by Benny Lewis
Perhaps you want to learn the language in order to work as an au pair in another country. In that case, you’d focus on vocabulary relevant to households and childcare. You might even get hired over a more advanced speaker who can conjugate verbs perfectly in every tense but can’t talk about topics that weren’t in their course curriculum!
Sure, if you want to work in an office or a school overseas, then learn that vocabulary like “stapler” and “chalk”. The point is, learn vocabulary that’s relevant to what you plan to do with the language, and your competence in that language will surpass that of the advanced students who refuse to deviate from their rigid lesson plans.
2. Adopt the Homer Simpson Method and Make the Most of the Vocabulary You Have
In The Count of Monte Cristo, the lead character Edmond Dantès met a fellow prisoner, the wise Abbé Faria, who told Dantès that he was constantly improving his Greek language skills. When asked how that was possible in prison, Faria replied, “Why, I made a vocabulary of the words I knew; turned, returned, and arranged them, so as to enable me to express my thoughts through their medium….I cannot hope to be very fluent, but I certainly should have no difficulty in explaining my wants and wishes; and that would be quite as much as I should ever require.”
I believe every language learner should put these wise words into practice. I call it the Homer Simpson Method, and I’ll explain why in a moment.
Even if your beginner vocabulary is limited, there’s no reason why you can’t arrange the words you do know, with a little practice, to make yourself understood in your target language almost as well as any advanced speaker.
A good way to start practising is to look at an object that you’d like to know the name of – Google image search is a convenient tool for this – and try your best to describe it without looking up any new words. Don’t know the word for “house”? Try, “thing that people live in”. “Telephone”? What about, “thing to talk to people far away”?
Soon you’ll be able to do this with any new object you see. You might need to get creative to make yourself understood in conversation, but trust me, it’s better than stopping mid-sentence every five seconds to look up the right word, or worse, not speaking at all and never learning the word! Once the other person understands your meaning, they’ll immediately tell you the correct word, and then you’ll never forget it.
A friend of mine once referred to a “tube that gives water in the kitchen” in their target language because they hadn’t yet learned the word for “faucet”. And Homer Simpson once forgot the word “spoon”, but he made himself understood by asking Marge for that “metal…dealy…you use to…dig…food”. It wasn’t very elegant, but they both got what they needed in the end!
3. Take Advantage of the Goldmine of Online Language Resources
Even one year ago, there weren’t nearly as many language-learning resources available online as there are today. I regularly write articles directing my readers to hundreds of language-specific resources available online, just to try to keep up with all the new ones being released! Even endangered languages, like Occitan and certain indigenous languages of the Americas, are gaining more and more language learners thanks to the Internet.
There’s never been a better time to start speaking a new language. Those speakers who started years ago might be more advanced than you now, but you can learn faster than they did thanks to the boom in high-quality online language-learning courses and free resources. And as with any project, when you see measurable results quickly, you become far more motivated to keep working toward your goal. And motivation is half the battle!
4. Steer Well Clear of the Need to be Perfect
Advanced language learners generally aren’t used to making mistakes. Many of them feel like they left “that phase” behind them long ago. But this often means that if they want to say something that they don’t know all the right vocabulary and verb conjugations for, they might just keep their mouth shut and not say it at all rather than risk saying it incorrectly and shattering their “perfect” image. They’ll stay trapped in the safe world of familiar words, reluctant to venture outside of their comfort zone, lest they feel like a beginner all over again.
Meanwhile, as a beginner, you don’t have the luxury of knowing enough grammar and vocabulary to not make any mistakes. Since your comfort zone is so small, everything you say will start out imperfect. But as long as you make it a habit to keep speaking and don’t let your mistakes discourage you, you’ll quickly get used to that feeling and you’ll never be afraid to get outside your comfort zone and say something new, even if you don’t know all of the correct words or grammar. Before long, as you keep talking with native speakers, these mistakes will simply disappear from your vernacular, maybe even without you realising.
Make it a habit to forget about perfectionism from the beginning, and you’ll soon be learning at an exponential rate, while the more advanced learners who never got into this habit are stuck in a rut.
5. Fake it ‘til You Make it
You don’t need to be an advanced speaker of a language in order to sound like one.
Learn how to inject personality into your conversations, and your ability to converse in that language will instantly hit the next level. Instead of stumbling through your sentences with ums and ahs that’ll make the other person lose interest faster than you can say, “The word is on the tip of my tongue!”, you’ll keep them engaged and maintain the conversation’s momentum. This will give you far more speaking experience in the process.
Try these techniques to outshine more advanced speakers in your conversations:
The dramatic pause. If you don’t know exactly how to correctly finish that sentence you just started, don’t just halt mid-way through with a “sorry” while you gather your thoughts.
Instead, make the pause sound like a natural part of the sentence, as if you did it on purpose! Don’t just say, for instance, “I read about it in my…hang on…what’s the right word…oh yeah! Textbook!”. Instead, say, “I read about it in my – you guessed it – [dramatic pause] – textbook!” and you can bet that the other person will still be paying attention, and might get a chuckle out of your quirky speaking style, which will keep them coming back to speak with you more.
Conversational connectors. This is another phenomenal way to fill the gaps in a conversation while you’re planning what to say. Instead of answering the other person’s questions with yes or no, followed by “And you?”, which sounds very unnatural in almost any language, add a connector such as, “That’s a great question, thanks for asking”.
Not only does the conversation sound more natural, and flow back and forth between the speakers, but you can spend those moments when you’re using conversational connectors in order to think of a good reply to the question.
6. Polish up Your “Contextese”
Even if you can’t speak your target language at an advanced level, that doesn’t mean you can’t understand it at an advanced level, once you get some practice filling in the blanks when you don’t understand every word you hear in a sentence.
I call this unspoken communication “Contextese”, because you’re relying on things like the body language of the speaker, the tone of their voice, and the few words in the sentence that you do understand – in other words, the context of the sentence.
So many advanced language learners spend all their study time on vocabulary and verb conjugations, and then get completely lost in conversation if they don’t understand every word. They focus too much on just the words, instead of on everything else. Learn to see the big picture in a conversation, and you’ll stun advanced learners speechless with your level of comprehension.
A Beginner’s Mindset Can Make You a Cunning Linguist
Every language learner, no matter how advanced, was once a beginner in their target language.
How long you remain a beginner, however, will depend on how cunning you are in your study techniques, and how much you use
the language for actual communication. Whatever your level is now, don’t let advanced speakers scare you away from using your target language; with these language hacks, you can start using your language on par with them right now, and go from seeming more advanced to being more advanced in far less time than you would with traditional approaches.
Remember: whether you achieve competence in your target language in weeks or years is up to you. Which will you choose?
Chapter 5: The CIA is Wrong: It Doesn’t Take 1,000+ Hours to Learn a Language
Does it really take up to 4,400 hours to learn a language?
According to the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute, that’s how long it should take. Study for 20 hours a week, and that’s over four years! Reduce that to five hours a week – a more realistic number for most of us – and you’re bridging two decades. Crazy!
Don’t get me wrong. Learning a language requires dedication, focus and commitment. Whichever method you choose to learn a language, it will take hundreds of hours to reach fluency.
But fluency doesn’t have to be as heart-crushingly distant as 20 years away…
In any case, I believe that focusing on the number of hours per week you study is a much more important measurement than the years you spend learning a language.
But just how many hours does it really take to learn a language?
Before we dig into more numbers from “official” sources (including the college where CIA trainees go for language training), let’s understand what we’re aiming for more precisely.
Precise Milestones
As mentioned before, when I learn a new language, I often like to aim to reach a level where I have “social equivalency” that to me would mean I’m fluent in the language.
When social equivalence is the goal, I’d usually not try to pass a specific test. In my view, language learning is not an academic pursuit; it’s a practical one. I aim to be able to use the language effectively in everyday conversation.
But if we do look at it academically, I believe the system that separates language levels most efficiently to be the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR) scale. It essentially gives us three ranges we may find ourselves within: A (beginner), B (intermediate) and C (advanced), each of which is then further split into 1 (lower) and 2 (upper).
On this testable scale, my fluency goal is the B2 (upper intermediate) level. This means I “can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.”
With this as my goal, the way I study languages is completely different to the systems used by many “official” language learning organisations.
My goal is to communicate. Their goal is usually to help you pass a specific test.
So, how many hours do they say you need to pass a language test?
How Many Hours Does it Take to Learn a Language? “Official” and Unofficial Estimates
To answer this question, I researched several different official and unofficial sources on how long it takes to learn a language. Each has a different estimate, but their conclusions were all fairly similar.
To be clear from the outset – I’m going to disagree with these conclusions, and I’ll explain why later in this chapter. So please don’t be daunted by these figures! I know it’s possible to learn a language much more quickly than these numbers suggest.
One more thing before we look at the numbers: most of these estimates measure study time in classroom hours. But we don’t just learn in a classroom – we have to study on our own as well. The suggested ratio is two hours of personal study time for every one hour of classroom time. That makes one classroom hour into three study hours.
To make this easier for calculations, I’ll err on the conservative side and make one classroom hour into two study hours.
Here’s what I found:
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is the system used by many language learning centres in Europe. By their estimate, it takes around 600 classroom hours for English learners to reach a B2 (upper intermediate) level. That’s 1,200 study hours in total.
The American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages says that it takes between 480 and 1,320 classroom hours to reach an upper intermediate level in a new language, depending on the difficulty of the language. Double that to include personal study time, and that’s between 960 and 2,640 hours.
The Defense Language Institute is where the CIA, members of the U.S. armed forces and various other government agencies go to learn foreign languages. Their language courses equate to between 780 and 1,950 hours in classroom time. Students at the DLI study languages full-time, seven hours per day, with only an additional two to three hours per day of homework. But that still works out to between 1,002 and 2,786 total study hours.
Huan Japes of English UK, a trade body for language colleges, says it should take around 360 hours to get to around a B1 (lower intermediate) level. That’s 720 hours including personal study time.
Research by the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute found that adult native English speakers took 600 classroom hours to reach an advanced level for languages like Spanish or French, and 2,200 classroom hours for Chinese or Arabic. With two to three hours of homework after every seven-hour day studying languages, that works out to between 772 and 3,143 total study hours.
Why These Numbers are Misleading
As you can see, there is quite a range in estimates between the sources I’ve cited. They range from 720 to 3,143 hours, and that’s to reach somewhere between a lower-intermediate and an advanced level in a new language.
If you were to study a language on your own for four hours a day, five days a week, for a total of 20 hours a week, these estimates mean it would take you somewhere between 45 weeks and 220 weeks to reach B2 level of your target language. That’s between one and four years!
So, how do you account for hundreds of people around the world (including myself) who are able to reach an upper-intermediate (B2) level in a matter of months? Well, there are a few reasons why the “official” numbers are misleading.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of the myths behind the official numbers.
Myth 1: Tests are what really matter
The schools and organisations that these figures come from are focused on helping students pass a specific test or reach language mastery.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with those who pursue an academic understanding of languages. Personally I think it’s wonderful that there are those who have dedicated themselves to a scholarly pursuit of language theory and pedagogy.
My purpose for learning languages is quite different. I rarely study to meet the requirements of a specific test.
My test is real life. My aim is to use the language as quickly as possible, and so my focus is on a “real world” approach. In other words, I aim to use the language, as opposed to analysing the language.
Myth 2: Classrooms are the best place to learn a language
If you’re working to communicate in the language with native speakers, then find the methods that are best for that purpose.
Most traditional classrooms have one person standing in front of a group, transferring information in one direction. Is that the best use of your time if your focus is on practising the language as much as possible?
The amount of time you get to speak during most language classes is pretty low. In a classroom of 20 students you might get called on to speak with the teacher just four or five times for a total of around five minutes altogether.
I don’t know about you, but five minutes per hour is not the best use of my time.
Myth 3: Textbooks are the best way to learn a language
In my view, speaking is the best way to practise a language. And, of course, the best way to speak the language is one-on-one with a native speaker.
In one hour with a native speaker,
the entire time is spent actively using the language. Even if you’re listening to the other person speak for half the time, that’s still 30 minutes every hour where you’re speaking the language.
That’s a 600% increase in the amount of practice you get over a classroom environment. Instead of spending six hours in a classroom, you could get the same amount of speaking practice in just one hour with a native speaker!
Myth 4: Your teacher knows exactly what you should study
That material you cover with a one-on-one native speaker is different from what you study in a classroom, for one very important reason: it’s relevant to you!
In a classroom the teacher tells you what material you should study and the words you need to learn. For example, you may have an entire week focused on different modes of transportation, when the only method you actually ever use in your own life is a bicycle. Do you really need to learn the word for “monorail” or “freight train” as a priority?
By comparison, your own study with a native speaker is completely relevant to you and your life. The words you use are related to you, so not only are you able to speak more quickly with a larger number of useful words, but you have a better chance of remembering words about yourself.
Studying with the one-on-one, native speaker method means you’re able to use the language much more quickly than when studying in a classroom.
How to Bust Language Myths and Become a Language Hacker
Most traditional language teachers are focused on teaching you the language, but they spend very little time teaching you how to learn the language. This means you are stuck studying with ineffective methods like rote memorization or listen-and-repeat tactics.
You’ve seen above that one-on-one practice with a native speaker is more effective for learning to speak, but when you start to incorporate specific language-learning “hacks”, you can learn even faster.
Here are a few of the most powerful hacks I use myself to help with my language learning efficiency: