25 Things To Pick Up From These TED Talks On Language Learning
TEDx is one of the major sources of inspiration for many of us, and I'm no exception. I've been exploring TED talks on language learning to discover methods that have helped people learn several different languages. Today, I've decided to extract 25 learning tips from the top 5 language TED talks that gave me a push towards learning in their own unique ways.
One Simple Method to Learn Any Language | Scott Young & Vat Jaiswal
We've all grown accustomed to the idea that learning a language takes time, especially when it comes to achieving fluency. However, two MIT students, Scott Young and Vat Jaiswal, managed to speak four different languages - Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean - in just one year.
In this TED talk on language learning, they share the method that helped them reach working proficiency in so little time. The method is as simple as 2+2=4: when trying to learn a foreign language, just stop speaking English. It seems obvious at first, but the reality is that the brain is always searching for shortcuts.
This is how you suddenly find yourself speaking English at a meeting of Polyglot Club (where you came to practice your French - personally tested). And this is how you can live in a foreign country for years and still not speak a single word (again, personally tested).
The brain's capacity for slacking is incredible, but nothing can be more harmful to your ultimate goal of learning Spanish than simply switching to English every time you have to explain yourself. However, if you commit to the "No English" rule, you'll force yourself to use your target language every time the opportunity presents itself, and that's how languages are learned.
The cool thing is that you don't even have to sell all your stuff on eBay and move to another country to have an opportunity to use this rule. All you need to do is find just one person (native or another learner) who agrees to speak that language with you, commit to the "No English" rule with that person, and survive the first two weeks. Just make sure you both understand the rules of the game!
Three things to remember from this language learning TED talk:
Reaching fluency takes as little as three months.
Being "too old," having "no language talent," and believing that "you need an immersion" are lame excuses.
Start using your target language from the very first day.
Don't sabotage your own learning with the use of English!
How to learn any language in six months | Chris Lonsdale
I know what you’re thinking.
Six months compared to three months seems like a downfall. But, hey, first of all, according to the FSI study on how much time is needed to learn a language, Mandarin takes the longest. Second, unlike all other TED talks on language learning I stuffed in this post, this one is done by a professional linguist and psychologist who actually knows how and why the things work.
Back in 1981, Chris Lonsdale went to China and decided to learn Mandarin in two years. Instead, he managed to learn it in six months. And just a reminder: back in 1981, everybody thought that it was merely impossible to learn a language, especially something like Mandarin, in less than ten years. Even now, you won’t find too many people who can ascribe themselves such an accomplishment.
Nevertheless, Chris Lonsdale swears that anyone can do the same: learn any foreign language in six months. Moreover, you don't need to be particularly talented, have a "linguistic" type of intelligence, or go through an intensive immersion program. All you need are seven actions built upon five major principles. So what are they?
Relevant content: focus on words that are relevant to you.
Language is a tool: use it to communicate from day one.
Comprehensible input: you acquire language unconsciously if you understand it.
Physiological training: train your facial muscles to pronounce the sounds of a new language.
Affective filter: you don't learn if you're frustrated or nervous.
Chris’s book The Third Ear offers a deeper discussion of all the language learning strategies mentioned. And there's one more thing, the most important one, that repeats and will be repeated throughout all TED talks on language learning: it's fine to make mistakes.
Seven actions you can apply to your own learning:
6. Listen a lot – it’s the first step to better understanding of speech
7. Use all the cues (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) to get the meaning even if you don’t understand the words.
8. Use patterns you already know.
9. Start mixing words even if you know it’s wrong.
10. Find a language parent who can help you learn in a safe environment.
11. Mimic the face of native speakers until your own hurts.
Connect new vocabulary to mental images. Don't just cram words; try to engrave them in your mind with a strong mental image.
Breaking the language barrier | Tim Doner
This is actually one of my favorite TED talks on language learning.
Tim Doner is amusing and insanely inspiring with his passion for foreign languages and cultures. I mean, who doesn't know this guy?
You may have been one of Tim Doner's 4 million YouTube viewers, where he speaks over 20 languages at a time.
In this TED talk, Tim doesn’t reveal much about how he managed to learn all these languages. He doesn't provide a "magic formula" to language learning that works for everyone. For him, success is a good blend of different strategies, from the "mind palace" technique for word memorization to frequent speaking practice with native speakers he met on the streets of New York.
More importantly, Tim shares his motivation and the joy of knowing a foreign language. He believes that language and culture are inextricably interwoven, and one cannot exist without the other. While you can easily translate words one by one with Google Translate or a dictionary, you can never translate meaning. And it's the meaning that matters most.
Three more things to take away from this language learning TEDx:
12. Use the Method of Loci to memorize words more precisely.
13. Memorize unrelated words in groups of similar phonetic patterns.
14. Explore the culture of the language you're learning.
5 techniques to speak any language | Sid Efromovich
In the next TED talk, you'll see that Tim Doner isn't the only one who's excited about language learning.
For Sid Efromovich, a guy who speaks seven languages, language acquisition is like a game. He believes that it should be fun and that any other approach to language learning is counterproductive. But you know the feeling: sweaty palms, a crazy heartbeat, the blood pulsing in your temples...you're not in love – you just need to ask for the washroom at the airport in Strasbourg.
Like God is going to hit you with lightning if you misconjugate a verb?
Relax, it's fine. Making mistakes is okay. As an old proverb goes, if you didn't make one, maybe you didn't try.
Nevertheless, Sid shares his ways of lowering the rate of these mistakes from the very beginning. For example, you can stop trying to use a foreign alphabet as a transcription. Many language learners try to read foreign language words as if they were written in their own language, which is the surest way to mispronounce everything you see and inherit a heavy accent.
A few other things you'll want to take away from these TED talks on language learning are:
15. Relax
16. Allow yourself to make mistakes.
17. Scrap the foreign alphabet.
18. Find someone who can correct you.
19. Role-play! Talk to yourself in your target language.
20. Find a language buddy with whom your target language is the common language.
Rapid Language Hacking | Benny Lewis
If you did your research before jumping into your first language learning class, you probably have heard about Benny Lewis. This guy is a living inspiration for everyone who, for some reason, has come to the conclusion that they are incapable of learning languages - because that's exactly what Benny thought about himself before he learned over 20 languages.
Benny Lewis, the author of Fluent in 3 Months, has given two TED talks on language learning in which he shared his story: an engineering graduate with poor memory, no language talent, and a C in high school German moves to Spain and lives there for almost a year in failing attempts to learn Spanish. At some point, he understands that traditional methods, such as expensive courses, grammar, and such, simply do not work. So, he switches his approach and just begins to speak Spanish. In a few weeks, he realizes that he actually speaks this language fluently. Success!
His strategy? Any clue? How about "embrace speaking with as many mistakes as possible"? If you were afraid of making speech errors as a child, you would never have learned to speak your mother tongue. And there's a lot of evidence that the same thing is likely to happen with your second language.
5 Strategies to Acquire from this TED Talk on Language Learning
21. Speak with as many mistakes as possible.
22. Use international words (and brand names!) you already know.
23. Make use of cognates and borrowed words.
24. Use visualization and association techniques to create strong memories of new foreign words.
25. Remember that you’re not frustrating native speakers when trying to talk to them in your broken Spanish, French, or Russian.
A lot may seem unrealistic in the stories of Benny Lewis, Scott Young, or Tim Doner. But notice that this "unrealistic" part repeats itself throughout all TED talks on language learning: people just go out there and start speaking. And this is how every one of them has learned all these different languages.
There’s nothing phenomenal about any of these polyglots except that they have overcome their fear, embraced their mistakes, scrapped the grammar, and just began using the language.
So, try the same thing and be one of them.
