How to learn any language in six months .txt

The people in the back,
can you hear me clearly?
OK, good.
Have you ever held a question in mind
for so long that it becomes
part of how you think?
Maybe even part of who you are
as a person?
Well I've had a question in my mind 
for many, many years
and that is: 
How can you speed up learning?
Now, this is an interesting question
because if you speed up learning,
you can spend less time at school.
And if you learn really fast,
you probably 
wouldn't have to go to school at all.
Now, when I was young, 
school was sort of OK but...
I found quite often that school 
got in the way of learning
so I had this question in mind: 
How do you learn faster?
And this began when I was 
very, very young,
when I was 11 years old,
I wrote a letter to researchers in the 
Soviet Union, asking about hypnopaedia,
this is sleep-learning,
where you get a tape recorder, 
you put it beside your bed
and it turns on 
in the middle of the night
when you're sleeping,
and you're supposed to be 
learning from this.
A good idea, 
unfortunately it doesn't work.
But, hypnopaedia did open the doors 
to research in other areas
and we've had 
incredible discoveries about 
 
learning that began 
with that first question.
I went on from there to become 
passionate about psychology
and I have been involved in psychology
in many different ways
for the rest of my life 
up until this point.
In 1981, I took myself to China
and I decided that I was going to be 
native level in Chinese inside two years.
Now, you need to understand that 
in 1981, everybody thought
Chinese was really, really difficult
and that a Westerner 
could study for 10 years or more
and never really get very good at it.
And I also went in with a different idea
which was: taking all of the conclusions
from psychological research 
up to that point
and applying them 
to the learning process.
What was really cool was that in six 
months I was fluent in Mandarin Chinese
and it took a little bit longer 
to get up to native.
But I looked around and I saw all of 
these people from different countries
struggling terribly with Chinese,
I saw Chinese people struggling terribly 
to learn English and other languages,
and so my question got refined down to:
How can you help a normal adult
learn a new language 
quickly, easily and effectively?
Now this is a really, really important 
question in today's world.
We have massive challenges 
with environment,
we have massive challenges 
with social dislocation,
with wars, all sorts of things going on
and if we can't communicate,
we're really going to have difficulty 
solving these problems.
So we need to be able to speak 
each other's languages,
this is really, really important.
The question then is: How do you do that?
Well, it's actually really easy.
You look around for people 
who can already do it,
you look for situations 
where it's already working
and then you identify the principles
and apply them.
It's called modelling and I've been 
looking at language learning
and modelling language learning 
for about 15 to 20 years now.
And my conclusion, 
my observation from this is
that any adult can learn a second 
language to fluency inside six months.
Now when I say this, most people 
think I'm crazy, this is not possible.
So let me remind everybody of 
the history of human progress,
it's all about expanding our limits.
In 1950, everybody believed that running 
one mile in four minutes was impossible,
and then Roger Bannister did it in 1956
and from there 
it's got shorter and shorter.
heavy stuff doesn't fly.
Except it does and we all know this.
How does heavy stuff fly?
We reorganise the material 
using principles that we have learned
from observing nature, birds in this case.
And today we've gone even further...
We've gone even further, 
so you can fly a car.
You can buy one of these 
for a couple 100.000 US dollars.
We now have cars in the world that fly.
And there's a different way to fly 
which we've learned from squirrels.
So all you need to do is copy 
what a flying squirrel does,
build a suit called a wing suit and 
off you go, you can fly like a squirrel.
Now most people, a lot of people, 
I wouldn't say everybody
but a lot of people think they can't draw.
However there are some key principles, 
five principles, that you can apply
to learning to draw and you can 
actually learn to draw in five days.
So, if you draw like this, you learn 
these principles for five days
and apply them and after five days 
you can draw something like this.
Now I know this is true because 
that was my first drawing
and after five days of applying these 
principles that was what I was able to do.
And I looked at this and I went:
"Wow, so that's how I look like 
when I'm concentrating so intensely
that my brain is exploding."
So, anybody can learn to draw in five days
and in the same way, with the same logic,
anybody can learn a second language
in six months.
How? There are five principles
and seven actions.
There may be a few more 
but these are absolutely core.
And before I get into those 
I just want to talk about two myths,
I want to dispel two myths.
The first is that you need talent.
Let me tell you about Zoe.
Zoe came from Australia, went to Holland, 
was trying to learn Dutch,
struggling extremely, extremely... 
a great deal
and finally people were saying: 
"You're completely useless,"
"you're not talented," "give up," 
"you're a waste of time"
and she was very, very depressed.
And then she came across 
these five principles,
she moved to Brazil and she applied them
and in six months 
she was fluent in Portuguese,
so talent doesn't matter.
People also think that immersion in a new 
country is the way to learn a language.
But look around Hong Kong, 
look at all the westerners
who've been here for 10 years, 
who don't speak a word of Chinese.
Look at all the Chinese living in 
America, Britain, Australia, Canada
have been there 10, 20 years 
and they don't speak any English.
Immersion per se does not work.
Why? Because a drowning man 
cannot learn to swim.
When you don't speak a language, 
you're like a baby.
And if you drop yourself into a context
which is all adults talking about stuff 
over your head, you won't learn.
So, what are the five principles 
that you need to pay attention to?
First: the four words,
attention, meaning, relevance and memory,
and these interconnect in very, 
very important ways.
Especially when you're talking 
about learning.
Come with me on a journey 
through a forest.
You go on a walk through a forest
and you see something like this... 
Little marks on a tree,
maybe you pay attention, maybe you don't.
You go another 50 metres 
and you see this...
You should be paying attention.
Another 50 metres, if you haven't been 
paying attention, you see this...
And at this point,
you're paying attention.
And you've just learned that this...
is important,
it's relevant 
because it means this,
and anything that is related, 
any information related to your survival
is stuff that you're going to pay
attention to
and therefore you're going
to remember it.
If it's related to your personal goals,
then you're going to pay attention to it.
If it's relevant, 
you're going to remember it.
So, the first rule, 
first principle for learning a language
is focus on language content 
that is relevant to you.
Which brings us to tools.
We master tools by using tools 
and we learn tools the fastest
when they are relevant to us.
So let me share a story.
A keyboard is a tool.
Typing Chinese a certain way, 
there are methods for this. That's a tool.
I had a colleague many years ago
who went to night school; 
Tuesday night, Thursday night,
two hours each time, practicing at home,
she spent nine months, 
and she did not learn to type Chinese.
And one night we had a crisis.
We had 48 hours to deliver 
a training manual in Chinese.
And she got the job, 
and I can guarantee you
in 48 hours, she learned to type Chinese
because it was relevant,
it was meaningful, it was important,
she was using a tool to create value.
So the second principle for learning 
a language is to use your language
as a tool to communicate 
right from day one.
As a kid does.
When I first arrived in China, 
I didn't speak a word of Chinese,
and on my second week, 
I got to take a train ride overnight.
I spent eight hours sitting 
in the dining car
talking to one of the guards on the train,
he took an interest in me for some reason,
and we just chatted all night in Chinese
and he was drawing pictures and 
making movements with his hands
and facial expressions 
and piece by piece by piece
I understood more and more.
But what was really cool, 
was two weeks later,
when people were talking Chinese 
around me,
I was understanding some of this
and I hadn't even made any effort 
to learn that.
What had happened, 
I'd absorbed it that night on the train,
which brings us to the third principle.
When you first understand the message,
then you will acquire 
the language unconsciously.
And this is really, 
really well documented now,
it's something called 
comprehensible input.
There's 20 or 30 years 
of research on this,
Stephen Krashen, a leader in the field,
has published all sorts of 
these different studies
and this is just from one of them.
The purple bars show the scores 
on different tests for language.
The purple people were people who had 
learned by grammar and formal study,
the green ones are the ones 
who learned by comprehensible input.
So, comprehension works. 
Comprehension is key
and language learning is not about 
accumulating lots of knowledge.
In many, many ways 
it's about physiological training.
A woman I know from Taiwan 
did great in English at school,
she got A grades all the way through,
went through college, A grades, 
went to the US
and found she couldn't understand 
what people were saying.
And people started asking her: 
"Are you deaf?"
And she was. English deaf.
Because we have filters 
in our brain that filter in
the sounds that we are familiar with
and they filter out the sounds of 
languages that we're not.
And if you can't hear it, 
you won't understand it,
if you can't understand it, 
you're not going to learn it.
So you actually have to be 
able to hear these sounds.
And there are ways to do that 
but it's physiological training.
Speaking takes muscle.
You've got 43 muscles in your face,
you have to coordinate those in a way
that you make sounds that 
other people will understand.
If you've ever done a new sport 
for a couple of days,
and you know how your body feels? Hurts?
If your face is hurting, 
you're doing it right.
And the final principle is state. 
Psycho-physiological state.
If you're sad, angry, worried, upset, 
you're not going to learn. Period.
If you're happy, relaxed, 
in an Alpha brain state, curious,
you're going to learn really quickly,
and very specifically you need
to be tolerant of ambiguity.
If you're one of those people 
who needs to understand 100 percent
every word you're hearing, 
you will go nuts,
because you'll be incredibly upset 
all the time, because you're not perfect.
If you're comfortable with getting some, 
not getting some,
just paying attention 
to what you do understand,
you're going to be fine, relaxed,
and you'll be learning quickly.
So based on those five principles, 
what are the seven actions that you take?
Number one: Listen a lot.
I call it brain soaking.
You put yourself in a context
where you're hearing tons and tons 
and tons of a language
and it doesn't matter 
if you understand it or not.
You're listening to the rhythms, 
to patterns that repeat,
you're listening to things that stand out.
(Chinese) Pào nǎozi.
(English) So, just soak your brain in this.
The second action is that 
you get the meaning first,
even before you get the words.
You go: "Well how do I do that? 
I don't know the words!"
Well, you understand what these 
different postures mean.
Human communication is body language 
in many, many ways, so much body language.
From body language you can 
understand a lot of communication,
therefore, you're understanding, you're 
acquiring through comprehensible input.
And you can also use patterns 
that you already know.
If you're a Chinese speaker of Mandarin 
and Cantonese and you go to Vietnam,
you will understand 60 percent of what 
they say to you in daily conversation,
because Vietnamese is about 30 percent 
Mandarin, 30 percent Cantonese.
The third action: Start mixing.
You probably have never thought of this
but if you've got 10 verbs, 
you can say 1000 different things.
Language is a creative process.
What do babies do? OK, 
"me", "bath", "now".
OK, that's how they communicate.
So start mixing, get creative, 
have fun with it,
it doesn't have to be perfect, 
just has to work.
And when you're doing this, 
you focus on the core.
What does that mean?
Well, any language is 
high frequency content.
In English 1000 words covers 85 percent
of anything you're ever going 
to say in daily communication.
of anything you're going to say
in daily conversation.
You got 3000 words, 
you're speaking the language.
The rest is icing on the cake.
And when you're just beginning 
with a new language,
start with your tool box. Week number one,
in your new language you say things like:
"How do you say that?"
"I don't understand,"
"repeat that please," 
"what does that mean?"
all in your target language.
You're using it as a tool, 
making it useful to you,
it's relevant to learn other things 
about the language.
By week two,
you should be saying things like:
"me," "this," "you," "that," 
"give," you know, "hot,"
simple pronouns, 
simple nouns, simple verbs,
simple adjectives, 
communicating like a baby.
And by the third or fourth week, 
you're getting into "glue words."
"Although," "but," "therefore," 
these are logical transformers
that tie bits of a language together, 
allowing you to make more complex meaning.
At that point you're talking.
And when you're doing that, 
you should get yourself a language parent.
If you look at how 
children and parents interact,
you'll understand what this means.
When a child is speaking, it'll be using 
simple words, simple combinations,
sometimes quite strange, 
sometimes very strange pronunciation,
other people from outside the family 
don't understand it.
But the parents do.
And so the kid has a safe environment, 
gets confidence.
The parents talk to the children 
with body language
and with simple language they 
know the child understands.
So you have a comprehensible input 
environment that's safe,
we know it works; otherwise none of you 
would speak your mother tongue.
So you get yourself a language parent,
who's somebody interested in you 
as a person
who will communicate with you 
essentially as an equal,
but pay attention to help you 
understand the message.
There are four rules of a language parent.
Spouses are not very good at this, OK?
But the four rules are,
first of all, they will work hard 
to understand what you mean
even when you're way off beat.
Secondly, they will never 
correct your mistakes.
Thirdly, they will feed back 
their understanding of what you are saying
so that you can respond appropriately 
and get that feedback
and then they will use 
words that you know.
The sixth thing you have to do, 
is copy the face.
You got to get the muscles working right,
so you can sound in a way that 
people will understand you.
There's a couple of things you do.
One is that you hear how it feels, 
and feel how it sounds
which means you have a feedback loop 
operating in your face,
but ideally if you can look at 
a native speaker
and just observe 
how they use their face,
let your unconscious mind 
absorb the rules,
then you're going to be 
able to pick it up.
And if you can't get a native speaker 
to look at, you can use stuff like this...
(Female voice) Sing, song, 
king, stung, hung.
(Chris Lonsdale) And the final idea here, 
the final action you need to take
is something that I call "direct connect".
What does this mean? Well most people 
learning a second language
sort of take the mother tongue words 
and the target words and go over them
again and again in their mind to try 
and remember them. Really inefficient.
What you need to do is realise that
everything you know is an image 
inside your mind, it's feelings,
if you talk about fire, 
you can smell the smoke,
you can hear the crackling, 
you can see the flames,
so what you do, is you go into 
that imagery and all of that memory
and you come out with another pathway. 
So I call it "same box, different path".
You come out of that pathway 
and you build it over time,
you become more and more skilled 
at just connecting the new sounds
to those images that you already have, 
into that internal representation.
And over time you even become naturally 
good at that process,
that becomes unconscious.
So, there are five principles that you 
need to work with, seven actions,
if you do any of them, 
you're going to improve.
And remember these are things 
under your control as the learner.
Do them all and you're going to be 
fluent in a second language in six months.
Thank you.
(Applause)