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Learn any languages in 3 months

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4915 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 17 of 36
20 June 2014 at 2:35pm | IP Logged 
Here's another blog post
about one woman's experience of learning Hindi at FSI. It sounds like a pretty intense course that lasted
30 weeks (7 1/2 weeks). She doesn't mention anything about what level they attained, but it's an
interesting read.
2 persons have voted this message useful



patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4539 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 18 of 36
20 June 2014 at 2:51pm | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
Here's another blog post
about one woman's experience of learning Hindi at FSI. It sounds like a pretty intense course that lasted
30 weeks (7 1/2 weeks). She doesn't mention anything about what level they attained, but it's an
interesting read.


Judging by her test results she should be at B2 level, which sounds right from her description.

Though it sounds like she has a pretty narrow vocabulary and shaky grammar, which you'd expect if you were rushed through.

EDIT: Actually 2/2 in the exam might be closer to B1.

Edited by patrickwilken on 20 June 2014 at 3:19pm

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7211 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 19 of 36
20 June 2014 at 6:56pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
Say you need about 8000 words to really start getting comfortable. You'd need to be learning close to 50 words per day, every day for six months. And then of course you need to learn the grammar and get exposure to lots and lots of language. Perhaps it's possible to get that in six months, but I seriously doubt it. I think you could get to B2 in a related language, but C1 seems seriously too hard.


Related languages have a vocabulary discount. Let's say it's 7000 words you need, and the vocabulary discount is 50%. 7000 is the figure Professor Arguelles says, "just to get started with extensive reading". Six months, 6 days a week would be about 25 words a day, which is a lot, but seems possible if one is dedicated full-time to the endeavor.
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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5436 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 20 of 36
21 June 2014 at 2:04am | IP Logged 
I won't start my usual rant about how many words one needs to be able to speak a language at a certain level. I'll
just say that I think this idea of 8000 words to "really start getting comfortable" is totally incorrect. But that's a
different debate.

On the current topic of the time to learn a language, I would suggest that you must look at the learning
environment in addition to all the issues of method and individual aptitude. In terms of learning environment,
there are some basic questions such as:

1. Do you live in the country of the language?
2. Do you have easy access to to a place where the language is spoken?
3. Do you hear the language spoken around you on a regular basis?
4. Do you have a spouse or a significant other who speaks the target language and is willing to help?
5. Is there some financial or professional incentive associated with high achievement in the target language?

What this all boils down to is the amount of real and significant contact one has with the language. We observe
here at HTLAL most multilinguals or polyglots are Europeans or people living in multilingual environments. By
contrast, the least multilingual tend to be North Americans or people from large countries with little incentive or
need to learn another language.

In the ideal conditions, I think one can learn a language very quickly. I wont attempt to put specific numbers or
timelines, but I think it's pretty self-evident that in-country immersion with good classes and friendly natives is
much more effective and more fun that trying to learn a language holed-up with a book and some CD's.

Edited by s_allard on 21 June 2014 at 4:06am

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Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5326 days ago

1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 21 of 36
21 June 2014 at 6:07am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
In terms of learning environment, there are some basic questions such as:

1. Do you live in the country of the language?
2. Do you have easy access to to a place where the language is spoken?
3. Do you hear the language spoken around you on a regular basis?
4. Do you have a spouse or a significant other who speaks the target language and is willing to help?
5. Is there some financial or professional incentive associated with high achievement in the target language?

These factors certainly matter, but I'm pretty sure that you know many non-francophone Canadians in Quebec who've never learnd Québécois in spite of being surrounded by native speakers and having Québécois speaking spouses.
OTOH, I've met some polyglots who mastered a foreign language without without the help of natives and without ever setting a foot in a country where the language was natively spoken.
4 persons have voted this message useful



rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5242 days ago

881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 22 of 36
21 June 2014 at 9:35am | IP Logged 
Doitsujin wrote:
s_allard wrote:
In terms of learning environment, there are some basic questions such as:

1. Do you live in the country of the language?
2. Do you have easy access to to a place where the language is spoken?
3. Do you hear the language spoken around you on a regular basis?
4. Do you have a spouse or a significant other who speaks the target language and is willing to help?
5. Is there some financial or professional incentive associated with high achievement in the target language?

These factors certainly matter, but I'm pretty sure that you know many non-francophone Canadians in Quebec who've never learnd Québécois in spite of being surrounded by native speakers and having Québécois speaking spouses.
OTOH, I've met some polyglots who mastered a foreign language without without the help of natives and without ever setting a foot in a country where the language was natively spoken.


I'm fairly sure they were saying if you had those things you'd be better able to learn in only 3 months.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6603 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 23 of 36
21 June 2014 at 1:48pm | IP Logged 
luke wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
Say you need about 8000 words to really start getting comfortable. You'd need to be learning close to 50 words per day, every day for six months. And then of course you need to learn the grammar and get exposure to lots and lots of language. Perhaps it's possible to get that in six months, but I seriously doubt it. I think you could get to B2 in a related language, but C1 seems seriously too hard.


Related languages have a vocabulary discount. Let's say it's 7000 words you need, and the vocabulary discount is 50%. 7000 is the figure Professor Arguelles says, "just to get started with extensive reading". Six months, 6 days a week would be about 25 words a day, which is a lot, but seems possible if one is dedicated full-time to the endeavor.
1000 words is the discount when going from English to Russian. In closely related languages like Spanish and Portuguese or Russian and Polish, the discount is much bigger than that.
3 persons have voted this message useful



luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7211 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 24 of 36
21 June 2014 at 2:04pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
luke wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
Say you need about 8000 words to really start getting comfortable. You'd need to be learning close to 50 words per day, every day for six months. And then of course you need to learn the grammar and get exposure to lots and lots of language. Perhaps it's possible to get that in six months, but I seriously doubt it. I think you could get to B2 in a related language, but C1 seems seriously too hard.


Related languages have a vocabulary discount. Let's say it's 7000 words you need, and the vocabulary discount is 50%. 7000 is the figure Professor Arguelles says, "just to get started with extensive reading". Six months, 6 days a week would be about 25 words a day, which is a lot, but seems possible if one is dedicated full-time to the endeavor.
1000 words is the discount when going from English to Russian. In closely related languages like Spanish and Portuguese or Russian and Polish, the discount is much bigger than that.


Another thing. The two FSI courses I'm most familiar with, Basic French and Basic Spanish only teach about 2500 words. That doesn't mean the ILR/FSI 3/3 (Speak/Read) graduate only knows 2500 words. Besides the cognate discount, students have access to a variety of supplemental material. Also, the 3/3 student is perhaps in the top portion of the class, at least in the 6 month courses like French and Spanish. That's the impression I got from Don Casteel, the FSI diplomat of Platiquemos fame.


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