TEDx Talks
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2014–2019
18:27 · 38M views · Nov 20, 2013
Chris Lonsdale presents a TEDx talk on how adults can learn a language in about six months, centering on immersion, comprehensible input and a practical learning methodology.
HN recommends it as an efficient, practical approach to adult language learning, with one commenter saying it changed their life.
8 comments from Hacker News
TEDx might be largely garbage, but it has this talk which actually changed my life: this video Strangely, this guy does not even promote his book. His book completely changed my mental approach to language learning. I highly recommend it to anyone who is learning a language.
Learn programming in 24 hours! This is just fluff. Sure, the guy probably learned some French, but it's anecdotal. To assess proficiency he needs to be tested by native experts in all the modalities of language: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Not by the opinion of some girl who probably liked him at a coffee shop. Where I am we take 6 months to get a student from 0 to basic proficiency in french: i.e. able to read/listen to news and discuss advanced topics, like economics. That's with 6 hours of class a day, M-F all with native speakers. If you really want to learn a language efficiently, I'd recommend this ted talk: this video BTW, I doubt his 6 month mark applies to harder languages like chinese.
What way is best depends on your intent. Do you want to speak the language or write it or use it for a particular specialization? Chris Lonsdale teaches a methodology for quick acquisition of spoken language that he presents in this TEDx talk: this video This primarily involves listening, getting the basic meaning first perhaps through body language or other clues, mix up words and expressions, go from a tool box to command acquisitions to pronouns and adjectives to glue words, copy facial expressions, and finally direct connection by exercising multiple paths to the same meaning.
If you learn a language through memorization of words you're being very, very inefficient. Very. Learning a language requires next to no effort (compared to 30 words per day) and can be done at any age within six months. The strange thing is that nearly everyone does language learning wrong. I think it's because schools set everyone up for failure by teaching how to learn a language in a way, that's just so very inefficient. If you care for the easier way: this video
This talk by Chris Lonsdale gives some practical advice on learning new languages fast. Most of it is along the lines of what the article says, but seems to say that the key part is to get a "language parent", whom you can have conversations with and will try to understand and reply to you, no matter what (like parents do with small children): this video