One Simple Method to Learn Any Language | Scott Young & Vat Jaiswal | TEDxEastsidePrep (2)

and eventually it helps you to gain the confidence

that you need to speak the language.

When Scott and I were doing this challenge,

we made mistakes every day especially in the beginning,

everything we said was wrong, but that's OK.

And in China and in Korea,

because Chinese and Korean are so much harder

than the European languages we attempted to learn,

we slipped up and broke the no English rule

a couple of times as well, but it didn't matter

because it is not about making mistakes,

how many mistakes you're making,

it is more about that each time you make a mistake you try again.

So, remember that the whole goal of this process and this method

is to push past this zone of frustration and fear

so you can get to the part

where language learning becomes fun and easy.

Ideally, the way you'd do this

is you'd move to the country that speaks this language

and go 100% immersion from the first day

and commit to the no English rule.

But obviously, that's a bit extreme

and a lot of you here might not have the opportunity to do that.

But I'd like to point out that the beauty of the no English rule

is that it doesn't have to be 100% no English all the time with everybody.

It can also work in a limited context.

So let me give you an example.

If you're trying to learn Spanish

and you have a co-worker or colleague that speaks Spanish,

maybe you commit to the no English rule every time you see this person.

So, every time you're going to see them you only commit to speaking in Spanish.

So if you were to bump in them at the water cooler

and you want to make small talk,

and you want to say - let's say you were busy at work -

and you want to say: "Oh, I'm so busy today,"

it is OK to pull out your dictionary, and translate the entire sentence.

You don't have to feel ready to say this,

the goal is to just try and attempt.

And what this really helps you to do

is that it helps you out with two really important things.

The first one:

it helps you to remove the ambiguity of which language should you use,

because if with this co-worker, let's say, you can speak in Spanish,

and you can speak in English, obviously you're going to default

to speaking in English because it is so much easier.

But by committing to the no English rule, you're saying:

"Every time I see this person I know it is practice time,

there is no doubt in my mind that now I have to speak Spanish

even if I have to pull out my dictionary."

And the second thing it helps you out with

is it helps you develop a habit of speaking the language

even at the very low level of ability.

This really helps you out to build the confidence that you eventually

are going to need when you'll start speaking this language

to the higher level of ability.

SY: So you've heard about our challenge.

Now we'd like to issue you one.

And no, we're not asking you to sell out your stuff

and go to live in a far away country.

We're going to ask you to do something a lot simpler

but if you follow through on it, it will still be very effective

if you want to finally start having conversations in that language

you'd been learning all your life.

Just 3 steps.

Step 1: Find one person.

It could be a native speaker of this language,

or it could be another language learner,

it could be someone you already know,

a friend, a colleague, a spouse,

or it could be someone you find online.

There are services like italki.com and livemocha

to find conversation partners online.

So if you can't find this person in your life right now,

there are easy tools for finding them online.

Step 2: Commit to the no English rule with this person.

Every time you see them just speak in this language

that you're trying to learn.

Tell them that, you know, even though you're not too great

at the language yet, you are going to have to use

Google Translator and dictionary a lot in the beginning, that's OK.

Step 3: Start speaking.

Once again, it is not something you have to be perfect at.

You might slip up and break the "no English" rule, just try again.

Pull out your phone, download the Google Translator app,

you can type in the whole sentences if you don't feel comfortable yet

speaking the language.

The goal is to get you to start speaking,

to start building that knowledge of the words,

and start practicing those core phrases.

What we're hoping is that by showing you this method

we're encouraging you to get started with something,

not to be perfect, and maybe even today to decide

to find that one person and start this rule,

and finally start speaking that language.

Chinese have an expression:

(Chinese) "A good start is a half of success,"

which means: "A good start is a half of success."

(Applause)