Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

by Gabriel Wyner

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Learn pronunciation first. Don’t translate. Use a spaced repetition system.

A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.

Qualsiasi dato diventa importante se è connesso a un altro. Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another.

Your brain is a sophisticated filter, which makes irrelevant information forgettable and meaningful information memorable. Foreign words tend to fall into the “forgettable” category, because they sound odd, they don’t seem particularly meaningful, and they don’t have any connection to your own life experiences. You can get around this filter and make foreign words memorable by doing three things: Learn the sound system of your language. Bind those sounds to images. Bind those images to your past experiences.

I’ve heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?

Rote repetition is boring, and it doesn’t work for long-term memorization. Take the lazy route instead: study a concept until you can repeat it once without looking and then stop. After all, lazy is just another word for “efficient.”

In school we learn things then take the test, In everyday life we take the test then we learn things.

If it’s hard to remember, it’ll be difficult to forget.

You’ll make the best use of your time when practicing recall if your earlier experiences are as memorable as possible. You can accomplish this by connecting sounds, images, and personal connections to every word you learn.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way.

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.

To create a deep, multisensory memory for a word, you’ll need to combine several ingredients: spelling, sound, meaning, and personal connection.

I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady in a flower shop.

First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that shit and just play.

You’ll learn fastest if you take advantage of your language machine—the pattern-crunching tool that taught you the grammar of your native language. This machine runs off of comprehensible input—sentences that you understand—so you’ll need to find a good source of simple, clear sentences with translations and explanations.

Kuato: What do you want, Mr. Quaid? Douglas Quaid: The same as you; to remember.

Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step toward being sorta good at something.

A significant other who teaches you a foreign language is euphemistically known as a pillow dictionary.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.