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  • Wow.

  • Alright, all good, set up?

  • Yeah.

  • All right.

  • So, what do you know already?

  • Um, well,

  • hola,

  • como estas,

  • gracias.

  • Oh, God.

  • [Connor] This probably sounds familiar.

  • Like you, I've taken a stab at languages a few times.

  • Three years of Chinese in school,

  • of which I remember almost nothing.

  • An attempt at Indonesian that lasted two weeks.

  • It never stuck.

  • I couldn't keep up the motivation.

  • I didn't have the language gene.

  • I wasn't a little kid anymore, so languages were harder.

  • All this was complete bullshit, I soon found out.

  • But first, a little about me.

  • I'm a 20 year old digital nomad.

  • For the last year and a half,

  • I've been travelling and living around the world

  • from Saigon to Barcelona,

  • working wherever I could find Wi-Fi.

  • I lift weights, rock climb, tinker with my diet,

  • take nootropics, read books,

  • and mingle with like-minded people.

  • And apparently, I have an addiction

  • with learning things in a month.

  • Last June, I learned to DJ in Prague,

  • and in November, I gained 26 pounds of muscle in a month,

  • after a lifetime of failed attempts.

  • And now, I'm in Medellin, Columbia,

  • where I'll do the same with Spanish.

  • Before we get started, it's important to define

  • what exactly I'm shooting for this month.

  • It's easy to get caught up in the word fluency,

  • but what does that really mean?

  • I aim to be functionally conversational,

  • meaning I can have friends who speak no English,

  • and get by fine, and have normal conversations.

  • But I'm not perfect, and I still don't know some words.

  • It's an ambitious goal for one month,

  • and I'm going to need some help.

  • Luckily, I have a few people to call on.

  • Hello?

  • This is Benny Lewis,

  • author of the most-read language-learning blog online,

  • Fluent in 3 Months.

  • He speaks close to 10 languages,

  • and has helped tens of thousands learn before,

  • so his advice will be pivotal

  • in my overall learning strategy.

  • - [Benny] Ah, reaching level B-1 requires minimal grammar.

  • It does not, it requires a little bit of grammar,

  • but not a lot, so I would highly recommend

  • for the next month that you do not worry about conjugation,

  • and you don't worry about um,

  • getting the masculine and the feminine right,

  • and all of these things that are associated with grammar.

  • These are not going to help you out in this project.

  • As you go beyond, once you reach that B-1 level,

  • then that is when I do recommend

  • people actually get their head

  • into a grammar book to tidy it all up.

  • But if you, if a lot of your time and energy

  • is put into learning tables to speak correct Spanish,

  • that's going to slow down this project.

  • Because you want, you want to just express yourself.

  • So I would just say, "Today I to write".

  • "Yesterday I to write."

  • "Tomorrow I to write."

  • And it is not correct, but it is completely understandable,

  • if you say "Hoy yo escribir", "Today I to write".

  • So, I would try to keep that in mind

  • that your goal, as you speak,

  • is not to speak correct Spanish,

  • but to speak something in Spanish.

  • What I would do during my intensive projects,

  • is at the end of my day, or at the, after a study session,

  • I'd open an Excel sheet, and I'll create a list.

  • Left-hand side first column,

  • left-hand side is Spanish words,

  • right-hand side is English words.

  • You export that as a CSV file,

  • and you import that CSV file into Anki,

  • and then you have a flash card that is pre-made by you

  • specific to the words you're learning that day.

  • If you find that the biggest thing holding you back

  • from having comfortable conversations

  • is a lack of vocabulary,

  • then lean towards studying more words

  • related to the topics that you talk about.

  • Um, and,

  • Keep in mind if you don't like the tutors

  • that you find in person,

  • you have a wealth of online tutors.

  • One thing that I found

  • when I was learning Mandarin in China, in Taiwan, sorry,

  • is I had three or four teachers, and I just found

  • I wasn't learning with them as quickly as I could learn.

  • So even though I was in the country that speaks the language

  • I still got Skype-based lessons,

  • because then I had a wider range of teachers,

  • and I found exactly the right teachers

  • to help me with the project.

  • - [Connor] Luckily, the teacher I found in person

  • was incredible.

  • (door clicks)

  • - Connor?

  • - Hola, como estas?

  • - Bien.

  • Voy a, it is your typical "going to".

  • So we have ...

  • - Same usage in Español as English?

  • - Yeah, it's like future, short future.

  • It's similar to English,

  • when you say "I'm going to," Carulla.

  • That's because that's a destination, that's a place.

  • - Right.

  • - And you can use it to, eh, like this.

  • - That's -- - right?

  • - If it's how you say here, how it's going to be used,

  • how I'm gonna hear it, that's how I want to learn it

  • - [Connor] It's important to note

  • that I'm not deferring to Adrian for what to study when.

  • I've lined up the most important things to learn first,

  • which is why we're already covering "I'm going to"

  • before I know how to talk about the weather,

  • which usually comes way too early in traditional textbooks.

  • I have a small set of starting versatile words

  • that I'll be front-loading.

  • These are specifically chosen,

  • as they will get the most mileage,

  • but also help me express myself

  • in a wide variety of situations

  • once I add more vocabulary.

  • There are connectors like

  • before, after, but, so, still, yet, because.

  • There are heavy-use verbs like

  • tener, ir, estar, ser, and hacer.

  • There are directional words like

  • north, south, left, right, straight, go back,

  • and some coping phrases like

  • please repeat that, how do you say, more slowly please.

  • I've taken a big list of these important words

  • and wrote them down on my window, a makeshift whiteboard.

  • When I know each word cold, I can erase it.

  • Before I start memorizing things too much, though,

  • I need to make sure my pronunciation is on point.

  • This will help with listening as well,

  • but it will prevent me from memorizing a word

  • with the English pronunciation in my head

  • and then not recognize it in speech

  • with proper Spanish pronunciation.

  • Luckily I know just the guy to ask for help.

  • This is Idahosa Ness, creator of the Mimic Method.

  • He's famous for speaking with no accent at all

  • in each of his six languages,

  • and the rhythmic phonetic song training he uses

  • to hack each language's sounds.

  • Learning pronunciation first speeds up everything else.

  • Idahosa's system is the best out there.

  • - You acquire your first language

  • as well as any foreign language

  • through mimicking native speakers.

  • Any when I say mimicking, I mean,

  • the sounds they make and recreating the sounds

  • they make to communicate.

  • We really get technical,

  • and train your ears, train your mouth

  • to be able to create those sounds.

  • So for example,

  • you as an English speaker learning Spanish,

  • how to tune your mouth,

  • the position of your tongue,

  • to the vowels and the consonants of Spanish,

  • to the rhythm and cadence

  • of Spanish and speakers in Colombia.

  • And once you have that ability,

  • then all these things that trip up most language learners

  • like understanding native speakers when they talk fast

  • and being able to communicate fluently without

  • tripping over your tongue and stuttering.

  • All of these kind of core abilities of communication

  • come together once you train that foundation.

  • Most people, when they learn a language,

  • they learn by paper,

  • they learn how to read and write,

  • and can think,

  • someone learning English, for example,

  • they might know the words,

  • what,

  • are,

  • you,

  • doing,

  • and tonight,

  • they might know those words,

  • but then struggle to understand someone like me or you,

  • speaking casually like,

  • "Yo Connor, what are you doing tonight?"

  • You know, because,

  • it's different sounds,

  • a different reality in how we speak

  • than how we write.

  • So, this kind of training allows you

  • to process those sounds much quicker,

  • and get a better sense of what

  • people are actually saying

  • when they talk every day on the street.

  • We have a musical process where

  • you learn how to articulate the lyrics

  • of a song in Spanish.

  • And your goal is to be able to articulate it and

  • to pronounce it with the exact same pronunciation

  • as the original artists,

  • the native speaker who made those lyrics.

  • And what we do is you break it down syllable by syllable

  • and we explain each syllable in detail

  • and then you make your attempt.

  • You have uh, we'll do a line-by-line

  • and then through a process, like it's,

  • it will take about like 20 or 30 minutes

  • of trying to memorize

  • this sequence of syllables.

  • You don't know what you're saying yet,

  • you're just memorizing the sequence of syllables.

  • Once you have it, you record yourself,

  • submit your recording to us,

  • then we listen and we pinpoint

  • the exact sound you're mispronouncing.

  • And then we can actually tell you

  • what you're doing wrong with your mouth

  • and what you need to adjust to fix that sound.

  • So, to give an example in English,

  • if this, if the lyric was, you know,

  • "everybody sit down,"

  • and we would break that down into its component syllables

  • of, eh,

  • vree,

  • bah,

  • dee,

  • sit,

  • down,

  • and we kind of transcribe those syllables so you can see

  • and listen to each one,

  • and then put it to a beat, so you're,

  • "everybody sit down, everybody sit down."

  • Then you record yourself.

  • Now, obviously this'll be easy to you

  • because you speak English,

  • but if I were uh, Colombian for example,

  • I don't speak English,

  • I might say, "everybody seet down, everybody seet down."

  • And then we listen and we pinpoint that,

  • on the word, "sit,"

  • you're saying "seet,"

  • and there's uh, the vowel is wrong.

  • So you wouldn't be able to hear that until we point it out.

  • We point it out and say,

  • "Hey Connor, you're saying 'seet'

  • instead of 'sit.'"

  • This is the physical difference.

  • Observe these diagrams, your tongue needs to be lower here.

  • Listen to this audio several times, you'll be able

  • to hear the difference between 'seet' and 'sit,'

  • and then do drill ABC,

  • and once you think you have it,

  • record yourself again.

  • And the next time around you're like, 'everybody sit down."

  • And through that process, you have now tuned

  • your ear to that subtle difference in English

  • between "seet," "sit," "feet," "fit," you know, "heat, hit,"

  • which means that, when people talk to you,

  • you can now hear it.

  • When you speak, you can now make it a little better.

  • And uh, it's an iterative process

  • where each time you submit a recording,

  • we're tweaking small parts here and there.

  • And that process of tweaking your ear and tongue

  • goes a long way

  • once you're back out there on the streets

  • listening to everyday Spanish.

  • (Latin music)

  • - [Connor] Now that I have my strategy in place,

  • it's time to set some stakes.

  • I've got a lot of motivation already,

  • but this project requires an extra kick in the ass.

  • This is Brian Kwong, founder of the Add1Challenge,

  • a language and learning accountability community

  • that has helped hundreds

  • stick to their language and learning goals.

  • Given the magnitude of my challenge,

  • I'm gonna need some serious accountability

  • and Brian's just the guy to help.

  • - [Brian] So, okay, now we got the end goal.

  • Now we gotta break it down.

  • So you have thirty days.

  • So you already set speaking for three hours.

  • - What I'll be doing is I'll be having a private tutor

  • for three hours a day.

  • And then I'll be doing,

  • at least in the first week,

  • probably two hours to Idahosa's program a day,

  • just up front,

  • um, and then some vocabulary training,

  • through Anki.

  • - So now we're breaking down the accountability.

  • So if we don't know exactly how much you're gonna do,

  • we can't hold you accountable.

  • That's why I'm asking you these questions.

  • So, now I've got three hours of speaking,

  • two hours of Idahosa's program,

  • that's five hours.

  • - Correct.

  • - If there's no, there's no, there's nothing at stake,

  • then you, then you can just like, "Oh I didn't do it."

  • You know, then, you know?

  • So we have something that's painful, or hugely rewarding.

  • Usually, you know,

  • some people are more motivated by, by punishment,

  • some people are more motivated by rewards,

  • but some people can have both.

  • So what works for you,

  • in terms of putting something at stake?

  • - I think I need, I think a major sting

  • if I don't follow through.

  • - Ooh, so what is that sting?

  • Tell me, what is that sting?

  • - If I do not follow through on any given day,

  • it's $500 dollars that I'll send you.

  • - $500 dollars each day?

  • - If I don't make it on any day, if I miss three days,

  • that's $1500.

  • - Oh wow.

  • Well you got the goal, and we got,

  • what your weekly goal is

  • and what total you are accountable for,

  • and we got something at stake.

  • Now, the next part is to,

  • tell everybody.

  • So now all of your friends know about this, not just me.

  • - [Connor] Now that I have so much money on the line,

  • it's time to get to work.

  • - [Recording] One, two, three, four,

  • - (unison) dah-ti, dah-ti, dah-ti, dah-ti.

  • - [Through computer] Ste-ah. - Styah.

  • - [Through Computer] Steah. - Steah.

  • Ma-hoohn, ma-houhn, -houhn.

  • - [Connor] This process may look a bit weird.

  • What am I really achieving here?

  • But it works.

  • Per Idahosa's promises,

  • after two weeks of doing this two hours a day,

  • slowly tuning my tongue and ear,

  • my pronunciation is on point.

  • But more importantly,

  • I understand people when they speak.

  • It will take some time to work up to speed,

  • but I'm having limited conversations now

  • without too much trouble.

  • With pronunciation on point,

  • and basic grammar in place,

  • I began adding vocabulary.

  • By walking on the treadmill,

  • I improved my recall and reduced boredom.

  • Now, I'm ready for the halfway milestone conversation

  • to track my progress.

  • You may have noticed that I had made quite a few mistakes.

  • But I don't regret a single one of them.

  • In fact, if I hadn't been willing to make lots of mistakes,

  • that conversation would have never happened.

  • So let's talk about the thing

  • holding back millions of language learners.

  • Perfection.

  • With any language, there are two main milestones:

  • communication and perfection, fluency.

  • In 30 days, you can go from nothing

  • to expressing almost any idea.

  • You can communicate almost any idea after 30 focused days.

  • The mistake most people make is they try to be perfect.

  • And when you try to be perfect,

  • this is how far you can get in 30 days.

  • Get to here first, and be able to express any idea,

  • and then worry about refining that towards perfection.

  • To illustrate this, I had two tutors.

  • The first one wanted to help me communicate first,

  • and the other, perfection.

  • The perfection teacher was worried about

  • conjugation for every verb,

  • which past tense was best for different situations,

  • gender, and other details

  • that aren't necessary for communicating.

  • Whereas, for communicating,

  • you need to conjugate less than 10 verbs,

  • and you only need one past, one future,

  • to hack by using "I'm going to" instead of "I will",

  • and one present.

  • If you screw up the gender,

  • someone is still going to understand you.

  • Once you can communicate,

  • then you can worry about perfection.

  • But if you try and be perfect,

  • it'll be a long time before you can ever truly communicate.

  • - It's, it's just for that?

  • - Emotions?

  • - Yea?

  • - Ah, no, it's the verb "poner"

  • -and what is "poner"? - Put

  • - Put - To put, something

  • - I was going,

  • - I, I was going,

  • - Yeah.

  • - I was going

  • - I was going? Going... I always forget

  • It's 4 AM on a Wednesday,

  • and I am doing my Mimic Method,

  • because I'm an idiot, and I put it off until really late,

  • and uh, well, when you have $500 dollars

  • of accountability on the line,

  • you choose getting the work done,

  • getting the training in,

  • doing the practice, over losing $500 dollars.

  • This is more ideal than,

  • back-and-forth with text,

  • because this is training your listening skills,

  • and it's training your uh,

  • it's training your skills on the speaking,

  • so you're actually having a conversation

  • even though it's over messaging.

  • If you don't understand something,

  • you can play the message

  • over and over again, back and forth.

  • Um, this is way better than texting

  • back and forth with your teacher.

  • - [Connor] I'm consistently finding that

  • the lack of vocabulary is the biggest thing holding me back.

  • As I'm not quite done with Idahosa's pronunciation program,

  • Brian agreed to letting me change those two hours

  • into vocabulary training,

  • as long as I finish this program by the end.

  • - For those unfamiliar, I'm training my vocabulary

  • using an SRS, or Spaced Repetition System.

  • It's like normal flash cards,

  • but after you get something right,

  • you don't see it again for a day.

  • The next time, four days,

  • the next time, 20 days, then two months, and so on.

  • Getting it wrong brings it right back to the start.

  • The point is, you see a word

  • just before you're about to forget it,

  • which is the point where recalling a word

  • creates the strongest memory.

  • There's a lot of research on SRSs,

  • and it's one of the most efficient and effective ways

  • to memorize lots of information, especially vocab.

  • It's important to put English on the front,

  • as you want to train recall, not recognition.

  • If you can generate the word from memory,

  • you can recognize it, but usually not the other way around.

  • But it's not all roses.

  • - There's an interesting dichotomy going on

  • with my tutor being really happy with my progress

  • and thinking that I'm,

  • doing amazing,

  • and me just being frustrated with

  • not being able to say or understand

  • the things I want to say that I, or understand.

  • And it sorta seems to flop between this, day in, day out.

  • So I knew all this would be mentally exhausting,

  • but I really underestimated how physically exhausting

  • all of this studying,

  • and all of this speaking,

  • uh, would be.

  • I find that, almost every day,

  • I have to take a nap for two hours.

  • And then the flip-flop

  • between good days and bad days continues.

  • Uh, I had a couple really, really great days,

  • but the last two or three days have felt

  • like my Spanish is where it was,

  • you know, a week ago, or more.

  • But this is something I haven't brought up, yet.

  • (clears throat) But I'm not only doing Spanish right now,

  • I'm still working.

  • I still have clients,

  • I'm still working just like any other person,

  • this is not a one month of complete focus on Spanish,

  • just by the fact that I'm spending five hours or more per day,

  • I still have other stuff.

  • (computer audio) - (singing along in Spanish)

  • It's 1 AM, on the last day.

  • And my accountability was,

  • I had to finish the Mimic Method

  • before the end of the month,

  • and I'm an idiot, and I procrastinated,

  • and I put all this shit off to the last couple days,

  • and here I am, last night, trying to get it done,

  • and it's late, and I'm fucking slurring all my words,

  • and uh, there's absolutely zero chance

  • of me finishing this tonight.

  • And that means I owe Brian $500.

  • Well, the challenge is over.

  • $1350 dollars spent on 90 hours of tutoring,

  • $150 bucks on the pronunciation course,

  • and now $500 dollars paid to Brian

  • for failing my accountability.

  • Let's see if it was all worth it.

  • (footsteps, door opens)

  • Guevon! (bro)

  • - David.

  • - David?

  • - David.

  • - Look, nothing I did is special.

  • All I did is focus on the things we know work.

  • Lots of speaking with a native.

  • SRS training.

  • Understanding that language is just sound.

  • Learn the most useful grammar and vocab first.

  • Focus on communication, not perfection.

  • And then just put in the time.

  • I spent about 150 hours this month,

  • and I've seen that number with these methods

  • be about true for others coming to a conversational level.

  • Whether you do it in one month, three, or six,

  • you don't need a better piece of software.

  • You need to talk to a real human.

Wow.

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