How To Learn a Foreign Language: Myths and Facts

1. Welcome: Hi there Vladimir here, and welcome to How to Learn a Foreign Language video course This video course is based on my book VIRTUALLY NATIVE A bit about me: I was born and raised in Bulgaria and I speak 4 languages. 2 I learned as a child, and the other 2 as an adult. 2 of my languages I learned in the country where the language is spoken, 2 outside the country. But it's not just about my experience as an adult learner but also my experience as a language teacher. During the course of 12 years I taught over 20,000 individual lessons to more than 2,100 people, as well as observed over 200 teachers and their students. On top of all that, I have a language learning YouTube channel with more than 100,000 subscribers. A lot of their experience as both an adult learner and teacher of foreign languages is in this course. My goal here is to get you into the right frame of mind and to that end, we'll start with some of the biggest myths about learning a foreign language. Next, we will establish the facts. So basically, facts minus myths equals proper mindset. Proper mindset that will help you learn any language. Let's get started. Here are some of the biggest myths about language learning. Myth #1 one is: 2. MYTHS about Language Learning: Let's get started. Here are some of the biggest myths about language learning. Myth number one is language equals speaking. Language is most closely associated with the word speak. Cambridge Dictionary defines language as a system of communication used by people living in a particular country. And the first example sentence is: Do you speak any foreign languages? speak is in bold. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines language as a system of communication by written or spoken words that is used by the people of a particular country or area. And the first example sentences is: How many languages do you speak? Oxford Learners dictionaries give a similar definition of language: the system of communication in speech and writing, which is used by people of a particular country or area. And the first example sentence is: it takes a long time to learn to speak a language well it sure does, speak a language in bold. And, yes. Another thing people say is, language is a tool for communication. All dictionaries use the word communication. According to Oxford Learners dictionaries, synonyms of communicate are talk, speak. It's what everybody says: I want to speak fluently. Virtually nobody says I want read fluently. I want to write fluently. For most people, language is synonymous with speaking. Language equals speaking. Language does not equal speaking. Yes, you heard me right Language does not equal speaking. Language is not for speaking. That's the first false belief you need to dispense with. Now, let me make something perfectly clear. I'm not saying that people shouldn't speak. All I'm saying is that speaking is not the main function of language. Saying that speaking is not the main function of language is like saying that kissing is not the main function of the mouth. The mouth could be used for kissing, whistling, speaking, and even breathing. However, one should never forget that the mouth is for chewing and swallowing food and water. We can all live and function without kissing and whistling. We can even survive without breathing through the mouth. However, we cannot survive for long without food, let alone water The main function of the mouth is to chew and swallow food and water. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't whistle or kiss. No, of course not but whistling and kissing are not the main functions of the mouth. Think of them as bonus functions. Speaking is not the main function of language. Speaking is just a bonus, a welcome byproduct. 3. What does "Practice a Language" mean?: Myth number two: practice makes perfect. Practice does make perfect as long as you're practicing the right thing, and in the right way. The $1 million question is: What does practice a foreign language mean? People say, in order to learn Spanish, you need to practice it. In order to learn Japanese, you need to practice it. What does the word practice mean in this context? What does practice a language, practice a foreign language mean? But before you give me your answer, let me ask you a few warm-up questions. What do we need to do to learn to play the piano? We need to practice. What do we mean by practice? We may play the piano, hit the piano keys. To learn to play the piano, we need to practice playing the piano. From day one. What do we need to do to learn to swim? We need to practice. To learn to swim we need to go to the pool, jump into the water. We can't stay home and learn how to swim by reading books or watching videos. We need to get into the water from day one. What do we need to do to learn the moon walk? to learn the moon walk we need to dance. We can't just stay home, read books, or watch YouTube videos and expect to learn the piano, guitar, swimming, tennis, dancing, drawing. We need to physically engage with the canvas, dance floor, racket, ball, water, instrument, etc. It's what we mean by practice. And we need to start practicing from day one. How about language? What does it mean to practice a foreign language? Again, before you give me your answer, I'd like to ask you one more question. What do we need to do to become a medical doctor? Practice? What kind of practice? Treat patients from day one? What do we need to do to become a civil engineer? Practice? What kind of practice? Build a bridge from day one. What do we need to do to become a nuclear physicist, accountant, historian, lawyer, stockbroker, pilot, fly a plane from day one. Would you fly on that plane? Too many questions. My last question is: is language, is language piano or medicine, swimming or accounting, drawing or engineering, dancing or piloting? Is language or motor skill or a cognitive skill? Motor skills are about using our muscles, building muscle memory. Cognitive skills are about acquiring knowledge, using our brain. Is language about acquiring knowledge or building muscle memory? 4. Does One Size Fit All?: Myth number 3: one size doesn't fit all Searching on the internet for how to learn a foreign language. One is under the impression that there are lots of different ways of learning. It seems as if there are so many different techniques, systems, methods, approaches, tricks, hacks, apps, courses, books, flashcards and space repetition, shadowing and imitation techniques, speed learning and sleep learning, graded readers and comprehensible input, memory palaces and language immersion, as well as countless methods by the likes of Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, Callan, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, Berlitz, lingoda, duolingo, and the list keeps growing by the day. Teachers saying: You need to find your own way. Try different methods and find the one that works for you. Sending language learners on a wild goose chase. The other mantra is: people differ in their learning styles. Some are visual learners, others are auditory learners, and apparently there is a third category called kinesthetic learners. And let's not forget the extroverts and introverts. You need to find a method that matches your personality. is what many language teachers say. No, there aren't many types of learners. There aren't many methods. There aren't many methods for learning a foreign language. It all comes down to biology, human physiology. By the way, have you ever heard of a similar array of methods or personality traits in relation to acquiring any other skill? Have you ever heard somebody say that there are a lot of different ways of learning arithmetic, chemistry, history, law, lots of different methods of becoming a medical doctor, pianist, civil engineer, swimmer, accountant, programmer. I can't think of any other area of human life with such a buffet of methods. With the exception of weight loss. Why is losing weight a multi-billion dollar industry? with new books, new methods, new diets every single year, if not every month? Don't people know how to lose weight? There is one way and one way only: Calories burned must be greater than calories consumed, period. It's a matter of biology, human physiology. You can't cheat nature. We all lose weight the same way. We all learn languages the same way. It's a matter of biology, human physiology. One size fits all. 5. Go Abroad or Learn at Home: Myth number 4: better go abroad. The holy grail of learning a foreign language. The most expensive myth. Better go abroad is one of the most useless pieces of advice you will ever hear. It's like saying that if you want to learn how to swim, you'd better have a pool. It's kind of true, but it doesn't give you any useful information on how to swim. You don't simply jump into the water and automatically starts swimming. You don't go to Japan, Russia, France and effortlessly starts speaking Japanese, Russian, French. And the way this piece of nonsense is being sold is that going to the country is the only way to learn a language. You can learn a foreign language in your own country. The main argument is that people have more opportunities to practice their speaking. Well, answer this question: How often do you speak your native language in your own country, outside your workplace and your family? How many words do you say between your house, your office, or school? How many meaningful conversations do you have with complete strangers in your own country in your own language? You see, 99.9% of all communication is done at work and at home. 99.9% of all communication is with our coworkers or classmates and with our family and friends. Living abroad gives you about 0.1% more opportunities to speak the language. And if you think that when you go abroad, you will suddenly reinvent yourself and start making friends left and right just because you speak the language, then you better thing twice. Friendships are not built on language, but on common history and common interests. You should know that, otherwise everybody in your home country would be your friend. You see, I think that traveling abroad, seeing places and meeting people from different countries is one of the most meaningful things a person can do. I'm also a big believer in seeking better education at home or overseas. But I'm strongly against going to a country for the sole purpose of learning the language. In fact, I believe that you will learn slower than if you learned from the comfort of your home. Attending a language school abroad is a gigantic waste of money unless you're doing it for the visa. 6. The Truth about Pronunciation: Myth number 5: too old to learn. the age myth. It's difficult to learn a language foreign language past a certain age. There is truth and there is untruth and disbelief. Let me explain. Speaking a foreign language has three main aspects: Pronunciation, accuracy and fluency. In my experience, age only matters for pronunciation/ It's virtually impossible to achieve native-like pronunciation past a certain age. 12 years of age plus minus 2. The younger you are exposed to the sounds of your target language the more native like your accent. You don't have to live abroad to get exposed to your target language. By exposure, I don't mean speaking, I mean listening. It's not about how young you start speaking, but at what age you start listening to the language you want to learn. The younger, the more native-like the accident. However, age doesn't play a role in successfully reaching native-like fluency and accuracy. You don't have to have a voice like Freddie Mercury's in order to learn to sing well, you can do it even with a voice like Rod Stewart. Let's talk about pronunciation. Some people are quite insistent on making a distinction between accent and pronunciation. You could look up these two words in a dictionary and figure out the difference for yourself, but for the purpose of this course I'll be using them interchangeably. Why can't adults have a native-like pronunciation? I go into much more detail in my book VIRTUALLY NATIVE but the gist of it is that for you to be able to pronounce a certain sound, you need to be able to hear it first. The problem with pronunciation is in the ear/brain not the mouth. The reason people have a non-native pronunciation, myself included, is because we differ in what we hear. We grow up listening to the sounds of our native language and we become functionally deaf to the sounds that don't play a role in our native language. If you can't hear it, you can't say it the brain controls the mouth, not the other way around. You see, we all have the same basic mouth anatomy. For instance, most Japanese people struggled with the V, L and TH sounds of English whereas Americans of Japanese descent have no problems pronouncing those very same sounds. where they differ though is in what they hear. I know that it's hard to imagine to accept that we differ in what we hear but the next example, we will hopefully convince you of that. Check this out. The way different languages represent the sounds dogs make is yet another proof that what we hear as adults very much depends on what we hear as children when we grow up. German Shepherd barks no differently in Germany, than in Japan, or Russia, or Spain. However, what native speakers of Spanish hear is Russians hear Japanese hear, native speakers of German hear, and apparently Koreans hear, Russians don't hear because there is no W in Russian and vice versa. Neither Japanese, nor native speakers of Spanish hear, because there is no V sound in those languages. Japanese won't hear because there isn't a single Japanese word that ends in F or any other consonant for that matter with the exception of N And even though the Spanish alphabet contains the letter W, the corresponding sound is not native to the language and is mainly used for loan words, and therefore a native speaker of Spanish is not likely to hear on the other hand, there is no way a native speaker of German hears anything resembling with that many consecutive vowels. what are the Koreans smoking? Now Let me make something perfectly clear. I'm not saying you should neglect your pronunciation. What I'm saying is that you should direct your efforts at your ears, not your mouth. If you can't hear it, you can't say it. Pronunciation comes from listening, not from mouth gymnastics. The brain controls the mouth, not the other way around. The last thing I want to say is that nobody can teach you how to hear Nobody but you. You don't need to go to school for that. Just listen to native speech, use dictionaries and pay attention. 7. Language Schools - Pros & Cons: Myth number 6: native speakers are the best teachers. The myth is in the word teacher. The truth of the matter is that native speakers usually the best speakers of their native language. If you want to learn a foreign language, you need to listen to native speech and read texts written or proofread by native speakers, but that does not make them teachers. There is a difference between to learn from a native be taught by a native Of course, we need to learn from the best. Learn, copy, imitate, steal from the best. If you want to learn the moonwalk you need to watch and copy Michael Jackson. However, we would not call Michael Jackson a teacher. He's just dancing and we observe and copy his moves. For the same reason, native speakers are not teachers. They're just writing books, articles. or talking on TV or in movies. And you as a learner, have to read, listen, notice, and copy their language. Which begs the question, What's the role of the teacher? It's very important that you answer this question before I give you my answer. Pause this video and think about it. Let me start by saying that language teaching is not about being a human dictionary. If all your teacher does is translate, explain, and pronounce words, then you're wasting your money. That's what dictionaries are for. Here is my answer: The role of the language teacher, any teacher for that matter, is to help the student the adult student become an independent learner. As the old proverb goes: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. One of the worst compliments you can pay a teacher is: He is such a great teacher I've been taking his lessons for years. Anybody who charges monthly fees for teaching a foreign language is either incompetent or dishonest. Anybody who pays monthly fees for learning a foreign language is either delusional or lonely. The best language teacher is somebody the student spends the shortest amount of time with. The role of the teacher, any teacher, is to make the adult student independent for the shortest amount of time. Now if teaching is about how to learn without the teacher, then why do people go to language schools? As far as I know, not a single school teaches people how to learn by themselves. The $1 trillion question is: Why do people go to language schools? Language learning is a trillion dollar industry worldwide. In Japan alone, the industry education is over $1 billion business annually. Why? People go to language schools because language teachers make the following 4 promises in no particular order We will give you a chance to practice your speaking, We will fix your accent, We will teach you new words, We will correct your grammatical mistakes. Can language teachers deliver on their promises? I do believe that the onus is on the teacher to know how people learn and what's best for the student. But I also think that every adult is responsible for their own education. Parents are responsible for their children's education. There is no excuse for ignorance in this day and age. Okay. Let's look at each promise. Promise 1: we will help you practice your speaking. Listen to me carefully. Anybody who pays money to practice their foreign language speaking is either delusional or lonely. More about practice speaking later on in the course. Promised 2: we will fix your accent. I believe we already busted the fix your accent myth. And the last thing I want to say is that nobody can teach you how to hear. Nobody but you. you don't need to go to school for that. Just listen to native speech, use dictionaries, and pay attention. anybody who promises to fix your accent and make you sound like a native is either delusional or dishonest, either ignorant or lying. Promise 3: we'll teach you new words, slang, idioms. Language teachers like vocabulary vendors, people marching into a building to buy words, word shopping of some sort. Here is a cool expression: Sell ice to Eskimos. Internet in the pocket and you go to Berlitz or lingoda to purchase words. and how does it work? You pay money, the teacher gives you some words about restaurants Spanish. You put them in your pocket. Next time, pay more money, and get another set of words about Spanish at the doctor's. You do what again? Put in the other pocket or in your brain? What about the restaurant words? Do you still remember those? Then some more money and more words. How many lessons are we talking about? How much money? How is your teacher choosing which words to sell... sorry, teach you? But the teacher can explain the meaning. Yes, that's true. But so can a dictionary, free online dictionaries with pronunciation, definition, synonyms, example sentences, and everything you need. Teaching is not about being a human dictionary. Why go to a building to get vocabulary? A single book has all the words you will ever need. Or watch movies with plenty of cool words, slang, idioms. You don't need to go to a building or to an online school to get vocabulary. But even if you do, you'll forget everything one hour later because that's not how will new words. Promise 4: we will fix your grammar like a car mechanic fixes your car. Language teachers like car mechanics. Listen to me carefully Mistake corrections don't work. If you had told me six years ago that mistake corrections didn't work, I would've told you to go f*** yourself. But after ten years of correcting countless grammatical mistakes, I can say with absolute certainty that such corrections don't benefit the language learner. I went to an expensive restaurant. It costed me a kidney. Be careful. To cost has an irregular past and perform same as present simple mistake corrections don't work because they don't stick. Mistake corrections don't stick because people haven't spent enough quality time with the target language. The human brain can't hang on to the corrections and as a result people forget and make the same mistakes again. Language learners have this "fixed my car" mentality. for them paying a teacher to fix their grammar is like paying a car mechanic to fix their car when it breaks. There is a dent, a few hits with a hammer and a dent is gone. You make a mistake, the teacher corrects it and the mistake is gone. The problem with this type of mindset is that unlike your car, which was once new and intact, you target language was never grammatically correct. The mechanic fixes your car to its original unbroken state, whereas the original state of your target language was always broken. Mistake corrections don't stick because there isn't solid foundation. There isn't a solid foundation because you haven't spent enough time reading and listening to your target language. Which in turn means that you don't have a sense of correct and incorrect. But even if you still think that mistake corrections work, then do yourself a favor and answer the following question: How many lessons are you going to need to have all your mistakes fixed by your teacher? And how much money? You see. Correcting random grammatical mistakes without explaining the cause of those mistakes is a very inefficient and expensive way of learning. The smartest thing to do when fixing a problem is to figure out what causes it in order to prevent it from happening again. Is Benjamin Franklin is believed to have said: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You shouldn't be paying for random words and piecemeal corrections. As we already established, the job of a teacher is to help the student become an independent learner. It's not about giving fish, but all about teaching how to fish. Language schools should not exist. Foreign language learning as a separate subject should not exist. You can't outsource language learning. You can't outsource mistake correction. It's not a matter of choice. It's not like some adults prefer learning with a teacher and others learning alone. It's not like some people prefer being corrected and others don't. Adults have no choice but to be independent. There is simply no other way. Those were some of the biggest myths. Next come the facts. 8. FACTS about Language Learning: Facts about language learning. As you've undoubtedly noticed by now I tend to repeat myself. That's something I picked up from my father. As people say: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well, I'm trying really hard to defy genetics, but not today. Here I go again. Cambridge defines language as a system of communication. Oxford defines communication as the activity of giving people information. Combining Cambridge plus Oxford we get language is a system of giving information to other people. I say, Vladimir says than Language is a system of getting information from other people. Let me repeat that: Language is not for giving information. Language is for getting information. Language is like a spoon. What is a spoon? Spoon is a tool for putting food into the mouth. Into the mouth, not out of the mouth. Well, language is a tool for putting information into the brain. Food for thought, if you will. Language is a tool for getting information. Or we could also say: language is a tool for acquiring knowledge. That's the first fact about language. Important: From now on, I'll be using the words knowledge, information, and content interchangeably. But the preferred word is knowledge. Here's my definition of each word: Knowledge requires more focus and it's usually in written form. Learning about marketing, investing, history, nutrition, and so on and so forth. Information requires less focus and is in written and audio visual form. Current events on TV, newspapers, tabloids, blogs, etc. Content is about entertainment. That's my definition. They all overlap I know, but those are my definitions for the purpose of this course. So once again, content is about entertainment, and it's mainly in audio visual form: movies, TV shows, games, sports, comics. What all three words have in common is that the content, information, knowledge is not designed for language learning, but for native speakers of that particular language. Language is a tool for acquiring knowledge. Language is a tool for getting information. Language is a tool for consuming content. My biggest language learning dream is for people to stop saying: I want to learn a foreign language. and start saying: I want to learn about this and that topic through the foreign language. For example: I want to learn about digital marketing through English. I want to learn about robotics through Japanese. I want to learn about Nietzsche through German. How do we acquire knowledge about marketing, technology, history, philosophy? Through speaking? No, of course not. We acquire knowledge through reading and listening, but mainly through reading. It's how people become medical doctors, accountants, civil engineers, marketers, physicians, historians, lawyers, investors, and so on and so forth. Language is a cognitive skill. Language is knowledge. Language doesn't exist without knowledge. Which brings us to the second fact about language learning: Language equals knowledge. Language is a tool for acquiring knowledge and the knowledge itself. Truly unique. My big aha moment came when I put the equal sign (=) between language and knowledge. Language equals knowledge, hence, language minus knowledge equals 0. In other words, language doesn't exist without knowledge. My language is like a spoon analogy has a major flaw in that food exists without spoons, whereas language doesn't exist without knowledge, we need a better analogy. Language is like a book. Imagine a book. Actually, don't imagine. Here is a book. What is a book? A book is a vehicle for information/knowledge. Book without information is not a book. It's a notebook You will never call this a book. it's a notebook We can say that newspapers, magazines, books don't exist without the knowledge they contain. Same with language. Language doesn't exist without the knowledge it contains. Vocabulary and grammar are not knowledge. That's the third fact about language learning. Vocabulary and grammar are just the glossaries and footnotes of a book. Imagine buying a book and all you do is just read the footnotes at the end of it. Unthinkable, right? But that's what 99.99% of people do when it comes to learning a foreign language. The main focus is on vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, but virtually never on the information, knowledge. Vocabulary and grammar are to a language what glossaries and footnotes are to a book. You can't cram a book's glossary without reading the actual book. You can't do it in your native language, let alone in a foreign language. Vocabulary and grammar mean nothing without the information they convey as best showcased by Noam Chomsky's famous sentence: colorless green ideas sleep furiously Your brain won't be able to retain all that vocabulary and grammar without the information they convey information you feel passionate about. let me repeat that: Information you feel passionate about. Vocabulary and grammar become the focus of your attention only if you want to become an expert in linguistics. Things like etymology, syntax, morphology, semantics become the knowledge you want to acquire. However, that doesn't mean that you needn't study vocabulary and grammar, that doesn't mean that you are going to acquire them subconsciously. No, of course not. You do need to study vocabulary and grammar, but they should not be your main focus. They only exist to help you get the knowledge you're interested in. Knowledge first, language second, we should say knowledge through language and vice versa. You see, we acquire language through knowledge and knowledge through language. Listening to a lecture on quantum physics in your native language may sound like a foreign language because you lack the knowledge and vocabulary that goes with it. We learn physics through language and language thru physics. we learn digital marketing thru language, and vice versa. You can't learn the language without the knowledge? Nor can you acquire the knowledge without the language. Let us revisit some of the myths and turn them into a few additional facts. 9. Listening vs Reading vs Speaking vs Writing: Language doesn't equal speaking. It's useless to try to convince people that language doesn't equal speaking. It's like trying to convince people that money doesn't equal happiness. It's impossible. People kind of get it and then we're back to I need more money, I need more speaking practice, I need a native speaker to practice my speaking with. and I understand. After all it took me years and thousands of students to realize that speaking is the last thing language learners should think about. It's useless, but I'm gonna try yet once again. We all know that there are four language abilities, speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Now, here is a thought experiment. Imagine the following: Your wake up one morning and you realize that you've lost all but one of your native language abilities. Native language abilities. You've contracted a very rare disease and you lost three of your own native language abilities. You've lost the ability to read, the ability to speak, and the ability to hear your native language but you are still able to write in your own native language. Very rare disease let me elaborate You suddenly became illiterate. You can't read a single word in your native language, can't understand numbers either. Completely illiterate. You also suddenly became language deaf, if you will. You lost your ability to hear language, but you can still hear everything else. The birds, the cars, and even music, but not language. You also lost your ability to speak. The only ability, this strange disease has left you with is your ability to write. You can still write in your native language. Now, along comes this guy, let's call him Vladimir, and Vladimir is holding three pills in his hand. It says Speak on one, Read on the second pill, Hear on the third pill. These three pills will give you back your lost abilities but you can only take one pill per year. If you take two, let alone three. You die. They are very strong so only one pill. 1 year later, another one. After that, the last bill. And you can get all your abilities back. Which pill would you take first? Which of your own native language abilities do you want back first, which second, and which one last? 10. What "Practice a Language" actually means: Practice does make perfect, as long as by practice we mean reading and listening to interesting and informative content. Practice equals Use, equals get information, equals acquire knowledge, equals read and listen. Practice does not mean speak. Language is first and foremost a cognitive skill. Language equals Knowledge. Language equals history, language equals medicine, language equals accounting, politics, religion, programming, marketing, engineering, and so on and so forth. Language is not about muscle memory. Language does have muscle, motor component, namely accent, but that's less than 1%. Saying that language is about tongue dexterity is like saying that programming is about nimble fingers. If you believe that language equals speaking, then you also believe that language is a motor skill. The mouth becomes the focus of practice. Hence the need to practice speaking. Vocabulary and grammar are falsely perceived as knowledge that has to be quickly cramped in order to start speaking as soon as possible. However, in language learning, the word practice means acquire knowledge or get information. I know, it does sound unnatural, but practice speaking is even more unnatural. What do practice a language and practice speaking mean anyway? Take a minute, pause this video and ponder the meaning of practice speaking. As a native speaker of English would you ever say: I need to practice my native language? I need to practice speaking English. We never say I need to call up my friend to practice speaking in my native language. However, I'm going to pay a random person to practice speaking a foreign language seems completely normal. We never say: I need to practice my accounting speaking practice my history speaking, practice my marketing speaking. Sounds ridiculous. But practice my Spanish, German, Russian sounds perfectly normal. What is it that you are practicing exactly? If by practicing, you mean practice your brain muscles to express your ideas and give information than just write. That's right. Write. There is absolutely no difference with respect to brain function between writing and speaking. No difference whatsoever. If you can write it, you can say it. If by practicing you mean practice your mouth muscles, then just read aloud. It's as simple as that. Read out loud what you've written. If by practice you mean practice your listening then just listen. Listen to podcasts, audiobooks, watch movies. Practice speaking, and practice a language is one of the dumbest ideas ever conceived by the human mind. I implore you to stop using the words Practice and Language in the same sentence. I'd also like to ask you to stop using Speak and Language in the same sentence. We don't speak languages. We speak about something in a certain language. Why does speak English, speak French, speak Chinese, sound natural, but speak history, speak medicine, speak my vacation sounds unnatural. Have you ever seen a medicine speaking school, or accounting speaking school, or history speaking school? Sounds ludicrous. Yet, lingoda, italki, hellotalk, Berlitz sounds completely normal. Isn't that absurd? I know people accused me of playing semantics, but the word Speak is the very reason why people fail. The language learning industry exists for the sole purpose of teaching people how to speak fluently. The language business would cease to exist the moment people switch from speaking to acquiring knowledge. because in the case of knowledge acquisition all you need is the source of knowledge and a dictionary. 11. Just a Simple Conversation: Fact number 5: one size fits all. Language doesn't exist without knowledge. Language = knowledge. We all acquire knowledge the same way, namely through reading and listening plus experience, but mainly through reading. Knowledge is not acquired thru speaking it's a matter of biology, human physiology. We only differ in our preferences for content. Some like business, history, movies. While others like philosophy, politics, sports however it's all information and we all acquire it the same way. One size fits all. Enough with your highfalutin language and all that philosophical mumbo jumbo. I'm not interested in acquiring knowledge. I'm not serious about learning my target language. All I want is to have a simple conversation with the locals and other methods seem to teach that you might respectfully disagree. Just simple conversation. We're story making machines, you and I. And some of the stories we tell ourselves are truly bizarre. All I want is to have a simple conversation with the locals. What makes you think that the locals share your sentiments? Half a billion native speakers of Spanish waiting for you to have a simple conversation in Spanish. 120 million Japanese eagerly anticipating your rival with sushi and sake to have a simple conversation with you in Japanese. Nothing fancy, just a simple conversation. How full of yourself you need to be to think that there are people waiting to just have a simple conversation with you in their native language? Learning a language because you want to speak it, is like learning to play the guitar because you want others to listen to you play. It's a nonstarter. Language is not for others to hear what you have to say, but for you to understand what others are saying, whether verbally or in text. Nobody, I mean, nobody cares about what you have to say in their native language. Which brings us to the second point: Why not have just a simple conversation in your native language? Do you dislike your native language? Do you hate your compatriots? Don't conflate your desire to socialize with wanting to practice your second language speaking. We are social animals. We want, we need to interact with other human beings but that has nothing to do with the language the interaction is conducted in. It's what you say, not what language you say it in. If people find value in what you have to say, they will listen to you in your native language by hiring an interpreter or translating your words. The third issue with the notion of just a simple conversation is that: everything is just a simple conversation. For physicists, talking about physics is just a simple conversation. For movie critics. talking about movies is just a simple conversation. On the other hand, there is no such thing as just a simple conversation. Every conversation revolves around a certain topic. A topic you need to be knowledgeable about. If you want to talk about movies is not enough to just watch movies, but you also need to read and listen how movie critics talk about cinematography, performances, plot, dialogues. Otherwise, all you will be saying is this movies is good, this movie is bad. If you want to talk about food, it's not enough to just eat but you also need to read how other people talk about flavors, textures, seasonings. Otherwise, all you'll be saying is, this food is good, this is bad. And it's the same with every other simple topic, like traveling, fashion, cars, sports. In a nutshell: Speaking is a byproduct of knowledge acquisition. It's about what you say between What's up and Take care, between Genki and Mata, between Privet and Poka. If by just a simple conversation you mean the type of conversations you have with your childhood friends or neighbors, then you should forget about having similar conversations with foreigners. While on the surface, such conversations do sounds simple, in actuality those are the most complex ones because there are so many shared points of reference. You grew up watching the same TV shows, reading the same books, playing the same games, for at least 10, 20 years. A single sentence contains so much in terms of reference to movies, pop culture, history, religion, politics, literature. You will never have with foreigners the type of simple conversations you have with your childhood friends, your compatriots in general. That's why immigrants tend to stick together. Whether it's Brits living in Spain or Americans living in Japan, or Japanese studying in the US, or just foreign us hanging out with other arenas. The latest trend, nonsense, is to sell language in the form of prefabricated conversations based on different situations. The situational approach: foreign language at airports, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, on the phone, in a meeting, negotiations, shopping, renting a car, asking for directions. Learners and teachers role-playing various situations as if the learner will somehow magically retrieve and plug in that very same conversation when the situation arises for real. Go to a restaurant, retrieve the restaurant plugin from your brain, then go to your hotel, retrieve and plug in the hotel reservation conversation, the next day use the taxi conversation plugin, then the airport one. Then there is a gigantic subset of business conversations, prefab conversation for each situation. It even rhymes. It'd be funny, if it wasn't sad. 12. Wrap-up: Okay guys, it's time to wrap things up. If you were to take one thing away from this course, I hope it would be fact # 1: Language is a tool for acquiring knowledge. I know the course is titled How to learn a foreign language but we mainly focused on the mindset side of things. For the more practical side of learning, please read my book VIRTUALLY NATIVE where I talk about dictionaries, monolingual dictionaries in particular, which are the most important study tool. Language is a tool for acquiring knowledge / information. It all starts with the information you want to consume. Dictionaries should be the only thing standing between that information and you. Anything else is deadweight that will slow you down. That's it from me guys. What we've covered in this course is about a quarter of what's in the book VIRTUALLY NATIVE so I strongly encourage you to read it. After all, it's how we acquire knowledge. Through reading. Less time watching videos more time reading books. If you catch my drift. The book VIRTUALLY NATIVE is available on Amazon and www.virtuallynative.com Thank you!