I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here's How (lifehacker.com)

Lifehacker reader Gabriel Wyner was tasked with learning four languages in the past few years for his career as an opera singer, and in the process landed on "a pretty damn good method for language learning that you can do in limited amounts of spare time." Here's the four-step method that you can use, too (and you don't have to invest hundreds in a language course like Rosetta Stone).

 

This is the method I've used to learn four languages (Italian, German, French and now Russian); it's the method that got me to C1 fluency in French in about 5 months, and I'm currently using it with Russian (and plan on reaching C1 equivalent fluency by September).

I go in four stages. The stages will take different amounts of time for different languages and depend on how much time you have available per day, naturally. The US Foreign Service Institute makes estimates for language difficulties for native English speakers, and they seem to be spot on in terms of comparative difficulty—Russian seems to be taking twice as long as French did for me, and they estimate languages like Chinese to take twice as long as Russian. That being said, let's say we're talking about a language like French, and you have 30-60 minutes a day to spend on it, I've included estimates for how long each stage might take.

Stage 1: Learn the correct pronunciation of the language.

Time: 1-2 weeks (or longer for languages that have a new alphabet that will take some time to get comfortable with)

Starting with pronunciation first does a few things—because I'm first and foremost learning how to hear that language's sounds, my listening comprehension gets an immediate boost before I even start traditional language learning. Once I start vocabulary training, I retain it better because I'm familiar with how words should sound and how they should be spelled. (Correct spellings in French, for example, are much easier to remember when there's a connection between the spelling and the sound), and once I finally start speaking to native speakers, they don't switch to English for me or dumb down their language, which is awesome sauce.

If you're learning a language with a different alphabet, this is where you learn the phonetic alphabet(s) (Kana, for Japanese or Pinyin for Chinese, for example).

How do you learn pronunciation?

There are a few routes here, and a lot of excellent online and in-print resources (Pronunciation guides with CDs or mp3s are usually very good). Personally, I think it's worth the (short) time to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for the English language first (Wikipedia / some video tutorials I've been producing), and then see what sounds are different in your target language. In the process of learning IPA, you learn the components of each vowel and consonant and you'll really understand what makes a French word sound French, and a Chinese word Chinese.

Stage 2: Vocabulary and grammar acquisition, no English allowed.

Time: About 3 months. This stage involves two different time commitments: building your vocabulary and grammar flashcards and reviewing the deck.

This stage takes advantage of a few valuable tricks:

First, I'm using Anki, a wonderful, free flashcard program that runs on smartphones and every computer platform. Anki is a spaced repetition system, which schedules reviews of flash cards based upon how often you've successfully remembered a card. In the end, it helps you put a huge number of facts in to your long-term memory very rapidly—you can typically learn 20-30 new words a day in about 30 minutes on your smartphone.

Second, I use a modified version of Middlebury College's famous language pledge—No English allowed! I use pictures and whatever limited vocabulary I have to build the rest of my vocabulary. By skipping the English, I'm practicing thinking in the language directly, and not translating every time I try to think of a word. This results in quicker learning and better vocabulary retention over time, and a much faster transition to comfortable fluency in the language.

Third, I'm using frequency lists to guide my vocabulary acquisition. These lists show the most common words in a given language, and learning those words first will be the best use of your time—after 1000 words, you'll know 70% of the words in any average text, and 2,000 words provides you with 80% text coverage. It's not enough for fluency, but it's a pretty phenomenal base!

Since I'm starting out with zero words, I have to go in a few steps:

• To save time, I start with a basic list of 400 words that are common in English and extremely easy to picture - things like man and woman, dog and cat, to run and to cook, etc. I find good (!) translations of these and put them in my Anki deck without any English - just the word and its picture.
• After those, I grab a frequency list and mark off any remaining words I can portray with pictures alone (basic nouns and verbs), and put them in my Anki deck. Once I have some words to play with, I start putting them together. I use Google translate (Exception to no English rule - just be careful there's no English in your Anki deck) and a grammar book to start making sentences, then get everything double-checked at lang-8.com before putting them into my Anki deck. Fill-in-the-blank flashcards let you drill your grammar and connecting words, and you can usually just type these straight into Anki from your grammar book.
• As vocab and grammar grow, I eventually move to monolingual (French - French, for example) dictionaries and writing my own definitions for more abstract words (again doublechecked at lang-8.com). This builds on itself; the more vocab and grammar you get, the more vocab and grammar concepts you can describe in the target language. Eventually you can cover all the words in a 2000 word frequency list as a foundation and add any specific vocab you need for your own interests.
• Most people's eventual goals (by, say, the end of stage 4) will be ~2000-6000 words, plus around 1000 grammar cards, depending on how far you want to go (Here, we're talking about words that are in your Anki deck - you'll pick up a bigger passive vocabulary from reading). As a very rough estimate, if you end up with ~5000 cards, it will take you a bit less than 6 months to learn them with Anki if you're doing 30 minutes a day (half that if you do 60 minutes/day).

Stage 3: Listening, writing and reading work

Time: This stage overlaps quite a bit with stage 2 and 4. Once you're comfortable reading or writing anything, usually a month or two into stage 2, you can start stage 3. Stages 3 and 4, the immersion part, combined took me about 7 fairly insane weeks where I spent any free time reading, watching TV, and writing.

Once I have a decent vocabulary and familiarity with grammar, I start writing essays, watching TV shows and reading books, and talking (at least to myself!) about the stuff I see and do. Every writing correction gets added to the Anki deck, which continues to build my vocab and grammar.

You should read and watch anything that's enjoyable to you—it's more about quantity than anything; I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter series in translation, and dubbed versions of the TV series 24 are insanely addictive and not that difficult to follow after the first few hours—you can literally spend all day in front of the TV, and it's actually productive! As for writing, you can (and should) write whatever you want—journals, opinions, what you did today, your grocery list, anything. The goal is to get something down on a page that you can submit to lang-8.com, get a correction, and put that correction into your Anki deck.

Stage 4: Speech

At the point where I can more or less talk (haltingly, but without too many grammar or vocab holes) and write about most familiar things, I find some place to immerse in the language and speak all the time (literally). No English allowed or else you won't learn the skill you're trying to learn, which is adapting to holes in your grammar or vocabulary by going around them rapidly and automatically without having to think about it). I prefer Middlebury college, but if you don't have 7 solid weeks where you can cut ties to the rest of the world and just speak the language, you'll still get a lot from even a couple of weeks in your target country as long as you stick to your target language and spend as much time as you can talking. There are internet exchanges and Skype videochats that will absolutely help you practice speaking, and if you surround yourself with foreign language TV and movies, read books and videochat with people frequently, you can sort of simulate the immersion experience on your own.

The more intense you can make it, the faster your brain will adapt and learn how to put all the info you learned in stages 1-3 together quickly enough to turn into comfortable, fluent speech.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-languages-in-a-few-years-heres-how

Language Instruction Improved With Fun and Games

Apr. 16, 2013 — Playing simple games using words and pictures can help people to learn a new language with greater ease, researchers from The University of Nottingham have shown.

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Their study, published by the scientific journal PLOS ONE, revealed that using fun, informal ways of learning not only helped complete novices to acquire a new language but also made more traditional methods of language learning more effective.

PhD student Marie-Josée Bisson of the University's School of Psychology, who led the study along with Drs Walter van Heuven, Kathy Conklin and Richard Tunney, said: "The results of this study have implications not only for language learning and teaching, but also for anyone interested in improving their knowledge of a foreign language.

"They show that informal exposure can play an important role in foreign language word learning. Through informal exposure, learning can occur without intention, in a more effortless manner. Anyone attempting to learn another language would benefit from activities such as simple games using foreign language words and pictures, or foreign language films with subtitles where they can enjoy the activity without focusing on trying to learn the words. The results of this study suggest that these kinds of informal activities can facilitate language learning, even days afterwards."

There are many advantages to learning a foreign language, such as a better understanding of another culture or better employment prospects in an increasingly multilingual society. However, picking up another language can be a difficult process.

Many language learners believe that informal learning -- for example, watching a foreign language film or spending time in another country immersing oneself in the culture -- is helpful for learning the lingo.

This has now been validated by the results of the Nottingham study, which used spoken and written foreign language words along with pictures depicting their meaning to measure foreign vocabulary learning in complete novices.

In the first phase of the study, English speakers who did not know any Welsh, viewed Welsh words on a computer screen and were asked to indicate whether a particular letter appeared in each word. While viewing the word, they also heard the word being spoken and saw a simple picture showing its meaning. Importantly, the pictures and spoken words were irrelevant to their task and they had not been asked to 'learn' the Welsh words.

In the second phase of the study, English speakers were explicitly asked to learn the correct translations of Welsh words. They were presented with pairs of written English words and spoken Welsh words and had to indicate each time whether the English word was the correct translation of the Welsh. Information about whether or not their responses were correct was provided so that they could learn the correct translations. Importantly, half of the Welsh words had been presented in the first phase of the study.

Results indicated that participants performed better on the Welsh words they had previously been exposed to, indicating that during their informal exposure they had started to learn the meaning of the Welsh words.

Better performance in the explicit learning task was found immediately after the informal exposure as well as the next day. The researchers found that participants retained knowledge unintentionally learnt during the informal phase even as much as a week later following further explicit learning of the Welsh words.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130416085302.htm

Lower Intermediate Level - Increasing Communicative Skills

Speaking

Lower intermediate level learners can use their English to complete most simple daily tasks such as asking for more information in shops, asking for recommendations in restaurants, asking for assistance in a hotel, etc. At work, English learners can provide basic information about tasks as well as ask for clarification. Learners still have difficulties in expressing extended opinions or using a wide range of vocabulary and structures to dig further into specifics. Pronunciation does not cause incomprehension, but can still provide difficult for interlocutors.

Writing

Learners at this level can write simple letters and e-mails explaining their current situations, as well as describe past events. Tense usage, while still not fluent, is generally clear in terms of past, present and future. Lower intermediate level learners can write some more extended passages, for example asking details about a certain topic, but will use only basic linking language in their written communications.

Reading

Learners at this level can read simple texts, understand gist of newspaper or magazine articles, but still have difficulties with detail. They can understand most service sector texts such as menus, bus and train schedules, brochures, etc. without much difficulty. They have begun to read more extended materials, but still have difficulties with vocabulary and deeper comprehension.

Listening

English learners at this level can deal with most basic situations such as asking for directions, responding to simple questions at work, etc. without having to ask for much repetition. In these common situations, they expect certain vocabulary and phrases and are familiar with usage. They still experience difficulties when listening to the radio or watching TV, but generally can understand the gist of the topics discussed in these formats. 

Source:  http://esl.about.com/od/teachingenglish/a/ESL-Level-Rubric_2.htm