Is it possible to become fluent in just three months? Yes. Will Benny pull it off in Germany? Probably not.

One of the points of contention in the ongoing back-and-forth between Steve Kaufmann and Benny the Irish Polyglot is whether Benny can truly pull off fluency in three months. Specifically, Benny is in Berlin studying German right now and will deem himself fluent if he can pass a really hard German test and if he can fool native speakers for 30 seconds that he is a Berliner.

Jelly donuts aside, Kennedy didn't fool anyone.

Here's what Steve thinks of Benny's plan:

Sounding like a native and amassing enough vocab to pass a difficult exam is impossible IMHO. Senseless hype.

I can confidently state that this is not impossible; I myself did with Portuguese exactly what Benny is trying to do with German. (And that's not even getting into wunderkinds like Daniel Tammet.) That said, I'm doubtful that Benny can pull this off in Berlin because there are some very important differences between his situation in Germany and mine in Brazil that will make it a harder task for him to accomplish than it was for me.

Read more... The tourist visa I got to go to Brazil was for exactly 90 days, and I stayed for the entire 90 days. I had never formally studied any Portuguese before arriving in Brazil, and in fact the only thing close to studying I had done at that point was reading some parts of a Portuguese grammar book more than a year before arriving in Brazil. And that book was for the Portuguese of Portugal, so it had a number of things that were useless for me in Brazil.

On the other hand, my Spanish was pretty good. I had studied Spanish throughout middle school and high school, and had previously spent a month in Mexico studying it more. Spanish is of course not Portuguese, but they are so close that the benefit of knowing one when studying the other shouldn't be downplayed; knowing Spanish was without a doubt a massive help in learning Portuguese.

On top of that, I had a great learning environment. I was living with a large Brazilian host family and there was almost always someone around to talk with. I also had a Brazilian girlfriend with whom I was constantly speaking. I didn't need to do anything but study Portuguese, so except for the occasional emails in other languages to my friends abroad (which was further limited by the hassle of a dial-up connection I had to use), it was all Portuguese all the time for me.

In terms of what I was doing to learn Portuguese, the first two weeks or so I focused on getting an understanding of the grammar. Then I moved onto exposure: music, comics (Spawn, in particular), books (a history of the Roman Empire was one I spent a lot of time on, but there were a number of others as well), television (which was always on when I was doing anything else), etc.

Naturally, I spent a lot of time getting the vocab down. I still have my digital Portuguese flashcards as they were when I left Brazil. The flashcards contained some 4,000 vocabulary words and phrases. Add to those a few thousand words that never made it to flashcards (because they were so much like English or Spanish that there was no need to do anything to memorize them, or that I just managed to pick up elsewhere) or that got deleted from the set once I knew them, and I'd estimate that I had at least 6,000 to 7,000 words in my head to some degree when I left Brazil.

Using Benny' standard for fluency—fooling native speakers for at least 30 seconds that you are a native speaker yourself and passing a really hard test—I seemed to have been fluent in Portuguese after my three months there.

When I was leaving Brazil, I managed to fool the lady at the airport check-in that I was Brazilian. I can't recall if it was precisely 30 seconds, but I'd venture that it was. I remember that I had said a few things to her, including something about having already weighed my bags and that they shouldn't be overweight, before giving her my passport. Once I gave it to her, she said, "You're not Brazilian?" When I told her I was there studying Portuguese, she was shocked to find out I had only been there for three months. I'm guessing somewhere in the course of our conversation I eventually said something non-Brazilian sounding, but, based on her reaction to my passport, I do think I had her fooled at the beginning.

Regarding the test, I came back from Brazil and took my university's Portuguese placement exam. I got placed out of all the language-learning classes and straight into the literature classes (i.e., the ones where you might be sitting next to a native Brazilian). I think that my experience shows that three months can prepare you quite well for difficult tests.

However, I'm doubtful that Benny will be able to pull it off. If you compare my situation in Brazil to Benny's situation in Germany, there are a number of things that gave me a big advantage. First, my Spanish abilities made Portuguese so (so, so, so) much easier. Benny doesn't have anything comparable with respect to German. Second, the only thing I was doing was learning or using Portuguese, whereas Benny is working (presumably not in German) and blogging in English, and that is likely eating up a big chunk of his time. Third, my guess is that the test that Benny wants to take is a heckuva lot harder than the test I took, so I'm not so sure that he'll be able to pass it as easily as I was able to pass the one I took.

Indeed, the only advantage that Benny has over me is that he's studied some German previously, but, based on what Benny himself as said, that recollection is faint at best, although it will nevertheless provide some familiarity.

So while I'd love to see Benny do exactly what he's going for, if I were a gambling man, I'd definitely be betting against him pulling it off.

This is your brain on languages.

The image you see here is a visualization (which is obviously not comprehensive) of how a given piece of information in a language might get lodged into your brain. The piece of information could be anything: a vocabulary word, a grammar rule, pronunciation, a character, etc.

Every one of those lines emanating from the piece of information connects with one kind of exposure. The more exposures you get, the more connections your brain draws to that piece of information. The more repetitions of a given kind of exposure, the stronger that exposure becomes (imagine the lines getting thicker with each exposure). The stronger and more plentiful your exposures are, the more likely you are to remember the piece of information.

Exposure to a language can be largely divided into reading, listening, writing, and speaking. It doesn't matter if an exposure is via reading/listening (i.e., input from an external source) or writing/speaking (i.e, output to an external target). These traditional ideas of "output" and "input" are both input as far as your brain is concerned.

Output is input.

What does Rico Suave think of language learning?

Score one for the Hattiesburg American, a newspaper serving Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and its community columnist, Cindy Burleson, because they got us the answer to this pressing question. And I quote:

Rico Suave suggests language learning aids you in finding a future husband or wife by simply "increasing the size of your selection pool."

I don't think we can deny Mr. Suave's point. Indeed, given that I found my own wife on one of my language-learning jaunts, it probably wouldn't be inappropriate for me to consider myself a beneficiary of this "increased pool".

However, I wonder whether or not this is the real Mr. Suave, or just an impersonator.



Link: Learning a new language [Hattiesburg American]

En chino, por favor

I've written before about switching between foreign languages and how it can pose some difficulty. Today I just had another run-in with a lag in switching between languages.

I was in the shower listening to my mix of five-star (according to my own personal rankings in iTunes) foreign-language songs. Now normally I tend to listen to podcasts, but sometimes you just need to get your groove on and today was that day for me. The playlist, which is supposed to be random, spit out a bunch of Spanish songs all in a row: El Niágara en Bicicleta by Juan Luis Guerra,El Último Beso by Los Boltons (a Spanish cover of Last Kiss by The Cavaliers),Esposa by Tony Vega,Estoy Aquí by Shakira,Mirando el Mar by The Sound Lovers, Buscando América by Ruben Blades,and Ciega, Sordomuda by Shakira. Naturally I was singing along with these songs, which, in addition to keeping me entertained (my wife, not so much), is a good repetition of the vocab contained in the songs.

After I got out of the shower, I had to go downstairs to tell the Chinese-speaking babysitter that she could go whenever she wanted to. As I was walking down the steps, I was thinking about what I'd tell her and I heard in my head, in Spanish, "Si quieres ir..." ("If you want to go..."), and it occurred to me that that was a bit odd. Here I was about to tell something in Chinese to a Chinese speaker and Spanish was coursing through my brain. I'm pretty sure that if that hadn't run through my head as I was walking down the steps, the first words out of my mouth to the babysitter would have been in Spanish. Listening to and singing along with those songs had put me in Spanish mode, and I didn't snap out of it until I consciously thought about it.

This phenomenon intrigues me. Anyone else who speaks multiple foreign languages ever run into this? I'm curious as to what is the relationship between this and language learning. I suppose it's a good thing that my mind just kind of switches automatically into another language, but how can I improve my ability to bounce between languages? The obvious answer is practice, but with better understanding of what's really going on in my head, it'd be easier to really figure out how to utilize this best for language learning.

Music: The overstructured language

Ever wonder why it was so easy for you to learn "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?" in French ("Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"), but you had to exert a lot more effort to learn anything else in French? You can thank the brain's relationship with music for that.

Today's New York Times sheds some light on how it works:

“The brain has a strong propensity to organize information and perception in patterns, and music plays into that inclination,” said Michael Thaut, a professor of music and neuroscience at Colorado State University. “From an acoustical perspective, music is an overstructured language, which the brain invented and which the brain loves to hear.”

A simple melody with a simple rhythm and repetition can be a tremendous mnemonic device. “It would be a virtually impossible task for young children to memorize a sequence of 26 separate letters if you just gave it to them as a string of information,” Dr. Thaut said. But when the alphabet is set to the tune of the ABC song with its four melodic phrases, preschoolers can learn it with ease.

What's this mean for language learners? It means that songs can be a useful device for memorizing, especially the vocabulary contained in a song's lyrics. So look up all the vocab in your favorite target language song and then put that track on repeat. If you get the song in your head, you'll get the vocab in your head as well.