It’s the end of week one of what has definitely been the mission that has stirred up the most interest and discussion, since I started the blog!

I can confirm that after this initial exposure to the language, I have not quite been “humbled” into saying what I’m attempting is impossible just yet, despite what many naysayers are suggesting What I’m attempting is extremely ambitious, and I may not achieve it precisely as I’ve defined it (and get something lower, but still very useful instead), but it is not impossible.

I’ve read the word “impossible” directed at me more in the last week than for any other mission. I’d suggest people read this post for my thoughts on impossibilities.

As annoying as all the “you’ll fail miserably” comments/forum posts/Youtube videos have been, the few that care to actually explain why Chinese is “so hard” have basically given me a summary of the biggest challenges I will face, and advance warning to allow me to think of ways to get through these challenges quicker, with an example or two mentioned in this post. At this stage I believe I’ve heard most of the language’s greatest challenges explained to me, and have some ideas to help me get through them that I’ll update you on as I implement them, or otherwise have found good resources to get tips from those more experienced who are less interested in shooting me down.

Otherwise it’s the usual hardest language mentality that I’ve seen so many times before. In each case (Hungarian, Czech, French, Chinese etc.) where an army of people are ready to inform me that THIS one is the hardest, those arguing dismiss the challenges of learning any other languages as trivial, and in the vast majority of cases they have little to no understanding or appreciation of those languages. Frankly I find this way more arrogant than someone like me saying that maybe he could get somewhere with Chinese quickly. Once I have more experience, confirming (along the lines of this post) that Chinese is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be, I’ll definitely be coming back to this point to explain it in greater detail.

Call me arrogant if you will, but my purpose here is to present Chinese as a manageable task to encourage language learning, for those intimidated by it and sticking to European languages (or worse, and just speaking English) for no reason other than this intimidation.

First week summary: Arrival

Anyway, here is a blow by blow update of everything I’ve done this first week!

The greatest challenge by far in this first week has not been tones, the writing system, learning vocab, pronunciation etc., but what I feel will always be the decider as you learn a language: real world problems (not those in grammar etc. books). The RWP that’s slown me down the most has been that I only got 2 hours of sleep a night for all 4 nights before flying into Taipei, and this combined with jetlag (which, when well rested, I’ve found ways to get over very quickly normally) has totally messed up my sleeping patterns, similar to the poor start I had in Istanbul.

So I’ve been very tired for most of the day my first days, and wasting time and less able to focus because of this. Luckily I made sure to have my apartment very well naturally lit this time round (I’ll give you the “grand tour” in scripted and terrible sounding but hopefully understandable Mandarin next week, although it’s only a humble studio), so I’m finally adjusting to local time. Hopefully this slow first week won’t affect the routine I plan to get into consistently throughout the rest of my stay.

When I arrived at the airport late on Tuesday, I took the lazy and more expensive route of getting a taxi since I was too exhausted to deal with transfers and finding my way around. I told the taxi man “Qing… Da-An MRT”, and he understood.  I pronounced qing as ching, although I know now it’s a different type of initial sound, but he understood me (probably simply because airport taximen are so used to foreigners, although if he spoke English he didn’t care to let me know about it). Thanks to Google streetview, I knew from memory based on the buildings exactly where I needed to go. 這裡, 謝謝! Here, please! He pulled over despite my incorrect tones.

I arrived at night on Tuesday, and my PA who found the cheap apartment for me did all the talking with my landlord, handed me the keys in exchange for rent, quickly showed me some essentials on my street (explaining everything in English), and then I went to sleep. So my first day really began as soon as I was up very early on Wednesday.

Day One

I wouldn’t be so consistent if I wasn’t to actually speak from day one, and I can confirm that I did just that! [Note, parts of this section are copied directly from the Language Hacking League email newsletter, which you can sign up to on the top-right of the site].

I went out for some breakfast and to withdraw money. My card was giving me problems, and I just got a chocolate roll from a 7-11, with the little I had left after paying rent on arrival. So all I needed to say was “hello” and “thank you” (你好 and 謝謝). Easy enough start! Although I was saying these without the right tones, I didn’t get a slap in the face. I’m confident that out of all the things I could say to the clerk, these two coming from a guy as white as me, will allow the local to extrapolate to understand what I mean. Relying on this for more than a few hours was obviously not something I was planning.

One of my bank cards wasn’t working and the other was, and this was confusing me a bit. I walked to a large bookstore to get the main study materials I needed (shown in the screenshot in my introduction post). I went to the counter and gave her my credit card, and she said something back to me after trying it in the machine a few times.

I don’t have a clue what she said precisely, but the context couldn’t have been clearer. My credit card simply wasn’t working. I realized that my bank probably blocked it from strange activity of being used in six countries over a single week thanks to airport transfers, so I took out the cash I had just withdrawn from the other card instead. I handed the notes to her using both my hands, since I’ve started to observe that even if something weighs one gram, they will still hand it to you with both hands here, so I want to emulate it, or I may appear rude.

And of course she was happy with that!

I went home for a “quick nap” and six hours later (thanks to jetlag) I woke up definitely ready for an evening lunch, I headed towards a huge shop (Carrefour) to get some supplies I’ll need while here (buying a metro ticket was easy, since the machine was in English too). When I got out of the metro station, I went looking for some food.

In Taiwan, this isn’t a problem! There are hundreds of stalls all over the place! But the catch of course is that they are all written in Chinese, and everyone I asked Ni huishuo Yingwen ma? to, gave me a blank look back. “Do you speak English?” is more complex than hello or thank you, so in this case my lack of good tones made me incomprehensible, even for a simple question.

Scratching my head at a way to feed myself with something other than what I’ll get in the supermarket, I chanced upon a sign with a picture of pasta. Hardly traditional Chinese food, but as a vegetarian I wanted to not have to think too much right now. I asked the same question as before, and got yet another blank face as if I was telling her that my hovercraft is full of eels.

Even a reply indicating no would have made me feel like I was at least understood. So I pushed on, ignoring the fact that she probably doesn’t understand me, and pointed at the pasta saying “this, please” in equally un-understandable Mandarin. Finally, some sign of recognition! I sat down, and a couple of minutes later received what I had ordered. A minor but important victory!

After getting everything I needed in Carrefour, I went to the checkout and had just looked up the word for “bag”, since I could see them scan the bags for people, so you have to request it or bring your own to encourage recycling. I didn’t have bags yet, so would need to ask for one.

And when I walked up to him, I had my first proper exchange! He said something like blah blah blah (bag) blah (question word)? I replied with “I want please” and he scanned it through. And then I went home

What is important is to have minor successes every day, rather than huge successes very rarely

Next days

The tiredness issue means that I’ve not been social at all, and have continued in a similar vein to my first day for most interactions, while studying for a few hours every day. On my second day I prioritised pronunciation. While it’s not using my favourite resource, I’ve got both Michel Thomas‘ Mandarin course and a full subscription to the ChinesePod course, both of which I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on later, and both of which are audio based.

After going through the tones explanation in both courses, and comparing my basic experience with distinguishing Thai tones, I felt more ready to say what I had already been saying, but better. Now I clearly hear the difference and know how wrong my initial “Ni hao” and everything else was. Natives speaking these slowly for learners on audio in sound recording studios is all well and good, but it will take time to get used to these in the real world.

The most important thing is that I am more confident in knowing that people are more likely to understand me. This has been proven by the amount of blank faces I get back going down dramatically.

I was still relying a lot on pointing though, and have found a useful workaround to get what I want on the menu when I’m confident from the photo that it’s vegetarian (something, which hopefully soon I’ll simply ask directly). Menu items here tend to be numbered, and numbers all the way up to 100 are terribly easy in Chinese (no new vocabulary to remember after ten, with “eleven” being simply ten-one etc.), so I simply say the number, then [please], and get what I want!

Starting to understand

Continuing on with numbers, Chinese has a very interesting system for large numbers (which you must learn, since use of 1,000元 notes can be normal), which actually specifies zeros before other numbers, but not so much after. For example, 5100 would be “five thousand one” and saying hundred is not necessary, since it’s clear from the way the language works. But 5001 would be “five thousand zero one” and 5010 would be “five thousand zero ten”.

It’s a little strange at first, but totally logical. I’ve learned this system (really doesn’t take that long) and can recognise most numbers I’ll hear now, which means that when prices are told to me I can understand them without looking at the till. The catch is that I need several seconds to do the calculations and make sure I remember all the numbers correctly. I’ve found that fumbling through my wallet for 2 or 3 seconds gives me the time to figure out what they said without cheating and looking at the answer.

As well as this, the little amount of vocab I’ve learned is starting to make its way out of the “noise”. Rather than Chinese being a stream of blah-blah-blah, I am starting to pick out very occasional words from metro announcements (names of stops) or people’s conversations (not, please, coffee, big etc.)

Not looking at the language as incomprehensible noise is an important step, and I’ve already accepted the mentality that it’s a language thanks to these rare bursts of understanding (which, easy and obvious a mentality as it seems, is simply not accepted by many learners, who see it as noise that those foreigners are making that they are trying to mimic).

Can read already!

Another major milestone and important aspect of all this “impossibility” I’ve been warned about is that I can actually read and write already! To a very very limited extent of course, but it’s not as much of an unsurmountable monster as everyone makes it out to be.

I’ve been using Heisig’s book to learn the characters, which I have mixed feelings about. The memory techniques are similar to what I’ve used myself to learn vocabulary in general, and some are very clever and have been a huge help! But many don’t really work for me (like references to baseball), so it’s better to get inspiration from it and get going yourself asap.

Learning the book from start to finish has turned out to be a wasteful idea, since I’m given silly words I don’t need like “recklessly” from the start, and more useful words like “want” are near the end! The order presented is useful for understanding the characters that are the building blocks of many words, but is more suited to those who don’t plan to really expose themselves to the language until they finish the book. As well as this, there’s an important difference between characters and words, so I’m focusing my vocabulary studying from other sources that are more practical for day-to-day use.

After learning the first few dozen characters in his order, I’ve decided to only use the book as reference. If I see a complex word I want to remember I look backwards through its components and learn them in context. This is much more memorable, although all the page turning is a little annoying. Especially since the pinyin (pronunciation) is only given at the back.

But a combination of using that book and simply being independent means that I have a few dozen characters I recognise confidently (and could write a crude version of them for you, with the wrong stroke order). While I have plenty left to go, the little I have are high frequency characters or words and I’m starting to recognise them in signs, although I still can’t understand the meaning of the sign unless it’s something like “exit”. I can very easily see the 不 “no(t)” component in No smoking signs and the like.

This means that this idea of seeing Chinese as nothing but random squiggles is already gone in my mind. I’ve prioritised food to allow me to eat in cheaper restaurants asap, and can already see that a restaurant is vegetarian (素食) and know what to avoid, since most meat vocabulary actually includes the word meat 肉 (“cow-meat” is beef, “pig-meat” is pork etc.)

It’s slower, but I’ve learned all these characters not just to recognise them visually, but to also say (or recognise) the sound, incorporating a story with the image to remember the pronunciation and tone. I’ll explain in more detail how I’m doing this later.

And what if you want to understand a word you’ve never seen before? If you use ancient 15th century technology, then it’s pretty damn hard. You must learn stroke order with your words, as part of a complex system for looking words up in a dictionary. It would take ages before you can even dream of trying to look up words, let alone begin to understand them, with any efficiency.

If you have a smartphone though, you don’t need to worry about such things. I’ve been testing out the Pleco app, and will likely share its functions with you in a video to discuss if its worth paying for. You can either draw the character yourself (more useful for scripts that look like handwriting) or simply point your phone’s camera at the character and its OCR will tell you what it means, as well as give you the pinyin pronunciation, and other useful info. No dusty old books required.

Learn to write Chinese in 2 minutes

And I can also write! Actually this writing part of the mission is complete

All you have to do is enable the Chinese keyboard on your computer (very easy to find in settings, and then very easy to set that you can switch to it in an instant) and then write the pinyin and tone number. So 好 is hao3, and you will see a list of characters with the same or similar pronunciation+tone, and then you select it. Or the most likely one is given to you directly.

What this basically means, is that if you vaguely remember what the character looks like (since those in the list presented to you will usually be quite different, so a precise memory of all strokes is really not required, although I imagine there are rare examples of same pronunciation, same tone and similar characters), and remember the pronunciation and tone correctly, you can write any word you like.  I haven’t been learning the characters for words I’m much more likely to just speak rather than read or write, for efficiency purposes, but I have still been able to do a lot. All the characters you see in this post were those I wrote myself rather than copying and pasting.

Of course, I’m not interested in writing on dead trees for now, as I don’t do this in any of my languages beyond signing my name. At most I’ll have to learn to write my address, marital status etc. in Chinese for forms, and do the majority of everything else on my computer or phone.

Useful “listening” practice

For listening practice, rather than use that big TV you saw behind me in the intro video to keep up with cheesy soap operas, I’ve got a much more fun idea!

Four months in America last year combined with several weeks ill in Istanbul, meant that I didn’t eat very healthy food and put on a bit of weight. Losing this is a priority for me while I’m not travelling and have some consistency, and so I joined a gym. But I didn’t join for the threadmills and dumbbells (quite boring). My gym membership includes unlimited access to group classes in everything from yoga, to hip hop dance lessons to random aerobic bouncing around… which apparently they give classes in too. These take place all day every day.

And of course these classes are in Mandarin! I went to one and it was confusing as hell, and I relied too much on copying those around me, but the instructor is yelling at us to do something, and when you hear him say something and perform a motion you start to get the idea and learn that word. I plan on going to these classes several times a week. Exhausting both physically and mentally, but definitely worth it!

How’s that for trying to get a bit more “active” in my listening practice?

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So, there you have it! I have a long road ahead of me, but I plan on sprinting that road rather than crawling backwards on my ass, which considering the fact that I’ve been assured it takes anything from five to ten years to reach a “useful” level of fluency in Chinese, I’m convinced is the way most people are tackling this issue. Sorry for the bluntness, but I’ll make fast progress because of a much more efficient learning approach than them. (And no, it’s not because languages are simply easier for me).

The choice of where to live in the city has been a really good one because I have seen next to no other expats around here. In fact, it took me four entire days (most of which I spent outside walking around and in metros or restaurants, when not sleeping) to find my first other white guy!! (a.k. Waldo/Wally)

I’ve also been warned that “everyone” would speak English with me. Despite the requirements of the mission, I’ve specifically asked people to speak English to me at times when I’m really stuck and have been given hopeless looks that it’s not going to happen, forcing me to use the little Mandarin I know. The only English I’ve gotten apart from my PA has been from likely candidates such as Starbucks, that I’m going to more out of laziness to have access to a menu in English, and a habit I hope to break soon. But I’m still the only white guy in there.

I’m sure it’s different in other parts of the city, but I’m really happy with my choice of central and not living in expat-land. It’s been a tough first week, as I’ve gone hungry sometimes for longer than I should have due to not having a clue where or what to eat (there’s no kitchen in my studio), and since I haven’t gone straight to the expat meetings and haven’t tried to talk to locals beyond services, I haven’t made any friends yet, but it’s forcing me to do what needs to be done to speak Mandarin quicker.

This is just week one, and I’ve done less than I wanted because of tiredness, but am actually on schedule in terms of eliminating language learning problems, especially since I have some level of tones, reading and writing. More updates and videos will come of course over the next 3 months! Some of my languages have given me a bit of a headstart, like knowing ASL has helped tremendously with word-order making sense (“Your name what?” “You go where?” etc.) and some of the sounds of the language (forgetting the tones) don’t exist in English, but do in other languages I’ve learned. Even so, I’m confident that most of what I explain as being the basis of my learning approach over the next 3 months could be applied by anyone.

Let me know your thoughts on the progress I’ve made, and any suggestions to help make sure I keep on track. Thanks!
Similar Posts:

• Learning Mandarin Chinese Is Easy; You Just Think It’s Hard
• New Mission: Fluent Mandarin in 3 months!
• Reading Thai and its tones isn’t as hard as you think
• Next mission: Read and speak Thai in 8 weeks
• Tagalog: a fun language to learn in the Philippines!

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First week speaking/reading/writing Chinese is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YSRjW5Gzb4

As explained in the video, I’m currently in Taipei, Taiwan, and this is day one of my mission to speak fluent Mandarin in 3 months!

That’s fluency as in being able to do most of what I can do in English, in social situations in Mandarin. I’ll still make some mistakes, but I won’t hold up the flow of conversations (on either my side or the person I’m talking to) i.e. conversational fluency rather than professional level fluency. (Or something along the lines of level C1, specifically for the oral component of the European Common Framework of languages testing system, although I don’t plan to sit any tests this time).

As always, I’ll update you with videos as I progress, starting with a quick look at my home in a week or two, which I’ll be giving on camera entirely in Mandarin (with a script prepared in advance), and hopefully ending with a spontaneous interview with a native at the end of March! This is coming from a start point of only knowing “ni hao” as I boarded my flight!

And yes, I will be incorporating reading abilities into this mission, as I’d otherwise be illiterate, and not able to function socially. My priority will be to be able to read menus and signs, but soon after, I do want to be able to get the gist of almost anything I see, with an effortless ability to recognise the most common 1,500 symbols (about half of what most people would consider the number needed to be proficient, so I won’t call my reading abilities fluent). For this mission I won’t go as far as to try to be able to read the likes of full newspaper articles beyond headlines, as that will take too much focus away from my main spoken objective.

[Edit: People are suggesting that I focus on the first 500, as that will be enough for my purposes and the extra work would take away too much from my spoken mission, so I may stick to just 500 to start with and see from there if I've learned quickly enough to learn some more.]

Also note that I am learning traditional Chinese, which is used in Taiwan and not the simplified one (used in mainland China), further complicating the reading aspect of the mission! The good news is that this investment will make it easier to learn simplified Chinese, and even read Japanese, whenever I decide to go in that direction for a later mission.

I chose Taiwan, rather than mainland China, because a communist country with many Internet restrictions do not work well for someone who is a full time blogger, and an outspoken loudmouth in what he writes about (Yes, there are workarounds to access some sites, but they seem rather annoying and inconvenient to apply all the time, and I’d be breaking the law and doing it publicly). Also, I’ve had no bureaucracy at all to get a passport stamp on arrival (no visa) to stay for 3 months, which is not going to happen in China. Also, for the reason given above, I’d prefer to start with traditional rather than simplified Chinese.

But forgetting about such nitty gritty things, the real reason I’ve come here is because I’ve heard so many good things about the Taiwanese people, and have met a few in my travels and wanted to get to know the country and culture much better! So here I am

Having said that, I will still definitely visit China for a week or two, possibly immediately after this mission.

A few books/courses to help me start

I don’t ever consider my language missions to be linguistic objectives, but rather social ones. Everything I work on will be for the purpose of improving my ability to interact with the Taiwanese and ultimately have deep friendships, without limiting myself just to those who speak good English as too many expats would.

I plan to use all the techniques discussed in depth in the Speak from day 1 & Language Hacking Guide package, however, I will make regular updates about how I’m tackling issues specific to Chinese, and if I have really good ideas I’ll make videos about them to add some to the blog and most to the Speak from Day 1 series.

As you can see, I’ve already got some material I’ll use to help me learn, and I’ll be sure to keep you up to date and let you know which books or other resources I’d recommend!

Thanks for reading along, and I hope to successfully reach fluency in Mandarin in 3 months! Any thoughts, or advice? Let me know in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!
• First week speaking/reading/writing Chinese
• Quechua: Quick overview and Benny speaking it with natives
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!

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New Mission: Fluent Mandarin in 3 months! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3T9NslNuDA

So here it is! Ending the year on a positive note of another successful language mission completed! I had only aimed to learn the basics of Quechua in the few weeks I was here, and I think this video shows that I did indeed get something out of my experience with it!

Like with the previous Quechua video, this has subtitles (captions) in English throughout, and the last minute where I’m speaking Quechua with the natives is also captioned in original Quechua. Hopefully you like my quick analysis of an example Quechua sentence and to hear me use some basics with locals.

You can also see in the introduction that I did indeed make it to Machu Picchu! In January I’ll edit the video about my adventure to get there.

Today I’ll be heading back to Ireland to spend Christmas with my family (after almost two whole days worth of travelling), then on to Poland for two days (Gdansk) to celebrate the New Year with some Esperanto speakers, and on January 2nd I fly to my first 2012 destination where I will be learning an important non-European language to fluency in three months. To find out which one that is, join the email list (top right of the site) to get notification the day I fly out, several days  in advance before I announce it on the blog!

I’ve got some fun videos/posts to summarise the year coming up before I get started on the next one! I hope your language missions go well in 2012, and of course I plan to share some tips in the new year to help you (including a video series I just recorded here in Lima, being edited professionally similar to how this Quechua video was, about how to speak from day one, which I’ll also make available on January 2nd).

Let me know your thoughts on this Quechua mission and the videos in the comments below! Thanks!
Similar Posts:

• What does Quechua sound like? Traditional fabric/dyeing presentation in “runasimi”!
• What will Benny’s next language be?
• Having fun at Esperanto events
• Il sabato della scoperta – Who wants a postcard / What’s Benny’s next mission?
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!

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Quechua: Quick overview and Benny speaking it with natives is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEDNF_OsC3g

Similar Posts:

• Quechua: Quick overview and Benny speaking it with natives
• Speaking with mistakes quickly is better than speaking “perfectly” slowly
• Next mission: American Sign Language!
• New Mission: Fluent Mandarin in 3 months!
• First week in Istanbul, where I live & first (video) attempt at Turkish!

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Mission to hike Machu Picchu… in Quechua! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Photo by Nan Palmero at TEDx San Antonio

This is turning out to be one hell of a year!

Despite almost three entire months of it spent in English-speaking America (the trip is mostly for speaking at conferences, such as the TEDx one in the photo above), since January I’ve learned some Tagalog, American Sign Language, Dutch, Turkish and Klingon!

At the start of the year, I announced that I was going to make this year an intensive one, and I believe I’ve delivered! Next year, I’ll be getting back to slower missions – hopefully starting with a genuine Fluent in 3 months (from scratch) mission, depending on travel logistics.

But before I head back to Cavan for xmas with the family, I do indeed have the energy to take on yet another language to wrap this year up at six!

Can you figure it out from the clues?

One thing I’ve been having immense fun with, is that instead of just telling you well in advance what my next language is, I hold you in suspense (if you’ve ever met me, you’ll see it’s part of my personality) and see if you can guess!

Before I revealed that I was learning ASL, I had dropped dozens of extremely vague, but still helpful, clues and after hundreds of guesses only two people actually got it fully right!

And I shall be playing the same fun game again

On November 11th I fly to my new destination and start the very last language mission of 2011. But where am I going, and what language is it? I will reveal it a few days before (on November 7th) in the Language Hacking League email list, that you can sign up to on the right of the site.

I’ll give the majority of the important clues soon on twitter, Facebook and Google plus.

But for now, so you have a place to start from, here are the basics:

• It is not an artificially designed language, like Klingon/Na’vi or Esperanto or a computer coding language
• Millions of people speak it
• It’s not related (linguistically) to any language I’ve learned up to now
• Since I’ll only be learning it for about a month, I won’t be aiming for fluency or high level conversational, but I do have a very fun end-goal!

Many more clues coming in the e-mail list on Monday!

If you think you have an idea, write your guesses in the comments below! Also, be sure to ask an interesting question about the language/mission/country and if it’s a good enough question (no boring technical linguistic questions please!), that doesn’t make the answer immediately obvious, I will answer it in Monday’s email among the clues!

And to make it even more interesting, I’ll take everyone who gets the answer right and add them to a random draw (using random.org to select) for one person to win their choice of 1) The full version of the Language Hacking Guide, 2) A language learning / travel consultation call with me or 3) a free copy my next interesting video-based project. But to be in that draw, you only get two guesses.

Also, if I’ve met you in person here in the states and told you where I’m going, please don’t say so in comments

Anyone else can guess all you like, but I won’t be replying directly or giving any more clues until the e-mail. Any other thoughts on language missions, let me know below!
Similar Posts:

• Mission complete! Partial success – What will Benny’s next mission be?
• Happy holidays and some quick questions!
• Il sabato della scoperta – Who wants a postcard / What’s Benny’s next mission?
• Quechua: Quick overview and Benny speaking it with natives
• Fluent in 3 months language missions: Frequently Asked Questions

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What will Benny’s next language be? is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

While I usually travel to new countries for cultural immersion, and learning the local language hugely enhances that experience, for the next four weeks I’m taking a fun diversion!

My next language is Klingon.

For those of you who don’t know it, it’s the fictional language used by one particular alien species on the TV show (and movies) Star Trek. Believe it or not, this is an actually well enough developed language and has a huge following of enthusiastic speakers, as well as literature (you can even buy Hamlet translated to Klingon).

The language was developed by a linguist for the show, with more features added to allow it to grow, and has inspired similar alien languages such as Nav’i. Apparently, you can say quite a lot in Klingon!

While I haven’t watched TV in years, I grew up with Star Trek and would definitely call myself a “trekkie”. Hopefully the image of me in a Klingon costume with my shiny new four foot long Bat’leth will make that clear I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to travel with it…

Speak the language in 3.5 weeks at the official Star Trek convention

As you know, I wouldn’t quite learn a language for the sake of it, but to actually use it, and Klingon is no exception! Yes, I do intend to actually speak it!

You see, I’ll be going to the 45th official Star Trek convention in Chicago! (Details here) I’ve already booked a photo shoot with Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), Brent Spiner (Data) and Jonathon Frakes (Riker) and am looking forward to the unique experience of something I’ve only heard rumours about!

The convention will also (of course) have many high level speakers of Klingon, as well as “A Klingon Christmas Carol” performance, given entirely in Klingon.

My goal will be to find one or more other speakers and to interview them on camera in Klingon during that weekend. (i.e. a spontaneous conversation, rather than an easy to make rehearsed speech). Normally I have way more than 25 days to prepare, but that’s all part of the fun of this mission!

Come October, I’ll be back to learning “real” languages, but I look forward to this unique challenge!

So follow along with me in this mission and see if I can apply my usual communicative learning approach to boldly go where no language hacker has gone before!!
Similar Posts:

• What will Benny’s next language be?
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• New mission: Speak any language, anywhere
• Il sabato della scoperta – Who wants a postcard / What’s Benny’s next mission?

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New mission: Speak Klingon in time for the Star Trek convention is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZHqMYM9PO4

Here it is! My first attempt at speaking Turkish (first minute of the video), followed by a look around where I live (in English).

Technically I arrived over a week and a half ago, but I’m calling this the end of my first week because I mostly just slept or was dreadfully tired my first days due to flight problems and didn’t achieve anything in terms of getting to know the city or the language in that time.

Due to lack of natural light in my apartment, I continue to sleep in very late (sunlight, rather than alarm clocks, are what has been waking me up for years) and be awake until very late as a consequence, so I may just have to accept this for the moment and work with it, even though I usually do my best work/study in the morning.

But there is no time to waste! I’ve studied some basic vocabulary, flicked through a grammar book (a more in-depth study will come in a few weeks when I have a decent flow of the language), and hit people with a few words. Ordering food and asking directions is never a problem, but I’m finally starting to get the basic gist of what some people say when they speak slowly to me about more general things. Paying attention to context and non-verbal cues help a lot.

My biggest challenge so far with the basics of the language is the reverse order of sentences requiring me to think backwards. I’ll get used to this quickly (Hungarian has something similar, although it’s even less familiar in Turkish) and it will become second nature, but in initial stages it does require some “rewiring”.

For example, in the video as I was speaking, I had to think not what you read in the subtitles but “Instabul-to welcome! One week-since more-than here-I-am…”

Just to be clear: I had a native translate the introduction for me in advance and learned it to recite for the camera. So I can’t speak spontaneously like that yet, but I hope to be able to by August.

However, I was genuinely thinking about what to say rather than reciting noise, and understand the structure of what I was saying. Simply preparing to make this video and learning it has pushed me that extra bit harder, which is a boost I needed from my initial slow start. I would have liked to have done several takes, but my camera battery was about to run out, so this really is my first ever attempt!

This pressure and distraction also meant that I didn’t point the camera anywhere interesting for that first minute – sorry about that!

Oh yes, and here are those cats from the video again – they sleep in this flower pot in front of my house every night, and there are a lot of them around this part of the city!

Settling in

As stated in the video, I live in a very central area, close to lots of nightlife and western comforts. Eating as a vegetarian has been no problem here. I’ve had very little culture shock here, and was surprised that the dress sense isn’t different at all in this area (very pretty Turkish girls in mini skirts can be seen everywhere in the evenings; something you certainly won’t hear me complaining about!)

I also managed to invite a cute Turkish waitress out for dinner with relative ease and walk hand-in-hand all the way there, so all my stereotypes about male-female interactions in this Muslim country are being destroyed. I imagine Istanbul is an exception in the country, but it’s great to see how secular it really is.

I have yet to get over to the Asian side – I will discover it with time, and will spend several full days there of course. I’ll also try to get out of Istanbul once in the next weeks to see another part of the country.

I’ve gone to some expat meetings and as expected many of them (living here much longer than me) haven’t bothered to learn the language yet. The local Couchsurfing meetings seem to be populated almost entirely by Turks, but many go there with hopes of practising English with foreigners, so I’ll be trying to branch off into different social groups as soon as I can.

There is a lot to discover considering how much of the city I have been restricting myself to, but I look forward to taking my time to get to know it, especially within a few weeks as my improved Turkish allows me to communicate better.

If you have any thoughts on what I’ve done so far in Istanbul or on my Turkish, let us know in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• Istanbul not Constantinople, Benny’s music video in Turkish
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• First week settling into Amsterdam
• Next mission: American Sign Language!
• First impressions of the Philippines

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First week in Istanbul, where I live & first (video) attempt at Turkish! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Hello from Istanbul – my new home for the next two months! My mission is to speak conversational Turkish by mid August!

This will bring the total number of languages I’ve dived into this year to four (Tagalog, ASL, Dutch & now Turkish) as I had initially set out to do. I’m only giving myself two months as I’ll have other things that I’ve already set time for from mid-August.

Anyway, I’ve just arrived and within three hours I’ve moved into my new apartment, walked 5 minutes down to Galata bridge to snap this quick photo with a Mosque and the sea of Marmara in the background, and written this post. I’ve actually been travelling for over three full days from the other side of the planet and am exhausted.

So, the mission begins as soon as I wake up tomorrow after some well needed rest I plan on being able to converse spontaneously in Turkish, at about the same level as I had reached in Hungarian last year, before I leave.

Turkish will obviously be an interesting challenge, as it isn’t remotely related (linguistically) to anything I’ve ever learned before. I’m starting from scratch of course! But I don’t plan on pessimistically whining about how hard it is – I’ll learn it and I’ll speak it – simple as that.

As always this is not a linguistic mission. The reason I am here has nothing to do with Turkish being in a different language family (every day I get suggested new languages to learn by email, twitter or Facebook for that reason alone), or because it would be a “challenge”. I am here to meet and get to know Turkish people. As I keep saying, English speaking tourists are terribly restricted from doing this everywhere in the world, and I hope my own demonstrations, explanations and encouragement will inspire others to stop being so damn lazy as they travel.

But yes, I’ll be sure to share my language-only realisations with you too For example, Turkish is written using the same script as most European languages so this makes my job that extra bit easier as I don’t have to worry about learning a new script.

The idea of living in Turkey (and more specifically, Istanbul) has fascinated me for a long time. This one city is on the actual transition between Europe and Asia, with both cultures colliding and getting along fabulously. My flight landed in Asia, but as I crossed the bridge to “go home” I saw a sign that said “Welcome to Europe“.

It is also the first Muslim country I have ever lived in, but it is also a secular country, which gives it way more of a western sense of liberty, while still keeping true to its own culture. I see it as absolutely perfect to transition into Asia (as I will be spending more time there next year), while still having many features of western culture that I appreciate.

I look forward to getting to know about these cultural aspects, and challenges contained in them, and sharing them on the blog with you over the next two months, while I improve on my conversational skills enough to be able to make friends who speak little or no English at all. As always, weekly updates will be sent in the email list and I’ll occasionally (like next week) give a blog post update about the mission, as I write about other things that have helped me to learn my languages!

So what do you think? Want to follow my Istanbul adventure? Have any words of wisdom? Share them with us in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• First week in Istanbul, where I live & first (video) attempt at Turkish!
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• What will Benny’s next language be?
• Mission: Conversational Hungarian in 3 months
• New mission: Speak any language, anywhere

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New mission: Speak Turkish in two months! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

OK, so you have put in the time and can now speak a language at a confident level. But maybe the course that helped to get you there has ended, or your stay abroad is over and it’s time to go home.

What do you do to make sure that you don’t forget that language?

My own list of forgotten languages and understanding why

Something that is quite unique in my travels and lifestyle is the reason I have to learn a language of immediate use with natives in my travels, to enhance my cultural experience. This is not quite the same as many people, who choose their one language based on a long-term investment. A polyglot has many languages to deal with and this changes things significantly compared to someone with a one-language priority.

What this means is at the end of my 2-3 month “missions” I face a crossroad; should I maintain this language or not? Some people may take a “not” choice completely out of context and feel like the whole experience was worthless.

Every language I have learned has enhanced my travels in ways that I can’t begin to express. Saying that it was a waste of time is just arrogant, ignoring the cultural experience that was my priority all along. I’m not passionate about languages, I’m passionate about using them.

Maintaining them as described below is so much work for such a large number that if that passion doesn’t spark a lifelong interest in the language, then I simply will not prioritise it. This is obviously not the same situation for someone who has learned one foreign language.

A consequence of this is that as much experience as I have in learning and speaking languages; eight of which I can now say I speak fluently, I have plenty of experience too in forgetting languages.

I have learned Hungarian, Czech, Catalan and Tagalog and could converse and socialise in all of them in various levels. But now I can’t. Nowadays, I’d never even list them as languages that I can get by in to be honest. But I don’t apologise for this or lose sleep over it. I knew it was going to happen.

So what did I do differently with my successfully maintained 8 languages compared to these?

Consistent practice

The “secret” (no surprise) is simply consistently using the language so it is always fresh in your mind.

Of course you can come up with lazy excuses why this is not possible, but the truth is that you can always find ways to use those languages. Find natives to meet in person via social networks, use certain sites to find people to talk to by Skype, be friendlier with tourists, join clubs and actively monitor your social circle and environment for opportunities to use the language. All of these are ways you can speak your language immediately.

To maintain other aspects (reading, writing, listening etc.) maintain these by doing them. Listen to podcasts in the target language, read blogs or online news or an entire book in that language, keep in touch with your foreign friends by chatting to them on Facebook or writing them emails; but do this every day.

The language will deteriorate in your mind if you don’t keep it active. Having learned it “once” does not mean you now own it forever; use it or lose it!

Speed of learning

As far as I can tell, there is only one major disadvantage to my rapid learning strategy, although it’s hardly really a disadvantage if you genuinely compare it to the alternative for the same amount of time: the quicker you learn it, the quicker you’ll forget it.

If you dive in intensively into your language learning project, and reach high conversational level or fluency after a few months, then you have to be sure that you are consistently maintaining it until it is definitely a permanent part of you. I found with the languages listed above that within just a few months, I could forget the vast majority of my ability to communicate in these languages; I forgot it as quickly as I learned it.

So if you learned your language over years (actually using it, not simply being present in a classroom for something that could only laughably be called “years”), then you will be much less likely to forget it as quick. Spanish is the language I’ve put the most time into for example, and I am confident that I could cut myself off from the language entirely for a year (for example) and get back into it no problem. I’ve spoken and lived through Spanish so much that it’s burned into me.

But the point is that I wouldn’t cut myself off from Spanish. Why would I do that? If you genuinely want to speak a language for life, it will always be there for you to use. Even with almost a two-digit number of languages competing for time with me, I will always give the important ones the time they deserve (what makes a language important depends on you, not some economic etc. criteria or what someone else says).

With this in mind, even though I’m certainly aware of the danger of forgetting a language quicker due to learning it quicker, I still think this hardly counts as a “disadvantage”. You’ll only forget it if you aren’t using it. This is true whether you learned it quickly or slowly, only the speed of deterioration is different. After I had learned the other languages in my list quickly and intensively, I have kept up the good work of consistently using them and I will never forget them because of that.

Passion and the why

The main reason I will never forget my eight languages and certain future ones I take on, while I will forget others, is because I am passionate about the former beyond a fixed point in time when they served me a purpose of cultural immersion. That one thing, the why that sparked a flame inside me during my experience in the country, means that I will never let it go.

If you don’t want to ever forget a given language, don’t ever let it go. Make it an important part of your life; reading books and keeping in touch with friends is never a chore, but something that would leave a huge hole in your life if taken away.

Forgetting Dutch?

While in Amsterdam, I’ve found it terribly difficult to make friends here and to get used to certain “organised” aspects of the culture. There are positive sides to all of this that I will share in some observations in a blog post soon, but unfortunately the challenges it posed me personally have been frustrating.

Dutch hasn’t sparked the same passion in me as Portuguese or Italian for example. However, I have learned quite a lot about the Dutch by consistently making socialising with them my priority; way more than I feel many foreigners (most of whom simply stay among one another, especially in Amsterdam) would have in just two months. Despite frustration, my time in Amsterdam has been a positive learning experience.

If I was going back “home” now (not that I actually have a home anywhere), I could try to respark that interest in other ways; discovering Dutch literature, getting into Dutch movies, meeting Dutch people abroad who may perhaps relate to my way of thinking a little more. But in fact (after a brief trip to North America), I’m going to begin an entirely new language starting mid-June (announced on June 6th in the website’s e-mail list). My focus for several months will be mostly on diving into that language, and partially on maintaining languages that I truly am passionate about, so my Dutch will likely fade quickly.

Having said that, I’m not bidding farewell to Dutch! Life in Amsterdam wasn’t quite for me (beautiful as the city is), but there are other places in the world that this language can get me far in, which I’m curious to get to know some day. Within a few months I’ll no longer be able to socialise in Dutch as I can right now, but with a bit of work I’ll bring it back to life some time later!

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More thoughts on my time in Amsterdam, and about the language itself, as well as a video with some gorgeous canal scenery (actually recorded in Spanish) coming up on the blog soon enough!

How do you make sure you don’t forget a language that you’ve brought up to a great level? Let us know in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!
• First week settling into Amsterdam
• How much time does it take to learn a language?
• Next mission: Read and speak Thai in 8 weeks
• Speed dating in Dutch: 25 completely different conversations with natives, 5 weeks into learning the language

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Forgetting a language: Why it happens and how to avoid it is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

I’m exactly five weeks into my mission to speak Dutch. While there are major advantages of my German and my English giving me a head start thanks to many linguistic similarities, I have had a major set-back in this mission that has been slowing me down tremendously; simply finding opportunities to converse!

Dutch culture is different to others I am used to; everyone has been very nice and polite to me, and nobody speaks English to me, but after a brief first conversation they tend to disappear, and there is little hope of seeing them again due to their always packed schedules. They are a bit too organised.

Luckily I am finally getting through to some people and starting to socialise properly, hanging out for hours or even almost an entire day, speaking just in Dutch. But for the most part, when I meet people I tend to have a similar first introduction conversation over and over again. This is a terrible way to make progress to be able to discuss many different topics required to be fluent in a language.

While I continue to meet people that I can converse more deeply with, I decided to tackle the problem in a unique different way; I need my brief first conversations (which are easy to find) to be unique so I’m discussing something different and improving my language skills in different ways. So I had a crazy idea:

Speed dating as a tool for language learning!

Speed dating is a relatively new concept, apparently started by Jewish communities in the late 90s to help shy people pair-off. I had only ever seen it on some American TV shows, and not really thought much about it.

I don’t generally have a problem getting dates as I travel; I don’t need any chat-up lines or clever tricks. My secret is that I simply don’t think about it so much. I see someone I like, I go up and talk to her and if we hit it off, I invite her out. No overanalysing about what if she’ll say no or trying to sound clever or impressive. I simply invite people I like to meet again. Not that complicated. I like inviting girls out on dates as it’s a fun way to get to know someone more intimately, and it’s a great way to practice a language and window into the local culture. (And yes, because I just happen to like spending time with a fun pretty girl because I’m a single guy, so sue me).

Only, for the first time in a while (apart from Paris) it isn’t working because of the different dynamic in inviting people out here. You generally don’t meet someone up this week for coffee or lunch; you have to propose a time long in advance and understand the Dutch need to be organised; something which contrasts with my preference for spontaneity. Also, Dutch people have their set network of friends and it’s turning out to be incredibly hard to break into that.

If the majority of my conversations with the Dutch are going to be brief, then I decided to think of a better way to take advantage of these conversations. Speed dating just hit me as the obvious way to test it out, and I found a place that organises it and had a session for 20-35 year olds last night!

It turns out the website I got it through only accept Dutch bank payments (€32), so I knew it was unlikely I’d find other foreigners there, confirming how useful it would be to get to know locals. I got my flatmate to pay for me, and signed up for what I considered simply an excellent and unique opportunity to practice Dutch with 25 people!

To make it more interesting though, I gave myself the challenge that each of my mini dates (lasting only 3-5 minutes) must involve talking about something completely different. (And of course they must be in Dutch). I can’t just rattle off the same introduction and ask the same questions or I won’t learn anything.

I actually had little interest in finding the girl of my dreams (I’m leaving in 3 weeks!) – the idea of experiencing this speed-dating phenomenon is something I had to try once. I don’t have a bucket list (and don’t like the idea of listing things months or years in advance to tick off in my life), but speed dating was certainly on my spontaneous fuck-it (why not) list! Doing it in a language I’m not yet fully comfortable in just made it all the more interesting

25 ways to not talk about the weather

I find it incredible when people tell me that they have “nothing to talk about” when they find an opportunity to practice a language, and suggest that all you can do is discuss the weather. So, I’ll actually tell you exactly what I remember talking about last night.

I was going to save this story for my weekly mission update following a language learning tip in the Language Hacking League email list (which you can subscribe to on the right of the site or at the end of this post), but the evening was so much fun that it deserves a full blog post! On Thursday I’ll get emailed if any of these girls actually decided that I was a good “match”, and the answer to that (whether it’s several or zero) will be given in next Monday’s email! [Edit: Actually they already emailed me, quicker than expected! How many and if we met up described in Monday's newsletter ]

However, since my goal was simply to chat rather than convincing them that I’m soulmate-worthy material, and told most of them I was leaving soon, I’m not sure if they would care to see me again. But you never know, maybe Irish charm does work on Dutch girls!

So I arrived, asked the hotel receptionist where the speed-dating was going down and found the hostess explaining how it works. She checked my name against the bookings and gave me my booklet of girls’ names. As you can imagine, she was certainly not speaking slowly for the benefit of foreigners! But I managed to understand most of it. She pointed out the tables, shown in the photo above, and said that the girls will stay in the same place they are assigned and each time the bell rings, the guys will move up a table. You can tick off “Ja” or “Nee” for if you’d like to see that person again.

People were still arriving so she said to wait in the bar and get a complimentary drink. I got myself an O.J. and stood there wondering what-the-hell I was I doing, when suddenly two of the girls saw me by myself and invited me to sit with them! I actually had a good 20 minute conversation with them before the event even started! I told them why I was in Amsterdam, mentioned my travels, and the blog, got to know them too a bit and then the hostess called us all in.

Only… there was a problem! Even though the speed-dating hadn’t really begun yet, I had talked about my blog and travels, so I wasn’t allowed to discuss that any more for the rest of the night! The only thing I could repeat were basic things like my name, the fact that I’ve been in Amsterdam a month, and a casual mention that I’m a writer, without necessarily expanding on it. For more interesting conversations I needed to find common ground, or talk more about her obviously.

I sat down to my assigned table, said that my name was Benny and she said she couldn’t see me on her sheet. “Oh, um… actually my name is Brendan sorry!” (I put my actual name in the application rather than the nickname I always go by, in case the speed-date organisers asked to see my ID). Being confused about my own name was hardly the best start I’d make this mistake several times in a row actually!

In later mini-dates, I just started mid-conversation and skipped the boring “Hello, my name is Brendan” intro. They’d ask my name at the end so that they knew precisely where to mark that nee (or perhaps a ja or two somewhere, I’ll find out soon enough!)

It seems like I blew the first date; we talked about how she has to get the train back to Rotterdam so she probably won’t be staying too late. I don’t think many sparks were flying in that conversation!

Next!

Onward, and in the second date I started with a merry “So… [read her name tag] – Why did you decide to go on a speed-date today then?”

Such strange first openers perhaps weren’t helping my Ja-quota, but I had nothing to lose! She told me about how hard it is meeting a man in Amsterdam, and I said that it’s hard meeting people in general in this country, told her about my own difficulties in doing so and said I was seriously thinking of befriending all the canal ducks in the city instead. She got a great laugh out of that and asked me the same question.

“Why, I signed up to this speed-dating for some Dutch practice of course! €32 for 25 intensive chats in the language with a drink included! That’s much cheaper than the going rate for private conversation lessons!” Another laugh – things were going much better! She told me that it’s probably the cleverest idea she’s ever heard for practising a language. Ironically, by saying that I’m not here to meet a girl, I think that she may have actually given me a ja!

The next girl told me how she has always dreamed of going to Ireland so I gave her some travel tips and advised her to go to Galway rather than Dublin, and the next girl was shocked to see that I was speaking Dutch at my current level after just a month. Most of them were very impressed by this, but I tried to change the subject quickly to get the best out of the time I had. She was very curious though, so I said that I got to this stage by speaking as much as I could, every day if possible, from the very first day. I should actually be speaking better than this, but not meeting many people so frequently is slowing me down.

Her jaw had still dropped, so I added that German and English are helping me, and that I was actually doing many things she wasn’t taking into account. I told her to observe my body language and how comfortably I’m speaking, leaning back, nodding as she speaks to confirm I understand, cushioning my speech with normally irrelevant filler words (you know, like etc. in English and eens, maar, even in Dutch), and how this actually adds to an “illusion” of me speaking better than I actually am. I’m not hesitating; when I don’t know a word I’ll use a workaround quickly, whereas most people at my current level will second-guess themselves and give out the impression that they know way less than they really do.

The bell rang and I had a feeling she’d probably come ask me more questions during the break.

The last girl before the pause was very pretty; probably the youngest one there (21 or so). Unfortunately I don’t remember what we talked about I put her down as a ja, but I suspect I’m a nee! haha

The break is always the most interesting part

Something I find is that the best parts of many organised social events tend to be in the breaks between what the event is actually about. In recent conferences I’ve been to, I’ve found that the actual talks didn’t teach me much that I didn’t know already, but I made some amazing connections in the hallways on the way to some talk.

It was the same with speed-dating. The conversations being squeezed into just a few minutes feel a bit forced; I tried my best to start random and interesting discussions, but in the bar in the two breaks and at the end we were all just chatting normally and this was much more enjoyable. Simply bringing together lots of single people with some interesting twist to it seems to be the smartest part of the whole thing.

I got to know a lot of people, including the other guys. One of the girls I had talked to announced to the small group I was in that my Dutch was at this level after a month (something I hadn’t brought up) and this was sort of a mini-introduction to people I’d end up sitting with shortly after. Apparently this little linguistic parlour trick of mine had been the most interesting thing happening so far in the evening.

I tried to shrug it off as just a natural consequence of speaking somewhat intensively over a month and told them that I’ve met many people who have done similar things. They all agreed, but added that it was more impressive that I was an English speaker doing this. I had to give in and say that yes, generally, English speakers are the laziest language learners in the world, but that we have other redeeming qualities. Although at the time I couldn’t think of any to list…

More dates

Back in, and I continued switching between a few different topics. Some of the times I stuck to discussing the other person’s job, and others I talked about something completely random to really test myself (and likely, their patience). To help break the ice I related something I share about their jobs or interests. One girl was a primary school teacher, so I shared my woes of teaching rowdy 6 year old Spaniards English.

The next one did all the talking. For all she knew I was Dutch myself…

Another one worked in marketing, so I asked her about what kind of psychology is involved in that and shared a story I read once about changing the phrasing in a hotel’s request to reuse your towel by emphasising how others do it too. Her face lit up as I was saying this; it seems like nobody else had anything clever to add about marketing.

Another girl told me that she would love to actually speak English with me, but her level is terrible. I’ve been meeting quite a few Dutch people who confirm that this myth that they all speak perfect English isn’t true. I could have spoken English to her in our mini-date, but instead of losing my momentum I decided to “teach her to fish, rather than give her a fish” so to speak. I gave her a bunch of tips for how she could speak English pretty much all the time in Amsterdam, such as by hosting Couchsurfers and attending those meet-ups.

She told me that my level in Dutch was incredible for the time I’ve spend speaking it. The bell rang before I could retort to assure her there is nothing magical about what I’m doing, and it’s just about applying the right techniques.

Cupid’s arrow

After the last pause and more chatting to people, I could already see some couples starting to pair off, going back to the tables to continue some intimate conversation. This speed-dating thing actually seemed to be working!

Not so well for me though! My first date in the last session was a girl who was totally uninterested in talking to me. I think she thought I was lying when I said I had been learning Dutch for just a month. The conversation was so dry that I actually had to resort to asking “So… any travel plans this summer?” out of the blue. As soon as I stood up, I could see her tick nee for me immediately. (Usually they’d wait until you were gone). Yikes!

I actually had to wait over a minute to sit down at the next table; the guy in front of me was still locked in some incredibly deep conversation with my next date. After several “ahem” fake coughs, the hostess actually had to come to break them up! When I sat down I said “Well, I know two people who are definitely giving one another a yes today!” She found it funny – so I went on to point out who I figure cupid’s arrow has struck tonight. Since my time ran out much quicker than normal, I didn’t quite get to shine myself – but there probably wasn’t much point. Destiny had spoken as far as I could tell!

As I was moving to the next table I noticed a girl I had already sat with make “ugh, no way!!” faces about her previous date to a friend that he was about to sit with. I told her that I saw that, but leaned in and added that I had talked to him at the bar and agree with her.

Back to my last table, and it was with one of the girls who had paired off already. I could tell that her mind was elsewhere, so I asked her how she found the website for this speed dating thing. It was hard to engage with her in conversation – as soon as the bell rang, I almost saw a Warner Brother’s style cloud left from her dashing off so quickly.

While there were some bumps, I actually managed to engage in good and unique conversations with almost all of the women! My level of Dutch was complimented constantly and not even mentioned in many conversations as important. I don’t remember having any difficulty understanding anything that was said to me or asking them to repeat it.

I looked over my paper, thought about who I enjoyed talking to and marked maybe a third as ja and handed in my sheet. Back in the bar I was talking again to several people; strangely enough most of the guys had vanished by now. I casually asked one of the girls how many jas she had put down. I knew I wasn’t going to be one of them, so it was purely statistical curiosity.

She kind of under her breath told me: ONE. It turns out most girls here put one or two down, while I marked everyone who I simply didn’t find boring as someone I’d be happy to meet again. Whether I do meet them again or not will be seen on Thursday (as I said, I’ll share what happens with email subscribers after the weekend) [Edit: actually I know already, sooner than expected], but I’m not too concerned to be honest. I got precisely what I wanted out of the night! Anything else is just a bonus.

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Obviously, speed dating is hardly a good universal solution for language practice, but the point is that this is just one of many random things I try and apply to make sure I get practice. It’s important to be open to new experiences; I was sceptical about speed dating, but it turns out most people there were actually attractive, level headed and very interesting. Then there are crazies like me of course

Hopefully this rather detailed account of a rather strange Monday night out shows you that there are many ways you can converse with people. Sometimes they will be up for it, sometimes they won’t. Just go on to the next person and strike up an interesting conversation. I have yet to talk about the weather or other similar “conversation crutches” in any of my languages, even in the initial stages.

Think you’d ever go on a speed date (if you are/were single) in the country before you were fluent in the language? If you enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!
• Solo travel hacking: How to make new friends using a stethoscope and 200 ear plugs
• Forgetting a language: Why it happens and how to avoid it
• Language, culture and context are intertwined
• Why I love Brazilians (& Br. Portuguese)

----------------------------
Speed dating in Dutch: 25 completely different conversations with natives, 5 weeks into learning the language is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

This detailed post describes how my first week in Amsterdam went.

As requested, I’ll be giving regular updates on how I’ve been adjusting to a new culture and learning a new language. In future I’ll send this update (which will likely be much shorter and include occasional videos) to the Language Hacking League, so sign up for that e-mail on the right of the site or at the end of this post to receive more! Next week I’ll include a video tour of my flat in Dutch (with subtitles) just for people on that list!

Day 0 – Arriving exhausted

Calling this day 1 would imply that it was firstly an entire day in Amsterdam, and secondly that I was in some way lucid enough to experience sensations of time passing.

Neither of these are true.

I started flying on Monday (Day -1) at 11AM EST and got into Brussels at 7AM CET on Tuesday. For the first time in such trips I didn’t get any sleep at all on the red-eye flight, not even a 5 minute wink. This combined with the general annoyances of travelling with all my worldly possessions meant that I arrived in Europe exhausted.

By the time I made it to Amsterdam (by train) a little after midday it had been over a day since I slept. The only thing in the world I wanted was a bed at that time, but being the “super organised” lad I am, I didn’t even have a temporary place to sleep that first night!

Despite all of these problems, I’d end up having one of my most efficient first days in a country yet!

A blog reader met me at the train station to offer a hand in getting me started in the city, likely being quite disappointed that I wasn’t the energetic friendly face from the blog. I looked like crap, needed a shower and felt like a non-Energizer bunny. I kept starting to say something and then forgot mid-sentence what the hell I was talking about, and this was in English!

It was great to have someone to steer me in the right direction – I seriously couldn’t think straight. (Thanks Emma!)

Getting organised

I went online to book a hotel for that night, dumped my bags there and allowed myself a 20 minute nap. I do this all the time anyway, but in general it’s one of the best ways to get over jetlag and exhaustion quicker. Simply going to sleep for 8 hours at 3pm would have messed up my entire first week. So I dragged myself out of bed (with every gadget I own making noise to make sure I got up) and soldiered on!

First thing was first: I needed a bike! I decided to simply buy one brand new in a shop I saw recommended online and I know I’ll easily sell it for 3/4 of the price before I leave.

Next priority: SIM card! Unlike in the states, every other country in the world makes it very easy and cheap to get a prepaid SIM card with data. The Netherlands stayed true to this! Now I was mobile and had access to searchable Google Maps with GPS.

Finding my apartment on that first day

After a bite to eat I got back online and examined my options. The reason I was so badly organised is because someone told me they had a place for me that would have been perfect, and I had planned to go straight there on arrival. However, she changed her mind the day before I arrived! That was not a fun email to read!

So I hadn’t been looking at all for several days – not ideal considering how incredibly hard everyone told me finding a place in Amsterdam would be. But as tired as I was, I still had a lot of experience finding a place to live quickly. One thing I do is to never put all my eggs in one basket.

I had been looking hard for the week before coming, using twitter and my email list to see if someone could help me out, answering a bunch of free ads online and writing in several forums. But nothing had come of that. So I decided to just fork over €25 to put my own ad up on kamernet.nl. I got a couple of replies, but nothing solid. I needed to put on my thinking cap! I had a sneaky idea of rewording my ad a particular way and then I got a load of replies!

One of those replies was the lady who had “secured” her place for me, but all the other interesting ones got a reply of – “I’ll email you as I’m arriving to see if it’s still free”. This way they wouldn’t wastefully hold it for me, but I hadn’t burned any bridges. I’m very glad I did this because I got in touch with my second favourite place, emailed, got a reply and went and saw it that first night!

At 10pm I was so unbelievably tired; I really can’t emphasise this enough! But I made it to this place, checked it out and confirmed that I wanted it. It’s only a 10 minute cycle from central Amsterdam and a gorgeous apartment. I’ll record a video this week, try to do it in Dutch, and share it in next week’s update sent to the email list.

Day 1 – moving in

So, I was  very glad that I had refused to just go to sleep on arrival, since I had solved my most pressing issues all before my first night’s sleep! I went back to the hotel, appropriately on Oudezijds Voorburgwal, the famous red light district! And I got a great night’s sleep!

Day 1 wasn’t so interesting, since all I did was move my things in, do some shopping, unpack, walk around the area. Rather than renting an apartment to myself, I actually have two Dutch flatmates! But I have only seen one so far, and I’ve only seen him twice all week. The flat is weird in that we have our own separate dining rooms and living rooms; you’ll see in the video!

Day 2 – getting started on Dutch

Convincing the Dutch to listen to my first attempts at their language would have required enthusiasm and energy; neither of which I had on arrival. So two days into the country I still didn’t even know a few basic words!

Normally, I do some decent studying on the flight over, but I was in a horrible stalemate on the whole flight of being too tired to focus and yet not tired enough to fall asleep.

So I got started on my study material after having moved into the flat. All I had so far was Rosetta Stone, which I will be using intensively for the purposes of writing a very detailed review to compare it to other language learning materials.

After a week I’ve gotten through all of level 1 (of 3) and the software still hasn’t told me how to say “please”! (But I can tell you that’s a red dress or a green sock; clearly more important…) So I quickly learned that this is not the kind of thing to use when you need to speak immediately, nor was it designed for that. Its possible benefits after going through the full program will be something I’ll end up discussing.

Since I really can’t rely on Rosetta Stone to help me quickly, I’ll also be using the Teach Yourself book for the moment, since I’ve found that series good in other languages, as well as SRS on my phone.

However, after getting through the first part of Rosetta Stone I did find one major advantage, which will end up being the main reason I use the program: live video lessons from a human being! Without this I may have given up on using it entirely for the reasons I’ll outline in the final review, but spending almost an hour with a native Dutch tutor is a worthwhile milestone to go through their strange lessons.

The best part is that the tutors stay true to the no-English policy of the program (which is a bit too simplified at times; you simply cannot represent every concept with images…), which meant that the first time I used it I was in a 50 minute session that was only in Dutch, and I was participating actively!

Like any good teacher she did not give in and switch over to the student’s native language, so this got me into speaking the language in a way that may not have happened in an initial attempt at Dutch in the street. Someone getting paid to help you is of course going to have its advantages! I can only really do this twice a week though because the times of the lessons are dreadfully inconvenient (4AM anyone?) for anyone not living in the states, apart from two 11PM sessions…

The “conversation” was about what colour the dog is and how many trees there are – very classroom-esque and hardly an actual conversation, but at least it gave me that initial boost. I used it as an opportunity to go beyond the script and threw in a few other observations about the photos and managed to tell her that I’ve just moved to Amsterdam etc.

Day 3 – First impressions of Amsterdam

Now it was time to cycle around the city a little bit!

The weather was terrible the day I arrived (which certainly didn’t help how I was already feeling quite grumpy!) but ever since then the sun has been splitting the stones (as we say in Ireland).

Cycling around Amsterdam is such a pleasant experience, especially when coming directly from car-obsessed USA. Bridges over canals everywhere, proper cycle lanes with special bike-specific traffic lights at many junctions, and priority for bikes in many places! It’s great!

And most Dutch bikes are like mine; they have no handbrakes! It takes some getting used to, but you peddle backwards to brake.

The one thing that’s quite hard to get used to is the amount of bikes! I’ve never seen so many at once – I’m not used to being among so many cyclists, so I’ve had some trouble getting used to the “bike rules of the road” and have had to overuse “sorry” (also said in Dutch) quite a lot as I nearly crash into people…

The city is gorgeous and I’m really glad I picked it! I’ll try to spend as little time as possible at the apartment and even do my typing and online work while out. I want to absorb as much of this city as I can!

I have had some trouble adjusting to the prices though – I’ve been living in relatively cheap places like South America and Asia for quite a while (even last year in Europe in Berlin and Budapest were not that pricey), but Amsterdam is definitely an expensive city. Ideally I’d spend all day out, but I’ll have to be home to cook most of the time if I don’t want to run out of money again!

Everywhere I go refuses to give me tap water, which is so damn annoying. If I’m already paying €10 for a very basic meal, or entrance to a night club, that’s apparently not enough! At least €2.50 needs to be added on top of that for a tiny bottle of water I could down in one gulp.

It seems pretty much all of the centre is like this. You don’t need to be rich to travel and one way I have been able to stretch my money so far is by going out regularly but simply not consuming anything but water. Drinking “socially” is a waste of time in my opinion. It’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to do that here. I’ll probably end up getting one orange juice and sip it all night as if it were €5000 wine.

Weekend – Getting social!

Since I’ve been far from Europe, it’s been a while since I properly flexed my polyglot muscles, so I’ve been enjoying speaking a lot of Italian and Portuguese especially over the weekend! I went out to an Erasmus party first and was surprised to see how late it started. Nights out in Amsterdam seem to be similar timing to in Spain, with nobody going to nightclubs until 1AM at the earliest.

I tried my Dutch with some people there and they shot me down. I suppose I could conclude from this that all hope is lost, I should give up the mission entirely and it’s true that the Dutch will never help me, but that’s a crybaby approach of overreacting to a bad situation to use it in the first place.

Despite what some people think, I have no intention of walking up to strangers, tapping them on the shoulder and spouting Dutch at them. Nightclubs and similar events are probably the worst possible places to meet people (I go there to dance badly with friends I already have, not to make new ones).

I don’t expect everyone to enthusiastically want to help me learn their language, but all I need to do is find a few people that do and hang out with them I really don’t see it as that complicated. I’ve been warned that in Amsterdam “nobody” will want to speak Dutch with me, but I’ve heard this defeatist tune sung many many times before in other places. I will meet people who don’t want to help me, and that’s quite fine! I meet them all the time everywhere else – I just filter them out and find people who will help me.

I hung out with my Brazilian friend Letícia the next afternoon. (We worked in the same company as translators and she translated the Language Hacking Guide to Portuguese). Then Saturday night I went to a Couchsurfing party. Going regularly to such events would lead me down the expat trap and I’d likely learn little to no Dutch, but I was curious to talk to foreigners living here to find out about their experiences to help mine, and of course to meet some locals!

Yesterday – all day just in Dutch

Now that I’ve properly settled in, I finally felt ready to throw myself fully into the language. Yesterday I went shopping and asked where food was, asked for directions in the centre, asked a kid on my street about his cat, ordered lunch and did all other little things, while spending all day outside, just in Dutch.

Since I was properly trying, the myth of people forcing English on me vanished. Not one single person did it. It’s pretty clear from my hesitation, immense lack of vocabulary and accent that I’m not from here, but perhaps not having a strong English accent in general, and having an OK R means that they simply can’t place me anywhere and it would be rude to presume I speak English (I could be Russian or Greek or German or French for all they know).

So for brief superficial use of the language like this I don’t see it ever being an issue as long as I can find the right words to use.

On Sunday night I had a more natural conversation entirely in Dutch online. I added a local I met at the Couchsurfing party to Facebook and started chatting in there. Obviously in such an environment all the pressure is removed and I can use a dictionary and take my time to form full coherent sentences – for an entire hour we chatted away just in Dutch about many things.

So I am indeed using the language, but I haven’t thrown myself into proper in-person conversations as quickly in the same way I did in my first week in Berlin. Simply convincing locals to help me will be an important part of my work here, but I already know what is required for that and now that I’ve eased myself in (for an entire week; way too long as it is!) and have the base vocabulary I need, I’ll be meeting up with people for full conversations in person in Dutch this week.

Obviously, I’ll still be quite basic in what I can say, but so far so good for my end-target of conversational fluency by the end of May

One thing I started was to tweet in Dutch at least once a day, so you can follow that at my new account @meertalig.

My German is definitely helping a bit, so reading and even writing isn’t that huge of a challenge. But pronunciation is going to be a big part of my work. It’s been difficult for me to get used to the guttural ‘g’ (which would be more like the ‘g’ in go when used in German), as well as quite different vowel sounds. How much German really helps will be more clear as I get deeper into the language. Although most of what I am reading about Dutch so far is actually different to German.

Another challenge will be to simply not morph my German into Dutch, so I was happy to invite a German friend to stay with me for a few days next week, when I’ll be spending two whole days speaking just in German in the middle of the Dutch mission. I’ll make sure to speak plenty of German while here as part of my strategy to not mix up similar languages.

You’ll hear more about that and how I’ll have continued my progress next week though To follow the story then, join the email list!

If you have any thoughts on this first week or questions about anything I haven’t mentioned, let me know in the comments!
Similar Posts:

• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!
• Language, culture and context are intertwined
• Forgetting a language: Why it happens and how to avoid it
• First week in Istanbul, where I live & first (video) attempt at Turkish!
• Speed dating in Dutch: 25 completely different conversations with natives, 5 weeks into learning the language

----------------------------
First week settling into Amsterdam is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

It’s time for a new language mission! DUTCH!

I’ve just arrived in Amsterdam, and I plan to speak fluent Dutch by May 31st (so technically not even 2 months; actually in 8 weeks). There’s many ways to define fluency and I’m very precise about mine.

There are some obvious advantages I’ll have and some big challenges in this mission!!

Since Dutch is in the Germanic language family, actually about half way between English and German, I had to give myself less time if I was aiming for fluency! As it stands I can recognise quite a lot of words in the little Dutch I’ve been exposed to, mostly thanks to my German. So even though I’ve never studied this language before, I do indeed have more of a head-start than usual.

This would be a similar head-start as you would have moving from Spanish to Italian for example. Less work, but you are still taking on an entirely different language.

Saying that this will be easy is a huge exaggeration! Reaching fluency is an immense challenge no matter what the circumstances, and doing so in the ridiculously restrictive timespan of 8 weeks will put me under quite a lot of pressure!

As well as this, the Dutch have a reputation for having excellent English so I may have my work cut out for me (especially at the start) to simply even convince them to not speak English with me! These social challenges are way more important than recognising some vocabulary ever will be.

Luckily, I have plenty of tricks up my sleeve to make sure conversations will be in Dutch!

The core of speaking from day one explained in more detail

Readers of the blog have requested more day-to-day specific updates about how I am progressing in these missions. You would have seen me give such an example when I detailed my first week speaking German.

I’ll attempt to give a weekly update (the first one will likely be on the blog, but all other weekly updates will be sent only to the Language Hacking League, which you can sign up to on the right of the site or at the end of this post), as well as trying something much more revealing!

The core of Language Hacking in my eyes is not based on “how much” you know (number of words learned, amount of grammar rules revised etc.), but on how you apply the little you do know, and being confident enough to realise that you can do way more than it seems at first. Social dynamics, the ability to read people, body language, extrapolation, and even charm are essential skills for a language hacker. These are the tools that really let you communicate, especially when combined with traditional vocabulary & grammar based learning.

People who just learn languages with books are blissfully unaware of any of these aspects of real communication, and usually rely on nothing more than a count of their words learned as their excuse for not being “ready” yet. This is absolute rubbish.

I’ll try to demonstrate this by recording videos of some of my first conversations in Dutch and analysing the content to explain what I’m doing. I’ll present this in a way that makes it easier to follow to show people how it is DEFINITELY possible to speak a language from day one, no matter what that language is. It will be easier for me to apply these in Dutch obviously, but I’ve used the same techniques in languages unrelated to anything I had learned before like Czech and Hungarian.

Hopefully I’ll find people who don’t mind being recorded to converse with me on camera. Since I’ll be putting a lot of work into making everything clear, it’ll be several weeks before the end result is ready, but I’ll otherwise write updates every week, with what’s working and with the biggest challenges I’m facing.

In the next post, on Thursday, I’ll talk about the kind of materials I tend to use for studying and what I’ll be using during this mission.

Why Dutch?

Once again, I want to emphasise that I don’t travel to learn languages.

I learn languages to enhance my travel experience. Dutch in itself doesn’t interest me at all – every language is a means to an end. To me that end is people.

Making Dutch friends does interest me. My experience when living in a place is always enhanced much more by spending my time with locals. Of course, I could do that in English this time, but that wouldn’t allow me the kind of flexibility I usually have when out with a group of people talking with one another.

It’s lazy to expect everyone to speak English for my benefit. I want to have friends that I communicate in their language with.

So the question for me shouldn’t be why Dutch the language, but why Dutch - the people; I’ve met many Dutch in my travels and found them to have interesting humour, and to be incredibly open minded. This is something I would like to investigate further as I make friends while living in Amsterdam.

The challenge would have perhaps been easier if I had chosen a “less touristy” city, but that aspect of the challenge just makes it all the more fun Amsterdam tends to be on many people’s lists of most interesting cities to live in, and such recommendations tend to be why I choose my destinations, not linguistic ones.

So if you have any advice for me while in Amsterdam, or if you happen to be here over the next two months, let me know! Any other thoughts on my Dutch mission, let me know in the comments below
Similar Posts:

• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• Forgetting a language: Why it happens and how to avoid it
• First week settling into Amsterdam
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• Speed dating in Dutch: 25 completely different conversations with natives, 5 weeks into learning the language

----------------------------
Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

I’ve already settled into Austin and am well into my ASL mission (first impressions & hopefully another video in ASL coming on Saturday!) but I thought I should wrap up the story of my time in the Philippines first!

The last time I updated I had just moved into the cottage on White Beach in Puerto Galera. My plan was to speak as much Tagalog with those working on the beach as I could during the week and then use weekends for when the beach would be packed with Manila tourists to really get some conversation practice. Didn’t quite work out so easy!!

Trouble in paradise

After a short time in Puerto Galera, I started to realise that it was actually a very bad decision to move there for the purposes of what I wanted to achieve in the Philippines! Unfortunately to save money on not paying per day, I had already paid for rental for an entire month on the cottage, so leaving was too complicated.

I chose Puerto Galera based on the advice of those I was hanging out with in Cebu for a fun spot that speaks Tagalog that isn’t Manila. I was clear that I didn’t want to stay in Manila because of the pollution (but see below for why that was a bad idea!) and I don’t like villages, so at least a well touristed beach would have some fun things going on. I’ve lived in touristy cities before (like Rio, Rome etc.) and learned languages no problem – it’s just a case of hanging out with the right people. In any city there are plenty to choose from!

But this was the first time in a while that I was attempting to learn a language in a small place like this. There were indeed things to do; I could continue my diving lessons to reach Advanced (and even added a Nitrox certificate to it for good measure), I got several diving lessons in French and spoke more French than English on the beach due to the amount of French tourists there were, there were parties almost every night, people from all around the world, and even a music festival with concerts. In fact, taking advantage of the tourists I spoke nearly all my languages on a regular basis!

So I did indeed have a lot of fun!

However, I didn’t manage to find my social balance to speak the local language as often as I usually do. The only Filipinos in that area were working 12+ hours a day (as waitresses, shopkeepers etc.) and were too busy to converse while working and too tired to hang out after work. In cities I always find students, or people that work 40 hours per week with free time etc. but I couldn’t find any Filipinos who could just hang out! Not any from the age group I usually spend time with anyway.

Actually, I did have Filipino friends not working full-time, but they were from other parts of the country and ironically couldn’t even speak Tagalog!! (Although they could understand it perfectly)

This hiccup costed me in terms of progress in the language, since all my conversations were brief and superficial. This is what those who are afraid to speak think it’s always like when you first try to learn a language. It’s not like this at all when you take part in real social interactions! That’s the reason I usually learn so quickly, and it’s something I was missing out on in Puerto Galera.

It turns out the Manila tourists would only come for one or two days maximum and be in tight groups not so interested in meeting others.

In general, as much fun as I did have, I can’t say I had the best time there. A beach destination like that sounds like a dream come true, but it’s really more suited to groups of people. As a single traveller, I will be avoiding such places for more than weekend trips from now on.

People ask me a lot if travelling by myself is “lonely”. The short answer is NO – it got me out of my shell of shyness and I have many deep relationships with people I meet when I genuinely live in a city, even if just for a few months. However, my time on this beach was frustrating and a bit lonely due to how superficial friendships with people just passing through was bound to be.

Good opportunity to learn about learning

Of course, I had been studying during that month in Puerto Galera, but passive studying with almost no speaking can only get you so far. There’s no way you can reach any decent spoken level just with books & audio, but at least I had quite a good passive understanding when people spoke and I could enjoy watching TV in Tagalog.

Rather than be full of regrets, this is part of the learning and experimentation process. When people think that the only challenges in reaching fluency are grammar and vocabulary I feel like they have very bad tunnel vision. Speaking a language is made up of so many factors, mostly influenced by social, psychological and lifestyle factors. Many of these will help you progress fast. And in my case, this time the challenge in finding the right people to even practise with due to choosing a touristy beach to live in was what held me back.

Ironically, it would have been easier for me to speak Tagalog consistently in many places outside of the Philippines

As always, any mistakes are to be considered ways that you learn what not to do. And this is no exception The language itself posed no major problems, and I actually quite liked it as explained here.

But the first weeks of travelling and the one month of barely speaking meant that I didn’t find the consistent immersion environment I usually rely on, so I didn’t precisely reach the conversational level I was hoping for. I could have limited conversations on particular topics, could speak myself slowly, and could understand the vast majority of what I’d see on TV or what someone would say when speaking to me if they did it slowly. (Interestingly enough, TV was easier since a lot of shows use a lot of Taglish, especially compared to how people speak outside of Manila).

This level I’m at is actually a pretty good place to be after just one month of genuine work (since I didn’t do anything with Tagalog while travelling in Cebu), but it’s less than what I tend to aim for and less than my target to speak like I could in Hungarian after two months.

Things got way better back in Manila!

Despite the majority of the time not spent speaking, when I got back to Manila for my final days I made dramatic improvements to what I had!

I feel so stupid now in the decision not to live in Manila – as I always say, cities just suit me better due to the many opportunities. My decision to not stay in Manila was based on the level of pollution I could actually feel when breathing on arrival. What I didn’t realise is that this was more due to the city district I was staying in, Ermita, which residents of Manila all agree is not pleasant to hang out long in.

When back the second time I was in another part of the city and it was actually fine! Since I have little experience with the level of pollution produced in Asian countries, I didn’t realise that it changes so dramatically between different districts. Had I known this, I simply would have moved a few miles and settled there for the full two months! Another lesson learned! [Doh!]

Manila would have suited me better because once I got back, I got into the usual flow I tend to have, meeting lots of people and practising nearly all the time. I progressed a lot in those last days!! If I had kept it up for several weeks, I would have actually gone beyond what I had done in Hungarian.

Singing Karaoke in Tagalog!

Since I promised a video anyway, here it is!

It shares something I did do in Tagalog a lot, even in Puerto Galera: singing! (In case you aren’t sick of hearing me sing in German, French and Spanish already!) I introduced the video in spoken Tagalog so you can hear the general flow I have now (still hesitating and lots to improve, but able to speak about a random topic)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOSZyXXMyU

In the intro I say:

[I'd like to share some Filipino karaoke with you! Karaoke is very important in the Philippines. It's actually called "videoke" since there are random other videos in the background, along with the lyrics of the song. Now, I'll sing to you!]

You might recognise the first song as the pop song “Umbrella”. This Karaoke machine didn’t have the lyrics of that song in Tagalog, but I didn’t need them after hearing it on the radio so much That’s why there is actually English behind me that I’m ignoring.

Next is a Taglish song that you’ll half understand (“pare” is like a manly way to say “dude”/”mate”), and finally a rap song! I thought Filipinos would like this choice with this white Irish guy is singing “I’m Filipino!” Then I end with a [thank you very much!]

What I was actually hoping to do was to record this in a public place that has Karaoke machines that look like weird video arcade machines, which I never saw before going to the Philippines. But after walking around for a few hours we could only find private stalls like this. It’s a pity as the environment with the silly old machines is much more fun – but apparently they are only really popular in the provinces.

Karaoke is so huge in the Philippines that it seemed appropriate for me to make the Tagalog video around this

Filipinos

I was sad to leave Manila! I was starting to have a lot of fun there, now that I could breath this time!

My favourite part of the country (apart from the karaoke) was definitely its people! Filipinos are so friendly, open and easy to get along with, and definitely encouraging with people learning their language! After 25 or so countries the Philippines now rank as my second favourite in the world! The top spot continues to be held by Brazil, but that could be challenged when I make it back to the Philippines some day and pick a better place to live in and get to know more people!

Since I will be very busy with other languages this year, I will not be working to maintain my Tagalog (the good news is that I am at least progressing in ASL in my first days at the rate I like). I will definitely consider getting back to it at a later time though! I didn’t get to know people deeply through the language as I usually would, but when they saw that I was trying to learn they really appreciated it, and it helped me to understand parts of the culture that other English-only expats are missing.

If you go to the Philippines and live around Manila, then I highly recommend you give it a try. Start dropping words into your English speech immediately to ease in with some Taglish and go out and sing a few karaokes

And keep it warm for me for when I get back

Maraming salamat!
Similar Posts:

• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• First impressions of the Philippines
• Next mission: American Sign Language!
• Next mission: Read and speak Thai in 8 weeks
• What will Benny’s next language be?

----------------------------
Challenges in the Philippines + video in Tagalog is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Hello from Austin, Texas!

It may seem like there aren’t that many options for an English (and Spanish) speaking Irish guy to learn a new language in the United States of America, but I see opportunity everywhere and here is no exception You can always learn a language no matter where you are, as I tried to prove by speaking various non-Spanish languages while in Colombia.

But rather than learn languages from other countries this time, there is indeed a very important language in the states that I have been meaning to get to for a long time; many would say that it’s the 3rd most important language (after English and Spanish) of the entire country actually!

American Sign Language

Sign language has interested me for a very long time. This was especially true when I was still in college and an ear infection actually left me partially deaf for two weeks (not fully deaf: it was like wearing ear plugs so I could hear only loud low pitched sounds). I started to appreciate non-oral communication on many levels during that time.

As well as that I’ve seen people communicate by signing many times and always wanted to take part! It seems so expressive and everyone knows that I’m a fan of figuring out signs and gestures as well as non-verbal means to communicate in foreign cultures. And let’s face it, knowing sign language would just be really really cool

I do indeed have to be in the states for this though – there are some countries (including the Philippines, where I’ve just come from) that use ASL, but sign language varies dramatically in different countries. British Sign Language, for example, is unintelligible to American signers.

I could learn Irish Sign Language, but I think ASL could be beneficial anyway for that – both ASL and ISL are based on French Sign Language, so I would have somewhat of a headstart if I needed it.

Public first attempt

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeZJ85QjTA

Since I’ve resolved to take on four languages by September (the first one being Tagalog), I’m only going to give myself one month for this mission. No – I don’t believe that I’ll be fluent after that month, but I am hoping to be able to spontaneously communicate with some level of ease. What this means precisely is hard to define for the obvious reasons that I have no basis of comparison this time…

At the request of many readers, I’ve decided to be more visual and share videos in various stages of my language missions rather than just the end. As you can see above I have recorded my first ever attempt to use American Sign Language Adrean sent me a video with some of the things I wanted to convey and I tried to copy some of her signs and then just made up a few other parts. I imagine people who can sign will be quick to point out a few mistakes I’m making

Of course, this is not spontaneous and I had to practice a lot before attempting anything. But I have to admit, making a video so quickly has forced me to be at a stage of appreciation in use of the language that I usually don’t reach that quickly without help from native speakers (or signers in this case). I noticed the same in recording my Tagalog video (that you’ll see in the next blog post) – I really should have recorded a video at the start to force myself to improve quickly, with public pressure as a big motivator.

You can bet that when I get to the next language (obviously spoken) in March, I’ll record my first ever attempt to speak it too I’ll see if I can find a native willing to share the experience so it’s on camera and I can demonstrate my speak-from-day-one tricks more clearly. But that will be in March.

Even though this is not a spoken mission, I am confident that the many techniques I use to communicate from day one, which I discuss at length for spoken languages in the Language Hacking Guide, will help me to advance within the next weeks. I’m not sure by how much, but well it’s worth experimenting to find out

Austin

I’m glad to be back in the states again! I have loads of friends here that I can’t wait to see again – I chose Austin for many reasons: people have been praising this city to me for a long time! But one major reason is that a lot of my friends will be coming here  to take part in SxSW. I had to book my place last year due to how overcrowded the city gets this month for the event!!

Taking part in the event, talks, parties etc. will obviously be a distraction from the mission so I will have to work especially hard my first and last weeks before/after all the chaos. That’s why I am putting embarrassment aside and making a couple of videos – it’s public and forces me to have something to show for myself! Hopefully my signing abilities will noticeably improve over the month

—————–

So read (and watch) along and see how I do!

Let me know in the comments what your thoughts of this mission are!
Similar Posts:

• What will Benny’s next language be?
• Taking CEFRL tests for quality European language certificates with no classes
• Challenges in the Philippines + video in Tagalog
• Mission: Conversational Hungarian in 3 months
• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!

----------------------------
Next mission: American Sign Language! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

It’s time for my first update from the Philippines! (No language learning tips in this post )

Most of what I’ll write here is covered in this video I recorded. Unlike most of my videos, this one isn’t so exciting; just me talking to the camera in bad lighting (and bad quality, due to slow Internet limiting what I can upload).

See immediately below for my excuse for not putting together a nicer video

Slow start settling in

To be honest, I haven’t done a huge amount since I got here. The problem has been the almost total lack of sleep over 48 hours due to awkward flying times (this is the furthest I’ve ever flown at once, split up over 3 flights).

However, you’ll be glad to hear that I am using Tagalog, I’ve been learning vocabulary quickly and using the language mostly in taxis.

Normally my siestas help me get over jetlag quickly, but jetlag combined with the long stretch of sleep deprivation has been hard to combat! After a few full days in the country, I’ve almost adjusted, but still can’t focus so well and this has somewhat hampered my usual initial enthusiastic dive into the language.

One thing that was quite important to arrange as soon as possible was to have a working 3G Internet connection on my phone (since I use Android, tethering to my laptop is very easy). This means I won’t have to be that pushed to find Internet in accommodation, which will make me much more flexible in the coming weeks. It was a bit complicated so it took almost an entire day to do that(!), but I have it set up now.

I don’t usually like to rush into checking out all the sights, and will likely leave seeing the best of Manila until I get back here later.

I did however treat myself to a full body pampering (which included a 2 hour massage, shave and a manicure+pedicure – both of which I had never had done in my life!) for a grand total of about $15. The whole thing took about 3 hours and at one time I had three people working on various limbs and digits simultaneously!! Nothing will cheer you up from travel grumpiness like that kind of pampering You can bet I’ll continue to take advantage of cheaper prices like that during my time here!

My second night I went out to a Couchsurfing meeting and had a great time there, and got lots of solid advice for my Tagalog mission!

Filipinos

My first impression of Filipinos is (as expected) that I find them very friendly! I get a lot of direct eye contact when I talk to people and even from those I pass in the street – this is something I happen to like and even miss in some other cultures.

It’s pretty clear that Manila isn’t so touristed – I get a lot more attention from some people than I was expecting – girls usually giggle a lot as they walk past me. I keep thinking I have a huge snot coming out of my nose or something when I see people looking at me like that, but then I remember Oh yeah, I’m white – that’s way more conspicuous…

And the singing!! Karaokes are huge here – I haven’t gone to one yet but it’s pretty clear even during the day when you pass people on the street. People sing quite a lot here – usually pop songs that we’d all know internationally.

While a country of karaoke singers may sound like some people’s description of hell itself, I actually quite like it! I have been known to randomly break into song in public, and the fact that they do it so often actually means they get quite good at it! Everyone I’ve heard sing so far has been doing it very well!

You can bet I’ll be joining in on the karaokes when I get the chance

Mixed culture

Our first impressions of a place are usually based on comparisons from what we already know – I still have to really get to know some locals apart from that one night out, so I’ll get to see the unique side of Filipinos soon. But for the moment I can see a lot of parallels with other cultures. Obviously its location in Southeast Asia and the general feeling I have here is similar to that I had in Thailand, especially the climate.

But the people and city itself are very different to my idea of “Asian”. Several centuries of Spanish rule has left its mark here, and hints of Asia’s only predominantly Christian country (actually the world’s second largest Catholic country after Brazil) can definitely be seen. That makes me almost feel like I’m back in South America in some ways!

Then of course there is so much Spanish in the language itself! I’ll write more about that later, but you can imagine how I keep wondering if I forgot to take a left turn at Albuquerque and ended up back in South America!

The American influence (they were the next colonists after the Spaniards) also comes across quite a lot. English is everywhere – in signs & menus, in advertisements – people’s initial (formal) greeting is an English “Hello sir!” (between one another before speaking Tagalog, not just with me where my appearance would make it more expected).

The funniest Americanisation I found was seeing a “God is awesome” bumper sticker on several Jeepneys! I can’t really picture such a cheesy message in any country but America to be honest…

Taglish

Now, of course I have gotten into Tagalog! A little slower than normal because of tiredness, but I’m making progress! The problem was to find some materials to learn from – major bookshops in Ireland & Germany had nothing about Tagalog, and even those here don’t have what I would consider particularly useful.

I had to settle on a 25 year old publication for some grammar info, and since I couldn’t find a Lonely Planet phrasebook (what I usually start off with) I went with the Berlitz one. My focus is of course on speaking, and I learned more than rubbish books could have ever told me in just one evening with some locals, but I still rely on some learning materials to fill in the gaps.

Some of the books on Tagalog were so old, they even came with cassettes! (I have to link to the wikipedia article on that because many readers younger than 20 might not have even heard of them…).

I got a small book and learned some vocabulary off, and then when I produced it to natives they thought it was very strange that my book taught me to say it that way, so I can’t even trust the little learning material I have!

You see, English’s influence is stronger than the formal books would have you think! While the grammar and base vocabulary remains very much Asian, there are many words that they just prefer to say in English over a “pure” Tagalog version. Of course it depends on who you talk to. I don’t tend to rub shoulders with university lecturers, so I prefer to speak like people my age do in the street in all my languages.

Because of this, I will be focusing on the Taglish side of Tagalog – it’s simply the smartest choice. Purists and linguists would hate this and search for what they would consider as the better word, even if it sounds pompous, but I want to talk with people, not examinations. More on this later!

Manila – hold your breath!

For the Tagalog mission, it would make the most sense to stay here in the capital, where most people will be speaking the language. Many non-Tagalog languages are spoken all over the country, even if Tagalog (Filipino) is understood by pretty much everyone. Unfortunately a non-linguistic factor is coming into play in deciding where I should stay: the pollution in Manila.

It’s so bad that I can feel it every time I inhale, and I am starting to cough up phlegm several times a day. This is both really disgusting and worrying. I’m sure it’s something people learn to live with, but I have other plans for my lungs! So I will have to find a different place to base myself during my time in the country.

It’s going to be a challenge to find that place – I like to live in cities so there is plenty to do, but I may have to consider finding some tropical island to base myself on instead. Yes, I know those of you reading this in -18ºC might think I’m just being a cry baby considering my options, but I’d get bored quickly in “paradise” and it would end up being nothing more than a touristy experience. Nothing wrong with that, but I have other goals here.

Destination unknown

To start off, tomorrow I’m flying down to Cebu. It’s another big city so I can’t imagine I’ll get that much better fresh air, but it will give me options to branch off into other parts of the country, and get to know the Philippines better. I’ll chill out on a beach somewhere for a few days to get the bulk of the studying out of the way and go back to Cebu city for the Sinulog festival.

Now obviously, one major issue with not sticking in the part of the country where they speak Tagalog as the main language, is how much harder this will make it to be able to try to converse in the language. I don’t see this as that big an issue.

Here in Manila, since the signs and menus etc. are in English, I don’t feel any sense of immersion visually. The only real helper is the fact that I can hear the language spoken between people all the time. That’s a pretty big advantage, but when I’m not participating in the conversation, I can get the same feeling from just having the radio or TV on in the background (as if that would help).

No, the main thing to focus on is making sure that I speak, even if it’s just with one or two people. There will be native Tagalog speakers wherever I go, and I just have to find them (yes, I’ll do this the same way I always do).

As you can see, I don’t have much of a plan in terms of location and will pretty much wing it for a few weeks. I’m not sure where I’ll spend most of my time here, but I do want to check out a few places before deciding

The first months of the year are also the time I tend to do most of my travelling (I did this in India and Thailand too) before I get sick of it and prefer to stay put for several months at a time for the rest of the year. So I’m hitting the road while I’ve still got itchy feet!

Once I’ve properly adjusted, I’ll be able to find the absolute best way to apply what I’ve learned to speaking Tagalog. The grammar is very different, and I plan to study it as much as I can over the next week to get that out of the way, but pure (original Tagalog) vocabulary is not hard to learn (when you have the right technique) and then there are a lot of Spanish and English loan words.

Everything I’ve read aloud or repeated to a native does not feel strange at all for me to say – this feeling is a hard challenge to get over in many languages, so I’ve already got a head start and can afford to do some travelling before I really get into the conversational aspect of the mission

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Hope you’ve enjoyed this little travel update! There are a few things I mentioned here that I will talk about in more detail next week, as they are relevant to all languages in my opinion. Thanks for reading and leave me a comment if you have any thoughts on any of this
Similar Posts:

• Challenges in the Philippines + video in Tagalog
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• Next mission: American Sign Language!
• What will Benny’s next language be?
• My first weeks in Budapest: Hungarian mission update

----------------------------
First impressions of the Philippines is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

It’s time for the first language mission of 2011!

I am actually hoping to work on four new languages by September, so this is going to be one hell of a year, and I hope you’ll subscribe and read along to get some tips for your own language missions

So, in a few short hours I’ll be flying to the Philippines. I’ve never been there before, and as always in my travels, I’m being as spontaneous as possible in plans for what I’ll be doing while in the country.

My vague plan is to spend a few days in Manila and then figure out when there where I’d like to spend the rest of my time to best see how to get to know the Philippines, and Filipinos themselves, in my own way.

Conversational Tagalog

And of course, while there I will be learning Tagalog (a.k.a. Filipino) as the official first language mission of 2011!

Right now everything I know about the language is what I have read in its Wikipedia entry, but by the end of February I am hoping to be able to reach a conversational level of the language.

“Conversational” (as opposed to fluent) is quite hard to define, so I will simply say that I’m aiming for the same kind of level that I reached in Hungarian in two months, which you can hear me speak (with subtitles) here. This basically means that I want to be able to spontaneously and comfortably converse with natives about non-complicated subjects, but I’ll still hesitate when speaking and perhaps need them to speak slowly for me.

Why only 2 months?

Yes, I know this doesn’t agree with the blog title, but I already have a different language mission that may be even more interesting planned for March.

This will be a good chance to “dip my toes” into the language and culture and decide if I want to come back later to continue improving my level.

What made you choose Tagalog?

As explained in the site FAQ, I don’t travel to learn languages. I learn languages to travel, i.e. to greatly improve my travel experience.

My decision was only location/culture based and not influenced even slightly by linguistics. I have met many very friendly Filipinos and heard fantastic things about the country so I’d like to discover it first hand, in immersion style as I usually like in my travels.

The fact that it is an Asian rather than European language, hard grammar points or easy other aspects of Tagalog/Filipino compared to other languages are very poor reasons to “pick” a language in my opinion. If you don’t have other solid motivation to passionately learn a language, then unless you are a language nerd (nothing wrong with that!) I can’t see how you could make useful progress quickly.

The best reason to learn a language is because you intend to use it.

My motivation to learn Tagalog will be entirely for the purposes of enhancing my experience communicating with Filipinos.

Language Hacking Guide update (including Tagalog)

There are many things I do to rapidly progress in my abilities to communicate in a language. Most of it is of course speaking from day one, the many ways I do so being the theme of the Language Hacking Guide. A non-spoken aspect of this involves reading in the target language, so I of course had the guide translated to Tagalog

Since I wrote the book, I obviously know what it says pretty well, so I’ll be applying the Stone of Rosetta concept of using the native written form of a target language for a particular text and knowing its English translation, to help me progress. I know a few readers do this with other books available in multiple languages, like Harry Potter and The Little Prince, and I’m glad to see them doing it with my book too!

As well as Tagalog, this week I’ve included several new full translations of the contents of the Language Hacking Guide (provided as PDFs, ePUB for iPad/iPod etc., mobi for the Kindle (when the language’s script is supported) & printable versions) that I’m adding to the set, bringing the total translations of the entire guide to 19 now. All written by natives of course. The ones in bold are the new ones as of today:

English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Dutch, Irish, Czech, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi, Romanian & Tagalog.

I’ve also confirmed that the Japanese translation will be in the next update in a few weeks. The Japanese translator was recommended to me by Khatzumoto from alljapaneseallthetime.com

I was hoping to include the Russian one in this update, but its inclusion has been delayed until the next update too. All updates are free to those who already bought it of course!

So if you’ve got a New Year’s Resolution to learn a language, then now may be the best time to get your copy of the Language Hacking Guide! Maybe like me you’ll be trying to read it in your target language (using the English or other as a reference) to get you into the feeling of immersion quicker

Theme for next weeks: Skepticism

As always, I’ll end the mission with a video of me speaking the language. If possible, I’ll try to make videos earlier to show how I’m making the transition and progressing, and I’ll be writing regular updates on twitter and Facebook from the country about my travels as always.

I hope the transparency of these missions shows you that yes, I really am learning the language! It will indeed be a struggle, but my focus on optimism will help me progress faster, so you can bet I’ll be sharing that with everyone from the perspective of this new language!

Those who have been reading the blog for a while will know that I tend to have themes for the posts. Last year for example during the German C2 exam mission I brought attention to the inefficiency of study-based learning, and during the Hungarian mission I wanted to get rid of this silly idea of hardest language.

These next weeks, among other things, I’ll be talking about the importance of being skeptical towards promises given by so many courses or strange learning methods, and will answer typical questions I get about what I talk about on this blog, since some things I say also require skepticism before acceptance.

As an engineer, I have to look at things practically and logically and I feel this really gives me a huge edge in learning languages, travelling efficiently and generally getting the most I can out of life!

So read along, join me while learning your own new language and share your thoughts in the comments below or show this post to your friends on Facebook!
Similar Posts:

• New mission: Speak any language, anywhere
• New Mission: Fluent Mandarin in 3 months!
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• Next mission: American Sign Language!
• Challenges in the Philippines + video in Tagalog

----------------------------
New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

As the site grows and I get more comments and more e-mails, I’m starting to see a pattern of the same questions emerging. So I thought I’d simply collect several issues in this post and answer them in FAQ style.

If you have any other questions related to the website or my language projects (keeping in mind that actual learning strategies are covered in depth in the Language Hacking Guide and in various posts – just go through the archives to find out ) feel free to ask in the comments below! I’ll edit this post to include any comments that ask questions that many people would be likely to want to know.

Why is this blog called Fluent in 3 months? Are you promising a magic pill and why is 3 the magic number?

The name of the blog causes a lot of confusion for people when they first arrive on my site. I’m not promising any special time line for people studying a language; doing so would be ridiculous because the amount of work people put in is too varied. Most people take years to learn just the basics of a language because they do it so wrong, so of course a claim of “3 months” would sound arrogant to them.

It’s called “Fluent in 3 months” because I move to a new country, usually for about 3 months and I tend to aim to speak the local language fluently. The name of the blog is from my objectives in both travel and language learning. This blog documents my own language learning journeys and shares the ideas that make it all possible.  The title of the blog is an objective not a promise of a magic solution for all.

Three months is not some magic number, it just happens to be the time I like to spend in a country, so whatever I do, I have to reach whatever my target is by approximately this time.

Having said that, people following my advice have indeed started speaking much quicker. The idea of aiming high in a short time is an important part of what I propose people try.

What will your next language be?

Every two or three months I take on a new language mission. I only announce it on the blog as the mission begins, but I do give advance notice of a couple of weeks in the e-mail list. So sign up to the Language Hacking League on the right of the site and you’ll be the first to know! The current mission is always indicated in the top-right of the blog.

I will otherwise never answer the question in comments or e-mails because I like to keep people in suspense

Hi, I’m professor know-it-all and I see that you have learned almost only Indo-European languages. Have you avoided Asian and African languages because a) You are a scared little girl or b) You are lazy and can’t stand the challenge?

Hello Mr. Linguist. There are many reasons to want to learn a language and, unfortunately for academics, impressing you is not why I do it. My language choices depend entirely on wanting to immerse myself in a local culture. I have been travelling for almost eight years and wanted to get to know Europe and the Americas as well as possible first.

I will learn other languages soon as I expand on my travels, but from my one weekend of speaking Thai and two months of speaking Hungarian (neither of which are Indo European languages) I can see that the communicative speak-immediately approach will work just as effectively for me with all languages. The concept of hardest language is B.S., and learning anything just to impress people shows a very weak ego. If you get gratification from ticking language-branches off a list rather than appreciating the use of the actual languages with human beings, so be it, but that’s not me.

I will indeed be taking on Asian languages, but I will also be continuing to learn other European languages. Those missions will likely have a twist to them (like sitting a hard exam etc.) so that it isn’t a straightforward challenge in that case, but calling me “lazy” for taking on what is indeed a challenge of getting through an entirely new means of communication and the mountain of hard work involved, even if a similar language gives me a slight edge, is a very narrow minded way of thinking.

I think you should learn Chinese/Japanese/Swahili/Klingon/Ancient Egyptian/Penguin/binary… as your next language! It has 67 grammatical cases, 47 tones, 7 genders, the world’s most complicated conjugation and you need to perform differential calculus just to have adjectives agree with nouns! That would really prove to the doubters that your method worked!

I don’t take language suggestions. I already have destinations I am interested in travelling to and because I will be surrounded by people who speak that language, I will learn it so I can get to know them better.

I have no interest whatsoever in learning a language because of its grammar. Complicated grammar or tones etc. doesn’t scare me – I see it as totally irrelevant in the decision making process. I am a traveller, not a linguist, so listing grammar points is a horrible way to make a “sales pitch” to me.

However, I have indeed been convinced by people to take on particular languages because they spoke to me about the culture of the destination, especially emphasising how I would personally enjoy living there for 3 months based on the price of living, how friendly the locals are, how much they like to go out and dance, their sense of humour, if a vegetarian could find work-arounds, if I can find a nice flat with Internet easily etc. I also prefer cities over small towns, so the pace of life in particular cities is quite important to me.

I am interested in discovering new cultures, while staying sane with some aspects of socialising and life in general that I can find more universally. So talk about that if you want me to think about learning the language.

Benny, for a language guy you sure make a lot of spelling mistakes. It’s ‘practice’ not ‘practise’!!

I am Irish and in Ireland we use a spelling standard that is similar to British English and not the same as in America. Practice is the noun (Get some practice) and practise is the verb (to practise a language). Because of my Irish English dialect, I may also say that someone “has” a language rather than speaks it and use turns of phrase that look strange to those who are unfamiliar with it.

I do indeed make real mistakes – it’s bound to happen considering how much I write – but please do your research and make sure that you are not correcting perfectly good English that just happens to not be your dialect.

Why do you talk about motivation and meeting people so much, isn’t this a language blog? Where’s the grammar and course recommendations?

This is not a blog “about languages”. There are many of those and they do an excellent job.

This is a blog about my own particular language missions, usually aiming for fluency, usually in 3 months or less (hence the title). In doing so I am happy to give the reasons why I can do it and most of this blog is written to me as if my 21 year old self could read it and see what’s the most important. It’s a blog about speaking languages.

And the most important thing to reach fluency in a language quickly is not lots of studying; it’s having motivation and confidence, and figuring out how to meet people who speak it. I will occasionally write about specific language grammar and vocabulary like I did in Czech, German and Hungarian, but even with the best grammar short-cuts you’ll never speak a language if the rest of your approach is wrong.

Over on the Facebook page, Victor says: Hi! I am aspiring to become a linguist, but it seems you have something against them/us. You don’t seem to be one to generalize, but I have noticed that you quite often use the word “linguist” in a manner I’d consider derogative, so I thought I’d ask you why that is.

I was going to answer him but Randy beat me to it with the best response: I get the sense that Benny sees “linguists” in a similar way to how professional athletes see sports journalists… or the way that filmmakers view film critics. It’s one thing to know all the details and study and have references and facts …and a doctorate thesis… but it’s a completely different thing to actually speak the language.

How do you not mix your languages up?

This is a good question and one I will write a blog post about (Edit: here it is!). Any other questions about my learning strategy have likely been covered in detail in previous posts or the Language Hacking Guide.

Any other questions? Suggestions for a topic you’d like to see me blog about? Ask me in the comments and I’ll be happy to answer!
Similar Posts:

• Happy holidays and some quick questions!
• What will Benny’s next language be?
• Summary of first month of mission & top 100 language blogs nomination
• Fluent in TWO months: The Dutch mission!
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months

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Fluent in 3 months language missions: Frequently Asked Questions is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Hello from Colombia! I’ve just arrived and am ready for my last language mission of 2010.

Since the blog started just over a year ago, I’ve learned pretty good Czech and Hungarian (both in two months), got by in Thai, managed to convince Brazilians that I was one of them, and passed most of the very challenging ZOP examination in German.

Each time I have gone to the country that speaks the language, but this time I’m doing something completely different. I’m not actually in Colombia to learn Spanish (I already speak it at “C2/mastery” level according to the Instituto de Cervantes) or a native American language.

You can speak any language anywhere in the world

The purpose of this mission is to prove that no matter where you are you can speak your target language; any language, anywhere.

I am sick of people saying that my – or anyone else’s – success in learning to speak languages quickly is down to ability to travel. You can all speak your target language for several hours every day without ever leaving your town.

So to prove this, I have picked a non-capital city in South America that looks like it would be interesting to live in; Medellín, Colombia. Here, I intend to speak seven languages every week and these seven languages do not include Spanish and English. i.e. French, German, Irish, Portuguese, Italian, Esperanto and Hungarian.

If I can speak Irish or Hungarian in Colombia of all places, then what’s stopping you from speaking French/Japanese etc. in your town?

This will be quite the challenge considering it is not in more accessible/international countries like in North America or Europe and also because it is not a capital city, but if I can pull this off then you will have no excuses for not trying if you do live in such places.

Of course, I’ll be explaining how I’m doing it

This is not the first time I have attempted this. I actually learned the vast majority of my Brazilian Portuguese while living in France and by speaking it with Brazilians in person rather than wastefully over-studying. I already spoke Portuguese (not “portuñol”) when I first arrived in Brazil thanks to this.

I plan on explaining precisely what I’m doing along the way, mostly applying the tips that I discussed in much more detail in the Language Hacking Guide. I’m hoping people will apply my tips and stop making a language something just for studying. Speak it!

You must practise your target language immediately if you want to make any progress in it. This of course is the basis of my success in being able to speak languages in the last eight years and the unique message, ignored in pretty much every course, that the Language Hacking Guide was written around.

Living in Colombia

Choosing Colombia was easy – it has long been on my list of countries to visit. I’ve met so many fantastic Colombians in my travels and I could see that they were my type of people.

So I will, of course, be speaking mostly Spanish here. That’s separate to the mission, and more for cultural and social reasons. I’m not going to be speaking at Colombians in languages they don’t understand, only in Spanish. I travelled across the planet to hang out with Colombians after all!

My vague plan is to work in the mornings, socialise mostly in Spanish in the evenings, and to speak and otherwise improve another non-Spanish (and non-English) language every afternoon and/or some evenings, depending on who I meet. Hopefully I will get through all seven languages in my list for several hours every week until I go back to Ireland for Christmas.

So this will mean several hours every day entirely living through a language that comes from another part of the world.

I may use Skype and other online tools for some speaking, but only as a plan B. The point will be to do the vast majority with natives (or with advanced speakers) in person.

This will also be an opportunity for me to refresh my level in languages that I constantly maintain, without having a new language distracting me at the same time. I will need this refresher because I have some pretty intense new language missions planned for next year and will have much less time to maintain my current ones.

And yes, it’s also a good excuse for me to spend winter months, cold in many places, close to the Equator living among Latinos once again.

———-

Think this mission is a worthy challenge? Will you be following to see how I’m doing it so you can speak your target language from home too?

Let me know in the comments! And don’t forget to share this new mission with your friends on Facebook!
Similar Posts:

• Speaking with mistakes quickly is better than speaking “perfectly” slowly
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• Mission: Conversational Hungarian in 3 months
• My first weeks in Budapest: Hungarian mission update

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New mission: Speak any language, anywhere is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=utbcp_4OtOE

Rather than write a long post about a topic that I have covered in various forms before, I’ll make this short.

Above you will see a video showing me talking Hungarian with Bálint Kőrösi, who translated the Language Hacking Guide to Hungarian for me. My level in the language is the result of my two months living in Budapest (and what I’d estimate as what would have been 5 or so hours of studying before arrival – so this mission was a two-month one, rather than a three-month one).

The result of my short time here? I can have conversations in Hungarian as I had initially aimed for, I speak only Hungarian with most of my friends here and have gotten to know many people and an interesting side of the city entirely through the language.

Mission complete.

I’ll write in more details about my full Budapest experience in the Thursday post.

However, you will notice that I’m not speaking fluently, and anyone who speaks Hungarian would be quick to point out a few mistakes I made as I spoke. I also hesitated a lot and used quite basic vocabulary. I don’t expect or even want to impress anyone with my current level of Hungarian. Impressing people is not what I’m doing this for. Reaching perfection quickly will never be my goal. Efficient communication however, is always what I aim for.

My current level is not an ideal situation to be in permanently, but it is a good place to be after a few weeks. The only way to reach this stage quickly is to speak often and make lots of mistakes. If you avoid making mistakes and wait until you’re ready you will never be able to have a conversation in the target language in a short time. I’m still making mistakes, and that’s OK. I’ll continue to work on my Hungarian and it will improve.

“Practice makes perfect” – waiting until you’re perfect produces nothing. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

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Like the video? Think I should have skipped getting to know real people and waited a bit more to iron out my mistakes and hesitations instead? Let me know in the comments!
Similar Posts:

• My first weeks in Budapest: Hungarian mission update
• Il sabato della scoperta – Who wants a postcard / What’s Benny’s next mission?
• Mission: Conversational Hungarian in 3 months
• New mission: Speak any language, anywhere
• My next mission: Become Brazilian in 3 months!

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Speaking with mistakes quickly is better than speaking “perfectly” slowly is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

When I first started this blog, I presumed most readers would have pretty solid decisions of what languages they were learning, but the several e-mails I get every day seem to tell otherwise!

So many of them are asking me what I think they should learn. After debating with myself briefly about whether I should abuse this power and create my own army of Na’vi speakers just for the hell of it, I decided to be helpful instead

There are so many criteria for picking a language and once again I’m going to have to say that so many of them that people typically look at (similar to the criteria for what makes a language hard) are wrong. I’m not going to tell you which language to choose, but I am going to suggest ways to avoid making the wrong decision:

Most number of speakers?

Any language pissing competition almost always includes the statistic of the most number of speakers of any given language. This is a bad way to decide which one to go for.

Two of the major “languages” in the list for example; Chinese and Arabic aren’t even languages for practical purposes. The dialects are so vast that even native speakers simply cannot understand one another when speaking. Even a language like Portuguese has to be somewhat relearned if you move from Brazil to Portugal.

But forgetting that for a second – let’s imagine you did go for a language because it has half a billion speakers. How does this actually help you? Do you plan to visit all villagers speaking that language? Looking at “most speakers” in terms of making a decision sometimes comes down to nothing more than ego. You get more “points” for the bigger number.

Even if you go live in the country, you’ll be unlikely to visit more than a handful of towns and come across the same number of speakers as you would in any other country. Then when not in the country, it depends on how much that culture travels. For example, I’ve met way more Israelis than I have Chinese/Russians etc. when travelling in Brazil (of all places).

In most cases you will speak with such an infinitesimally small percentage of the total population of speakers that basically any language will give you more than a lifetime’s worth of conversations and new people you can meet.

I’m not trying to discourage people from going for the big languages – but just make sure you are picking them for the right reasons. Even a language like Irish has enough speakers to keep you busy if you really dive into it.

Best for your CV/resume?

Picking the most “spoken” languages isn’t even that great a career choice, because so many other people do that too – you aren’t necessarily distinguishing yourself from the noise. I worked as a translator for several years and I can tell you from seeing how the industry works that the best paid and most in-demand translators are those with less common language combinations.

The “most spoken” language also depends entirely on where you are. If you are in Europe then knowing German will help secure you a job much quicker than others in the tourist industry (apart from English), while that would be overshadowed by Spanish in many parts of the states in terms of immediate practicality.

In most jobs that don’t require you to actually speak other languages, having any of them on your CV is impressive to employers, or it depends on the employer’s personality. Having simply learned a foreign language seems to have become a badge of honour in some places – in this case the actual language itself makes little difference.

What really matters: How you plan to use the language

Number of speakers or misleading career advantages are empty reasons for picking a language. You have to ask yourself why you really want to learn a language. Do you want to be able to read literature in that language? Attend Italian Operas? Embrace your German heritage?

Are you sure you really want to speak a language? This is a social undertaking, not an academic one. Spending all your time with books or courses may help a little, but unless you are willing to make mistakes in front of people you won’t get far on improving your spoken abilities.

If you want to just “know” a language then reading and listening a lot might be all you actually need. Many people enjoy this academic side of it – that’s great, but it’s better to be clear about your goals from the onset!

If the idea of speaking “a” foreign language is all that tickles your fancy, you have to realise how much time needs to be invested in the project. Try Esperanto first to see how it feels. Learning a language for no work is a pipe dream – going into it half-assed won’t give you anything tangible – you can spend years on a language and get nowhere, or you can spend just a few months on it and speak it well if you are passionate about it.

My preference: cultural reasons

There are dozens of good reasons to pick any particular language. My own depends almost entirely on the culture of the people who speak it. I get e-mails every day suggesting that I should take on language-X because my current list of European languages (although Hungarian technically isn’t, depending on your definition) isn’t impressive enough.

Impressing people is a pathetic reason to choose to devote months of your time to something. While people think that being a polyglot may perhaps give you instant rockstar status, I can tell you that while it piques people’s curiosity at first, after 20 seconds you have to rely on your own personality if you want to make new friends, no matter what your achievements are. In those situations, one particular language is always more than enough. I learn languages because I intend to use them, not so I can wear them as a badge.

I can tell you right now that my own decisions to learn languages has little to do with impressing linguists. If I decide to learn yet another Romance language (Romanian is the only one I haven’t touched at all) because I want to, then I will. Protests from people calling me lazy are irrelevant. Then on the other hand, Chinese, Japanese etc. don’t “scare” me one bit in terms of being harder – my choices thus far have been because I know I’d enjoy myself living in that culture. European and South American culture has a lot to discover, but I’m always up for something new and you can bet I’ll be diversifying my language families lot as I discuss the stories over the coming months/years on this blog.

My next languages?

Don’t take the title of this post as an invitation – I will never be taking surveys or votes for which language I should learn next. This is not a democracy – I am the dictator, king and overlord of next-language-choices and all decisions are final

Most people who e-mail me to tell me to start this or that language next list completely irrelevant reasons to me. How complex the grammar would be, as a nice challenge, (yawn – that’s not a language, that’s as good as a sales pitch for a mathematical theorem), how impressive it would be (if I want weak validation from people, I’ll learn how to juggle fire-breathing monkeys), or that they really really want me to (nicer, but still not quite convincing!)

My choice is always based on the culture of the people who speak the language itself and my interest in getting to know that country. How much fun would I have going out and socialising with them? How easy is it to make new friends in that country, or is it worth the challenge of attempting to break down people’s stereotypes of that? What is day-to-day life like in that country?

I know a lot of people reading this blog are linguists, but I’m a traveller. Speaking languages is just a natural consequence of wanting to get truly immersed in cultures and expand my horizons. Languages are just a means to an end for me. They are not the end. PEOPLE are the channel that languages come out of and if you don’t use the language to communicate with human beings, then it’s just a faceless list of grammar rules and vocabulary tables.

On Monday I will send out an e-mail to those in the Language Hacking League newsletter (sign up on the right of the site) to announce what my next language mission will be (starting mid-October). It’s definitely one that a lot of you will want to follow.

How did you decide?

Travel happens to be my reason, but how did you decide what language you were going to be devoted to? Share them with us in the comments!
Similar Posts:

• Forgetting a language: Why it happens and how to avoid it
• New mission: Speak Turkish in two months!
• Fluent in 3 months language missions: Frequently Asked Questions
• New Mission: Fluent Mandarin in 3 months!
• New Language Mission: Speak Tagalog (Filipino) in 2 months

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What language should I learn? is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!