Is it possible to learn a foreign language in 90 days

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It seems that it takes many years to learn a foreign language, but the famous polyglot Bennie Lewis claims that after three months you can communicate quite well with native speakers. Is it possible to learn a language in such a short time and what mistakes prevent us from doing this? Learn from Alexandra Galimova's guest article.

The Russian mute soul disdains communication with the world, Perceiving someone else's language with vocabulary and disgust.

I. Guberman

All Russians, without exception, study at least one foreign language at school. They continue to learn linguistic wisdom in language courses, with tutors and in universities. Nevertheless, for the majority, a foreign language is a meaningless set of grammatical rules and words.

Over the 20 years of teaching English, I have discovered several reasons for this "dumbness".

What prevents you from learning a foreign language

1. Fear of mistakes

What have I never heard from my students! "I will be mistaken, and they will laugh at me!" - a respectable lady, the chief accountant of the bank, almost cried. "I will look like an idiot!" - the top manager of a large manufacturing company categorically declared. “I forgot the third form of the verb go, so I was embarrassed to ask for directions,” a young entrepreneur told about his independent trip to Europe.

Language is not mathematics, you should not strive for the utmost accuracy and correctness. Even the most literate of us are not immune to mistakes in our native language. What is the point in striving for excellence in a foreign language, forgetting that it is primarily a means of communication!

2. Imperial manners

“Why don't these colonialists learn Russian? They are the ones who come to us, not us to them, my corporate student, who came to work for a British company and was forced to study Shakespeare's language, was indignant.

Seventy years behind the Iron Curtain have taught us that residents of neighboring republics and countries speak Russian, as do some of the staff at popular resorts in Turkey and Egypt. However, time passes, and the younger generation of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Finland no longer speaks Russian, which is extremely inconvenient for tourists from Russia.

3. Wrong motivation

I have heard more than once: “Knowledge of English will decorate my resume”, “I will learn the language and prove to my mother what I am worth”.

It is unlikely that you will quickly speak a foreign language if you want to surprise colleagues, pass an exam, or find a high-paying job. However, if you dream of communicating with people, studying the history and culture of the country of the target language, then you will not only learn the language, but also have a great time.

4. Excuses

Here are some common excuses that prevent people from learning a foreign language:

• I'm too old (young, busy)
• I have no ability for languages.
• Learning a foreign language takes too long.
• It's too expensive.
• Learning languages is boring.

What does it mean to "learn a language"

Before talking about how much time you need to spend on learning a language, it is important to determine what exactly you want to achieve: be able to maintain a conversation in certain everyday situations or be able to work in the country of the target language, as well as read, write and discuss any topic.

The main thing is to clearly understand what level you are striving for.

Why three months

Benny Lewis, a polyglot who wrote Fluent in 3 Months, is confident that 90 days is the optimal time to learn a second and subsequent foreign languages. The first foreign language will take a little more time and effort. It is no coincidence that such a deadline for learning a language appeared: it is equal to the period of visa-free stay of British citizens in many countries.

For those who are determined to learn the language, Mr. Lewis gives the following tips.

1. Clearly define the mission (formulate goals and deadlines)

I will be fluent in Spanish by February 1, 2016.

2. Break the mission into mini-missions

When Benny Lewis began to learn Chinese, memorizing elementary phrases, which he practiced while studying European languages, did not work. The Chinese did not understand him. Only after the mini-mission to study the tones did the communication get better.

3. Create a virtual language environment

Are you learning Japanese? Create a virtual Land of the Rising Sun around you: read books about Japan, watch films in Japanese, meet Japanese on the Web.

The method is based on the following principles:

1. Speak the target language from day one. Let you say only a few primitive phrases and understand not everything that was answered, but this way you will learn a living language.
2. Do not learn grammar at the initial stage: you will get confused and will not be able to speak.
3. Spend a few hours studying the language every day. It doesn't matter how many years you taught it, it matters how many hours you spent on it.
4. You don't need to learn the language, you need to live it. Benny Lewis not only recommends effective methods of memorizing words and phrases, but also shares his experience:

How to look like your own in a foreign country. It turns out that behavior is more important than emphasis. Observe people: how they dress, what kind of facial expression they have when communicating, whether they make eye contact, at what distance from the interlocutor they are, what kind of hairstyle and gait they have

How to make acquaintances with foreigners. On the site, the author was looking for native speakers of the target language. He arranged language practice for himself, inviting his virtual acquaintances to coffee or lunch. So he spoke in Italian in Amsterdam, and in Dutch in Istanbul

How to become a polyglot. This can be done on one condition: learning languages will become your way of life, you will live in these languages, studying culture, literature, meeting interesting people and traveling. The number of languages that you can learn depends only on your desire and the time you are willing to spend on learning

Benny Lewis's method is quite realistic. In fact, in three months of daily intensive classes, you can master the spoken language. In this case, fanaticism is important in a good way: a combination of motivation, regularity and intensity of classes.