Bill Price: Language Learning Blogger

On this episode of the actual fluency podcast, I'm talking to Bill Price from howtolanguages.com, and I also give the details of the actual fluency June giveaway. Welcome to the actual fluency podcast. The podcast that gives you the tools and inspiration to learn languages faster and more efficiently. And now your host, Chris Broholm.

Um, well, actually, Chris, I was, uh, raised in Louisiana, uh, with French. So I took French basically from, uh, kindergarten up through high school. So I got about 13 years of French, plus, uh, a lot of my friends spoke French. It was, uh, very immersive back then. So, uh, I spoke pretty fluent French from really from, uh, childhood. So that one's kind of come with me. I never really thought about that, though, as, you know, learning a a foreign language because it was so natural, and I almost kind of consider it to be, uh, a second native language.

And, um, maybe, um, just, uh, just take a a little second to explain the the Louisiana because I know that there's a a heavy French influence, but I didn't actually know that there was still a lot of French spoken there. How how is that, um, today?

Well, there actually, surprisingly, there is, uh, a ton of French still spoken in Louisiana. In fact, it's the second most spoken language in Louisiana. Uh, most states it's it's Spanish, it's a, like, 50, uh, 40, uh, six or 45 or 46 the other states. Spanish is the number one language, but, uh, in Louisiana there still is a very heavy, very heavy French influence. Uh, a lot of the older generations still speak exclusively French at home. So you see a lot of, even kids nowadays who do speak French because they speak it to, you know, their grandparents or their great-grandparents when they go over to their house. And, um, that kind of thing.

Do they understand it? Do they if you come from Paris, do you understand what they're saying or do you need a little bit of adjusting or asking them to be a little bit more standard?

Um, I think it's pretty pretty easy to understand. Uh, it'd be kind of the equivalent of going to Quebec. Right. You know, and and listening to to Quebecer French, she, there's it takes some adjusting, there's some vocabulary difference and the the accent may take some time to get used to, but overall, I I don't think there'd be too much difficulty, really any difficulty, uh, communicating.

Right. So kind of like Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, maybe, almost.

Yeah, I I could, yeah, I I could kind of consider that just from what you've described. Absolutely.

Cool. And and how did you feel about this, you know, everybody's talking about immersion these days, that that's the way to do it, and you know, obviously Benny Lewis has a big say in that because he's been the most prolific one, but he's kind of saying you should just throw yourself in there. But can you see from when you were younger, can you see the effectiveness of of that way of of learning languages, and are you doing anything today that kind of resembles that way you used to learn French?

Well, I I absolutely can see see the benefit, and it it did absolutely help because as a as a child, you really your your goal is to, you know, have friends and communicate with your friends.

Oops. I just lost you, Bill. Can you hear me? Just trying to get him back. Oops. Hello?

Did I lose you?

Uh, sorry, yeah. I just lost connection to Skype for a second, and lost the call.

Oh, that's right.

What were you saying about, uh, immersion and kids, I think, was the last you said?

Ah, yes. Um, uh, with as a child, you really have this this innate, this built-in motivation, this built-in desire to, uh, to to make friends and to communicate with your friends and to go to school and and learn things. And so I think a lot of people sort of underestimate how much motivation children have.

Right.

Um, and they the immersion environment absolutely helps because if you want to do anything, you have to figure out how to communicate it out. So, um, but I I think that immersion as in in an adult, I think is it may be a little overrated in some cases. I know there's a lot of people that that say, well, if you can't if you can't immerse yourself, it's going to take you forever and you're not going to you're not going to learn anything.

All right.

And plus we can learn based on our other language. In in an immersion environment as a child, you you don't really have anything else to base it on. So it takes you three, four, five, six, eight, 10 years before you really start to get, you know, a firm grasp of of grammar and and and a large vocabulary. My 10-year-old son still makes pretty massive, uh, grammar mistakes that after 10 years of teaching myself a foreign language, I would never make.

Right.

Uh foreign language. So, so I think there there might be a little bit of, uh, overestimation of the value of,

Right.

quote unquote, learning as a child and especially, uh, immersion. But, uh, it does it does absolutely help, but I don't think that it's necessary and I don't think it's the be-all end-all.

Right. And it's hard to emulate that kind of like you say motivation because you're not no matter where you are in the world, there's always going to be, you know, Google Translate, or there's always going to be some kind of help that means that if you're stuck in a country that where they don't where you don't have a language in common, then there's always going to be a way out. You know, there's always the shopkeeper's son who might just have happened to know English, or you have your phone, or, you know, you can call home or whatever. So there's no need for it.

Right.

So so that that's a really, uh, cool way to do it when when you don't have any kind of, uh, uh, well, real life, I say. I mean, the internet now is real life, isn't it? We can call anyone in the world. And, I mean, we're indeed having this conversation across a a handful of time zones.

Right. Definitely. And that actually, when you were talking about Danish just now, hold on. Sorry about that.

No problem.

When you talk about Danish just now, it it actually, uh, occurred to me that, uh, as an English speaker, I have no real concept of what it would be like to grow up knowing as my my native language, uh, a smaller, lesser-known, lesser-studied language like that. I think that would be, uh, really really interesting to to be in your shoes and and kind of look at the world the way that you do that if you want to communicate or or do anything outside of this pretty narrow part of the world that you really have to expand, uh, linguistically. I think that's that's absolutely fascinating.

But that's that's why the Scandinavian countries and and a lot of European countries who are not that big, they kind of grow into this bilingual countries because they can't live on their own language, you know. If you're in Germany, there's like 90 million people, something, a lot of them rely on their own language. France, same thing, tons of people. Russia, China. All these languages are huge languages because there are so many people, and the people are like, well, I can speak with hundreds of millions of people, so why would I need to learn English, for instance? Of course, it's changing now. I mean, English is almost becoming the, uh, lingua franca of the whole world, so, um, but I guess it's the same with English in America. And, you know, as an American, I'm I'm sure you realize, uh, or at least, uh, observe how how poor the the foreign language learning is in general.

Oh, absolutely. It's, uh, it is very the the whole the whole mindset is, well, I speak I speak English. Everybody speaks English. If I want to travel to Europe, everybody speaks English. If I want to travel to Mexico, everybody speaks English. You know, it's, uh, and it it is very much that mindset. I get a lot of really odd glances when I talk about learning Chinese or learning, uh, German. I I just get these these questions, like, well, why in the world would you learn Chinese? You know English. You know, and it's it's an awful mindset, I I think, but I think it's

Why does it come from? I don't I I I asked a a few other Americans this, but where does it come from? I I haven't found the answer to that yet. Is it Is it because you're I mean, America, obviously, it's history is very focused on national pride, right? You know, the the Revolution and the independence. Is that still carrying over that you kind of feel like, well, English is is our language. We learning another language isn't really I mean, shouldn't really do it or where does it come from this, uh, idea?

I think that that that's some of it, and you you do, like any place, you have these really, um, steadfast nationalist types who, you know, you're an American, speak American. But, um, I I think really more than than anything, uh, if I had to pinpoint where it started, I would say that it's, uh, it probably has to do really with isolation and and the way that, uh, the United States really, we have a little section that that attaches to Mexico there down in the, uh, in the Southwest. And we have Canada up top, which is honestly, it's it's more English-speaking than French-speaking.

Right.

So we really don't, as a country, have the need to learn really any other languages, um, kind of similar to maybe England who is an island and just decides, you know what, we're we speak English, everybody speaks English. It's it's good. We're off by ourselves. But, you know, if you if you come from, you know, Germany or Italy or Spain or any of these countries, you, uh, I I find that so many of them know so many of the languages of the country surrounding.

Right.

And we don't really have that kind of necessity. Just given the sheer size of the United States, you can live your whole life in the US and pretty much do and see and have and do whatever you want. And and I I don't think that that same situation really exists very many other places, and I I think that has a a big

Right.

big part of it because why, unless you're going to China, really, why why would you learn Chinese out of necessity? You you in the United States, you really wouldn't.

Right. You still have a lot of immigrants, um, coming in with foreign languages, but it but then you see them as, you know, they're coming to you, so they should learn your language. You shouldn't learn theirs, I guess, is the

Right.

attitude.

That that is a that is definitely a big mindset, but you also see a lot of immigrants who come here and they try and stop speaking their language. And they they decide, you know what, we're going to I want my child to grow up, you know, uh, socially acceptable and I I want him to be an American. So we're going to speak English at home, even if it's broken English.

Right.

And you end up with I have quite a few friends whose parents, uh, came from other countries, immigrated from other countries, and they don't speak the second generation doesn't speak any of the language. Um, I have a a friend whose whose father was was born and raised in Germany and really refused growing up to to teach to talk German at home. And so he's a first-generation born in the United States. My my friend is, and he doesn't speak any German.

Right.

So and and so you see that there's there's not once these immigrants, a lot of them are coming to America, they they it seems like they're tending to want so much for their children to be integrated into society that they're just kind of, uh, not passing that part of their culture and their heritage on, which is is incredibly sad.

Yeah.

I think the one place the one place you don't see that really is, um, Asian immigrants. They have a tendency, even three, four, five generations in, they still will speak their language at home.

That's great.

Yeah, which is which is absolutely cool. There there's there's quite a few Cantonese speakers here in the United States, especially in like California and

That that basically guarantees that the children grow up bilingual, too.

Oh, absolutely.

Because they'll get English, no matter what they do basically, but having the native language at home is is a big big help in in in gaining two languages, I think.

Oh, definitely.

Um, but I think we've, uh, we've we've had enough of a history and, uh, mentality lesson here. How about we get into some maybe some more practicalities, some more, uh, learning style thing? And I had one question. You you started out with your wife. You're going as a kind of a couple couples thing, you know, both trying to learn it. Um, I I haven't really seen you mention her a lot on the blog in in later posts. Did she kind of fall off or did she follow along as well?

Well, it's it's kind of a funny story. For for a while we we learned together. Um, she didn't quite take to it like like I did, uh, just as far as enthusiasm goes. She stuck with me for probably the first six months or so.

Okay.

Uh, kind of got frustrated because I think she felt like, uh, I was kind of, uh, moving ahead of her too fast.

Okay.

And, uh, and I know that can certainly be frustrating. Uh, the the funny thing is is that I spoke enough German after that and talked to her about it and, uh, blogged about it and studied and did everything else that she actually speaks fairly okay German at this point. She she certainly can understand a lot of what I say when I talk to her in German, even if she can't deliver a lot of it back, um,

It sounds like a win.

Yeah, it actually, it's, uh, it's kind of the goes to contribute to that whole immersion theory, that she wasn't really studying, but she heard enough from me and she she got enough and she had enough foundation in the basics, certainly that, uh,

All right.

that I think it was a good experience for both of us.

But do you you say good experience, is it something that you can recommend doing going into it if you're a husband and wife team or maybe a boyfriend and girlfriend that you're going into language learning together, or do you think that independent is probably more advantageous?

Um, there's really pros and cons to both. Uh, I I think that that it's very encouraging to have another person with you who maybe one day if you're kind of lagging, can can give you some of that their enthusiasm and vice versa. So, as far as motivation goes, and motivation is my number one. You can't do anything without motivation. Uh, as far as motivation goes, I I think that it's it's a big win for both and I I would absolutely recommend it.

Wow, yeah.

So they can speak to each other, but when they finally go and find natives, uh, they're like, wait, what?

That's really interesting. I never even thought of that, but you're so right. If you're learning the exact same mistakes, so to speak, and you both think they're right, then you can definitely create your own language. And that would be pretty bad.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you could start find a verb that you think means one thing in English and you just use it the same way you would in English for every every situation, and all of a sudden, you're saying something totally off the wall. And I think that that when you learn with somebody, you have a less less of a tendency to go out and seek native speakers or to get like private tutoring or that kind of thing. You because you're like, oh, well, I get all this speech conversation with this this language practice with this other person.

Right.

So, uh, I think that that just might be something you want to watch out for if you are going to learn with a partner.

That's a top tip, I would say.

That's that's the big one.

So, um, so you talked about motivation, how it was important to you, and I've I've seen a lot of your your blog posts on the subject. And, um, also other bloggers have also written about it. Um, and I must say it's one of the things that I struggle with the most. And, um, maybe you just want to take a a moment to describe how you, you know, when you're in the motivation hell, you're in the dumps. You can't find the motivation to do work, uh, how do you, uh, how do you motivate yourself in in general?

Um, well, that's a good question. Uh, I don't tend to get demotivated a whole lot, just because I I really love anything to do with languages. Even if it's not something that I'm studying, and I think a lot of times, um, it'll be with a specific language that I'll get frustrated and kind of lose motivation on. And so when I do that, I know, you know what, let's put this aside for a little while and either do something not language related, just to kind of get my mind free.

Right.

And and especially reading other people's success stories and even going on Facebook and seeing, you know, most of my Facebook timeline is in other languages. You know, because because I have friends in all these even languages I don't speak for some reason. And and I'll just be like, you know what, one day I'm going to be able to read all of this. You know, and I'm going to be able to I won't have to look up any of these words or do any this. And that's that's real motivating for me to be able to communicate with all these people that that at this point I really can't.

Right.

And and just seeing that that full circle kind of end result there, usually will bring me back to, you know what, I'm I'm ready to get get moving back on Chinese. And sometimes you just need a break.

Yeah.

Sometimes you just need a a couple of days to say, you know what, I'm going to let all this just brush off me. Maybe I'll forget a few things, but if it means that I'll be more focused and more motivated later, then it's totally worth relearning that stuff.

Of course. Yeah, yeah, no problem.

And and if it lasts too long, truthfully, if I'm if I'm angry at Chinese for, you know, a a couple of days off doesn't do it. Reading other articles doesn't do it, and thinking about knowing Chinese at some point doesn't do it. And, uh, you know, a couple a couple more weeks go by. Maybe Chinese just isn't

You're not feeling it.

for me. Yeah, if I can't get that motivation back, then it it may be at some point, uh, time to shelve that. I did that with Cantonese.

Right. Or maybe I mean, maybe before you ditch it completely, maybe you should do a bit of a, you know, soul soul-searching and maybe try to find out why you started learning in the first place. Try to re- reinvent the motivation because sometimes I feel like people and and and this is I guess this is a criticism, but, you know, I genuinely see this person on Facebook, like every other day, I see some people asking, what language should I learn? And it's like, you know, there are objective ways to answer that questions that question, but I don't think it's very productive, uh, for your motivation. Like it's like, yeah, you should learn Spanish because there's like this many speakers, or you should learn Russian because they're taking over the world, or you should learn Chinese because this and that. You know, there are objective reasonings, but I they just don't work for me. I I mean, what how's it going to give me motivation that there's this many speakers? I'd rather be motivated by Russian because I play a video game that has like hundreds of millions of people playing it, and only in Russian. And there's a huge Russian community associated with. That's motivation. It's not motivation to to ask somebody else what you should do, I feel like.

Absolutely. And and it's funny you'd mention that because, uh, as as far as I'm concerned, if you have to go onto a forum and ask what language should I learn, you're probably not ready to learn a language yet. And it's not a, uh, a criticism to that that person, but it's, uh, you should know when you're ready to learn a language and you really feel like you have the motivation to go through it, because it is a big big process. It's not something small. It is a a large large commitment.

Exactly.

And, uh, and and if you are sitting there trying to figure out which one or, you know, what should I? You don't you don't have the motivation to do it.

Right.

I can I tell you right now, you're not you're not going to unless you say, oh, well, I'll try this and you absolutely fall in love with the language, which sometimes happens, but I mean not not necessarily always. But I I think that, uh, those those kind of people really like the idea of knowing another language, but they haven't found that that thing

That thing that that triggers you. Yeah.

Right.

And and and I I know it when I catch it.

Yeah.

It's there. It's it's I mean, that's all I can think about, and and I kind of obsess over that kind of stuff. So I I couldn't imagine myself ever going on a a forum and saying, you know, what language do I learn? And even worse than that, actually, is is the ones that go on and say, well, what's the easiest language to learn?

Yeah.

Well, come on, really? You're you're just trying to bear with the easiest language to learn in.

And one, man, and one.

Yeah, there's no, uh, there's no motivation there. So they they just want to be able to speak something to their friends who don't know any better. That's usually what that is.

Yeah. And I mean, if you if you want to learn an easy language, yeah, I don't even see how you would come up with that reasoning anyway. It's like you're just trying to add numbers or something, but of course, there's a lot of I mean, could you call it a little bit of pragmatism? You know, it's about showing off your numbers, and it's about doing it the fastest, and all these annoying things that are distorting the reality, because I mean, in reality, a normal person, you know, they don't learn a language in three months. They just don't. You know, they don't even get fluent in three months.

Right.

You know, some people have mastered techniques and ways to become fluent in a language incredibly quick. But that doesn't mean that you as a new learner can just jump in and just do the same because I, you know, I was maybe I was ambitious, but I started the blog, and I've been reading all these amazing blogs. I also read yours eventually. I hadn't I hadn't seen it, but then you sent it to me, and I was like, man, there's like two and a half years of posts here. You're like, yeah, yeah, I've been doing it for a while. Um, so you definitely recommend that, by the way. Um, but I'm really starting to realize that it's about putting in the consistent effort and not giving a damn about what everyone else is doing, you know.

Absolutely.

And you have the same experience in in in where I, you know, you see people how can I learn this language in three months and stuff. And then they give up after a week or something, you know.

Yeah, because the progress doesn't come fast enough for them, and that's that's

Yeah.

it it I I think that that people, a lot of people have have read a lot of things online that that are kind of misleading. You know, because every every program promises, you know, speak with natives and fluently in 10 minutes a day.

Right.

You're like, wow, really? That's great. And it's nothing like that. It it really is it is kind of similar to, okay, I'm going to learn this new language. It's kind of like, well, I'm going to start college. You know, it's uh, it is a an intense and a very long journey, and and really it never ends.

Yeah.

And I think people are are convinced that, okay, I buy this book, 10 minutes a day, two or three months from now, I'm going to be able to speak this language. And they don't.

Right.

And they they don't even come close. And they're like, well, it's too hard. I'm just not good at this.

Right. And that's what that's also why I really like your blog, because you're you're realistic, I feel like. And you also said it a few moments ago, you said that it's a journey, you know, take it easy and I don't know how long you took to learn German, but was it about a year or something where you considered yourself, okay, now I'm pretty fluent in this.

Yeah, it was a one-year mission, um, and I studied two to three hours a day, religiously every day.

That is a lot of hours, too.

Yeah, it it is, and I I put everything I had into it. And, uh, I ended up, um, going to a a German meetup group to kind of test myself and was able to carry on good conversations for a couple of hours with people and and they they understood me. I understood them, and that's that's really where where I wanted to be.

Must have felt good.

Oh, it felt great. But it never it never stops. I mean, I'm I'm substantially better at German now than I was then, uh, a year and a half after I thought I was fluent, and so, uh, it it really is constant.

Yeah.

I learn new stuff every day. I read for half an hour to an hour on German books.

Amazing.

Uh, usually like science fiction novels or or crimmys or something, but, uh, I learn new vocab every day, every day, new new sentence structures all the time. So it it never stops.

I think that's in that's a really good point as well, because a lot of people, I mean, we're all talking about learning a language. We're not really talking about continuing to learn a language once we've decided that we're fluent enough to call it learned. But I mean, that is important, isn't it? If you if you don't do any German, I mean, how are you going to stick to German in America? Let alone Denmark or anywhere. You're just going to slowly forget it. Of course, it's in there somewhere. You know, I've I've I did German for like, uh, 10, 12 years in school, and I had a pretty good German. Then I didn't do it for five or six years or so, and I can feel that my German is very lacking now. But of course, the vocabulary is still in there somewhere. It's like I I think it's like riding a bike that, you know, it's the wheel the the way to ride the bike is always there, but you need to get back into it. And and that's just not necessary if you just keep it up. Like you do by do a little bit every day, or I guess even a little bit every week is enough to kind of keep the the level high enough. I mean, speak some.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I still I do, um, I've, uh, a German language meetup group that meets, uh, twice a month that I I try and go to. So I get spoken some spoken practice too. And, uh, and yeah, without without that, I, uh, I I'd probably barely be able to speak German right now.

That's for sure.

That's for sure. Oh, well, I'm sure you're good at it.

It's a hard language. It it's a language with the very advanced grammar. I mean, at least so most people would say. I I definitely agree. Do you think that having learned German is kind of your first major, uh, self-study, is that helping your your new languages that you're starting to pick up?

Um, I I think so. I think that, uh, it would help it doesn't really matter with with Mandarin because there really there's hardly any grammar to it, to be honest. But, um, but I think I I think that when I go, uh, one of my next moves, probably in another year or so, I I'd really like to get into a Slavic language.

Mhm.

Uh, and I think that the the German piece, especially with cases and things like that, will really help kind of understand what those concepts are. Cases took me a little while to really figure out what they were for.

Right.

Um, but now that I I have that, I think that moving into something with, you know, even bigger grammar, I I think would definitely, uh, be an advantage to knowing German first then to just jump into it with what we know from, you know, English or romance language.

Right. If, um, if you I I always ask this, uh, every week, so you're probably heard it, but I, um, if you had to learn a new language starting tomorrow, how would you do it? What kind of researches and, uh, not research, resources and materials would you kind of go to first? What's your what's been your experience so far to be most effective?

Um, really my my go-to, uh, right off the bat is Pimsleur.

Mhm.

Um, really just more for pronunciation than anything else. Um, it it's not going to teach you much in the way of of any kind of vocabulary and and there's not much in the way of really direct grammar or anything. But I find that that the languages that I started Pimsleur with, my pronunciation is is much better in the beginning. And I think that that working on pronunciation in the beginning is definitely, uh, a big deal. I think that it's much easier to focus for a long time on correct pronunciation in the beginning than it is to correct bad pronunciation later.

Right.

Um, and so, so it you may start off a little slower, but but I think in the long run, it's it's the way to go. Uh, I would also probably, I I like Assimil okay, but I don't love it. If there's a Michel Thomas course, I I definitely go with that.

Love the Michelle Thomas.

Yes, definitely. Um, the the Teach Yourself, the new Teach Yourself complete books are mostly good. There's some really bad ones, but there's also some really, really good ones that I've found. Uh, the one for Mandarin's really good. And the one for Czech that I've I've haven't really learned any Czech, but I've kind of looked through it and and it looks pretty good. Um, didn't really love the Persian one.

Right.

The, uh, I've also really like the the Living Language series, the the new ones.

Yeah, I saw that for Russian, actually. My only problem was that, and I guess this goes for some of the others as well, is that they're kind of audio and text, so you kind of need to find a a working environment where you can read and listen.

Right.

And I feel like Pimsleur and and Michelle Thomas are great because you can kind of, you know, run around, or you can go jog, or you can, you know, you can sit on the couch or whatever, just kind of do it in a relaxed way. Whereas I I kind of worried that when I do the Assimils or the Living Language, it kind of feels a bit like school, and I don't think that's good for my, you know, I I know it's not school, it's something I picked, of course, but it just really feels like I'm sitting down in a classroom all over again.

I could definitely see that. The, uh, my what I kind of like to do is I like to schedule sort of what I call desk time.

Okay, yeah.

And and then audio time. Uh, I I like to listen to Pimsleur and Michel Thomas when I I go for a walk or when I'm I'm commuting or I'm going to pick the kids up from school, that kind of thing. Um, and then when I'm home and sitting down, and that's that's when I think it's it's good to have that one book and audio that you can kind of sit down and sort of like really feel and see your your progress. And it is I I imagine it would be very similar to school. Unfortunately, I've been out of school for a long, long long time. So, uh, I 20 years now, so, uh, for me, that that made me doesn't have the same sort of, uh, negative connotation that might for somebody who's who's in school or recently out of school. So.

So when you got these materials, do you set a when you say you set desk time and audio time, are they kind of strict for you? Do you set a schedule, or are they kind of loose, so you say, I should do a little bit of this and a little bit of that?

I really in the beginning, I like to schedule time more than anything. Um, and it may not be a, I'm going to do this for, you know, between noon and 2:00. It may be something like, all right, by the end of this week, I want to be through these three discs.

Right.

And so kind of figure out, okay, I need to listen for, you know, an hour and a half each day. So I kind of try and in my head sort out that, you know, where I get an hour and a half of time. Uh, so it's sort of like macro scheduling. I I don't really like to to map out exactly like by the minute what I do this particular day, but I definitely like to have a study plan, and I like to have, uh, goals that I can actually reach.

Right.

Did a blog post about that not too long ago, and it really, to me, mini goals are the thing that keep you moving. If you want to say, okay, in in a year, I'm going to speak fluent German. Okay, well, a year's a long time. That's a long time to keep up motivation for that. But if you say, in three months, I want to finish all three levels of Pimsleur. Okay, it's a little bit easier now. You have a concrete, okay, in 90 days, I can focus on this. Or better yet, you know, in in this week, I want to do seven lessons of Assimil. Okay, that's manageable. I can focus on this for seven days.

Right.

And then you do it again for another seven days. And before you know it, a year's gone by and you speak German.

And you've done a ton, yeah.

Right.

How do you how do you move above the kind of the basic, I guess you can call it a tourist level you get from the Pimsleur and the Assimil? You know, you can speak a little bit, but as far as holding a a whole conversation, it's a little bit off. How do you how do you progress above that initial fluency there?

Well, I'm I'm really big on, uh, I want to speak the way that it's spoken in that particular country. I'm really big on, uh, colloquialisms and and things like that, uh, idioms. So I will do a lot of research as far as to kind of figure out what kinds of things would go on in a casual conversation. Okay. Uh, I I think that, uh, podcasts are really good for that. Um, exclusively in in the other language podcasts. Uh, there's a lot of websites and stuff that have idioms and slang that may or may not apply. It's something you can certainly ask a native speaker about.

Okay, yeah.

And I tend to write down things that I say in conversation. Things like, that's great. Or, I'll be back tomorrow. Or, hey, how's it going? Or, you know, things things like that that, um, little interjections or or bits of and pieces that I think that that people normally use instead of, you know, where's your restroom. May I see your menu? I would like the check, please. I'm I'm never going to say any of that stuff. I'm I'm really I don't even really bother learning a lot of that stuff. And and I actually find that I tend to steer away from a lot of what most people would call the basics in the beginning. Um, colors aren't a big. I'm colorblind anyway, so I don't really talk about colors. But colors aren't a big thing for me to learn. I don't really learn animal names.

That's stupid anyway.

Things like that. I mean, like, when am I ever going to go out and ask somebody, you know, where's the purple giraffe?

Right.

I I'm not. So, so I tend to a lot of the kindergarten basics, the things you see taught on YouTube first thing, let's sing the animal song. I tend not to to learn those things right off the bat. Eventually, if it's important enough, it'll come up in conversation enough that I'll get it.

Of course.

But it's, uh, I I want to get to the point where I can have conversations with people like I would have with my friends.

So it sounds like you have a very kind of, let's call it, a very mechanical way of of kind of you you're dissecting, you you're pulling apart your own sentences and and kind of translating them to your target language. So you kind of have this structured approach to probably intermediate to advanced fluency. Is is that a correct observation?

Mhm. Yeah, I I would say so. Great. I definitely go out and learn purposefully learn words and phrases that I'm going to use.

So you just write phrases down, then put them into Anki or or similar program, and then run run them enough so you know them.

Mhm. Yep, and I make sure that they're checked by native speakers like on, uh, Lang-8 or I use, uh, iTalki for tutoring quite a Skype tutoring quite a bit.

Right. So you have a speaking tutor or just for the writing?

Um, I have a a speaking tutor, uh, for Chinese that that I try and and see once or twice a week.

And and how are you finding that experience?

Fantastic.

Awesome.

She's she's wonderful. We've had I've gone through probably I think I've tried about nine or 10 different ones, and, uh, I settled on on one that is, uh, is absolutely wonderful. And I want to do a blog post at some point about, uh, how to best take advantage of a tutoring session.

Right.

You know, and how how to to pick the right tutor for you.

Yeah, what do you look for anyway? I mean, I think it's a bit I I I've been looking for one for Russian, actually, but I've been I've been I've been resistant to jump the gun on it because, yeah, you can see people's video introduction if they're a good tutor and, you know, the professional tutors have, you know, certificates uploaded. But I just I just can't find one based on the it's not that I can't find one. I just can't select one out of all the available tutors. So, so did you have any kind of things you were going for when you were looking for a tutor?

Um, truthfully, I started out just I scheduled, uh, a half-an-hour lesson with like five or six different tutors. Uh, like one in the morning, one in the evening for a couple of days in a row. And, uh, and just tried them out and really just kind of talked to them about what their expectations were, where my level was. Uh, kind of see you can find out a lot from from somebody on how they find out what level you're at. I had one who started running me through basically, uh, a checklist. And I'm like, okay, well, this is way too formal.

Right.

Um, so and then I had a, uh, the the one that I really like was, uh, she's like, well, what do you want out of this? You know, what do you and so we kind of mapped some things out and what she does for me now is is she will bring a concept, like, uh, last week it was movies.

Uh-huh.

So we talk about going to the movies. We talked about action movies. We talked about actors. We talked about sitting in the front row. We talked about, you know, anything and everything having to do with movies.

Yeah, that sounds great.

And and it was phenomenal. It just gave me this this whole like tons of of vocabulary and all these sentence structures that I could piece together. And I learned more in that hour than I I would have self-studying for two hours.

And then you take some of the words out and put it into your flashcards or how do you process a lesson like that?

Yeah, usually the, uh, the words I'll I'll, uh, I'll put in through sentences. I like to do I I really only like to do Anki in complete sentences.

Okay.

So I do a lot of substitution type cards where, you know, I I go to the bank. I go to the movies. I go to the park. And so the only I'm learning only one vocabulary word, but in the meantime, it's it's drilling this, uh, this sentence structure like crazy.

Right.

So, so you're getting kind of, I think that's sort of a two birds, one stone kind of thing.

Sounds highly effective as well.

Oh, absolutely. Excellent. So, So,

Well, and uh, I think we've, uh, I think we're about to, uh, run out of time. But just before we we, uh, leave this conversation, if you could take, let's say, three, three top tips that aspiring language learners, if they maybe they're new to learning a language or maybe they're not, you know, that good, they're new to it. What would be your top three tips if you had to succeed at learning a new foreign language?

Okay. Um, I would say listen, listen, listen, listen from the beginning, listen as much as you can. Um, I have found my biggest weakness in every language has always been understanding native speech.

Right.

Um, so, so I would advise even even when it doesn't make any sense to you if you're just hearing gibberish with with some people would call, um, background listening. In the beginning is is good for parsing words. And it's good for getting a feel of the language, the prosody of the language, and, uh, and and a lot of people really skip that step. And and I find that the more I listen early on, the easier it is to understand later. So listen, listen, listen.

Is that all three of them or do you have two others?

I I I I have two others.

Great.

That's that's a big one. Um, number two, I would say, uh, make sure that you set goals for that language. Um, basically, what do you want to do with that language? Like I did with Chinese. I I want to learn Mandarin, but I don't need to learn how to read it or write it right now. So, my goal is speech and listening. I know that from the beginning, so I know what to, uh, concentrate on the most. So I I think that a lot of people are just like, okay, I want to I want to learn this language, and they don't sit there and and really map out, well, what do you want to do with the language? Do you want to be able to read classics? In in that case, don't worry about speaking as much, just concentrate on reading or or if you want to do all four, then make sure that you schedule enough time for all four. But make sure you know what your priorities are.

Right.

I'd say it's number two.

Self-reflective learning, yeah.

Yeah. Um, number three is basically, uh, get started. I I see so much, uh, so many people collecting resources. Uh, I wrote a blog post about this, too. You, uh, you collect resources, and you collect more resources, and you start learning about new techniques, and you learn about new courses, and new methods, and before you know it, three months have gone by, and you haven't actually learned hello yet.

Right.

So, uh, get started. I think

I think they go with that.

Go with this.

the, uh, information overload where people are just constantly trying to search for information and how to do things instead of just doing it.

Yes.

That would be your your top three in in terms of top tips. And of course, uh, people are more than welcome, I assume, to, uh, go on to howtolanguages.com and read any of the aforementioned blog posts or any of those we haven't mentioned. And, uh,

Absolutely.

Yeah, I I just want to say thank you, Bill, for coming on. Uh, it it's been a real pleasure, and I I really enjoy talking to you and and reading your your blog. I feel like we we share a lot of similarities in in kind of the style we employ when when learning a language.

Absolutely. Hey, the pleasure's all mine, Chris. Thank you for listening to the Actual Fluency podcast. For more information, be sure to check out actualfluency.com. Until next time, enjoy learning and have a great day.