How to understand ANY language in 1 month

Let's talk about comprehension.

If you have been trying to learn a foreign language.

But you still don't understand well it's because:

1. You're learning the wrong way (very likely).

2. You haven't spent enough time learning yet.

Why you're doing it wrong:

If you've been learning for a few months and your comprehension is very basic, you're doing it wrong.

Most people are doing it wrong.

Because most people are trying to learn with:

1. Gamified Apps like Duolingo.

2. In-person classes or an online tutor.

3. "Just move to the country and talk to people bro"

These are the most popular language learning methods and results speak for themselves.

None of them give you what you need to improve your comprehension fast.

The formula:

The 3 main things you need to learn to understand a language are:

1. Vocabulary

2. Grammar

3. Pronunciation

If you don't learn all three, you will not understand native speakers well.

Vocabulary:

You can't understand a language if you don't know the words.

It's as simple as that.

You need to learn a lot of words.

Thousands of words.

Don't listen to those people talking about the Pareto Principle and most common word lists.

You need to learn a lot more than that to understand and speak well.

Then there is...

Grammar:

Understanding how grammar works is important, but not as important as knowing vocabulary.

If you learn a lot of vocabulary but not much grammar.

You'll be able to understand relatively well.

But you'll get some details wrong.

If you do it the other way around and focus on studying grammar.

But don't learn enough vocabulary...

You often won't understand the sentence at all.

So vocabulary first, grammar second.

Get good enough at these two and you'll understand any text.

But for spoken language, you'll need...

Pronunciation:

The third ingredient is pronunciation.

Even if you know enough vocabulary and grammar, if you don't know how those words and sentences sound when native speakers say them... you will not understand.

A lot of language learners complain about native speakers "speaking too fast" or "not pronouncing well", "not enunciating", etc.

No, they're not the problem.

You're the problem.

Your comprehension is bad because you don't know how the language's pronunciation works.

So, yes. Learning the correct pronunciation is extremely important.

Both to understand and to speak the language well.

Learning Vocabulary, Grammar and Pronunciation FAST

The best way to learn a lot of vocabulary, all the grammar and the right pronunciation is a combination of Massive Input and Memorisation by Association.

Basically you take some content and you read and listen to it over and over again, memorising the vocabulary with associations.

Start with beginner level content.

Switch to intermediate level content when you're ready.

Personally I like to move on to authentic materials as soon as possible.

Articles, books, podcasts and YouTube videos.

Always the same routine until you understand everything:

1. Read the text (or video script).

2. Listen to the audio repeteadly.

3. Memorise the vocabulary with Associations.

Once you understand the audio easily, change the content.

Using a variety of topics is a good idea.

Go for topics you're interested in, so that it's less effort to keep doing it.

Keep doing this with more and more texts and videos until you can understand native speaker podcasts about topics you like.

Not language learning podcasts.

Podcasts by native speakers for native speakers.

The Alphabet:

What if the language you're trying to learn has a different alphabet?

That complicates things a little because it makes it impossible to learn by reading.

Or it would, if we didn't have the internet and powerful translating software.

So you're going to ignore the alphabet completely at first.

Yes, if the language has a different writing system.

Ignore it until you understand spoken language well.

You didn't learn to read and write before you learned to understand and speak your native language, did you?

Trying to learn a foreign alphabet when you can't understand spoken language is a waste of time.

Learn the language phonetically instead.

You can use Google Translate, Chat GPT, etc to get a phonetic transcript of the text you want to read.

This way you can start getting your reading practice.

The intermediate plateau

What if you want to reach an advanced level?

There is no secret technique for that.

You simply need more reps.

Don't study "advanced language" books or anything like that.

Keep reading, watching and listening to interesting content.

Keep memorising the new words you encounter in them.

That's all you need to do.

If you want to become an efficient language learning machine, join the Natural Language Learning course.