There are certain physical prerequisites (height is an advantage in basketball), rules (a runner must touch the bases in baseball), and so on that determine if you can become proficient at all, and-if so-how long it will take. ![]() How is it possible to become conversationally fluent in one of these languages in 2-12 months? It starts with deconstructing them, choosing wisely, and abandoning all but a few of them.Ĭonsider a new language like a new sport. I’m far from perfect in these languages, and I’m terrible at some, but I can converse in quite a few with no problems whatsoever-just ask the MIT students who came up to me last night and spoke in multiple languages. So far, I’ve deconstructed Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Norwegian, Irish Gaelic, Korean, and perhaps a dozen others. During my thesis research at Princeton, which focused on neuroscience and unorthodox acquisition of Japanese by native English speakers, as well as when redesigning curricula for Berlitz, this neglected deconstruction step surfaced as one of the distinguishing habits of the fastest language learners… ![]() ![]() ![]() Spanish or Irish Gaelic? I would argue less than an hour.īefore you invest (or waste) hundreds and thousands of hours on a language, you should deconstruct it. How long does it take to learn Chinese or Japanese vs.
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