C1 in 5 months without living in the country and speaking nothing but that language would put this person into "dangerously intelligent" territory. Super-human levels of language skills. With this "method", I have to wonder if he didn't just memorize phrases and words really, really well. Does he know the grammar and rules well enough to construct a compound thought on the fly and not sound overly foreign? Because you need to be able to do that for C1.
It's possible, at the very least. I did this in about 4-5 months at age 17 while living and studying in France (plus I was dreaming and thinking in the language by that point), and I only knew the basics before leaving. I consider myself smart, but not "dangerously intelligent". I have scored very high on foreign language aptitude tests, so I'm not totally representative. But it's certainly possible.
Second, you were 17. Third, you were fully immersed in the country of native speakers, probably spending all the time in language learning. Fourth, you say you were evaluated to be very talented for learning languages, do you know where you were at this curve (were you in the top 1% or so)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
Fifth, which exactly diploma did you get then? If you were accepted to the French university, I believe you passed B2 and not C1.
Please do be more precise, I'd really like to know the truth.
1. The "basic". No, in the US, it's pretty rare to have four years of language training by age 17. I had two years of French before I left, but it was very basic French, on par with the way languages are taught in France. Not, for example, at the level at which languages are taught in Germany or Sweden. I knew the fundamentals of French grammar, but I could speak only very basic phrases when I first arrived in France. I could not carry on a basic conversation in French before my departure.
2. Yes, I was 17. I mentioned that.
3. Yes, I was immersed; I mentioned that as a mitigating factor.
4. Yes, I was in the top 1% of language learners according to aptitude tests. But my whole point in writing the post was to say that learning a language fluently in 4-5 months was possible (because I had done so), not that it had actually happened to the person in question. It may or may not have. But I tend to believe him.
5. What does a diploma have to do with this? In fact, I did not go to a French university, because I wanted to go to an American university.
Seeing the responses of some of you makes me understand a little better why some of the developers I've interviewed and worked with who have strong math/CS backgrounds are so surprised that I'm not able to immediately understand some complex algorithm. We all have different aptitudes, and just because something seems difficult for you, does not mean it is so for another person. I know some of you with strong math and CS training and aptitude are much quicker at understanding algorithms that I am (although I'm pretty quick at picking up PL syntax thanks to my natural language aptitude). I can totally accept that. Why is it so hard to believe that someone who has worked as a professional, ATA-certified translator would be quicker, even much quicker, at learning natural languages than others? If you think an average person could learn this material in a year, don't you think it's possible that a motivated individual with an aptitude for languages could do so in half that time? Isn't it possible that the blog author might be such a person?
(As a top 1% language learner you must have reached A2 only "by osmosis" in two years of French as a foreign language, before you came to France, then reaching B2 (again being top 1%) in five months there is fully realistic.)
However, if you're a language maven, then I can see how you can obtain high fluency in a short amount of time (although even the mavens I came across had issue with giseigo/giongo production, figure that out). But don't assume the same technique a maven uses will apply to your everyday person. I've studied Japanese for going on 14 years now (8 of those years being intense study: masters program, study abroad) and the more that I learn the more that I realize that I don't know.
That said, I still doubt actual fluency is obtainable for non-mavens even in the romance languages. In my experience, all early learners have a naive view of their own ability, no matter what the target language is.
RTFA.
The US Foreign Service Institute makes estimates for language difficulties for native English speakers, and they seem to be spot on in terms of comparative difficulty—Russian seems to be taking twice as long as French did for me, and they estimate languages like Chinese to take twice as long as Russian.
I'd seriously doubt if anyone can claim they can learn Japanese to a high level of fluency in a matter of months or even a few years.
I don't agree with this. The way you have to 're-wire' your brain isn't too different from what you do while learning a programming language.
The difficult part of Japanese would be all that vocabulary and all those funny symbols and combinations of symbols.
As a Korean learner, vocabulary is a mountain that I make great progress in scaling, yet my progress seems insignificant compared to the size of the mountain.
And human languages are way more complicated and contrived than programming languages. I don't think you can make a reasonable argument to support that it's the same thing.
Well, that's hard too. But knowing all the words involved makes it a whole lot easier.
I haven't had much success with SRS for Korean vocab. There are so many words that are just too similiar to each other.
> human languages are way more complicated and contrived than programming languages. I don't think you can make a reasonable argument to support that it's the same thing.
I don't claim it's the same thing; I'm just making a comparison. Something like switching from SVO to SOV order isn't particularly difficult for the average programmer. Idiomatic expressions with irregular grammar are going to be problematic, granted.
Are you studying words in isolation or in context? The latter approach makes things much easier.
Can you please specify your reference for that what you consider a "C1" level? Also please note that once we relax the starting conditions, allowing two years of preparations and avoiding a formal C1 exam, we can't really call it "C1 in five months."
I believe you that you sounded awesome, I believe you you've received a lot of praise for your ability, we just don't agree if that was a C1 as defined.
Otherwise, I'm sorry we've both lost this amount of time arguing past each other, when you've clearly made up your mind that no one can learn a language fluently in 5 months, to and even beyond the C1 level as described in the standards posted (the CEFR had not yet been adopted when I was in school).
PS -- And to be clear, I'm not unique, or particularly unusual in my abilities. I've known many other language learners who have learned a language fluently in under 6 months. In fact, most of my translator and interpreter colleagues probably can learn a language in about that amount of time.
PPS -- I'm offline to play with my kids. Good luck.
You never wrote clearly, have you passed any exam immediately after these five months in France? If so, how was it categorized then?
For that matter, I know non-native english speakers who don't have C1 fluency despite living in the US and UK for more than 20 years, and not for lack of trying. Learning languages is hard for almost everyone, and for a reasonable portion of the population, it's really hard.
I trust that some language learning methods work better than others (we can see the disaster of language teaching in schools to understand that HOW you learn makes a difference) , this being said, time spent learning the language is often a critical factor to look at. 30 mins a day, for 5 months is not going to cut it, even with the methods described.
There's just so much the brain can absorb in a short time.
Daniel Tammet learned Icelandic in one week. I would be interested to see what backs your claim that the brain can only absorb so much in a short time.
I think both you and the GP are projecting YOUR limitations onto everyone else.
The brain can and does absorb a massive amount of information each and every day. Training the conscious mind to direct that natural ability of the brain is something that is orthogonal to the brains capabilities. Being an Opera Singer (dedicated and focused) probably helps with that task.
Your point? Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. And some people have eidetic memory. There is little relevance unless we find a method to recreate these traits in "normal" people, there is by no means any evidence that every human has latent super powers.
As a normal person having nevertheless high language aptitude, I reached C1 or very close to C1 in about 6-7 months. I say close to C1 despite reaching C1 level in a test, because I don't think it's fair to claim you have every capability for C1 as described by CEFR just because you passed a 4-hour test, in certain ways you just cheat by learning for the test. Anyway, even that was with a very generous amount of immersion, about a minimum of 8 hours a day including long hours of grammar practice. Still, despite praises from native speakers, at that time I wouldn't assert that I was fluent in speech or writing. Now to claim you can be "fluent" in 5 months just by studying 30-60 minutes a day is a bit outrageous.
I can't tell you how much our brain can really "absorb" and "retain" in one day, but there are very real limits in language acquisition after a certain age. I won't say it's impossible, but to realize your claims, we definitely need a magic pill or surgical operation / cybernetics.
Daniel Tammet is not an ordinary person. You are projecting HIS extraordinary capabilities onto everyone else, and you can see that 99.999999 % of the population is NOT anything like Tammet. So your point does not stand.
He studied for a particular interview about his experience learning Icelandic. I don't know how well he spoke in that interview, or if he could cope in situations which weren't interviews about what he thinks of Iceland/Icelandic and his studying method.
I took 8 years of French growing up (10-18) and I understood nothing, literally nothing when I visited Quebec for the first time (that's a joke, do you get it?)
Anyway, the point is, fluency cannot be gained without living in the culture where the language is spoken. Book learning, reciting phrases, etc. will not give you the auditory queues that conversations with native speakers will. When you mispronounce a word or phrase, a raised eyebrow speaks volumes. Books do not raise eyebrows.
The best way to learn languages is to live abroad, in various places, watch loads of TV (really the more the better) and mingle with the locals.
Finally the absolute best way to learn a language is through your significant other; if he/she speaks the language you are trying to learn, and has no interest in speaking your native tongue, wow, spaceship language learning class of the highest order ;-)
That's a common misconception, and I have personal experiences: actually spoken communication with different native speakers improves your capabilities much more than the communication with only one, given the same amount of time.
I'm also talking about living abroad, not hooking up with a foreigner in NYC and she plays teach the American to butcher X language
But you risk using the same terms all the time, getting used to each other's nonstandard pronunciation, and lastly, you may sound much more like a tomboy/sissy by only talking to the opposite gender. I really hope it's not too late for me to stop doing all of these :(
Personally, this looks much more effective than the textbook I'm currently using so I'll give it a try. We have no idea whether his timeframe claims are true or not (in which case, how can we criticize?) but any outcome of following his advice is going to be positive.
I went on to learn two other languages to that level -- and became a professional translator and interpreter in the process -- but it took me longer because I was never again immersed in a language to the same extent (up to now, at least).
I can guarantee that: 1) you will sound nothing like a native speaker 2) I will laugh
See this long debate about whether a guy can achieve C1 fluency in 3 months:
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36222-benny-l...
The proof is in the pudding - pass a C1 test after 5 months, starting from 0, and we'll all acknowledge it's been achieved.
In the SW part of the country, the surf region, there are loads of foreigners, many of whom have been here year-round for more than a decade; still, the accent is poor, the phrasing limited, and the non-native speaker element is absolutely evident.
You may immerse yourself in everything French, but unless you start early on in life it will be exceedingly difficult to attain native speaker type fluency. Language is not just speaking phrases, being able to read literature, etc., it's also being, language is being the being of another culture.
C1 requires around 20,000 words of vocabulary. That's more than 100 words per day to get there in 5 months.
I submit that's impossible, even if you do that all day.
On a more intuitive level, I'm C2 in English, and it took me 20 years to get there. I don't think C1 in 5 months is realistic.
Memorizing a foreign language word is not just translation, it's about understanding context and usage for that word.
When you tread outside the "trivial vocabulary kit" you lose bijection between languages and acquiring words becomes harder and harder.
Keep in mind I have nothing but my personal experience to back that up, which means formal studies on the topic are more than welcome to enrich the conversation.
Exactly. I didn't mean to suggest that you can actually "learn" those 100 words in a meaningful way. That treshold is also difficult to measure indeed, I also can't back that up besides anecdote without spending some time looking into research. Anyway, my point wasn't that at all. I was actually trying to state it's not realistic to assume a 100 word per day acquisition, because that would mean you would spend 4-5+ hours a day _just_ to know certain translations of those words, without any context or very little if any. I'm talking about something very mechanic that would gain you very little in real language acquisition terms for the effort you spend. Unrealistic scenario unless you're trying to win a bet.
Also, it's worth to note that this depends strongly on how you actually define new words, i.e. what kind of inflections etc. you consider to be distinct words. In languages where you can derive an average of 3-4 new words for every word you learn this can become almost trivial.
If you would ask even professors to rate her based on what they hear, they'd give her the highest notes. How people sound is a very important point in the feeling other native speakers have, because those who are not top few percent have problem with that and for them, there is a good correlation between different aspects of their language capabilities. So if some professor is evaluating her for a C1 grade based only on whet he hears in a simple conversation with her, she'd pass it easily. However, if she'd have to write for a C1 exam and the same professor would have to give her a note only based on what she'd write, it would be another story.
Now consider also this: the author of the article we discuss is an opera singer. It's obvious that his "ear" is different than the one of an average person. He hears the nuances better. He is also preselected for his abilities to control his vocal tract enough to be probably one of at least one or even more thousands!
In short, I can easily imagine that he can sound even much better than an average guy who reached C1. Still, if C1 includes a written exam, it's not the same. Take a look at the message exchange between one talented person and me -- I believe him he's better than the most, but still it appears that he didn't understand the point and the arguments to which he replied even as they were in his native language. That's the really hard part, especially as I'm not a native English speaker and certainly not in possession of language superpowers, we can still see how hard is passing the gap between "good" and "the comparable to a good educated native."
That being said, if we compare, let's say, a million people, one of them will be by definition better than 999999 other ones. If the author of the article is one of those, it explains a lot, but then that's the major information missing in his article and the rest of it gives a false hope to 999999 of a million readers.
So I still believe that the article omits some important detail regarding that C1 feat of him. Most probably there is some mix of "small" details missing, just like in the conversation seen here -- some years of a foreign language in school, some years of learning and singing the whole opera pieces in French and a big predisposition for learning languages.
You need (say) 5000 words, but you'd need a lot more idioms to be near native.
Native is at least 20000-25000.
As long as you are continuing to learn then 5000 is a nice start, but you are not going to read novels and speak about broad topics with that vocabulary.
The average vocabulary of a University Graduate in the Arts is 10-12000 words. In the sciences it varies greatly, chemistry, biology and medicine being the most demanding at >15,000.
Someone with a vocabulary of 20-25000 words would be highly educated or very well read, or an specialist in a field.
If you have a Japanese vocabulary of 8000 words, you already have a bigger vocabulary than 74.13% of the population (if you understand what that percentage represents, you already have a larger vocabulary than the majority of people).
I would not consider myself anywhere near fluent; that is, compared to how I am able to express myself in my native language, Scala. Hah, how clever, I actually am a rank amateur in Scala, but its hot, maybe you'd like to hire me?
Anyway, the point is, I've met anglophones who have lived here full-time for several years and, wow, sometimes the accent is just painful, all the words are there, but the ability to articulate themselves in French just isn't happening.
Really, language acquisition has to occur at a young age, the earlier the better. Furthermore, building up a vocabulary is helpful, but you can't think phrases in your native native language and then speak them in another language without creating confusion on the part of your listener(s)
I'd really love to hear the C1s, I think I might have a good laugh -- Skype anyone?
This is a pretty controversial assertion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis
-- I know i scored a 287/300 in TOEFL. Don't know of any equivalent in Tami l/Hindi, that i would compare to that format.
*-- I mean fluency in terms of forming sentences, by combining vocabulary learnt with/without context to form sentences that express and/or describe processes. Not spoken competency. That came long after that, only when i was forced to immerse myself(school rules around 16 for English and later at 25 when went to do a Master's for Hindi).
The part that's a bit misleading is the 30 minutes a day he mentions. Those 30 minutes require a LOT of preparation. Also he's a musician, so has "the ear" for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Re...
"Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices."
I'm a long-time foreigner in a German-speaking country, learning German after already speaking two more languages apart from my mother tongue, not knowing German before I came here, so I know how many nuances a living language has. Had he say A2, or B1 if he's a language talent, I'd believe him, C1, I can't imagine. I can only guess he didn't actually try to pass some formal verification tests, or he didn't start from 0, there simply must be something he avoided to say. Or he simply lies to himself (and us) that it's actually C1 what he reached in five months.