Becoming Fluent
Download Becoming Fluent PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Becoming Fluent book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages.
Becoming Fluent
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning—evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children! An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign language by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.
Fluent Forever (Revised Edition)
The bestselling guide to learning a new language and remembering what you learned, now revised and updated “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide . . . If you want a new language to stick, start here.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero Gabriel Wyner speaks seven foreign languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he mastered each one on his own, drawing on free online resources, short practice sessions, and his knowledge of neuroscience and linguistics. In Fluent Forever, Wyner shares his foolproof method for learning any language. It starts by hacking the way your brain naturally encodes information. You’ll discover how to hear new sounds and train your tongue to produce them accurately. You’ll connect spellings and sounds to images so that you start thinking in a new language without translating. With spaced-repetition systems, you’ll build a foundation for your language in a week and learn hundreds of words a month—with just a few minutes of practice each day. This revised edition also shares fresh strategies that Wyner has refined over years of study. You’ll learn to • use your interests to curate vocabulary that you’ll actually be excited to study • fast-track fluency, with a new appendix devoted to conversation strategies with native speakers • compile the best language-learning tool kit for your budget • harness the science of motivation and habit building to turbocharge your progress • find the perfect level of difficulty with reading and listening comprehension to stay engaged and avoid frustration With suggestions for helpful study aids and a wealth of free resources, the intuitive techniques in this book will offer you the most efficient and rewarding way to learn a new language.
Fluent in 3 Months
Benny Lewis, who speaks over ten languages—all self-taught—runs the largest language-learning blog in the world, Fluent In 3 Months. Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.