Transcription
I'm pretty sure in your language learning, you've asked yourself this question multiple times: how can it become fluent fast? And believe it or not, there is an answer.
Hello, guys, and welcome back to my YouTube channel. I feel extremely excited today filming this video for you because recently I have read a book that has changed the way I approach language learning. The book is called Fluent Forever and it was written by Gabriel Wyner, a polyglot who discovered the key to rapid language learning. From what I remember now, Gabriel can speak German, Hungarian, Russian, French, and Japanese fluently. That's crazy, a lot of languages, and in this book, he shares all his secrets. The book is truly a treasure trove of useful information of how every single one of you guys can learn a language successfully. It unlocks the secrets of how to get the most out of your memory so that you can study languages fast and become fluent fast.
I started implementing all the tips from this book immediately. Like the first few pages, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna start doing it now when I'm learning Spanish," and I can tell you guys that now when I speak Spanish or when I try to memorize new vocabulary, I do it a lot faster, and when I speak Spanish, I feel a lot more confident. And I use the same tips for English to improve my maybe academic vocabulary, to read more complex books, and the book is helping me so much.
The key message from the Fluent Forever book is: you can become fluent in any language very fast if you use these following techniques. Number one: listening carefully for rhythm and sounds. Number two: using a space repetition system. Number three: connecting words to images. And number four: learning the language the way it gets to a big part of becoming fluent in English is knowing how to write correctly and confidently, and I use QuillBot for that. It has a website and a Chrome extension that improves my writing skills on the go. Thanks to the support, I can continue bringing you guys amazing videos each week, so show them some love and make sure to check them out later.
So, what is QuillBot? QuillBot is a platform that is perfect for non-native English speakers who want to start writing in English and study English effectively. You can choose between the four English language versions available on their website: it's American English, Canadian English, British English, and Australian English. And here are the three tools that I love using on QuillBot. The first tool is their paraphraser, so it can help explain my ideas in a more simple way. I love reading non-fiction books, and sometimes all of this research is kind of hard to explain to a friend of mine, for example, or to my parents because I love talking about books. So here's the text that I just typed in on QuillBot, and here is the paraphrased version. As you can see, guys, now it's a lot easier for you to understand this complex concept.
The second tool that I love and use all the time is their grammar checker. It can help you improve your English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. So let's see how it corrects this sentence: "If you knows how to approach the language game, you can beat it." Obviously, it should be: "If you know how to approach the language game, you can beat it." And as you can see, QuillBot corrected it successfully. And finally, translator. It can help you translate text to over 30 different languages. For example, I'm learning Spanish now. "Ahora estoy aprendiendo español." So cool!
QuillBot is a great tool for students, content creators, and professionals. If you want to give it a try, make sure to use the link in my description. And now, let's go back to the Fluent Forever book.
At the very beginning of this video, we established that there are four techniques you should use to become fluent in a foreign language faster. So let's begin with the first one. The first thing you should do is listen carefully for rhythm and sounds. To be honest, before reading this book, I always thought that, you know, having a strong accent in a foreign language is not a big deal. You know, it's fine. But now I think I might be changing my opinion based on what I learned. Absolutely beautifully said! I love that Gabrielle thinks that accents is like a gesture of empathy. If you learn an accent, if you master an accent, every time you speak to a person and you sound pretty good, obviously they're going to be extremely excited. They're going to be curious about your journey, like, how did you manage to study this language to such a good level?
So the first thing that you guys can do is you can start with sound. Every single language has a set of sounds, and sometimes these sounds are different from your native language. And that's why it's absolutely important to start doing it from the very beginning. For example, on YouTube, there are a lot of videos of people teaching you the alphabet of English or any other language you're learning, and then teaching you all the different sounds. For example, how to pronounce the English "R" correctly, how to say "water" instead of "water" in American English, if you try to focus on American English. And that's also why I always tell you guys it's important to pick the accent early on, especially if you're very serious about your language learning.
For example, I live in Mexico, and I'm learning Spanish right now. So obviously, it's important for me to speak Spanish the way people do here because I could be saying "azul," like, which means blue in Spanish, and Spain. This is the accent they have there. But I also could say "azul." Obviously, I'm gonna stick to "azul" because this is the way people here in Mexico City pronounce this word.
If you struggle with difficult combinations of sound, I have a tip for you. You again from this book. The tip is: try this technique called back chaining. When I learned about this technique from this book, I was like, "This is incredible! I'm gonna give it a try myself." Because sometimes I struggle with, you know, pronouncing long words in Spanish because there are a lot of extremely long words. Like the word "unfortunately." I feel like right now, I won't be able to say this word without some preparation. This is just so hard. So what I usually do is I start from the very end. For example, I say "mente." Okay, it's pretty easy for me to say "mente." Then I add "damente." Let's continue doing that. See? Now it's a lot easier for me to say this word because I started from the very end, and it's extremely easy to do with Spanish words. I feel like in English, it's a little bit harder to do because English is a different language, like the way we pronounce words in English is different, but it still works, so you can give it a try.
Another advantage of learning a language of sounds first is that it will help you learn grammar a lot faster. So in this book, Gabrielle used an amazing example with this little bird. Let me show you guys. So there was this, like, scientific research thing where the scientists, they were asking kids to kind of talk about this little bird, and this bird is called a "wug." It's an imaginary word, it doesn't exist. And they were trying to say, you know, "Right now, here we have one wug. Now there are two." And all the kids said "wugs," even though they have never seen this word before. This word doesn't even exist based in the English language. But the thing is, because kids know how sounds work in English, they could understand that probably it's going to be "wugs." It's not going to be "wax" or "wax" because they are already familiar with the English language. In English, when we say "one wug," but "two wugs," that's exactly what we do. I honestly enjoyed reading this part about this little bird so much because it taught me so many useful things.
Number two: try using a space repetition system or SRS. I feel like this is something that every single language learner struggles with. We feel like our memory is not good enough, right? Because we try to memorize all of these new words, but then we wake up the next morning and we forget all of them, and we just beat ourselves about it. We think our long-term memory is not great. But the key here is the timing. In this book, Gabrielle said that it's very important to get the timing right. But unfortunately, many people think that extra repetition and overlearning is something that is going to help them get the timing right, but it's not. Cramming is never the best option. What is the best option is using a space repetition system because that is the system that's designed to help you get the timing right. Just when you're about to forget a word, you see it again if you're using the right system.
And the reason why SRS works is because of the act of recalling. When you recall, you retrieve information from the past. You actively retrieve this information, and this tells your brain that something is very important to remember. For example, this word in English. And so if you want to get better off speaking English, because sometimes people struggle with, you know, remembering words when they speak, like remembering words on the go, and that's recalling. So if you want to get better at recalling, you have to practice active recall. You can't just be looking at lists of random words and trying to memorize all of them because this is not recalling. And so the space repetition system uses this active recall to help you remember all the words more successfully.
And obviously, here I'm gonna talk about this amazing app that I love so much: Anki. Guys, I have used this app now for like, I don't know how many years, five, six, seven, and I love this app so much. When I was in college, my major was the Chinese language. It was very hard, but I used Anki, and Anki helped me to memorize all the complicated vocabulary I had to learn because I was not just learning, you know, general or everyday Chinese. I was learning Chinese that was connected to politics and economics because that was my major. So I had to learn like GDP and like national economy and like numbers, and it was very hard. But Anki helped me so much because again, this app uses this spaced repetition system.
And one new thing that I learned from this book is that I can use Anki to learn grammatical concepts because, guys, let's be honest, we all struggle with grammar. I struggle with grammar in Spanish so much, but Anki is helping me here as well because I can input all of this complicated grammar things into my Anki cards, make it simple, memorable, create nice sentences, and that's it. I'm gonna memorize this grammar structure in just a few weeks.
Number three: try to connect words to images. I always tell you guys that making connections is central to remembering. It's absolutely important to connect all the new words you learn to something memorable in your life. But obviously, not all connections are created equal. Connecting a word to a personal experience is more effective because it activates numerous areas in your brain. Let's say you're learning Spanish, and you have to memorize the word "casa," which means house. So how do you go about it? Obviously, you can just type in Google "casa" and find just a picture of some random house, and that's it. But okay, this way, it's already better than just having "casa," "house," you know, having a picture is always better than having no pictures. However, it's not strong enough. What you can do instead is find a picture of your childhood home, for example. Maybe in this picture, there's gonna be you and your family, like maybe standing in front of your house. This will really help you remember this word. This will build stronger connections, and every time you see this word, you'll be like, "Well, that's a casa for sure." Okay.
But sometimes you might tell me, "Okay, Veronica, but I just can't find a connection. Like, I can't, I can't memorize this word." What should I do? Sometimes what helps me, and also what Gabrielle mentioned in his book, is sometimes the connection can be: "I just can't memorize this word. I can't." So that's the connection. And all those personal connections are actually one of the reasons that's why I never share my Anki cards with anyone because I always tell you guys or my friends that, guys, my Anki cards are not going to be effective for you. They're just not gonna work because they're all built around my connections, the connections that I created for them.
For example, a few days ago, I was reading a book about Walmart, and I came across the word "retail colossus," and immediately I wanted to save this expression into my Anki cards because the word "colossus" was new to me. But then I was thinking, "Okay, which picture should I use?" Of course, I can use the picture of Walmart because I was reading a book about Walmart. But then I was like, "It's not enough. I need something more. I need something that's going to remind me of the correct pronunciation, for example." And I decided to Google the word "kolos," which is a Russian word for wheat, because I feel like "kolos" stands very similar to "colossus." Obviously not the same, but in my mind, right? It is extremely important that for me, I have created this connection. So I just saved the picture of Walmart and the picture of wheat. Yep, this is how I remember this expression.
And finally, you should learn languages the way kids do. I feel like the problem is most of the grammar books we have nowadays do not follow this pattern, and most of the teachers who teach you guys English, they never even think about it. They're just like, "Okay, now we're learning present simple, present continuous, present perfect, past simple, blah blah." But in reality, that's not the natural order. And language students or kids, you know, native speaking children, they also follow all of these patterns. We all follow similar patterns, no matter if it's our native language, our second language, third, fourth, etc.
In the book, Gabrielle used the example of English tenses. Kids start saying "he running" a lot faster than they start saying "he is running." So for that, this, like, present continuous with "-ing" happens a lot faster. But unfortunately, when we're learning English, first we're learning "I am," "he is," "she is," "we are." And sometimes it's very boring. And when we start to bombard our brains with too much information or information that is too difficult to process, our natural language machine breaks. And guys, we can all learn languages because you somehow learned your native language. So please don't say that, "Oh, I suck at language learning." Well, you speak at least one language, don't you?
So the best way to learn grammar is to rely on comprehensible input, meaning grammar that is easy to understand. The way I usually do it is when I'm doing things around my house, for example, I'm cooking, I try to create this sentence and say, "I am cooking," because it's very easy for me to understand this grammar structure because I'm also doing this motion of cooking, maybe cutting up some vegetables. It's a lot easier for me to understand than something so complex. You can also use your grammar book for that and just copy and paste simple sentences into your Anki deck. For example, something extremely simple. Don't try to copy and paste every single example for every single grammar rule. Now, only find something that you truly understand, you really understand this concept, you feel like you're ready to use it, you're ready to implement this, then go for it. Save it to your Anki cards. If you look right now, it's a little bit too early for you, you're not sure, it doesn't mean you're stupid, it doesn't mean you're dumb, it just means that it's not time yet.
So I think it's going to be it for this video. I really hope you enjoyed it, and I really hope that now you know how to become fluent in any language fast. Don't forget to use the link in the description and give QuillBot a try to improve your writing skills in English. And I want to finish, finish this video with one of my favorite quotes by Gabrielle Wyner: "If you want to learn a language, if, then you need to give that language life."