I’ve been studying Mandarin Chinese on a day-to-day basis for about 8 months now, and I’ve made some discoveries on good study practices. So today I’d like to share with you some of the methods I use for learning Chinese…

1. I speak to myself in Chinese before going to bed. It’s awkward to say this but I actually take some time off before hitting the sack to talk to myself in Chinese. I usually try to use words and phrases I’ve recently learned. This refreshes my memory and also puts the vocabulary into proper context.
2. I write random phrases. This is what I probably do the most out of all the exercises. I always have a stack of loose sheets of paper on my desk for jotting down random sentences in Chinese. I prefer to write stuff with a pen because then I’m simultaneously improving my handwriting as well as reminding myself how to construct the characters. The topics are totally random. I just write stuff that pops into mind.
3. I read Chinese stuff online and look up new words. Although my skill isn’t high enough to understand articles written in Chinese, I try to read forum posts that use conversational Chinese. What I usually do is, I Google a bunch of keywords that I want to see in action, and see where it takes me. And whenever I stumble upon words I don’t know, I use the 有道词典 dictionary to look them up.
4. I post in Chinese on Facebook. When I want to convey a message particularly to a Chinese-speaking audience (e.g. “Happy Year of the Dragon!” or “How much does bubble tea cost in Taiwan?”) I write it in Chinese.
5. I watch Taiwanese dramas. I enjoy watching Taiwanese dramas regardless of their educational benefit. But it’s also a fun way to learn more words and expressions. Watching movies and TV shows is particularly effective for listening comprehension, because the more you keep hearing the same words, the more accustomed your ear gets to recognizing them. The experience is totally different when listening to an instructional track where the actors speak unusually slowly. Furthermore, Taiwanese dramas come subbed by default, so if you fail to catch what they’re saying, you can always analyze the subtitles and find out what they’re saying. I recently finished watching 命中註定我愛你, which was recommended to me by a Taiwanese friend.
6. I watch videos on YouTube. Another thing I enjoy doing is watching random videos on YouTube. I can watch anything. I’ve watched variety shows, Chinese lessons, travel shows, music videos, etc. Remember, it’s all about learning. As long as you’re learning something, it’s worth your time.
7. I try to put my thoughts into Chinese. To condition my brain to work in “Chinese mode” I often force myself to think in Chinese. This kind of simulation is very important, because in order for you to become a spontaneous speaker, your new Chinese brain needs to become familiar with as many scenarios as possible. This is to avoid freezing up in actual conversations.
8. I ask myself how to say something in Chinese. When I find myself wondering how something would be put into Chinese, I give it a try. If I can’t think of a way (e.g. if the syntax seems too complicated) I look it up on Google or ask a friend.
9. I write to my Chinese-speaking friends in Chinese. Unless I have to explain something that is too difficult or in danger of being misunderstood, I try to say it in Chinese. I find it fascinating how easily you can explain many simple things despite having a limited vocabulary. You might not be producing the most eloquent sentences, but you’re none the less getting the message across. The important thing is not to worry about making mistakes. No matter how clichéd it may sound, we learn so well from our mistakes.
10. I listen to Taiwanese radio stations. I do this partly because I’m a fan of Asian music, and the great thing about Taiwanese radio is that they play all kinds of Asian music—Taiwanese, Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese pop. When I’m at work I usually tune in to Kaohsiung Kiss Radio Taiwan or Taipei Hit FM.
11. I use Google Search to organically look up words and phrases. A good way to find out out how to put something into Chinese is to input the phrase in English and add 怎么说 (how to say) or 什么意思 (what meaning) at the end. It should bring up pages where people have asked how to say something in English, thus allowing you to get the Chinese equivalent written by a native speaker. Google Translate RARELY works, so I recommend you look up phrases written by real humans.
12. I use Google Translate to look up pinyin tones for characters. The sole reason I use Google Translate is because it has support for pinyin tones. This means that I can examine how words are supposed to be pronounced. You have to be careful though; Google makes mistakes too, especially when dealing with a preceding 不 or 一 in a compound word (such as 不是 and 一起). So before you use the tool, you should know the general rules on tone changes.
13. I listen to Chinese music, and try to decipher lyrics. Although songs often use expressions that wouldn’t be used in colloquial Chinese, they’re still a good source of vocabulary.
14. I read Chinese textbooks. I don’t use textbooks as a primary source of study material, but I like to read ones that have colorful illustrations and useful examples. I’m currently using a textbook I bought in Taipei called Chinese Made Easy.
15. I watch Chinese lessons on YouTube. I’ve particularly found Peggy’s Chinese lessons and these Chinese lessons (in Japanese) to be useful.
16. I take notes, constantly. Whenever I learn something new, I write it down and save it in a file. The document that houses all my Chinese notes is currently 128 pages long! My word processor is starting to get laggy at times so I’ll soon have to think of an alternate way to record notes. By the way, the point of keeping an extensive collection of notes is not because you’d want to review them from beginning to end (that wouldn’t be realistic with a 128-page document), but rather to have access to a familiar set of searchable records that includes everything you’ve previously worked on.

If you’re learning Chinese, or any other language, I’d love to hear your input on what methods have yielded the best results for you. Please leave your tips in the comment section below. 谢谢!

So you’ve set up your Mac to let you input Chinese characters. But what if you wanted to write Chinese using the Latin alphabet, i.e. pinyin? Since writing pinyin correctly requires the appropriate tone marks for flat, rising, falling-rising, and falling sounds (¯ ´ ˇ `), we need to configure your Mac to support them. Let me show you how…

Setup

The setup is quick and easy.

1. Open up System Preferences.
2. Go to Language & Text.
3. Select the Input Sources tab.
4. Scroll down the list until you find an input method called U.S. Extended, then put a check mark next to it. (See below)

Now that you’ve added the input method, you’re ready to start using pinyin. If you’ve been typing with the regular U.S. input setting, you can now remove it and just stick with U.S. Extended because the former is more or less the same (correct me if I’m wrong) except without the added keyboard shortcuts for special characters.

How to Use the Tone Marks

Tone 1 (flat) mā – Option + a, then hit a vowel key
Tone 2 (rising) má – Option + e, then hit a vowel key
Tone 3 (falling-rising) mǎ – Option + v, then hit a vowel key
Tone 4 (falling) mà – Option + `, then hit a vowel key

So if you wanted to get ě you’d first hold down the Option key and v, then release them, and hit e.

If you have any questions, let me know—down below.

Merry Christmas!

Click here to download my complete Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I notes

The Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I audiobook is an excellent tool to jumpstart your language studies, since it focuses on teaching you the essentials and most commonly used phrases and terminology for conversing in Mandarin. The Pimsleur language learning audiobooks are well known for their philosophy of anticipation and graduated interval recall. What this means is that they use intelligently placed pauses and intervals to hardwire the words and phrases into the learner’s brain.

For a more in-depth review of the audiobook, you can read my full review of Pimsleur Spanish I, which essentially covers the same aspects as the Chinese counterpart.

Now, the Pimsleur method focuses almost entirely on speaking and listening, so you won’t be able learn how to read and write Chinese just by relying on the audio CDs. This also raises another problem: it becomes cumbersome to do any revision without having access to written material, unless you take your own notes. But Dr. Paul Pimsleur advises that you refrain from doing anything aside from focusing on the audio program; he believes that multitasking your way through the units only distracts you and decreases the potential of the program.

But worry not. I’ve already done the work for you. As I did with Pimsleur Spanish I, I’ve now also crafted a complete set of notes for the entire Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I audiobook for you to use.

The 22-page PDF document is broken down into 30 units. Furthermore, each entry comes in three parts: Chinese characters, pinyin, and English. For the Chinese I’ve chosen to use simplified Chinese characters mainly because the language program is taught using a variety of Mandarin Chinese commonly heard in Northern China (e.g. 儿化音). If you wish to learn traditional Chinese characters instead, you can easily convert the characters using Google Translate.

Example:

多少钱？
duō shǎo qián?
How much does it cost?

Please also note that the document may include typographical errors. If you find any mistakes in the notes, please notify me (and everyone else) in the comments below. Xiè xiè nǐ.

Feel free to distribute the notes in their unaltered state!

» Download Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I Notes (PDF 270 KB)

If you have an iPhone (or an Android phone) and are looking for a way to memorize Chinese words you can use the free Google Translate app to create your own custom-made flashcards. Google Translate doesn’t come with the bells and whistles that paid apps might have, but it perfectly serves the purpose if your objective is to simply memorize new words.

You can create flashcards in any language supported by the app, but I’ve found it to be particularly useful with Mandarin Chinese. One of the reasons why you’d want to use flashcards with Chinese is that it’s a tone-based language, meaning that there are five different ways a syllable can be pronounced, e.g. qīng, qíng, qǐng, qìng, and qing. In order to be understood by other people you have to get the tones right. And flashcards happen to be a brilliant way to to practice them.

For this purpose Google Translate is very convenient because the app displays the pinyin tones automatically. As long as you can recognize the word or phrase written out in Chinese characters, the app does the rest for you.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Set the Languages

Set the app to translate from English to Chinese. This is important because if you set it to translate from Chinese to English, it won’t display the pinyin; you’d only see the Chinese characters and the English translation (and I strongly suggest you use a different app for translation) as you can see in the second snapshot.

Step 2: Adding a Word

To add a word, simply type it in the box and tap 前往 (go).

Step 3: Saving the Word

Google Translate keeps a record of all the recent words and phrases you’ve looked up, so in order to keep things organized you should star the entries that you want to focus on. To do that, just tap the star icon.

Step 4: Browsing Your Flashcards

When you’ve saved your first flashcard, it will appear in the Starred tab. This is where you’ll be looking at your flashcards and testing yourself if you remember how the words are pronounced.

Step 5: Checking the Answer

Tapping on an entry will reveal the pinyin romanization and tones. Additionally, you can tap the voice icon to hear the pronunciation.

If you tilt the phone horizontally you can see the characters printed in a larger font, which is great for distinguishing individual strokes.

Recognize Google’s Mistakes!

There are some cases where Google makes mistakes, particularly with compound words that include 不 and 一 since they follow a particular pronunciation rule. You should be careful not to learn them incorrectly.

For example, if you write 不用, Google transcribes it as “bù yòng” even though the correct pronunciation would be “bú yòng” (with an initial rising tone). Also, 一个人 is shown as “yī gè rén” (incorrect) instead of “yí gè rén” (correct).

For the past month or so I’ve been learning Mandarin Chinese from three sources: a Mandarin Chinese course for beginners on YouTube (taught in Japanese), another set of excellent Mandarin lessons on YouTube, and by watching a Taiwanese drama called 海派甜心 (Hǎipài tiánxīn), which is viewable on YouTube as well.

I’m going to Taiwan in November so I’ve made it my top priorty to learn how to speak Mandarin. It’s also a personal experiment for finding the best approaches and techniques for learning a foreign language.

I started off with Pimsleur Mandarin I—an audio-based self-learning program composed of thirty 30-minute lessons. If you’re a complete beginner I highly recommend you try the program. I’ve completed 27 of the 30 lessons, and can honestly say that it really wires the stuff into your brain. I think it’s the best tool for learning conversational Mandarin without having to struggle with grammar or Chinese characters. It wouldn’t be the first time as I’ve had a lot of success with Pimsleur Spanish I as well.

Despite Pimsleur Mandarin’s efficiency, it gives me the feeling that I’m not learning all the kinds of words that I’ll most likely put into use when talking with friends. Since the audio program focuses on basic conversational Mandarin, you’ll only acquire a limited number of words particularly useful for encounters where you need to ask for directions or when you want to buy a drink. You don’t gain access to a variety of words like apple, black, green, happy, girlfriend, music, angry, hobby, running, embarrassing, etc. You need secondary materials for that.

So what I’ve done is, I’ve tried to learn Mandarin Chinese from a variety of sources. I used Pimsleur for building a foundation, after which I moved on to materials that are available on YouTube for free. I’ve also used some free text-based materials, such as this set of Mandarin Chinese lessons on About.com. The Internet is full of awesome language learning resources. Use Google to your advantage.

You don’t have to stick with one resource (teacher, course, textbook, video lessons, audio program) from start to finish. Some grammatical rules or nuances may sound awfully complex at first by just by switching resources you might find an enlightening explanation.

Experiment.

So it’s been almost 2 years since I left Japan. I can’t recall having used a pen for writing Japanese during these couples of years, except for the few times when I’ve sent postcards to Japan. And let me tell you that writing those postcards was not easy, as I had to look up nearly every kanji on my iPhone.

The less you write the more you forget. While the most fundamental characters (人, 日, 林, etc.) will probably remain in your cerebral database forever, it’s the more complex characters that need reactivation. Being able to read, or recognize, a character does not mean that you remember each stroke. Smartphones and computers having nearly replaced the quill, even natives often find it nerve-wracking to compose a letter without having access to their cellphone or electronic dictionary.

You need to write constantly if you want to maintain the skill.

Since I don’t handwrite regularly, I did a fun exercise today which involved skimming through the lyrics of a pop song and selecting the kanji that I wasn’t sure how to write. The result was depressing.

But apart from making you feel miserable, this is actually a really good way to relearn many kanji characters you’ve forgotten. Just take the lyrics of your favorite J-Pop song, a pen, and a sheet of paper, and start listing down all the characters that cause problems for you. When you’ve gone through the whole song, start practicing.

In fact, you can do this whenever you encounter kanji.

Now post YOUR tips and experiences in the comments below.

I’ve come across three websites that can be useful when learning hangul (chosongul in North Korea). Hangul is the writing system used in both Koreas, and it consists of 24 letters. Since there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, one could argue that it’s easier to learn hangul than the English alphabet.

What makes hangul different from our alphabet, though, is that the 24 letters are used to build blocks (think: syllables) that are composed of two or more letters. In Korean, we can’t use the letters individually as we would in English. Although it would make sense to simply arrange the letters in the order that they should be pronounced (e.g. 사ᄋ for ‘sang’ when s = ᄉ, a =ᅡ, ng = ᄋ), we actually have to group them to form complete, syllabic blocks (상 = sang). Simply put, one block contains one syllable.

Now, why would you want to learn hangul? The reason why I wanted to learn hangul, without learning the language itself, is that I wanted to know how to pronounce Korean song names. I like to order my music collection so that every song and artist retains its original writing style, in its own language and orthography. For instance, kanji, hiragana and katakana for J-Pop; Chinese for C-Pop; and hangul for K-Pop, respectively. Other than that, I think it’s just fun to know how to read foreign scripts.

To teach yourself hangul, try the following websites:

1. Hangul Video Lessons — 7 video tutorials that walk you through the Korean writing system.
2. Hangul Letter Chart — Displays every hangul letter combination.
3. Hangul Soundboard — Check how every vowel and consontant is pronounced. Includes examples. Excellent for distinguishing the nuances.

If you’re just looking for my lesson notes on Pimsleur Spanish I, you can directly download the PDF here.

I love languages. I love listening to people speaking in different languages. But more than that, I love learning them. While I believe the best way to learn a language is to surround yourself with native speakers, most of us aren’t blessed with a multilingual circle of friends, or simply don’t have people around that speak the language we want to learn.

Signing up for language classes is one alternative but not always a possibility. Besides, large groups narrow down your chances of receiving adequate teacher-to-student interaction.

The second and, in my opinion, best alternative is self-learning (of course ). And I’ve been lucky to have stumbled on an invaluable set of language learning tools for self-learners: The Pimsleur Method.

Today, we’re going to be looking at Pimsleur Spanish I, which is the first 30-lesson course for absolute beginners. It assumes that you have no prior knowledge in Spanish or in language learning in general. In fact, it omits grammar altogether and makes you learn the language organically.

It may sound counter-intuitive to dismiss grammar, but thanks to Pimsleur I’ve discovered the most efficient way to learn the basics. I’ll tell you why.

One of the core principles employed in the Pimsleur language programs is a method (called Graduated Interval Recall) for storing words and phrases in your long-term memory. Your virtual teacher will introduce words and phrases relevant to the theme of the lesson at a comfortably slow pace, which you will then transfer from your short-term to your long-term memory by being prompted by your virtual teacher, at carefully chosen intervals, to recall them (e.g. Do you remember how to say “What time is it?”) These frequent pop quizzes ensure that words are not going to slip away.

So it’s all about repetition? Absolutely not. Well, you are frequently repeating the same words and phrases but at the same time you are also making variations of them and using them in different contexts. There is a lot of repetition, but it doesn’t get dull (except maybe during the first couple of lessons when your vocabulary is still very limited). The lessons are constructed so that you always play a role in all the conversations that take place. And you are introduced to new words and phrases as the themes change and require more variety.

When I had to study Swedish in junior high and high school, our teacher would take an audio tape from her drawer and play it to us. And later we would answer a dozen questions related to what we had just heard. It was for listening comprehension, but it lacked interactiveness and purpose. We were just outsiders passively listening to a discussion about global warming and trying to figure out the message. We weren’t part of the conversation responding to expressions naturally as the conversation progressed.

I’ll admit, In Pimsleur Spanish I, some conversations are just plain cheesy or ridiculous, but you’re not going to care when you’re actually learning the language. It’s not just listening comprehension, because you’re always actively involved. You are being trained to take part in conversations.

Here’s a simple example:

You meet María in front of your hotel…
She says, “I want to eat something.”
How would you answer: “I know a good restaurant called Bolívar on California Street. Let’s go there together.”

On other occasions you’re expected to come up with your own answers:

You are taking a walk in a small Peruvian town when a friendly old man walks up to you.
Mr Rodríguez: Hello. How are you?
You: [your response]
Mr Rodríguez: Are you from here?
You: [your response]
Mr Rodríguez: But you speak Spanish well.
You: [your response]

The beautiful thing about having no lessons on grammar is that you are never asked to memorize complex declension tables or conjugation rules. In spite of that, the program successfully teaches you how to use the correct forms. So rather than scan through a hazy mental image of the conjugation table for the irregular verb estar, you’ll automatically recall how the phrase is going to finish when referring to José. The program conditions you to dynamically employ the material covered in the course based on context, rather than formulae.

So what you’re not going to learn during the first course are the 10 tenses. Instead, you’ll learn how to speak confidently in the present tense, and how to express yourself in present perfect—i.e. “I have drunk Mexican beer.” Why would you want to start off by confusing yourself with dozens of different rules when you can skip it and focus on learning how to understand and use the most commonly used present tense?

What you’ll learn…

• In a nutshell: you’ll learn to have basic conversations in Spanish, with a lot of variety.
• Get a solid foundation for expanding your Spanish knowledge.
• Present tense (“I eat,” or “I’m eating.”)
• Present perfect (“I have eaten.”)
• Verb conjugations for I, you, he/she/it, we, you (plural), they
• Casual you (Tú quieres.)
• How to ask for directions
• How to order food and drink in a restaurant
• How to introduce yourself
• How to ask a girl to write down her phone number

…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s hard to categorize, because there are so many small things that make up the whole. To get a complete list of topics covered in the program, you should download my notes, and explore.

Some Bottlenecks

Of course, a product never comes without any flaws. Let’s take a look at the two main weaknesses that I’ve personally found while using the language program. Pimsleur Spanish I is such an excellent program that I’m going to be nitpicking rather than giving solid criticism…

Since Pimsleur Spanish I is primarily a course on Latin American Spanish (it’s clearly printed on the cover), the first course does not cover the pronoun vosotros (casual form of the plural you), which is more commonly used in Spain, nor any verb conjugations associated with it. This means that you’ll either have to learn it in a later course or use secondary sources to figure out how it works.

The reading booklet that comes with the audio discs is extremely shallow. I know that it’s an audio program, but since they decided to include a booklet they could’ve put more effort into it. The booklet just covers a handful of phrases used in the last unit of the course, and doesn’t really have any meaningful benefit. You’re obviously not going to learn how to spell your Spanish words correctly using the booklet. This is actually why I’ve created my own “booklet” for revision and for learning how to read and write Spanish.

My Lesson Notes

These are my personal notes I’ve taken while using Pimsleur Spanish I. They’re not to be taken as a transcript of any kind. I’ve only tried to record the main concepts covered in the program. While there certainly is repetition in the notes, I’ve handpicked the variations that I’ve deemed important. These notes are not going to teach you how to speak or understand Spanish. I wouldn’t dare steal Pimsleur’s innovations. You definitely need to have the audio program to learn how to speak and understand Spanish. My notes only complement the audio lessons.

I’ve decided to publish my notes because I believe they can help those who already own Pimsleur Spanish I, and are looking for a more comprehensive reference than the official booklet. I’ve used Google Translate to get the correct spelling for every Spanish word used in the notes, but if you notice any typos or other errors please let me know.

» Download Pimsleur Spanish I Notes (PDF 90 KB)

If you’re interested in learning Spanish on your own, I recommend you buy the Pimsleur Spanish I language program or borrow it from your local library. It’s pricier than other self-study courses, but its quality is worth every dime and penny. There’s no other language learning program out there that teaches you how to speak Spanish as effectively and without hassle as Pimsleur.

$230.02 from Amazon.com

If you’re interested to learn other languages using Pimsleur’s innovative method, you might find these language programs interesting:

• Pimsleur Japanese I
• Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese I
• Pimsleur Cantonese
• Pimsleur Korean I
• Pimsleur French I
• Pimsleur German I
• Pimsleur Italian I
• Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese I

Let’s look at one way of learning a foreign language on your own. The following eight-step method is something that I’ve personally noticed about language learning. Actually, it’s not even a method. It’s more of a flowchart of the steps we (can) take to learn a new language.

1. Learn your first words. It’s the dark side of language learning due to the predominance of cuss words and anatomical synonyms.
2. Learn your first phrases. This is also when you can typically start using some of the stuff you’ve learned (apart from crude insults). Mostly involves memorizing. At this point the phrases you learn don’t make much sense in your brain. They’re just gibberish, except for the fact that you’ve memorized their translations.
3. Analyze the general structure of the language. You start making connections between phrases. You (often unconsciously) attempt figure out how verbs work, if nouns are declined, if there are any resemblances to other languages you know, etc. You should, however, refrain from making grammatical conclusions to avoid developing bad habits (id est, using the language incorrectly).
4. Construct variations using the things you’ve learned so far. You try to expand your speaking ability by guessing. Overly self-conscious people might lose confidence upon being criticized by native speakers and advanced learners (especially the latter). The key is to accept the fact that every beginner MUST make mistakes in order to improve. Language learning is constant trial and error. Remember that YOU are the diligent person making an effort to learn a new language—not the person making the criticisms!
5. Buy a textbook/audio program. When you are convinced that you want to keep learning the language you’ve been playing with, you get your hands on some material that provides comprehensive step-by-step instructions. (I’ll expand on this comment in a later post, but I must say that for beginners audio programs tend to be far superior to textbooks.)
6. Watch movies in that language. For educational purposes. This conditions your ear to process and get used to the sounds used in the language. It’s also excellent for polishing your pronunciation, as long as the speakers speak the language natively (or in your preferred manner). As you get better, you start picking up new words and phrases directly from movies.
7. Comprehend written language. You usually learn to comprehend written language quicker than spoken language, because you can work your way through text at your own pace. You are not required to hastily digest a chunk of words that still sounds like gibberish to your ears. Text allows your mind to comfortably analyze the content with clarity.
8. Comprehend spoken language. As your ears and brain get more used to processing words, you slowly develop an ability to actually grasp what people are saying. This could be seen as the last stop of the beginner. It can take from one month to several years to reach this point, depending on how much time and effort you put into studying the language. You’ll also realize that the moment doesn’t come to you suddenly; it actually develops over time as you work your way from zero understanding to 5%, 10%, 25%, 40%, and so on.

Now that we’ve briefly covered the general process, it’s worth noting that no one will ever gain a thorough understanding of a language. You don’t just go from 0% to 100% and become perfect. It’s a continuous process, as cheesy as it sounds. Even native speakers aren’t perfect. (I know for a fact that I’m not even close to 100% in any language.)

So forget perfect. Instead, focus on continuing the endeavor. Enjoy the learning process. Take things to the next level. Learn some proverbs. If you’re learning Spanish, make friends with people from Peru and El Salvador and learn about their dialects. If you’re learning Chinese, the tens of thousands of characters alone should keep you busy for a lifetime. Even if you’ve reached a comfortable level at speaking, writing, and understanding a language, there’s always more to learn. That’s what makes language learning awesome.

I would be interested to know how you perceive language learning. Post your thoughts/stories in the comments below. Tack så mycket.

How long does it usually take to learn how to have conversations in a new language? As you probably know, I am someone who tends to dislike “Learn _____ in 7 Days” methods, because most of the time these approaches just let you barely scratch the surface—in other words, they fail to provide any substantial value to you. This time, however, I want to present to you an approach to quick language learning because I have first-hand evidence of the successful results.

And, by the way, I’m not trying to sell anything here. I just hope this would introduce you to the simple method by which you can learn a new language in the shortest time possible. But if you want to succeed at it, you have to make sure that you follow the core idea given in this post, because without the effort you’ll just be keeping the results on hold. First, though, I’m going to tell you how my girlfriend (I’ll call her T) went from speaking no English to becoming fluent in just one month.

From Zero to Fluent

In April 2007, T couldn’t speak English. This was a huge problem for her because she had just become friends with a group of missionaries that had come to Japan from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, and they couldn’t speak any Japanese either (and she only knew Japanese). She couldn’t even ask where the toilet is, so the only way to communicate was to use primitive gestures. Everything was a hassle, and she couldn’t get any message across without putting great effort into being a mute actress. But thanks to the evolution of the homo sapiens, T felt the urge to adopt a more effective and less time-consuming form of communication: speech.

Whenever T was hanging out with her new friends, she was surrounded only by English speakers who didn’t speak a word of her language. But as she spent more time with them, she began to pick up words and phrases that she found her friends repeating. Using simple gestures, she was then able to learn phrases like “I’m hungry” and “What does _____ mean?” Before long she was able to connect the words and phrases she had learned so far to understand much longer bits of conversation, and construct expressions of her own as well. A few more weeks and she was already having casual conversations with her foreign friends in their language, but in her home country. In the end, it didn’t take any longer than 30 days for her to become fluent in English.

The Power of Immersion

Now, there are a couple of factors that affected her fast development. First, she spent most of the one-month period in the presence of her English-speaking friends, so she was fully immersed in English. Second, she would’ve never been able to revert to speaking her native tongue, simply because her friends couldn’t speak a word of it (yay, +1 to immersion).

It’s so common to hear that many English-speaking expatriates living in a country like Denmark never learn the local language because it’s so easy for them to just keep using English because nearly every Dane speaks good English. That’s fine if you don’t want to learn the language, but if you want to learn a new language, you absolutely need to get out of the comfort zone.

The time it takes for a person to become fluent in a foreign language depends on how much time he or she spends being immersed. In T’s case, she became fluent, and not just able to have easy conversations, because she kept herself immersed nearly 24/7. But to accomplish this, she didn’t even have to leave the country. If you decide to get the most out of this method, I suggest that you get in physical contact with the native soil of the language you want to learn. But even without spending a penny on traveling, it is still possible for you to learn a language through immersion by connecting with the right people in your area (or online).

Key Points

• Immerse yourself. If you want to learn Tibetan, try to become friends with a group of Tibetan-speaking people who share similar interests as you. Fight the temptation to revert to speaking English. The inconvenience of not being able to understand the language of your friends is your greatest ally in learning the language.
• Plan B: Use the Web. If meeting people in person is not an option, find people online. Videoconferencing and instant messaging will boost your practical skills as long as you keep focused on staying immersed the whole time. If you want to learn how to read Japanese, by all means, stop chatting in romaji (the Latin alphabet) and start using hiragana and kanji.
• Imitate the natives. You don’t immediately have to go apply for citizenship, but you should at least observe and try to imitate people’s habits, such as their physical expressions and manners. To become fluent in pronunciation, you also need to pay close attention to intonation, stress, and the differences in vowel and consonant sounds.

If you have any questions for T, I can serve as a mediator, so please post them in the comments below. Good luck in your language pursuits!