Benny Lewis's Blog, page 63

How to Use Short Videos to Power-Up Your Language Learning

Videos and movies are really powerful tools to power-up your language learning. Now, the question is:

Do you use these resources correctly?

You see, I am a native Spanish speaker, and when I was learning to speak English, I went through a journey of trying different courses and methods, only to leave me thinking that English was too difficult.

However, ever since I can remember, I’ve always been interested in languages. My eyes well-up with tears every time I remember my dad telling me that he was taking English lessons when I was seven. I was so curious about my dad’s new skills that I was always like: “¿Cómo se dice [anything] en inglés?” (how do you say [anything] in English?).

From that point of my life, I fell in love with foreign languages, and because of that, my parents signed me up for several English courses.

I Struggled with English… Until I Found Short Videos

My dream was to speak English fluently and sound like people from the movies (yep, that was the wish of a seven-year-old boy influenced by Hollywood).

Anyhow, during my English lessons, I spent a lot of time analyzing grammar rules and learning textbook English, and that was far from my dream.

Every time I had to face a real conversation, I just couldn't understand the other person clearly.

How did I solve this problem? Later in life when I was older, one of the things that helped me improve my new language and to understand native speakers was learning real English. And I did this by using the media, more specifically: short videos. As soon as I started watching short videos in English, my listening skills improved dramatically.

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing with you the method that I personally follow to use short videos and power-up my language learning.

It doesn’t matter if the video is in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, or any other language. This technique I’m about to share that will give you real results if you follow the instructions.

“What Kind of Videos Should I Watch?”

Perhaps the question above is the first thing that popped into your head after reading the first paragraphs of this article.

Well, notice that I am not asking you to use a complete movie or just any kind of video, I am talking to you about short videos.

The benefits of using videos with a technique that I’ll describe later are countless, among other things, in videos you can find:


Real spoken language;
Native speakers using idioms and natural expressions;
No grammatical explanations or boring academic language;
Real communication among people;
More time exposed to the language;
The natural rhythms of your target language.


Why You Must Choose Short Videos

Why do I prefer short videos? Simple: a short video is easier to analyze and to watch from beginning to end compared to a movie or a longer video.

Now, not all kinds of short videos will give you the benefits that I outlined above. You must look for useful material, and that means, videos with your target language spoken naturally and by native speakers.

It is not the same to watch a video of someone teaching you to pronounce some Spanish words at a slow pace. The best videos are those that tell stories or give information at a natural and conversational speed.

The 4 Rules for Choosing a Video

The type of videos that I am talking about must meet the following requirements:


The video must be interesting or fun to you.
It must have subtitles, at least, in the language of the video.
The video must be spoken by a native speaker of your target language.
It must be short (No more than 10 minutes).


One of the best platforms to look for short videos is of course, YouTube, and in the past, Benny has given recommendations on how to use YouTube as a tool for language learning.

You can also look up for some short YouTube videos in your target language that contain the following content:


Short clips or parts of TV shows or movies;
Language vlogs;
Reviews of movies or products;
‘How to’ videos;
Short interviews.


My 3-Step “Video Power-Up” Technique to Learn a Language Using Short Videos

Alright, now you know the benefits of using short videos, and the kind of videos that you should look for, I’d like to share my video “power-up” technique.

I’m going to show you how you can use the videos you’ve found for improving your new language -- so you can take off like spaceship launching into light speed.

Before you follow my three-step process, outlined below, you must get into a positive mindset. Trust in your brain’s natural skills to learn languages and know that as long as you expose yourself regularly to understandable material in your target language, you will make huge progress and eventually become fluent. Think of yourself not as a student, but as a native speaker of your target language that is just learning to speak.

Let’s get started!

Phase 1: Understanding

The most important thing is that you understand the complete video, so go slowly through the video.

A good idea is to spend just 10 - 15 minutes every day studying the video, and remember it must be a short video, so it should only take you a little time.

Start with easy to understand short videos like science for kids or small sections of TV shows for children. As you get comfortable watching videos and listening to the native language, increase the difficulty and go for different kinds of videos.

Something really useful is to divide the video into shorter segments and focus just on small parts of the video.

Are you watching a 5-minute video? Then divide it into two parts of 2.5 minutes each, and then go deeply through the segment:


Turn on the subtitles in the same language as the video is spoken.
Watch the first segment and look for words and expressions that you don’t understand.
Look up the meaning of those words, so the video becomes completely clear for you.


Remember I said, “10 - 15 minutes studying the video”? Well, the goal of phase one is to learn the vocabulary of the video deeply, so focus on repeating the first segment of the video for a couple of days.

As you feel that you are identifying how the words you read in the subtitles match with the voices of the video, turn off the subtitles and keep repeating that segment for three or four days more for 10 - 15 minutes every day.

Make sure you can understand the first segment of the short-video and then move on to the next phase: Speaking.

Phase 2: Speaking

If you did everything right in the previous phase, it means that you can understand the video easily.

Now, the next step is to play sentence by sentence the first segment of the video, and as you hear every sentence, pause the video and repeat the words you hear aloud.

Try to do exactly everything you hear and see, don’t just repeat mindlessly, copy everything:


Emotions
If there’s an actor, copy the body language
Intonation
Energy


Do this for a couple of more days and try to increase the level of difficulty by turning off the subtitles and just repeating the sentences without reading anything.

After three or four days of practice, you should be able to say what the video says without pausing the video.

Try to forget that you are doing this to learn a language, and have fun with it, exaggerate the gestures or shout out the words.

Every time I do this kind of exercise I remember my classmates back in high school, some of them used to make fun of some teachers mimicking them, they were so good that even other teachers laughed at the interpretation of their colleagues.

Phase 3: Correction

Some people think that the only way to correct their mistakes when learning a second language is with the help of someone else who points out some corrections.

Well, with short videos, you can do this on your own, and again, because these videos are short, it won’t take too much of your time.

You can correct yourself by recording your voice on your phone saying everything the video says and after that just compare the video to your recording.

Notice how different your speaking may sound to what the video really sounds and make adjustments in your pronunciation, paying attention to aspects like the emotions, intonation, etc…

Is this the end of using a short video to improve your new language? No, remember that I told you to divide the video into segments, so when you complete phase three just go to the next segment of the video and start over from phase one.

Here’s a short video where I explain this 3-step process:

httpvh://youtu.be/5M59tQzOYBw

Will Short Videos Make You Fluent in a Language

I can’t tell you that you will master Spanish or Japanese by simply using short videos. However, they can be such a great tool!

I have learned lots of phrases through videos, like when I learned the phrase: “It’s up to you”, I was looking for a way to connect my PlayStation to an old computer monitor and the guy from the video showed two different connectors saying something like: “you can use either one of these two, it’s up to you”.

I looked for the meaning of this new expression and then repeated the video many times. In the end, I connected my PlayStation to that old monitor, but most importantly I learned a new phrase that I’ve used countless times now.

That is just one of the many experiences that I’ve had using short videos to power up my language learning. I really hope that after reading this blog post, implementing this technique becomes a new tool to help you achieve fluency in any language you want to learn.

Over to You

Now, you tell me: have short videos helped you improve your language learning in the past?

What kind of videos would like to use to power up your language learning? Have you already learned new words from videos? Let me know in the comments below.

The post How to Use Short Videos to Power-Up Your Language Learning appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Why I’m Teaching My Kids to Speak French Badly (and Why I Think You Should, Too)

Teaching kids French… what’s the “right” way to do it?

I’m teaching my kids French, and here’s a fairly typical French conversation between me and my 3 year old:

My 3 year old: It’s Grandad’s birthday!
Me: ‘Oui, on va lancer une fete!’ (we’re going to throw a party)
My 3 year old: Lancer fete! (to throw party)
Me (feeling pleased): Oui, tres bien. (yes, well done)

Later that night:

My italki tutor (gently mocking tone): In French, parties aren’t violent. You can’t say that you throw (‘lancer’) a party in French.

As you can probably guess from the title (and the above conversation), this post is not about how you can create the ideal conditions to help your kids become bilingual. There are plenty of books, websites and blog posts that deal with that.

I’m an intermediate French speaker, and I’ve decided to teach my kids French even though I’m not perfect at the language myself.

I’d like to share why I’m teaching my kids to speak French “badly”.

Yes, I’m Teaching my Kids Messy, Imperfect, Far-From-Fluent French

This post is for those of us whose lives are not optimised for making our kids bilingual, but who want to share our passion for language learning with our children and open their eyes to new languages, cultures and experiences.

Instead of bilingual pre-schools and native nannies, we have only ourselves at various stages of messy, imperfect, far-from-fluent language learning. But too often we are put off from involving our children and speaking to them in our target language because we are terrified of making mistakes, teaching them something that’s wrong, or worse……… that our children become so confused by our mixture of languages, imperfect grammar, and non-native accent that they become social outcasts, unable to mutter anything apart from incomprehensible Frenglish.

Ok, let’s take a breath. This obviously sounds ridiculous and exaggerated, but actually isn’t too far away from some of the warnings issued on various language learning threads and forums. For some people, if you can’t have each parent speaking their (preferably native) language to your children (a method known as OPOL - one parent, one language), your only other options are to hire a nanny, move to another country or find a bilingual pre-school.

Is “Bilingual or Nothing” Really the Best Way?

Speaking for my family: a nanny is not part of our lifestyle choice (or budget), we have no plans to move to another country and our children don’t go to pre-school (Even if they did, after a quick internet search, I discovered that there are no bilingual French preschools where we live).

Now, I’m not saying that these aren’t good ways to make your child bilingual: in fact, it’s true that they really are your best options if you want your child to have an immersive language experience.

But since when did we decide that it was immersive learning or nothing?

I want to convince you that you are not going to cause irreparable damage to your child if you start to introduce them to your target language, even if you are only a beginner. And you don’t have to make major alterations to your lifestyle choices to do it. I’m a huge advocate of making your language fit into your everyday life, whatever that’s like for your family.

5 Language Mess-Ups It Feels Terrifying to Make With Your Kids (And Why You Should Make Them Anyway)

Before I share more about my messy approach to teaching my kids another language, let’s take a look at some the reasons why people are afraid to speak their non-native language to their children (the truth is, I’ve felt many of these myself).

1. You Will Make (Many, Many) Mistakes

There’s no getting around it, you will make lots of them. You will mess up the word order, use the polite form instead of the informal, choose the wrong vocabulary to describe something and make tons of little grammatical errors

Here are a few I’ve made this week: I’ve mixed up c’est (“it is”) and il est (“he is”), jouer à (“to play a team sport”) and jouer de (“to play an individual sport or musical instrument”), and I’ve used the word normal (“not out of the ordinary”) instead of d’habitude (“usually”). Some of these I knew were mistakes, but made the mistake anyway when I spoke because speaking a language is frustrating like that. Some of them I recognised and corrected immediately, and some of them I realised much later. Of course, there will also be mistakes that I haven’t noticed at all.

BUT here’s the important thing; I don’t think you should worry about mistakes AT ALL.

Try to spot them? Yes.

Try to correct them next time you speak? Definitely.

Be afraid of them? No!

In fact, mistakes are actually on my list of benefits which you’ll see in a minute.

2. You Will Model A “Bad” Accent.

This is a genuine quote from someone on Quora:

“if the person (adult) who is teaching the language is not fluent, they (children) will pronounce it in the non-fluent way, and will continue to do so if not corrected. This, to me, is quite dangerous in a way.”

Yup, they actually said that speaking in a non native accent was dangerous for your children!

Now, I’ll go so far as to say that teaching my children to speak French with an English accent might end up being mildly irritating or even possibly really annoying for them. But then, if they continue to speak French as adults and use it enough to be irritated that they don’t have perfect accents, then, to be honest, I’m going to congratulate myself on a job well done.

I also hope that they’ll grow up understanding that there is no such thing as a ‘bad’ accent, just different accents. Someone might speak English with an American, British, Welsh, Scottish, Irish or French accent to name just a few. None of them are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as long as they can be easily understood.

3. You’ll Use Simpler Sentences than in Your Native Language

There is a depth, richness and complexity to language that you bring when you speak in your native language to your children. So, if you only speak to your children in the shorter, simpler sentences you can manage in your target language, your children are missing out on a wealth of grammar and vocabulary that is important for their language development.

I have absolutely no argument with this. I think it is vital that children have access to the richness and depth of your native language, particularly the affective language that you use. In encouraging language learners to speak to their children in their target language I am in no way saying that you should completely replace your native interactions with your children.

Again, this particular concern seems to assume that it is all or nothing again - your native language or your target language. I want people to feel comfortable and confident using their target language with their children. This does not have to be at the expense of the wonderful shared experiences that you have in your native language.

4. Your Children Will Mix Up the Languages They’re Learning

Children who are learning two languages might switch between languages when they are speaking (called “code switching”) but this is not a sign a confusion. In fact, many researchers see code switching as a sign of bilingual proficiency.

5. Your Children Won’t Really Be Bilingual.

Well, if ‘bilingual’ means ‘able to speak like a native’ then, ok, my method is much less likely to produce bilingual children than immersion techniques. If ‘bilingual’ means ‘fluent’ or even ‘able to speak two languages’ then who knows? One of the brilliant things about children is that they are unpredictable and grow up to have their own ideas about what they want to do with their time, energy and brain power. What I can do is give them experiences now which broaden their horizons, pique their curiosity and share my passion for languages with them.

I can’t promise that my strategies are going to produce bilingual children because children aren’t cakes - I can put in all the ingredients to get a chocolate fudge cake but I might end up with a lemon drizzle (or, more likely, a cake that I don’t even know exists yet).

So, I’m going to ignore the naysayers and carry on teaching my children to speak French badly.

5 Reasons I Choose to Speak Another Language “Badly” With My Kids

Here are 5 reasons why I think you should speak to your kids in your target language (mistakes, bad grammar, shoddy accent and all!):

1. It’s Good To Make Mistakes In Front Of Your Children.

Actually it’s great.

As a former primary school teacher, I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this because I have seen so many young people get worried and upset when they make mistakes. Often their biggest concern is ‘have I done it right?’ which is such a shame.

Language learners know better than most people that it’s not just ok to make mistakes, it’s actually vital to learning and progression.

Let your children see you making mistakes, let them see how you react positively to them, let them see you learn from them.

I’m convinced that it does my kids good to hear a gleeful shout of:

“aha! Mummy got it wrong! I should have said ‘tu veux que je le fasse!’ ‘fasse! not fait!’ It’s the subjunctive!”

As well as:

"I don’t know how to say ‘let’s all ride on the ninky nonk’ in French but I will find out"

(For anyone who isn’t in the UK and doesn’t have a child under the age of 6, I haven’t just made that up. It’s a reference to a train-like contraption from a children’s TV show. I have used this as my example because I have literally just said that sentence to my 3 year old. When I have finished writing this paragraph, we are indeed going to think about the best way to say ‘let’s all ride on the ninky nonk’ in French and then probably spend the next hour using variations of that phrase in our play.)

2. The Benefits Of Bilingualism

Ok, so the jury’s out on this one.

Although there is a general assumption that there are many cognitive benefits from being bilingual (and many, many articles supporting this) perhaps it’s fair to say that actually, we don’t really understand the human brain or the process of language acquisition well enough to be definite about anything at the moment.

This article in The New Yorker
suggests that, although there seems to be pretty good evidence that being bilingual delays the onset of Alzheimer's, the other common beliefs about bilinguals being quicker at various mental tasks aren’t always borne out by research.

However, some research indicates that bilinguals are smarter, better at problem solving, have better memories and are more skilled at multi-tasking. Of course, it all probably depends on the level at which they speak a second language.

So read the research and come to your own conclusions about what benefits your kids are going to get from learning another language. It would be great if learning a language gave my kids all these advantages in the future, but personally I like to focus on the benefits they are getting right now, every day. like….

3. You Are Showing Your Kids How to Learn

You are not just passing on your knowledge of the language (however big or small that might be at the moment), you are showing them that learning is something that happens everywhere, at any time, at any age - not just in school.

You are a role model in how to follow your passions, how to be curious, how to develop the motivation to learn something independently dictated by your own interests and, of course, how learning is satisfying and fun! In my opinion, that is a great gift to give to your children.

4 You’ll Help Your Kids Understand Different Cultures and Points of View

You can’t learn a language independently from culture. Language is fundamentally about people and about communicating. In the modern world, I think we all need to raise our children with a greater understanding of how to communicate with others across racial, religious, linguistic and geographical boundaries. And with the understanding of other languages and other cultures comes an understanding of other points of view. I hope that by being able to show my children the world through the lenses of different languages, they will be more tolerant, more understanding, more inclusive and not just view things from an anglocentric perspective.

5. Bonding -- You’ll Share Your Passion with the People You Love

What’s better than sharing your passions with the people you love?

This is a completely natural part of parenting. My partner plays hockey; so does his dad and his brother and his cousin is a GB Olympic hockey player. We sometimes go to watch them play. Sometimes we help the kids knock the ball about with a hockey stick on the pitch after a match. I’m pretty much taking it for granted that hockey is going to be the first sport my kids are going to play.

Whether they carry on playing as older children / teenagers / adults will be up to them but it’s likely that they are going to enjoy it because it’s so much fun having a shared interest to bond over.

I’m sure my partner won’t mind me saying, but he is less proficient at hockey than his Olympian cousin. That’s not going to stop him from teaching the kids how to play.

He’s not afraid of teaching them an imperfect technique for taking a plenty flick or worried that he’s scuppering their chances of becoming professional players because he’s teaching them bad habits they won’t be able to undo.

They’re all just having a great time together.

In the moment.

Because it’s fun.

There are Benefits for Me, Too

They were just the benefits for the kids! I have discovered there are also heaps of benefits for my own language learning. Here are just a few:


Time is precious - I don’t have much time for ‘studying’. But by learning alongside my children, I am reading, watching and speaking French as part of our daily lives.
I am constantly practising thinking and speaking in my target language
I am increasing my vocabulary with loads of useful, everyday words that I didn’t know. Before I started speaking to my kids, I was pretty proficient at talking about topics like the news and politics but, as demonstrated above, my knowledge of vocabulary pertaining to imaginary train rides was lacking.
I’m discovering new ways of speaking. It’s not just the vocabulary - I could get around a train station in France without any problems but the whole way we talk to children is different. If I was talking to adults I might talk about taking a train but probably wouldn’t say ‘let’s all ride on the train!’.


Speak From Day 1! -- That Means With Your Kids, Too

Often language learners spend a lot of time doubting their abilities and lacking in confidence, particularly when it comes to speaking. Because of this, I think we tend to feel that speaking a new language to our children is something that we can only do if when we are more fluent than we are now.

That’s certainly what I believed when I started learning French.

But then I realised the problem was that I was never going to achieve a level of fluency that I was happy with. Even people who have been speaking their target language confidently (and fluently) for many years still make mistakes and still have a non-native accent.

I was always going to feel like I should improve before I started speaking to my children.

At first, this thought was kind of depressing until I realised that actually it was really liberating. I had been falling into the trap that Benny built this blog around: There was never going to be the perfect time to start speaking.

I just needed to start and to realise that making mistakes doesn’t matter (and can even be beneficial). And although I know my French won’t ever be perfect, it’s going to keep improving.

And the best way to improve? To keep speaking.

How Should You Start? Give Yourself Permission to Be Imperfect

My 3 year old knows that I am learning, that I make mistakes, that the mistakes I make are sometimes big and sometimes small and sometimes really funny. He sees me get excited when I recognise a mistake, he sees me try and try and try again and he sees me enjoying the process.

So if you see us out and about, that mixture of English and (sometimes ungrammatical) French you can hear, spoken in an English accent by an excited 3 year old and his mum, is the sound of learning and living - if you’ve been too scared to try it yourself because you’re not fluent enough, this is your call to action.

Give yourself permission to not be perfect and give it a go - it really is the best.

The post Why I’m Teaching My Kids to Speak French Badly (and Why I Think You Should, Too) appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

The Romance of Language Learning: A Fluent in 3 Months Wedding!

In 2014, having spent six years studying and practicing Spanish, I found myself missing something. I felt I had done all this work and I had taught myself a second language, but I wasn't really using it. Sure, I could order a drink in a Mexican bar, but I wanted more.

Here’s the story of what I did to search for that missing something… and what I found at the end of that journey. Yes, I ended up getting married because of my language learning. And it all begins with Fluent in 3 Months...

How My Language Learning Journey Began with Benny and Fi3M

My name's James and I've been a part of Benny's language journey since back in 2010 when I first came across Fluent In 3 Months. Back then it was still in its infancy.

Two years earlier, in 2008, I had decided to take on the challenge of becoming fluent in Spanish. I worked at a job where roughly 50% of the employees spoke Spanish and I often felt there was an unfair divide between the existing cultures. While I knew enough Spanish to communicate with the Spanish speaking employees, I wanted to bridge the gap between them and the English speaking staff. I made the employees a promise that I would work to become fluent in Spanish. Ironically, I had given myself a three month time frame knowing nothing of Benny and his goals at the time.

Well, the three months came and went, and while I was not quite at the level of fluency I had hoped for, the gains I had made inspired me to continue. I had begun living my life immersed in as much Spanish as I possibly could while still living in the United States. I watched TV in Spanish, I read books in Spanish, and I sought out every Spanish learning opportunity on the internet I could find. My staff laughed at me when they learned I was watching Telenovelas from Mexico or reading Harry Potter in Spanish, but little by little I started feeling more comfortable with the language.

Fluent in 3 Months Became My Language Learning Community

To get support for my language learning, and to have my questions answered, I have posted in the Fluent In 3 Months forum quite a few times over the years and I tend to visit the pages daily, even if I don't add anything. I have asked questions and I have given advice. I have looked for inspiration as well as offered it to others. I found I truly enjoyed meeting other language learners, even if Spanish wasn't their target language.

Being a part of a community of language learners has helped me immensely and I often feel I owe Benny a debt of gratitude for keeping me inspired to carry on with my goals. I'm sure like many others, I've had goals come and go, and certainly there have been moments in which I felt like giving up, but thanks to Benny and his team at Fluent In 3 Months, I'm still plugging along.

One of Benny’s most useful piece of advice that I have followed and always encouraged others to participate in is an online blog, written in your target language. I started my own blog, Tres Meses Hasta Exito in 2010 and I am still blogging there today. It’s mainly a place for me to practice writing in Spanish, but it also often allows me a venue to share my language learning frustrations when I just need to blow off a little steam.

In addition to language blogging, during my time in the Fluent In 3 Months community, I have been inspired to start learning additional languages.

My Attempts at Learning Other Languages

I don’t know if it was overconfidence or simply the fact I was a little jealous of all the other members here on Fi3M who seemingly could take on language after language without hesitation, but in July of 2011 I got up the nerve to start learning Italian. I was eager and a little amazed at how quickly I was able to pick up the vocabulary. It probably had a lot to do with its similarities to Spanish, but I found myself flying along. I developed a learning schedule to allow me to study both Spanish and Italian and I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having. So much fun in fact, I decided to truly live life to the fullest and in November of 2011 I started learning French. OK, I should mention, I was nowhere near fluency in Italian when I decided I was going to start on French, but I could wait no longer.

I was now spending my days reading in Spanish, cooking in Italian (spaghetti and meatballs is Italian, no?) and watching the news in French. While I certainly didn’t understand it all, I was thrilled when I did understand what they were talking about. I suppose I could have gone on forever like this, but sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. It was about the time that I bought my first book on Portuguese that I had a bit of an awakening. While I thought it would be great to speak four, five, even six languages, I couldn’t do it all at once. I would have loved to devote my life to learning languages, but it just wasn’t realistic at the time. I loved Spanish too much to give it up, and since I actually could use Spanish on a daily basis, I decided I would focus all my energy on learning Spanish and I would put the other languages aside, at least for the time being. I would leave the other languages for later in life.

Then the Time Came When I Felt I Needed More from Language Learning

As I mentioned in the introduction, in 2014, having spent six years studying and practicing Spanish, I found myself missing something. I felt I had done all this work and I had taught myself a second language, but I wasn't really using it. Sure, I could order a drink in a Mexican bar, but I wanted more. I wanted to prove to myself that all that work was worthwhile.

I decided what better way to do this than take a trip to a Spanish speaking country. Once again, I have Benny to thank for the inspiration. It was around this time that I saw a video between Benny, Scott Young, and Vat Jaiswal where they talked about their project of living a year without English. I was sold. I would take a trip to Spain and spend a month (no, not a whole year) without speaking English. I had never left the country before and I had never traveled alone, so this was going to be a huge step out of my comfort zone. I announced my plans on the Fi3M Forums, and received a really encouraging reply.

I was still terrified, but in May of 2015, I stepped off the plane in Madrid and spent the entire month on my own, doing my best to not speak any English.

Here’s a photo of the area of Madrid where I stayed:



And The Story Doesn’t End There...

Well, the goal of not using any English was only moderately successful, but for me, it helped me overcome so many other obstacles in my life. You see, the story doesn't end there.

Another piece of advice I took away from Fi3M was the idea of finding a language exchange partner. While staying in Madrid, trying to live my month without English, I found myself home alone one evening feeling a little disappointed that I had not been more successful in my attempts to interact with the Spanish community. Not willing to surrender so easily, I logged onto a language exchange site and sought out someone to at least message with in Spanish. While I don’t recall who made the initial contact, I found myself messaging a Spanish woman who lived and worked just outside Madrid. Her English was more or less equivalent to my Spanish and we found ourselves having a very smooth conversation, unlike the many awkward language exchanges I had had in the past. We enjoyed each other’s company so much we continued messaging throughout the week until we finally agreed to meet for coffee. It was the only day she and I spent together during my stay in Madrid, but it was easily the best day spent on my vacation. I was so proud of myself for speaking nearly entirely in Spanish with her and I would like to add that not a day has passed since our first chat that we have not spoken to one another.

I had to return to the United States at the end of May, 2015, but in February of 2016 I returned to Spain, this time to live with the woman who would months later become my wife. We now have a one year old daughter together and intend on raising her bilingual.



I don't know that I would go so far as to say Benny is responsible for the life I have now, but I will say that language learning and the language learning community is what got me to where I am today. Were it not for my desire to learn a second language who knows where I would be today? For me, the story is just beginning, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share the first few chapters with you.

The post The Romance of Language Learning: A Fluent in 3 Months Wedding! appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

How to Remember Spanish Words: The “Word Bridge” Technique and Other Memory Hacks for Spanish Learners

Learning a language can sometimes feel boring -- like an exercise in monotony.

What lends to this monotony, more often than not, is the rigor and regimen that comes with it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing discipline here, I’m just questioning the misplaced investment of time and efforts most language learning regimens call for. Let me break it down for you.

We all start with a new language with a great deal of enthusiasm. We are mesmerized by the culture the chosen language represents, the sound of an alien unintelligible tongue, the idea of being able to communicate with ease where our friends probably feel lost. The adrenaline rush is undeniable. But then the rubber meets the road and we come face-to-face with less-than-exciting ground realities: grammar and vocabulary.

These are what make up any language and obviously cannot be wished away. And they ought to be memorized. No matter how much you hate the part, you just have to do it. If you’re like most learners, you’ve probably been cramming up those words and grammar rules like a broken record. That’s about to change.

Study after study has established that rote repetition is not only an inorganic way of memorizing things but also super inefficient, not to mention downright boring as well. This is what drives most rookie learners to drop out prematurely. I can personally attest to this from my own experiences as a Spanish learner.

Is there a workaround? Can memorization be accelerated and also made more efficient? Turns out, it can!

The Wrong Way to Memorize Words

When I first started out learning Spanish, I would just pick a list of related words and repeat them along with their English translations, one pair at a time. I would do this perhaps a few hundred times before moving on to the next list. This was okay at first but there was a big problem with this method.

You see, our brain has, for all practical purposes, an infinite capacity for words. But it also has a very limited capacity to process lots of words at once. That’s why it keeps everything it’s fed in something called passive memory. Only things needed more frequently are stored in active memory. Makes perfect sense, right?

You can only recall with ease what’s in your active memory, hence the name active. Rote memorization only pushes the newly acquired vocabulary back to passive memory, if at all. And it does even that at a cost: Time.
You have to repeat a word pair at least a couple of hundred times, give or take, in order to memorize it. And that’s not enough, you have to revisit that pair every now and then in order to retain it. Now do some simple maths and see how much time you invest in cramming-up just one word pair. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. Add it all up and language learning quickly begins to look like an impractical endeavor meant only for geniuses or children.

So what’s the right way to memorize words? Let’s take a look at a few hacks.

Memory Hack 1: The “Thrifty Vocab” Rule: Not All Words are Made Equal

Not all words are made equal. At least when it comes to conversational abilities, most words serve no purpose in your vocabulary. Take English, for instance. There’s, by some estimates, close to a million words in its lexicon. Would you recommend all of that to a friend learning to converse in English? Or even a quarter of that? I mean, why would a person need to memorize the word scaramouch in order to be able to effectively communicate in English? What good are word like cordwainer and dandiprat to that learner?

The same rules apply to any language in the world. When you’re learning, say, Spanish, you might be tempted to devour the dictionary at first. The more words you know, the better, no? No. That’s not how it works. You need to be able to pick what’s important. Life’s too short for words like ciénega and declamar that you’re probably never going to use in your conversations.

So the Thrifty Vocab rule is: Pick only what you need. Be thrifty about your vocabulary, steer clear of words that sound exotic but serve no purpose to your communication goals. In fact, you’ll be surprised to know how few words you need to learn in order to get reasonably fluent in Spanish!

This also goes for Spanish grammar. No point wasting your precious time on vos and its verb forms if you’re never visiting South America, the only place it has any currency. Speaking of conjugations, why spend days memorizing the imperfect subjunctive conjugations when you’re never going to hear or use them at least as an intermediate speaker? And unless you’re going to Spain, why not skip the vosotros forms altogether?

Moral of the story? Time is running out, be judicious about how you use it!

Memory Hack 2: Dig a Little Deeper with Etymology

Etymology is the linguistic name for a word’s history. And history can come in mighty handy when you’re trying to memorize new words. But here’s a caveat, this trick works only if the word is from a language related to yours. So if you’re an English speaker, the closer the language is to English, the better etymology works for you. But why?

Languages are like living things, they evolve. And given long enough time, one language morphs into another. Take English, for example. Ever noticed why movies from, say, the 60s sound so different from the ones today? The words they used, their accent, their diction...everything was different. And that’s just a few decades. Try going back a few centuries and English starts to sound as alien as a foreign language to your modern ears!

English is a Germanic language, which means it shares a common ancestry with languages like Dutch and German. But over time, thanks to the Romans and the Normans, it came in contact with a lot of Latin absorbing much of its vocabulary. In fact, there was a period when Latin even became the lingua franca in England for a while! And Latin is where Romance tongues like Spanish come from.

What all of this means is that most Spanish words come from Latin, as do a lot of English words. That’s where the opportunity lies. Take the word casa, for instance. It’s Spanish for house. Did you know it shares a common etymology with the English word castle? Granted we don’t all live in castles, but can you see the essence? Castles are also places of dwelling, aren’t they? I doubt you’ll ever forget casa now. And you didn’t even have to cram it like other learners.

Alright, casa was easy, let’s take something more difficult. How about correr, “to run”? The word doesn’t seem to have anything in common with its English translation at face value. But study its history and you realize that it’s from the same family of words that also includes English words like current and courier! Current is electricity running through the wires and courier used to be the guy who literally ran to get you your mails back in the day. Now everytime you run into correr, recall this history and you’ll know someone’s running. Easy, wasn’t it?

Memory Hack 3: The Word-Bridge Trick

Not all of English comes from Latin, and not all Spanish words ought to have etymological cousins in English. And that’s where you build bridges. You take a Spanish word and its English counterpart, and think of another English word or words that sound similar to the Spanish word in pronunciation and carry a relatable meaning to the English counterpart. These intermediate words serve as memory hooks or as I call them, word bridge.
Allow me to illustrate this theory with an example. Take trabajar.

That’s Spanish for to work. The word comes from Latin but doesn’t have anything etymologically related in English. So how do you memorize it without having to go “trabajar...work, trabajar...work, trabajar...work, trabajar…” a million times? Here’s how you do it.

Think of words that sound like trabajar. One that comes to my mind is trouble. If you notice, the first part of trouble sounds like the first part of trabajar. Another that comes to my mind is hard, which sounds like the last part of trabajar. So all we now need to do is string up these two words in a way that they allude to work, the English translation of the Spanish word in question. Work is trouble, at least to most of us. We hate working, partying is so much more fun! And working hard is even more trouble. So the next time you think work, think of it being a trouble and it being hard to do. And that will lead you to trabajar without a lot of trouble! This might sound contrived at first but once you get in the habit of building bridges, you’ll start having fun doing it. Also, it’s way more efficient and lasting than the traditional rote method. Try it.

One more example; try espejo, Spanish for mirror. The word does have etymological connections in English but the metamorphosis has been too complete to have left anything useful for us. So we’ll try to bridge the two words. Espejo somewhat sounds like the first part of spectacles. The last part of espejo looks (not sounds) like the English first name, Joe. String all of them up together and you have a man named Joe wearing glasses. This bespectacled Joe will remind you of espejo every time you look yourself in the mirror.

It’s all about your imagination, really. You can bridge anything with anything as long as you’re creative enough.

Memory Hack 4: Daydreaming for Vocabulary

This one is very similar to the word-bridge method, only a whole lot more creative. The more imaginative you are, the better this works for you. No, you don’t have to literally daydream for hours, that’s not what this is all about. You just need to be able to paint mental pictures, the more vivid, the better. You still build word bridges but this time, you bolster them with some outlandish imagination for better retention.

It’s a well-established theory that human brains are way better at retaining visual information than text. No wonder they say a picture speaks a thousand words. So why not use it to our advantage and step up our vocabulary game? The only rule of the game is that the picture you imagine ought to have something to do with the word you’re trying to memorize and its meaning. Also, the more vivid it is, the better it works. Even better if it’s animated, i.e. moving as opposed to still. You can make it even more effective by making it outlandish, outrageous, wacky. The human brain is very good at remembering anything unusual or crazy. So let’s put it to practice with an example.

Rice is arroz in Spanish. But the two words have nothing in common. So let’s imagine something involving both. Picture yourself out on a hike in the jungles of Colombia and you start to feel famished and hungry. So you unzip your backpack, take out your lunch, and settle down on a rock by the river. What’s for lunch? Rice, of course! Maybe some gravy on the side but it’s primarily sice. So to recap, you’re sitting on the rock with a mug of water perched next to you and a plate of rice in your hand. But right when you’re about to take the first morsel, some Indian mistakes you for a game animal and starts shooting at you. Now you have a bunch of arrows in your rice! Imagine the situation, feel the panic, live the moment. Now everytime you think rice, you’ll recall this anecdote. And the arrows in your rice will lead you to arroz.

Similarly, take pato. That’s Spanish for duck and comes from Andalusian Arabic which means no English equivalent. So how do you remember what it means? Imagine having a pet duck who loves being petted all the time. You enjoy petting him too because, why not! Picture yourself petting this duck next to a very idyllic pond in your garden. Soak in the pleasures. In fact, let’s name your pet duckie Peter, just for fun. Now everytime you think duck, you’ll miss petting your pet pato named Peter. Think you’ll ever forget the word now?

Memory Hacks for Grammar

Think all these tricks work only for vocabulary, and grammar is still destined to be a pain in the rear? Think again. These are not vocabulary tricks, these are memory tricks. And memory tricks are as viable on grammar as they are on vocabulary. I have used them to hack my way through some extremely difficult-to-remember concepts of Spanish grammar the most notorious of all being verb conjugations.

I’m not joking! I’ve used shortcuts like mnemonics coupled with vivid imaginations to memorize complex verb-ending patterns within minutes, something that would otherwise take you days. And I stress, no rote memorization involved. Let’s see how.

How I Memorized the Preterite Tense Conjugation within Minutes

Spanish verb conjugations are notoriously difficult to memorize and the preterite tense, more so. Let’s quickly go through what this conjugation looks like before we get to the trick part. Depending on the past two letters, Spanish verbs are of three types: AR verbs, ER verbs, and IR verbs. Usually, but not always, the ER and IR verbs follow a more-or-less similar pattern when it comes to conjugations. We’re only talking regular verbs here.

So here’s how the AR verbs conjugate in the preterite tense (I’m using cantar, to sing, as an example):


Canté (I sang)
Cantaste (you sang)
Cantó (he/she/it sang)
Cantamos (we sang)
Cantaron (they sang)


So the endings follow a pattern: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -aron. You memorize this pattern and you can conjugate any regular AR verb in the preterite tense. How do you memorize this pattern? Here’s the mnemonic:

Yesterday, I ate a tasty donut.

The sentence itself is in the preterite tense and is quite easy to remember. Just imagine yourself munching on your favorite snack and feel the taste fill your mouth. But how does it work?

Notice the parts in bold? They are a dead giveaway to the pattern the verb follows in the singular form:


ate - canté
tasty - cantaste
donut - cantó


See that? For the we form, you just follow the present tense conjugation rule and you’re good. And for the they form, you can just add rum to your donuts to help cement the -aron ending in your memory. So yesterday you had a tasty donut with rum and memorized the preterite conjugations for AR verbs!

What about the ER and IR verbs? They go (using beber, to drink, as example):


Bebí (I drank)
Bebiste (you drank)
Bebió (he, she, it drank)
Bebimos (we drank)
Bebieron (they drank)


The pattern here is: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -ieron. Try having pistachios instead of donuts this time:

Yesterday, I had pistachios.

Again, we’re only dealing with the singular forms here. The bold parts correspond to the verb endings you need to memorize:


I - bebí
pistachios - bebiste
pistachios - bebió


As you can see, the plurals follow a very predictable pattern, similar to their present-tense counterparts. It took me longer to type out this section than it did to memorize the whole preterite tense conjugation for all regular Spanish verbs. Try it for yourself.

How I Memorized the Imperfect Tense Conjugation within Minutes

When it comes to past tense, the imperfect seems to be more ubiquitous than the imperfect. At least in Spanish. This is the form you use when speaking of habitual or continuous actions. Wherever you can express an action with phrases like used to or would, or wherever you express a past action with the -ing form,you’re talking imperfect tense in Spanish.

Let’s look at the imperfect tense conjugation for an AR verb:


Cantaba (I used to sing)
Cantabas (you used to sing)
Cantaba (he/she/it used to sing)
Cantabamos (we used to sing)
Cantaban (they used to sing)


The ER and IR verbs follow this pattern (using beber for illustration):


Bebía (I used to drink)
Bebías (you used to drink)
Bebía (he/she/it used to drink)
Bebíamos (we used to drink)
Bebían (they used to drink)


Before we proceed, let me state the caveat. You must know your present tense conjugation pattern well in order for this trick to work. Why? Because if you notice the two conjugations above, you’ll see that the entire pattern follows the conjugation pattern for the present indicative tense closely. The present indicative conjugation pattern defines the running theme here. With just one anomaly in both lists above: The I form, i.e. the first person singular form. In the present indicative conjugation, the verb in first person singular form ends in -o. That’s how we get canto (I sing) for cantar and bebo (I drink) for beber. In the case of the imperfect tense, the entire remainder of the pattern stems from this first person singular form and follows the present indicative tense conjugation pattern.

So assuming you already have your present tense conjugations down, all you need to somehow memorize in order to recall the entire imperfect tense conjugation is the two base endings, endings for the first person singular form for AR verbs and ER/IR verbs. Here’s how to do it:

When he was young, my dad lived in India and used to listen to ABBA everyday.

Right off the bat, the sentence itself is in the imperfect tense to help you remember what kind of past actions qualify. Next, pay attention to the bold bits and you’ll notice they correspond to the first person singular endings for the two conjugation patterns:


India - bebía
ABBA - cantaba


Believe me it’s easier to employ these mnemonics in real than it is to write about them.

Why Memorizing Alone Isn’t Enough

What good is a word you’re not going to use? What good is a grammar rule you’re not going to follow? When it comes to language learning, always remember:

USE IT if you don’t wanna LOSE IT

I just can’t stress this enough, you cannot memorize something and expect it to stay fresh in your memory forever no matter what sorcery you employed to memorize it in the first place. Put them to good use. Write down something using the words you just learned. Even if it’s utter nonsense, such as your thoughts on that magnet on your fridge. Read short texts to reinforce your comprehension. And for god’s sake, go out and talk! Okay, I don’t mean go out literally, but you can at least talk to people on the internet, right?

There’s just a thousand and one ways to use the Spanish you’ve just learned. The more you use it, the closer you’ll get to Spanish being second nature to you. This is arguably more important than all the tricks and memory hacks in the world. Start a journal on Lang-8, join a Spanish meetup group on Meetups, read Reddit in Spanish, do anything but don’t let your Spanish rust.

Concluding Thoughts

So before we part, let’s quickly recap what we discussed here. We discussed three fun ways to trick your brain into memorizing new words and grammar rules without any repetition. We also learned that one need not swallow the Blarney Stone in order to be proficient in conversations, you only need a fraction the entire lexicon in your vocabulary. Leave out the rest.

We also saw how the same rule of selective learning applies to grammar. A rookie learner doesn’t need to mess with the subjunctive at least in the beginning, and even an advanced learner has little use for the vos forms unless they were visiting places like Argentina, Guatemala, etc. Just learn what’s necessary. Everything should be directly applicable in day-to-day conversation. Instant gratification is key when it comes to language learning.

Moving on, we saw a few examples illustrating the three memory techniques I’ve used with my own Spanish with great success: etymology, word-bridges, and vivid imagination. We also explored a couple of mnemonic hacks to instantly internalize the verb endings in the Spanish past tense conjugations, both preterite and imperfect.

I can’t wait to see how you apply these tricks to your own language-learning exercise and learn from them. You don’t even have to be into Spanish in order to use these ideas. Russian, Japanese, German, Hindi...whichever language fascinates you is good enough.

How will you put these hacks to use? Let me know in the comments.

The post How to Remember Spanish Words: The “Word Bridge” Technique and Other Memory Hacks for Spanish Learners appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Volunteer and Learn Spanish: How to Learn a Language by Volunteering Overseas

Can you volunteer and learn Spanish? I did, and here’s my story, plus the lessons I learned along the way. Most of these lessons can be applied to learning any language while volunteering overseas.

How I Decided to Volunteer Overseas and Learn Spanish

Shortly after graduating from university, I decided to take some time out for myself and go traveling. I had spent 3 years in a small town, studying hard and seeing the same people day in, day out. I was facing the daunting prospects of moving back home with my parents or looking for a job and starting a career in a different city. Surprise surprise, neither of these things really appealed to me. I wanted to see the world.



A lot of my friends had taken gap years before university or were planning on traveling soon, but I wanted to try something different. They’d had some good times and had some great stories to tell, so I wanted to emulate that, but I also wanted to get out of the normal travel routine and give something more rewarding a go.

I’ve always been fascinated by other languages, particularly Spanish. I felt so inspired watching people switch effortlessly between two languages that I decided to incorporate learning Spanish into my trip as a priority. I’d also always wanted to volunteer abroad, so my stroke of genius (if I do say so myself) was to combine this with learning a language.

Luckily for me, I’m not the only person who’s wanted to do this before. It turns out there are some excellent volunteer programs available which specifically focus on helping you to improve your language skills while also volunteering your time towards a good cause.

With all the options on offer, I initially found it difficult to decide which to commit my time to, but after some research and serious thinking, the choice was clear for me. I chose to teach English and sports to schoolchildren. I really enjoy sports, but I also believe that to combine improving physical health and competitiveness with a skill like learning English is a brilliant way to improve underprivileged children’s futures in the broadest possible way.

Where better than the beautiful country of Costa Rica to achieve this. Importantly, much of the country’s population live in poverty, so it’s a worthy place to volunteer. Secondly, the official language is Spanish, so it’s incredibly easy to immerse yourself when trying to learn.



To add to this it is a famously picturesque country, it is compact enough to easily travel the entire country in a short amount of time and it has a low cost of living. The list goes on...

Below are the five key lessons I learned and that will hopefully help you to learn a language while volunteering.

1. Learn the Basics of Spanish Before You Go Overseas



Upon arriving in Costa Rica, I realized immediately that it is definitely a good idea to put at least a bit of time towards learning the basics before you embark on your trip.

Fortunately, my longstanding obsession with the Spanish language meant that I had already learned a little sentence structure and basic vocabulary, and I found this a huge help. Even a little commitment such as spending half an hour a day for a few weeks learning the sounds and some elementary vocabulary will give you a big head start when you arrive.

Having a little familiarity with the language, even if you don’t understand more than a word or two in a sentence, is a huge first step towards better comprehension.

Apps like Duolingo and Memrise are a great (and free) way to boost your knowledge. You can also watch movies or TV shows in Spanish, just to get a bit of an ear for it. I did all of these things, and it really helped.

2. See Every “Mistake” as a Valuable Lesson



The main reason volunteering is so compatible with learning a language is that it immerses you effortlessly.

You will be living around, working with, and relax in the company of local native speakers, day in, day out. Yes, it will be very overwhelming at first being surrounded by a language you can’t properly comprehend. Yes, you will feel awkward saying your first few words. Yes, people may even laugh at your attempts to get your point across. But it’s all part of the process.

Every mistake you make is going to teach you a valuable lesson and people are surprisingly happy to help struggling learners out by speaking slowly and simply.

3. Take a Spanish Class (if Available)

Some volunteer programs even offer specialized language classes, for example, uVolunteer, who I had my experience with. The best thing about this was that I could seamlessly combine my two main goals of volunteering and learning Spanish, without either feeling like a chore.

I cannot overstate just how beneficial these courses were to my Spanish learning. I couldn’t believe how much I progressed in such a short time (I was in the country for 6 weeks). I was able to have decent conversations in Spanish by the time I left, which is something I could never have imagined if I hadn’t experienced it myself!

The teachers were lovely, and very good at progressing at challenging, yet not-too overwhelming pace. I felt that seeing the same teachers repeatedly was extremely helpful, as they got to understand our abilities and limitations, and I was able to build a good rapport with them over time.

I could also practice the things I had just learned in my Spanish classes on the kids to whom I was teaching sports. This meant I got to immediately compound the new lessons I’d had, and that the kids got more out of my teaching as I was able to engage with them better and better throughout my time there.

4. Go Without English

One of the big pitfalls when trying to learn a language in another country is relying on your English skills as a fallback when you get overwhelmed.

A lot of people in other countries like Costa Rica have knowledge of English, ranging from a few words to fluency. But please please don’t let this lull you into a habit of reverting back when things get tough.

I fell into this trap early on, and my learning experience definitely suffered as a result (don’t worry, I made up for it later on). It’s all too easy to forget this so try to remind yourself of it at all times.



5. Spend Time with the Locals (and Learn to Live Like One)



After getting over some initial nerves, I took every opportunity I could to hang out with locals to try and get to know them. I would listen to them speak to each other, I would make small-talk in Spanish about the weather or football, and I would crack jokes - or try to at least…

Anything I could do to increase my familiarity with the language, I did. In the end, I swear I felt like a local myself! I gained so much insight into their way of life, their customs, their personalities.

They were such kind, warm, honest people that I felt almost instantly accepted. It was a great feeling. On top of this, I got some invaluable tips about the country which I was able to use to find the best unknown beaches and sights when I traveled the country in my time off.

I would highly recommend spending time with the locals whenever you can, and volunteering is the perfect opportunity to just that.

So What Are You Waiting For? Get Out There and Start Volunteering!



Learning Spanish through volunteering is one of the best things I have ever done. It’s helped me in my career, my social life, and it was just an overall fun experience. I can’t recommend it enough.

Being able to achieve my goal of improving my Spanish while being a volunteer and making a difference to people that need it was a huge bonus, and it also helped me to learn even faster.

Don’t let anything stand in your way of doing something amazing.

The post Volunteer and Learn Spanish: How to Learn a Language by Volunteering Overseas appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

German Numbers: Learn To Count From 0 to 1,000 in German

Do you want to learn how to count from 0-100 in German, and find out more about German numbers?


In this article I want to share with you how to learn, remember and use German numbers.

German Numbers from 0-100

Let’s start with the basics. Below is a table of the German numbers from zero to 100. Take a few minutes read through it, then I’ll give you some tips to help you remember it all:





1
Eins
11
Elf
21
Einundzwanzig
31
Einunddreiβig
41
Einundvierzig
51
Einundfünfzig
61
Einundsechzig
71
Einundsiebzig
81
Einundachtzig
91
Einundneunzig


2
Zwei
12
Zwölf
22
Zweiundzwanzig
32
Zweiunddreiβig
42
Zweiundvierzig
52
Zweiundfünfzig
62
Zweiundsechzig
72
Zweiundsiebzig
82
Zweiundachtzig
92
Zweiundneunzig


3
Drei
13
Dreizehn
23
Dreiundzwanzig
33
Dreiunddreiβig
43
Dreiundvierzig
53
Dreiundfünfzig
63
Dreiundsechzig
73
Dreiundsiebzig
83
Dreiundachtzig
93
Dreiundneunzig


4
Vier
14
Vierzehn
24
Vierundzwanzig
34
Vierunddreiβig
44
Vierundvierzig
54
Vierundfünfzig
64
Vierundsechzig
74
Vierundsiebzig
84
Vierundachtzig
94
Vierundneunzig


5
Fünf
15
Fünfzehn
25
Fünfundzwanzig
35
Fünfunddreiβig
45
Fünfundvierzig
55
Fünfundfünfzig
65
Fünfundsechzig
75
Fünfundsiebzig
85
Fünfundachtzig
95
Fünfundneunzig


6
Sechs
16
Sechszehn
26
Sechsundzwanzig
36
Sechsunddreiβig
46
Sechsundvierzig
56
Sechsundfünfzig
66
Sechsundsechzig
76
Sechsundsiebzig
86
Sechsundachtzig
96
Sechsundneunzig


7
Sieben
17
Siebzehn
27
Siebenundzwanzig
37
Siebenunddreiβig
47
Siebenundvierzig
57
Siebenundfünfzig
67
Siebenundsechzig
77
Siebenundsiebzig
87
Siebenundachtzig
97
Siebenundneunzig


8
Acht
18
Achtzehn
28
Achtundzwanzig
38
Achtunddreiβig
48
Achtundvierzig
58
Achtundfünfzig
68
Achtundsechzig
78
Achtundsiebzig
88
Achtundachtzig
98
Achtundneunzig


9
Neun
19
Neunzehn
29
Neunundzwanzig
39
Neununddreiβig
49
Neunundvierzig
59
Neunundfünfzig
69
Neunundsechzig
79
Neunundsiebzig
89
Neunundachtzig
99
Neunundneunzig


10
Zehn
20
Zwanzig
30
Dreiβig
40
Vierzig
50
Fünfzig
60
Sechzig
70
Siebzig
80
Achtzig
90
Neunzig
100
Einhundret





Seeing it all in one big block can be a little overwhelming, right? Well, don’t worry. Using the simple tips and language hacks below, you’ll be able to remember all of this information with little effort.

Learn the German Numbers 1-10

The German numbers 1-10 are:


Ein - “One”
Zwei - “Two”
Drei - “Three”
Vier - “Four”
Fünf - “Five”
Sechs - “Six”
Sieben - “Seven”
Acht - “Eight”
Neun - “Nine”
Zehn - “Ten”


There are no rules for these numbers -- though I’ll share a simple trick for memorising them later in the article. And it is important to remember these numbers, as they occur, in one form or another, in every number you’ll use when counting. For example, just as “eight” is in “eighteen”, “Twenty-eight”, “eighty” and “eighthundred”, the same can be said for acht (“eight”) in German. “Achtzehn”, “achtundzwanzig”,”achtzig” and “achthundert”.

Learn the German Numbers 11-20

Elf (“eleven”) and zwölf (“twelve”) also don’t follow a pattern. You’ll just have to learn these by heart.

For the other German numbers between 13 and 19 you take the first four letters of the number between three and nine (like the rule above) and add the word “zehn” or ten at the end: dreizehn (“thirteen”), vierzehn (“fourteen”), fünfzehn (“fifteen”), and so on.

Learn the German Multiples of 10

Between forty and ninety, all of these numbers are regular. They take the first four letters of the number between one and ten and add the word “zig” to the end of it.

Vierzig (“forty”), fünfzig (“fifty”), sechzig (“sixty”), siebzig (“seventy”), achtzig (“eighty”), neunzig (“ninety”).

Twenty and thirty are exceptions. Twenty takes the form zwanzig, and thirty is dreiiβig.

Once you’ve learned all of these you can begin to fill in the numbers between with a simple formula.

All of the numbers larger than twenty follow the same pattern. The second number is said at the start. Let me explain that a bit more:


In English you would say “thirty-four”. The biggest number is said first, followed by the smallest number. As if you’re reading the number left to right. In German it’s the other way around.
In German you would say, “four and thirty” or vierunddreiβig. The four comes first, followed by the thirty.
Although I can’t tell you why this happens, I can tell you that it’s regular and all of these numbers in German follow this pattern.


This swapping around can take some getting used to so take some time to practice them. When it comes to writing these, many German children are taught to write the second number first, the same way as when it’s spoken, then place the first number before it. Practicing this may help you understand it too.
Also don’t forget that:


Zero = Null (As in null and void)
100 = Einhundert (This is an easy one to remember!)
By using these tips and language hacks you should have no trouble mastering the German number 1 to 100.


German For “One”: Ein, Eins, Eine, Einen, Eines, Einer or Einem?

The number one in German is the only number that needs to be conjugated.

In English we have three words for “one”. We have the number one itself, or we use “a” or “an” to express we only have one of something.


I have one brother
I have a sister
I have an apple


In German these three words are expressed using variations of “ein” and “eins”.

When you’re counting the quantity of something - like how many people are in a group - you’ll always use the “eins” form of the word, which is the number one itself, as you can see in the table at the start of this article.

However when you’re referring to anything else you’ll use the “ein” form of the word and its case-based variations. Such as:

Nominative:


Masculine: ein Bruder (a Brother)
Neutral: ein Auto (a Car)
Feminine: eine Schwester (a Sister)


Accusative:


Masculine: einen Bruder
Neutral: ein Auto
Feminine: eine Schwester


Dative:


Masculine: einem Bruder
Neutral: einem Auto
Feminine: einer Schwester


Genitive:


Masculine: eines Bruders
Neutral: eines Autos
Feminine: einer Schwester


Explaining each of these in depth is a little beyond the scope of this article. But remember that when you’re counting you use numbers, when you’re talking to someone you’ll use “ein” and it’s variations.

Other numbers like two in German or three in German don’t need to be conjugated and stay the same throughout.

How To Count From 100 to 1,000 In German

The rule for counting in the hundreds is exactly the same as in English. You take the number from one to nine and add the word “hundret” (hundred) to the end of it.

Here’s a table to show you what I mean:





100
Einhundret


200
Zweihundret


300
Dreihundret


400
Vierhundret


500
Fünfhundret


600
Sechshundret



700
Siebenhundret


800
Achthundret


900
Neunhundret


1000
Eintausend





Filling in the gaps between these numbers is relatively simple too. There are just a few things to remember:


You always say the hundred number first
Between 100 and 119 you say it the same way you would in English. So 101 (one-hundred and one) becomes einhundretundeins.
Once you get higher than 20 the number-swapping rule comes into effect, but only for the two digit numbers. That mean 176 (one-hundred and seventy six) becomes einhundretsechsundsiebzig.


These rules apply throughout all the hundreds.

How To Count From 1,000 to 10,000 in German

You’ve already learned the hardest parts of counting in German. From here on out it’s so similar to English you don’t need to remember much.

The word for thousand in German is tausend, which is said like you’re saying the English word “thousands” in a German accent.

Then the thousands themselves follow work the same as you just saw in the 100’s, but with the word “tausend” added to the end:





1000
Eintausend


2000
Zweitausend


3000
Dreitausend


4000
Viertausend


5000
Fünftausend


6000
Sechstausend



7000
Siebentausend


8000
Achttausend


9000
Neuntausend


10000
Zehntausend





When you start adding hundreds into the mix, the rules of the 100’s you just read still apply. You only change the two-digit number - like 43 - around, the rest go in order.

German Numbers: 10,000 And Beyond

For the numbers in the 10,000’s you’re going to follow the two-digit number rules. In succession these numbers follow on in multiples of ten: zehntausend, zwanzigtausend, dreiβigtausend and so on.

When the numbers change to have a second digit, like 87, this would then become siebenundachtzigtausend (seven and eighty-thousand). This can become quite a mouthful when the number is 87,787 which would be siebenundachtzigtausendsiebenhundretsiebenundachtzig.

When you reach the 100,000’s you can then apply the rules for this, but with 100’s numbers. So 100,000 would be hunderttausend, 200,000 would be zweihunderttausend, 300,000 would be dreihunderttausend, and so on.

Here are the terminologies for numbers when you count higher than that:


Million: Million
Billion: Einhundretmillionen
Trillion: Billion


How To Remember German Numbers

You may be looking at all of these numbers right now and thinking, “How in the world am I ever going to remember all of this?”. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

There are a few number words in German that you can simply remember as the English form and translate it. For example:


Hundred -> Hundret
Thousand -> Tausend
Hundred Thousand -> Hundrettausend
Million -> Million


But how do you remember the trickier, German sounding words?

Well, one of my favourite ways to remember numbers is mnemonics. These are attachments you make to a word to help you recall it. It can be a funny sentence, a visualistion, a play on the word or anything that helps you remember. Well here are a few of my favourites from my time learning German:


Drei -> Three bottles of dry white wine
Vier -> Three is fearful of this number
Elf -> Eleven little Christmas elves
Zwanzig -> Twenty swans drawing a zig-zag in a lake


Don’t censor yourself when trying to do this, these are to help you remember, not somebody else.

The Etymology of German Numbers

Where do German numbers come from? They’re part of a branch of the language family tree called Germanic. This branch sprouts off into languages like English, Dutch and Swedish.

In fact if you look at the major European Germanic languages side by side, you can see a lot of similarities in their spellings and pronunciations (pay close attention to the number six):





German
Dutch
English
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish




Eins
Een
One
En
En
Ett


Zwei
Twee
Two
To
To
Två


Drei
Drie
Three
Tre
Tre
Tre


Vier
Vier
Four
Fire
Fire
Fira


Funf
Vifj
Five
Fem
Fem
Fem


Sechs
Zes
Six
Seks
Seks
Sex


Sieben
Zeven
Seven
Sju
Syv
Sju


Acht
Acht
Eight
Åtte
Otte
Åtta


Neun
Negen
Nine
Ni
Ni
Nio


Zehn
Tien
Ten
Ti
Ti
Tio





If you look back to old high German which was spoken between the years 700 and 1050, you can see how some of their similarities have carried on through time too:


Ein - “One”
Zwene - “Two”
Dri - “Three”
Fior / Feor - “Four”
Fimf - “Five”
Sehs - “Six”
Sibun - “Seven”
Ahto - “Eight”
Niun - “Nine”
Zehan - “Ten”


German Numbers You Can Count On…

How did you find learning German numbers? There are lots similarities to English, and once you get used to swapping two-digit numbers around, it becomes really simple. Once you learn your German numbers from 1-10 you the rest starts to fall into place.

The post German Numbers: Learn To Count From 0 to 1,000 in German appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

How I Got a $7,000 Raise by Learning Spanish

Within six months of starting your first real job, you get a $7,000 raise. How cool would that be?

I can tell you first hand that it’s an awesome feeling and it only happened because I learned conversational Spanish in one month.

In this post, I’ll share exactly how I did it (and how you can do it too, for Spanish or any other language), and see similar benefits.

My First Job After University: Welcome to Paradise

In 2011 I started my first job out of university. Right away I got relocated to the Dominican Republic (DR) for a project.

Most people will think, “lucky you, you got to live in the Dominican Republic!”

Ok, that’s true, I was in the DR… but I was living on a mine! My home and workplace were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by jungle, three hours from the nearest major city.

In big cities like Miami, or even DR’s capital city Santo Domingo. not knowing Spanish is no big deal because enough people speak English.

However, when you relocate to the middle of nowhere and work with 3,000+ people who hail from villages in the DR, Chile, Peru or other places in Central and South America and don’t speak a word of English it’s much tougher to get by.

I realized early that in order to have any success on this project, I had to learn Spanish quickly. Think about it; what would be easier, teaching 3,000+ people English or asking one engineer to learn Spanish!

In about one month, I was able to go from zero Spanish to being able to have short conversations with locals and native speakers. I surprised even myself with this, so I decided to deconstruct how I was able to learn Spanish so fast, when most people (myself included in the past) struggle for many months or even years to learn languages.

Here is how I did it…and how it led to a $7,000 raise after just six months of starting my first job ever.

How I Got a $7,000 Raise After Just 6 Months

I was a fresh graduate and had spent two months in our head office before I got put on the project and relocated to the DR.

Within six months of this, I had received a $7,000 raise – not because I was amazing at the technical aspects my job, but because of how well I was able to communicate with the workers. As a result I could get my tasks done faster and better than the others on my team.

Interestingly this reminds me of something my grade 12 English teacher told me. She said “languages are the most important subject you can learn because you can be the best anything (engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc.) but if you cannot communicate your ideas, what good are you?”

She was right.

Through good communication, I was able to easily convey my ideas to get work done efficiently but also became well-liked by the workers because of the relationships we were able to build.

It’s a small world we live in. More and more businesses are trading internationally therefore it’s worthwhile to know more than just one language.

In my current job, I get selected for major projects involving travel and working with international vendors because I can understand and speak Spanish at a beginner level. Meaning I get valued more than others because I know some Spanish.

But how do you learn multiple languages fast and how did I learn Spanish in one month? Keep reading to find out.

Learn by Doing (And Doing in Languages Means Speaking)

The best way for me to learn something is to do it, so I decided to learn Spanish by just speaking. Who cares if I sound stupid (which I did) or people make fun of me (which they did)?

Over time, the same people who made fun of me started helping me when they saw that I really wanted to learn about their language and culture.

At first I thought “I’ll speak when I’m ready…when I’ve learned some words” but that was just a delay tactic I was using because I was afraid of failure.

I’ve learned over time that failure leads to success and I’m glad I didn’t let the fear of failure get in the way. This was a huge part of why I was successful at learning Spanish.

In our office I sat in front of a Chilean national; Juan Arancibia. He spoke English reasonably well so I made a deal with him. I would help him with his English and in return he would help me with my Spanish. From that point on, everything I wanted to say to him, I would do it in Spanish.

Beyond talking to Juan, I didn't think about it too much. I didn't try to structure my learning or come up with a fantastic plan on how to attack learning Spanish. I just focused on everyday things that I needed to say, and I said it in Spanish. This ended up being the key to my success.

If I was to choose one thing that makes the biggest difference; the “X factor” as they say, it would have to be speaking right away.

Speaking right away is something Benny talks about a lot. He even has a free course on how anyone can learn to speak right away. I highly recommend signing up for it.

More than learning vocabulary and grammar, it is the act of doing that makes the biggest difference. Learn by doing and doing in languages is speaking…so speak right away!

What If You Don’t Have Access to Someone Who Speaks Your Target Language?

The preference is always to find someone to speak with that you can meet in person because there are other aspects of communication that we don’t often think about which are best experienced in person like facial expressions and body language.

These are quite important when you’re learning a new language.

However, that’s not always possible. For example, what if you’re living in a cave in Mongolia and trying to learn Italian?!!

Luckily, we live in the 21st century and with the help of the internet can video chat with anyone, anywhere.

italki is a great resource for this, as it’s a website where you can find native teachers and learn a language using Skype. Italki is full of teachers and tutors for any language so you know you will find reliable resources.

Here Is How You Can Speak Right Away -- Even If You Don’t Know the Language

That’s the $64 million dollar question, right? How exactly do I speak right away if I don’t know the language?

I didn’t know of any apps at the time so I would ask Juan questions – a lot of questions. I would even ask how to say things in Spanish, in Spanish.

“Como se dice en Español?” which means “How do I say it in Spanish?” became one of my most used phrases.

Asking questions is one way to speak right away. Another way is to use apps that you can access on your phone or computer.
My favourite language apps are:

Google Translate

Constantly asking people was hard for me because I was so dependent on others and I felt that they were getting annoyed because I asked how to say things all the time.

It occurred to me that there must be tools out there I could use to help me – an online version of a phrase book perhaps. Something I could search quickly and get an answer.

That’s when I found Google Translate (GT). It made my life 1,000x times simpler because I didn’t have to ask anyone how to say things. I could look them up and just say it.

Back then it was just a website and was harder to use if I didn’t have wi-fi access or a good signal on my phone. Now Google has turned it into the Google Translate app that you can download to your phone, so you can access translations anywhere.

Anki

Another great app is Anki (I used AnkiDroid, the Android version of Anki). While Google Translate was the only app I knew about and used when I learned Spanish, AnkiDroid is the second app I use most frequently to learn new languages.

In fact, at the time of this writing, I’m using AnkiDroid to learn Arabic.

It’s great because it uses spaced repetition to help you memorize the words you’re trying to learn. I use my own flashcards but you can access a database that already has thousands of premade flashcards which can be uploaded in the app

My “3 Things” Rule for Language Learning

I like to keep language learning simple, so I follow a “3 things” rule. I use just three things when I’m learning languages – speaking, Google Translate and AnkiDroid.

The point is you should keep it simple. Focus on the 80/20 rule and do the 20% that will get you 80% of the results.

There were others like me who wanted to learn Spanish and they asked the translator we had on site in the DR to hold classes. He was a nice a guy so he agreed and taught Spanish classes every night of the week, but those taking the classes didn’t have nearly as much success as I did.

Why? Because they over-complicated things. They didn’t focus on the two or three things they should do. Instead they tried learning infrequently used grammar rules and never bothered to speak.

When everyone was in those Spanish lessons, I used to go play basketball! I would instead choose to interact and make my language learning functional. I ended up with a sweet raise and a new language I could speak!

The post How I Got a $7,000 Raise by Learning Spanish appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Rapid Learner Review: An In-Depth Look at Scott H. Young’s Rapid Learner Program

I first discovered Scott H. Young’s work several years ago when he shared a post on his blog about how to overcome plateaus. At the time, I was experiencing a significant plateau in music and I was desperate for advice to help me work through it. Scott’s article gave me the inspiration I needed to break through -- and I went from being a pretty average saxophone player to a professional musician that performs on songs in the US Billboard Charts.

My ability went from this:



To this:





Since that time, I’ve been endlessly impressed by Scott’s projects - his MIT Challenge to complete a 4-year MIT degree program in one year, his Year Without English, and most recently, his Rapid Learner course.

At face value, it seemed like the ideal course for me. I graduated from university a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean that my education has ended. I’m always looking for new opportunities to become a better learner, and Scott’s course gave me the chance to do it.

For this review, I completed the Rapid Learner program, and applied the concepts to both my language learning and professional projects. In a moment I’ll share what I found, but first let’s take a look at what’s inside Rapid Learner.

What is Rapid Learner?

Rapid Learner is a six week course that teaches you how to tackle any learning challenge through a combination of video lessons and tasks to complete. It’s combines extensive research and Scott H. Young’s personal experience completing a variety of learning challenges into a comprehensive resource on becoming a more efficient and effective learner.



Getting Started with Rapid Learner

Getting started with Rapid Learner is simple. Once you’ve signed up for the course, you are able to access your dashboard. There, Scott outlines what the course will cover, the first steps you need to take, what is required of you as a student of the course, and a video walkthrough. Scott also provides his top five tips for succeeding in the course, a progress table so you can keep track of which module you’re on, and contact information in case you have any questions about the coruse.

The six modules are split into two phases. The first is the CORE phase. This is where you focus on building a project, improving your productivity, and practice (or implementation). It’s all about building a strong foundation for your study skills before moving on to more complex strategies in the second section, the ADVANCED phase.

In the ADVANCED phase, you have the opportunity to wrap your head around more in-depth learning skills, including how to remember things more easily, and how to retain what you’ve learned for a lifetime.

The course isn’t self-paced. Instead, you’re given a week to work through the material in each module before the next becomes available. In order to move from the CORE phase to the ADVANCED, you’re required to pass through a checkpoint. If you don’t, the second half of the course remains locked. The checkpoint is a short survey with questions that give you the opportunity to evaluate how well you’ve instilled the ideas shared with you in the first half of the course and share any opportunities you’ve had to use them.

Each of the modules contains:


The primary video (each is anywhere from 10-20 minutes)
A summary of the module
A downloadable PDF worksheet
A homework assignment
Several supplementary video lessons


Transcripts in English and Spanish


For this review, I worked through each of the modules, completing the homework assignments and checkpoints. It was an intense undertaking - it really pushes you outside of your comfort zone - but an important one and I gained a lot for it.

Can You Really Become a Better Learner with Rapid Learner?

The Rapid Learner course is set up so that you have access to one new module per week over the six weeks of the course. The intensity of the course is similar to many college courses, so it’s more than enough material to keep you busy.

I absolutely recommend working through the supplementary lessons included as a part of each module. I often got as much - if not more - out of the material there as I did from the core lesson, particularly because they offered much more in-depth explanations and examples on the material.

To evaluate the course, I decided to work through it twice - once with a language learning goal in mind and once more a few months later with a professional learning goal in mind.

On each pass through the course, I took away a lot. There is so much content made available to you as a part of each module. As I worked through it a second time, I found that I picked up on things that I missed the first time around. Not by any flaw in the material or the way it was presented, but because I had become a better, more focused learner since my first project. It was also due to the nature of working on a different kind of project. In approaching the modules with a different end goal in mind, different information stood out to me. In my experience, this proves that the value of the course isn’t just as something that you work through once and then set aside, but as a long-term hub that you can return to as you set out to understand and master different skills or information.

Rapid Learner Review: What’s Good?

I am both passionate about and actively involved in academia, so I found a lot of value in Scott’s course. It often feels like a lot of programs are too focused on how to teach something and less importance is placed on how to learn something and Scott’s course offers you a chance to reverse that. And the best part is learning how to become a better learner isn’t specific to just one aspect of your life, like language learning. But it’s a skill that you can take and recycle in other areas that you’re interested in.

As an independent learner, you’re often out on your own and it can be easy to doubt that you’re on the right path. And sometimes it’s not about learning new things or how to do what you’re doing better, but about having what you’re already doing validated by an outside source that reaffirms you’re heading in the right direction. I learned a lot of new things in Rapid Learner, but for me personally, the value was in gaining the confidence that I am doing the right things when I study.

In addition to the main course content, I really enjoyed the bonus interviews, particularly the one with Cal Newport. In it, Scott and Cal chat about what sets apart top students from their peers, and I found a lot of value in the discussion. There were a number of ideas I took away on how I could improve my study strategies. The most important of these - active recall - strongly aligns with the Fluent in 3 Months approach. It’s all about application and taking action so that you get the most out of the time that you spend learning.



The flexibility you have when working through the course is another great feature. If you aren’t able to park yourself in front of the computer to work through the material, you can download the video lessons, the audio only, or the transcripts and study on the go. The worksheets are also downloadable.

Rapid Learner: What Could Be Better?

Most of what I felt could have been improved were just little things that have nothing to do with the actual content of the course, but its design. For example, the main lesson video is a pop-up. That meant that if I accidentally clicked somewhere outside of the video, it closed and I lost my place in the lecture. This happened surprising often as I tabbed over to my notes and then back to the course. It was a little frustrating because the lectures were long, but this could easily be fixed by making the video a part of the main page.

The big thing for me was that the worksheets are geared towards reflection rather than action. Initially, I found them helpful. In the first worksheet, you’re asked to pick one specific learning project. You’re given the opportunity to brainstorm and write out all the different things you’d like to work on, but ultimately, you need to whittle it down to one. After the first worksheet, however, I found they didn’t fit my learning goals, and I decided to focus on completing the homework assignments my own way to put what I had learned into practice.


If you need accountability to help you get through Rapid Learner, the checkpoint for the course is the only real system built-in. It’s based on the honor system rather than a real person checking in with you. There is a Facebook community, but it’s not always as active as it could be -- it would be nice to see more from Scott’s team to initiate and maintain student engagement. The group could be a really informative and integral part of the course with more regular prompts and check-ins made available to students.

Ideally, I’d like to see more conversations initiated by the Rapid Learner team in the Facebook group to help students keep up their motivation, give them a place to check-in and compare notes, to get further reading recommendations, or to return to when they get stuck in their learning after completing the course.

But really, these are small things in what is overall a really fantastic course.

Rapid Learner: The Bottom Line

I would absolutely recommend Rapid Learner to anyone looking to improve their study habits. It’s a really well-researched course and it’s strongly delivered, well-organized, and there are tons of steps to help you take things further.

If you’re serious about getting the most out of your study time, then Rapid Learner is for you. It’s going to give you what you need to make it happen, but it does take some willingness to step outside your comfort zone. It’s not an easy course, but that’s not what it promises to be. It will challenge you, but as Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted, "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

Want to try it out for yourself? Follow this link and sign up to make sure you hear about when the next enrolment for Rapid Learner opens.

The post Rapid Learner Review: An In-Depth Look at Scott H. Young’s Rapid Learner Program appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Music to Help You Learn Spanish – A Starter Guide (with 12 Latin Artists and Songs)

Despacito -- the song by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi -- has been a huge hit this year and as I’m writing this it’s now the most viewed video on YouTube with 4.4 billion views. This is despite it being released less than 1 year ago!



Hopefully the success of Despacito has gotten a lot of people interested in learning Spanish! And with Latin music being so popular right now, what better way to learn Spanish than by learning it with music!?

Other articles on Fluent in 3 Months share about how effective it can be to learn languages with music, and I agree, music can be an amazing tool for language learning.

So how do you learn a language with music? To be honest, you can’t just listen to music passively and expect to become fluent thanks to some magical force. What you should do instead is focus on songs which you enjoy, read the original language lyrics as you sing along, look up the lyrics in your native language, and instead of just listening passively, have some fun and sing along with the songs!

Anyway, after learning Spanish through music for the past two years myself, I’d like to share some of my favourite Spanish songs. In fact, I enjoyed my journey of learning Spanish with music so much that I even started a YouTube Channel where I post Spanish songs with their original lyrics as well the English translation.

I will start this list with some Latin pop! Latin pop is one of the most popular Latin music genres today and some of the biggest Latin music stars in the world belong to this genre, with artists like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin fitting in this category.

I know, I am starting with artists you probably already know, but if you are new to Latin music, I promise you will discover some new Latin artists further down this list.

So here are some Spanish artists and songs to get you started!

1. Shakira

We’ll get started with Shakira, who is a Colombian singer, songwriter, dancer, and record producer. Shakira is often called “The Queen of Latin Pop”.

Earlier this year, Shakira released her latest album “El Dorado”, which is mostly sung in Spanish. The catchy songs in this album makes it great for learning Spanish, as you can easily listen to some of the songs hundreds of times!

From this album, Chantaje was a huge hit which amassed almost 2 billion views on YouTube in under 1 year:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvOi8TR52Rw

2. Enrique Iglesias

While Shakira is the “Queen”, “The King of Latin Pop” is widely considered to be Enrique Iglesias. Enrique is a Spanish singer, songwriter, actor and record producer, and is widely regarded as the “King of Latin Pop”.

Enrique’s last album, “Sex and Love”, was Spotify's 7th most-streamed album worldwide in 2014. “Bailando" turned out to be the most popular song on that album and it spent 41 weeks in the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart. "Bailando" was also YouTube's second most watched music video of 2014 with over 2 billion views, and before Despacito, it was also the most watched Latin music video on YouTube.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9_RroQyNIg

3. CNCO

Now to a less well-known and more up-and-coming Latin music band. CNCO is the Latin-American boy band who won the first season of “La Banda”. Basically, “La Banda” is the Latin version of “The X-Factor” and CNCO are the Latin version of One Direction (OK, this latter claim is more of a joke and my personal interpretation).

CNCO were formed on December 13, 2015 and they released their first album, Primera Cita on August 26, 2016. The album won for Pop Album of the Year at the 29th Lo Nuestro Awards.

I think CNCO are a great band to learn Spanish from as their songs are very catchy, clean and often involve repeating verses. This offers that extra bit of repetition so that you can quickly learn their songs and start singing along!
One of their songs from their album is called “Quisiera”:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7XWn8njOw

4. Maluma

Another fast rising Latin music artist is Maluma. Maluma defines his music as "urban pop". In 2013, Maluma was nominated for the Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and in 2017 he was nominated for the Top Latin Artist award at the Billboard Music Awards.

Here is one of Maluma’s songs, which is titled “El Perdedor”:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lTpUrzw9ao

5. Romeo Santos

Another good genre of music to learn Spanish with is Bachata. What makes it great for learning Spanish is that tempo is usually somewhat slow, so the words tend to be spoken clearly.

Bachata is said to have originated in the Dominican Republic and it’s one of the most popular genres of Latin music. Bachata grew in popularity in the 1990’s, largely thanks to the romanticism that was incorporated into its music. Artists like Aventura and Prince Royce helped Bachata explode into mainstream popularity.

One of the most popular Bachata artists is Romeo Santos, who began his solo career in 2011. Romeo’s popularity became undeniable after he sold out New York City's famous Madison Square Garden three nights in a row in 2012. In 2014, Romeo became the first Latin artist to headline at the Yankee Stadium, selling out an entire double-header show.

Romeo’s second album album Formula, Vol. 2 was released in 2014 and became the best selling Latin album of the year. One of the songs from this album is called “7 dias”.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGIUR23vAq8

Another one of Romeo’s songs from this album features Drake! Drake even sings some lines in Spanish! The name of that song is “Odio”.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efQlXxTiZm8

6. Aventura

Before beginning his solo career, Romeo Santos was a songwriter and the lead singer for Aventura. One of Aventura’s biggest hits is “Obsesion”. The song was a huge hit, topping many international charts. For example, the song was number 1 for 16 weeks in Italy and for 7 weeks in France.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03lGvtEqUx4

7. Prince Royce

Another popular Bachata artist is Prince Royce. His first album was released in 2010 and reached number-one on the US Billboard Latin Albums and Tropical Albums charts. The album also led to Royce receiving three awards at the Billboard Latin Music Awards in 2011.

One of Prince Royce’s most popular songs is “Darte un beso”. This song was released as a single in 2013, and it became an international hit for Prince Royce in the United States, Latin America and Spain. The song received three nominations including Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Tropical Song at the Latin Grammy Awards of 2014.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Milr6jNvY2s

8. Marc Anthony

Now moving on from Bachata, another popular genre for Latin Music is Salsa, and one of the biggest Salsa artists is Marc Anthony. He is a two-time Grammy Award winner and a five-time Latin Grammy Award winner. He has sold more than 12 million albums worldwide.

One of Marc’s most popular songs is Vivir Mi Vida. Vivir Mi Vida is a nice feel-good song, and due to its repetitiveness and slow tempo, it’s a great song for beginner Spanish learners!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XskgaKwPtfk

9. Elvis Crespo

Another genre of Latin music is Merengue, and a popular Merengue artist is Elvis Crespo. Elvis is a Puerto Rican Grammy and Latin Grammy Award-winning artist. This genre, Merengue, was new to me, but a viewer on my channel asked me to post a video translation of one his songs, and I really liked his music! I especially liked Elvis Crespo’s song “Tu sonrisa”. It’s a “pure” song about a guy who simply liked a girl’s smile!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFDK0LaRnII

10. Daddy Yankee

“Reggaetón" is another popular genre of Spanish music. “Reggaetón" originated in Puerto Rico in the early 1990’s. The genre went through a lot of controversy in its initial stages, but in the early 2000’s, it made big strides in gaining popularity as it started getting discovered by international audiences.

Many fans of this genre believe the "King of Reggaetón" of Daddy Yankee. One of his most popular songs is “Gasolina”, which was quite popular internationally so it’s likely that you heard it before! The song was released in 2004 and helped this genre gain even more popularity.

Initially, Reggaetón had very explicit lyrics about topics such as drugs and violence. Nowadays, many Reggaetón songs avoid the parental advisory label. However, something to keep in mind is that many songs avoid the parental advisory label through their use of sexual innuendo and lyrics with double meanings.

Here is one of Daddy Yankee’s clean songs - “Sígueme y Te Sigo”, which means “Follow me and I’ll follow you”.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IQ6VeUu-eA

11. Nicky Jam

A popular Reggaetón artist who usually keep his lyrics clean is Nicky Jam. Nicky Jam is best known for hits such as "Travesuras", "El Perdón", "Hasta el Amanecer", and "El Amante". "El Perdón" is a song which features Enrique Iglesias. This song was huge hit and won several awards in 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7nlN...

12. Ozuna

Lastly, we will finish off this list with a Puerto Rican artist known as Ozuna. Ozuna is widely regarded as one of the most successful reggaeton artists and Latin urban music artist. Ozuna is also credited for starting a new movement in the reggaeton scene and bringing popularity to the Latin trap genre.

I will leave you with a catchy song by Ozuna, which is called “Dile que tu me quieres”.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6pIlkRgiFk

What Spanish Music Do You Use for Learning Spanish?

Are there any other Spanish songs you use to help you learn Spanish? I’d love to hear about these, so please let me know in the comments.

The post Music to Help You Learn Spanish – A Starter Guide (with 12 Latin Artists and Songs) appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

How Children Learn Languages – and What You Can Learn from Them

It’s often said that children learn languages more easily than adults, but is that really the case? Do children have a special advantage, or can adults learn languages just as well as children?

Some academics say that childhood is the critical period for language learning. Is there any truth in this idea, or is it just that children go about language learning in the right way?

I’d like to share the exact techniques that children learn languages -- and as you’ll see adults can use these techniques too, though sometimes in a different way to children. After reading this article, I think you’ll be ready to agree that the idea that “children are better language learners” is just an excuse adult learners make to avoid language learning.

So, let’s take a look at how children learn languages, and the five reasons they are so good at language learning.

Reason 1: Children are Handed Learning Opportunities on a Plate

You could say that children have an advantage from the start, because they start learning a language without even deciding to. They’ll most likely be having lessons at school, or their parents will be teaching them. This means that they’ll be having regular contact with the target language. If they’re learning it at home, they may well also be surrounded by family speaking the language, as well as an abundance of reading and listening resources. In this case, the language is around them all the time, free of charge.

This immersion, and the feeling of “not even deciding to learn” is something you can recreate! It is said so often that you don’t need to be abroad to immerse yourself in a language, but that’s because it’s true (more on this later)!

Children learning a language at home do have an advantage, for reasons such as the sheer immersion they’re experiencing. But I would argue that a child learning a language at school isn’t necessarily a great learning opportunity.

Out of all the children that learn, say, French at school, there aren’t many that are going to just ‘absorb’ the language like many adults claim they are magically capable of. I learned French at school, as part of a club that taught me for a couple of years. By the time I reached high school, I hardly remembered a thing! Often adults see children as some kind of magic sponges, but that simply isn’t always the case. It’s important to note that although children get the opportunity to learn languages at school, in most cases this isn’t what makes them fluent.

However, one method that schools do right is teaching through fun. Using songs and rhymes, children discover new vocabulary, and pick it up naturally because they’re enjoying themselves.

This doesn’t mean I’m suggesting you add ‘Frere Jacques’ and the like into your learning routines - but it shows that having fun makes language learning a much more natural process! And you can learn a language with songs) if you want to.

But if you like the structure of learning a language at school, then there are ways you can introduce this on a daily basis. By creating aims every month, and small specific deadlines weekly to meet these aims, you can build on the skills you want to develop, and improve at the pace that suits you, while making sure that you’re practising regularly. If you make manageable little challenges in different areas, you’ll be making progress across the board. This means you won’t be able to build up the huge goal of simply ‘fluency’ and overwhelm yourself!

Small but challenging steps to take could include having an online language lesson on a site like italki, chatting with people on apps such as HelloTalk, or even just asking for stamps in a post office when you visit that country.

Reason 2: Children Don’t Realise They’re Learning

Children embrace the challenge of learning in a different way to adults. In fact, they don’t see it as a challenge at all. They take it in their stride - because they often don’t notice it’s happening!

According to linguistic professor Stephen Krashen, there is a difference between language learning and language acquisition. Language learning, a process I’m sure you're familiar with, is the conscious process of learning about a language. This includes those dreaded grammar rules, and is the process you would have used in classes at school.

Acquisition however, is how you gradually know the language better and better, through processes like speaking.

This is subconscious, and comes as a result of interaction in your target language.
A student at university may go on their third year abroad in Spain, for example, and come back with a high level of fluency in Spanish. This could well be without having any idea what the preterite or imperfect tense is, although they use them with ease.

Acquisition is something that children are good at - they’ve only recently acquired their first language after all (and they did fine with that), so why would they go about learning grammar rules for their second language?

But there’s no reason for adults not to take this approach too. As Benny Lewis advocates, one of the best ways to learn a language is to speak it from day one.

If grammar seems impossible to you, you may well be focusing on it more than you need to. Yes, of course grammar is important, as many of us would love to reach a standard that could mean we’re mistaken for a native. But if it’s demotivating to you then switch up your language learning routine!

My advice is to acquire, and then learn. Speak, make mistakes, then learn the grammar rules that explain those mistakes. The rules will make far more sense, and you’ll spend far less time trying to decipher them.

As an adult, most learning has to be a conscious process. More effort is required, but you’ll get more out of it! You’re in control, and can do what works for you to reach your goal, whether it is near native-level fluency, or just being able to hold a conversation with a native speaker. Therefore, being an adult learner has more perks - you can choose to do things that mean you have fun learning, and this will mean you pick up things ‘naturally’ like a child can!

Reason 3: Children Have an Ear for Phonemes -- the Sounds of a Language

There are studies that prove children are especially skilled at learning phonemes, the distinct sounds that form a language, compared to adults. Research by Ann Fathman in 1975 found that six to ten year olds had the most advantage in this respect (read more here). Learning a foreign language from a young age can mean that it takes less effort to end up sounding like a native. But this doesn’t mean you can’t.

Adults can be at least as good - it just might take a little longer. There are people like Benny that have learned their first foreign language fluently as an adult, and speak it to an incredible standard (along with lots of other languages!). These people aren’t superhuman, but through speaking as much as possible (along with other methods), they are as great as phonemes as any child could be, or better.

Sometimes it seems impossible to understand what someone is saying, even if you know most of the words you’re hearing when they’re written on a page. A lot of the time the language is faster than you’re used to, and all the words seem to come out as one - how can we possibly work out the words we’ve just heard, let alone understand them?

The way to be great at differentiating and imitating the sounds in a language is to expose yourself to the target language as much as possible.

Don’t mistake this for me telling you to travel overseas - you don’t have to be in a different country to immerse yourself in the target language. Of course it’s great to be surrounded by the language all the time, and realise the cultural context of the language you’re learning (as well as have a great holiday!). But immersing yourself is easy to do at home. You can constantly be exposed to foreign sounds through lots of listening material, such as YouTube videos, podcasts, radio, and music.

Even if children do have a headstart in picking up phonemes, as an adult you can reach a standard of speaking at least as good as theirs through as much language exposure as possible, in whatever fun way you decide to do.

What’s more, it’s not just children that have strengths in language learning. Research in the 1980’s by Catherine Snow and Marian Hoefnagel-Hӧhle showed that due to developed cognitive ability, adults can have the upperhand in different aspects of language learning; this study in particular showing that the older learners outperformed children on pronunciation, including spontaneous tasks and imitation.

Adults are also more likely to be able to learn particular structures in a language quickly, which is shown by Fathman’s research, which I mentioned above. We’re great at establishing patterns in a language, enabling us to learn much more effectively - which provides yet another advantage! Adults also know more of the English language, making it easier to recognise cognates (foreign words that look like and mean the same thing in your language, for example, ‘education’ is ‘educación’ in Spanish) meaning we are further along than children vocab-wise before we even begin.

Reason 4: Children Aren’t Afraid to Make Mistakes (They Just Learn from Them)

Professor Stephen Krashen has developed the ‘monitor’ hypothesis, which hugely resonates with me. This is the idea that when adults learn (rather than acquire) a language, any information learnt acts as a ‘monitor’, which means that after you have thought about what you are going to say in your target language, you use pre-existing knowledge to check that there are no errors in your planned speech. Then, after speaking you may correct yourself further.

A successful user of the monitor doesn’t overuse it. They will only make minor corrections when speaking, in order to interrupt the flow of a conversation as little as possible.

Of course, conveniently, adults tend to be over-users of their inner monitor!

We worry about sounding stupid, and this can stop us from getting ourselves out there and practising. Children, however, don’t seem fazed at all. How is this fair?!

Language learning is different to learning other skills - it requires a lot of confidence in order to develop. For example, if you start learning to play the guitar, you aren’t expected to be performing to crowds straight away. But with a language, you need to be ‘performing’ all the time if you want to improve. This can be incredibly difficult, especially if you are shy, but pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, (even just a little bit at a time) will leave you with an enormous sense of achievement.

When I went to France last summer, I kept chickening out when I had an opportunity to practise speaking. My family knew I had been learning French for a while, so I was scared to say anything that was less than perfect.

Then, in a post office I gathered the courage to just ask for some stamps, to send some postcards to England. I only said a sentence or two to the man behind the counter - but realising that we understood each other felt great!

It’s small interactions like this that drive me to carry on learning. The thrill of being understood in another language is second to none.

I’ve found that the longer you leave it to start talking, the more pressure there is to get it right. This is especially if people know you’ve been learning for a while. Don’t be disheartened if you feel that your accent isn’t good enough, or worry that you won’t sound as good as you’re expected to - especially if it prevents you from speaking. The priority is to speak lots, however good or bad you think you sound. Furthermore, if you start talking as soon as you’re learning, and you eliminate this problem; people will be impressed however good or bad you sound at first! There’s no expectation if you speak from day one, so you can make as many mistakes as you like. The pressure is off, and you’ll make lots of progress which will grow your confidence.

Reason 5: Children Ignore the Idea of Becoming Fluent

As a child, often your parents or your school are in control of your learning. This means that children don’t have a chance to opt out like adults might do.

Some children may even have to be bilingual to even understand both their parents, if they are living in a multilingual home. This creates the drive needed to become fluent in that language.

Thus you need to create that drive.

A child doesn’t see fluency as a far-away goal - they don’t even see it as a goal. Focusing too much on the end result can be discouraging; and as adults who learn more consciously, we are more aware of the prospect of fluency, and often as a result find the idea of reaching that goal rather intimidating.

Learning exactly like a child will never be the answer. But we can take lessons from them in order to be better learners ourselves. If we can’t help finding language learning daunting, then we need to find ways to be motivated and continue to work to reach our goal.

If you’re struggling with motivation, do what scares you. Like I said before, the thrill of speaking another language is everything, and if this is something you find daunting, challenge yourself! Doing something that scares you creates drive, as you realise what you’re capable of.

The more you do something that scares you, the easier it becomes. For example, If you speak as much as you can, before you know it you won’t be scared - and you will have made so much progress! This is why Benny’s speak-from-day-one approach works so well. Having a go speaking early on will set you up for great achievement in language learning. Challenging yourself often, even in small ways, will make you a far more confident and motivated language learner. You’ll progress faster, and that will lead to even more motivation!

Reaching fluency will be up there with your biggest achievements - however old you are.

The post How Children Learn Languages – and What You Can Learn from Them appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.