This video was uploaded for educational reasons. Source: Tim Ferriss: 4-Hour Chef Bittorrent Premium Bundle Get the audiobook and more exclusive videos here: bit.ly/1AZjgDH
The apple is red It's Johns Apple I give John the Apple we give him the apple he gives it to john she gives it to him is the apple red? the apples are red i have eaten the apple i must give it to him i want to give it to her im going to know tomorrow i cant eat the apple
For comparison here is the translation to Finnish: The apple is red = Omena on punainen It's Johns Apple = Se on Johnin omena I give John the Apple = Annan omenan Johnille we give him the apple = Annamme omenan hänelle he gives it to john = Hän antaa omenan Johnille she gives it to him = Hän antaa sen hänelle is the apple red? = Onko omena punainen the apples are red = Omenat ovat punaisia i have eaten the apple = Olen syönyt omenan i must give it to him = Minun täytyy antaa se hänelle i want to give it to her = Haluan antaa sen hänelle im going to know tomorrow = Tulen tietämään huomenna i cant eat the apple = En voi syödä omenaa
My thoughts as a 5-7 language speaker. (5 - 7 because there are 5 languages I speak decently, can watch non-subtitled movies in and have been tested in and the other 2 are “If yo7 dropped me in the country tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t die of starvation for several months.) 1. Functionally fluency can be achieved really quickly if you put in the time. I achieved functional fluency in about 4 months living in Japan. For me functional fluency is the ability to respond to all daily life situations and questions fluently and with near 100% accuracy on meaning, and understanding, and high accuracy for grammar and pronunciation. What you can’t do is have the sort of conversation you have with friends where you kind of talk about nothing, you may not understand humor well, and you won’t have much luck with jargon in fields like economics or medicine. 2. Totally agree that a native speaker is not always the best teacher. Especially if that native speaker hasn’t learned your language. For example, having learned Japanese, which has no articles, I understand why Japanese people mix up “a” and “the”. 3. Also agree with set phrases. 4 or 12 sentences isn’t enough for me. But with basic structures and substitution you speak more fluently. For example, if you memorise “Where is the ...” and just substitute in different places, you are much faster than if you make the sentence from scratch and you are less likely to make a mistake. 4. Not a big fan if that direct translation method you got from Assimil. I can see how it works, but I have also seen language students not be able reproduce that process going out of their native language. 5. I don’t know how universally that 9 or 12 sentence model can be applied. For example, in the 12 sentence method, the only gendered noun is apple, which is feminine. Basing your learning off that, you might think that “la” in Spanish is the only way to translate English “the”. And then there are languages with a neutral gender. And more verb conjugations. And lots of languages where things happen that we don’t even think about in English. 6. The 4 sentence method seems like a good idea for Pidgin, but you have to realize you man spend he majority of your time sounding strange as hell not conjugating verbs. Just a few thoughts as someone who has dabbled and worked in languages for a minute.
You are correct in saying this. I've been struggling with lithuanian due to it's nightmare case setup (only slightly less complicated than russia's case setup). And the setup of nouns and gender in lithunaian is so hard to get your head round as an english speaker. Which are some things you mentioned in particular. However, his methods for me have been very helpful with general, simple conversation. Whereas before I was overwhelmed having to think about every word and how the case affects it/the sentence. This method has given me a solid base to carry on from, even if it's memorised rather than understood. But it is nice to be able to have those simple conversations to get a feel for the language and start to recognise familiar patterns in its structure. It's just up to the learner how far they want you go down the rabbit hole from that base.
I know Arabic, which only has 3 verb tenses and this doesn’t apply to that language. But some of these tricks do work in some instances. I’m studying Spanish now. I learned from a native speaker on top of self teaching. My recommendation is to train your ears as much as possible, drill often: translating the studied language to English, get a visual dictionary or use Flashcards with graphics rather than words/literal translations. It took me 3 years to master Arabic. I knew I had it when I started to think in the language when in conversation.
Here is a guy who can speak multiple languages to a functionally-fluent level and is sharing his approach FOR FREE online. How can anybody in the comments be unhappy with that? Not enough people in the English-speaking world have the desire to learn languages, partially (in my opinion) because of how it is taught in schools. If Tim Ferriss can get even one person to be more interested in learning a language, how can that possibly be a bad thing? He's not telling people this is the only way to learn a language - and if you want to be a translator at the UN, you probably have to go about it a bit more thoroughly - but if you're just trying to chat to native people while on holiday, this is a far more accessible way than trying to leaf through old textbooks or other such heavy material.
Because people are pathetic and would rather call him a fraud than actually expend the slightest energy to try any one of his methods, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have found them to be incredibly useful.
Lol aren't we all experts here - talk about taking a negative attitude- its either all or nothing! This is about getting a start - having lived in Thailand I notice many westerners cannot speak more than 3 words of Thai. This input would at least enable them to make a start and yet all the experts here poo poo this help - simply leave to go back to class that many don't have the time to attend or maybe want to attend and let them take this on board and at least make a start on assimilating.
Not a bad method to jump-start your language learning and immediately spot the major grammatical differences between English and your target language. If you want to learn to speak and pronounce any language well, you should also take some time to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and some basics of phonology. Good luck everyone!
@@user-um7tw6kx4r6 The perfect tense of a verb is formed with the perfective auxiliary (have) and a past participle (eaten). You can simplify things, but I would say what you learned is an oversimplification - a native speaker
I'm really fascinated with all these polyglots on RU-vid, and I've watched a lot of these types of videos. The problem is that every time I come across one that claims he's learned my language in three months or so, his proficiency is mediocre at best. All the other languages he speaks sound great to me, of course, but I wonder if that is not simply because I can't possibly make a qualified judgment since I don't understand those languages. In my experience, learning a foreign language to a decent level of proficiency, where your vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and fluency are good, where you can understand subtleties of different kinds depending on the context and person you talk to, is a rather lengthy affair, certainly not three or six months. Are there any videos of Tim speaking Japanese? I actually have a way of telling how good he is.
I would like to know how he approaches to writing and reading in languages like Chinese and Japanese. Those ideograms have a massive variety of sound and meaning that get beguinners like me very confused.
It is not the German verb 'haben' (to have) that is used as an auxiliary with 'gehen' (to go) to form compound past tenses but rather the verb 'sein' (to be).
polyphoniac - same with Spanish. Haber would be more correctly used for having done something. I’m assuming he’s just trying to cover ground quickly in the conversation and instead of focusing on accuracy.
Yes, he would presumably still be understood. Some languages (e.g. Serbian, which I am learning now) use ONLY the "to be" verb ('biti') as an auxiliary in compound past tenses, not just with verbs of motion as is the case in German. E.g. "Ja sam razumeo", literally "I am understood", not in the passive English sense but in the sense of "I (have) understood". It takes getting used to.
polyphoniac. Zašto učite srpski? Kada živite u Nju jorku, bolje je da učite španski. Da li Vi našli profesora srpskog? Nisam mogao da to našao u Engleski ali možda možete da to nađete u Americi.
What he says would not work with a language such as Navajo. For example, "give John the apple" = Jáan baa bilasáana łaʼ níʼááh (literally, John to-him apple some you-give-a-single-roundish-bulky-object-to-him/her). So there are many words for "give": yíʼááh (he gives him a single roundish object such as an apple), yíjááh (he gives him a large number of small objects such as seeds), yíyeeh (he gives him a burden, pack, or load such as a saddle), yíłjooł (he gives him noncompact matter such as hay or wool), yíkaah (he gives him something in an open container such as a glass of milk), yílé (he gives him a single slender flexible object such as a rope), yínííł (he gives him several objects such as several apples), yíłteeh (he gives him a single animate object such as a dog), yítįįh (he gives him a single slender stiff object such as a pencil), yítłeeh (he gives him mushy matter such as mud), yíłtsóós (he gives him a single flat flexible object such as a book). Then, if it's intransitive, it requires different verbs. If passive, still other verbs. And the different tenses and aspects can require big changes: daniijááh (we 3-or-more give the seeds to him), daniijaaʼ (we 3-or-more gave the seeds to him), dadiijih (we 3-or-more will give the seeds to him). Similar with to eat: alghał (he is eating meat); ayą́ (he is eating, intransitive); yiyą́ (he is eating it, such as an apple); yidlą́ (he is ingesting liquid); yiʼaał (he's eating something hard); yildeeł (he's eating plural things); yilkeed (he's eating something chunky); yiłchozh (he's eating something leafy, such as salad or greens); yiłtsʼééh (he's eating something mushy, such as oatmeal). For those who have studied Russian or Polish, you know about verbal aspect. Russian and Polish are considered very difficult especially because of verbal aspects. For every English verb, there are at least 2 Russian/Polish verbs (imperfective aspect and perfective aspect). Navajo has a whole slew of verbal aspects, such as imperfective, perfective, usitative, iterative, progressive, optative, momentaneous, continuative, durative, conclusive, repetitive, semelfactive, distributive, diversative, conative, transitional, and cursive. And syntax is not free, but rather fixed, and every noun belongs to a specific class based on 8 degrees of animacy; from human adults to abstract ideas. The most animate thing must always precede a lesser animate thing in a sentence, regardless of which one is subject and which is object. If a person touches a bird, the person (most animate) has to come first, and the less animate bird comes after. If a bird touches a person, the person STILL must come first, and the bird must STILL come second. So you get "PERSON BIRD TOUCHES", which can mean either "the person touches the bird" or "the bird touches the person." To distinguish the meanings, there are special conjugations used that indicate whether the object precedes or follows. And if I write out the Lord's Prayer in Navajo, which I can easily do, I don't think you could extrapolate much of anything meaningful from it.
"What about pronunciation? People want to know!!" -- "Ehh well, you go over your mistakes and drill the hell out of them" lol That's sum revolutionary approach right there. Thanks for the tip.
It's not just that though. First you have to get a personal tutor who natively speaks the language you want to learn to go through an audio recording of you saying 30 sentences, then write up notes for each incorrect sound your mouth made throughout the whole thing, then you drill based on those specific issues. You have to keep repeating this process until your pronunciation is good. He said he saves a lot of money not buying Rosetta Stone software and stuff, but I bet these personal vocal editors must get pretty expensive, pretty fast.
Thanks. Got it the first time but didn't want to quote the whole tirade. A tutor would help for sure but the mere self correcting of your audio will suffice. In any case, pronunciation in a foreign language is a painstaking process for an adult and the technique to escape the grind has yet to be invented.
Like he said your ears cannot hear the sounds because your brain only kept the ones your parents taught you when infant. But you can train your ears to hear new sounds with a method opera singers use to produce a song in a different language without knowing a word in such. I'm currently learning Japanese and the sounds of Korean before I start learning it.
My technique with Spanish was to practice a good accent from the start. In my car, I would practice saying the English names of streets with the clear vowels of Spanish. Before I learned much at all, native Spanish speakers were complimenting me on my accent and puzzling that I knew so little.
I agree. I translated the sentences into Russian. Though I can see it being somewhat helpful for a beginner, the sentences lack the complexity that is inherit in Russian, especially the lack of adjectives and the default to most sentences referring to the personal pronouns being simply the subject.
Yeah. There's simply more grammatical elements and distinctions in, here, Slavic languages. Another simple example, in Polish positive and negative sentences will use a different case for nouns, adjectives etc.
My personal favorite is the "...we have a pronoun: the apple" theory! I always wondered what it would be like to not understand English in other languages. LOL It's great that he knows what he knows and tries to share it. He needs to learn how to not go all Cliff Klaven in every language....
Notice how he says "functionally fluent". That could mean anything and is one of the reasons I'm usually dubious about people who claim to speak multiple languages fluently. To many language learners "fluent" means you can go on vacation in country X and speak enough of the language to get around and order food.
Well the best way is to live in the country where that language is spoke, because you are forced to speak the language and you can hear that every day like you had done.
I like how his talk is about grammar and just completely avoids german the entire talk lol yes, learning the bare bones of a language can make people "understand" you (your general idea). However, you will sound weird to them and they will always say that you don't actually know the language but just know a set number of phrases and how to interchange them. trust me, i learned german this way and had to re-learn a lot.
2:15 i've used this naturally with learning english but i was afraid if i do it too many times i will mix words and stuff.. xD i might start to use it more often :D
speaking, grammar, & pronunciation are hardly ever the problem for me, but listening comprehension is all together another issue & Ferris never mentions it here. Also social/BICS level of language skills is quite different from CALP/Academic/Professional level.
I'm exactly like you! I'm trying to learn French, and my biggest problem is listening... I never understand what they say! I don't know if something is a word or two words or more, and I don't know what the words are because they all sound similar!
I know right? I have never heard 食べる必要がある. Correct me if I am wrong, but 「食べる必要がある」means "There is a necessity to eat" which sounds the opposite of fluent. I heard 食べなければいけない / たべなければいけません or 食べなきゃ but not 食べる必要がある.. Maybe the meaning will pass through but it is definitely far far FAR from fluent..
These are the types of sentences that they teach in college Japanese courses, so I guess maybe he's saying you can do the same thing as those, but a lot faster. He's trying to improve the speed over those other methods. But you're right, it will likely be unnatural. He's just not any worse in that regard than spending multiple semesters in college.
Saying "I need to eat" is usually just なんか食べたい (i want to eat something), but actually in the culture it's much more common to just say ”はらへた” or "おなかすいた”
Writing is hard. The Chinese fought a war over this. The working people wanted something they could learn easily. The nobility wanted something so hard only people with a lot of free time could learn it. The nobility won. That is why Chinese calligraphy is an art form. Currently, China is moving to pin-yin, which is simplified writing.
I took Mandarin Chinese in college. Three semesters, plus one of Chinese literature in translation. That worked well enough that I was able to eavesdrop in Taiwan, and recognize when our guide was not translating exactly characters that I knew (He translated it more poetically). But I never developed fluency, so I don't really have advice for you. You can learn to speak Chinese without learning to read Chinese. That's a lot easier. There are no verb tenses in Chinese. They use time and context instead.
I'm a native Chinese. As a language learner you don't need to learn how to write. I haven't written any Chinese for years except when going to the bank and writing my signatures
I have eaten is 'he comido' in Spanish. The auxiliary verb here is 'haber' which also means 'to have' but is a totally different verb to 'tener'... Learn all the conjugations of 'Tener' and you still won't be able to say 'I have eaten an apple' in Spanish!
Yeah this is so basic it immediately sent of alarm bells regarding his credibility and I stopped watching. I see what he’s trying to say and learning how to say “to have” can help you say a lot of things. But saying, tengo comer is much different than he comido. He’s trying to explain the present perfect tense and I’m not sure he’s aware of that
It depends on what language you are studying. If you speak English well and can study a foreign language through English then I would bet that going to Routledge and look at their Frequency Dictionaries and see if they have the language that you are wanting to study. www.routledge.com/products/search?keywords=frequency+dictionary&range=all Ferris recommended Assimil.com you can find them on Amazon.com at good prices too. Michel Thomas is good too. You can google his site and also find his products on Amazon.com.
Having an approach is excellent but it's also clear he doesn't know the names of the parts of speech, and he also hasn't mentioned the fact that the sentences he has chosen will not help with some things such as verb conjugation or plural forms or gender. In German for example, you have to learn the gender and plural form of every noun. For Spanish you have to get to serious grips with gender, verbs and tenses. 6:09 he knows he's made a mistake. The verb "to have" (possess) in Spanish is indeed "tener" but the auxiliary verb "to have" (to have done, to have written, to have played) is "haber". I have to say this comes across as not very impressive, it feels like maybe there is something there but it's not fleshed out. That guy from Glossika though, he's the real deal as far as I can tell.
How in the world could he have problems with Spanish but no real problems with Russian or Chinese??? I'm conversant (although not fluent) in Russian, Spanish, French, and know a smattering of several other languages. Spanish is by far the EASIEST to learn, whereas in Russian you have to learn all the cases and their endings. I have a Russian instruction book and there are over 800 grammar rules! French has some difficulty but not a lot. So, for him to say Spanish was his nemesis has me shaking my head in amazement.
He probably did not enjoy learning it in high school with an incompetent teacher, but then after he went to Latin America, he just learned it via osmosis. His way of learning is very much that, which may work for him (& he does have a good ear & tongue) but is actually incomprehensible to most people.
Oddly enough, a knowlege of Latin would help with Russian. It's because if you know Latin, you're aware of all the case endings, and many of the grammatical categories before you start Russian.
Duolingo.com. You can also download this as an app for your smartphone. He's saying at that point in the video to learn 20 or so phrases using these resources.
The trick to learning anything. Is if you want to learn. If you don’t want to learn a subject. You can spend your life learning it and you will never learn it.
It literally translates to not I can to eat but in Spanish and other romance languages you put no in front of a sentences to make it negative. So no puedo comer is correct
Hey! I'm argentinian! How DARE you insult my tongue?! Nah, kidding. But you are right, "argentinian" is not really very standar if you want to learn all versions of spanish. We do have the best free universities (and worst elementary and secondary schools) in the world , that may have been his reason.
Nope. But it’s very JUNKO LOGICAL. Junko logic is a hypnotic vocab / phrase that makes one look smart but is worthless in realty however it influences so that’s the true value... unfortunately it seams he’s doing this continuously. One of my self made rich friends really dose not buy his stuff at all and yes my friend was lucky in money... aka worked hard and had things add up well-
Karam Levi, thank you for your response. I learned a new phrase (junko logic). So thanks again. Regarding money, it seems to be a matter of luck. Even those who are very smart and work very hard can't get rich if opportunities don't exist or can't be created (due to inherent political systems). I know those who are self-made don't like to hear that luck was a factor. (And famous quotations like "The harder I work, the luckier I get" seem to support them.) There are so many very intelligent and very hard working people in India and China, but only after there were changes to the old systems could people start making good money.
Not a direct reply to your question but I speak 11 languages and I use a very similar methodology, so it certainly works for me. And yes, I am *completely* fluent in most of them. Spanish took me 6 weeks to learn whilst German, French and Dutch/Flemish were all 3 months each. Russian took a year or so and Japanese a little longer while Ukrainian needed only 6 months with me already speaking fluent Russian. Mandarin Chinese was around 8 months but Arabic was the hardest for all sorts of technical reasons. Learning Thai was reasonably easy to learn to speak but very difficult to learn to write and I still haven't managed to master it yet, mostly because I haven't had the time to get the placement of vowels sorted out in my head. Perhaps 3 months to speak any language fluently is a little bit of an exaggeration, but it's still a very good way of learning and you do have to get your head down and put in the time. I hope this helps. Motivation is the real key.
This is basically a scam, don't fall for this click-baity advice. I've heard him speak spanish and chinese and it is not impressive, even his spanish (an "easy" language) is not good, not impressive in the slightest. Sorry for bursting your bubble, but this is a façade
Duolingo is useful up to a point until it starts to get really complicated. Then, you just give up in frustration. I am using some other methods, Pimsleur, Dummies books, German made Simple. I think Tim give some good information for the foundation of languages. I just want to be able to be conversant in German. I know unless I live in Germany I will never be fluent.
Can somebody hell me? In minute 22:54 Tim is explaining something with flashcards mentioning a webpage. I could not und er stand that Webadresse. V i s...com?
He's good at presenting this method but it's basically him recycling stuff that's been on the market for a long time. Michel Thomas, Assimil (for French speakers) et al do the same thing he's talking about. Also, don't be fooled, to learn another language well it takes TIME. Depending on the intensity of the learner, let's say one year of about 45 mins to one hour of study each day you will be able to acquire a solid core in the desired language. After this you can start the process of refining and building vocabulary, whilst learning to express yourself more fluently.The issue I have with these instructional videos is that it portrays this as being easy and effortless which it absolutely is not. It's all good knowing all the basic past tenses of Tim's examples but what are you planning on doing when you need to express yourself in more intricate conversations that require vocabulary beyond your 3 months? Perhaps you're on vacation and you're lost, your tire has a flat and needing some very specific directions - verb tenses will only take you so far because now you need vocabulary more than anything and again this comes with time, practice and experience. Sure, you can learn basic tenses but in Spanish you have many many tenses in the past which are all specific to their context. Not to mention the subjuntive tense which is often used (practically a dead tense in English) in Spanish, French and Italian. Regardless, this video helps to give confidence but nothing more than getting you started, after that if you want genuine fluency then you'll need to work hard! Radio, TV (if possible) are great ways to expose yourself to the language
Hmm, I wonder if he'd ever sound fluent if he tried to learn Swedish because so far, no one that moved here as an adult can speak the language properly.
I mean come on.. I live in Japan.. over 4 years.. after a few months you stop using Romaji. You read and write in Hiragana and Katakana.. then you learn Kanji.. it would have been impressive if he had the actual Japanese
Pathetic. Just pathetic. I want 20 mins of my life back. “I have to” and “i have an apple” - have nothing to do with one another - ugh!!!! The first is a modal verb that helps create present perfect tense - IN ENGLISH ONLY. Other languages have completely different patterns to express same idea. The second indicates possession. Ugh!!!!!
Don't understand what is so phenomenal about this. Its stating the obvious! That's how you learn languages? Or am I some kind of genius with a source I haven't tapped into? X
Following his advice will never get you fluent in any language. His german examples make no sense and are grammatically so bad that google translate is a better option
He doesn't speak foreign languages that well. I love some of the ideas that Tim talks about, but I wouldn't go for his advice regarding language learning
It takes at least a decade for someone to be really fluent in a language. Don’t believe in this nonsense. It’s like saying it takes 3 months to learn music, yes it’s possible but at a very low level. The amount of time put in matters.
Well, I moved to Italy four years ago without knowing the language and I'm already able to speak it fluently. Not enough to pass for a native but enough to get annoyed by how poor natives' grammar is.
Kawaii curio Of course, amount of time matters. Your saying it's nonsense is nonsense. Fluency exists in degrees...it doesn't necessarily mean perfection.
Agreed. I've been studying a second language for like 4 years and I can speak kind of like a 11 year old. I know it's gonna take more time to really be fluent! People should just be patient.
Its totally imposible to learn a language in three months or even a year. You can learn how to express yourself in a normal daily conversation yet you will strugle speaking another totally different thinq is being fluent that will take you up to 5 years or more and you will never sound like a native.. i have been learning english for 5 years starting from 0 and still do not know how to express properly and i read and watch movies every single day of the year
I've learned English by listening to music and translating the words when I was young. Spanish, Turkish and Italian by watching TV shows. Norwegian by using DuoLingo. German 2 years in school and couple of months speaking to tourists. It is possible. I also understand a bit of French, Polish, Slovakian, Czech because my native language is Croatian. Some of the languages have the same base so you can connect through easily. Mind that I didn't spend a lot of time learning them as I was attending school and working. But it is possible. If I had the time, I'd be speaking them all fluently.
Yeah I think there's just a difference between people who want to be understood and people that want to understand I've been "learning" Spanish for a couple years i know probably at least 5000-7500 words but I still get completely lost at times with movies and other very native material
