[WheelsAtLarge]

The answer is no secret but it's hard to achieve. The fastest way to learn a new language fluently is to speak it, constantly.

Yes, it's easier for children to acquire a new language but they learn it because they are constantly forced to use it.

I've known a number of people that have lived in a foreign country yet they did not learn the language. Why? Because they could get away with using English most of the time. They were never forced to speak it. They could get away with only speaking it a little. And if they got in trouble they could always ask someone for help.

The stress caused by having to come up with the proper word combination helps immensely. We tend to remember what caused us stress. Also, repetition will always help in acquiring new words.

So, basically, start a learning program but make sure you practice every day by speaking with someone that's fluent in your new language ASAP and let them correct you as needed. Also, NEVER speak your native language with that person. Only use the language you want to learn with him or her.

Do not start book studying, grammar and such, until you have a good grasp of the language. Reading a new language will reinforce accents since we tend to read with our language in mind.

The more you have to think in the language you are trying to learn the faster you will reach fluency.

[injb]

This.

The author of the article says:

"If there were someone who knew how to learn new languages, we would all know it. They would be uniquely and unquestionably skilled at producing new language speakers. They would be very visible: everybody would be flocking to their doors and imitating them."

He seems to be confusing "learn" with "teach". All of the above would be true if he said "if there were someone who knew how to teach new languages...".

Lots of people know how to learn, but no one wants to hear about it, because the answer is: work really hard.

"Everyone wants to be a bodybuilder, but no one wants to lift no heavy ass weights."

[tomxor]

> He seems to be confusing "learn" with "teach". All of the above would be true if he said "if there were someone who knew how to teach new languages...". Lots of people know how to learn, but no one wants to hear about it, because the answer is: work really hard.

Exactly, the author is talking about teaching from the perspective of a _shortcut_ (which most teaching does, since there would be no point to teaching if it didn't enhance the learning beyond making information available), but many skills or working knowledge are "irreducible" from a learning perspective, in the sense that they must be acquired from the ground up.

He implicitly states this goal much later in the article here:

> learn a new language like a baby! Start learning by babbling single syllables and eventually move on to whole words and sentences. Culminate in advanced classroom instruction. The problem is that, taken as a literal model, this will take you 18+ years. This is not a practical way to learn a new language.

We can't assume that something is always reducible (mathematically there are many things that a provably not!), that there is a trick to it that we can cheat nature - that is the old scientific way of thinking.

All language teaching methods i've been exposed to assume this to be the case as they are all based on the idea of bootstrapping the process with our existing native language... I suspect this never actually works, just that a few individuals who are intuitively clever enough quickly and unconsciously discard this relationship as a basis of the new language.

TL;DR when the author debates whether it is actually possible to "teach" a new language, what I see is the question of whether the process of fluently learning a new language is computationally reducible.

[james_s_tayler]

You nailed it with final quote. You can say shit that might motivate people but you can't reliably engineer them into the emotional state required to pull off disgustingly hard shit like like becoming world class at something. That's just an internal state that you either wind up at or you don't. And its the key ingredient.

[retiredcoder]

Unrelated but not everyone can be a body builder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin

[shard]

I'm not sure what you wanted to point out in the link that you shared, but it seems to me that being a body builder is like being a painter or writer or skier or marathon runner, you just get the tools and do it. There's no need to be at a level where you can make a living from it to participate.

[yorwba]

> NEVER speak your native language with that person. Only use the language you want to learn with him or her.

You don't have to be quite that strict, it's enough to have dedicated time slots where you won't allow yourself to escape learning by switching languages. The most efficient way is to find someone who wants to learn your language and do tandem learning, so they're motivated to slog through correcting your mistakes over and over. Since I'm not that good at small talk, I had some trouble finding activities where there's actually enough to talk about, and eventually settled on museums.

Another thing that helps is to watch videos in your target language. It doesn't do much to improve your vocabulary unless you pause to write new words down, but it helps with listening and by proxy also improves pronunciation. I've found https://viki.com to have a nice collection of subtitled shows in the languages I'm interested in. (Though by now I've progressed enough to keep subtitles off.)

For quickly learning and actually remembering vocabulary, it's probably unavoidable to use a spaced repetition system like https://apps.ankiweb.net/

[james_s_tayler]

The most efficient way is to be surrounded by people who don't speak your language but who also have a social reason to be interested in you. Complicated to explain, but buddying up with people to do language exchange is pretty garbage. The goals are fundamentally at odds for both parties so there is always this weird tug of war and the partnerships in my experience don't last because of it. It's not a friendship, so you're not in natural situations and the "so what did you do last weekend" small talk is just that. Small talk. Building real relationships works magic. Make friends on the other hand and hang out with them all the time and shit starts to accelerate pretty quick. The tricky part is actually making friends because before you can really speak you just aren't interesting. But if you can solve for that, and there are ways, then it's the sweet spot.

[amaccuish]

This. My German accelerated massively when I actually was friends with German students at my school. We'd get beyond the small talk and have deep and meaningful conversations, and the slang I learned has turned out to be invaluable.

[wingerlang]

>>> Because they could get away with using English most of the time. They were never forced to speak it.

I live in a foreign country and this is my life, while english is not really the best here - I've had literally zero issues with either speaking english or having some help every now and then (like for 'official matters').

>>> The stress caused by having to come up with the proper word combination helps immensely. We tend to remember what caused us stress.

I also think this is very accurate, most of the words I know are really set in stone from these kinds of occasions. Some specific event happened related to the word, maybe I misspoke something and it was pointed out. And so on.

[james_s_tayler]

I pretty much did this with Japanese but there are a few caveats. Namely informal grammar study as fast as possible and learn to read quick as you can are also massive, massive boosters.

Of all the language learning methods I've seen I've only seen one thing consistent across all of them that in the end leads to results and that is you have to legitimately feel that it's deeply important to your life story to actually learn it to fluency. At some level you actually just have to care about the outcome. It's an emotional switch that once flipped, actually the method is irrelevant. I've seen every which way work. The constant was that it mattered to those people. And no one knows how to turn that switch on/off. Therefore I agree with the sentiment no one knows how to do it. I guess I'd be more specific and say that no one knows a fool proof method to engineer the outcome because it relies on emotional states and belief systems. As for the intellectual understanding of how to execute against learning a language. Plenty of seasoned language learners know full well what works and what doesn't.

[WheelsAtLarge]

Excellent point, caring at the deepest level will make any method work. But a system that pushes you along will help. The goal is to be fluent in a language but it's easier if you get pushed towards your goal by circumstances rather than actively having to push yourself.

Example, you can read and practice a conversation by yourself and learn, something that gets harder as time passes, but if you have no choice but to communicate with someone then you will do it even if you don't feel like it.

[james_s_tayler]

The caring is the push. The caring is the pull. The caring is the forward momentum.

So many people I know lived in Japan 5 years and can barely speak it. Some are even wholly dependant on their wife to manage all their affairs because they can't function in society.

I never set foot in Japan before I was fluent because I moved to the city where all the exchange students came to learn English and I did nothing but hang out and speak Japanese with them.

I know what you mean. Methods can make or break your success in a way. But the method isn't the reason for it. It's the conduit. I remember when I first started learning I went to the bookstore and got one of those shitty teach yourself Japanese phrase books. I got 1/3 the way through then I got stuck on this page and I just couldn't get it. I couldnt get how to count some stuff and I couldn't move on until I got it. I threw the book in the trash but not my dream. I went in search of another way to learn it. I came across many obstacles and the caring led me to always search for another way.

Today the last of the caring is ebbing out of me after 10 long, fun years. And with it is going my skills.

[radicalbyte]

It took me about 18 months to learn Dutch and I both speak and write it better than my 5 year-old.

Listening to the radio, reading one newspaper article a day whilst following an intensive language course helped the most.

[modernerd]

Which language course?

[radicalbyte]

Dutch as a Second Language at a university.

[AmericanChopper]

I’d mostly agree with this, but I’m not sure the stress element is necessary. I learned a second language while living overseas. Most of the people in my office spoke good English, and I’d just speak their language as much as I could, filling in my gaps with English. I’d ask when I didn’t understand something, or when I wanted help forming a sentence. There was a fair bit of code-switching to begin with, but I had a good conversational grasp after a year.

[kstenerud]

Confirmed learning Japanese, and now learning German. Being in a situation where you need it for everyday life causes you to pick it up by osmosis. You get a feel for it after a couple of months, and then it just builds organically, exactly the same as how a child picks it up.

It also helps to get drunk from time to time, because your inhibitions drop and you practice better uninhibited (like a child does).

[geomark]

I found it immensely useful to speak English with my Thai tutor in the beginning when I was trying to get the pronunciation correct and train my ear to hear tones. When I listened to four different words that sounded the same to me but actually have different tones and meanings it would been totally baffling if my tutor did not point out the (to me) subtle tonal differences. I doubt I would have made much progress otherwise. After that, of course, force yourself to stay in the target language and not fall back to your native language.