Do I agree with Mark Manson's language learning advice?

I see that all the time.

I have never found that to be useful advice.

Forget the first hundred words.

You can't treat random people as tutors.

Today, I want to talk about 25 tips to learn a foreign language.

This is based on a blog post written by Mark Manson.

Someone pointed out that this was a, an interesting collection

of tips for language learning.

So I thought it would be interesting to go through these 25 tips.

And give you my take on these tips, how relevant, how useful they are.

Bear in mind that language learning is very personal.

So what I like or dislike may not be the same as what you like or dislike

or what Mark Manson likes or dislike.

His first tip is conversation, conversation, conversation.

Now he was, I think, living in Buenos Aires and faced with the difficulty

of communicating with locals.

So in that situation, if you're in a country where the language is spoken

and you need to learn that language, of course, you take advantage of

every opportunity to use the language.

However, as a strategy for learning the language, I have

never considered conversation, at least in the initial stages.

to be the key because you can't have a conversation if you don't understand

what the other person is saying.

So I am much more inclined to prefer heavy input based approach to language learning

and wait until you have a high enough level of comprehension to where you can

have adult conversations with people.

And at that point, yes, you do need to speak a lot.

The second thing he says is intensity of study trumps length of study.

Well, intensity, yes.

And I do remember when I was learning Mandarin Chinese, I had three hours a

day, one on one with the teacher, and then I would spend five or six or seven

hours on my own listening and reading and writing and learning characters.

And I learned in one year faster than other diplomatic students, as with

the Canadian government in Hong Kong.

Uh, who took two years and learned less well.

So I, I remember I came to the conclusion at that time that creating that white heat

in your brain that comes from intensity is very helpful, but we continue to learn.

So even after a period of very intense learning.

It continues to gestate in your brain.

And there are other opportunities to use the language and you are always improving

over a long, long period of time.

Number three, he says classes suck and are an inefficient use of time and money.

One on one as the way I had it in Hong Kong with a teacher,

a new teacher every hour.

Forcing me to say something in the language.

I think that was very good, very intense.

However, sitting in a classroom with 10 people, with a teacher,

especially if you have to travel a half hour or 45 minutes to get to

the class, the classes are expensive.

In my case, the government was paying.

If I had to pay for that myself, I wouldn't do it because we

can achieve so much on our own.

Listening and reading, and then eventually finding an

opportunity to use the language.

Number four, know your motivation for learning a new language.

That's important.

I was listening to a podcast, How Stuff Works or something, to Americans.

And they were saying, why would you learn a language?

Is it just for showing off?

No, that's, I don't think why most people learn languages,

but it may be the case for some.

So you have to look at yourself.

Am I learning this language to show off?

Am I learning to communicate with my grandmother?

Am I learning it because I need it for work?

Am I learning it because I'm interested in the culture?

It's important to understand why you're doing it, because there are a lot of

moments during the process where you are discouraged because you don't think you're

getting anywhere and you have to go back to like, why am I actually doing it?

So that's a good point.

Number five, he says set learning goals.

Well, I've said that in a general sense, my goal always is B2 on the European

Common Framework of Reference, which is kind of fluent with mistakes and

places where you don't understand.

That to me is the goal.

Once you're there, you can continue.

To improve, but I very often don't achieve that.

I move off a language where I'm still at A2 and I go to another

language because I'm interested in it.

So to me, at my stage, the goals aren't that important.

When I was a Canadian government language student in Hong Kong, learning Mandarin

Chinese, I had a very specific goal.

I had to write the British foreign service exam.

And I said, I want to do that within a year.

So that was a very specific goal for a specific purpose.

That's not the situation now.

And the goal will dictate what you do.

Are you going to spend a lot of time writing?

Are you going to maintain a diary?

All the different things that you can do, many of which are hard work.

If your goal is high enough, you will have the discipline to do these things.

If you're more of a dilettante like me, you'll be more of a

lazy language learner like I am.

Next thing he says, start with the most common words, the 100 most common words.

I see that all the time.

I have never found that to be useful advice.

If you are doing a lot of listening and reading or even speaking, you

will encounter the most common 100 words, 500 words very, very often.

However, the frequency declines very quickly and the major challenge...

Thereafter is going to be acquiring the less frequent words, but the

most common words they look after themselves, you needn't worry about it.

And if your goal is to learn the most common hundred words so that you can

go and start talking to someone, you will find, I think, in many, most

cases that you won't be able to follow the conversation anyway, because

the person you're speaking to is not going to limit what they have to say

to the hundred most common words.

Number seven, he says, carry a pocket dictionary.

I never carry a pocket dictionary.

But dictionaries are very inefficient.

It takes time to find a word.

You forget what the meaning was as soon as you close the dictionary,

I just find, you know, you end up saying, how do you say this?

How do you say that?

Could you please repeat?

And you kind of struggle through if you have that kind

of a rudimentary conversation.

I prefer to prepare myself through lots of listening and reading

and then hope for the best.

So I don't carry a pocket dictionary.

Number eight, keep practicing the new language in your head.

Again, I never...

Do that, not deliberately.

Now it may be that subconsciously I have these phrases bouncing around in

my head, but I don't deliberately try to practice the new language in my head.

I just don't do that.

That's not to say it's not a good thing to do.

It's just not something that I can, you know, do.

You're going to say a lot of stupid things.

I accept it.

Yeah, I'm not sure it's stupid, but.

Uh, we are comfortable in our own language.

Typically we feel we are, if we're adults, we think we're adult.

We think we're intelligent.

We think we can express ourselves.

And all of a sudden in a new language, we can't, we make mistakes.

We can't find the words in a way it's unpleasant.

Although there is this sort of compensating sense of achievement

when in fact, you are able to say something, you are able to understand,

you get this tremendous power.

But yeah, there are certainly periods of uncertainty and you have to accept that.

Number 10, he says, figure out pronunciation patterns.

And he makes reference to Slavic languages and Romance languages,

which have certain patterns.

I would rather hear say, when it comes to pronunciation, focus on intonation.

If you can get the intonation of a language, the rhythm of the language.

Then the pronunciation is going to improve, your correct

usage is going to improve.

You should, you know, listen to that intonation and try to imitate it.

Number 11, he says, use audio and online courses for the first

hundred words and basic grammar.

Well, I've covered the first hundred words.

I don't think that's important.

They'll come at you anyway.

Basic grammar, again, it's hard to nail down the basic grammar.

You'll be struggling with basic grammar for a long, long time.

He mentions various apps.

He doesn't mention LingQ, unfortunately.

Fine, yeah, there's all kinds of apps and tools and resources online that

are going to help you, but the focus should be on acquiring the language,

not necessarily just the first hundred words, not necessarily the basic grammar.

Both of those things are going to continue to elude you for quite a while.

Number twelve, he says, after the first hundred words, focus

on becoming conversational.

Again, I don't know what that means.

You are not going to be conversational with a hundred words.

Forget the first hundred words, even forget trying to be

conversational at an early stage.

Focus on improving your comprehension, acquiring vocabulary, speak

when you have the opportunity.

You're not going to be comfortably conversational until you have a sufficient

vocabulary and a sufficient level.

Of comprehension, he's just aiming for the brain melt.

Sure.

I think I understand what he's saying.

Go at it as intensively as you can, and you will be engaging with the language.

It's kind of occupying your every waking moment.

And interestingly, whatever you've done before going to bed or during the

day, during the sleeping hours, that is being reinforced and put into your.

Long term memory.

So the more intense that experience, the bigger the brain melt, I guess, the

faster you're socking it into your brain.

Use a new language daily only in the sense that listening and

reading are also using the language.

It's simply not practical to be speaking daily.

But you should try to maintain some consistency of engaging with the language.

And so that's certainly good advice.

Number 15.

How do you say X is the most important sentence you can possibly learn?

Again, I don't agree with that.

How do you say X is not difficult to say?

You will learn that early, but it's not a major help.

I think you'll find yourself saying, I beg your pardon, could

you repeat that more often?

Because when we speak, we tend to limit ourselves to what we can

say and the words that we have.

Number 16, he says, one on one tutoring is the best and most efficient use of time.

It's the best and most efficient type of tutoring or classroom learning one on one.

I don't believe in sitting with a group of five or six or ten and taking turns.

Conversing, some are better than others, not an efficient use of time,

but I think that listening, reading, or dare I say using LingQ can be at least

as efficient a use of time as one on one tutoring, but you need a mixture.

You need them all.

The tutor is stimulating, it's feedback.

It's, it's all good.

Number 17, date someone who speaks the target language

and not your native language.

Uh, I'm married, so it doesn't apply.

You're selectively, you know, removing anyone who.

Speaks English, if your native language is English, harder to find.

I'm not sure how relevant that is as a activity.

18.

If you can't find someone cute who will put up with you,

find a language buddy online.

So with a language buddy is again, I have to spend time teaching that person,

my language, English, so that's an hour for every hour I get of speaking to them

in my target language, I would rather spend more time with input activities.

And then pay 10, 15, 20 an hour for an online tutor when I want.

Facebook chat plus Google Translate equals winning.

Again, I'm not on Facebook.

I don't have any interest in Facebook.

Uh, Google Translate is useful for written communication.

I think it's a little cumbersome.

Number 20, when you learn a new word, try to use it a few times right away.

Again, a big part of language learning to me is that it'd be natural.

I acquire so many words through listening and reading.

I can't possibly use them all right away.

There's no opportunity to use them.

There's a gradual process where words that we have seen and we're starting

to become familiar with eventually become passive vocabulary and

eventually become active vocabulary.

I don't think you can short circuit the The process by

trying to use them right away.

And if you do, you'll only slow down your acquisition of a richer and

richer passive vocabulary, which is a base that you need for comprehension.

And it's the base upon which all other language skills are built.

So no, don't try to use it right away.

21, he says, TV shows, movies, newspapers, magazines are good

supplements, but he says ultimately nothing compares to the benefits of.

Speaking like conversations again, I don't agree with that because if you're

into TV shows, movies, newspapers, and magazines, you're expanding your horizons,

getting used to that new language and everything associated with it.

If you limit yourself to what you can say, it becomes a much more limited experience.

And I don't think that's a good longterm strategy.

Number 22, most people are helpful.

Let them help.

Yeah, most people are helpful, but that French girl who went to Norway, she

makes the point and it's very important.

You know, make sure you're good before you get there.

So if you go to Norway and you aren't very good in Norwegian.

As helpful as I am sure the Norwegians are, they're going to speak to you in

English because they think they're being helpful by speaking to you in English.

So you can't treat random people as tutors.

You have to get yourself to a level where people are comfortable speaking to you in

the language that you're trying to learn.

Number 23, there will be a lot of ambiguity and miscommunication.

Yes, of course there will.

It comes with the territory, as I mentioned earlier, that, uh, uncertainty

that's part of learning a language and we shouldn't let it bother us.

24, these are the phases you go through to learn a foreign language.

I mean, you can describe the phases any way you want.

In my view, we have initial success because from zero, suddenly

we understand a few things.

We're able to say a few things.

Then we go through a phase where we feel we're not making any progress

whatsoever because there's so many low frequency words that we need in

order to understand a movie, in order to have meaningful conversations.

And then all of a sudden we turn a corner and we have this feeling

of, wow, I'm somewhere, I'm B2.

And these phases may be different for different people, but there is

a gradual process of working towards success, however we define it.

And finally, he says, number 25, find a way to make it fun.

I would not put that as finally, I would put that as upfront.

Figure out a way to enjoy the process and at every stage.

And we talked about stages, enjoy the process.

So I, for example, at an early stage, uh, I find it enjoyable to listen to

our mini stories over and over again.

Comes a point where I can no longer do that because we need

repetition, but we need new things.

And so I find it enjoyable to move onto things that are difficult, where

I'm meeting some of the same words and phrases, but in many different contexts,

and I'm learning about many things through the language, and I find that enjoyable.

Obviously, when I have an opportunity to use the language, if I'm in the country,

or if I hear someone speaking a language that I've been learning, I'll immediately

pounce on them and speak to them.

And so that's also enjoyable.

So it's important at every stage to find ways to enjoy the process,

not just finally, but even at the very beginning, everyone has their

own approach to language learning.

If it works for them, that's all that matters.

And I'm going to leave with you two videos that I would suggest you have a

look at talking about the importance of input, because I think that's crucial.

And that kind of underlies my philosophy of language learning.

Thanks for listening.

Bye for now.