Comments on: Why studying will never help you speak a language

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:12:00 +0000

Uh huh. I’d like to see you survive in a party after all those books. Passing an exam is not the same as being really fluent.

You are either lying, or you used books AND PEOPLE. Reaching fluency by being locked up in a room with dusty paper is impossible.

By: Rafaelinrio

Rafaelinrio — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:32:00 +0000

Man, I gotta agree with what you said like 100%….here’s my story, my parents are Brazilian but I was born and grew up in Canada…but they would always use English to talk to me, and they spoke in portuguese to each other…I could understand most of what they said but I couldn’t speak because I never tried and I was afraid of making mistakes, one day my father was tranfered back to Brazil, I was 16 back then and then I had to go to school there…I was amazed of how much I could talk in only one month there, just because I was trying…in around 6 month I could communicate in portuguese as well as I could in English…. so you’re right when you say that if u wanna speak a language you have to speak it, no matter how wrong or stupid you might sound, that’s the only way.

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:06:00 +0000

The only issue you seem to have, as you repeated it, is that the other person “is willing to…” or not.

Please read these posts:

http://fi3m.com/how-to-convince-natives-to-speak-to-you-in-their-language/

http://fi3m.com/battle/

Also, NO you will not find me humbled by other scripts. It took me a few hours to learn the Thai script: http://fi3m.com/phonetic-script-can-be-learned-quickly/ Easy peasy. The only thing that will be much more time consuming as I see it are non phonetic scripts, most of which you listed are NOT.

There is no good excuse.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:36:00 +0000

This is exactly what I needed to read this week. I recently moved to Spain and I am currently learning Spanish… I would consider myself to have a basic level. I really just want to get to the point where I can carry on conversations in Spanish, and I think you’re 100% right that the only way to do that is to speak. While I’m really outgoing speaking English, I become shy and nervous when I speak Spanish. I keep telling myself that once I study a few more grammar principles and build just a little more vocabulary, I will be ready to start speaking. I’m now realizing that I CAN speak, just not very well.. but I need to just push through the uncomfortable and embarrassing moments! I’m going to look for some language exchange partners so that I can practice speaking in an environment where it’s okay to stop and make corrections and ask questions. Anyways, thank you again. Keep up the great posts!

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:36:00 +0000

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:36:00 +0000

By: Danny Cortés

Danny Cortés — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:22:00 +0000

this just made my day, i was studying to learn french (cuz i already am a native speaker in english and spanish so i really wanted to learn french. it didnt work out cuz i just filled up a book with notes… i tried talking and i was actually able to learn a few things. im still far away from learning this language well but this made me want to try learning in a new way. Thank you so much!

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:31:00 +0000

In my mind writing is NOT equally important to being able to communicate face to face with a human being. It should always come second.

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:31:00 +0000

In my mind writing is NOT equally important to being able to communicate face to face with a human being. It should always come second.

By: Arthur Maurer

Arthur Maurer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:00 +0000

Studying might not help you actually speak a language, but it will definitely improve your reading and writing skills in that given language, which, to my mind, is equally important–especially in an age where communication is increasingly being limited to the computer and cellphone screen. Also, some people are not by nature verbal communicators–even in their native tongue–and so for them the best method of communication would be writing. But really, what’s needed is not one method or the other, but both, so that you can speak and write in a language. You make a good point in saying that studying a language will never help you speak it, and I completely agree–you have to be immersed in, surrounded by, that language; you have to experience it. However, if you want to be able to write in that language without any guesswork, then studying is important. So I guess what I’m saying is, like pretty much everything in life, we have to strike a balance between the two.

By: Arthur Maurer

Arthur Maurer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:00 +0000

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:40:00 +0000

For 3 days??? That’s what I do too – there’s no disagreement. Please don’t accuse me of being dogmatic if you are nitpicking about such ridiculous silly details. And please read the post properly – I was arguing against approached based on pure study over the long term.

I’ve defined fluency here: http://www.fluentin3months.com/defining-fluency-to-achieve-fluency/

Please read the posts properly before giving me your bones.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:40:00 +0000

I’ve defined fluency here: http://www.fluentin3months.com/defining-fluency-to-achieve-fluency/

Please read the posts properly before giving me your bones.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:51:00 +0000

Yep, teach a man a few words and he’ll say a few words. Teach him how to learn and develop his language, and he’ll speak it fluently It’s like the fishing metaphor…

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 01:40:00 +0000

Really? I’ve heard things like accommodation really are quite expensive. I’m sure I could easily rough it for a reasonable amount of money, but I was hoping to maintain the level of comfort I’ve had in other cities.

By: Gaijin

Gaijin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:04:00 +0000

Hi Benny,

Tokyo is not expensive, unless you want to go clubbing a few times a week in Shibuya or Roppongi. I have been to Tokyo twice. For an average stay of 2.5 months I need around 3,500 euro. Is it much compared to Dublin (!), London or Paris?

Gaijin

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:24:00 +0000

Sorry, what I meant was I bought into the hype of the silent period, input and LingQ. Originally I was saying random phrases whenever I could and tried to make them make sense but then saw an article saying reading and listening is better. I tried it and it just dragged me down, ruining what was once a fine accent. Now though, I’ve gone back to speaking because it is helping the accent. In essence, what I meant to say, studying has long term, detrimental effects. Merry Christmas!

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:08:00 +0000

Use in real situations is more stressful sometimes, but definitely not boring

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 09:43:00 +0000

I found after going from the use your limited language to doing what some called “a silent period” that my accent became ruined not only in the language I was doing it in but also Italian and French as well! It was ridiculously boring also.

By: Will Masters

Will Masters — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:57:00 +0000

i have to say hand on heart i completely disagree with you when you say that it should be used to help you improve as opposed to anything else. yes, obviously it will help you improve if you arent brilliant in a given aspect of the language, that goes without saying, but i;m living proof that studying a language can make you speak it without too much difficulty. last year i went to portugal to see my girlfriend and her family, who are all native portuguese. before going, i speant a month looking at vocab, learning it, reading how to pronounce the words correctly. i sat and memorised all the grammar rules and exceptions i could find and finally at the end of the month i flew out there. when i got out there i was able to speak clearly and concisely by applying the rules of grammar to the vocab i had learnt. naturally i wasnt able to speak like a native and it was obvious i wasnt one, but i was still able to communicate without a problem and and make myself completel understood by everyone i came into contact with, and all this was without ever having heard a word of the language spoken by a native. today, after having spent the past year speaking nothin but portuguese with my girlfriend i am now completely fluent with a good accent. there are very few things that i am unsure how to say in the language, and as much as it will never be as good as my native obviously, i recon that with time then it will come pretty close if it continues the way its goin
i have read alot of your posts and think they are very good, but have to admit that you do generalise alot, and forget that like rules of language, there are exceptions to the rules to with people and the ways they study and learn.