Forum - Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips — Fluent in 3 months

September 10, 2012
23:13

Baron Jon

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Ok. I've been watching, reading and following Benny for a while now. I've made so many excuses about why I couldn't commit to learning a language in three months. But Benny challenged us all at the beginning of the summer to set a 3 month fluency goal for ourselves.

Excuses are done. Challenge accepted.

I'll be attempting to go from 0 knowledge of Chinese to fluency in 90 days. Today is day 0.

Help keep my accountable.

Would love to here your feedback and advice as I take this journey. I'll be checking in here and participating in the forum regularly, but you can also track my progress at http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com or on twitter @zerotofluent

Here goes nothing.

September 12, 2012
01:54

Kevinpost

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I like the enthusiasm Baron! We'll try our best to hold you accountable.

Speaks:

Learning to fluency:

There will definitely be more that follow!

September 12, 2012
04:36

Baron Jon

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Kevinpost said
I like the enthusiasm Baron! We'll try our best to hold you accountable.

Thanks Kevin! I'll need it.

September 12, 2012
04:37

Baron Jon

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After spending the entire day studying Chinese, I was determined to have a conversation, even if it was a small one, in Chinese.

How did it go? Well let's just say that I spoke Chinese………in Spanish lol. Oh well, chalk that up to nerves.

Day 1 of my "Zero to Fluent in 90 days" Challenge is done. Recap time.

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 12, 2012
17:15

Baron Jon

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Halfway through the second day of my "zero to fluent in 90 days challenged" and I've experienced a major setback. Well I guess these things are bound to happen. What matters is how I respond to them.

Baron Jon

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 13, 2012
09:03

mountains

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Just had a quick look at your blog and you seem to be going like the clappers! Best of luck to your endeavours.

September 13, 2012
15:40

Baron Jon

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Thank you so much!

I'll be making my first video in "all Chinese" in just a few days. I'll keep you updated.

Baron Jon.

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 14, 2012
03:47

Baron Jon

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Never said it would be easy.

Day 3

Zero to Fluent Without Even Trying?

I've had a chance to talk to more people that I'd imagine I would have about this challenge I'm undergoing. And I've luckily have had a few people show a lot of much needed support and encouragement. But, (there's always a but), there is another group of people, who exist in much higher numbers, who react with total shock. Not the good kind of shock. Not the "oh wow, I wish you the best of luck and let me know if I can be of any kind of help" shock. More like, "I can't believe he said that about your mama." kind of shock. It's as if I've told them, "I'm going to learn Chinese in 90 Days while playing World of Warcraft 16 hours a day and surfing the web the remainder of the day." I didn't quite get it at first. But I think that some people see this challenge as arrogance. As if I proclaiming myself to be so smart that I could do in 90 days what some people have been spending years attempting to do. I guess I understand why they feel that way. But that's not my intention and hopefully I can dispel that feeling today.

This is hard work.

This project is only 3 full days in and I've already worked harder on it than I can remember working on most things. I woke up at 6 am this morning, made a cup of coffee and immediately began studying the language. I spent about 4 hours undoing the previous vocabulary mistake that I wrote about in the previous article and then followed that with 2 hours of new vocabulary. Next I studied some grammar, but not too much and listened to some podcasts. This lasted about 90 minutes before I decided to head out to find a native Chinese speaker to embarrass myself in front of. Finding the Chinese speaker wasn't too hard, embarrassing myself wasn't hard at all. All in all, I spent 11 hours of my day on Chinese. I'm not saying all of this to garner any kind of pity. I'm just hoping to convey that I mean no disrespect when I aim for 90 days. I plan on working my butt off to accomplish it. Even then, I may not make it. But failure is always an option and the reward is in the journey.

Up to date Recap:

3 days

27 hours

150 words memorized

30 contextual sentences memorized.

7 Chinesepod.com listened to / studied and analyzed.

A lot of fun.

Baron Jon

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

twitter @zerotofluent

September 15, 2012
06:55

Baron Jon

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Day 5 – What I Love about Chinese So Far.

Chinese has one of the most logical implementations of grammar that I've seen.

Ok, Chinese is hard. But there are so many little treasures tucked away inside the language that the joy of studying it can make you forget about the difficulty that comes along with it. During these 5 intense days of study, I've found that Chinese has one of the most logical grammatical structures that I've ever studied (granted I've only studied three languages at this point). When studying a language, you inevitably run into sentence structures that are so different from your native language that you usually say, "Man, why do they say it that way? It's weird." And I'll admit that I've had a few of those moments so far with Chinese. However, I've more often found myself saying things like "ahh I get it, English should do it that way too." Let me give you a couple of examples.

Prepositionals: These are words or phrases that give you pertinent information about the main verb of a sentence.
- We use these all the time in English. "I study at home." is an example where the prepositional phrase "at home", gives you more information about the main verb "to study". Specifically, it gives you information about where the studying is happening.

Prepositions exist in Chinese as well. The only difference is where they are placed in the sentence. Although English usually places the preposition after the verb as the "I study at home" example shows. Chinese usually (maybe always) places the preposition before the verb as in "I at home study" or wǒ zài jiā xuéxí. Why does it make more sense to do it this way? Because "at home" is called a preposition. In other words its placement should be before (pre) the verb itself. These little findings have been small breakthroughs in my studying so far. Because I believe that Understanding why a sentence is formed a certain way will prevent me from having to remember what would otherwise be just another rule. I understand that this approach could backfire. One of my plateaus in Spanish came from me trying to understand every little detail. When I finally allowed myself the freedom to not know it all, I was able to get past that plateau.

So this will be my general approach to the language for now:

Seek to understand why it is the way it is while allowing myself the freedom to just move on when I don't get it.

Baron Jon

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 17, 2012
04:50

Baron Jon

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24 hours Until My First Chinese Video

After 6 grueling days, 50 glorious hours, 250 learned words, 100 memorized sentences and about a dozen chinesepod lessons, other various materials and ofcourse speaking to natives. I will be posting my first video of myself speaking completely in Chinese. The purpose of the video is to show where I stand after one full week of studying. I plan on speaking for roughly 2 to 3 solid minutes about myself and other small events in my life right. I'll also be discussing what I think about studying Chinese. All in Chinese. For now, I have to get back to studying. See you tomorrow.

Baron Jon

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 17, 2012
13:31

418brian

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Looking forward to it Baron!

Brian

How I Got Started with My First Language Challenge" (Video)

September 18, 2012
08:12

Baron Jon

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My First Video speaking Chinese (7 days into challenge)

Ok. One week of the challenge is over and here is my first video speaking Chinese. It's pretty basic at this point and the pronunciation probably leaves a lot to be desired. My goal with this video was to try to put together some thoughts (however basic) using only words and grammar rules that I've learned. At this point, I know many more words then what I use in the video, but this is what I was able to come up with. To make the video, I went over what I wanted to say with a native to make sure there were no huge grammar mistakes. On a regular day to day basis, I can actually hold a dialogue that is a little more useful than this. For example, I completed an entire transaction / interaction at work today using only Chinese. All things considered, I'm pretty happy with my 7 day progress report.

One week day, 83 more days to go.

Baron Jon

http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

September 18, 2012
08:22

418brian

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Not bad man, keep it up man. You work online and Your wife is doctor did you say? nice =)

Brian

How I Got Started with My First Language Challenge" (Video)

September 18, 2012
08:45

Baron Jon

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k at an a computer store. She's a doctor.

Not sure what I did wrong when I tried to embed the video.

baron jon

September 19, 2012
06:31

Baron Jon

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http://www.zerotofluentin90days.com

Also I want to say that I'm super grateful for fluentin3months.com. It's super motivating to come here and read all the great posts and to get all the great support and accountability that comes with posting updates.

September 19, 2012
19:58

Baron Jon

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Had my first dream in Chinese this week. I was so excited. That is all . Back to my studies.

Baron Jon

September 20, 2012
00:14

ghostkrashers

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Ahhh conjugations. I will be dreading those soon. I remember last year when I found out about the more than one conjugations, I was about to cry (not literally). I had so much trouble understanding why to eat (I eat, you eat, he eats, we eat, and they eat) had to be (como, comes, come, comemos, y comen).

You are dreaming already? That's awesome. I remember having a Spanish dream last year about tacos. It was pretty cool.

I have a question. What are you doing during the day? Do you have any schooling, job? If so, how do you manage your time?

Also, once you learn the language, are you planning to travel?

September 20, 2012
00:54

Veronica226

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Wow great job, Baron! Keep up the good work! I know you can do this.

Honestly, you make me feel a little guilty. Last year and the first half of this year I hardly had any responsibilities (I worked 15 hours a week), yet I hardly made any progress in Japanese. If I had put in even half the time you are putting in I would probably be fluent. While I do feel bad about the wasted time, you also have inspired me to work harder. If you can do that after a week in Chinese, surely I can push myself harder with German. I now have a fuller plate (still only work 15 hours a week, but have 3 university classes and a lot of church related activities), but you have inspired me to work harder. I really need to quite wasting time on the internet. :/

Thanks for the inspiration and keep it up!

Native:

Speaks:

(B1)

(A2) Learning:

Next Up:

Wishlist:

(koine)

September 20, 2012
19:55

Baron Jon

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ghostkrashers said
Ahhh conjugations. I will be dreading those soon. I remember last year when I found out about the more than one conjugations, I was about to cry (not literally). I had so much trouble understanding why to eat (I eat, you eat, he eats, we eat, and they eat) had to be (como, comes, come, comemos, y comen).

You are dreaming already? That's awesome. I remember having a Spanish dream last year about tacos. It was pretty cool.

I have a question. What are you doing during the day? Do you have any schooling, job? If so, how do you manage your time?

Also, once you learn the language, are you planning to travel?

Hey Ghostkrashers.

Great question. I understand exactly why you're asking I think. In fact, I asked Benny the same question. In short, I work 45 hours a week managing a retail store. It's a lot of fun but really demanding on my time. My wife is a first year doctor who is always tired so I also take care of most of the cooking. Then Church on Sundays and Tuesdays. All in all, a pretty busy schedule. What's left is about 5 to 8 of Chinese per day. It's pretty demanding and I can get really tired at times. But I figured, 90 days isn't really that long. I keep saying "If I could just find a way to do this for 90 days, what would be the result." The answer: I don't know yet. But I'm determined to find out.

Thanks for the interest and support. I really appreciate it.

September 20, 2012
20:01

Baron Jon

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Veronica226 said
Wow great job, Baron! Keep up the good work! I know you can do this.

Honestly, you make me feel a little guilty. Last year and the first half of this year I hardly had any responsibilities (I worked 15 hours a week), yet I hardly made any progress in Japanese. If I had put in even half the time you are putting in I would probably be fluent. While I do feel bad about the wasted time, you also have inspired me to work harder. If you can do that after a week in Chinese, surely I can push myself harder with German. I now have a fuller plate (still only work 15 hours a week, but have 3 university classes and a lot of church related activities), but you have inspired me to work harder. I really need to quite wasting time on the internet. :/

Thanks for the inspiration and keep it up!

Thanks Veronica. And I complete understand what you mean about progress. I spent a decade learning Spanish and I'm still not completely fluent. You're right, I don't think I put the necessary effort into it. I'm trying to make this language experience a different one. Thank you for the support and please keep me up to date on how your language learning goes.

Baron Jon

Mission : Fluent Chinese in 90 days | My language mission and my log | Forum

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