The Languages Guide            

By Project Success    

I believe that every person can in a short period of time attain new practical foreign languages skills. We might not be highly talented (like those polyglot guys), however we can still reach a practical level. Practical means that we can use it to communicate in a professional level.

For acquiring a new language, three conditions must be fulfilled:

1. The usage condition- The language must be daily utilized once acquired. It’s worth mentioning that our memory can store infinite amount of information, as long as this information is used. I.e., the language must be constantly used in your daily life. This condition can be optimally fulfilled when one immigrates to a new country and communicated mostly with the local language.

2. Strong beliefs- As in everything in life, acquiring new skills is a function of our beliefs. Strong beliefs get us closer to our goal, and thus it is a necessity to stick to the belief that the new language ability is down the corner and will be gradually developed as time passes by. For this I would suggest the daily concentration on positive conductive thoughts regarding our future ability.

3. Technique- A good learning technique must be applied. In contrast to the common belief, the process of acquiring a foreign language should not consume most of your time, hack I would even say that a time-consuming schedule will push you further away from your goal, as you will soon lose your motivation. The right technique should be both efficient and practical. And This is exactly where this guide becomes handy to you. For a good language learning technique and optimal learning schedule, please read on.

Before diving into the practical technique, it’s worth noting the required abilities for a language fluency. For a good practical language skill, the person must possess enough vocabulary which he can use both in listening and speaking. Note that reading and writing aren’t mandatory traits, however they do improve the language’s experience and assist in the learning process. Usually in the case of languages, the Pareto rule is a leading force. The Pareto rule states that 80% of the results originate from 20% of the effort. In the context of languages, I would say that during 80% of the time, only 20% of the vocabulary of every language is used. And if we account for exclusion of old-fashioned words and words combinations, the number of these distinct words of those 20% share is even lower. It’s is said that a person needs around 2,000 in order to speak a language in a basic way, around 4,000 words in order to be in an advanced level, and 10,000 for a full fluency. I believe that for most of people, the 4,000 level would do the job. Thus, our primary goal is to acquire 4,000 useful words. For our goal, a useful word is every word you find practical in your daily life. A good rule of thumb is the comparison to your second language (if you have one). If you know this word in your second language, you should learn it also in your new desired language. If a second language doesn’t exist, compare it to your native language. Ask yourself an honest question; "Am I using this word in my daily conversations?", if not, then just ignore the word and move on.

The practical technique

Our goal is it acquire a sufficient vocabulary from useful words which we can both use in our output (what we speak) and understand as input (what we listen to). The first step would be the full understanding of the language structure. If an online course is available, we can start with that, if not I would suggest using Wikipedia and a Google search.

As a rule of thumb, we should first initially gather the following information in order to structure our learning schedule:

1. Gender of nouns- How many genders exist.
2. Cases- Figuring out whether cases forms exist in the words of the language depending on the word function in the sentence. For example, in English you would say “I” when you connect a verb to your personnel pronouns: “I walk”. But you will modify it to “me” when the pronouns connect to somebody’s verb- "He kills me".
3. Verbs conjugation- Conjugation through tenses and nouns.
4. Pronunciation- How the alphabet is structured and prounced.

The information gathering should take only few hours of work. Once we gained a first acquaintance, our next task is to gather the learning sources:

1. Multiple dictionaries- It’s worth having multiple dictionaries for comparison of phrases. A good combination is Google translate with an addition dictionary for context.
2. Verbs conjugator- We need a website where we enter the verb and receive the full conjugation for every tense and personal pronoun.
3. Nouns declension device (if cases exist)- We need a website where we enter a noun and receive the full declension for every sentence case.
4. Adjectives declension device (if adjectives cases exist)- We need a website where we enter a noun and receive the full declension for every sentence case.
5. Listening material- This should be audio files where we can train the listening abilities. A good start is to always look for the local news.
6. Vocabulary and pronunciation material- This should be any source where we can gather new vocabulary and learn how to pronounce it. A good solution is an online course and YouTube videos for language learning. A good example is the „Deutsche Welle“ for the German language.
7. Grammar guides- This should be a website which explains the grammar rules.

The suggested technique is the following: We should always start with our online course/YouTube videos. The idea is to progress with the course while writing down the new vocabulary in a weekly fashion. Assuming we have 52 weeks a year and a vocabulary losing rate of 20% (the vocabulary we forget on the way), we should learn every week around 48 new words. Assuming we forget around nine words a week, we can achieve the basic level of 2,000 after one year, and a practical competence of 4,000 words after two years.

The time management should be as the following: During the week we collect words based on occurrence, and one day a week we invest in online courses and vocabulary organization. The idea is to create a list of 48 words based on the weekly collected words and the progress of the online course. The words should be noted with usage examples based on their grammatical function (once learnt); verbs should be noted with the correct conjugation and preposition, nouns and adjectives with the correct cases and gender declension; phrases and special grammatical structures with an example (like conditions, questions, etc.). The grammatical function can be retrieved using our verbs conjugator, the declension source and the context dictionary. Once this goal was achieved, we should stop the online course and continue the next week. During every day in the week the list must be reviewed at least two times: From the foreign language to the mother tongue and vice versa. The words collection during the week should start at later phases once words are successfully recognized from listening. Initially the goal is to hear the language daily even without understanding. I would suggest spending 15-20 minutes a day hearing an audio file/podcast/news. You will notice that in time more words are recognized either as known or new words. If the word is fully recognized and new, it should be noted in a draft sheet and documented at the end of the week.

After a decent period of time, once the listening and vocabulary skills are improved, we should develop our speaking ability (aside from the online course); The best method is the following mental exercise- The goal is to think in the new language. Since it might be exhausting to think constantly in the new language, we should start by investing few minutes a day and gradually improve. Good examples are thinking about the things we are currently doing at the moment like going to the grocery store, cooking etc. We need to be able to say it to ourselves in the new language. In case we can’t, we should note the required vocabulary and continue with our day, and at the end of the week we should research the answer. The answer should be noted in the form of new vocabulary for the next week.

While progressing we can intensify the system by watching movies, tv series and podcasts. We should always concentrate on vocabulary. In time will we gather enough words and get used to the accent. Pay attention that we concentrate on listening and words, subtitles should be avoided at all costs, as it diverts our attention towards reading instead of listening. Reading should be trained only once a week in our major working day.

Next Steps

If you successfully implemented the technique, you should notice a huge progress. If you are lucky enough to live in the foreign country where the new language is spoken, you can move on to the next step. Here I assume you fulfil the usage condition for a language fluency, if not you can stop here and enjoy your required ability, however the new language will not be completely functional until you combine it with your daily life. I assume, that eventually the idea is to start using the language. A good system is to start with your basic tasks; before performing the task, you should research the required vocabulary, take a note in your weekly vocabulary list and go out to the field and communicate. Sometimes will you need to convert back to English, don’t worry, once you return home you should research the missing information which prevents you from fully communicating in the local language. In time will you cover most of the possible scenarios in your daily life and be able to communicate fluently. As time passes, will you learn more and more words that are used in the foreign language, more grammatical structures and advanced vocabulary of the street language and become highly trained in using the language.