Book Summary: Fluent In 3 Months
Benny Lewis’s Fluent in 3 Months, is a master class in shortcutting the language learning process. Become more efficient and effective at your chosen language by implementing the strategies he talks about in his book. Even if you’re happy to learn at a slower pace, this book will make sure you’re not wasting your time.
Related Book Summaries:
Fluent Forever – Gabriel Wyner
Fluent In 3 Months Quotes:
There are seven days in a week, and “someday” is not one of them
The true advantage children have over adults is that they are naturally less afraid to make mistakes
As Saint Augustine famously said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
Fluent In 3 Months Book Summary Notes:
Myths and Goals
There are many myths surrounding language learning. Some believe that it’s impossible to learn another language once your an adult or that in order to learn a language you need to be in that country immersed in it. These people would have you believe that unless you were a globetrotting child with polyglot parents that your language learning attempts are doomed to failure.
There are societies all over the world who learn multiple languages and through the power of the internet it’s not hard to find stories of people, who in relative isolation, learned additional languages. The truth is that language learning requires hard work and most people don’t know where to begin.
The best place to start is with a firm, concrete, goal. A great start to your goal setting is to decide just how fluent in a language you need to be. Are you about to uproot your life, move overseas and only speak mandarin for the rest of your life? Unlikely. The language exam levels B1 or A2 are a great place to start if you only need to hold a conversation now and then. This gives you something firm and specific to aim for, now you can build your practice around this.
Spaced Repetition and Images
All languages begin in the same manner, learning a few words at a time. The fastest and most efficient ways to speed up the time it takes to learn new words is by using associated images and spaced repetition.
When you begin learning new words, you need to associate them with familiar images to help you remember them faster. By binding new information to older memories or images you help the brain to remember things faster because of the associations with things it’s already familiar with.
Another strategy is spaced repetition. This involves reviewing the word right as it’s about to fall off of your memory. By doing this we gradually review the word over longer and longer time periods until it’s firmly imprinted in our long term memory.
The Home Town Advantage
One of the myths of language learning was that you needed to be in a country to learn the language. This is actually terrible advice, as the author points out by moving to a new country where you don’t speak the language, the everyday becomes super stressful. You are not only faced with the upheaval of your life and all the chaos that goes with that but now your supposed to learn a language on top? No way.
It’s much easier to make progress without all the extra stress by staying put until you have a former grasp on a language. Research has also shown that when you move to a new area you tend to make friends with people similar to yourself, that includes spoken language. Chances are you’d end up with a bunch of English speaking friends and actually make little real progress in your language.
