essential, language acquisition depends on active learning, not passive osmosis. Consider the ridiculously high number of Western expats who spend years in Japan, China, or Taiwan and never reach even a moderate level of fluency in Japanese or Mandarin. Or take the case of English speakers learning French in New Brunswick, Canada: despite being surrounded by French both in and outside of the classroom for 12 years, a government report showed that only 0.68 percent reached even an intermediate level in the language! No, my friends, exposure is not enough. You have to be hungry to learn and do everything you can to actively assimilate the language.

You Can Always Find Native Speakers to Practice With

There is no shortage of language learning communities, exchange sites, and tutoring services online today, with more and more popping up every year. And with the advent of free VOIP (voice over IP) services like Skype, you can talk with native speakers right from your computer or smartphone no matter where you live. If you prefer speaking face to face, find a local language and culture group on Meetup.com, or if you live near a university, see about volunteering to help tutor exchange students.

You Can Practice Listening & Speaking On Your Own

It certainly helps to speak with native speakers, and I suggest doing so as much as you can. But in cases where you don’t have anyone to talk with, you can always get more listening input via podcasts, videos, etc., and then practice using what you’ve learned by recording an audio journal, talking to your smartphone as if you’re on a call, or just saying in your head what you would say in various scenarios you are likely to encounter.

Detailed Tips on Developing an Immersion Environment

For heaps of resource recommendations and how-to tips for creating an immersion environment no matter where you live, check out my step-by-step language guides.

Learning—and actually remembering—new words, phrases, alphabets, Chinese characters, etc. is one of the primary tasks in acquiring a foreign language. But for many learners, it happens to be one of the most frustrating. But don’t despair! The problem is likely your method, not your memory.

In the traditional brute-force method of memorizing vocabulary (the default approach worldwide), the learner writes a particular word or character dozens and dozens of times, hoping that it will somehow stay in their brain long enough for the next test or conversation. But unless you have a photographic memory, you will probably find that the information you worked so hard cram into your noodle is nowhere to be found just a few hours later. It’s demoralizing. You think to yourself, “See? I told you I’m not good at languages! I told you I have a crappy memory! Screw it; I’m just gonna watch House of Cards and eat an entire pint of Cherry Garcia.”

But before you give up, waste the entire weekend on Netflix, and develop insulin resistance, please realize that YOU are not the problem! Despite its ubiquitous use, rote memorization only works for an extremely small percentage of learners. Fortunately, there are three superior vocabulary acquisition approaches that work with (not against) how the adult human brain encodes and prioritizes information: 1) Mnemonics, 2) Spaced repetition, and 3) Context.

1) Create Crazy Mnemonics

Most of you have probably already dabbled in mnemonics in school, perhaps when trying to memorize the order of the planets. For example, the silly sentence “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” might help you remember the that the planets are ordered Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. You would of course need to update this mnemonic now that Pluto has been demoted from planet status.

Even better would be a “linking system” that relies not on sentences but vivid stories. Tony Buzan shares the following example in his book Master Your Memory:

“Imagine that in front of you, where you are currently reading, is a glorious SUN. See it clearly, feel its heat, and admire its orange/red glow, Imagine, next to the Sun, a little (it’s a little Planet) thermometer, filled with that liquid metal that measures temperature: MERCURY.

Imagine that the Sun heats up, and eventually becomes so hot that it bursts the thermometer. You see all over the desk or floor, in front of you, tiny balls of that liquid metal Mercury, Next you imagine that, rushing in to see what happens, and standing by your side, comes the most beautiful little goddess. Colour her, clothe her (optional!), perfume her, design her as you will, What shall we call our little goddess? Yes, VENUS!

You focus so intently on Venus with all your senses, that she becomes almost a living physical reality in front of you, You see Venus play like a child with the scattered mercury, and finally manage to pick one of the mercury globules, She is so delighted that she throws it in a giant arc way up in the sky (which you see, as light glistens off it throughout its journey), until it hurtles down from on high and lands in your garden with a gigantic ‘thump’!, which you both hear and feel as a bodily vibration. And on what planet is your garden? EARTH.”

And on Buzan goes through all the planets, using vivid imagery, multiple (imagined) sensory inputs, a full color pallet, sexuality, stark contrast in size, etc. All of this seemingly extraneous information accomplishes one thing: helping your forever remember the order of the planets. It may seem like extra work up front, but in the long run, it is far more efficient and effective to learn information this way than through tedious rote memorization.

Rote memory fails because you are not giving your brain any hooks to attach the new information to. Crazy stories like above tie new, abstract information to memories already in our brains, things we can see (whether in our mind’s eye or on our own bodies like with knuckle mnemonics), or to concrete concepts that we can more easily recall.

So when trying to learn a new word, phrase, or Chinese character, create imaginative stories with multiple “hooks” that help to dig out the specific meanings, spellings, pronunciations, or strokes.

Here is an example on how to remember the kanji 朝 (“morning”) from Remembering the Kanji, a systematic mnemonic system designed by James Heisig to help independent learners memorize the meaning and writing of all jouyou kanji:

“On the right we see the moon fading off into the first light of morning, and to the left, the mist that falls to give nature a shower to prepare it for the coming heat. If you can think of the moon tilting over to spill mist on your garden, you should have no trouble remembering which of all the elements in this story are to serve as primitives for constructing the character.”

If you are learning Japanese, download a free sample of Remembering the Kanji or get the book on Amazon. And don’t miss my interview with James Heisig.

2) Use Spaced Repetition

As the name implies, “spaced repetition” shows you flashcards at specific intervals based on how difficult or easy you previously rated them. The more difficult something is, the sooner (and more often) it will be repeated. Spaced repetition systems (or “SRS” for short) like Anki, Memrise, etc. are far more efficient than randomly reviewing a stack of unsorted flashcards since they (ideally) focus on just the information you need to practice at just the right time.

But a word of caution: although spaced repetition can increase efficiency, make sure that you don’t fall back on bad rote habits. Fill your flashcards with complete sentences and useful phrases taken from—and applicable in—real-life. Better still, add audio recordings of each sentence (ask your iTalki tutor or use Rhinospike to get free audio recordings by native speakers of your target language).

Read my post Spaced Repetition: What is It? Why & How Should You Use It? for more about SRS methods, apps, etc.

3) Learn & Use Vocabulary in Clear Contexts

The most potent way to improve the initial encoding and subsequent recall of new words is learning (and actually using!) vocabulary in context. By “context”, I mean out and about in the real world, doing real things, talking to real people, ordering real food, getting on real trains, flirting with real girls/guys, etc. Trying to memorize words at your desk is not only boring; it’s also far less effective. Studying alone in isolation creates far less robust memories because there is less urgency, less sensory input, less emotional feedback, and let’s face it, less of a point!

Read Anthony Metivier’s guest post Why It’s Impossible To Learn New Words And Phrases Out Of Context for more about the importance of context and how to create effective mnemonics.

Stephen Krashen is one of my heroes. He is a linguist, researcher, education activist, and professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. I have wanted to meet him since I began studying linguistics in university, and finally had my chance at Ming Chuan University’s 2009 “Annual Conference on Applied Linguistics” in Taipei, Taiwan. He then agreed to conduct the following interview via email.

Note that this interview was originally only available to newsletter subscribers, but since I am now offering Language Mastery Insiders more than a dozen bonuses, I decided it was time for everyone to have the chance to enjoy Krashen’s unique brand of intellect and humor. Enjoy!

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JF: Could you try to summarize the results of the research you have done over the last 30 years in a few sentences?

SK: Of course. We acquire language when we understand what we hear and read, when we understand what people are saying to us, not how they say it. To borrow a phrase from the Jewish philosopher Hillel, “the rest is commentary.”

JF: Can you provide some of the commentary?

SK: With pleasure. We do not acquire language by learning about it, by consciously learning rules and practicing them. Consciously learned rules have very limited functions: We use them to edit what we say and write, but this is hard to do, and sometimes they can help make input comprehensible, but this is rare.

We do not acquire language by producing it; only by understanding it. The ability to produce is the result of language acquisition, not the cause.

Language acquisition proceeds best when the input is not just comprehensible, but really interesting, even compelling; so interesting that you forget you are listening to or reading another language.

Language acquisition proceeds best when the acquirer is “open” to the input, not “on the defensive”; not anxious about performance.

Language acquisition proceeds along a predictable order that can’t be changed by instruction. Some grammatical rules, for example, are typically acquired early and others much later.

JF: If all this is true, what happens to language teaching? Doesn’t this mean the end of language classes?

SK: Not at all. In fact, the comprehension hypothesis makes life much more interesting for both teachers and students. Classes are great places to get comprehensible input. Even if you live in the country where the language is spoken, it is hard to get comprehensible input from the “outside world”, especially if you are an adult. The language you hear is too complex. The beginner can get more comprehensible input in one hour from a good language classes than from days and days in the country.

Here is an example from my own experience. After having spent about six weeks in Taiwan, on and off over six years, all I could say was “I like ice cream” and maybe four more words, and I understood nothing. Then in the summer of 2007 I took a nine- hour short course in Mandarin, taught by Linda Li, using TPRS, a very good method for providing comprehensible input for beginners. Linda made the input comprehensible in a variety of ways, including pictures, actions, and the use of the first language.
I got much more comprehensible input in the first 30 minutes in that class than I had in Taiwan during the six weeks I was there.

The comprehension hypothesis helps clarify what the goal of language classes is: Acquire enough of the language so that at least some authentic language input, input from the outside world, is comprehensible. Then the acquirer can improve without a class.

JF: I noticed that you said that language acquisition “proceeds along a predictable order” with some grammatical items acquired early and others late. This finding must be a big help in teaching – now we know when to teach which grammatical rules, right?

SK: That’s what I thought at first, but I have changed my position: I don’t think we should teach along any order. There are strong arguments against using any kind of grammatical syllabus.

First, we don’t know the natural order. We know enough to be confident that the natural order exists, but researchers have not worked out the order for every aspect of grammar.

Second, if our hidden agenda in a reading passage or discussion is the relative clause, or some other aspect of grammar, it is very hard to make the input truly interesting.

Third, we have to constantly review the target structures: Every language student knows that one set of exercises and a few paragraphs are not enough.

Finally, we don’t need to use a grammatical syllabus. In fact, it is more efficient not to have a grammatical syllabus. I have hypothesized that if we provide students with enough comprehensible input, the next structures they are ready to acquire are automatically provided and are reviewed regularly and naturally.

JF: I assume that translation is out of the question…

SK: Too much translation can interfere with delivery of comprehensible input. This is because there is a tendency to pay attention only to the translation and not the second language input.
But there are ways of using the first language to make input more comprehensible, including doing background reading or having discussions on topics that are especially complex and hard to understand in the second language. This is part of the basis for bilingual education: Providing background knowledge in the first language that makes second language input more comprehensible.

In class, the first language can also be used for quick explanation or for providing the meaning of a problematic, but crucial word. This may or may not help much with acquiring the meaning of the actual word, but will serve to make the entire discussion more comprehensible and thereby aid in acquisition of other words and grammatical rules. Linda Li did this very effectively in the Mandarin class I attended.

JF: This sounds nice for developing conversational language. But we also need to talk about what Jim Cummins has called “academic language.” That’s the real goal for many students of English today. Now that English has become an international language, many people need high levels of English literacy and knowledge of specialized vocabulary.

SK: Again, the comprehension hypothesis is a big help. It predicts, and predicts correctly, that there are several ways of developing academic language proficiency. The one I think is the most powerful is wide, self-selected reading, also known as free voluntary reading.

There is an overwhelming body of research that shows that free reading is the main source of our reading ability, our writing style, our “educated” vocabulary, much of our spelling ability and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions, all important aspects of academic language proficiency.

A second way is through sheltered subject matter teaching, that is, making subject matter comprehensible for second language students in special classes, a form of “content-based” teaching.

Studies show that students in these classes typically make good progress in second language development and learn subject matter at the same time.

JF: One more question; a very important one. You have claimed that there is research supporting these hypotheses. But it is very hard to find the actual studies, especially these days when money is a problem for nearly everyone. How can we access the actual studies?

SK: I think the prices of technical books and journals are outrageous, and do a disservice to educators and concerned citizens. My approach is to make as much as possible available on the internet, for free.

I have my own website, www.sdkrashen.com, and readers of this interview are free to download, share, and cite anything on this website. I am adding articles as quickly as I can. There is already one book on the website and there will be more.

The website also has a mailing list, if people are interested in seeing short items I come across, and my own letters to the editor. I write several letters to the editor to newspapers all over the world every week. Again, readers are free to share anything from the website with others, including with their students.

We also started a free open-access internet journal a few years ago, which includes many of the research papers my colleagues and I have done, the International Journal of Language Teaching (IJFLT). Just go to ijflt.com and you have easy access. The journal emphasizes short, readable papers, a real contrast to the usual thing you see in some professional journals in education these days. And for those interested in the political as well as the research controversies in language education in the US today, I recommend two more websites which have been very important for me:

• www.SusanOhanian.org, which I regard as the center of gravity for the “resistance movement” in American education.
• www.elladvocates.org, the website of the Institute for Language and Education, a new organization dealing with policies related to children acquiring English in the US.

JF: Thank you, Professor Krashen.

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 lode 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?

Have you been studying a language for a few months, years, or even decades, but aren’t seeing any noticeable progress?

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 waste 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.

Photo courtesy of Ivana Vasilj via Flickr Creative Commons

Charlemagne, also known as “Pater Europae”, famously said:

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”

Beyond the soul, languages are good for the mind, too. A 2011 article published on Livescience.com showed that learning a new language can protect our brains from developing Alzheimer’s disease, improve cognitive skills, and keep our minds sharp.

The good news: Thanks to the latest mobile technologies, language barriers are starting to fall. Google Translate’s Phrasebook, for example—a highly-recommended application by Verizon—facilitates communication and helps people learn and remember useful foreign phrases.

The bad news: Despite the neural benefits of learning a foreign language and the many advances in language learning technologies, most people still struggle to learn languages, held back by the myths like “only children can learn a foreign language well”.

In this article, we’ll bust the age myth, along with four other frequent offenders.

Myth 1: “I’m too old to learn a new language.”

People usually think that kids have more flexible brains, which can soak up more information than adults. This is a myth. According to many studies, adults can actually learn new languages more efficiently than children. Thanks to the adult’s mature learning system, they can understand complex grammar structures and memorize new vocabulary far more quickly. It’s never too late to learn something that can help enhance your life.

Myth 2: “Mistakes don’t matter.”

Committing mistakes is a natural, unavoidable part of the learning process. Moreover, you will usually still be understood even with grammatical mistakes if your pronunciation is good and there is a clear context. And even if they don’t understand you, they will appreciate your effort.

But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to fix your mistakes. One of the best ways to improve mistakes is to record yourself talking about a particular topic or event, and then have a native speaker transcribe what you said, highlighting mistakes in your grammar, vocabulary usage, and pronunciation.

Myth 3: “I’m not a fast learner.”

Everyone has their own set of learning curves, and it’s true: learning a new language can be “challenging”, though not necessarily “difficult” if done correctly. In the past, teachers used older methodologies that made adult students more anxious and less motivated to learn new things. But thanks to modern teaching techniques, anybody can learn a significant amount of functional language in a few weeks or months.

One such technique is mastering a small set of basic phrases first. For example:

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me.”

“Do you speak English?”

“Where is the bathroom/toilet?”

“I understand. / I don’t understand.”

These examples represent many of the top 100 words, which are frequently used in everyday conversations.

Myth 4: “You will learn a language automatically by living abroad.”

While immersion is an essential part of learning a foreign language, the fact is that living in another country alone won’t automatically turn you into a fluent speaker. Some immigrants to the Unites States, for example, have learned that just living in an English speaking country isn’t enough to transform them into fluent English speakers. Without concerted effort, living in a foreign country will likely only lead to mastery of very basic phrases you need to survive, broken sentences, and bad grammar.

On the other hand, with enough effort, you can immerse yourself in language right here in your home country. If you’re learning Japanese, for example, look for a native speaker in your own area who can really teach you. Watch foreign movies or television programs to practice your listening skills. Practice speaking and writing until you reach conversational fluency, and then go abroad to polish your skills and aim for native-like fluency.

Myth 5: “English is the language of the world. Learning a new one isn’t important.”

Only 5% of the world population speaks English, while 95% speak another language. Learning another foreign language, aside from English, is recommended and it can be a fulfilling experience. It helps you understand different cultures, keeps your mind engaged, and you become an asset to your workplace.

As the world becomes more digitally connected, we become more exposed to different languages. From the comfort of your own home, you can easily learn a new language through the Internet, television, and even books. In the end, you’ll gain more and be able to connect with other cultures.

To do lists seem like a good idea in theory, but they have one major disadvantage: there is an infinite number of potential to do items. With this in mind, Timothy Ferriss, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek (and a speaker of 6 languages), recommends “not to do lists” instead. Since they isolate a finite set of behaviors that are getting between you and your goals, they are far more effective than traditional to do lists. This tool applies perfectly to language learning, where most learners waste a lot of time on ineffective methods and bad materials.

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Language schools can be a wonderful place to learn more about your target language, meet fellow learners (who can become both study partners or even lifelong friends), and get your linguistic and cultural feet wet before (or even while) immersing yourself in a new culture and foreign tongue.

However, language schools can also be a major impediment to the very goal you go there to achieve: learning a foreign language as quickly and efficiently as possible. This may come as a shock to those who have been conditioned to believe that classrooms are the only place, or at least the best place, to learn a language.

Here are the top ten disadvantages of formal, classroom-based language learning (at least in my view):

1. You don’t need a teacher or school to learn a foreign language

There is an important distinction to be made between learning and schooling. Those who believe they need formal training in a language are making the false assumption that the two are one and the same. To reach fluency in a language, you need to acquire a great deal of tacit knowledge, that special kind of internalized, experience-based information that you may not be conscious of. The sad truth is that most teachers focus on explicit knowledge (e.g. facts about the language such as grammar rules), which has very little to do with one’s ability to speak a language. Explicit knowledge is easier to teach and test, however, which probably explains why it makes up the bulk of school curricula.

2. You don’t need to “study” grammar rules

At some point in history, the education establishment convinced society that they needed to be “taught” languages. This was quite an amazing feat considering that all human beings are endowed by evolution (or God if you prefer) with the ability to automatically acquire any language they hear in adequate quantities. The problem for most learners (and the reason they buy into the “I need more schooling!” mentality) is that they never get an adequate quantity of language input. The irony is that this input deficiency is often caused by the very classes that are supposed to provide it. With a focus on memorizing grammar rules, most learners end up spending the vast majority of their time learning about a language instead of actually learning the language itself.

3. Tests and grades do more harm than good

Ideally, formalized testing and grading systems motivate students by providing competition and objective feedback. In reality, however, most grading is far from objective (teachers tend to reward students they like and penalize those they don’t), and tests do little more than demonstrate one’s ability to memorize facts. Feedback is important, but it needn’t be in the form of traditional testing or grades. Ask your teachers to evaluate your performance by giving specific examples of things you said right or wrong, not with multiple choice tests.

4. Classes go as fast as the slowest person

The bigger the class, the wider the range of abilities, and the slower the class will have to go. Schools know that students are more likely to stick with something too easy but will quickly throw in the towel if something is too difficult. And despite placement tests and numerous class levels, it can be very difficult to appropriately group students by their actual skill in the language. With finite time slots mutually convenient for all students in a given group, some students will inevitably be placed in classes that are above or below their actual ability level. Also, placement tests come with the same problems mentioned in # 3: they test one’s memory and knowledge (especially of the written word).

5. Reading out loud does not improve your pronunciation or speaking ability

Teachers often have students read out loud to allegedly “practice pronunciation.” The truth is that your pronunciation improves only from massive amounts of listening input and speaking output. Reading aloud does little more than show what words you are unfamiliar with and often reinforces mispronunciations instead of fixing them. While some teachers genuinely believe in the read aloud method, others just use it as a zero prep activity to count down the clock.

6. Oral drills do not help you learn how to speak; they only demonstrate your ability to do so

Just as reading aloud does not improve your pronunciation or reading skills, oral drills do little for your speaking fluency. We improve our speaking ability through increasing the quantity and quality of listening input (e.g. podcasts about your favorite topics), and then applying what we have heard in natural, contextualized conversations.

7. You will be encouraged to move up to the next level even if you aren’t ready

This is all about business. Schools make more money when you buy new books, take level tests and re-enroll in more classes.

8. Your progress reports are meaningless

Teachers hate writing progress reports. They are usually an exercise in creative writing, not meaningful feedback on your actual performance and progress in the language. Not knowing what to say (and not wanting to waste time on a task they don’t get paid for!), many teachers will just cut and paste canned comments, or come up with general, vague statements and overly technical descriptions of your grammar and pronunciation problems.

9. You should be the one who chooses the material

Despite being widely used, standardized textbooks are bad tools for a number of reasons. They build on the myth that schooling equals learning, as discussed in # 1 above. They lull students into a false sense of accomplishment, where completion of chapters is confused with actual internalization of the content. And with content written not to entertain but to avoid offending anyone, they are typically boring and sterile. Interest in the material is essential for effective language learning, so make sure to choose schools or teachers that allow you to choose materials that float your boat.

10. It doesn’t take years to learn a foreign language well if you do it right

If you like the language you are learning, believe you can learn it, and get as much listening and reading input as possible, you will learn the language well enough to communicate in a matter of 6 months to a year. Most students, however, end up paying tuition for years and years despite a lack of progress. Students blame themselves (backed up by the bogus comments found in their progress reports), not realizing that the problem lies not in them, but with their school’s materials and methodologies.

As a language learning addict, I follow lots (and I mean lots) of polyglot blogs and podcasts. It is always interesting to see what has worked (and what hasn’t worked) for successful language learners. While most fluent foreign language speakers tend to agree on the vast majority of language learning DOs and DON’Ts, there is one area that always seems to cause heated debate, shouting, name calling, and occasional mud/poo flinging: the importance of language input (i.e. listening and reading) versus language output (i.e. speaking and writing).

I have sat quietly on the sidelines for some time now, politely listening to both sides of the argument. But it’s time to blow my referee whistle because both teams are “offsides” (Okay John, enough sports analogies already!)

The Argument is Flawed to Begin With…

The problem with the whole argument is that input and output are not mutually exclusive components of language learning. You need both. The key is order and balance.

1. Listen first, then speak

When just starting out in a language, it is important to get as much listening input as possible. Just like when you learned your first language, your brain needs time to get used to the patterns and phonology of the language. But unlike little babies, adults can also rely on reading input to back up what we listen to. This difference (along with the fact we already have fully developed brains and don’t have to wear diapers) gives adults a major leg up on babies learning their first language. For more on the many advantages adult learners have over children, read this excellent article by Benny the Irish Polyglot.

Once you have filled your teapot up with enough listening input, language will naturally want to start pouring out. That’s when it’s time to start speaking; and speaking a lot. But be careful with the “I’ll wait until I’m ready” approach, especially if you are a shy perfectionist. If you fall into this category, years or even decades may pass before you feel “ready”. Depending on your temperament and how many hours you spend a day with the language, a few months, weeks, or even days should arm you with enough exposure to start communicating.

And by all means, if you want to start speaking day one, go for it! Just don’t feel obligated to do so, and don’t let yourself be forced by a tutor or teacher as this often leads to a fear of speaking later on and negative feelings toward the very language you aim to learn.

To get started in a language, try to find short, simple dialogues of actual native speakers with transcripts. Then listen and read, listen and read, and listen and read again as many times as your schedule and sanity allow. Read the dialogues out loud if you want to get your mouth used to the sounds, but keep in mind that you will be mispronouncing things for a while until both your ears and mouth get used to the language.

And I suggest avoiding textbook companion CDs as they tend to offer overly stilted, monotonous dialogues that aim to teach a particular grammar point at the expense of natural communication.

2. Take equal doses of your input and output medicine.

Once you have gone through a few days, weeks, or months of listening and reading this way, start mixing in equal amount of output activities (speaking with friends or tutors, writing a blog post in the foreign language, etc.). It may be nerdy, but it’s a good idea to literally use the stop-watch feature on your iPod touch or phone to time your input and output activities each day. As Peter Drucker says, “What gets measured gets managed.”

If you follow the above regimen, your foreign language skills will progress quickly, efficiently, and most importantly, enjoyably. However, if you follow the advice of the extremists on either side of the input-output debate, you are in for heaps of problems and a world of pain. Here’s why:

Output Only Problems

Proponents of the “Output is awesome; input is lame” philosophy suggest that learners just “get out there and start communicating with native speakers”. This approach, while certainly sexier than what I prescribe above, has a number of problems:

1. Nasty mispronunciation habits.

Bad pronunciation habits develop when you pronounce things how you think they should be pronounced based on your overly limited listening exposure to the language, and your logical, but nonetheless incorrect, assumptions based on how words are spelled but not pronounced.

2. You’ll be that annoying guy at the bar.

Because you have a limited vocabulary and only understand little of what is said to you, you will likely attempt to control conversations by keeping them on topics you are familiar with, using phrases and vocabulary you have memorized. All but the most patient interlocutors will get bored or annoyed by such one-sided conversations. Don’t be that guy. But by the same token, don’t miss chances to speak with natives speakers out of fear you won’t be able to communicate. You’d be amazed how much you can communicate with a few words, body language, drawings on a napkin and animated gesticulation…

3. You probably won’t enjoy the process and give up early.

Many would-be language learners give up because they simply don’t enjoy the process. Much of the angst, tedium and phobias stem from having to speak before one has a chance of performing in the language (and yes, language is a performance). Language teachers are the worst perpetrators, presenting you with new words or phrases one minute, and then expecting you to actually use them the next. Well-meaning friends or language partners are no better, trying to “teach” you new words and phrases and expecting that you can actually use them right away. Assimilation takes time and repetition, so don’t beat yourself up if it takes a few times (or a few hundred times) of hearing or reading a new word or phrase before you can actually use it.

Input Only Problems

If, however, you spend months and months diligently listening to your iPod and reading online newspapers, but never actually speaking with native speakers (by design or chance), you will understand quite a bit of what goes on around you but will struggle to actually verbalize your thoughts well or have natural exchanges with native speakers. This happens because:

1. Proper pronunciation is a physical feat.

You can’t think your way through pronunciation (believe me, most introverts have tried and failed!). Good pronunciation requires that your ears first get used to the new language (i.e. through getting lots and lots of listening input), and then also getting your lips, tongue and larynx used to new sounds not found in your native tongue, which of course takes lots and lots of talkin’ the talk.

2. Speaking and writing identifies your learning gaps.

Until you actually try to say or write something, you won’t know what you really know. While you may passively recognize certain words, phrases, idioms or Chinese characters, you may still struggle to say or write them. This is even true for your native language (as I found out when I first started teaching English and was confronted with such conundrums up at the white board as “Wait a second…How in the hell do you spell “misspelled”?)

The more you speak and write, the more you know where the “holes” are in your language cheese, and the easier it will be to fill them with focused study and review.

Conclusion

So as in all things, the extremists tend to be just that: extreme. They tend to get more attention, but the efficacy of their advice tends to be an inverse proportion to their popularity…

To become fluent in a language, just consume a balanced diet, rich in listening and speaking, with plenty of reading and writing sprinkled in for flavor.

I am often asked if there any tricks or shortcuts to learning a language more quickly. I always respond with the same answer:

The trick to learning a language is to actually learn the language.

This may sound obvious, but it points to the fundamental (and so often under-appreciated) reason why most adults fail to learn a foreign language no matter how many years they sit in a classroom or live where the language is spoken:

Most adult learners spend nearly all of their study time reading and learning about their target language, with very little time truly listening to or reading in the language.

If you doubt this, you need only look at a typical foreign language classroom, textbook, audio CD or podcast intended for native English speakers: with a few exceptions, nearly all of them present 75 to 90% of the course in English, not the target language. The same is true across the globe, though is perhaps most pronounced in Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea where materials intended for English learners are nearly all in Japanese, Mandarin and Korean respectively.

This approach is certainly more comfortable for adult learners (and therefore allows publishers and schools to sell more courses), but it is a recipe for failure. Just look at how few people emerge from years or even decades of formal language study unable to say more than “My name is…” or “One beer, please.”

You can study grammar rules and memorize vocabulary until you are blue in the face, but this will do little for your ability to actually speak the language. Researchers like Victor S. Ferreira (Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego) have shown that this is due to a significant difference in memory types: most formal language study focuses almost entirely on “declarative memory” (e.g. information and facts), while the ability to actually form grammatical sentences off-the-cuff is determined by “procedural memory”, the same mechanism that allows you to drive a manual transmission or swing a golf club without “thinking” about it. (See How Does the Brain Form Sentences? in the April 2009 edition of Mind Magazine and don’t miss my interview with Dr. Ferreira, available as a free bonus to Master Japanese readers). If you are terrible at a foreign language (or golf for that matter…), it’s not because you are stupid or uncoordinated, it’s simply because you haven’t practiced enough yet to develop the necessary procedural memories.

Or as Khatzumoto of All Japanese All the Time so eloquently puts it:

“You don’t suck at the language; you’re just not used to it yet.”

The following post is by Khatzumoto of All Japanese All the Time and is republished here with his permission. Khatzumoto’s posts are funny, pragmatic, and the product of someone who actually practices what they preach. Enjoy!

OK. Everyone knows that quote by Woody Allen or whoever about showing up. You know, 70% of winning is showing up. Well, Woody Allen, that daughter-dating scoundrel, lied to you. The truth is 70% of winning is showing up is a bunch of bull!

Because, in fact, 100% OF WINNING IS SHOWING UP. I mean it. Thats all you have to do. Show up. Be there. And it will take care of itself. Have you ever noticed that people at the top of their respective fields are often the most prolific? Do you think this is an accident? Chief, this is not a coincidence. Sure, there are exceptions. But take TEZUKA Osamu (手塚治虫), one of the most prolific manga creators in history. Ask yourself, was he prolific because he was good or good because he was prolific? I say the latter. Shakespeare wrote quite a bit of noss, too. Michael Jordan and Larry Bird practiced like absolute fiends; we shouldn’t insult them by attributing their skill to race, height (MJ was below NBA average, by the way) or even talent until we’ve spent at least as much productive court time as them. Let me put it this way: assuming you are able-bodied, if you worked as hard as an NBA player for as long as an NBA player on basketball, you would be an NBA player, but only if you worked as hard. That Pavlina chap has like a kajillion articles on his blog: he didn’t make it off one post. More on topic, the best group of Japanese speakers on the planet, a group many call the Japanese, just happen to spend more time hearing and reading Japanese than any other group. They’ve “shown up” to Japanese as if it were their job or national pastime or something. But there’s nothing special about this group of people; when a Japanese person speaks Japanese to you, what she is demonstrating is nothing more than the result of dedication, albeit often unwitting dedication. Whether you are Japanese by default (born and raised in Japan) or by choice, it doesn’t matter, your path and your task are essentially the same: show up.

I’m from Kenya. Sure, we have a snow-capped mountain, but we don’t have real snow or ice or anything. Yet I learned to ice-skate last year. Do I have some talent for ice-skating? No. But I read up on Wayne Gretzky and how he had ice-skated every day (4-5 hours a day), how his dad had made him a home rink and everything. Apparently, he even had his skates on while eating dinner (he’d wolf down that Canadian food they fed him, and then he’d go back outside; he skated for hours every day, and went pro at about 17). I’m not an ice-hockey expert, but it seems quite clear to me that Gretzky made himself a great hockey player purely through ice time; that man showed up on ice for more hours than any of his peers. So I tried to model the man in my own small way, and ice-skated almost every day (4 days/week minimum, 2 hours per day sometimes 3 hours, sometimes 90 minutes) for two straight months (November and December). Now I can ice-skate. It wasn’t magic. The combination of being on the ice all the time and the people who saw me on the ice all the time and decided to give me some pointers, and this burning desire to not be out-skated by 6-year-olds (freaking toddlers giving me lip and having the skill to get away with it over my dead body, man, over-my-dead-body), all that combined to make me a competent skater. No one who sees me knows it’s been less than a year since I actually learned to skate. I can barely even remember what it was like when I used to walk around that rink holding onto the wall for dear life. (For the record, the first time I touched the ice was in August 2002 at a mall in Houston, Texas. The second time was in December 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah. In both cases, I didn’t actually know how to skate, and nothing carried over to my ice-skating project that started in November 2006). Anyway, the point is, after being on the rink all that time on a daily basis, Greztky or no Gretzky, it would be hard not to learn how to skate. When you show up, it’s hard not to succeed. With all the time I spent hardcoring on Japanese, it would be a struggle not to be fluent.

Today, all over Japan, Greater China and the world, kids are being born. OK, admittedly not that many kids (haha, gotta love that population shrinkage humor! *wink* *nudge*), but they are being born. Those kids are going to know Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese. But not because of parenting or genetics as such, but because they’re going to show up. They’re going to be surrounded by Japanese/Chinese 24/7/365.24219878. Are you going to let them beat you? Babies? Freaking BABIES? Beat YOU? Are you going to take that? You, a human being with a marvellous working brain capable of learning whatever is given it? And you’re going to let babbling, drooling half-wits (sorry, babies, don’t take it personally) beat you? If not, then get up off your rear and start doing all [language] all the time!

I’m going to take a leap here and tell you what I really think: I don’t believe in prodigies. I do not believe that any person holds a significant advantage over you; I do not deny the possibility that some people may have an advantage over you, but I absolutely reject the idea that that advantage is significant. I explained this in “You can have, do, or be ANYthing, but you can’t have, do, or be EVERYthing.” I think people invented the idea of prodigies in order to excuse themselves and their own children while seeming to congratulate the receiver of the title “prodigy”. It’s much easier on everyone’s egos to say “I or my child cannot do thing T like person P because person P has some semi-magical genetic superpower” than to say “I or my child cannot yet do T like P because I have not yet worked as hard W as P”. This is why Buddhism, which started off as a personal development movement, metamorphosed into a religion. Why be like Mike or Siddharta, when you can just sit back and worship them? Why work on your jumps, when you can watch the fruits of Michael’s work on his? Why free your own mind, when you can look up to someone who’s already freed his? It’s a very aristocratic idea that has no place in a true meritocracy, but the very people who are screwed over by it (regular folk like us) are at the same time very much in love with it: If there are prodigies, no one will call us out for not trying because they’re not trying either, and because we have created a condition that can only be fulfilled by accident of birth, our excuse is airtight: we can go about being mediocre for the rest of our lives, blameless.

Gretzky, Jordan, these people worked harder at their sports than you and I. So they started working earlier than you, this doesn’t make them prodigies, child or otherwise, this just makes them people who started earlier (and not even that early, Jordan famously got cut from his HS basketball team). To admit that they were not prodigies, to admit that they busted their little behinds to get where they were (no matter their age), does not make them less. To me, it only makes them more; it makes them greater. These were not superhumans. These were normal humans who made themselves super; they were not given a legacy like a Betty Crocker cookie mix that just needed eggs and milk, they made one from scratch. And that, to me, is something (someone) infinitely greater.

Bruce Lee is reported to have said:

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

A lot of times, we judge people (including ourselves), we call them (ourselves) “normal”, “prodigy” or “challenged” based on their first try. On their FREAKING first try. Don’t EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER judge yourself on your first try. At least wait until your 10,000th.

Don’t buy into all this kafuffin about how you have to start golf or violin or a language in the womb if you ever hope to be good. The only real reasons that there aren’t many late bloomers are money and flexibility. Money to buy equipment and time to practice, and flexibility of the mind a willingness to learn and grow, to accept change and, yes, even to accept sucking for a while.

Adults have this competence fetish; they cling desperately to their dignity like a little boy to his security blanket; they want to be good at everything they do, and (they think) everyone expects them to be good at anything they do if they are to do it at all adults are meant to be dignified and able; adults aren’t allowed to show ignorance or confusion. Well, forget that crap. Let go of your pride: you will suck at anything you are new at and little kids will be better than you. It’s okay, that’s how it’s supposed to be those kids used to suck, too. Sucking is always the first step on the path to greatness; it’s not a question of how many times the earth has made a full rotation around the sun since you were born; it’s a question of what you’ve done during those rotations. As my gamer friends might say “all who pwn must first be pwned”. And the time to be pwned is at the beginning. You are a noob, accept it; it’s not a death sentence, it’s just a rank you can win yourself a promotion.

The fact is, you are a human. Compared to other animals, you can’t run very fast, you can’t jump very high, you aren’t very big or strong. But you have this thing called a brain. And it’s purpose is to learn to do things new things, things that it didn’t know before. This brain is, of course, connected to the rest of your body so your whole body can join in the fun of learning new things; your body itself is constantly growing and changing. You’re not like a statue, motionless and set in stone, unless you choose to be. You’re not “too old”, it’s not “too late”, who even gave you the right to decide what time was right? I never got that memo! Who died and made you the god of When It Is No Longer The Right Time To Do Something?! Are you going to let your life be ruled by stupid old wives tales and stale folk wisdom? Are you going to fit yourself to bad research results? Are you going to be guided by how things are usually done? Are you going to be a little worker ant and live inside that cruddy little box of mediocrity that the world would draw for you if you would let it? Are you going to just read history or are you going to make it? Are you going to spend your whole life Monday-morning-quarterbacking yourself, talking about what you would do if you were younger? Are you going to live out your own little Greek tragedy, fulfilling everyone else’s lowest expectations of you? I think you know the answers to those questions. So, stop whining, and start doing. Whatever it is. Do it. And keep doing it. As long as you keep moving, you’re always getting closer to your destination.

Nap Hill said it best:

“Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

This article is copyright (©) 2007 Khatzumoto/AJATT.com and reprinted with permission | May 18, 2010

Efficient. Effective.

While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there is actually an important, highly under-appreciated difference between being “efficient” and being “effective”. And this is perhaps more true in foreign language learning than any other endeavor!

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and a very accomplished language learner to boot, illustrates this point well:

“Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.”

Obviously it is preferable to be both efficient and effective in language learning. But what is the current situation in language classrooms and materials? A quick look around reveals that despite a fair amount of efficiency, only a very small percentage of learners, teachers or materials could be called effective. Consider the performance of 1,500 French language students in New Brunswick. After 12 years of daily French instruction, only 0.68 percent (that’s not a typo) could meet the province’s intermediate proficiency requirements! (Thanks go to Steve Kaufmann for turning me onto this revealing study). I have seen the same results among nearly all English learners in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan, and foreign language students in the states.

Yet despite all the evidence, people continue to pump time, effort and money into foreign language programs, cram schools, textbooks, and now, online programs that just repackage old methods in new media. It is time that people face up to the facts: traditional, formal language instruction is not effective for the vast majority of learners no matter how efficient or hard-working they may be.

The Effective Language Learner’s Formula

The good news is that there are effective (and simple!) language learning methods, it’s just that very few people actually use them. Here’s the tried and trued formula that is reiterated again and again by the vast majority of successful language learners:

1) Maximize Input

Get as much meaningful and interesting input as possible. “Meaningful” here means that is just an itsy-bitsy bit above your level of comprehension. And the more interesting the material, the more likely you are to continue listening or reading (and repeating the process again and again and again.)

2) Use narrow listening & reading

“Narrow” here means that you listen to or read a variety of articles on the same topic. This allows for sufficient repetition without boring yourself to tears. If you have access to native speakers of the language, you can conduct a simple interview with a few different people. Chances are they will all use a similar set of vocabulary again and again since the context is constrained by the questions you ask.

3) Get a private tutor

Unlike days of old, it no longer matters where you live in the world to learn a foreign language. Countless language sites provide one-on-one tutoring services or you can just chat for free via Skype. Also, most cities have volunteer English tutoring programs in which you can make potential conversation partners in your target language. If you are a university student, volunteer to tutor foreign exchange students learning English.

You’ll notice that nowhere in this formula does it require sitting in a classroom or forcing oneself through a bland textbook. All you need is quality language input, which is now widely available for free (or at least very cheaply) online and can be carried around using a portable media player.

Common Missteps

But one last thing. To make this formula effective, the adult learner must put aside a few counter-productive tendencies:

The Desire to Know Everything Right Now

To be an effective language learner, you must get used to dealing with lots of ambiguity and uncertainty. I think this is why many, though certainly not all, travelers and expats have more success in language learning. By traveling to or living in a foreign land, they get used to (and sometimes learn to enjoy) not understanding the surrounding environment or language.

The Desire to be Perfect

Perfectionists make poor language learners for 2 reasons. First, they refuse to speak or write anything that they don’t think is perfect. While you should indeed wait to speak until you have received sufficient input (the “silent period” as its called by linguists), you need to start talking long before you have mastered the language. Speaking with a native speaker shows you where the holes are in your L2 cheese, and the buzz from communicating ideas, feelings and menu choices in a foreign language can give you the extra fuel you need to keep learning. Second, perfectionists have such an aversion to making mistakes that doing so greatly increases their anxiety and decreases their motivation to continue learning (what Stephen Krashen refers to as “raising the affective filter”. See The Linguistionary).

The Desire to Think One’s Way Through the Language

Most adults spend too much time thinking about the language. This includes translating back and forth between the L1 and L2, trying to remember and apply grammar rules or vocabulary, and self-correcting mistakes (Stephen Krashen refers to this is as the “Monitor Hypothesis”; see The Linguistionary). Children, on the other hand, do not not consciously monitor their first language, nor could they even if they wanted to. And despite the lack of advanced cognitive abilities, they all master their first language. Why? Because you don’t have to explain how a car works to know how to drive!

Take Action!

1) Buy a portable media player if you don’t have one. The ROI makes it well worth the minimal investment.

2) Find online content you find interesting. With well over 100,000 free audio and video podcasts, iTunes is a good place to start. If you don’t have iTunes yet, go here to download it for free.

3) Read The 4-Hour Workweek to learn more about being both effective and efficient in all aspects of life, and learn how to generate much more of all three life currencies: time, money and mobility.

In recent years, grammar mavens and traditional language educators have been up in arms against a perceived attack on “the righteous study of grammar”. Their basic contention is (as recently stated on a a pro-grammar blog), “Anything students need to know has to be taught, not caught.” These defensive claims always perplex me considering that nearly all language classes (whether at high schools, universities or private language schools) still spend the vast majority of class hours teaching and testing grammar rules. If anything, we have been too accepting of grammar-based instruction, and need to do a better job of showing people the truth (hence the creation of this site.)

I believe that grammar based language instruction underpins why so many people hate language learning, and fail to reach fluency despite years of concerted effort.

But I can hear the language “prescriptionists” yelling:

“If people don’t study grammar, how then will they ever learn to speak and write properly!?”

I have a one word answer for them, and I will say it in the Spelling Bee style they tend to love:

“Input. I-N-P-U-T. Input.”

So why is natural input the key to languages and not explicit study of grammar? Again, the answer is strikingly simple:

“Language ability cannot be taught; it can only be learned.”

Most schools, educators, and parents have come to believe that they have to “teach” children both native and foreign languages. This reveals a basic misconception about language, which has been thoroughly debunked by researchers far smarter than I, including Steven Pinker of Harvard, and Stephen Krashen of the University of Southern California. In a nutshell, their research shows that human language is an innate physical skill akin to walking. You were not “taught” how to walk; you figured it out through trial and error. Your ability to speak your native language is the same. Native English speakers learn to string sentences together through listening input (which starts in the womb by the way!), not because parents or teachers taught them about “subjects” and “predicates”, the meaning of Latin or Greek word roots, or English case inflections.

Ok, I hear the grammar mavens shouting again:

“So if the grammar-based approach to language learning is so ineffective, why has it survived so long?”

There are many reason for this, including ignorance, arrogance, and tendency to stick to tradition. But perhaps the biggest reason is good old fashioned greed. There is a lot of money to be made selling books, training teachers, running conferences, preparing students for tests, and selling cram school tuitions. (You’ll notice that many of the pro-grammar blogs make affiliate income through links to grammar books, test prep courses, etc.)

Oh, now I hear language teachers shouting (a group of which I am a member):

“Then what are we to teach our students?”

The main tasks of an effective language teacher include:

1. Getting students fired up about the language.
2. Providing a cultural context for the language.
3. Giving suggestions for high quality input resources that fits your student’s interests, ability level and professional or academic needs.
4. Learning your student’s native language (this shows that you are interested in their culture and that it is indeed possible to learn a foreign language well using this approach.
5. Limited explanations about grammar and vocabulary

“Wait a second, grammar explanations!? You hypocrite!”

I include #5 not because it will help students learn the language, but because:

• Most students (and employers!) demand it
• Some people find it interesting (and interest trumps all)
• Many students (especially in East Asia) must pass grammar-based university entrance examinations. Even though it’s an unjust war, you still need to prepare them for battle.

The first thing I’d like to say about mind mapping is how upset I am for not knowing about it sooner! Why wasn’t it taught to me in elementary school, junior high, high school, or even university? Why did I labor through so many classes, books and professional challenges without this amazing tool?

Mind mapping is certainly not a new idea, and many different folks have probably come to it on their own. We owe its popularity, however, to one man: British author, speaker, and memory master Tony Buzan. He is the author of countless books on using mind mapping to improve your performance at school or work, and how maximize one’s memory with both ancient and modern memory enhancement techniques (check out either The Mind Map Book or How to Mind Map).

So What is a Mind Map?

Buzan defines mind maps as follows:

“A Mind Map is a powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlock the potential of the brain. It harnesses the full range of cortical skills – word, image, number, logic, rhythm, colour and spatial awareness – in a single, uniquely powerful manner. In so doing, it gives you the freedom to roam the infinite expanses of your brain. The Mind Map can be applied to every aspect of life where improved learning and clearer thinking will enhance human performance.”

While I like his definition, I think we can remove the flower pedals and whittle it down to this:

“A mind map is a non-linear outline.”

Instead of listing ideas vertically on one or more sheets of paper, you arrange your ideas on paper in a web-like structure. It is important to use only one sheet as this forces you to be brief and keep all of the ideas centered around the main idea written in the center. This is a major advantage over using traditional writing which often makes it easy to lose focus on the main idea and get lost in interesting but distracting tangents. Effective mind maps only use one word or phrase for each topic or sub-topic. This is where many people go astray, adding Twitter-like entries for each bubble. It is difficult to do in the beginning, but training yourself to choose one vivid, concise keyword has many advantages:

In addition to keywords, a good mind map makes use of color and images to help stimulate the brain and facilitate fast recall. Don’t worry if you look childish; this is one time when doodling is actually constructive!

How can mind maps used in language learning?

Mind maps are extremely useful for 3 main purposes in language learning:

When listening to or reading an article, you can make a mind map that includes all previously unknown vocabulary. Put the title of the article in the center of the map, and then fan the words around the center. You can then add one-word definitions, synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, translations, drawings, etc. depending on your learning preferences.

If you are working with your tutor via Skype, for example, you could both view the same mind map using a tool like Tony Buzan’s iMindMap 7 (which is the app I used to create the mind map above). Your mind map can act as both an agenda for the conversation and a visual tool to aid your listening comprehension. After the call, you can refer back to the mind map to quickly review any new language that came up. If meeting a private teacher or tutor face-to-face, you can accomplish the same thing on paper.

And perhaps the most powerful use of mind maps is organizing your thoughts before you begin writing. Here are some of the writing-specific benefits of mind mapping: