Learn to Speak a Foreign Language Effectively in 100 Days

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Introduction

This post was inspired by my younger daughter's return to college. Her school has a language requirement, and this is the year when she will practice her "parlez-vous francais?" to meet that requirement.

As she described her lack of enthusiasm for taking these courses, I thought about how billionaires probably deal with foreign languages. Unless a given billionaire grew up knowing more than one language or is a whiz at languages, I expect that most billionaires expect everyone else to speak their native language . . . or use an interpreter.

That's too bad. You lose a lot of the culture of another country if you cannot speak and understand what others have to say. Why? I've found that people usually shift into the culture of the language they are speaking. If you speak to a French person in English, they will adopt a style of speaking and subjects that will be more American or British than French. Switch into French, and you find a French perspective.

Also, to me it's always a magical experience if someone is able to understand what I am saying in their language. I feel like Aladdin after the genie comes out of the lamp and offers three wishes.

I also notice that people are more interested in having a relationship with me if I speak their language. I've had many of my most delightful experiences that way.

So how can you vault ahead of a billionaire in this area in only 100 days? Read on.

Recommendations

Most daily conversations employ less than 1,500 words. As soon as you have a working knowledge and comfort with the right 1,500 words, you can communicate pretty effectively with just about anyone.

When you start thinking about 1,500 words, it sounds like a lot. Right? I agree.

If you break it down into 15 words a day for 100 days, it doesn't sound like so much. And it isn't. Most people can learn 15 new words a day in another language with less than 30 minutes of effort.

But on the first day, you're going to have to spend more time than that as you select the vocabulary you want to learn.

Here's how to acquire and use that vocabulary:

1. Choose the words that will help you the most. Words that you find useful are easier to learn and remember than other words.

Start with a dictionary that is in English and whatever language you want to learn. Be sure that the dictionary contains a pronunciation guide so you'll have some idea how to say and understand the words you will learn.

Think about what you want to be able to speak about in the language. Look up those words.

2. Put each word on a 3x5 card with the foreign language spelling and pronunciation on one side and the English translation on the other side. You can use these as flash cards like you did with your children when they were little to help learn the words and to test your memory.

3. Group related words together. For instance, if you are interested in cooking, you would put all of the words about different ways of cooking food (frying, boiling, broiling, etc.) together.

4. Learn related words on the same or adjacent days. In this way, you will find that you can retrieve relevant words more easily. Your mind will have them all filed away.

5. Arrange in advance for someone to teach you the fundamentals of pronunciation in a few half-hour sessions, separated by a week. You don't have to sound like a native to be understood, but you'll be more effective if you can come somewhat in the right direction. For example, French speakers employ a lilting cadence that is a lot like singing words. If you bluntly spit out words as English speakers do, it sounds very strange to French people. Rather than hire a language teacher to do this, I suggest that you ask a friend to help you and do this over lunch or dinner as a social event. You'll be more relaxed and have more fun.

6. Assemble a few key phrases to help you deal with common situations. For example, if you will be taking taxis, you will need to know the sentence structure for politely indicating where you want to go. You can also anticipate that the driver may speak too quickly for you, and you will want to be able to ask the driver to speak more slowly and to see if he or she can say it in English (as a last resort). You will find such phrases in guide books you can borrow from the library or in phrase books you can buy.

Among these phrases, consider learning to say what country you are from, that you know many verbs and nouns in the language but don't know verb tenses, and that you would appreciate their kind assistance.

7. Forget about verb tenses except for the present tense of "to have" and "to be". You can construct some sort of meaning using those verbs for many situations. For the rest, you will sound like you are speaking a broken version of the language. They will probably supply the correct verb tense for you. Smile and thank them when they do. You can put together a little sentence that explains that you have only spent 100 days learning their language and that you are making many mistakes.

8. Test yourself each day on the words you learned the previous day. And recheck yourself a week and a month later.

9. Follow this daily procedure. Tape yourself saying your 15 words (you can make it 10 to 25 to help fit related words together better). Play that tape during the day when you have a spare moment or two. Speak along with the tape. See if you remember what each word means. If you don't, focus on just those words with the 3X5 cards for that day. Flash them to yourself in random order until they come easily. Do flash card tests at least five times during the day. Play the tape of the words you learned that day within five minutes of coming to bed at night.

Run tests of the prior day's words and prior month's words sometime in the morning. Put the words you cannot remember well on the day's tape. Review the words you have trouble with throughout the day as you do the new words.

10. Practice what you learned every day for 10-20 minutes after the 100 days are up. Ideally, you should schedule an opportunity to use your language skills about that time to help solidify what you just learned. If you use the language a lot for a period of two weeks (say during a vacation), you will find that your base of knowledge will solidify from the concentrated experience of having heard, seen and said so many of the words. A good way to do daily practice is to have a conversation with someone who knows the new language. If you arrange to do this with a buddy, you and your buddy can help each other stay current. It's more fun that way, too!

By the way, there's no magic to taking only 100 days. This is a quite leisurely task if you stretch it to 200 days. Picking the right amount to learn daily is important though. If it's too easy or too hard for you, you won't enjoy what you are doing. Pick a daily activity level that feels right.

Bonne chance! (That's French for Good luck!)

Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at Trump University's Web course on Wealth Creation, delivered by The Donald and other experts.

Sunday, I'll look at how you can pray better than a billionaire and have a better relationship with God. Don't miss it!

Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.

If you are new to this blog, be sure to check out the updated table of contents entry that I posted earlier today. It will help you find earlier entries that may be of interest. I'll update this table of contents every week or so for your convenience.

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May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell