The No-Nonsense Guide to Language Learning

by Benny Lewis

  I thought to myself: “Maybe we’re just not the kind of people who will ever pick up languages quickly.”

  Then I realized something! In a great Eureka moment, I saw both the problem, and the solution. It’s so obvious and yet many people still don’t actually get it.

  The solution: Speak the target language!

  This may seem like a pointless statement as I was living overseas. Surely I wasn’t speaking much English anyway and was mostly using Spanish?

  I’m afraid not. And it wasn’t just me. Unfortunately, I have seen the following pattern hundreds of times.

  Expats hang out with other English-speaking expats and complain about how hard the local language is, or talk about life in general in English. They chat to their boyfriend / girlfriend / friends in English. All of the local friends they have also talk to them in English. They only actually use the local language when they have to; English becomes the language they socialise and relax in most of the time.

  I have met some English speakers who have lived abroad for up to ten years, and after just a few weeks I already spoke the local language better than they did. This does not make me feel smart; it makes me feel sad and frustrated for them. And I will meet more people like this in other travels who will look at me like I just have some special gene for languages or something.

  Let me say it again: I did poorly in languages in school, and when I was 21 years old, the only language that I spoke was English. Up until then, I was just your average frustrated language learner.

  These people that I keep meeting don’t realise that their English-speaking social circle is protecting them from ever speaking the local language. They already have enough of the local language to get by, so why would they need more?

  My plan: A very difficult and frustrating month in exchange for the best years of my life

  So the decision that I finally made that changed everything was to stop using English entirely and “speak from day one” of my new project in Spanish. I made it my cardinal rule that I would absolutely avoid English whenever I was in Spanish mode. I’d use English in my work, since I was a part-time English teacher, and for weekly phone calls to my parents. Every other second of my life was to be in Spanish.

  I couldn’t conjugate any past-tense verbs, my vocabulary was super limited and my pronunciation was extremely English, but I decided not to care anymore. For the moment, I’d use the present tense and wave behind me or emphasise “ayer” (yesterday) to try to make it clearer, and I’d use the few words I knew to explain around what I wanted to say. Of course I used a lot of hand waving and gestures until people got what I was trying to say.

  I decided that for exactly 30 days, (the entire month of November) I would speak hours of Spanish every day. I warned all of my friends who spoke Spanish in advance that I’d be making the switch, and did some final cramming of words and grammar and then one of the most mentally-draining months of my life began.

  Frankly, it was horrible.

  I couldn’t ask for simple items because I always refused to just say the word in English when the other person would likely know, I couldn’t have a discussion about anything important, so I was as good as a 5 year old for conversations (actually worse), and I couldn’t even express my frustration to the people close to me.

  It was also exasperating for those who kept insisting that I just say what I wanted to say in English.

  Most of all, it was exhausting. At the end of the day I’d come home tired and frustrated. Anyone learning a language through full immersion knows what this feels like, but imagine not being able to rely on those English-speaking hours for support and to relax! There were many times when I just considered abandoning the plan so I could express myself properly, but I didn’t give in.

  The end of the month came, and you know what? I wasn’t speaking fluently. I still had horrible grammar and a strong accent, but over that month, something eventually clicked in my mind. I didn’t really need English. It was indeed possible to communicate in the language, even if I don’t speak it well.

  Despite the frustration and the need to be able to communicate like a literate adult, I actually felt good about being able to express myself, albeit with limits, in Spanish. And even though I hadn’t reached fluency, I was speaking much better than I was at the beginning of the experiment. I had learned so much because my motive changed from “I really want to speak Spanish” to “I really need to speak Spanish”! This is an extremely important difference.

  By December I had made new friends who didn’t speak any English at all. I decided to continue the experiment a little longer… and it actually turned into a new lifestyle!

  Time to make a tough decision!

  This method continued to this day for me and I still make it clear when I meet people what language I prefer to speak to them in. As a result, I now have Brazilian, Italian, Argentinian, Spanish, French and Quebecois friends, among many others.

  This has greatly expanded my cultural horizons and given me a much more authentic experience in the various places I’ve lived..

  If you are truly serious about learning a language to fluency as soon as possible, then I encourage you to make a similar decision.

  If you are new in a country, or about to move there, then decide right now that you will very simply avoid speaking English, even if you have to avoid English speakers themselves. And stick with the decision. Ideally, you can still hang out with the English speakers, but you should all practise the local language instead of speaking English, no matter how weird it seems, or how tempted you are to just use your own common language.

  What if you currently don’t live abroad?

  You can adopt this immersion approach to language learning even if you’re living in an English-speaking country. You can do this by speaking your new language from day one, even if that’s via the Internet.

  With that in mind, let’s take a look at what it means to be fluent in a language.

  Chapter 3: How to Learn a New Language Fluently

  What is fluency? What does it mean to be fluent in a language?

  Believe it or not, this may be the most important question you ask yourself, if your goal is to speak another language.

  Why is this?

  Because the way you understand fluency could set you up for failure, and mean you’d never reach your language goals.

  Or it could mean you become fluent in multiple languages in just a few years.

  Let’s take a look at why that is…

  What does it mean to be fluent in another language?

  I consider myself fluent in seven different languages, and reached various levels of proficiency in many others over the years. Some I learnt in order to make the most of my travels – others were for a challenge or simply, fun!

  To me, fluency is being able to function in social situations in my target language, as I would in my native language.

  This is consistent with the “official” definitions of fluent. The Oxford English dictionary defines fluent as “Able to express oneself easily and articulately,” and “(of a foreign language) spoken accurately and with facility.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives a similar definition.

  You’ll notice that the definition is not “Able to express oneself with flawless grammar,” or “(of a foreign language) spoken like a native speaker.” I’m not sure when the popular definition of “fluent” became synonymous with “perfection”, but this is not the case. You don’t need to be perfect in order to be fluent.

  To reach fluency, I aim to be confident in using around 2,000 words, together with a broader base of vocabulary that I’m less confident in using, but can understand in context. This means I understand 90-95% of the language in everyday situations. I have gone way beyond this stage in some of my languages, and would call that level of professional proficiency mastery, but I wanted to be clear on what counts as fluency, since it’s really a much more practical goal than most people think.

  Even when I’ve
reached fluency as I understand it, I know I’m going to make mistakes. I am human, after all! As long as I have reached the level where I am able to get my point across, so that whoever I am conversing with understands what I am trying to communicate, I know I am almost, if not completely fluent in that language.

  So if fluency is a relatively simple goal, why do so many people fail to reach even this level in a language?

  Partly it’s due to study methods. Many language learners seem to expect that if they spend enough time studying textbooks or watching foreign films, they’ll somehow magically become fluent in their target language. I’m sorry, but this is not how it works.

  How to to make sure you reach fluency

  Fluency is a “chicken and egg” scenario. If you wait until you’re fluent before you speak a language, you’ll never be fluent.

  That’s why I advocate speaking from day one.

  I struggle to understand why so many people wait until the ‘perfect moment’ to start speaking a language. So many language learners seem to believe they can clock hours and hours of textbook study, then one day open their mouths and be able to have complex conversations about life, the universe and everything.

  How to speak from day one

  You can’t just sit at a desk, or on your couch, somehow magically absorbing information and expect that to get you anywhere. The best way to learn a language is by taking action. Open up your mouth and start speaking!

  Remember this: communication in any language is riddled with mistakes. Even your native language. English is my native tongue – yet it is not my favourite language to converse in, by any means! I sometimes stumble over pronunciations and use ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ as I find the correct way to phrase my thoughts. This is coming from someone who speaks publicly for a living!

  You might be thinking this is all very well and good Benny, but how exactly can I start speaking right now?

  You’ll need two things:

  A willingness to make mistakes.

  Tools to connect with native speakers (we’ll look at those later in this book)

  Adopting a mindset where you allow yourself to make mistakes is critical – in fact I’d go as far as to say it’s the only way to reach fluency.

  There’s no such thing as perfect

  Being an engineer, I always fancied myself as a mathematician, rather than a writer. When I first started my website Fluent in 3 Months (FI3M), I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I was doing. I’d publish long blog posts – about my travels as well as my language-learning missions. Some of my posts had grammatical errors or mistakes, as I was the only one proofreading them. These days, there are guides all over the Internet on how to write blog posts, or draw in an audience. Well, I didn’t use many photographs and I was very fond of emoticons (and I still am! :P).

  I wasn’t perfect (I’m still not), and I didn’t let this bother me.

  Perfection was never the goal for me. With multiple languages already under my belt, I wanted to share what I had learned, how I learned it, and, most of all, I wanted to tell stories.

  I kept publishing far-from-perfect blog posts, and over the years, I built up a community and a business around FI3M. I wrote language guides, and even became an international best-selling author and National Geographic traveller of the year based on my writings!

  Life isn’t perfect. If you’re going to sit around, waiting for an opportune moment to start doing all the things you want to do in life, you’ll find you have very little chance of achieving, well – anything!

  Imagine if I’d waited for that “perfect” moment to start up a blog. If I’d thought my articles weren’t “good” enough to post online. If I’d effectively, been paralysed by a quest for perfectionism.

  I think my life would have turned out very differently.

  There are people who walk through life, waiting for the right time to do whatever it is they wish to achieve. This isn’t limited to learning a language. Maybe they want to write a book, do a woodworking course or backpack around the world. They convince themselves that they don’t have the time, means or money to do whatever it is they wish to do. And they leave it at that.

  This is crazy, if you ask me! Our lives on this planet are so inconceivably short and people so often prioritise the wrong things. If you’re incredibly lucky, your life will stretch to a length of 70+ years – imagine all the things you can learn in that time, if you put your mind to it.

  The point is that the road to fluency is one that will always be riddled with mistakes. Mistakes are the only way to become a better learner and more confident speaker.

  Mistakes work wonders for your self confidence

  Many people are terrified to speak their target language. My partner Lauren was so nervous before her first Esperanto conversation via Skype that she hoped for a power outage so it would be cancelled.

  Feeling fear is normal.

  When you first start speaking a new language, you’re going to be at a very basic level. Your vocabulary will be limited. You’ll probably speak slowly. You’ll hesitate. And you’ll feel a bit silly.

  That’s totally okay.

  Yes, none of us wants others to think of us as stupid. But speaking another language is a smart decision, not a stupid one.

  In any case, how exactly will people think you’re stupid? Many folk (at least in the English-speaking world) consider those who can speak multiple languages to be vastly intelligent. In most cases, if you’re trying to learn a new language and make a mistake, people won’t mock you or call you names. In fact, I’ve found people to be largely helpful – correcting your mistakes for you with kindness and even complimenting you.

  The more mistakes you make, the more confident you’ll become in your abilities as you make those same mistakes less and less.

  In fact, it’s only by making mistakes that your fear of mistakes will begin to melt away.

  Mistakes help you learn faster

  I knew of someone who was learning German and was in conversation with a native speaker. In this conversation, she accidentally used the work lecken. What she meant to say was lächeln, which translates to “smile”, but she’d accidentally said: “lick”. The native speaker burst out laughing and was quick to correct her mistake for her, causing her much merriment in the process.

  Yes, people might laugh at your mistakes. But that doesn’t have to be painful.

  Needless to say – she won’t be forgetting the German word for “smile” anytime soon!

  Mistakes help you connect with people

  When you’re at school, mistakes can directly affect you, usually by lowering your mark on an exam.

  But what about in life?

  Messing up when you’re speaking a new language isn’t going to have all that much impact on your life. At the worst, you might feel a little bit silly or have some difficulty getting your point across to whoever you’re talking to. The key factor is – you’re communicating. This is what you should be focusing on.

  Start speaking today

  I hope you understand now why the pursuit of “perfect” fluency is a meaningless goal that really does more harm than good. Recognise that fluency is different from perfection, contrive a method of achieving your goal and above all, don’t let fear overpower you.

  Get out there and start communicating. You’ll never look back, I can assure you of that.

  Chapter 4: How Beginners Can Outsmart “Expert” Language Learners

  When you’re a beginner in a language, and you meet someone who’s studied it for years, it can be a bit of a shock.

  You wonder: “How are they so damn good?”

  It feels like they’re leagues ahead of you.

  How can you hope to stay motivated enough to catch up with the more advanced learners? Maybe you’re thinking that none of your hard work is going to pay off for months or years! Why even bother?

  Here’s why. First of all, you don’t have to wait months or years to be able to use your new language
effectively. You can start right away! Even if you’re a beginner, there are some powerful language hacks you can employ that will have you speaking on par with, or even outsmarting, those more advanced learners that you feel are impossible to compete with right now.

  How can you outsmart more advanced learners? Easy, if you have the right attitude, study the right resources, and learn some speaking and listening techniques to convince other speakers that you’re not a beginner at all. As a beginner you can outsmart advanced learners because you can…

  1. Ignore the Academic Textbooks and Study the Vocabulary You Need

  So much time in language classes is wasted studying vocabulary you’ll almost never need, at the expense of vocabulary that you’ll definitely need on a daily basis when using that language. Unless you plan to spend most of your time working in an office environment where you’ll be immersed in your target language, how often are you really going to need the vocabulary for “stapler”, “chalk”, or “hole punch”? These words are generally taught in the classroom because they’re items commonly found in classrooms. But isn’t the whole point of learning a language so that you can use it outside the classroom?

  Too many language learners get to an “advanced” level in their courses without actually being able to converse about topics that are relevant to their lives. You can avoid this pitfall right from the start. Don’t get stuck in the trap of learning vocabulary “suitable” for your level. Learn what you actually need, and use it! Think of your main goal of language learning, and head in that direction right away.

  Do you want to speak the language while on holiday? Then learn vocabulary commonly found in phrasebooks. Yes, believe it or not, you can start learning phrases like “When will the restaurant close?” which contain the (gasp!) future tense, even if you haven’t yet learned the names of all the colours!