M2M Day 153: How I plan to master a foreign language in 30 days
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For April, my goal is to hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of technology.
There exists a crazy number of language learning programs, apps, courses, books, etc., which often makes learning a language an overwhelming proposition. Most of these tools, like the very popular Duolingo, are heavily gamified and vocab-based, so they nicely simulate progress, but are pretty inadequate when attempting to learn genuine communication skills.
There’s only one good way to learn how to speak a foreign language, and that’s… to speak the foreign language.
Of course, actually speaking the target foreign language requires more work — both from a logistical standpoint and from a brainpower standpoint — but it’s the only way to improve the skill I’m actually trying to learn.
80% of my training method
Thus, 80% of my training this month will be speaking in Hebrew with an Israeli teacher over Skype.
I found my teacher on the language learning platform italki.com. She has masters degree in Hebrew and linguistics from Tel Aviv University, and currently lives in California, so scheduling sessions is fairly easy (at least, from a timezone perspective).
Right now, I’m planning to hold four 30-minute sessions per week, but I’m encouraged to increase this to five, six, or seven days per week (since the rates on italki are very reasonable). I’ll reassess my current plan after the first few lessons.
The other 20%
The other 20% of my time this month will be used to prep for my Skype sessions. During each session, I plan to converse about a very narrow topic, only introducing a handful of new words and phases.
I’ve found that it’s much more effective to intensely practice a few words at a time, over and over, in a well-defined context, rather than trying to memorize lists of out-of-context vocab words. For me, this is the best way to actually acquire new parts of the language. Even if it feels slow (because it is slow), retention and usability is so much higher in the long-run, that it’s ultimately “faster”.
To prep for each session, I plan to write a short monologue about the relevant narrow topic. Writing a monologue helps me identify the new words and phases I need in order to express my ideas about this particular topic, and helps me remember them by creating contextual meaning.
Before my Skype call, I will practice reciting the monologue from memory, until I can do so without too much difficulty. Importantly, I try to memorize based on the meaning of what I’m saying, rather than on learning the rote string of syllables.
My intention isn’t to prepare long, canned responses. Instead, the monologue is simply the best mechanism I’ve found to quickly acquire (and then retain) new vocabulary on a particular topic. During the conversation, I’ll pull words, phrase, or sentences from the monologue, but likely remixing what I memorized.
I will largely use Google Translate to help write the monologues. I can only do so because I already have an understanding of Hebrew grammar, etc. If you are a complete beginner, you should instead pre-write your monologues in English and then have your teacher properly translate them for you… Then, memorize accordingly.
Anyway, this is my entire plan for the month: Write monologues and hold Hebrew conversations. I may adjust as the month progresses, but for now, this is it.
My first Skype call is tomorrow, which I’m quite excited for. I plan to film it and share the video in tomorrow’s post.
Until then, I’m going to work on my first monologue for the rest of the night.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
