Get Conversant in a Foreign Language in Eight Weeks

A while ago in the Answers section at Hubpages, someone asked for suggestions on how to learn a language in eight weeks. Of course, they weren’t planning on getting a translator’s certificate in that time. They just wanted to learn enough to get by.

I thought it would be interesting to work out a plan for doing exactly that. Suppose you get a chance to travel somewhere or work with non-English-speakers, but in order to do so, you need to learn the basics of a language you don’t as yet know a word of? What would you do?

For this plan, I’m assuming you’re self-taught and not surrounded by native speakers (yet!). Even short-term intensive classes usually run longer than eight weeks and most “tourist basics” classes won’t get you conversant. If you’re motivated, though, it is possible to teach yourself and become somewhat conversant in a language in just two months.

Before you crack open that phrasebook, try to get an audio sample of the language spoken at natural, native speed. For the first time you really listen to a language, music is second best because the rhythm is so often different from the spoken rhythm. It's great for later, though. And and audio course that uses only slowed-down speech doesn’t count.

If you do want a course that offers plenty of listening, it’s hard to go wrong with Pimsleur. Of course, Simon and Schuster know that, which is why they charge $300+ for some of the courses. In a lot of languages, though, the intro level is only $20 and will help you learn to have very basic conversations. If you don’t know a word of the language, the Quick & Simple and Compact courses are well worth twenty bucks.

Along with your focused studies, try to surround yourself with the language as much as you can. Even with less common languages, the internet can be a huge help. Watch videos at youtube.com, read online newspapers, listen to online radio at live365.com, and find live conversation partners at places like www.mylanguageexchange.com, www.cafemocha.com, and www.italki.com.

Can you switch your email program, Skype, or other program you use daily to the language you're learning? It's a small thing, but it helps. 

Of course, don't forget to check your local library, bookstores, and video rental places for reading material and movies to watch.

Let’s look at vocabulary first. Eight weeks gives us 56 days. The average person can learn seven words a day without much stress, especially if they know the "memory tricks" for learning vocab and grammar rules faster. If you take one day off from vocabulary to review the previous week’s words, you should be able to learn 336 words in two months.

That’s not counting the cognates (words with similar sounds and meanings, like the English “dance” and the German “tanzen”) and other “easy” words that just seem to stick without much practice. If you push it to nine a day, you’re already over 400 words for two months. If you’re learning a language that’s close to your native one, (like Spanish or French for English speakers), nine words a day may not be so hard to do.

You might be surprised what you can communicate with just 400 words and some basic grammar. In fact, linguist Erik V. Gunnemark believes 90% of the everyday spoken vocabulary of most "common" languages is made up of around 400 words.

First, get a notebook with lined paper and use that to collect your vocabulary. Every day, look through your phrasebook or concise dictionary and choose your seven to ten words. If you can’t imagine needing the word every day, don’t write it down. Focus on pronouns (for example, I, he, we), very common verbs (be, go, like), prepositions (in, at, on), adverbs of time (sometimes, often, never), some adverbs of manner (well, quickly), and a few essential adjectives (big, difficult, cold).

A good place to start is with the “basics” or “essential phrases” section of a concise tourist's phase book. This is where you’ll learn, “Good morning,” “How are you?,” “My name is…” and all that good stuff.

Write the short phrases down on one line and count them as one vocab word (or “unit,” if you prefer). Often this is easier than trying to pick apart the grammar to get at the dictionary forms of conjugated verbs and declined nouns and adjectives.

Eight weeks isn't much time, and in the beginning each word takes some effort to learn, so be picky about which words you learn. Think about the words you use every day in your native language and those you could imagine needing in whatever situations you'll face abroad (airports, hotels, etc.)

A mistake a lot of new foreign language learners make is assuming you need all those “kindergarten basic” words. Little kids' school books are full of vocabulary and spelling words like “horse,” “mitten,” and “rainbow”—words the adult learner could go months without needing. After all, little kids are pretty fluent in their own language before they start school, so they don’t need to learn how to say “My name is…” from scratch. You, as a foreign learner, do. Plus, not to many kindergartners check into hotels and order meals in restaurants by themselves.

If you want to learn vocabulary fast, you’ll probably need to do more than just read through a list of words again and again (unless you've got a photographic memory. I certainly don't!)

One of the easiest and most effective ways to remember words is the Linkword Technique promoted by Michael Gruneberg. Let’s say you’re trying to learn the Japanese word “Arigato” (meaning “thanks”). You might link that word to the English phrase “A Riga toe.” Huh?! Hang on, I’m going somewhere with this.

How do you connect the image of a toe from Riga, Latvia with the Japanese word for “thank you?” Well, say you’re staying in a hotel in Tokyo and you happen to meet a man from Riga whose shoe has just split open and now his toe is sticking out. There it is, a Riga toe sticking out at you. So you lend this unlucky guy a pair of your shoes so he can get to a shoe store without limping all the way. When you hand him the shoes, he says in Japanese…see? It works!

The thing with word linking is that the connections have to be relevant and memorable to you. It doesn’t matter if you invent one that’s so silly you’d be embarrassed to admit you thought of it as long as it helps you remember that word.

And don’t worry about this taking up a lot of time either. These little links and stories take all of about 30 seconds to make up. It almost always takes less time to invent a good mnemonic for a word so you can get it stuck in your long-term memory quickly than it does to just scan vocab lists over and over, forgetting words you “learned” a day or even a few hours ago.

Don’t stop with the word links, though. Use them to make up anecdotes or whole stories and run through the stories in your mind. Review throughout the day as often as you can. Unless you’re really good with mnemonics, once-a-day review probably won’t be enough once you get past a dozen or so works.

There are quite a few of these memory methods. I've outlined a few more of them, plus a vocab review schedule that’s worked great for me at: www.fasterforeignlanguagelearning.com/blog/learn-foreign-language-vocabulary-no-time.html

When you've got a limited time to learn grammar, it helps a lot to plan ahead. Decide which grammar features you need in order to be able to use the language the way you want. Then plan which days you’re going to study them.

If you can get a teacher of the language to help you work out a schedule, that will be a big advantage. Otherwise, as you learn more about the language, you may discover you need certain grammar features you didn't even know existed. Just add those in to your schedule when you get to them.

In addition to your scheduled grammar points, use the phrases you already know as starting points for further investigation. As you’ve been learning phrases, you’ve also been learning grammar whether you realize it or not. Try to understand how the grammar in each phrase works and learn to use that grammar for phrases of your own.

Say you’re learning Russian and you know the phrase “menya zavoot” is used to say “My name is…” If you look up each word, you’ll find out that it doesn’t literally mean “My name is.” It means something more like “Me they call…” So, now you know “me” (the pronoun “I” in the accusative case). You can use that as a starting point to learn the other pronouns in the accusative ("him," "us," and so on)

Verbs
Learn how to work with verbs. If you’re lucky enough to be learning a language that has basic past, present and future tenses, learn how each works. Learn how to form both statements and questions. Ideally, you want to get a clear enough understanding of each tense or form that you can learn a new verb and put it into the past, present and future such that a native speaker can understand. Sometimes you might end up with the equivalent of “I goed,” but at least you’ll be understood.

Stick with the most common tenses (or equivalents) first, of course. An English learner learns “I go” before “I’m going.” For the really common verbs like “be,” “go,” “do” and “make,” watch out for irregular forms. For some reason humanity seems to have an obsession with making its most common verbs irregular. If the various forms are really different, like “go” versus “went,” go easy on yourself and count them as separate vocabulary words so you don’t overload yourself with new words for the day.

Pronouns

Along with the verbs, you’ll learn pronouns in the nominative case (“I” rather than “me”). After this, learn pronouns in the accusative case (“I see him”) and the dative case (“He gave it to me.”) or the equivalents in the language you're studying.

Prepositions
Basic prepositions are also important. At least learn the general translations for each, even if you aren’t quite sure what case to use or when to use which. After all, a native German speaker who would normally say, “untern Tisch,” will still understand you if you say “unter den Tisch,” “unter das Tisch” or even just “unter Tisch.”

I’m by no means advocating memorizing bad grammar or not trying to get it right, but when you need to form sentences on the fly after only eight weeks of study, Tarzan grammar may be all you have to at your disposal.

That said, it helps if you can learn common prepositional phrases. Things like "with me," "at home," "on time," and "at x o'clock."

One word: dialogues.

Don’t take my word for it, take Dr. Pimsleur’s. Dialogues are how he arranged his course to teach both vocabulary and grammar (with a lot of pauses for explanation). Makes sense when you think neither vocabulary nor grammar will do you much good unless you can use them to communicate.

Start with those “essential phrases” you picked up from your phrase book. Make up a simple dialogue like “Good morning, Mrs. so-and-so.” “Good morning, Mary. How are you today?” “I’m fine, thank you. And you?” “Fine. See you later.”

Yes, it looks simple and boring, but it’s a conversation you’re very likely to have with a neighbor, a clerk in a store you frequent, or a co-worker. Have you really mastered all those phrases? I don’t mean just being able to recognize them or write them down after a little thinking. I mean can you rattle off all those phrases backwards and forwards in your sleep? After all, when someone starts talking to you, you need to be able to say something reasonably appropriate immediately.

Beginning Conversation Practice
Use your dialogues to really get used to the idea of having conversations in this language. Go over them in your mind, write them down, say them out loud, act them out, role-play them with a speaking partner (check the "simulate immersion" section above for where to find one online) and do whatever else you can to master them.

In addition to the phrases you know, work in your vocabulary words. Sure, you’ll start with “What’s that?” “That’s a house.” but you’ll quickly be able to expand to such erudite ponderings as, “That’s a big white house. I like it. I want to live there.”

Using your phrases, vocab words and whatever you know about grammar, start having imaginary conversations with native speakers. Pick a situation you’re likely to be in (checking into a hotel, looking for a good restaurant, asking someone what time it is) and run through them in your mind. Better yet, write them down as you say them out loud. Even better, role play them with a native-speaking conversation partner.