Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It Kindle Edition

I required a long and excruciating effort to become fluent in a second language. This book confirms learning principles I discovered the hard way, and suggests some others that I never thought of or are only available recently. It is making my work on a third language much more efficient, and for that I highly recommend it. In fact, I found it more useful in its general advice than in the details, and that is why I am only giving it four stars. It starts out strong, but then seems to collapse under its own earnestness.The author writes in an almost breathless conversational style, full of ironic humour and such energy that it sounds like he is selling something. Turns out he is: the book is a gateway to a commercial website. After giving some truly useful advice about the importance of proper pronunciation, vocabulary, and how best to memorize new material, he starts to go on about flashcards. And on. Their use and various ways to construct a review system take up a large part of the book. I found that and the overwhelming detail about phonetics to become tiresome. I can summarize the most useful part of his flashcard advice in two words: multimedia Google.In my experience, his general tips about exposing yourself to properly spoken language are more useful. For example, watching subtitled TV shows or reading what interests you. You will get the same results without investing the energy in flashcards or pronunciation guides that you would put to better use just immersing yourself in the language. As he recounts in his own story, nothing beats immersive learning. And you probably didn’t use flashcards to learn your first language.I can vouch for the usefulness of what is here, but most of it is in the first half of the book.

This review comes after I have finished the book as well as explored the author's website.The strong points: 1. an emphasis on starting off with correct pronunciation (he says otherwise you end up learning two languages rather than one). He has very good videos on the mechanics of pronunciation available. He also sells trainers for specific languages.2. The use of minimal pairs (two words like cat and cut that differ by only one sound). He has a way of using these to train you to actually hear the differences, which can be very tricky in some foreign languages. You have to hear the differences before you can produced them, but understanding how they are produced gives you a leg up.3. The use of IPA (international phonetic alphabet) to represent the actual sounds.4. The use of pictures to associate with a new word. This is how you get the concept associated with the word you are acquiring. It is also how you avoid translation, which impedes thinking in the language.5. The use of a spaced repetition system (ANKI) to integrate concept, sound, spelling and emotional connection with recall. Tricky issues like gender and grammatical problems are also addressed.6. Frequency lists are discussed and often provided on his site.7. Tremendous amount of info on webs resources to practice conversation (and his website also gives info on picking topics).8. The book is so rich in content that I have probably omitted something significant.OK, nobody is perfect, so what's missing?1. The pronunciation material should help you master individual words. But an equally, if not more, important part of conversation is called prosody and concerns the rhythm and stress applied to a string of words. Even without knowing a word of French and Italian, you could easily distinguish the difference in rhythm in a typical conversation. If you are singing, the prosody is implied by the music. In conversation, you have no such guide. You will pick this up in conversation (slowly) but can speed this up by learning poetry in the foreign language, because typical poetry emphasizes prosody. You almost can't avoid it.2. It's not clear how you can take advantage of sequential activities. These are sometimes called Gouin series. A simple example is: I pick up the book; I open the book; I look at a page in the book; I close the book; I put the book down. We are really good at remembering series (it's how we go through most of our day). Sometimes this is called a schema. If we attach the new words to a schema, it's very reinforcing. Perhaps this can be achieved in an anki system?3. The only truly negative is that much of the material talked about in the book is not yet available on the website. That's hard on the impatient among us!

Could be useful to absolute beginners.If you have experience in contemporary language techniques, or if you already run an SRS, don't buy.For me, his book misses some very important things in his main premise.One of his biggest positions is surrounding Spaced Repetition Systems. I use SRS extensively, and one of the biggest challenges is adopting native material into cards which prompt speech production and cards which test comprehension. These are two very different skills, and I think they benefit from activities which specifically target each skill separately. While he goes into great details about how to structure cards, this topic is ignored completely.A great deal of this information can be found on the web, amid the self-learning language community. For an absolute beginner, with no time to research learning techniques on the web, this could be a good introduction. It would be especially useful to debunk the approaches used in most language classrooms. HOWEVER, a dedicated learner is going to have to do this research anyway, because the techniques and approaches are as individual as a suit and will affect your learning in profound ways. As such, I would recommend jumping into that research right away, and simply engorging the materials found on HTLAL and it's newer version. Also, read methodology books, the AJATT blog, etc.When I learned Korean, I spent about 40% of my time just researching learning techniques, and then 60% of my time on actual target language material. It paid off in spades, concerning that I am learning Arabic, and can apply 100% of my methodology to the new language.Both of these were tested languages, and I used them for work.

I delayed reviewing this until I'd had time to test the book properly. This is the most intelligent approach to language learning I've come across. It is true that all the techniques used have been tried elsewhere but this book brings them all together in a coherent way. Don't expect to learn a language effortlessly – there is no quick fix. The first part of the approach is learning the sounds of the target language and, in particular, learning to distinguish differences in similar sounds, both within that language and between that language and your own. Gabriel Wyner is an opera singer which gives him two valuable insights: he needs to be able to sing in foreign languages and, of course, he is already attuned to small changes in sound. The author will expect you to make your own flashcards, complete with pictures and sounds, but this is ultimately an advantage; the effort of producing them will, in itself, help to embed vocabulary in your memory. The author insists, I believe quite rightly, that the cards should be monolingual. To become fluent in a language, you must associate words with things or concepts, NOT with the equivalent word in your native language. By finding your own images to illustrate the words, you are creating emotional bonds which will help fix them in your memory. For instance, illustrate the word for grandfather with a picture of your own grandfather rather than some old man you found on Google.

Having read a few books about Language learning in the past 6 months I have to say this is pretty average.The ideas it encapulates are sound and the advice is pretty good, but it is long winded and is basically a book explaining the benefits of Flashcards. Don't get me wrong, I love flashcards and can highly recommend the AnkiDroid app for those who are learning, but you don't really need as much detail and a book of this length to explore the concept.This does briefly touch on other concepts in language learning, like audio and speaking etc and the science behind languages, but you do really feel the main focus are the Flashcards.If you are looking to read a book about Language learning that touches on flashcards, but also explores other resources and techniques, then I can say 'Fluent in 3 Months' by Benny Lewis is the best of the bunch I have read.This is OK, but not great (a solid 3.5 stars). It's worth a read if, like me, you are fascinated by this topic and are striving to improve your language skills. But if you only want one book to use to learn skills and improve your ability to learn a language, then try to aforementioned book by Benny Lewis first.

This book has a really good insight into learning any language but it a little long winded in its explanations. I understand that to back up the basis of the learning style offered by the author but I would have preferred it could he have made the book a little less wordy and a bit more punchy, highlighting the salient points, tips and tricks rather than only having the option to trawl through detailed neuroscientific references , however interesting and pertinent to the process but having no real consequence to the practice; I feel as though it is a little padded out. I appreciate that the reference material needs to be there in order to qualify the validity of the practices but having to read all the content of this book prior or alongside learning a language seems rather a tall order. The idea of making words and concepts memorable using flashcards and visual references is contradictory in relation to the layout of this book, it lacks pictorial content in places and would benefit from a lot more 'pop outs' My recommendations would be to have a summary at the end of each chapter which, if the reader required, could read the learnings behind each point. A great concept and a good book should it be condensed a little.

Even before I read the book, I sensed the need to prioritise pronunciation, avoid translations, and do a systematic, methodical repetition of active memorising of vocabulary and grammar. To my delight, the author confirmed my pragmatic approach.I sensed the methodology to be correct (as confirmed by the author's prescription) because I grew up being fluent in two languages, so I knew what it is like to think and speak in each of the two languages (without translations).As a child I simply learned (by natural immersion) to communicate in the language with whom I spoke. The world we live in consists of objects and the actions that connect them, so the mind evolved language to describe this world in communication.The sounds of the words (pronunciation) naturally connected with their meanings when being used. It is inherent in the way the mind works. There wasn't any unnecessary thinking of "I am learning a language" while communicating. One simply just does it without the belief "I can't".The language spoken in my dreams is in my predominantly spoken language, though.

If you've been doing self study with languages for a minute, this book pretty much spells out what you'll have already known. That you focus on acquiring vocabulary (important), as well as revising what you've learnt (spaced repetition). That you get your mouth around the vowels and specific characters and start getting uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. In addition, that you try to make your own cards, use your own experiences with others, etc. I found it to be a bit long winded, but honestly, you could find this information online. But if it helps you to have the book in your hot little hands to read what you already know (if you've been doing self study of a language for at least six months), sure, buy it.