Language Hacking

[capt_weasle]

http://www.fluentin3months.com/language-hacking-guide/

This is something I am considering purchasing. I've been searching around for reviews and so far it seems like this is a pretty good system. One of my dreams has always been to speak as many languages as possible, and this seems like a good place to start.

Discuss.

[999_Springs]

It's definitely different from the way you'd learn a language at school. I took French, Spanish, Italian to GCSE, got an A* in all of them, and all I have to say is that learning a language to GCSE is nothing like learning a language for conversational skill in a foreign country. In particular if you're doing it in a short time (Italian was scratch to GCSE in nine months), you spend basically your whole time building up grammar and vocabulary which means you end up robotically memorising set phrases and regurgitating them in the oral and written components of the exam, and not getting any sort of confidence in speaking the language for yourself. I read somewhere that a GCSE gives you the fluency of a native six-year-old but with less vocabulary. That is useless.

Oh, and the other components of GCSE (reading and listening) are a joke. They are full of multiple choice questions with these unwritten rules like if you have four true and false questions they have got to be two true and two false and stuff like that, which means you don't really need to read or listen to get all the marks.

[capt_weasle]

What irks me about learning a language in school is that you cannot become fluent from memorizing a list of random words and phrases, much like you said. Had it not been for the fact that the program in my elementary school required we take Spanish classes - which certainly helped build a foundation for understanding the language - and having over three years of practice with my Spanish-speaking coworkers, I don't think I would be able to speak as well as I do today. I took four years of Spanish in high school but I can tell you that without practice it means nothing, which I believe is the focus of the book; additionally he encourages you to drop English completely whilst learning new languages to help you dive right in. The only reason I would consider taking classes at college now are to help with writing the language (my grammar *is* getting worse because most of my Spanish is based around the work-environment and little else).

[SlappyMcGee]

I thought this thread was a Snow Crash reference.

[bobaganuesh_2]

I thought this thread was a Snow Crash reference.

Goddammit, there's another one I'll have to pick up now.

Re: Topic

I started using livemocha last year to learn French. I got lazy after a few months and haven't made any progress since. I lament that I learn quite a bit in that short time span, making my perpetually hit myself in the head for being an idiot. Je ne parle pas francais tres bien. Someone should grammar check that.

[Tanner]

Je ne parle pas francais tres bien. Someone should grammar check that.

"Je ne parle pas très bien le français." You were close.

[SlappyMcGee]

Je ne parle pas francais tres bien. Someone should grammar check that.

"Je ne parle pas très bien le français." You were close.

Tanner says Merci like you would not believe.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

$50 for a 55-page pamphlet? I haven't read through this thing yet, but I'm suspicious.

[capt_weasle]

$50 for a 55-page pamphlet? I haven't read through this thing yet, but I'm suspicious.

I think it's closer to 200 pages, actually. Plus you get an ebook and some other stuff I believe.

[Skyling]

I'm taking AP Spanish right now, and I'm in a class of seven students, so the bulk of the course is just conversationally talking to one another. I've definitely learned a lot more this year than in previous years when we rarely actually spoke in Spanish but just studied it from a book.

I don't think I'd pay money for that thing, though.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

$50 for a 55-page pamphlet? I haven't read through this thing yet, but I'm suspicious.

I think it's closer to 200 pages, actually. Plus you get an ebook and some other stuff I believe.

I think it's closer to 55 pages, actually, because I'm looking at the pagecount of the PDF presently.
I've only read about 20 pages before I actually passed out due to boredom, but so far it's something like a motivational course written at an 8th grade level. It comes with just under 4 hours of interviews with other language hackers, though, so that's something.

The main points so far:

• An overall goal like "fluency" is worth jack shit, and will never motivate you. You need short-term goals, such as "I want to understand the simple jokes in this television show" or "I want to be able to buy food in this market without using any English." You learn the necessary vocabulary and manner of speaking behind it and put it to use in the same day. This builds up.
• Also, "fluency" is a loaded word. To most people, this means the ability to intelligently and insightfully speak about any subject in the language, but this is not something you can do in your native language in the first place. Aim for easy and accurate speech about non-specific topics, and pick up the ability to speak about specific topics later, just as you did when you learned English.
• Turn your want to learn the language into a need to learn the language. Put yourself in sink-or-swim situations regularly.
• Start speaking from day one. Most of what you say will be technically incorrect when you start, but the goal is to get your point across, not perfection. Ask native speakers to correct you. Be Donfuy two years ago.

All in all, this seems like intuitive information, but I haven't come up with it in my brief and ultimately futile attempts to learn foreign languages, so I guess it's useful in that sense. He's promised to talk about resources for practicing with native speakers for free, and that's also something I'm very interested to see, but suspicious that it's just going to be a suggestion to join online communities that speak the foreign language.
I'm not sure it's worth the $50 I hypothetically paid for it. I guess it could turn out to be.

[29403]

It's definitely different from the way you'd learn a language at school. I took French, Spanish, Italian to GCSE, got an A* in all of them, and all I have to say is that learning a language to GCSE is nothing like learning a language for conversational skill in a foreign country. In particular if you're doing it in a short time (Italian was scratch to GCSE in nine months), you spend basically your whole time building up grammar and vocabulary which means you end up robotically memorising set phrases and regurgitating them in the oral and written components of the exam, and not getting any sort of confidence in speaking the language for yourself. I read somewhere that a GCSE gives you the fluency of a native six-year-old but with less vocabulary. That is useless.

Oh, and the other components of GCSE (reading and listening) are a joke. They are full of multiple choice questions with these unwritten rules like if you have four true and false questions they have got to be two true and two false and stuff like that, which means you don't really need to read or listen to get all the marks.

Hahaa yeah, but I missed an A* by 1 UMS in spanish

[Heartattack]

Since when have we had a facepalm emoticon?

[Tanner]

Since when have we had a facepalm emoticon?

We don't. Just linked to a .gif.